Now is the Time for Pumpkins

We never grew very many pumpkins, and when they did erratically sprout, they were never very big. It might have been because my parents did not think that the soil was quite right, or perhaps because our pumpkins were never like the plump ones some folks buy for carving, but I like to imagine that it was because they had me.

I remember my father tucking me in at night. As I gave him a hug and he prickled me with his beard, he would almost always whisper, "goodnight Pumpkinitus," followed by "don't let the bedbugs bite." Between my squeaks that he desist from the beard prickles, I figured out that my name was indeed Pumpkinitus, and with a childlike acceptance, never wondered why.

Then there were the pies. We were definitely pumpkin eaters when it came to pies, getting excited over the square-freezer-container boxes of pumpkin thawing on the counter. And then there was the fall I discovered that my mother did not like pie crust, and when her brave words were met with the chorus of "me neithers," we ditched the crust for the custard except when company came over.

On those nights when we had all been goofing around and playing and it was getting late and we were all whispering that dad had forgotten what time it was, I always dreaded to hear his remark, "hmmm... I think that some people are going to turn into pumpkins pretty soon if they don't get to bed." And then it was time to slip down the hallway and skedaddle into the covers before he caught us. My father read Cinderella? We never did. It was only years later that I had to giggle at myself for always thinking Dad was just being silly.

I think that is where pumpkinitus came from too--the disease one contracts when the hour becomes late and the eye-lids droopy. So I have pumpkinitus? Or am I Pumpkintus? It is all a matter of perspective. But knowing my dad, he probably looked at his wound-up little goldy-head, saw the child poetically bouncing around a college dorm-room, and meant a perpetual both.



Why I Stay Up Late

Life is good
And I will be the first and last
To part my teeth and say it.
How else could one
Fledge one’s brain with plans
Hatched from
Tender egg shells
And pretend to teach
Them songs they already know
By heart?

You are tired—
But have you tried
Waking at night
Stirred by the swallows
Drinking from your
Birdbath and reminding
You that they are hungry?

In the end I suppose
I don’t want to turn off life
And so keep it on
For the same reason
I rise while it is yet dark.

Over the Dunes

photo credits to Andrey

The Egg Question

My mum--a nutritionist, a flabbergasting vegan concocter, and a dear spiritual sister--shared with me once that the vegan who eats an egg is severely affected by the foreign cholesterol agent and suffers from it, whereas to the regular egg-muncher, one more egg is simply that--a tasty breakfast snack that certainly does not assist the HDL happy cholesterols in their battle, but certainly does not overdiscourage them since they are used to such insults. As I have experienced the affect that the rare wedge of cheese has on my digestive tract, it seems fairly likely.

In my modern literature class, we have been reading a fair number of texts, apparently well-known, and equally well-admired. To be sure all of them have contained clever writing, and as a dabbler with words, I am excited by the interesting twists of grammar and pecularly delcicious expressions they contain. But what of the content? It is not simply due to the fact that I grew up without television that I am slightly wary of the innards of these tales, nor to the fact that I have not read their like before--I demolished plenty of junk food when I was little--but in these last couple of years I have found myself gradually going vegan, and simultaneously, yearning for those letters that uplift.

What has less-than-moral literature to do with eggs? All too much when we imagine it slowly lining the arteries of our brain with greese-laden images of crime and sensuality, human depravity and grotesqueness, hindering the flow of clear blood and water to the source of our reasonings. At first it seems innocent enough, the smooth, warm-brown shells and the clear goo suspending the attractive golden orb, the beautiful feel of it in your hand, the fine tapered point, the playful freckles...

But I long to cry out to my professors like St. Augustine does in Confessions: "You clash your rocks and set up a great din: 'This is the place to acquire literacy; here you will develop the eloquence essential to persuasion and argument.' Really? Could we not have learned those useful words elsewhere. . . .?" and again: "It is simply not true that such words are more conveniently learned from obscene stories of this type, though it is all too true that under the influence of the words obscene deeds are the more boldly committed" (19-20).

I will agree that it tastes good; I was a toast-and-scrambled-egg eater myself for many years and it was an effort to see the little black frypan, perfect for a single egg, languish in the cupboard. But that is not the issue. Aren't there more healthful materials to which we might subject our minds and bodies?

Marinated tofu is delightful, a true savor of life unto life--a fully satisfying and fragrant dish for all meals...

Death and Disappointment, Death and Anticipation

One hundred sixty-four years ago was a day of disappointment as the awaited second coming did not take place. Laughing fingers were pointed at the faithful. Hearts were wounded by a deeper pain than illness, the sting of failure. Minds were frozen by a more paralyzing force than the coming of winter; an ache of more impending sorrow, confusion and death.

This week has been a week of deaths. Word came twice from home: about a cancer-battling church member, and about the venerable Vermonter who sold us our house. Word came also twice about those whom I didn't know: a gentleman down in Florida who was almost like a family member to some friends of mine, and an Andrews Professor's baptizer and spiritual mentor in Tennessee. Most shocking was the email from my old college, informing me that one of my favorite professors had passed away, only a week after a diagnosis of stomach cancer. So we are still experiencing the death and the confusion that our ancestors wept to expect. Because of the Great Disappointment, we are still continually disappointed in the deaths of those whom we hoped would continue to tingle with life.

On October 23, 1844, the farmer Hiram Edson was enlightened as he walked, praying, across his fields. He was shown that the time of the Second Coming was yet in the future; that there was still work to be done, both on earth and in heaven, before all would be ready; that justification and glorification of all Children of God was taking place in the time of waiting; that there was to be, through the experience of the Great Disappointment, an even stronger faith in love, mercy, justice, and peace; that the best was yet to come. And the best is yet to come...

So it is because of that Great Disappointment that we are still filled with a glorious anticipation. It is because of that Great Disappointment that we, who are alive, are able to share it, who would never have had the chance had our world ended in 1844. It is because of that Great Disappointment, and because of the disappointment of death, and because of the conquering of death through Death, that we can look forward, while living in thankfulness, with all the more gratitude to a time when death will be no more.

Feet

My brother claims that orange-striped Oliver has ugly feet. It is true that since the day he came to live with us as a sick little widget befrought with diarrhea, a boistrous purr, and the kind of eyes, that, as my mother says, often become "fuzzy" with lovey-ness, I too have giggled much over his sillyness, helping with the undignifyingly fond names such as "the Big Cheese" and "Beatrice Bunnyhoffer"--but somehow I cannot quite bring myself to pick on the cozy toes that have brought such a bounteous splotch of orange into my life.

I have been chuckled at lovingly for my feet too, one dear one commenting that the height of my arch makes my foot rather capable of shaking hands, another observing that my toes are calculated to a rather interesting angle. But they are good feet. My sister read somewhere once that high arches tend to make for the longest lasting feet, and I might add as well that my toes seem to like my own shoes quite well. Then too, these feet have carried me for twenty years although I have steadily given them more to bear, have resiliently returned to their pinkish state although I have been foolish enough to subject them to the larger feet and blue bruises of half-tonnish creatures, have remained tender to feeling although I have gritted my teeth and allowed the blisters of rain-filled hiking shoes to overcome them; and they have learned to drive standard, have been poked by rocky-stream beds, and have curled up in wool socks on cold winter nights and clammy-footed othernights.

Most importantly, my feet are learning. They are developing a voice and an action, taking me sometimes to those who need encouragement, and discovering even before I have caught up with them that to be shod with the gospel of peace is more pleasant than to barefootedly arch themselves over the thistles--somehow, even as they gain more earthly scars, they are becoming more beautiful...

I will see Oliver in about two months, and perhaps, like the last time I squeaked up our porch steps, his will be the first loving eyes to halt me, and his the first feet to step on my own in his version of a hug, flipping around my foot, hugging it with all four paws, and attempting to disembowel it. I don't know. But this crazy thought keeps telling me that I needn't fear--that my feet can tread as lightly as his amongst the crackling leaves of October, shining with the sprouting fuzziness of Love.

Silent Pools and Yellow Swim Caps

The swimmers were brought in to the pool room, resting back like nobility on their specially wheeled shower chairs. Lowered gently with special equipment and loving hands, they relaxed into the calm water, into the arms that wrapped beneath their shoulders, and into the yellow floats that supported their heads and necks. But these waters apparently are not stirred by angels, for these same athletes were lifted back out in the same manner they went in: maimed, cognitively impaired, and silent. Only one crawled out mostly on his own and then lay helpless on the deck, smiling and patient as he waited for assistance into his chariot.

I am learning how to crawl too--my head capped with yellow, and my lungs often drowned with pool water. I feel weak as I have to cease my efforts after nearly every length to catch the breath that rotary breathing seems incapable of supplying. Unlike the invalid waters, mine are turbulent with stroke after stroke of activity, but these stirrings are cruel; they slap me in the mouth as I gulp at the air, they chisil their way up the nose I reluctantly place back in the water, and they reveal muscles that have long enjoyed concealment. I seem to have more trouble accepting help than the patient fellow on the deck. I strain on in inefficiency until I am plunged down to the humility of asking for the encouragement and technique that will make me a fluid swimmer, attempting not to grimace as I realize my deficiency.

Do not my waters need even more of an angelic touch?

This cripple must learn to relax into the arms of the Gentle Healer--and then she will be taught to swim, bursting out of her yellow cap of enthusiasm with a golden Buoyancy.