up at the PEAS farm

Today I began my internship out at the PEAS farm. It is in a lovely spot up in the Rattlesnake Valley, a little ways out of town and surrounded by mountains. The rain was coming down gently when I got up, and its falling on the earth brought forth the richest, most springlike smell--of growth and soil and freshness. As I drove through town, the sun came out and a rainbow arched across the western sky and my mind was filled with hopeful thoughts, because what other thoughts have any right being in your mind when there's a rainbow in the sky?

We mixed potting soil today, too: 4 parts compost, 1 part sand, 4 parts peat, 3 parts vermiculite, and a tiny little bit of organic fertilizer. We sifted it all into a big pile on the floor, and then six of us walked around the pile with shovels, mixing and turning the ingredients together to create a light, rich soil. Then we filled up the planter boxes with our concoction and planted onions, thousands of them. I'm delighted to think of how they'll grow and grow and then, later this summer, I'll be able to eat them. Yum!

So it was a happy day. We worked in the greenhouse with the rain drumming on the roof, and we were all cozy and working hard inside. I am going to enjoy these hours spend on the farm, these hours of working and having something to show for it by the end--I've forgotten how satisfying manual labor is, especially when I'm laboring with other like-minded people.

Today is Tuesday, which means I have my writing class tonight, and nachos and Moose Drool at the Old Post afteward! Now there's a happy hour.

Things I'm Thankful for (in no particular order):

1. chocolate
2. icy cold weather!
3. clear skies and a gorgeous sunrise this morning
4. Old Post nachos (mmm)
5. Poe, very possibly the sweetest dog in the world
6. new pens
7. randomly running into people I know in little Missoula coffee shops
8. being done with filing taxes and filling out the FAFSA
9. young adult literature
10. students who ask questions
11. fuzzy blankets
12. sunshine coming in the windows and warming up the EVST lounge
13. granola from the Good Food Store
14. pictures of my grandparents when they were young
15. giving out silly Valentines
16. reading I Corinthians 13 this morning
17. talking to friends I haven't heard from in awhile
18. goofy pictures from various costume parties
19. the view of mountains out my window
20. the satisfaction of baking yummy things
21. getting to attend lectures by famous authors such as Linda Hogan
22. warm bus rides on cold days
23. a kick-ass roommate who makes scrumptious hummus and goddess dressing, among other things
24. the prospect of a Laura Ingalls Wilder-site-visiting vacation next summer
25. Lady Grey tea
26. that my sister came to visit me!

A bit of procrastination . . .

Not too many exciting things are happening at the moment, but requests have been made for me to update my blog. So here goes.

I decided this weekend that I'm going to drop the extra class I added. Saving a couple thousand dollars, frugal and economic though it would be, is not worth sanity, rest, and peace of mind. Or so I'm telling myself. After making that decision, though, I felt as though a weight had lifted: a good sign.

I'm enjoying my teaching so much this semester! I feel as though I know so much more. I don't, not really, but at least I have a semester's worth of experience behind me. I find I am able to field my students' questions much more coherently now. I had a good class today; nothing deeply profound occurred, but I felt as though my students were taking in what I was saying, and I was encouraged.

My sister is coming this week! She flies in late Wednesday night, and I'm overjoyed that she's coming. Hee hee. It will be so wonderful to show her around Missoula and UM, and have her meet all of my people here . . . oh joy. What a lovely event to look forward to!

I need to do some writing tonight. And then I need to print it out and run it over to school. You'd think that I could easily get the work done on time for a once-a-week class, but alas. I got most of my other work done in the meantime, though! And the apartment's looking much cleaner, and I'm suddenly inspired to do some baking tonight . . . in preparation for Andrea's visit, of course. Um. Strangely enough, I'm finding it far easier to write about subjects that have nothing to do with my essay. I am running into a mountainous mental block when I try to work on this essay, and I think I've figured it out: I want it to be perfect, and what's coming out of my mind and onto the screen is not perfect, and therefore I'm not getting anything written. I talk myself blue in the face telling my students that they need to give themselves the freedom to "write badly and silence their internal critics," but I can't give that same freedom to myself. Plah. Wish me luck.

This past weekend held a Big Labowsky party--imagine 40 grad students crammed into a medium-size living room, dressed as Big Labowsky characters, drinking White Russians, and watching the movie projected onto the wall. Just imagine. Afterwards, we all went out bowling (I bowled an 81! Woohoo! Or was it an 86?), and then Teresa and Jeff and Catherine and I went out to Oxford's Cafe for burgers at midnight, and Catherine and I played Keno--we put in 25 cents and got back 55 cents, so we more than doubled our bet! And people say they lose money gambling . . . I just don't understand it. Although I have this sneaking suspicion that if we'd gambled $250, we wouldn't have won $550, but who knows?

a few silly pictures

Jen and Joe and I also played cards . . . with their new plastic transparent deck. Who thinks of these things?

good friends

And a few more pics, so everyone I saw can feel loved and important and famous. :)




While visiting Tricia and Benjamin, we got to spend an evening with Erin and Brittany Goheen, friends from our junior high years. The evening involved card playing, of course.



After returning from Toronto, I headed up to the Twin Cities to see more friends. Janelley took me to a bachelorette party she was throwing for a friend, and we all ended up getting adorned with various funky accessories . . .



A typical picture of me and Linds. :) Love ya, girl!



My friend Beth was home from Palestine for the holidays!

A New Semester

So apparently it's just been way too darned long since I last posted.

Today was the first day of spring semester 2006. I taught a brand-new group of students this morning, and learned all their names in the first class, which impressed them all greatly. Now if only I can remember the names on Wednesday . . .

I'm teaching in Janette Rankin Hall (home of the EVST department), so I don't even have to leave the building. And I have a high-ceilinged corner room with lots of windows, and it's nice and large and has a good aura, no doubt due to the many wonderful EVST classes that have been held within its walls. I'm excited to get to know new students--there's something so delightful about watching them open up and become three-dimensional characters.

I also signed up for another class today--I'm excited about the class (The Literature of Nature Writing), but a bit apprehensive about the work load of the semester. However, I know that I am capable of being diligent, efficient, and motivated, and if I can somehow be all of those things this semester perhaps I can avoid the stress of last year. We shall see!

I'm going to post a few pics from Christmas break. I had a wonderful time, and saw a lot of you who read my blog--I did have a marvelous, friend-and-family-filled few weeks, and faithful Ishta took me from Missoula to Sioux Center to Grand Rapids to Toronto to Minneapolis and back again . . . so here are a few pictures for ya'll to enjoy.



I stopped in the Badlands on the drive home, right at sunset. Gorgeous!



Andrea and I embarking on our trip to Toronto, in a typical Iowa snowstorm.



Benjamin, Tricia, and I drinking tea and playing Euchre. Ah, vacation.

Finished . . . rested . . . home!

Finished . . . rested . . . home!

My first semester of grad school is finished! Woohoo, I am DONE! Final papers are written and turned in, portfolios are graded and final grades are entered, presentations are given and books are read, and I am now HOME in Iowa with my family. Oh, ilhamdulillah.

So life is good. I've gotten to see my adorable nephews, eat WAY too much yummy Christmas cooking, and sleep, sleep, sleep. That's the best part, actually.

Today I had coffee (well, hot chocolate) with my pastor here, and that was refreshing. He's a wise person, but beyond that he is simply kind and thoughtful, and he listens. So he listened to me today, gave me some good advice, and made me feel as though it's all going to be okay. :) As Lady Julian of Norwich said, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." After a wild and wonderful semester in Montana, I was glad for a quiet conversation in Iowa.

I'd forgotten how many people I know here. I went to Wal-Mart today (yes, Wal-Mart--honestly, it's almost the only place to shop here! At least, darn it, it's about the only place to get hair gel and contact solution--plah!) and ran into an old friend from high school who's just had her second child, and then I ran into an acquaintance from Dordt who knows some people that I know in Missoula, and then, of course, I still know half the people who work at Wal-Mart from MY days of working there . . . and then there's all the people I recognize as I walk down the street or through the mall--former profs, people from church, etc. It's good to be home; I've missed knowing every third person who passes by.

So I'm hoping to get some lesson planning done this break, as well as some writing, and some reading, too. I have about, oh, ten books that I've borrowed from various EVST friends that I'm going to try to read, starting with "Cadillac Desert" by Marc Reisner, a thus-far fascinating history of water in the American West. I'm starting with this one because I'm hoping it will help me to expand my water essay, which I'm excited to work on in the coming weeks.

Okay, I want comments from ya'll. :) So I'm going to give a prompt that I found on someone else's blog (and I think she found it somewhere else, too--let's pass it on!):

Make up a fake memory of us. That is, post a comment with a COMPLETELY MADE UP AND FICTIONAL memory of you and me. It can be anything you want - good or bad - but it has to be fake.

Hee!

Disco Fever!

Are we hot or what?!?

Heather, Catherine, Teresa, me, and Christa

Some Quality Reading

I just wanted to share a link to an excellent essay by David James Duncan that was in this year's July/August issue of Orion. I've chosen this piece as the focus of a response for my writing class, as DJD so clearly articulates many of the issues with which I've been wrestling for the past several years, issues which have bubbled up to the surface again in this first semester of grad school. Enjoy.

Insha'allah I will post again in the near future. But if I don't, know that it's because I'm frantically dog-paddling in a tsunami of end-of-the-semester research, papers, projects, readings, lesson plans, and gradings. WHOOSH, there I go! In three weeks I hope to be HOME, as in, Sioux Center, Iowa, a place I haven't seen since mid-June. But that's only if I somehow manage to survive the three weeks in the first place . . .


I must share a wonderful, quintessential Missoula moment:

Today I walked down to Bernice's Bakery to have a hot chocolate and cinnamon roll and do a little reading, and who should be there but my friend Jacob (from MESP) and his sister, and we sat and chatted for awhile, and then my friend Tim came in, so I introduced him to Jacob, since all of us know my friend Rachel (another MESPer), and it turned out that Jacob's sister knew Tim . . . Dutch bingo in Missoula! Ain't life grand. Then I walked home in the dark, invigoratingly cold evening, with snowflakes drifting down around me, glittering beneath the streetlights to create a shimmering fairy world. I love winter.

Halloween

And now, a picture from our Halloween party: me as a butterfly-fairy creature. Ethereal, aren't I? More to come . . .

Montana Gorgeousness

A few more pictures from way back over Labor Day weekend--just more Montana gorgeousness I had to share. In the top picture, Molly, me, and Christa. In the bottom picture, a view of Black Lake from above.

Time is but a river I go a fishin' in . . .

And boy is it flowing fast right now. Yeep. Can it really be November 18th? Three weeks left of classes, then one week of exams, of which I have none (woohoo!). And yet there's so much to do . . .

It's been a bit of a rough week. I had high hopes of getting a lot done, but due to some, um, emotional trauma, I ended up unable to focus on homework, so instead Teresa and I watched movies for three nights in a row. Not a particularly productive use of time, but necessary.



Despite some of the heartache, though--or perhaps through it?--God has been teaching me about forgiveness. I'd kind of forgotten about such things as forgiveness, grace, compassion. That is, I'd forgotten about them in the context of showing them to someone who hurt me. And I was reminded again this week that even when I'm not big enough or brave enough or strong enough to be gracious, to show forgiveness, that God is big enough and brave enough and strong enough in my place. And that's all I really need, isn't it? I'd forgotten what it was like to have God create that space in my heart when I wasn't capable of doing it on my own. And He did it so quickly, too--I am blessed.



I am blessed, too, by the friends I have here in Missoula. I was sitting in my writing class today, looking around at everyone, and thinking just how much I like them all. The people with whom I interact every day are wonderful and funny and kind and good; they have added a richness to my life that I haven't had in a long time. It's nice to have wonderful people nearby to complement all my friends scattered across the globe: I love you all.



Okay, when I get sappy it's definitely time to sign off. Blessings and peace to all of you, wherever you may be!

Snow!

Yes, it's snowing here in Missoula, Montana, and it's beautiful. Even if it is 5:40 p.m. and completely dark already. I woke up half an hour before my alarm this morning, and looked outside, and there was the lightest dusting on grass and trees and roofs, and I just had to be out in it, so I went for an invigorating walk. It was a lovely way to begin my day. And then I dressed up, feeling quite sexy and, of course, empowered. A good way to begin the week.


I might be going to New Orleans in January. A couple of profs from the EVST department are leading a class which focuses on environmental and social justice, and New Orleans seems to be a good place to examine both. I've signed up for the class, but I have to work out the logistics. My tuition is paid for, but I still have to get myself down there--I'm going to do my best to go, as I think it will be very worthwhile.


We have a short week this week (the first since Labor Day week!) because of Veteran's Day on Friday. Support your local veteran! Or something. It's also Teresa's birthday this weekend, so we're in the process of planning the party--or, I should say, the fiesta, since it will be Mexican-themed. Chips 'n salsa, margaritas, a piñata, strip Twister . . . oh, wait. :P We were asking for suggestions today from fellow EVSTers for fun things to do; fortunately we are under no obligation to implement any of them. Besides, we don't really have room to play Twister in our apartment. Hee.


Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!


(Okay, okay, I know it's not Christmas, but it's snowing for heaven's sake. It feels like Christmas.)

All right, all right, all right, I'm blogging!

What's a person to do when being harrassed by her sister?
I hope you're happy, Andrea!

I have half an hour before my class this evening. I hope it actually ends at 6:30 as it's supposed to, since I'm going to a play tonight at 7:30. Yay, theatre! I'm excited; I haven't been to a theatre performance since Dordt's Jubilee productions, and that's been a long time ago. The play is "Proof," a Pulitzer-prize winner about, well, math. Once I read the review I knew I had to go in honor of my dad.

I think life is simply stressful sometimes. I've been feeling overwhelmed lately--it's a constant state of being--and I'm suddenly very, very much looking forward to Christmas break. To go through a day without a list of things that need to be done! To sleep late! To read whatever and whenever I want to! I can't wait.

Today I woke up and noticed that everything seemed very frosty outside. After putting on my glasses, I realized there was snow up on the mountains, and I could see the line between snow and no snow, the line between "cold enough" and "just a tiny bit too warm" for snow. There's something so exquisite about white snow cover on brown mountains and deep-green conifers--it makes me feel as though I'm in this other, pristine, quiet world. I need to go hiking again soon.

This weekend looks to be good--we're having an EVST game night at Kylie's house--I'm going to make peanut-butter chip chocolate death cookies (I'm thinking of you, Janelley!)--and on Saturday night there's a contra dance (like square dancing but more fun, or so I'm told) to benefit Hurricane Katrina victims--and I could play touch football on Sunday morning, but I think I'll opt for church instead. Unless I go the early service . . . hmm. We'll have to see. I'm distinctly feeling the need for more exercise; if I'm not careful, I'm going to have a Wally of my own, Andrea! Would they be brothers??

All right. I hope this satisfies those of you who have been wanting me to update my blog. Please comment--I switched the settings so my blog accepts anonymous comments. Then I can get a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that all my friends are staying updated on my life. :)

Love to all!

Sacred Water

I am told I must keep up the posting, so here goes.

I admit to feeling rather stressed lately. I have not taken enough time out for prayer, meditation, reflection, and, two months into the semester, this lack is beginning to wear on me. I seem to do little besides work and study, though occasionally I'll go out for supper with friends or take a hike in the mountains or bake zucchini bread. But I am feeling the need to structure such things as exercise, prayer, and writing into my day, and that has not yet happened. The longer I live (and granted, 26 years isn't really that long), the more I realize that this is a constant struggle.

On the other hand, I've enjoyed going out to the Old Post the past couple of nights to watch games 3 and 4 of the World Series, and I'm thrilled that the White Sox won! Though I woudn't have minded six or seven games--the Astros could have put up a little more of a fight, couldn't they have? At any rate, last night I was there with several friends from my environmental writing class, and we got into an involved discussion about the definition of "environmental" writing. I realized that, while I do dream of writing a book and publishing articles in magazines, I haven't done much, yet, to focus myself in that direction. When I write, I write things I feel need to be written--but they are more for me than for any outside audience. Another challenge.

But here's some more writing, since I know I need to be sharing my efforts with others. It's an excerpt from my second essay for my writing class.


Sacred Water

The most beautiful sea in which I’ve swam is at Moon Beach, a small resort on the shores of the Red Sea in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Egypt, land of desert, heat, and sun—a land that knows and cherishes every drop of water, that guards with its craggy hills and harsh desert this slim sliver of sea. No palm trees, no sage brush, no superfluous vegetation, just sun and golden sand and red-brown rocky hills, and the sea,

the sea,

of the most exquisite blue-green you can imagine, turquoise water stretching out to touch a sapphire sky, with the horizon glittering between, and a caressing breeze to bring the water’s freshness to nose and mouth and lungs.

I splashed into that clear sea, calm but for a few wind-made ripples, and swam out, out, out—and then lay, effortlessly buoyant, and let the hot afternoon sunshine and warm perfect water lull me into a state of rest and salaam. Peace.

One night I abandoned my bungalow to sleep on the beach, pulling the thick wool blanket off my bed to wrap around me as I lay on a soft-cushioned beach chair. I woke several times during the night to see the stars luminous, glowing huge in the black sky above, to hear the waves singing softly with the rolling sand, to feel the tears sliding down my cheeks. When the sun rose early the next morning, sending golden light to reflect on the dawn-smooth sea, I sat on the cool sand, blanket tucked around me, and watched as a school of tiny silver fish flashed upward, leaping above the water, glittering like tossed coins.

My last swim in that water was a glorious baptism of water and light. Both skin and soul quenched their thirst as I swam half a kilometer out into the gulf. The sun shone down, the water buoyed me up, and my body was not light as air but light as water, and I felt myself become as transparent and fluid as the aquamarine sea. And my soul hovered on the surface of the deep.

Writings: An Essay's Beginning

Wendell Berry knows the importance of place.

“If you have no land,” he writes, “you have nothing: no food, no shelter, no warmth, no freedom, no life . . . I don’t think that being landed necessarily means owning land. It does mean being connected to a home landscape . . . The land is a gift of immeasurable value.”

I have learned, in my wanderings from place to place—Iowa to Egypt, Chicago to Charlotte, Midwest to mountain west—how right he is, how, unless I am connected to the landscape, I am not connected to a place at all.

My earliest connecting place—and the one to which I somehow keep returning—is in Sioux Center, Iowa, a little town tucked away in the northwest corner of the state. My connection to this landscape consists of lying on a soccer field, feeling cool dewy grass beneath my fingertips and seeing bright stars glimmering in the dark sky above. In that simple act of touching the earth with skull, spine, calves, palms, I feel linked not only to rural Iowa but to all of creation—sky, wind, earth, breath—and to God. Strange, perhaps, that something as mundane as a soccer field could provide a path to God, could heal (without fail) my tired and bruised spirit; strange, yes, that spending fifteen minutes lying on the precisely-clipped grass will almost always calm and quiet me.

My place of quiet and calm shifted to the shores of Lake Michigan when I lived in Chicago. The vast stretch of water, shifting and shimmering from deepest blue to green to silver, reminded me of long rows of corn and soybeans, changing colors as they shivered in the wind. But I discovered a new love, sitting on the edge of the lake. My eye was constantly drawn to that line between water and sky: the horizon, luring me, causing tears to lodge in the back of my throat, inspiring profusions of words that poured onto the pages of my journal. In the horizon I discovered a physical representation of hope.

I have never owned land. But so long as I have such places, places as simple as a soccer field or a lake, a place to be silent, a place to be healed, I recognize, and am grateful for, the gift of land. And for those few moments, I am an owner. I have bought that bit of space with the weight of my body, the reverence in my soul.

Party Night!

 We did NOT plan the red, but doesn't it look cool? Me, Teresa, Peter, Jeff, Catherine (all EVSTers), Cindy (my friend from church), Ruby, Joel (another friend from church), and Jeremy (fellow TA).

Amusing anecdote from our party night: So I bought this corkscrew from a thrift store for 50 cents. Beware anything that costs so little! Anyway, the darned thing doesn't work. So we had this lovely bottle of white wine, and a dysfunctional corkscrew. Jeff attempted his hiking boot method (holding the bottle upside-down, bang on it firmly with a heavy boot until the cork comes out about three-quarters of the way, making sure to stop before it comes all the way out, unless you want wine all over your carpet)--but to no avail. (In his defense, I have seen the hiking boot method used successfully.) Then Joel brilliantly remembered that he had a hatchet in his 4Runner. Of course--why didn't anyone think of it before?? Doesn't everyone use a hatchet in lieu of a corkscrew? We all trooped downstairs, standing on the porch a safe distance from Joel, who performed his act in the middle of the front lawn. Holding the bottle with one hand, he raised the other arm and--whoosh!--sliced the hatchet through the neck. The top of the bottle shattered into the darkness beyond the small pool of light from the porch, and Joel leaped to grab the bottom half before the precious wine spilled into the grass. Approximately half the wine was left, which was good enough for us. After picking up as many shards of glass as we could find using a dim flashlight, we went back inside to enjoy our victory.

Kids, please don't try this at home!

Jeff kindly bought us another corkscrew, which is far superior to the fifty-cent one, the boot, or the hatchet.

And today Teresa got a package from her parents, and inside was another corkscrew with a note: "So you don't have to use an axe. Love, Dad and Mom."









This is the creek I cross on my way down to the trail that parallels the Clark Fork River.

it's been awhile . . .

Missoula winter cloudiness is settling in, and I'm realizing already how much I'm going to miss the sunshine. We had a glorious sunny day yesterday, so I sat out on the Oval at school and soaked up the sun rays. But today was cloudy and cold, so I came home from my office early to cuddle up with a blanket or two and my philosophy reading. Philosophy reading is not terribly cozy, but I had little choice.

Life continues busily along, filled with grading student essays, designing lesson plans, reading reading reading, writing writing writing, a little partying on the weekends, a little socializing here and there, and some darned good baking! I made challah for a party last week, zucchini bread this weekend, and a caramel-almond torte for a birthday dinner yesterday. I'm finding baking to be very therapeautic; it's a good break from all the studying, and provides me and Teresa (and other fortunate friends) with happy tastebuds.

I can't believe I'm in my seventh week of grad school already. It hardly seems possible! Where did September go? How can it be October 11th already? But I can tell we're getting later into the semester: the work load is getting heavier, though it's still manageable. I don't have much down time, however, and I'm starting to feel the lack. All this beautiful wilderness around me, and I've hardly been able to enjoy it!

Today I'm a little more on top of the homework. I have my readings done for Thursday already, so perhaps I can get started working on my philosophy paper (due the 20th) or my second essay for environmental writing (due the 24th). Getting ahead: what a concept! Or perhaps I'll just finish reading The Blue Sword, which I've read 40 times, yet I've been trying to finish it for the past three weeks. (There's telling evidence of how little free time I have!)

Blessings to you all!

Pictures!

All right, just a few more pictures here.



Here I am in my classroom, journaling away along with my students.







And here is a picture of me and my roommate, Teresa.

Visitors!

My good friends Rita and Ruby drove all the way from Iowa to visit me this weekend. What a full few days we had! This also happened to be the weekend of the Festival of the Book here in Missoula, so we took in a few readings--I especially enjoyed Rick Bass and Sandra Alcosser. We ate lots of yummy food (always a necessity when one is with friends), had a game night (testing the limits of our small living room), and took some long walks along the river trail. The days flew by, and suddenly here it is Sunday afternoon, with Rita and Ruby on their way home and me sitting here realizing I have several hours' worth of homework to accomplish. But one must keep one's priorities straight. Updating one's blog, for instance. Doing so is especially nice since Ruby has a digital camera, so I now have some new pictures to post. Enjoy!