"Soaked in brightness"

You don't know what light feels or how its thinking goes. You do know this is where it's most at home. On the plains where you were born, there are no mountains to turn it back, no forest for it to shoulder through. A solitary tree marks its comings and goings like a pole sunk in the shore of the ocean to measure the tides. Here, light seems like another form of water, as clear but thinner, and it cannot be contained. When you touch it, it resists a little and leaves something like dampness on your skin. You feel it the way you feel a dog's tongue lick your cheek in the early morning. After an hour or two of walking you are soaked in brightness. When you shake your head and shoulders, you see the spray. If you stay too long in the open, you could drown, its currents carrying you to its source, your body bobbing, then going under, your lungs full of lustre. Nowhere else in your travels will you see light so palpable and fierce. It is too huge for dreams, too persistent for solitude. All day long it touches you with the smallest of its million watery wings.

"First Cause: Light," in Small Beneath the Sky: A Prairie Memoir (Lorna Crozier)

For Juliet, who also experiences light palpably.

A bushel of birds

For two days the air was warm. The snow melted and the puddles were absorbed into thawing earth. We flaunted light-weight jackets, silk scarves, and short-sleeved shirts. Miraculously, the bushes sang. Their battered winter skeletons burst into a querulous, rustling jubilation. We were taken aback by this travesty of nature until we saw the birds: hues of brown against mottled bark, a mob of piping throats.

Of course it snowed the next day. But, curiously, the birds are undaunted. They are still stirring through the bushes--clutching at dead twigs and singing while the snow descends. The rest of us are less confident.We resume the burden of winter coats, weigh down our feet with boots. It is an almost univocal capitulation--except for the silk scarves some of still wear around our throats. 

Night watch

Last night one of the women on my floor lost someone very dear to her. It was an ugly, drawn-out death under a brutal regime far away from here, and for two weeks now we have been praying and waiting and hoping for good news. I woke after midnight to the sound of weeping in the halls.

I wasn't the only one who had heard: They were pacing the corridor in slow steps, one on each side of her, holding her. And that's the most we could do. We sat in the yellow kitchen, and we held her, and we listened. We listened to the inarticulate sounds of grief, the rage at her government, the memories that seem now to lead inexhorably to the same dark place.

We couldn't offer the solace of an easy, painless death. The fact that in the end death came was the most we had. That and the promise that this moment in all of its blackness would one day pass.

At one thirty she sent us to bed. She had readings to do, she said. Better to stay busy. So I left her in the pale glow of the kitchen, in the company of closer friends who stayed with her while she worked and sorrowed. I went back to bed, and I prayed until sleep came: with those who wake, or watch, or weep tonight, watch, Lord; we beg rest for the weary, pity for the afflicted, comfort in times of great sorrow. For the sake of your enduring love.

February prayer

They say that bad things come in threes, and it has been a grim winter week at Wycliffe. This February the sorrows aren't mine, but I can say that even second-hand grief takes its toll. It is time for a new week and a peaceful sleep. Tonight I am praying with Augustine:

Watch, O Lord,

with those who wake,

or watch, or weep tonight,

and give your angels charge

over those who sleep.

Tend your sick ones,

O Lord Jesus Christ;

rest your weary ones;

bless your dying ones;

soothe your suffering ones;

pity your afflicted ones;

shield your joyous ones;

and all for your love's sake.

Amen.

It continues to look like winter:

Movie redux

Being sick significantly boosted my movie consumption in January. Since returning to Toronto I have watched:
Amelie
Into the Wild
Inception
True Grit
How to Tame Your Dragon
and
'V' for Vendetta.


Into the Wild was the best of these: best story, best cinematography, best music. True Grit was a close runner-up though; in addition to enjoying the great shots of starry skies and the snappy dialog, I now know what we would sound like if we never ever used contractions.

I've seen both Amelie and Inception before. I didn't really need to see Inception a second time; I'll probably watch Amelie again. My favorite scene in the latter movie is at the very beginning when the narrator is describing the eccentricities of the characters: it makes me happy when she cracks the top of her creme brulee with a spoon. I always think of Amelie when I eat creme brulee (which is not, by the way, very often).

How to Tame Your Dragon was a request from J. He's been wanting to watch this movie since November, a desire which apparently stems from a childhood fascination with the taxonomy of dragons. It was warm-hearted and funny. We both liked it. The last film on the list, 'V' for Vendetta, was also J.'s idea. We watched it this afternoon while eating a delicious homemade concoction of sausage and shrimp and pasta. I couldn't decide if the director was going for a remake of the Phantom or El Zorro, but whatever they were attempting--I liked it.

It was snowing again when I emerged from the subway on my way back to Wycliffe. This is what it looks like when it snows at night:

Pretty, but cold. I'm beginning to feel a hankering for spring.

Happy Thursday!

The day after the storm dawns clearly, bright above the green whorls of college towers and the heavy slide of snow down slate roofs. Unlike our sister city on Lake Michigan, Toronto remained disappointingly blizzard-free ("disappointingly" because the St. George campus remained operational and classes carried on, and on, and on). We will recover easily from the eight inches of snow; I'm more excited about the sunlight piercing the icicles and nesting in the bare branches of the trees.