cigars in heaven

In the beginning, there were Tolkien and Lewis. My early guides into the dank underground of fiends and fell beasts. Into the perilous realms of myth and faith and fairytale. Into the crannies of my own imagination. Sure there were the abridged [gasp and shame] editions of Cooper, Stevenson, Twain, Defoe, Dumas, et. al., and the uninhibited goofiness of Seuss and Silverstein, and the apprenticeship to Encyclopedia Brown, and the commiseration of another fourth-grade nothing, and espionage with one Harriet M. Welsch, and more, for sure; but it was in the Shire in conference with a wizard that I first felt the true, osmotic warmth of fiction's fire; it was in Narnia over tea with Mr. Tumnus that I knew, more than almost anything else, that my name was Lucy and I was fond of the flute. Soporifically fond.

In short, I am here for having been in those places. My enthusiasm for literature would likely have dwindled soon if not for the early and abiding influence of those two ingenious dons. Perhaps, I would have never returned to unabridged editions of those illustrated classics. Perhaps, I would never have mucked through the marshes of Dickens or raced through the heather of Hardy--those two later heroes of mine. And here's a thought, by what road then, if not for them, would I have arrived in front of this screen. Writing because I too am a writer now, if I may be so audacious in the vicinity of these other names.

I wonder if I'd've ever found my way here. Then again, such is the nature of all of our choices. That is, they uncannily result in actuality. Or so it seems. Though there is some dispute as to the existential before and after of it all, the which-of-my-choices-were-mine-after-all of it all. So who knows, really. I am only guessing that I would not be here. Here in your face, specifically. More generally, here in my face. What laughter lines do I owe the bumbling Samwise Gamgee, what furrows were plowed when Aslan was slain? Even if those particular lines have been erased, re-scrawled, and erased again since then; it was surely those lines that first taught my flesh to wrinkle at words.

I am of this mind presently because today is Lewis' birthday. A fact I do not claim to have secure in my head by devices mnemonic or repetitious. A fact I was treated to by my desk calender. Thanks, desk calender. It is a fun fact indeed and colors my cockles rosy. The fellow would be 112 by now. Had his mortal heart been as lasting as his legacy. Had anachronisms not been liquidated in That Hideous Strength. (Best Chapter Title Ever, BTW--The Liquidation of Anachronisms. That phrase alone could have kept me thrilled with literature for a plenty long time.)

Though we are not always on the same page, Clives Staples (best name ever, btw) and I, he will always be half of my holy duo. Beyond his fictions, I will always admire his faith in the unflinching face of reason and reality. Through his personal grief, he learned the approximate weight of the world's sorrow and bore it out on pages before us that we might feel, by reading mere words, some lightening of our own heavy loads. He said what we wanted to say about God--what we should say if not for want of a candor willing to broach the blasphemous. What a fine apologist, old Jack. Commitment in surfeit. Against all claims of experience. An "intolerable" doctrine of Hell, admittedly repugnant and "detestable" but nonetheless justified as moral. No problem. A heaven populated by unrecognizable family and friends yet more joyous than the sensational loves of them all combined. Sure. Why not?

Now doesn't this all sound great. In fact, thanks to you, Jack, it does. Happy birthday, Mr. Lewis. I hope you were wrong about heaven. I hope "there are cigars in Heaven. For that is what we should all like. The happy past restored."

someone else for a change

We are wise sometimes, Ether, to exit stage left or right and sit in the wings to witness our mentors. Those to whom we play seconds or, at best, in the splinters of whose limelight we occasionally dabble. Today, I am wise. Today I give you Thomas Hardy. Although known mostly for his novels (I recommend them all and can think of none with which you could go wrong but I am especially fond of "Two on a Tower," "A Pair of Blue Eyes," and "Jude the Obscure."), Hardy considered himself a poet foremost--turning to prose for pecuniary purposes. The poem here, "I am the One," I stumbled on recently in his book Winter Words in Various Moods and Metres (1928) [thanks Denise, for the first edition] and I was charmed to the gills. I think there are both religious and self-comforting themes to be explored; but I will let you make your own way, Ether, because we are wise sometimes to do so. Enjoy.

I am the one whom ringdoves see
Through chinks in boughs
When they do not rouse
In sudden dread,
But stay on cooing, as if they said:
'Oh; it's only he.'

I am the passer when up-eared hares,
Stirred as they eat
The new sprung wheat,
Their munch resume
As if they thought: 'He is one for whom
Nobody cares.'

Wet-eyed mourners glance at me
As in train they pass
Along the grass
To a hallowed spot,
And think: 'No matter; he quizzes not
Our misery.'

I hear above: 'We stars must lend
No fierce regard
To his gaze, so hard
Bent on us thus, --
Must scathe him not, He is one with us
Beginning and end.