Any minute now, my ship is coming in
I’ll keep checking the horizon
I’ll stand on the bow, feel the waves come crashing
Come crashing down down down, on meAnd you say, be still my love
Open up your heart
Let the light shine in
But don’t you understand
I already have a plan
I’m waiting for my real life to beginWhen I awoke today, suddenly nothing happened
But in my dreams, I slew the dragon
And down this beaten path, and up this cobbled lane
I’m walking in my old footsteps, once again
And you say, just be here now
Forget about the past, your mask is wearing thin
Let me throw one more dice
I know that I can win
I’m waiting for my real life to beginAny minute now, my ship is coming in
I’ll keep checking the horizon
And I’ll check my machine, there’s sure to be that call
It’s gonna happen soon, soon, soon
It’s just that times are leanAnd you say, be still my love
Open up your heart, let the light shine in
Don’t you understand
I already have a plan
I’m waiting for my real life to begin
A sleeping tiger still outweighs me
The past few days have felt like the tiger I was wrestling fell asleep on top of me.
This is a slight improvement from active battle, but just as debilitating. Those things weigh 500 pounds! I can’t move, I can’t really think clearly. I would love to be out enjoying the sun and long summer evenings. I would love to tie on my new sneakers (still en route via amazon.com) and walk around Jamaica Pond, burning off some of this weight. I would love to be seeing friends, going to the beach, museums, movies. I would love have something to talk about with my housemates in the evenings.
I’m in the process of switching from one med to another (I feel like I’ve been in that process fro two years), so my body is adjusting to the lack of one thing, and the addition of another. I am hoping that the next few weeks will bring an equilibrium somewhat better than muffled immobility.
But who knows. Hope is a double edged sword, and I have grown wary of standing up because the fall is that much farther. Maybe if I try to push the tiger off of me I’ll wake him. Maybe it’s better this way.
What was the MacDonald quote? “The false refuge of a weary collapse.”
My photo edit of the day. I took this photo on my way to a meeting last spring. I am dressed nicely in a white blouse, necklace, my red leather purse slung over my shoulder and my sunglasses perched on my head. My eyebrows are even plucked. This can’t be my self portrait right now, but it is part of who I am, part of what I was. So I give you a half portrait. The other half is in sweats and a t-shirt, lying in bed surfing the internet, waiting on the tigers’ next move.
There is much to see and hear.
Do you want to play make believe?
Transcendance and Immanence
23420 places
In the octal numeral system, 10,000 is 23420.
In binary it is 10011100010000.
In base 36 it is 7PS.
If you’re confused (like me) it’s because you’re so used to the decimal system that you don’t even think of it as a system, you think of it as what numbers intrinsically do. But we count the way we do because someone (the ancient Egyptians, to be precise) decided that they would count up to ten and then start again at one, making a note in the left hand column that they were on their second set of ten.
But in other systems you count up to…other numbers, and then start over. So in the octal, or eight based system, you count up to EIGHT, then start over at one: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,21, and so on. Don’t say the numbers past eight as “eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen…” or you will be using decimal language to describe octal numbers. “Teen” means ten, after all, and there is no ten in octal. So unless you speak the language of the Yuki tribe of California (which used an octal system) you’d better call 11 “one one,” and 47 “four seven.”
I think I’ve mentioned my housemates Mark and Joel before. This is the kind of conversational topic that is likely to spring up in our kitchen without warning. Daniela (Joel’s wife) usually leaves to go do something else, but I am like a little kid wanting to be included in the grownups’ conversation, so I pay as much attention as I can, then go up to my room and start googling.
Then I get really excited about learning something new, and I want to share! So I draw a picture and hang it on the refrigerator. Wait, no, that’s what I did when I was a kid. Now, I blog.
So, if Hopkins was living in a society that used the octal system, he would have written,
Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Chríst—for Christ plays in two three four two zero places…
…which really messes up the iambic pentameter…
…and my blog would be called the same.
But he wasn’t, so he didn’t, and it’s not.
Copley farmer’s market
My parents got me my first digital camera ever for last Christmas (I know, but I had a good film camera that lasted for years), but I have only now gotten around to buying batteries and learning how to use it. I spent the whole day taking pictures and then editing them with iphoto. These are my first attempts to enter the world of digital photography. I’ll post a few here, but follow this link to see the rest.
Sunflowers and produce
Root vegetables
Berries
Trinity Church reflected in the Hancock building
Copley Square fountains
Close-up of fountain
Kingfishers, dragonflies, stones and YOU
The name of this website comes from a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem, untitled:
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.
Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is—
Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.
I love several things about this poem. The first is Hopkins incredibly thought-out writing style, which he called “sprung rhythm.” It is sort of an advanced alliteration, along with the desire that not one word be superfluous, that every word express the feel and sense of the poem.
Another thing I love is the incredibly evocative images: a kingfisher catching the glint of the sun as he dives, a dragonfly as it darts, the ring of a stone as it tumbles down a well. It is the epitome of the stock writing advice, “show it, don’t say it.”
A common kingfisher::The kind found in Europe
What I love most about this poem, though, is the idea that the world is God’s creation, and therefore everything in it is glorifying him just by being itself: The kingfishers and dragonflies catching the glint of the sun, (I saw a kingfisher in Morocco; they’re beautiful) are calling out, “I am me! This is who I am and what I do!”
Then in the second paragraph he declares that the same principle applies to the “just” man — a man (or woman) who is seeking God and living for him, i.e. acting “in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is.” As a kingfisher is created to dive for fish and a dragonfly to hover and dart after bugs, so each of us is created with a sense of purpose and seeks to fulfill that purpose. That purpose is the “restlessness” that Augustine talks about. For the Christian (literally “little Christ”) that purpose is to reflect Christ. And, Hopkins says, we do! Each of us, through our unique personalities, our gifts, our compassions, even our weaknesses and griefs glorify God. As Iraneaus said, “The glory of God is man fully alive.”
So this website/blog is dedicated to the ten thousand places that Christ “plays” (think the way light plays on the water rather than a child playing with toys); In nature, in art, in my beautiful friends, in YOU. Be! Be who you are, what you are, what you were created to be.
Yours in the journey,
Jessica
Ten Thousand Places 