This meme went around ages ago, but I didn't have an ipod to participate. I grabbed the format from Stories from the Red Tent. If your life were a movie, what would the soundtrack be?
So, here's how it works:
1. Open your itunes library
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie (As astoundingly appropriate most of the songs turned out to be, you'll know I didn't lie because you see Enya below. Not once. Not twice. But three times!)
7. I added one more feature, though. I listened to each of the songs (except the first one) that came up then included a line or two from the lyrics which seemed especially fitting.
So then, the soundtrack of my life:
Opening Credits
"Instant Karma" by U2 Instant Karma: Save Darfur album
Waking Up:
"Beloved" by Minnie Driver
You'll be my beloved one...
First Day of School:
"Orinoco Flow" by Enya (oooh, embarrassing that you know Enya is on my ipod!)
Sail away, sail away, sail away
Falling in Love:
"Hey There Delilah" by Plain White T's (okay, this is humiliating.)
Don't you worry about the distance, I'm right there if you listen
Breaking Up
"Choral" by David Darling
Very moody, cello instrumental
Prom
"River" by Joni Mitchell (Blue)
He loved me so naughty made me weak in the knees,
Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on
Life
"Ebudae" by Enya
lyrics are in Gaelic, which is somehow appropriate because I understand life about as well as I understand Gaelic.
Mental Breakdown:
"One Man" by Eulogies
I learned something in the nick of time: I'm only one [wo]man.
Driving:
"Hearts" by Yes
Set your heart sail on the river, look around as you drift downstream (Sheesh, noticing a theme going here about sailing away???)
Flashback:
"Kyrie Eleison" by Taize
Yeah. Lyrics in Latin and French. Flashback to seminary?
Getting Back Together:
"Hard Times Come Again No More" by James Taylor on Appalachian Journey (cool!)
'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary: Hard Times Come Again No More
Wedding:
"Brain Damage" by Pink Floyd. (Oh no! I totally disagree!!!)
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon (so is this, like, for better or for worse?)
You re-arrange me until I'm sane (okay, I can go with that)
Birth of Child:
"Dark I Am Yet Lovely" by Sinead O'Connor (from Song of Songs)
Say I delight in his look, he is the one my soul brought
Rivers can't drown love
Final Battle
"Our Friends Appear Like the Dawn" by Bodies of Water
Water gushed out from the rock; he breathed and the face of the earth was renewed; the depths of the ocean convulsed.
Death Scene:
"The Great Gig in the Sky" by Pink Floyd (ha!)
I am not afraid to die; any time will do, I don't mind. Why should I be afraid to die?
Funeral Song:
"Working Class Hero" by Green Day on Instant Karma: Save Darfur album
A working class hero is something to be
End Credits:
"Hope Has A Place" by Enya
One look at life and you may see it weaves a web over mystery although all the threads can rend apart for hope has a place in a lover's heart.
...Hope is hope and the heart is free...
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Small Improvements
I don't think I could have asked for a better work day - and not just because there was no one working with a jackhammer outside my window. Though I bet that helped. :)
This afternoon we went out and bought Monk new hockey skates for his birthday next week. We got them just a little early for him so he'll be able to wear them for his first-ever tournament this weekend.
We also bought a big ol' mirror (not at the hockey place, ha!) and hung it on the wall across from our large window (the one the cat and I were gazing out yesterday). Some months ago I started to keep an eye out for a mirror because I thought it would help expand the space of our teeny apartment. I also think it will pick up on the light and multiply it. And, okay, truth be told - my spiritual director gave me a complementary Feng Shui consultation for my office a few months ago and she told me that every room is supposed to have a mirror in it. Or something like that. D is tremendously patient with me when it comes to these kinds of things. He couldn't care less if it were just about him. But I am always, always, thinking about how to improve our space. It's unending.
This afternoon we went out and bought Monk new hockey skates for his birthday next week. We got them just a little early for him so he'll be able to wear them for his first-ever tournament this weekend.
We also bought a big ol' mirror (not at the hockey place, ha!) and hung it on the wall across from our large window (the one the cat and I were gazing out yesterday). Some months ago I started to keep an eye out for a mirror because I thought it would help expand the space of our teeny apartment. I also think it will pick up on the light and multiply it. And, okay, truth be told - my spiritual director gave me a complementary Feng Shui consultation for my office a few months ago and she told me that every room is supposed to have a mirror in it. Or something like that. D is tremendously patient with me when it comes to these kinds of things. He couldn't care less if it were just about him. But I am always, always, thinking about how to improve our space. It's unending.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Moment of Contentment
Just now...
After my hard day's work, I stretch out on the couch just below the giant living room window on the second floor. I break open the binding to start a new Connie Willis book in hand from the Public Library. Out the window, all I see is the sky and the California Bay Tree in full bloom. The fog is pouring in from across the bay and starting to stack up in huge, inviting clouds against the hills. Someone is flying a kite in the park across the street. I watch the green and black kite dancing between the shifting colors in the white and blue background of the sky. All of this is wonderful enough. But it gets even better when the cat jumps into my lap, clearly with a nap in mind, but then spots the same kite I've been watching. I feel his whole body tense up with the eagerness only a cat can express so full-bodied perfectly. He's convinced the kite is a bird. Together we marvel.
After my hard day's work, I stretch out on the couch just below the giant living room window on the second floor. I break open the binding to start a new Connie Willis book in hand from the Public Library. Out the window, all I see is the sky and the California Bay Tree in full bloom. The fog is pouring in from across the bay and starting to stack up in huge, inviting clouds against the hills. Someone is flying a kite in the park across the street. I watch the green and black kite dancing between the shifting colors in the white and blue background of the sky. All of this is wonderful enough. But it gets even better when the cat jumps into my lap, clearly with a nap in mind, but then spots the same kite I've been watching. I feel his whole body tense up with the eagerness only a cat can express so full-bodied perfectly. He's convinced the kite is a bird. Together we marvel.
How To Know the (Work) Day is Done
Phew! Intense day of work on the dissertation proposal today and I am fried! I'm continuing to simply shape and refine the proposal, making every sentence as packed full of meaning and intent as I can.
One of my tasks today was to write down each of the major terms or concepts I'm employing in this dissertation and work out a definition for each one--so that I can precisely and concisely talk about them. That felt like pretty important work.
I also wrote a bit of an introduction which I think (I hope!) helps to situate where my project fits in the overall field.
All this while someone worked a jackhammer outside my office window. Can you say headache?
Now my weary brain has turned its attention to Target--where I need to buy some girly-girly hair stuff. No more big words for me today, I'm afraid. Just a vague sense of needing to buy pretty smelling shampoo.
One of my tasks today was to write down each of the major terms or concepts I'm employing in this dissertation and work out a definition for each one--so that I can precisely and concisely talk about them. That felt like pretty important work.
I also wrote a bit of an introduction which I think (I hope!) helps to situate where my project fits in the overall field.
All this while someone worked a jackhammer outside my office window. Can you say headache?
Now my weary brain has turned its attention to Target--where I need to buy some girly-girly hair stuff. No more big words for me today, I'm afraid. Just a vague sense of needing to buy pretty smelling shampoo.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Random Things Entry
The longer it's been, the harder it is to write anything here at all. Vicious cycle. But my brother sent me an encouraging note this morning that reminded me my blog is only here to serve me--not to be an obligation or to try and craft the most lovely entries I can write. But he also reminded me that the blog helps family on East Coast get a little window into our lives here. So I decided to break the silence (again!) and try to write simply a Random Things Entry.
1. Our seminary is on break right now, so I have the week to concentrate on revising my dissertation proposal which is almost, almost there. I've been more hopeful (which doesn't mean terror-free, of course!) these past couple weeks than maybe ever before. Although doing the revisions will be intensive, difficult work, I woke up this morning very aware of the privilege of getting to work on it full time this week. No chapel to plan for tonight; no faculty meetings; no classes to prepare--just dissertating (my new favorite verb).
2. Yesterday at church we were given the opportunity to call out Signs of Resurrection in our world today. It was a rite paired with one the week before, in which we called out places where crucifixion still occur. I realized, in participating in the rite, how much I thirst to acknowledge resurrection and hope in the world today. I see and feel the painful things about life, the broken places are all too evident. And yet, I know I live in hope. I don't get to name that hope very often, though. Maybe this can be a spiritual discipline for me during this season of Easter.
3. Monk never ceases to astound me, everyday. He has been hilarious lately. He loves to make us laugh; and he feels like he's finally figured out how. The two of us have been playing the card game Spit together lately. And I don't think we could laugh more than we do as we play. I am delighted, here on the eve of his tenth birthday, that he can make just as many jokes when he's losing as when he's winning. We finally seemed to have moved through that stage where losing isn't the end of the world.
4. Sometimes I take Monk's hand into mine and I'm amazed at the substance of it, the boyness of it, the strength I can tell that's in it, the otherness of him from me--how can it be? The umbilical cord still isn't entirely cut, though. The other night he was being very silly, jumping around the living room. And he flung himself into the air and onto the couch across the room from me. But he was just off kilter and landed a little on the edge of couch; I heard him hit the more solid part of it rather than landing square on the cushion. And I'm telling you, I felt it--my hands tingled in response to the sound I heard. He was fine, of course. But I marveled that we aren't entirely separate human beings quite yet.
5. Last night I showed Monk how to lift comic pictures off the page with Silly Putty.
6. We've been keeping an eye out for larger apartments in our area. Actually, we'd love to rent a single-family home with a yard. But I think D and I both have the sense that we ought to try and stick it out in this apartment one more year. But not without some changes around here. So we've set up a consultation with a professional organizer! I'm very excited about this. The appointment is set for April 9. So I'll try and remember to update about the process here.
OK, 6 random things.
1. Our seminary is on break right now, so I have the week to concentrate on revising my dissertation proposal which is almost, almost there. I've been more hopeful (which doesn't mean terror-free, of course!) these past couple weeks than maybe ever before. Although doing the revisions will be intensive, difficult work, I woke up this morning very aware of the privilege of getting to work on it full time this week. No chapel to plan for tonight; no faculty meetings; no classes to prepare--just dissertating (my new favorite verb).
2. Yesterday at church we were given the opportunity to call out Signs of Resurrection in our world today. It was a rite paired with one the week before, in which we called out places where crucifixion still occur. I realized, in participating in the rite, how much I thirst to acknowledge resurrection and hope in the world today. I see and feel the painful things about life, the broken places are all too evident. And yet, I know I live in hope. I don't get to name that hope very often, though. Maybe this can be a spiritual discipline for me during this season of Easter.
3. Monk never ceases to astound me, everyday. He has been hilarious lately. He loves to make us laugh; and he feels like he's finally figured out how. The two of us have been playing the card game Spit together lately. And I don't think we could laugh more than we do as we play. I am delighted, here on the eve of his tenth birthday, that he can make just as many jokes when he's losing as when he's winning. We finally seemed to have moved through that stage where losing isn't the end of the world.
4. Sometimes I take Monk's hand into mine and I'm amazed at the substance of it, the boyness of it, the strength I can tell that's in it, the otherness of him from me--how can it be? The umbilical cord still isn't entirely cut, though. The other night he was being very silly, jumping around the living room. And he flung himself into the air and onto the couch across the room from me. But he was just off kilter and landed a little on the edge of couch; I heard him hit the more solid part of it rather than landing square on the cushion. And I'm telling you, I felt it--my hands tingled in response to the sound I heard. He was fine, of course. But I marveled that we aren't entirely separate human beings quite yet.
5. Last night I showed Monk how to lift comic pictures off the page with Silly Putty.
6. We've been keeping an eye out for larger apartments in our area. Actually, we'd love to rent a single-family home with a yard. But I think D and I both have the sense that we ought to try and stick it out in this apartment one more year. But not without some changes around here. So we've set up a consultation with a professional organizer! I'm very excited about this. The appointment is set for April 9. So I'll try and remember to update about the process here.
OK, 6 random things.
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