Continuing

As many of my good friends go back to school, in some ways I am continuing the same routine (or lack thereof) that I've had since June or July. The job hunt continues, though at a slower rate now because of my 40-hour-a-week commitment to my temping position. I continue grateful for my temping assignment, although not fond of some aspects of my commute.

Plans for the England trip also continue. I recently bought tickets online for me and my sister to see Les Mis in London, and landed seats in (get this) the center of the fifth row from the stage. Wow!

And, recent blog posts notwithstanding, life isn't all about work. I have been pondering much that I haven't had time to write about: the theology of work, single womanhood, the intersection of literature and "real life," the tension between ministry and and the business world, a single woman's place in her family.

And what kind of car I should buy. Suggestions for convertibles, anyone?

Poem of the week

The poetry posting is a day late this week, because of two Horatio Hornblower movies in a row last night. Jolly good fun.

Lee Ann B. recently introduced me to the poet Joseph Bottum, who writes for the First Things journal. You can find his poetry by running a search for his name on the First Things site. I particularly enjoyed this one (published online at http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0402/opinion/millman.html).


The Hidden Life

Joseph Bottum

For the poet Dana Gioia,
upon his taking a public office.

Sometimes on evening walks you hear,
in whispers from old wells
and almost-words that rivers speak,
a quiet voice that tells
of small, secluded things. Like murmured
prayers from churchmen’s stalls
or what the marbled echoes say,
it rises, then it falls.
And you may follow when it calls

or you may think to wait. The green
at dusk seems deeper than
the green at dawn. Beyond the gate
a garden opens on
long shadows overgrown with leaves
and lilac nunneries,
between the gravel paths, where sparrows
seek their tenebraes.
And you may follow, if you please,

or keep to public streets. Against
the bruit of busy day,
the private houses close their eyes.
A few small panes betray
high bookshelves in a firelit room,
a woman sweeping floors,
a glimpse of some unknowing boy
at work at evening chores.
And you may follow, through those doors,

or you may turn aside. In lines
of black between the flames,
a fire writes against its light.
Dry hopes, forgotten fames,
the traceless works of childless men:
All printed there to read.
The cinders spell the deeper night,
dark need inside dark need.
And you may follow where they lead

or you may look away.

Needed: PHC e-mail addresses

It seems that PHC has changed its student e-mail addresses back to what they used to be a few years ago, which means that I no longer have e-mail addresses for most of you PHC folks. So, if you PHC folks could e-mail me so that I have your address, I would be very grateful. Plus I would really love to hear from you!

Poetry of the week will come soon. Family time comes first, and right now it's Horatio Hornblower.

The Production Room

My second temping assignment has taken me to the temping agency headquarters, which is in another part of town beside a particularly pretty part of the river. The agency runs its own little publishing house of sorts, and so I am assigned to their "production room." It's a large room with plenty of windows (joy!) and about fifteen desks clustered in various groups. I am the "production proofreader," which title my manager cheerfully shortened to "prodoofer." I proofread things.

So I spend my days with a red pencil in hand, checking for misspellings and all sorts of other problems that may sneak into flyers or books or reports. Sometimes there's a different job every hour. The variety is refreshing.

The designers and other proofreaders who work in production are pleasant people with a sense of humor. The important desks are labeled with official-looking signs ("John Smith, Production Manager"), so of course the table where we put free food to share has its own official sign ("Food Table"). A supervisor was introduced to me with, "This is L., Senior Production Manager. She keeps the M&Ms." And all the computers are named after mountains. One is labeled "Pele," another "Blue Ridge," and the manager's computer is labeled "of Olives."

Of course it's not all fun. My supervisor is usually there when I arrive in the morning and still there when I leave at night. Speaking of leaving, one night I walked out the office door, down by the river, and caught sight of a dozen sunlit sailboats gliding back and forth.

So this latest stopping place holds much to be grateful for, although I still wonder what on earth I'm doing and what kind of job I'll eventually end up with. I sent off writing samples to the office of the job I interviewed for, praying earnestly that there were no typos. Sometimes it feels like every day is a new page of a (rather suspenseful) book, and I really want to find out what happens next.

Job interview and other adventures

My humble thanks to those of you who prayed for my phone interview today. I think it went well. I'll find out more early next week, and will keep you all posted. The interview--or rather the preparation for it--did involve some adventure. Reaching a quiet place to talk on the phone involved my taking a long lunch from work, missing a shuttle and therefore walking about 8 blocks to the metro, taking a metro to a different part of the city, walking to a friend's apartment to talk on the phone, then metroing back to work. God provided in many small ways, not the least of which was the kind generosity of my friends who let me use their apartment.

In other news, I started a new temping assignment yesterday. More details to come soon, and much to be grateful for.

Job interview tomorrow

I have a phone interview on Tuesday for a job that I want. Really want. Any prayers would be greatly appreciated . . . :-)

Poem of the week

More Gerard Manley Hopkins. Reading him on my 11th-floor balcony at work, and on the homeward-headed metro, has been a delight. This is a poem I read once and then came back to again and again, particularly the last several lines.

(Note: I've not figured out how to display a hanging indent in Blogger. This is a slight problem, because the poem is written in long, Whitman-esque lines. To compensate, I've put extra space between each line of the poem. This spreads it out a bit but at least preserves the line breaks. May the second-class format not hinder your enjoyment...)

The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo
(Maidens' song from St. Winefred's Well)

THE LEADEN ECHO

How to kéep—is there ány any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, láce, latch or catch or key to keep

Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty, . . . from vanishing away?

Ó is there no frowning of these wrinkles, rankèd wrinkles deep,

Dówn? no waving off of these most mournful messengers, still messengers, sad and stealing messengers of grey?—

No there’s none, there’s none, O no there’s none,

Nor can you long be, what you are now, called fair,

Do what you may do, what, do what you may,

And wisdom is early to despair:

Be beginning; since, no, nothing can be done

To keep at bay

Age and age’s evils, hoar hair,

Ruck and wrinkle, drooping, dying, death’s worst, winding sheets, tombs and worms and tumbling to decay;

So be beginning, be beginning to despair.

O there’s none; no no no there’s none:

Be beginning to despair, to despair.


THE GOLDEN ECHO

Spare!

There ís one, yes I have one (Hush there!),

Only not within seeing of the sun.

Not within the singeing of the strong sun,

Tall sun’s tingeing, or treacherous the tainting of the earth’s air,

Somewhere elsewhere there is ah well where! one,

Ońe. Yes I cán tell such a key, I dó know such a place,

Where whatever’s prizèd and passes of us, everything that’s fresh and fast flying of us, seems to us sweet of us and swiftly away with, done away with, undone,

Undone, done with, soon done with, and yet dearly and dangerously sweet

Of us, the wimpled-water-dimpled, not-by-morning-matchèd face,

The flower of beauty, fleece of beauty, too too apt to, ah! to fleet,

Never fleets móre, fastened with the tenderest truth

To its own best being and its loveliness of youth: it is an everlastingness of, O it is an all youth!

Come then, your ways and airs and looks, locks, maidengear, gallantry and gaiety and grace,

Winning ways, airs innocent, maiden manners, sweet looks, loose locks, long locks, lovelocks, gaygear, going gallant, girlgrace—

Resign them, sign them, seal them, send them, motion them with breath,

And with sighs soaring, soaring síghs, deliver

Them; beauty-in-the-ghost, deliver it, early now, long before death

Give beauty back, beauty, beauty, beauty, back to God, beauty’s self and beauty’s giver.

See; not a hair is, not an eyelash, not the least lash lost; every hair

Is, hair of the head, numbered.

Nay, what we had lighthanded left in surly the mere mould

Will have waked and have waxed and have walked with the wind what while we slept,

This side, that side hurling a heavyhanded hundredfold

What while we, while we slumbered.

O then, weary then whý should we tread? O why are we so haggard at the heart, so care-coiled, care-killed, so fagged, so fashed, so cogged, so cumbered,

When the thing we freely fórfeit is kept with fonder a care,

Fonder a care kept than we could have kept it, kept

Far with fonder a care (and we, we should have lost it) finer, fonder

A care kept.—Where kept? do but tell us where kept, where.—

Yonder.—What high as that! We follow, now we follow.—Yonder, yes yonder, yonder,

Yonder.

Even though it's not Friday

and therefore not official poetry day, this deserves to be said.


O Lord, my best Desire fulfil
William Cowper

O Lord, my best desire fulfil,
And help me to resign
Life, health, and comfort to thy will,
And make thy pleasure mine.

Why should I shrink at thy command,
Whose love forbids my fears?
Or tremble at the gracious hand
That wipes away my tears?

No, rather let me freely yield
What most I prize to thee;
Who never hast a good withheld,
Or wilt withhold from me.

Thy favor, all my journey thro',
Thou art engag'd to grant;
What else I want, or think I do,
'Tis better still to want.

Wisdom and mercy guide my way,
Shall I resist them both?
A poor blind creature of a day,
And crush'd before the moth!

But ah! my inward spirit cries,
Still bind me to thy sway;
Else the next cloud that vails my skies,
Drives all these thoughts away.

Two posts in one day!

That's right, after far too long without posting, I've actually posted twice in one day. Count them :-)

(I guess this makes three)

Poem of the week

From now on, I'll be posting a poem every Friday. I hope eventually to post some of my own, but for now I'll post other people's. And since I've been reading Gerard Manley Hopkins, you get some of him.

(If I let a Friday go by without poetry, feel free to hold me to my word :-) )


Inversnaid

This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.

Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

More temping

I am getting used to the city skyline. Yesterday I discovered that at 8:45 a.m., the 11th floor lunch room is empty. The 11th floor is high enough to allow a view of the sky over nearby buildings. Morning sunshine streams in. Across the street workmen sit on the roof of a building, holding their morning consultation. And, unlike any other place I’ve found in this city, this room is quiet and solitary. I adopt it until 9 a.m.

I am also getting used to the metro. I’ve learned that it’s no use trying for a seat; I’ll be sitting down all day anyway. In the mornings I lean against a convenient corner and try to memorize Colossians. In the evenings I find a corner and read Gerard Manley Hopkins.

And I am even getting used to scientific journal articles. Of course I don’t intend to make a career of them, but one has to admire people with the drive to investigate everything from subatomic particles to killer influenza. On a comical note, you know you’re a lit major when you’re reading a technical report of medical experiments on mice and the first thought that rushes to your mind is Robert Burns. “Wee, sleeket, cowrin, tim’rous beastie…”

The job hunt continues. I have received and declined two job offers. “That’s a good problem,” my friend told me last night. It was a good reminder. At times the search seems interminable, and I would give almost anything for steady (and interesting!) work. So I try to remind myself that I did want an adventure.

And for those who have asked, the fridge is crispering and prospering nicely. Our milk isn’t going sour any more, which is lovely.

To those of you who are getting back to PHC, welcome back! Now my hauntings can begin…

And in other news...

This weekend we welcomed a very special new member to our family: a fridge. All was done with appropriate solemnity and ceremony. See the post at my sister's blog, since she reports it much better than I can.