A Bee Gees and Rita Hayworth Mashup

Better late than never, I just came across this YouTube video. Worth 5 minutes to watch Rita Hayworth and a host of great dance partners "Stayin' Alive." A terrific blend of music and video editing, makes me wish Hollywood would bring back musicals to film.

If seeing this doesn't make you want to dance, then at least watch one of Rita's old movies. She is best known for "Gilda." Rita Hayworth said, "Whatever you write about me, don`t make it sad." 

Reading Between the Lines

When I Was a Child I Read Books by Marilynne Robinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Great thinker who gets outside the box to probe ideas. Validates my own intuition about subjects she discussed.

View all my reviews

Still Reading Lauren Winner

My favorite chapter in Lauren Winner’s new book, Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis, comes near the end, a chapter she calls “Middle Tint.” Here she describes the painter’s palette, how according to nineteenth-century art critic John Ruskin, middle tint comprises most of an artist’s painting.

Lauren compares the miles of ordinary colors in a painting to the life of faithfulness, in effect saying that most of our lives are lived in the gray tones, again quoting Ruskin, with only touches of “extreme lights and extreme darks, isolated and sharp, so that the eye goes to them directly, and feels them to be key-notes of the whole composition.”

This comparison reassures her, as well as her readers, that midlife grays are as necessary to a vital and vibrant spiritual life as the early exuberance that she captured so well in Girl Meets God. In other words, one must persevere through the dreary, drab and difficult.

I took a weeklong memoir workshop Lauren taught last summer, and she read this chapter, “Middle Tint,” at an evening session where all participants at The Glen in Santa Fe had gathered to hear her speak. She read like a performer, holding an advance copy of her book, switching hands, pacing and making eye contact with the audience, smiling, pausing, dramatic; she wore a plain black knit dress with cowboy boots, a scarf and dangly earrings—seeking approval while hoping not to need any.

Sitting to Lauren’s left at a table in the classroom each morning from nine to noon, I felt aware of her distraction, the way she seemed both engaged and detached, excited and wary, perhaps a bit self-conscious because this book chronicles a different chapter of her life, not the one she expected to live out as a Christian. She played with her hair, taking it down, twisting it, putting it back in a ponytail holder, again and again as she listened or conversed, trying to encourage and critique. 

She wore sleeveless dresses that exposed her unshaved underarms (something only a person who does shave under her arms would note), adding to her quirkiness, originality, diffidence. Since the first time I had met her at a seminar in Orlando in 2008, she had gone through a divorce, and her mother had died, and she was waiting for this book to come out in January. Both fearful and full of faith, I told myself, aren’t we all?

Lauren Winner was well prepared for the workshop and attentive to each person’s manuscript, guiding class members’ comments with finesse. In a hand-written note at the end of the week, she encouraged me to finish my memoir. I wonder what she said to the other people in the class. That she had taken the time to write each of us, 15 in all, said a lot. Lauren teaches at Duke Divinity School, an author and a speaker whose voice has resonance in a culture where a good girl is hard to find.

Writing this blog led me to a review of her book in Christianity Today, which that writer titled "Girl Meets Grace." Legalists will not like this take, but that article notes that Lauren Winner's continued participation with the body of Christ, i.e. going to church when she doesn't feel like it, "suggest[s] that liturgical churches may provide a stronger antidote for doubting Christians than praise choruses and video sermon illustrations."

I like her. I like reading her books. I like the way she weaves in and out of her doubts, like a car in traffic on the freeway. She knows where she’s going with her arguments and illustrations, accommodating passengers willing to take a ride on the Reading. She struggles with her faith and doubts, the way one might consider which route to take home, but Lauren does this on the page.

“I think on paper.” Don’t all writers?

Most of all, I like knowing that she’s a real person, confronting real problems and not wanting to sound expert at solving other people’s problems when she has learned how hard it is to tackle her own. She said, “It turns out that the Christian story is a good story in which to learn to fail.”

And my favorite quote, “ … I am a small character in a story that is always fundamentally about God.”

Always. Story. God. I think we’re on the same page.

The Organizer

My daughter-in-law has the gift of organization. She likes to use her gift to help others. She cleans up messes that other people make.

While the rest of the adults saw a movie at the theater, Audra organized my daughter's pantry. This feat turned into a video that Audra and John made as their talent for this year's Christmas Family Talent Show.

A legend in our family, now I share Audra with the world.

Audra Frugé in "The Organizer"

This is not the end, only the middle of a continuing story . . .

Amaryllis by New Year's

The amaryllis surprises; the life is in the bulb.

Last year, the bulb I planted had no flowers. This one has three blossoms so far. A wonder to watch it open, it gets top-heavy and tips over so a stake and a tie help support the weight.

It's worth the wait.
 

A friend planted this bulb in a glass bowl and told me to water it with ice cubes, 4 or 5, a couple of times a week.

I started taking pictures every day after Christmas. It didn't take long to go from this . . .

 . . . to this.

 Aerial view.

 And now I can't decide which view I like best.

Here's a link to basic information about amaryllis bulbs because this glorious flower does all the work. No green thumb required.

Texas Tech Football 2011

Texas Tech University plays its last home football game today against #2 ranked OSU. Expect to get blown away, both literally and figuratively as high winds are forecast.

But football tracks with the seasons, and as this season of high level spectator sport concludes, fans like me have fun even when the team loses.

The Tech versus A&M game was my personal favorite. I wore a Tech sweatshirt, sat in a season-ticket-holder seat and thought about the story of the little boy who refused to sit down in church. Finally, his mother succeeded in making him sit, but he said, "I'm sitting down on the outside but standing up on the inside." That was me at that game. I had to look like I rooted for Tech, but in truth I cheered for A&M, on account of my Aggie son, Jordan.

Now I'm wistful, too, about the breach from the Big 12 by A&M, which made this possibly the last time Tech will play A&M in Jones Stadium, at least for the foreseeable future. So here's my tribute to the Fightin' Aggie Band.

Read here to learn why this statue of Will Rogers is on the campus of Texas Tech http://www.ttu.edu/traditions/rogers.php

Coach Tommy Tubberville and his gunslingers … a tribute to Tombstone, maybe?

Storm Front

First game and I bailed when a storm front blew in. One minute, dead calm. The next, gusts of wind brought dirt from harvested cotton fields to the north to engulf the stadium. Temperature dropped 25 degrees in minutes. Lightning struck in the sky behind the Jumbo-tron.

"We gotta get outta here. (pause) Yeah, we gotta get out."

Dark settled in the midst of daylight.

The last patch of blue before the sky goes granite grey.

Oh, say, can you see?

Tech's band in their matador uniforms carry on school traditions, too.

"You wanna play some football?"

Guns up

Tribute to US flag, Sonic and son-in-law, Chris

Nobody does sunset better than West Texas

Lift off: four feet off the ground

Tech has had some high points this season and I hope they distinguish themselves in a good way during today's game. Lubbock fans are crazy for their football team.

"Ya'll come back, Ya hear?" (Coach Tubberville didn't say that. Granny Clampett did, but when it comes to football, that's what every coach hopes for, right? The fans will return, the players will improve and the coach will keep his job.)

Intentional

My friend, Marcia

Where have all the bloggers gone?

Like others, I have gone missing in action to pursue other concerns.

Has anyone missed me? I mean, really?

But I have missed blogging.

Still hacking away at a manuscript that I began in earnest at the beginning of 2011, I find this "book" (a memoir) the hardest to complete of all the projects I have ever begun.
And it's teaching me something about myself that I needed to learn.

Unless I enjoy the process, the product will disappoint.

During my second year at DTS, my great friend Marcia spent the night with me, and I shared with her my discouragement about school. She startled me by saying, "You will finish, Carol. You're a 100%-er. You finish what you start."

Pictures I took of Marcia when I studied photography at AC

And she was right, too. I did finish in 2008. And because I did not enjoy the process during the 4 years spent attending seminary, I have failed to appreciate that accomplishment.

Why has it taken me so long to realize this?

My friend's date of birth falls on Veteran's Day.
I will be thinking of her that day, as on so many other days since her departure. I wish she could have seen me graduate. I wish she were still here to celebrate another birthday. I wish she could have imagined a better future.

Rather than give up, I plan to blog again. Marcia would have been glad.