try it on

"I feel sometimes as if I were a child who opens its eyes on the world once and sees amazing things it will never know any names for and then has to close his eyes again. I know this is all mere apparition compared to what awaits us, but it is only lovelier for that. There is a human beauty in it. And I can't believe that, when we have all been changed and put on incorruptibility, we will forget our fantastic condition of mortality and impermanence, the great bright dream of procreating and perishing that meant the whole world to us. In eternity this world will be Troy, I believe, and all that has passed here will be the epic of the universe, the ballad they sing in the streets. Because I don't imagine any reality putting this one in the shade entirely and I think piety forbids me to try."

- from Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

two of my friends at L'Abri read this book obsessively while I was there in 2006 so I decided to give it as a gift to my mom for her birthday last month. I have adopted the habit of giving gifts that I would want to receive myself and it has worked out quite well so far.

Marilynne Robinson wrote her first novel in her 40s and her second novel, Gilead, won a Pulitzer. The novel is about a preacher in his 70s who is dying and writing a letter to his 7 year old son about the story of his life. I want to write down a new quote every other page. It's very somber and poetic. I love it, but it makes me very unsociable.

I was talking to my mom yesterday about my life plans and stopped to ask her what she actually thought about them. She said that she felt more comfortable with this current plan (moving to London in a year and a half) than she has been with my other life plans (moving to south america to be a missionary, moving to DC to work for a think tank, getting another masters at SLU in american studies, or at iowa state in journalism...etc.). She said that she feels like she's outside the dressing room waiting while I try on these different plans, seeing which one fits.

I do the same thing with books. Reading Twilight makes me giddy and indulgent in my moodiness. Reading The Catcher in the Rye in high school was the most frightening experience I've had of this kind. I literally thought I was going crazy. I still haven't finished it.