Somebody's Getting Married

I awoke at dawn, nervous as a bride... wait a second! But what do you do at 6 a.m. on your wedding day, when most everything is done and you don't have to be anywhere until 11? I went for a swim. The sky was turning from grey to blue, birds and bees hummed and flirted amongst the blackberries and rose bushes, and the dog woke up and came to sit by the pool and watch me as I floated leisurely in the summer-warmed water. Gradually my eyes began to open a little more, and the first rays of sun glinted off the ring on my finger. Tomorrow I'll have a husband, I'll be a wife. Today I'm a bride. I realized I was smiling, my shoulders were relaxing.

Now I'm thinking of the bouquet of roses and peonies in the refrigerator next to the milk and eggs. I'm thinking of a man across town waking up and putting on a suit and tie. I'm thinking of all the dear friends I'll see this afternoon, who have come from near and far to wish me well. I'm awake, alive, and happy.

Sunday Message

Today in church the lesson was on Christ's atonement, so much of the lesson focused on repentance and grace. As we discussed these themes, I remembered these posters I'd seen in Harlem. Put up by a local businessman, no doubt, as a way to try and change the drug-riddled and gang-ridden poor community, yet I wonder if anyone heeds them and decides to repent, or if anyone passing by truly understands their meaning. As I see people around me going through hard times caused by sins and mistakes, some the same mistakes I made myself at one point in my life, I find myself wishing I could just lift those people up out of their problems and cause them to see once and for all the way to happiness and peace. I have all but walked around with a huge poster that says "Repent!" I've tried to be a listening ear, a good example, a giver of advice, a comfort dispenser (to quote Mrs. Norman Vincent Peale) and a sister. With all my heart I long for them to understand, and sometimes in my dark moments I fantasize about kidnapping them and forcibly shielding them from the influences of the world. But just telling them or wanting it for them is not enough, and there is only so much I can do. They have to choose and do it for themselves, just as I learned from my mistakes and chose a better way. Then, by the healing and empowering grace of Christ's atonement, their desire and efforts can be strengthened and they can change, learn, grow, improve, and be sanctified.

Weathering the Storm

Deep inside the brambly marriage of a rosebush and a climbing trumpet vine in the backyard is a nest, where a tiny new-hatched cardinal baby waits next to an unhatched speckled egg, it's mouth wide open and ready for its mother and father to deposit food. When the parent birds come, the baby makes no sounds, but the proud cardinal parents chirp and sing and squeak as they patrol the backyard, hunt for bugs, and care for their baby. Since it hatched, there have been two huge lighting storms, with torrential rains, and I often think about the baby bird and wonder if it's able to curl up into a tight ball and withstand the rain, or if it's mother is standing over it, protecting it from the tempest. Meanwhile, there have been four human babies running around the yard, squealing and squalling, laughing and jumping, swimming and sunning, having a grand adventure during the week they've been here at their grandparents' house. My sister and her brood have come to roost with us here for a week and a half while they transition from Idaho to Raleigh. They're moving back East, to be close to the family, to start fresh, to try new opportunities. And I've been so glad to spend time with my two nieces and two nephews. There has been no time to blog, of course. Anyone who spends all day playing with four kids, or has planned a wedding must know that.

I'm grateful to my mom who insisted that I get my own bedroom in the house even though everyone else has to share and squish and sleep on floors. There are some perqs to being the bride-to-be, apparently. So I have had a place to escape to when the family drama gets too hot, or the kids too demanding, or I just want to talk on the phone to C in a quiet place. In fact, the past few days I have felt like I am in the eye of a turbulent storm. People all around me clash and have differences and not everyone in my family gets along with each other, and there have been (minor) setbacks with wedding plans and things like that, but at the center of it all I am still just floating along in my bubble, able to brush aside things that might have once felled me, but which now seem so insignificant in comparison to the joy and love I feel toward my fiance, and the excitement of being married to him. If the entire world fell apart and my whole entire wedding went haywire, as long as we could be together none of the chaos would matter to me. It sounds so cheesy to write it out like that, but it's true.

Yesterday was a hard day. I can't really talk about it because it involves deeply personal issues within my family. Suffice it to say that it was a long and exhausting day both emotionally and mentally, but at the end of it was the dinner where my parents were going to meet C's parents for the first time. I knew that C would be waiting for me at the restaurant, and that when he embraced me, the world's cares would slough away, and all would we well with the world. He was, and they did, and it is. The world is inherently riddled with day to day problems as well as huge catastrophes every once in a while, but when I close my eyes and lean my head on C's strong shoulder and he whispers "Everything is going to be all right," then I can't help but believe him.

Metropolitan

A gem of a church in East Harlem!

Three Good Things About the A-Team Movie

The good news about the A-Team movie is that I now have the theme song stuck in my head. That's a good thing because for the past month I've had "It's A Jolly Holiday" from Mary Poppins stuck in my head and that was driving me absolutely crazy. The other good news about the A-Team movie is that I actually liked it. I mean, it's not a great movie, but it was very entertaining. I used to love watching the old TV show with my brother and as we drove to the theater to see the movie today, opening day, we wondered if this new iteration would let us down. It didn't. And the other good thing about it was the inclusion of Jon Hamm! I have missed Mad Men so much, and am trying to survive the last few weeks before it starts up again so to see Hamm, aka Don Draper, was a treat.

Delinquency

I've been delinquent from my blog because there are so many other fun things to do besides sit inside the house and write. And yet, I want to remember these wonderful days and capture them somehow before they slip away. So what have I been so busy doing?

Well, first of all, my mom needed to paint my sister's bedroom, and it was a mammoth chore. I won't say she's a hoarder, but my sister has a LOT of stuff, and we had to organize it all as we painted each wall of her enormous room, with odd walls. I even had to crawl up into a little niche by the ceiling and paint in there while lying on my back like Michelangelo, which is the only comparison I'll make to him because I had a very hard time just covering the wall with two coats of "toasted scone" let alone painting elaborate frescoes with an array of hand-mixed paints.

Then, C said he was going to come over one day after work, and two hours later he showed up with a badminton set! We set it up in the front yard and have been playing it ever since. Well, we played until the birdies all fell apart. They just don't make 'em like they used to. But as soon as we get some more shuttlecocks, we'll be back at it. Meanwhile, my arms need a rest from all the painting and swatting. He also brought over a volleyball, which made me scowl. It just figures that I'm marrying someone who's favorite sport is my absolute least favorite one. I hate volleyball, but he used to play on a volleyball team that traveled around competing. He's determined to make me like it, and I'm equally determined not to. Well, maybe not so much determined as just completely doubtful.

After our round of badminton last night we jumped in the swimming pool, which is where I've been spending a lot of time, too. It's just so wonderful to be floating around in cool water on a hot summer day. There's no where else I'd rather be. And I'm actually getting a little tan, too. There's a lot to see in the backyard while swimming and sunning. The black raspberry bushes are full of delicious ripe berries, the blackberries will be next, and there is a cardinal's nest in a rosebush, with two speckled eggs in it. At night the fireflies come out and compete with the stars, and an owl can be heard in the woods just beyond the backyard fence.

As a reward for getting the room painted, my mom drove E and I to the beach on Saturday. It takes just over 2 hours from our house, but it's completely worth the trip. Just as you arrive in Wilmington, there is the Krispy Kreme donut factory with hot fresh donuts coming down the conveyer belt and under a waterfall of icing, straight into my mouth. Er, um, what I mean is it's a tradition to stop there and get a donut on the way to the beach. The beach was sunny, hot, and sticky. We had a hard time keeping our beach umbrella in the sand with all the wind, but finally E buried it deep enough that it stayed put and we were free to run around and frolic in the surf. The water felt amazing, though the waves dunked me a few times. We watched surfers, kids, diving birds, and all sorts of people, as we sunned, swam, snacked, and snoozed. Then, when the sun got low in the sky and we ran out of quarters for the parking meter, we headed home.

Back at home, I started making a quilt for my new nephew, who was just born a few months ago. He'll be here tomorrow with my sister and her family, who are coming for a visit, so I'm going to try and finish the little quilt today. I've also got wedding tablecloths to sew, and a few other wedding thing to work on. It's all coming along, but getting me a little stressed, just because I don't want to forget anything, and I want it all to be fun and interesting for my guests, and have it be beautiful too. Weddings are hard work! Luckily I'll never have to do it again. Now, I should probably get busy...

Church of the Meek

I really thought I'd already posted this Harlem church on my blog, because I used to pass it so often, but I've searched back and don't see it. So here it is, the Church of the Week, the Church of the Meek, on a stormy day in Harlem. Sometimes I miss those old neighborhoods a lot.

Sleepiness

E took the screen off the big dormer window in the upstairs room of the house this afternoon and scared out a spider that landed on my mom, who was down on the floor looking at paint samples, deciding what the new color of the walls should be. Just as she began favoring Burnt Mocha over Rustic Nutberry, E started screaming and pointing and my mom jumped across the room. It was the fastest either one of them moved all day, so fast I didn't even get a glimpse of the spider before it died on the pine-green carpet, which I think looks best with Almond Taupe.

Anyway, today was one of those days when there seemed to be a spell cast over the house. As my dreams gave way to the birdsong outside my window, I wanted to wake up but my eyes never seemed to quite open all the way. After breakfast I crawled upstairs and got back into bed. Later, E and I went to the mall to look at dresses (for her) and swimsuits (for me) and for once I walked at her pace instead of mine (always a league ahead and urging her to hurry up.) No, today we both dragged our feet around the Streets at Southpoint, which was a good idea because otherwise I would have stayed in bed all day probably, doing nothing much. After the second store I made a beeline to the food court and ordered a big Diet Coke, which I think helped. At least, by the time we made it to Urban Outfitters, my eyes were open enough to see that all clothing made for young people these days is for hoochies.

I did find a swimsuit, but E didn't find a dress. We both found sunglasses, and I don't care if aviators are out of style, they look good on me. But I'm not used to wearing sunglasses and I forgot to put them on later as I lay by the pool, soaking up the last few rays of the sun before it slipped behind a big ol' rain-cloud. Kiana came over and sniffed at me and then walked away. I felt glued to the warm concrete, and closed my eyes, bidding sleep, but sleep wouldn't come. Later I found Kiana in the corner of the yard, standing with her silvery back hunched like she does these old days, under the branches of the black raspberry bushes. The berries are ripe when they come right off the stem with ease, and I enjoyed a few. Guess the birds haven't discovered them yet, so don't breathe a word. I gave Kiana one, and she ate it, but she's a good dog and didn't eat any berries off the vine. No, she ran over to the fence where the cats were watching us, and started barking at them. Why do dogs love to bother cats?

The cats just wanted food, and after that it must have been my supper time too, because mom had T-bones and baked potatoes dished out for us all. It was a holiday, after all. Full-bellied and still sleepy, I retired to the front porch where I rocked on the swing and talked on the phone to my sweetheart while twilight came up the driveway and fireflies lit up the grass. Maybe tomorrow I'll be more awake, but being sleepy all day today wasn't so bad, I guess.

Church Day

Happy Sunday! Happy church day. The Harlem churches will continue for 4 more weeks until I'm married and living in Durham, at which point I will commence with sharing pics of Durham churches. In some ways, Durham is just like Harlem, with most of its churches in its poorest and humblest neighborhoods. Some are houses turned into churches. Some have barred windows. Some are massive. I'm looking forward to living in Durham, learning about my new neighborhood, and sharing it with you.

The Old Piano Roll Blues

Even if I weren't planning a wedding, I would still have weddings on my mind: my brother has been constantly playing Pachelbel's Canon on the piano for the past two weeks to the point where I feel like I'm on the set of "A Wedding Story." The kicker? My brother doesn't even know how to play the piano. My parents have owned a player piano since I was in high school, but in those days playing it was more of a workout than an enjoyable entertainment. Because the bellows were completely worn out, you had to pedal the thing like you were coming down the home stretch of the Tour de France in order to get enough air to make the music play. Eventually we just stopped playing it because we didn't want to make it worse. But I'm happy to report that finally, after all these years, the player piano has been restored to its original glory. This year my dad was able to find a man who replaced all the broken parts, fixed every little thing, and polished the piano up and down, inside and out. Then he ordered a bunch of new piano rolls from QRS, which has been making popular songs into player piano rolls since the 1920s, apparently. Now we have a growing library of piano roll songs from classical (Pachelbel, Chopin, Strauss) to show-tunes (Phantom of the Opera, The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof) to older and more authentic favorites from the golden age of the player piano, such as "Nola," "I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover" and "Come Back to Sorrento." Then there are random Polish polkas and stuff like "Dixie." Some of the rolls are very old and fragile, and can hardly play at all. Some, despite their age, seem just as good as new. All of them are fun. In fact, now that supper is over, the sun has gone down, and the day's chores are done, it might be a good idea to play "Yellow Bird" or "Hawaiian Love Song" as the family gathers round the piano to sing along.

Sunday, Rain Day, Church

One minute the sun is shining through a blue sky; the next minute big fat raindrops are falling down through black clouds. Spring is like that. I found this Harlem church on a similar day in New York. When I left my house the sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. A half hour later the sky was blackening and soon after I passed this church it started to rain heavily. But like a good New Yorker, I had my umbrella tucked in my bag. Not that that was any help to my shoes. And now that I'm not a New Yorker any longer, I don't carry an umbrella around, and I still never wear sensible shoes. But here there is usually a car to hop into or a house to run inside, and the only thing suffering from the rain is my hair which has been hopelessly curly and fuzzy all weekend.

Brought To You By the Letter C

Yesterday I got the sweetest email from C saying, "let's go get our marriage license!" So he played hooky from work for a few hours and we drove out to the county seat. First we went to the courthouse where we were directed instead to the clerk's office by a very congratulatory old southern man. At the clerk's office we had to fill out a form, pay $60 in cash, and swear on a Bible that we were telling the truth. Then, amongst the huge books chronicling all the births, deaths, and marriages in the county for all of recorded history, C and I were given license to marry. It was just another step in the process that is drawing us closer together, entwining our lives, and in five weeks we'll be married!

The clerk's office was conveniently located above Whole Foods, so E suggested we pop in and grab a few lil bottles of Martinelli's apple cider and drink a toast to the occasion. The nearest park we could find was more of a cemetery, but that was fine with us, and E snapped a few pictures of me and C as we drank a bubbly toast and acted all cute amongst the clover-covered gravestones.

Later that afternoon I rode over to the feed store with my mom to pick up her new chicks. Peeping, scratching and pecking, they are so adorable and fluffy. My picture doesn't really do them justice, but they wouldn't sit still for the camera.

I also picked up a few bags of compost, and in the evening I drove over to C's house where we planted beans, tomatoes, and zinnias. The evening was cool and clear and it felt so satisfying to get my hands covered in rich dark earth and plan a vegetable-filled future with my man. After the crops were all in, we rewarded ourselves with dinner at a Chinese restaurant and, as we ate, the clouds came up and a short rain watered our garden, then stopped in time for me to drive home safely under a crescent moon. Lovely.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Strange how hard it rains now. Rows and rows of endless clouds, but I'm holding on underneath this shroud, praying. That Patty Griffin song is in my head, it's been raining so hard all day long. So much rain, the pool is full to the very top and is overflowing. The garden won't need to be watered for a week or more, and maybe my mom's spindly plants will finally start to grow. It's the kind of dark rainy day that makes you not want to do anything at all except curl up with a bowl of popcorn and a book. I feel like watching To Kill A Mockingbird or The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. My mom has been baking bread and cookies all day and complaining about how fast the world has been turning on its axle (smile!), and my dad stayed home from work to work on the basement electrical wires. He's putting in a home theater down there. Too bad its not done already, cause it would be a nice place to escape from this dark wet dismal day. Sigh...

These Days

These days are full of good things. I'm so enjoying this time before marriage of preparation, learning, spending time with my family and with C. The weather is hot sometimes and I swim in the pool, and when it rains I sit on the front porch swing with my sisters and squeal at the lightning. After work C will pick me up and we'll go out, or I'll drive over to his house and we'll roast hot dogs and marshmallows in the backyard. The other day I was there and heard the jingle of an ice cream truck in the distance. Running to the curb, I willed the truck to come to me, and a few seconds later it rounded the corner and saw me waving. There's nothing like an ice cream sandwich on a 92 degree day, handed to you fresh from the freezer in the back of an old ice cream truck. C just laughed and watched me enjoying my childish treat. We never seem to run out of things to talk and laugh about, and if it's even possible, I think I'm falling more in love each day.

But times aren't all good. C is worried about his job, I need a job, and all the time I've spent outside in this Southern jungle have resulted in 19 mosquito bites that each itch like the dickens. Bugs just love me. Sigh... and there are other things on my mind too that have me worried, but I'm working hard to make things better, and it's hard to stay down when there are so many wonderful things happening around me.

My wedding invitations are sent, the dress project is progressing wonderfully, I bought a wedding veil, the ceremony and reception plans are coming along smoothly, and I'm absolutely surrounded by love. The world is beautiful, and I love life.

I guess I was going to write about today, but I don't even know what to say. Just that I love my man and how he comes to pick me up and take me to church. We walk into church hand in hand, we sing hymns together, go to Sunday School together, then separate, then come back together, look in each others eyes and get lost, and then we get congratulated by somebody, and then the Bishop sits us down and gives us sage advice, tells us that communication is the key to a good marriage, and we look at each other and realize that the thing we do best with each other is communicate, and we smile. We're going to have a great marriage! And then we drive home and have lunch and then we drive around the beautiful countryside and then sit and talk and laugh and drive some more, the car getting slower and slower the closer we get to my house. When we reluctantly say goodbye we kiss and smile, and then when he's about halfway down the driveway I can't wait to see C again. It sounds silly, and I can't even describe it, but it's just wonderful. That's my idea of a gorgeous day, and a sweet life.

Church

Church of the day! It's a Harlem one, although eventually I will segue into Durham churches. I had the best day today! I'll write about it in a minute...

Apothecary

My mom showed me how to pick the barely-opened peony blossoms, dip the stems in candle-wax, put the flowers in ziploc bags, and refrigerate them. This way, up to several months later we can take them out of the fridge, cut the waxy tip off the stem, put them in water, and the flowers will open up as if they were newly picked from the garden. It's a trick I'm taking full advantage of, because if I could change anything, I would have gotten married right now, during the peak peony season. They are just such lush, beautiful flowers, and this way I can at least have a few to mix in with my other flowers at the wedding festivities next month.

Meanwhile, my mom is making lemon-thyme cookies while her sourdough starter bubbles happily on the kitchen counter, she's also got a vat of wool on the stove being dyed, my sister K is trying to figure out how to grind her own minerals and make face powder, and the warm weather is making the garden outside surge and the frogs, spiders, and lizards that abound in North Carolina to find their way indoors. Yesterday I had to chase a large brown lizard out the door with a broom. So, it feels a little less like a wedding party around here and more like a witch's coven what with all the candles, herbs, wildlife, and concoctions. Now I just need to come up with a magical spell that will make the time speed up, because I can't wait to get married!

What's In A Name?

The votes are in, the poll is closed, and all thirteen of you (including me!) have had your say about changing the name of my blog. As you know, it has been called "New York Minutes" because I was living in New York until just a few weeks ago. I started the blog when I went to the city in an attempt to capture the adventures I was having and share them with my friends and family. The name was a pun on keeping a log (minutes) and the fast-pace lifestyle of the big city. But now that I'm back in North Carolina, with no plans to return to NYC any time soon, and since I want to keep my blog, and since it's too much of a hassle to start a new one (and lose my 10 followers, half of you whom I don't even know?), I decided to just change the title name. The URL stays the same, and I'm still the same person I've always been, just closer to getting married and with slightly less interesting stories now that I don't have all of New York City to cull from.

But what sort of new name do I choose? Here are some ideas I had:

An anagram of "New York Minutes" was one idea that I had, so I went to the anagram server to see what it would come up with. But unfortunately names such as "Sky Mutineer Now," "Entwine So Murky," and (gasp) "Smoky Wiener Nut" are not names that I feel are appropriate to the spirit of this blog.

Next I turned to the name of the city in which I will be living, but Durham has little to offer in the way of blog-name inspiration, and my mom was horrified at my idea of calling it "The Durham Bull." Durham is also known as Tobacco City, the City of Medicine, and is a baseball town, but none of those things are particularly relevant to my life.

So then I started reading some poems that I like, and one by Sara Teasdale stuck out: Stars over snow, and in the west a planet. Look for a lovely thing and you will find it. It is not far, it never will be far. I really love that poem, and the idea that there are lovely things all around us just waiting to be found, so I though of calling my blog "A Lovely Thing." Other names inspired by poems I considered are "A Tiny Song" from Walter de la Mare's "The Warbler," because my blog is a little bit like the tiny song a bird sings to itself and its friends. Or, "Daring All Things" from an Edward Carpenter poem, but although that poem starts out really good, it is mostly about naked men and, while there is nothing necessarily wrong with that, I didn't really feel like aligning myself with it specifically.

But I also thought about just calling the blog "Holiday" because it relates to my name and the song that my mom named me after (the Beegees' "You're a Holiday"), and then that reminded me of a song by the Spongetones that C played for me the other night, as we danced together under the stars: "Every night is a holiday when I'm spending my time with you. Every night is a holiday..." So, if his nights are holidays and I am a holiday, and the blog is about my days, then "Holiday, Every Day" seems like a good thing to call it. We'll try it out for a while and see if it sticks.