Jordan and I have been caught up (rather late in the game, admittedly) in the fantastical world of Doctor Who. We’ve gone through over four seasons in the past several months (it was a light semester), and while I’ve enjoyed the show the whole way, I was unprepared for how emotionally swept up I would get in the multi-part season 4 finale episodes. David Tennant proved his merit as an actor during his stint as The Doctor, and he will always be my Doctor (who’s yours?). I didn’t watch much of season 1 with Christopher Eccleston, so my introduction to the world of the show was via David Tennant. We’ve started into season 5 with Matt Smith, but it just doesn’t feel right to me. Who uses a green sonic screwdriver? But that’s another post/rant altogether.
I think my emotional connection to Tennant is greatly due to the stories of his arc; they were written and wrapped up beautifully by the end of season 4. All the major players from the past three seasons came back together for the final hurrah and to save the Earth from the evil Daleks (again). The final episodes are bittersweet, to put it mildly, due to the mixture of heartwarming reunions, life-threatening danger, and tearful goodbyes. The Doctor must always say goodbye, and I cried for him in the end, because in the end he’s always alone. Sarah Jane, Captain Jack, Martha, Rose..
The Lonely Doctor, he’s called. Everyone else has someone else, and he must press on brokenhearted.
It almost forces one to ask: wouldn’t it be better for the Doctor to always be alone? To never forge those bonds, make those friendships, fall in love…to spare himself the inevitable pain?
In his book A Severe Mercy, Sheldon Vanauken says no; it’s better, in the end, to have had the good things in life in spite of the tragedy of losing them. He’d rather have the beauty and the pain than have nothing at all. The heights and the depths.
It makes me think about the cost of marriage – loneliness, separation, heartbreak. Jordan and I have sometimes talked about the sad truth that one day, one of us will, more than likely, die before the other. We will not always be together in the way we are now, and sometimes that terrifies me. But, as Jordan once said, that’s the cost of marriage: that one day we will be alone. One day, our hearts will break. That is the price we pay for the joy and blessing of marriage that we currently enjoy.
But The Doctor is better with a companion. He’s humanized; he’s humbled; he’s comforted; he laughs. He’s happiest when he can share his adventures with someone else, even if that someone won’t always be around. The joy seems worth the pain.
Today, I:
- finished a class (Acting II; we performed our group scenes);
- got some good news regarding my internship prospects (I should be able to make a decision by the end of the week);
- went to Costco to load up on fruits and veggies.
All in all, a good day. Excluding the Mothpocalypse, of course.
Albuquerque has been invaded by moths. There is currently one sitting on the wall in our hallway; I have to sneak past every time for fear of disturbing it and causing it to fly into our apartment. If that ever happened, I would not be able to rest until it was dead.
Have I mentioned that moths are one of my least favorite insects?
Jordan and I have not-so-endearingly termed this plague the Mothpocalypse. Twice in two days last week one got into my car, nearly resulting in a fiery death-by-car crash because it waited to fly in my face until I was driving down a busy street. How would I explain that if it actually caused an accident? “Sorry, officer. You see, there was this moth…”
I counted at least ten dead ones on the floor of one of our building’s stairwells. There are also at least two caught on the second and third floor landings in the stairwell on our side of the building, flitting around the exposed light bulbs.
Moths are gross. Moths are a nuisance. Moths are neurotic. Supposedly, they’ll be migrating out of town in a couple of weeks. Until then, I don’t dare open my car door until I’ve checked the local airspace for fluttering brown blurs.
I’ve been having a serious procrastination problem the last couple of weeks. I think it’s because now that the magazine’s done, I have more free time in which I can go back to working on other things (namely, my thesis, which I put on the back-burner during the chaotic final weeks of publication). It’s just that, I don’t feel like working on other things. I don’t have many pressing due dates, which may be contributing to my apathy toward my work – my final thesis isn’t due until November 2nd, and I’m planning on (hoping to) get it mostly done over the summer break and just spend my final semester revising.
But I just can’t seem to buckle down and focus. Take today, for example; its 10:36am and I haven’t done anything school-related, unless you include spending five minutes checking email. Last night I set my alarm for 7:00, but I didn’t get up until 8:15. Last semester I only had afternoon classes on Mondays and Wednesdays, and I made a pretty good habit of getting up around 6:00 or 6:30 and spending my mornings being productive. I’ve tried to do the same this semester, as my only class on Tuesdays and Thursdays isn’t until 5:00pm, but it just hasn’t happened. Even when I go to bed early, I struggle to get up when my alarm goes off, defying the optimism I had when I set it the night before. So I’m not getting much done in the evenings because I’m going to bed early, and I’m not getting much done in the mornings because I can’t get out of bed early.
This morning I’ve spent drifting around our apartment; I watched The Daily Show, I read half of an Atlantic article, I checked my email, I made coffee…and now I’m writing this blog instead of settling in to do the work I planned on starting three hours ago.
I’ve been preoccupied playing the waiting game with various internship possibilities; I’ve gotten a yes/tentative yes from two, but haven’t heard back from my top choices, and still want to apply for another but the position hasn’t been officially posted so I can’t apply until it’s available online. I have no bad choices before me, for which I’m thankful, but I think that the fact of my graduating this December is making everything seem more daunting. I feel more pressure to make the “right” choice, and the thought of “I need to get a full-time job soon” is always in the back of my mind. I’m still thinking about graduate school, which is also scary. I wrote in my last post that I didn’t think I was afraid to graduate, but maybe I am; actually, more accurately, I think I’m just afraid of making these big decisions, especially when there’s a financial factor to consider (e.g. getting a job that pays well and making the investment in grad school). When money’s on the table, everything always seems more serious. Maybe that’s a good thing; employment and higher education are not things to be taken lightly, but at the same time, I have a tendency to take things too seriously, so I’m trying to remind myself that a sixth month internship is not the be-all-end-all for me, that it’s not going to make or break my future, even if I choose the “wrong” or “less right” one (and I’m not sure there is a wrong choice, which is perhaps why I’m struggling with it so much).
Well, I’ve been writing for almost ten minutes now, so I think it’s time to force myself to do some work for real, otherwise I’ll just feel like a loser later today, which definitely won’t help me feel motivated.
Springtime in Albuquerque is marked by tiny, airy cotton fluffs floating through the warm, upper-70s air. A fluff just floated past me as I sit on our fourth-floor balcony watching the sun set. The last rays are obscured by purple-gray clouds, the lower fringes of which seem to be on fire with pink, orange, and gold; the color fades, though, every time I look up, and soon everything will be blue, and then black. The mountains are already dark. It might be raining on the western mesa.
There’s a windchime hanging from a satellite dish on the balcony of a sixth-floor apartment of the adjacent building. It rings aimlessly in the slight breeze.
There’s an old man who lives on the second-floor corner apartment in the adjacent building. I know because I saw him sitting on his balcony. We hear him almost every morning, early, around 7:00am, coughing violently. Tonight he sat outside by himself and watched the sun set while he smoked.
The moths are coming out – one thing I dislike about summertime. It’s almost dark now; everything’s turning gray.
***
I felt like being creative tonight. I’ve been awful about my Sunday night blogging commitment, I know; have you lost all hope in me? The last two weeks have been incredibly busy. We finished the Spring issue of the magazine (not without some unexpected, last-minute setbacks, of course) and the semester is wrapping up very quickly, meaning that final projects need more attention. I also had two internship interviews last week, both of which went well. I know which one I’d prefer but I’m still waiting to get an official offer.
I’m staying up late tonight to register for my last semester of classes. Jordan asked me earlier today if I’m afraid to graduate; his question was prompted by a minor meltdown I was having about how to juggle an internship plus classes during my final semester and wondering if I should delay graduation until next May to make my load lighter. I’m over that, though, and I don’t think I’m afraid to graduate. Although I may feel differently come December. But we’ll deal with that when it gets here.
I know, it’s technically not Sunday night any more…but I’ve had a busy weekend! I’ve been working since 2:00pm today finalizing the copyediting revisions on the magazines we’re going to publish (and I’m still not done!). But you don’t need to listen to me whine about copyediting.
I can’t think of anything witty or inspiring to say, at least not in the thirty seconds I’m taking to write this before I go to bed, so here’s a funny video:
Jordan says this is what the book is like:
As promised, it’s Sunday night and I am blogging! Truthfully, I almost forgot; I’ve been busy catching up on the homework I’ve put off all week and just remembered about my new blogging commitment a few minutes ago.
I’ve been in denial the past couple of days about spring break coming to a close. This week – sleeping in, taking naps, running errands and watching movies with my husband – has been way too much fun, and I’m still not sure if I’m ready to go back to school tomorrow.
However, I was telling Jordan today that I need to check my attitude sometimes. Sure, it’s normal for a college student to bemoan the end of spring break, but I want to remind myself how thankful I am for the opportunity to go to school. It sounds cheesy, I know, but it’s a blessing, which makes the fact that I’ll be regularly getting up at 6:00am for the next seven weeks a little easier to face.
And we had a nice ending to the break, as well. Yesterday, Jordan and I went for a walk around our neighborhood and stumbled upon a good old-fashioned driveway yard sale. We picked up three baking pans (which we desperately needed) and I also found a cool, leather satchel that’s the perfect size for my laptop and a few other books/notebooks, just right for an afternoon study session in the library. And the total price? $4.50! I call that a win.
OK, signing off now, as it’s almost 10:00pm and we’ve got school in the morning!
Ritual is rewarding. Discipline is freeing.
I sometimes think that people, especially Americans, have an odd moral stance against ritual and discipline. We want to be free, we want to go with the flow, we don’t want anyone else telling us what we should be doing.
But I find that the opposite is true. When I get lazy and decide to just “see what happens” during the day, I find myself at bedtime wondering where my time went and why I didn’t get anything done. When I take the time (usually only five or ten minutes) to plan out my day and think about what needs to get done and how I want to use my time and energy, I’m much more satisfied. It’s not all about productivity, though; discipline and ritual give structure and purpose to our lives. (Ever notice how if you don’t plan on including the big things, like spending time in prayer or with your family, they never seem to happen?)
My acting instructor often speaks of “guideposts” in a performance – moments or gestures or expressions that the actor relies upon to carry them through. For example, in the monologue I prepared for our midterm, one of my guideposts was an energetic breaking point where I would stand up and shout a particular line. It gave me a point of focus and a direction. When you find something that really works, my instructor says, keep it in place, set it up as a guidepost, and build the rest of the performance around that. Because while spontaneity is not a bad thing, all spontaneity and no structure makes for a wayward, unsteady performance. The combination is the key.
Similarly, I think that without structure, ritual and discipline, we are not freeing ourselves but limiting ourselves. Instead of actively engaging life and pursuing goals and relationships, we fall into the danger of letting life wash over us as we sit passively by.
These musings are prompted by a desire to add more ritual and discipline to my blogging, because I find that regular, small accomplishments are much more rewarding than sporadic ones (no matter how big or impressive they may be). As a reader of blogs I also find that I get more enjoyment from my fellow bloggers who write on a regular, dependable basis, so I can look forward to reading them each day or each week with the assurance that I won’t be disappointed.
I’ve tried to set up rituals for my blogging in the past and they have all fallen through. I’m going to start small and see where it takes me: I hereby promise to write something, even if it’s only a paragraph (heck, even if it’s only a sentence) every Sunday evening. I think that will be a good time to both reflect on the events of the week past and look forward to what’s in store ahead.
Aside from that, I’ll probably continue posting sporadically at various intervals during the week.
See you on Sunday!
I’ve mentioned the lovely little blog Grace Laced before, and today I bring it up because it led me to an insightful (and surprisingly Orthodox) post about the purpose of fasting, which is of course very relevant as we are now full swing into the Lenten season.
Every Monday, Grace Laced hosts “Grace Laced Mondays,” an event that brings bloggers together via the Grace Laced site to “link up” their posts and thus engage in a dialogue with each other (I have yet to participate). Recently, I was looking at some of the links to other blog posts and chose one at random; it took me to a post on By the Waters. As I began reading it seemed to be another quaint “mommy blog” about life and family. About halfway through, however, the post transitions into a discussion about godly love, worship, and fasting. I won’t recreate the entire post here (because it’s worth reading for yourself!), but I love how the author clarifies fasting as an act of worship:
Among the exercises of worship, fasting is not my favorite. It gives no pleasure, it severely restricts, and our hunger makes us uncomfortably aware of our humanity. It is like prayer, except harder. Its discomfort and lack of immediate gain (if we follow the rules) is precisely what makes fasting a most suitable posture to offer to God worship that is not self-seeking.
When we fast, we intentionally deprive ourselves of normal goods and pleasures, such as meat and dairy products (the Orthodox way). The purpose of this is not legalistic; we do not fast in an attempt to “earn” salvation or righteousness, or to make ourselves feel more holy and better than others. And if we do, it is not the fault of fasting; there is a deeper, heart issue that must be addressed.
Fasting is an exercise of self-discipline, but its purpose is not to make us better people (at least not in the way a regular diet or self-help program intends to); the purpose of fasting is to gain control over our passions instead of allowing them to control us. Exercising control over food is just one such example (but a very real struggle over one of our greatest passions as humans – gluttony), and Lent helps us exercise control over all of our passions, temptations, lusts, and selfish desires. We do this because if our lives are dominated by our passions, we spend more time thinking about and worshipping them than we do God. Lent is the particularly appropriate time for fasting because it is the season of remembering Christ’s earthly life, crucifixion, and ultimate resurrection and conquering of sin and death. And how do we celebrate the resurrection? By feasting, another very tangible way of recognizing our freedom in salvation.
When I started writing this post, I didn’t know what I was getting into. Fasting is more difficult to articulate than I thought, and I hope I’ve offered some insight into the Orthodox perspective (and haven’t confused you). It’s important to remember that we fast as a religious discipline to bring us closer to God, not as a means of earning our own righteousness (which is partly why we don’t fast all the time). If you break fast during Lent, we won’t kick you out of the Pascha (Easter) service; God welcomes the long-faithful and the late converts, and everything in between. And I can say this confidently: in my personal experience, fasting has only ever been beneficial.
I’ll close this post with some words from the Fathers on fasting, which our church printed in the Sunday bulletin a few weeks ago. I think they summarize well the combination of physical and spiritual discipline that must happen simultaneously for truly fruitful fasting.
If thou, O man, dost not forgive everyone who has sinned against thee, then do not trouble thyself with fasting. If thou dost not forgive the debt of they brother, with whom thou art angry for some reason, then thou dost fast in vain – God will not accept thee. Fasting will not help thee, until thou wilt become accomplished in love and in the hope of faith. Whoever fasts and becomes angry, and harbors enmity in his heart, such a one hates God and salvation is far from him. – Venerable Ephraim the Syrian
An excellent faster is he who restrains himself from every impurity, who imposes abstinence on his tongue and restrains it from idle talk, foul language, slander, condemnation, flattery, and all manner of evil-speaking, who abstains from anger, rage, malice, and vengeance and withdraws from every evil. – St. Tichon of Zadonsk
By fasting it is possible both to be delivered from future evils and to enjoy the good things to come. We fell into disease through sin; let us receive healing through repentance, which is not fruitful without fasting. – St. Basil the Great
Along with Acting II, I’m taking Children’s Theatre this semester. I signed up for the class for two main reasons:
- I had heard amazing things about the professor from other theatre students
- The class fulfills the only other strict requirement for my minor; after this, all that’s left are electives.
So far, the class is a blast. The professor is incredible, and his many years of experience teaching acting and children’s theatre are evident every time he opens his mouth. He always has some sort of insight into an exercise or in-class performance.
Right now we’re focusing on story theatre, which has so far consisted of taking children’s poetry and turning it into short, staged performances that would be appropriate to perform for or with children. Paul (our professor) wants us to emphasize innocence and simplicity and to try and maintain a sense of purity in our work; we’re not to over think it, or to try and make it into a joke. I love something he said about innocence a few classes ago: “Innocence does not mean ‘not sophisticated;’ it means ‘not cynical.’”
Our assignment for tonight’s class is to take another poem and turn it into a solo performance. Paul gave us several poems to choose from, and one of them I fell in love with as soon as I read it:
“What are Heavy?” by Christina Rossetti
What are heavy? Sea-sand and sorrow;
What are brief? Today and tomorrow;
What are frail? Spring blossoms and youth;
What are deep? The ocean and truth.
When I study in the library, sometimes I sit at a carrel that is assigned to a graduate student. How do I know? There are several books on the carrel with special slips of paper in them commanding “DO NOT RETURN THIS BOOK TO THE SHELF.” Also, every carrel has a little notice that says, “This carrel may be assigned to a specific graduate students. You may study here while the carrel is unoccupied, but please do not disturb the books or notes belonging to or charged to the graduate student.” How polite, little notice.
Anyway, I’m currently sitting in carrel 232. I like to ponder what these graduate students might be studying or working on based on the books at the carrel. Usually you can deduce some sort of theme. For instance, at carrel 232 we have: The Book of Ezekiel, Saint Saul: A Skeleton Key to the Historical Jews, Holy Bible, The Use of Daniel in Jewish Apocalyptic Literature and in the Revelation of St. John, and…Battlefields of the Civil Wars? That last one makes me curious.
By the way, I’m thinking about going to grad school. I don’t really know where or how it will all happen, but it’s more of a real option for me than it’s ever been, so that’s something.
