Did you hear that? It was a huge sigh of relief. Order is finally being restored to our little cottage in wake of our mold issues, and after a nine day stretch at work which I concluded this evening, I have FOUR days off to spend with my sweetheart as we celebrate the first anniversary of our wedding (this Saturday, already). And so, because I am ready to get down to the business of putting our house back in order and then relaxing, I have just a short post for you tonight.

I wanted to share one of my favorite photos, which I have never posted here:

(view larger)

I took this almost two and a half years ago, during a season of transition and re-evaluation in the middle of my Gutenberg career. (It was, actually, just before Gil and I started getting to know each other. Hmmm.)

Those familiar with this walk will have recognized it immediately, but that red, pointed-roofed building in the background is the school I called home for four years, and that wonderful gnarled-wood fence in the foreground belonged to a Jewish family who lived down the street from it. That family recently moved (and they took their fence with them), and soon Gutenberg students may not live in that red brick building either. Time clips along, and people and their belongings move in and out of these places we call home.

Yesterday we drove by a building in which our church met when I was a little girl. I’ve driven by this building often, and not often thought about it. But yesterday I happened to catch a glimpse in one of the windows, and suddenly I could smell the carpet on the staircase—I could taste the nerves as I waited backstage for my part in a children’s play—I could feel the weight of those red hymnals on my lap and the pride I felt at raising my voice in song (more clearly and beautifully than anyone else’s, I hoped). Years melted in that glance.

This photo, that experience, and the effort Gil and I have been putting into making our current home home, have left me with half-baked, percolating thoughts about home, and what it means, and these strange ties that we have to buildings and objects in this life. We can’t, after all, take it with us—and yet spaces have this strange power to bottle up our memories within their walls and hand them back to us when we come back to them.

Anyway. Half-baked, as I said. Do with them what you will. And please feel free to add any of your own thoughts (baked or otherwise)—I look forward to hearing them.

The cottage is enjoying (and so are its occupants) its first house-guest this week. My dear friend Molly, who graduated from Gutenberg with me last year, is visiting Eugene after a year at home in Maryland. She is staying with Gil and me, which absolutely delights me, except for the fact that I’m sorry she has to sleep on the couch. But she doesn’t seem to mind; it is a comfortable couch, after all.

When I was little, my brother and I would often make fun of my mom for taking such care to make sure the house was clean when she was expecting guests (clearly we were very respectful children). “But Mom,” I remember saying on more than one occasion, “they won’t care whether the house is completely put together.” This impenetrable argument never seemed to carry much weight with her, however, and she would still make me clean my room.

And now, in the inevitable way of things, I completely understand. It’s true, guests might not care about, or notice, the exact depths of cleanliness you achieve before they arrive (certainly, any friend who I really consider a friend would forgive me for an imperfectly clean house). But cleaning, straightening, and tying up loose ends, I’ve discovered, is an integral part of preparing to welcome someone—it’s a way of clearing your head, and your space, so that both can focus on the person or people you are welcoming into your life for a short while.

It is also a fantastic excuse to finish projects that have been sitting on the “to-do” list for too long. I used Molly’s arrival as an excuse to finally display something on the wall above our couch, which has been sadly bare since we moved here in February. To do this, I turned to some of my favorite tools: packaging twine and mini clothespins.

I pulled a few favorite photos (some old, some new) out of my overflowing photo box (another project, to be sure), and played with ways to suspend them with the clothespins. After a few failed attempts, I ended up doing this:

A length of soft brown ribbon suspended between two tacks in the wall, with photo-clothespinned lengths of twine hanging from it. And some strips of my favorite wrapping paper. Oh, and some clipboards, for good measure. It’s a bit… oh, I don’t know. Kitschy. Homespun. But it fills the space, it’s color-coordinated, and it lets me look at some of my favorite images every time I come into the living room. Why clipboards, you ask? I don’t know. I just like them. I’m sure I’ll find something wonderful to clip on them at some point.

And now I had better go to bed. This week has provided many happy reasons for staying up too late—a blessing indeed, but I think I should try to catch up on some of that sleep. Goodnight.

This is a busy week for my alma mater.

Last night, I was one of many Gutenberg students and alumni who joined the Gutenberg tutors in meeting and greeting residents of Sisters, Oregon. This event was part of the effort to raise awareness and funds for Gutenberg’s hopeful move to a new campus in Sisters. During the sample discussions and talks by the Gutenberg tutors, I had the chance, once again, to see my school shine. And I heard and saw, in the people of Sisters, an eagerness to see it shine in their town.

This coming Friday, Gutenberg College will celebrate the commencement of its 13th graduating class. Because I grew up in this little community with this little school, I have had the opportunity to attend every Gutenberg graduation since the first one, which took place on the president of the school’s front lawn. These days our graduations require a (slightly) larger venue, but they are still attended by a small, supportive community, and each ceremony is as unique as the members of its graduating class.

The Gutenberg College class of 2010, with guests Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist.

Last year, it was our turn. My class and I stood together to celebrate the bittersweet end of our four-year journey together. We had invited Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist (also known as Over the Rhine) to our graduation, and they accepted (Hallelujah). We got the chance to chat with them a bit before graduation, and Linford delivered our commencement address (which you should go read right now). I can’t speak for the rest of my class, but from my perspective, their presence and Linford’s words were the perfect celebration of and end to our Gutenberg career.

So. We were the twelfth, and now Gutenberg prepares to welcome its thirteenth. And I hope, earnestly, that we will be but among the first of many, many more graduating classes to come. But in order for that to happen, Gutenberg will, by God’s grace, have to overcome some obstacles in its way–first and foremost of which is raising the money to move to Sisters. I am not a millionaire (though if I suddenly was, you’d better believe Gutenberg would have most of it in a heartbeat), so the best that I can do is to add my voice to the chorus, saying, Gutenberg is important.

I tend to take Gutenberg for granted. When you grow up around something wonderful, it easily fades into the background; it takes the wonder and appreciation of outsiders to throw its features into relief once more. I have had this experience with Gutenberg more than once, and I had it in Sisters last night. By listening to the tutors talk about Gutenberg, and listening to positive feedback from the audience, I remembered once more why Gutenberg is important.

Gutenberg is important because we live in a world where the point of education is to acquire a job, not to put together a coherent worldview and figure out how we fit into it. We live in a world where science is our utmost authority, but few of us know how it got that power or have seriously considered whether it ought to have it. We live in a world where people have stopped asking the big questions: what does it mean to be a human? How should I live, and why? Gutenberg is important because the antidote to this sorry state of affairs is the kind of education that it offers–education that, instead of prescribing answers and facts to be memorized, provokes thought, examination, and questioning of one’s entire worldview.

I am proud and thankful to have graduated from Gutenberg College. Chances are, if you are reading this, that you have had some exposure to Gutenberg already. But if you have not, I highly recommend that you investigate it further. If it piques your interest, I hope you will consider a) attending it or b) supporting it, even if the only way you can do so is, like me, by telling other people about it. This school is a gem, folks, and I hope and pray that it will thrive for many years to come.

Last year about this time I was putting the finishing touches on a backbreaking little project known as my senior thesis. I had spent the entire year before that immersed in the work of Albert Camus and Søren Kierkegaard, two excellent writers and thinkers (though not terribly health conscious, apparently–DON’T SMOKE, kids) who had a thing or two to say about despair–what it is, and whether or not one ought to. This was and is a subject near and dear to my heart, and though the process of writing my thesis nearly did me in, I am immensely thankful that I was able to finish it. And, in the end, I think I managed to communicate at least a little of what I set out to. So here it is, in case you are interested in reading it:

In PDF Format: The Leaden Echo – Albert Camus & Søren Kierkegaard on Despair

(If nothing else, you should download it and read the Gerard Manley Hopkins poems on either end of the paper. They are some of my favorites.)

And now, what you have all (probably not) been waiting for: photographic evidence of our nerdiness. After last Monday’s rambling post, Gil and I did indeed go hunting for our Halloween costumes and spent most of last week in between classes and shifts at work putting them together.

With hard work, determination, and a fair amount of help from my mother, we were ready for the Gutenberg Halloween party last Saturday night (Photo by our friend Abigail):

Later, I asked our friend Elizabeth to take some shots of our whole costumes, but this crazy character kept getting in the way:

… Until Batman used his ingenious mind to solve the problem, or at least hide it:

(The photographer also helped by moving Super-boy out of the frame. )

Some tidbits about our costumes and how we pulled them together:

Gil made his Batman cowl out of duct tape and plastic bags (he said he found this method online somewhere). Mom made the cape from fabric we bought,  he made the vest and bat symbol from some kind of crazy sky-diving uniform we found at St. Vinny’s. Oh, and his utility belt is strung with gold gift boxes, as you may be able to tell.

The basic components of my Poison Ivy costume were: green tights and a green shirt (both unaltered), a lacy green, long-sleeved, long-skirted, old-lady looking suit I found at St. Vinny’s, and an ugly fake potted plant from the same place. I cut the skirt short, deconstructed and reconstructed the suit jacket so it looks as you see it here, and then sewed ivy from the potted plant onto everything. Or, more accurately, my mom sewed ivy onto everything, because I ran out of time. Thanks, Mom!

As usual, more than half the fun of the whole thing was the creative process of designing and making our costumes. But wearing them was fun too. Especially since I got to wear mine to work on Sunday, which made the day quite enjoyable. Wearing a suit of ivy is a good conversation starter.