Six Ways to Sunday

Every day these little vignettes pass me by, when Sunday's peace seems a distant memory and I'm just trying to make it through another week. But now that I have a five-day weekend to reflect (thank you, late winter storm!) I find them coming back to me, making me smile all over again.

We've just finished learning venir, to come, and bid goodbye to the early-dismissal track star; as she leaves, I explain to the class that revenir, to come back, is conjugated the same way. "So if you want to ask someone to come ba--," and inspiration cuts me off. I stride to the doorway and shout, "REVIENS!" She halts, bewildered, and the class dissolves in laughter. Meanwhile, the students in the hall get a sneak preview of my new advertising campaign for the French program.
My favorite lesson of the whole year happens to be the day of my annual observation. I guide the class in the rhythmic tapping of iambic pentameter, the beating of the heart through the poet's words. Da-DUM. Da-DUM. Da-DUM. Now cracks a noble heart. Goodnight, sweet prince! Oh no, it is an ever-fixed mark. Titania waked and straightway loved an ass. Hyperbole, metaphor, double entendre. Richly-laden lines twist over and around them until their own are pouring forth: Australia is a lovely place to be. My doggie loves to play and roll in snow. Morning coffee suddenly sounds poetic, and sunburned afternoons call to them from future summers. When the bell rings, my department chair apologizes for staying through the whole period: "I just didn't want to leave."
Midway through a quiz, a student decides to reword a sentence and spends a good three minutes crossing it out. Her laborious scraping of pen on paper is finally interrupted with the clean smack of a whiteout pen on her desk, delivered with silent reproach by her neighbor who doesn't even look up from her own work. I can't help but laugh: that girl will make a great mom someday.
During a "free" period as I'm hustling through the next batch of papers, I comment on one: "When I die, I want you to write my obituary." I am completely serious. If she can make a paper about Salinger sound as fresh and hopeful as he wasn't, I imagine she could do a lot for my posthumous public image.
Two separate parents, within a week of each other, thanked me for being hard on their children. "This is part of growing up," one said. "She needs to take responsibility for her actions," said another. My faith in modern parenting ceased its precipitous freefall and actually took a few halting, hopeful steps back toward the light.
In the stairwell, as students jostle each other to get to break and I attempt to keep out of the way, I spot one who is particularly pained by the tangle of backpacks and ponytails. "This is SO not ideal," she huffs. I suppress a smile, but as I consider her words over the next few days, I realize it's a perfect thesis statement for my life. Maybe for yours, too.

2013 in Review

Greetings, everyone! What a year it has been. Our Christmas postcards (mailed today) invite you to read more about our travels on this site, so that means I need to post something more exhaustive than the snippets I've been throwing out every few weeks. This has not been a good year for blogging. But traveling, yes: six countries, dozens of cities and hundreds of photos. Let me explain -- no, there is too much -- let me sum up:

Early in the spring, we spent a day in New Orleans before driving out to St. Francisville for a weekend of fun with our dear friends Rod and Julie, their endlessly entertaining children and their picturesque backdrop of a town:

Yes, it's actually that beautiful there. Don't you read Rod's blog?!

Back home, we planted our annual garden that would later be the victim of our annual neglect. Hey, we were busy. My parents, on the other hand, were far more industrious and took locavorism one step further with the acquisition of eight hens. They started out teeny-tiny, like this,

Rob named her McNugget. The others have more dignified appellations.

And grew to healthy hen sizes by summer's end, when they were filling several cartons of eggs a week.

Not pictured: the hilarious noises chickens make when you get close enough for a photo.

We enjoyed two snowstorms, both on feasts of the Theotokos. Here's Annunciation Day's haul, which gave us a nice long weekend in March.

One of the most rewarding things in our lives is our participation in the community of Holy Cross parish, where Rob helps with the gardens, I lead the chanters and we have many wonderful friends. I've also continued to perform with Boston Byzantine Choir this year, including a concert in Montreal in April, where we saw the stunning Notre Dame cathedral and an equally stunning variety pack of weather (rain, snow, hail, wind and sunshine in under 48 hours!)

I don't think I've ever paid money to enter a church before, but this was worth it!

A couple of weeks later, we celebrated the Resurrection in our own parish, far more humble but just as lovely to us. Here we are gathered outside the doors, where we sing the first joyful "Christ is Risen!" of the year.

Despite the fact that we both grew up in Baltimore, neither of us had ever been to Pimlico Racetrack until this spring, when we enjoyed watching and placing bets on several minor races. Rob was the big winner, pocketing $12.50.

And, a big fan of classic rock, he knows when every concert is happening, so we attend more than I'd like to admit. Here's the Rolling Stones show in Philadelphia, to which he took his father as a birthday present.

Our first big trip of the summer was to Colorado, where Rob had an architecture convention to attend. Afterwards, we spent some long-awaited time with our adopted family, the O'dells, who took us on a grand tour of their home state. Here we are in Estes Park, shivering in the sunshine:

We drove southwest through some incredible mountain passes, winding up in Durango, where we took a day trip to Mesa Verde National Park to see cliff dwellings that were over a thousand years old.

Then, on what became the highlight of our trip, we boarded an old-fashioned narrow-gauge train that took us over rivers, through woods and to the tiny mining town of Silverton. We had coal dust in our hair and wind burns on our faces, but it was the most fun I've had in a long time!

We were home for just a week when I had to dash off to the Sacred Music Institute at Antiochian Village, where I gave a few classes, including this talk about the experience of Orthodox Holy Week. Meanwhile, Rob was off to Paris, leading another study tour of chateaus and museums with a group of young architectural hopefuls.

This was a very different trip in a number of ways: I missed the first few days because of my conference, but met up in time to help the group navigate out of the city to half a dozen different chateaux of the Loire Valley. Unfortunately, I also picked up a nasty bug somewhere in our travels, but I rested when I could and still managed to have a good time in and out of the city. One highlight was the discovery of the Promenade Plantee, an abandoned rail line that's been repurposed as an elevated greenway.

And when we got home, I finally finished my Paris Top 10 series, so you can read lots more there about what we've seen and done on our various trips there. But we didn't stay home for long -- just a few days, in fact, before flying the opposite direction to visit my grandmother on the West Coast, along with my family. Though we have visited this part of the country many times, we enjoyed several new experiences, including the canals at Venice Beach (freakish bodybuilders not pictured:)

And we carefully staged this photo in the Joshua Tree park, which may be the peak of this year's accomplishments.

Bonus points if you can name the first three tracks in order!

Once home, we took a vacation from our vacations for a couple of weeks. We celebrated ten years of marriage in late August, but an overnight trip downtown was the furthest we wanted to go for awhile. These house numbers were Rob's gift (look, you try finding an interesting present made from iron!)

This bush is way out of control, but it makes a nice accent.

In September our parish celebrated twenty years of worshipping, serving and witnessing together. It was a glorious weekend, during which we sang more than we had thought possible: here we are during Vigil, which lasted nearly three hours. You can also see some of the incredible iconography that's been finished over the last year, as well as the iconographer's son, the sweetest little altar-boy-in-training I've ever seen. Less than a month after this photo was taken, two of our chanters left to join monasteries, so it's a bittersweet memory. Glory to God for all of our time together and the music of our voices and hearts.

In everyday life, we both continue to enjoy the fruits of my labor at Yelp, an online ratings service where I am an Elite member and occasionally get perks like this one, a catered reception at the Museum of Science & Industry overlooking the Baltimore Harbor.

He took a well-deserved break this semester, earning a sabbatical to research and teach at Morgan State University, where they're looking to develop a mobile app for site analysis. He also spent plenty of time with his two furry daughters, as well as with his new business venture, Appitecture, where he posts frequently. They are launching an extensive website on New Year's Day, so stay tuned for more interesting photos in his upcoming "Places and Perspectives" blog.

Rob's more relaxed schedule this fall brought us yet more opportunities to travel, including a quick trip to New York, where I had a writing seminar to attend and he enjoyed photographing the beautiful fall colors.

Reflecting Pool, Bard College — Reflecting Pool, Bard College

We visited some friends in the city on the way home. They were wonderful hosts and we had a great time eating and catching up with them. As a bonus, their apartment is walking distance from the Cloisters, my favorite Manhattan museum. It's nestled in Fort Tryon Park where, it would seem, the spirit of Terrence Malick is lurking:

And just when it looked like the year was winding down, we took our most ambitious and exotic trip to date. For two weeks in November and December, we traveled with our best friends through Turkey, Georgia and Armenia on a pilgrimage to visit holy sites in a part of the world that has known Christianity from its earliest days.

Our time in Istanbul was basically a series of mini-catastrophes, but once we landed in Georgia, we felt truly welcomed and at home, thanks to the bend-over-backwards hospitality of our lovely friends David and Margo and their intrepid son Dietrich. For ten days they drove, fed, translated and guided us through some of the most incredible sights and stories we'd ever experienced. Having only returned a couple of weeks ago, I need more time to process everything before I can really write about it, but here are some snippets from the trip.

Much of Georgia's spiritual history is connected with Nino, a Cappadocian nun who evangelized the country in the fourth century. We visited several sites connected with her, including the monastery where she is buried. On the grounds there is a sacred spring that appeared, miraculously, when the nuns needed water (and then, just as miraculously, disappeared and reappeared in a hidden spot when the convent was under persecution by an invading army.)

It was nearly freezing the day we visited, but we went for a dip in the chilly water and prayed -- quickly! -- for a blessing before toweling off in the little stone house and putting all of our layers back on. When the boys were in the water, we heard Matt's voice through the tiny window: "Well, Rob, what do you think of this Orthodox thing now?"

Probably what we all thought, which was: the culture there is so steeped in faith, it is truly a marvel. It has endured centuries of persecution, first by the pagan Persians, then by the Muslims and most recently at the hands of the Communists. Its churches and monasteries have been burned, demolished, and demoted to hospitals and museums, but in the short period since its independence, the nation has already begun to transform itself.

As if that weren't enough of a trip, we also took a couple of days to drive south to Armenia, the land of my ancestors on my father's father's side. There we found another nation that has endured cruel and horrendous persecution, bordering on complete extermination, but that has emerged with a plucky and inspiring resolve to rebuild and transcend its own grief.

From high in the capital of Yerevan, you can see the outline of Mount Ararat, the national symbol of the country where Noah landed thousands of years ago. (Their patriarchate in Etchmiadzin contains a staggering number of relics, including wood from the ark -- given to a monk by a pitying angel after the poor man had tried and failed three times to climb the mountain in search of the holy site.) It's also a good spot for a photo, if you can get one without too much windblown hair:

On our way out of the city, we received the gift of an early-morning snowstorm, meaning that by the time we reached the monastery on the banks of Lake Sevan, the roads were clear but the landscape was still a series of pristine, white undulations. In the chapel they were celebrating Divine Liturgy, and outside the world was holding its own celebration: "All the earth is Thy promised bride awaiting her spotless husband!"

The entire trip felt like one enormous gasp, and in the weeks since returning home we have been slowly exhaling, hoping that the exhaustion will wear off but leave the spirituality behind. Please know that we did remember you, our family and friends, in prayer in those holy places, just as we do here in the quiet and comfort of our home.

Snuggled up with a cat. As we are happiest.

We miss you, we love you and we hope to see you very soon!

Rob and Emily

Greatest Hits of Exam Week

In no particular order:

Odysseus had his men tie him to the mast so he could hear the beautiful song of the Syrians.
Jason's family may have tried to kill their own children, but Antigone's family was just weird.
The Cyclops said he would eat Odysseus last, after all the others. That was the polite thing to do in those days (not eat people but show them hospitality.)
All that suffering took a big token out of Thomas More.
Theseus saved all the Athenians from the Minotaur. Kind of like the Hunger Games.

Ma Merveille

Years ago, I saw The New World on the recommendation of a friend. Here's a taste:

It was my first Malick film, and as much as I was awed by its external transcendence, its deeper substance really burrowed into me. I rented it, watched it, went to bed, and when I arose the next morning after a mostly-sleepless night, sat down to watch the whole thing again. I have tried to write about it, but could hardly even think about it except in waves of images and isolated thoughts, never coherent enough to string together. Though this is grossly over-simplistic, I will say that it is a story about hurt and healing. Healing triumphs, but in a devastatingly pyrrhic victory -- old wounds remain latent, sabotaging the future with poison from the past. Watching it uncovered deep layers of unsettled feelings, pain I had either forgotten or chosen to ignore.

I always come late to the most interesting conversations, especially where my friend Rod is concerned -- he who can create a niche market, document a paradigm shift and defend a worldview in the time it takes me to have one slightly original thought. But, in light of the above experience, I am finding the need to add to the dialogue of his recent musings (starting here, and continuing here and here) about Malick's latest film. To the Wonder.

I watched this one alone on a whim, and I liked it; especially the priest, who is the central character regardless of screentime. It didn't have the same effect right away. Some days later, I discovered my whole family was miffed at me because they had wanted to see it too. So we watched it together, and after the second viewing, we all started to think and talk about it -- a conversation that continued for several weeks.

There is literally no way I can spoil the plot, because there is no plot, other than the general arc of a couple who falls in love in Paris and then tries to make their relationship last back in the United States. The ending is ambiguous and has already provoked several arguments. But this movie is not about the plot; it's about the details. There are three I keep coming back to.

Kinesis: as The Times reviewer mentioned, the female lead is constantly in motion. She spins, chases, flings her arms wide to embrace the heavens, all to an introspective French voiceover that sounds as italic as its subtitles look. She is lovely, and Malick's camerawork is masterful; every shot is frameable, every scene a living poem. It's surprising, then, that it rings so hollow. My mother pointed out that all the leaping and tumbling left the characters with nothing solid to hold on to -- searching for ground, they came up with only air. (Their house, which remains huge and unfurnished, is another indicator of their empty lives.)

Nature: like every other Malick film, this one shows a profound respect for, and unabashed adoration of, the natural world. Trees, beaches, gardens and fields all get the same breathless reverence. But this time, there is more: through the story of a priest who struggles with eternal questions, Malick shows us that even his own masterpieces are worthless to the extent that they don't acknowledge their ultimate creator. The tongues of men and angels, which few would argue he has mastered on film, are merely noise next to a heart of faith and a hand of mercy.

Place: A picture is worth a thousand words, and there are thousands of pictures in a film, so it stands to reason that there should be very little explanation necessary. Mercifully, Malick lets his shots speak for themselves. America is sun-kissed grass, Paris rain-dampened cobblestone. The Sonic drive-in glows just as the shimmering beaches of Mont-Saint-Michel do -- one wholesome, one exotic, both glorious. I was actually a little disappointed when I realized that La Merveille, The Wonder, is a physical place; I had first read that line as a metaphysical statement, about the power of love to transform a quotidian hour into an ethereal one.

It's this last idea that has stuck with me most since I saw the film. Without even meaning to, I often imagine my own life as Terrence Malick might see it. Entering my hushed classroom in the early morning, slowly raising the shades and looking out to the glorious fog-drenched expanse of trees below. Scattering grain to a feathery patchwork of black and gold. Standing in a darkened church, sweet harmony mingling with the dissonant cries of children. Entering the pantry to the pillowy-sweet scent of fresh apples, letting them cook in butter until the sugar runs a sticky amber. Climbing between clean, soft flannel sheets and yielding to the stillness of sleep.

Each day is full of moments like this. Sometimes I see them, and just as often I let them slip by unnoticed. But thanks to the magic of my own personal merveille, awakened by this lovely film, they are always there.

But . . . poetry?

Today I discovered Google Poetics:

If the Internet can reveal spontaneous, accidental beauty, it can't be all bad.

Six Ways of Looking at "Hiatus"

Extra-credit question on a recent cumulative vocabulary test: use "hiatus" in a sentence. Here are my favorites (you have to give them credit for trying, right?)

They built a strong hiatus around the criminal to protect him.
The new student had a certain hiatus about her.
The murderer's hiatus crime stunned all of the citizens because it was so brutal.
She said that, but I know she hiatus me.
The student gave a hiatus excuse for why she was late for class.
Her awful hiatus was affecting the whole town!

Wrong answers are always so much more fun than right ones.

Une Vie Francaise

A month ago I lost my driver's license at a concert. (They actually didn't ID us that night, and to add insult to irony, it was a lousy show.)

I hate the MVA so much that I put off getting a new one, going so far as to carry my passport on a recent domestic flight. But last week I remembered there was an express office in Columbia that's open on Saturdays. So I rounded up the following forms of ID as per their website:

Passport (proof of identity)
Name Change Order (my passport only displays first and last)
Credit Card Bill (proof of residency)
Pay Stub (proof of SSN, but mine only displays the last 4 digits)
Recent Employment Contract (proof of full SSN)

So, guess how many she looked at?

Zero. She asked for my name, then my SSN, pulled up the file, took my picture and sent me on my way. But not before she asked about my middle name, which gave me such trouble at the MVA when I first changed it. I told her it was Armenian, then couldn't resist adding that her name meant "sing" in French. She was tickled by this and wanted to know how I had learned French. I told her high school plus practice, and she seemed genuinely interested and impressed that it was part of my daily life.

After that, I stopped for breakfast at La Madeleine, where the cafe is strong and the croissants can be found as God intended them (toasted almonds outside and marzipan within.) The staff is all Francophone, but diverse, and they are happy to chat with you a bit while you wait to enjoy your meal close to the fire.

Speaking French is occasionally useful, as at the concert (this one was amazing) when I calmly directed some confused patrons to their seats in their native language, or the time I watched a movie at a theater where the subtitles weren't working. It also brings me grief, mostly in the form of sarcastic comments from friends and family who wish they could understand me. But mostly it is a joy -- anytime I think, speak or dream in French, my life seems a little bit sweeter.

Soggy Sunday

It's raining and I am wearing all the wrong things. My sandals snap at my heels and kick up more water onto my sodden jeans. A scarf covers the top and back of my hair but the front drips into my eyes as I plod on with resolution. I am carrying a blue cloth bag that's mostly wet and a white plastic bag that drips water. I could have taken the train, but I already decided to walk and I don't like to change my mind.

I am carrying dinner, grilled zucchini in olive oil and thin spicy pepperoni and juicy marinated mushrooms. They were all out of bread by the time I got to the market but I am sure I can find some at home. There is lobster salad, too, sitting on ice inside an insulated bag that's about as wet as everything else in sight on the street. I think about being dry at home with dinner and a glass of wine and two warm furry bodies winding around my feet..

It's cold in the airport terminal as my clothing starts to dry on my body. I think about asking the girl next to me if she will watch my things while I go to get a coffee. I am on the verge of asking when I suddenly think, are you kidding me? You lost your driver's license at a concert a few weeks ago and still haven't replaced it, and now you're going to leave your passport and your phone in the hands of a stranger? I consider taking them with me and leaving just the bags, but in the end I pack up everything and leave my seat and the two outlets beneath it, and the loud group from Texas is moving toward them with greedy white phone chargers before I am fully standing.

I come back with my coffee and find a new seat and not five minutes later a man asks me to watch his things while he goes to check on his flight. I say sure and smile at the small irony. A few minutes after that a worried face crouches in front of me.

"Excuse me," he says. "I know I don't know you." I wait for the ", but."

"But did you just say you would watch that man's things?"

"Yes," I say. I see where this is going but I won't give him the satisfaction of sympathy.

He grimaces apologetically. "Do you know him?"

"No," I say. "I don't know him."

"I'm probably paranoid," he says, grimacing again. "But we're in an airport . . . "

I tell him I am only doing what I hope someone else would do for me. He says he understands and gets up with his things to sit somewhere out of range of the bomb he is sure will explode at any moment.

The first man comes back and I can't resist telling him he is on the unofficial Logan Airport Watchlist. He laughs at that and I offer him a pretzel. He says no thanks, he is going to meet some friends for happy hour in Phoenix and he can't wait to be out of this terrible weather. He is wearing sandals too but they look less soggy than mine. We talk about our travel plans. He asks what I do and I tell him I am a musician. This is only partly true but I almost never tell strangers the whole story. They don't care that I studied architecture and philosophy and Classics in school and now teach English and French to teenagers and Byzantine chant to adults. Instead I choose one of those variables, the most fitting, and leave the rest for another day. Today I am a music teacher and I just sang in a concert. He says his mother is a music teacher too and I wonder what other five things she does.

He leaves and I wait a few more hours and dry out and warm up and am really ready to go home. Takeoff is postponed twice and when we finally take our seats I am grateful. I order a gin and tonic and when the flight attendant doesn't charge me I feel smug and secure in my insider knowledge that free drinks follow delays. Then he returns with a machine and says that will be eight dollars and I fish my credit card out of my bag and think, maybe next time.

A woman two rows back behind me on the plane is talking to the girl next to her. The woman's voice is piercing, not loud but piercing and I can't ignore it. I shoot her a couple of dirty looks but she doesn't see them or doesn't care. I put in earplugs and that helps a little bit. I can still hear her. The tall flight attendant from Trinidad kneels to talk to the soccer coach in front of me. He is inches from my face and has a deep voice and long braids and he doesn't bother me at all. I like hearing his bass voice and I can also block it out but that woman behind me is awful.

I think, what a fun weekend and what a lousy trip home. Traveling is for people like Hemingway who can experience these things and turn them right around into poignant anecdotes and be none the worse for wear. I have fun trying those shoes on every so often but really, I'd rather be safe and warm somewhere than building character in this uncomfortable seat.

Fin

It's been such a tumultuous year for this poor blog that I won't bother apologizing for mere weeks of silence. At the end of the quarter it seems like all I do is grade. But sometimes grading is fun.

Take, for instance, this assortment of annotations from the last page of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray:

Dorian = dead. (I found this exact note in multiple books.)
Suicide?!
He kills the painting and becomes who he was meant to be.
oh snap.
Picture perfect! (This is actually a relatively advanced pun -- summary here.)
WOW
What? How?
Totally Gothic.
The End.

The theory is that if I can get them to speak to literature, literature might just answer back. Regardless, as they fight their way through with such charming incredulity and sarcasm, I do enjoy being a fly on the wall.

Paris Top 10: Walking

What will you find when you go on a walk in Paris?

An interplay of light and shadow in an airy hall, far more interesting than the dubiously-titled art on its walls; and the company of a beloved sister, far more valuable.

The source of a favorite album. A riff on a favorite cocktail.

A daydream about snapping winds and foamy seas, wrought in thin spires of bronzed fancy.

Tiny explosions of color and chlorophyll, waiting to beautify a room or a corner or just a passing glance.

A temple to a man that accidentally, in dizzying golden heights and shafts of warm piercing sunshine, honors God instead.

A place that begs questioning, if only you were brave enough to stop for the answer.

A new friend: adoring, persistent and soft around the edges.

A gateway into another place, another time.

A bracing remedy for whatever ails you.

A symphony of pattern, texture and composition that welcomes you with glass drums and trumpets of steel and, with soft undulating wood-paneled woodwinds, begs you to return and explore it again: on foot, as it was meant to be seen.

You will.

The Paris Top 10:

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