Well, folks, what you've all been waiting for... (ahem)....
Some MORE wedding pictures!!! And, if you're not satisfied with these, please feel free to view my (almost ready) wedding website of pics...HERE
What fun we had!
Check out how hard these guys are laughing!The photographer was about to wring their necks...
little April shower...I know it's only March, but the snow is melting! Hallelujah, the snow is melting! Everything is deliciously drippy and soggy, and mud is everywhere--a glorious sign that spring is here. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high, as many native Buffalonians have told me, "Just wait. We'll have a storm yet!" I growl at their probably-accurate predictions on the inside, but I'm choosing to live in stubborn optimism, because, my, what a different place this city is without icy streets and biting gales. I am just giddy to see the green grass and hear the bird warbling outside my bedroom window (which is now open!). Thank God for seasons. The snow was a novelty at first; but just as we were growing weary of having to put on 16 layers each time we went to the grocery store, the buds begin to pop out. Even my poor, pathetic houseplant, which until now has been fighting for every last leaf, is pregnant with new growth. This dripping day reminds me of a poem by the 19th century Jesuit poet, Gerard Manly Hopkins:
THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed.
Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
It is best read aloud, in my opinion, with lots of facial expressions. Besides enjoying spring, James and I are hard at work. James is reading furiously, with two presentations and a rather large paper due next week. I continue to edit; I'm in the process of looking for another job, hopefully in a medical setting (or I can just keep watching House, and secretly pretending I'm a medical specialist). Oliver, on the other hand, is obsessively looking out the bedroom window at the squirrels, wishing he were an outside cat. More pics to come, as soon as we get our dinosaur of a digital camera up and running.
Well, here she is. There's no place like...a little apartment. She's quite cozy, and we've got lots of big windows and sunlight. Small, but charming. We've spent many a day and night here hibernating. I suppose once spring comes and life thaws out up here we'll spend less time in her, but for now, she's all we've got.
This is what I see each morning when I wake up. The house across the way is beautiful and stately, and I like to imagine that it's called Pemberley, and that Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy live there. It's a lovely way to start a day, really.
Lying in bed for the past (almost) week now has afforded me the luxury of noticing. I consider the ability to notice details in life a beautiful gift which must be cultivated. There is a distinct pleasure in noticing details and completely surrendering to the enjoyment of them that is deliciously hedonistic, but in a pure, honest fashion. For example: this week I went to the laundromat and washed a new, crisp, blue and white calico floral set of sheets for my bed. I folded the laundry as quickly I could, knowing that the sooner I got home, the sooner I could put my new sheets on the bed. It was every bit as thrilling as I had imagined. The other day I was making pea soup, and the recipe called for a cup of dried, split peas (rinsed). I dumped the dried peas from the plastic bag into my dish, a pottery dish of brilliant blue. Beautiful. I brought them to James, who was reading in the other room, to show him. He put his hand in the bowl of dried peas, and we both enjoyed the moment thoroughly.
I think if we train ourselves to notice and enjoy details more often, we won't be so surprised to find that life is filled with shards of glory. The scenes around us are remnants of the holy. Wordsworth says that we come "trailing clouds of glory." These scenes, these scraps of glory, are alive and throbbing around us: the old woman on the bus with the purple blouse and a life full of stories to tell, the sun lighting up the ice-glazed trees, the sound of a fiddle, reeling and true. Watch.
James is watching the film 'Cold Mountain' next to me; there's a scene where Inman is ploughing a field and Ada, the woman who loves him, is moving into a new house. She drives her wagon past him, playing the piano to him as he plows in the field. The sound is sweet and telling.
Here's one of James's poems; I think it's beautiful.
Ascension Day Carnival
Me. I watched as
slippery children packaged
into
steely rides tilted
suddenly skyward
as wrinkled ones
crane necks
stretching hands
somehow realizing
what a holy thing it is
to go heavenward.
