Birth Towards New Normalcy

The last few days have felt like a birth canal; pretty visceral, I know. Sorry. It is just the sense of being pushed and pulled towards something that you're unsure of...towards normalcy, of the Australian variety here.

I was imagining, all this time, myself sitting in a garden surrounded by green and sunlight, with some hours during each day to just have quiet. I have looked forward to this like an oasis--always a dangerous attitude, because I get too easily attached to my expectations. They become idols.

But today, I did sit in a beautiful garden in the sunlight, and prayed easily, fluidly, for the first time in many months. I looked around me, as if just born, blinking at the gift God gave me--the gift of answering gently, perfectly, my little picayune expectations. Our house was owned by an older lady who lived here for many, many years; once again, we are in an area that is just beginning to shift from older people to younger families. The Gardener, as I think of her, seems to have known and loved plants, like the Byrds who owned our house in Lander for so many years. In this garden, there are eucalyptus trees, myrtles, orchids, fruit trees, six garden plots with some food items growing, and a mysterious sand pit. Barry, our neighbor, solved this mystery for me. Barry is younger than us, and has a fiance and a little daughter. He looked over the fence in that friendly, straightforward way, and said, "G'day. You made it finally, ay?" Barry told me that the sand pit was, orginally, a beautiful frog pond. "We've lots of frogs over here now, looking for water." I am thinking about resurrecting the frog pond. How cool would that be if I got it right? How awful if I didn't? It could become a mossie (Aussie for mosquito) pond.

But to get here, to these few moments of a new normalcy? Wow. I haven't even been able to sit down and write anything for a few days: we got our beds, finally, and so moved over to the Bulli Road house, which we named Chutley House. Why? No why. Just Chutley. We also had to clean the Rausch St. house, and we thanked it for a good few weeks; I had to buy uniforms, school supplies, make a couple trips to the bookstore to spend oodles (and each time I bought TJ a subway sandwich, because he's not yet in school); get the girls to school and back; unpack at Chutley House...so it was like major compression.

The day I dropped off the girls to school was a lovely day...not too hot. Tangara (Aboriginal word for 'unity' I think) School for Girls looked all lacy and dressed up, with the beautiful parallelistic Australian woodwork, and the coral-colored brick. The school is like a California school, with all the walkways outdoors; it looks like a little village. Sophie and Ana, in their blue hats and plaid cotton dresses, looked more cute than I can say, and they handled themselves so well in their first moments there.

They didn't look back as I left; as hard as a new school is, they seemed to take it in stride. TJ and I went on our compressed way, shopping, cleaning, unpacking, getting lost, all the usual. When we picked them up at 3:15, Sophie said, "I have ten friends." Ana, more quiet, was thoughtful and philosophical about the whole thing. "I was a bit lost in math, but then I started to figure it out. What is a Pythagorean triad? I mean, I know what Pythagorean theorem is, sort of, but a triad? The girls are friendly, and nice, but boy are they wild sometimes and sarcastic."

I had all sorts of images of what 'wild' might be, but I know she's got her own perspective--which is, I surmised, different from my tough public school girl perspective, born of memories like ditching, sprinkling chalk dust on Mr. Phillip's head, or plastic bottle battles with Mr. Jones.

 So I asked. "Well," she said, "they wanted to play Murder in the Dark down in one of the music rooms...so they went down there and then got sent out."

"Oh," I said. Ana is my little orchid flower.

Sophie was busy deciding a kind of persona she should adopt with Australians. She said, with her interesting mixture of strong ideas and timidity, "I am not sure how to deal with shy people."

I realized that I have my own, almost unconscious, deep hopes for them regarding school...again, a dangerous pastime. This came home to me when I picked them up the next day at the Swim Carnival. I saw the few hundred girls cheering and sitting in their houses (Ana and Sophie are in Atlantis--the others are Tintagel (Arthurian), Siena (St. Catharine), and La Mancha). I teared up for some reason, just sitting there at the Blacktown Aquatic Centre, at the side of the huge partially outdoor pool. It just seemed so rich, so full of potential, but not as sketchy or full of pitfalls as my entry into public school was in 1978. There seems to be fun, but ordered within a strong sense of mission, that mission being the end--the good--of the person, which only an eternal viewpoint can see or apply to young people.

I realized, even with the tearing up, that neither school would be anywhere near perfect. But it seemed to me good. And the beautiful facilities, the smiling girls, loping around like young fawns in their resplendent youth; there was a feminine ethereal quality, mixed with Aussie fun. I am often, as Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice is, 'hard on my own sex'--but sometimes I get the Glimpse of Adam: I see the beauty, like light, airy and inspiring, that is unconscious femininity.

I also realized that I have to let Sophie and Ana live it, and go through it...anytime they express doubt, I want to say, "Do you know how blessed you are?" --but I have to let them be themselves, and struggle where they need to struggle, for that is also a good. It is one of the goods that we brought them here to experience...to be stretched.

Tonight, Friday, I picked them up and through some traffic, we got home. Then we had to turn around almost immediately to get them out to Our Lady of Angels youth group. As I complained and wanted to turn around and snapped at everyone, and generally behaved like a three-year-old in the traffic and heat (I didn't give anyone the finger, though, and I'm starting to understand that Sydney drivers use their horns like cattle prods, little beeps that feel like small electricity shocks), I heard another, more mature voice inside me: "Usually, you know, when you are really getting frustrated, it means that there's devil-flack...he doesn't want you get them to youth group."

So I shut myself up.

We pulled into Our Lady of Angels, and suddenly it was another little slice of heaven; the seven pm light, that lovely golden slant, was pouring through the eucalyptus, and the heat of the day was just giving way to a cooler breeze. I could hear sounds of voices, singing, and I crept in after Sophie and Ana to the church. I expected to see a choir leader of some uncertain, heavy-jowled middle age (am I really that too??) frazzling away at timid teenagers, but instead there was an angelically handsome Filipino young man, maybe seventeen, playing the piano and teaching the other secondary students how to breathe. I sat in the church, looking at Christ; the young people started singing, and they sounded like the voices of wind through the trees, or rushing water, without a trace of the metallic edge of older vocal chords. It was beautiful to see them, on their own, praising God, some with their eyes closed. They instructed each other with a straightforward humility; it was just so good.

I left with TJ, who was literally climbing walls outside...poor little guy.

Making Memories on Australia Day

We're starting to make memories.

Thaddeus, who lives sometimes in an alternate universe of books and young-boy wonder, has done some funny things, one being the result of a desire to see the little frogs that we hear everywhere. We were walking home from Campion at night and he heard them in the little bushes by the sidewalk.

"How cute," I said; "I wonder where they are."

Next thing I know, the bush has been kicked pretty hard by a size 13 foot attached to Thaddeus. The frogs, of course, went silent. What's the equivalent in frog noise of "Oh, crap"? Whatever that is, that is what sound they made next: a tentative 'ribbit.' The bush was kicked again, and I caught a sudden glimpse of a little frog form, but stomach up, flying through the air.

That sight seemed enough for Thaddeus.

He also has been here just long enough to create some of his 'impressionistic' drawings of people's personalities. Ana, though, did Thaddeus and has the same gift of capturing something very funny about a person: Thaddeus is definitely a shark lamp slightly tilted.

We also made memories going down into Sydney for Australia Day; we met my cousin and her family. Of course we made them wait because we rookies drove, instead of taking the train. The train procedure just seems a little too much detail for me right now. It will come, I hope. So, of course we got turned around and went over the Harbour Bridge twice, twice going right over the Thorntons' heads, who were standing at Circular Quay. Then, when we parked, we got caught in a port-a-potty line, where the damn thing cleans itself for a minute every time some one uses it. "Self-cleaning cycle, please wait" is now burned into my bladder walls. The Thorntons are patient people.

Not only that, they have reached out to welcome this immigrant family, from sharing their home and time with us to helping us put cheap but useful furniture together; I thought of them when I read this in my devotion this morning; I quote it at length because it is so worth reading, and I believe the happiest people are people, like my cousins, who live this:

What is the essence of being a Christian? It is certainly more than doctrine, precepts, and commandments. It is first and foremost a relationship – a relationship of trust, affection, commitment, loyalty, faithfulness, kindness, thoughtfulness, compassion, mercy, helpfulness, encouragement, support, strength, protection, and so many other qualities that bind people together in mutual love and unity. God offers us the greatest of relationships – union of heart, mind, and spirit with himself, the very author and source of love (1 John 4:8,16). God's love never fails, never forgets, never compromises, never lies, never lets us down nor disappoints us. His love is consistent, unwavering, unconditional, and unstopable. We may choose to separate ourselves from him, but nothing will make him ignore us, leave us, or treat us unkindly. He will pursue us, love us, and call us to return to him no matter what might stand in the way. It is his nature to love. That is why he created us – to be united with him and to share in his love and unity of persons (1 John 3:1). God is a trinity of persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and a community of love. That is why Jesus challenged his followers and even his own earthly relatives to recognize that God is the true source of all relationships. God wants all of our relationships to be rooted in his love.

Jesus is God's love incarnate – God's love made visible in human flesh (1 John 4:9-10). That is why Jesus describes himself as the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep and the shepherd who seeks out the sheep who have strayed and lost their way. God is like the father who yearns for his prodigal son to return home and then throws a great party for his son when he has a change of heart and comes back (Luke 15:11-32). Jesus offered up his life on the cross for our sake, so that we could be forgiven and restored to unity and friendship with God. It is through Jesus that we become the adopted children of God – his own sons and daughters. That is why Jesus told his disciples that they would have many new friends and family relationships in his kingdom. Whoever does the will of God is a friend of God and a member of his family – his sons and daughters who have been ransomed by the precious blood of Christ.

An early Christian martyr once said that "a Christian's only relatives are the saints" – namely those who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ and adopted as sons and daughters of God. Those who have been baptized into Jesus Christ and who live as his disciples enter into a new family, a family of "saints" here on earth and in heaven. Jesus changes the order of relationships and shows that true kinship is not just a matter of flesh and blood. Our adoption as sons and daughters of God transforms all of our relationships and requires a new order of loyalty to God first and to his kingdom of righteousness and peace. Do you want to grow in love and friendship? Allow God's Holy Spirit to transform your heart, mind, and will to enable you to love freely and generously as he loves.

We finally met up with the long-suffering Thorntons at the Hyde Park fountain, and the city seemed like one big festival. People with sequin Australian flag dresses (fashion faux pas); people with flag umbrella hats, many families just enjoying the day. It seemed family-friendly, joyful, and not super-loud, even with all the crowds. I find Australians joyful and fun, but not loud or obnoxious (except for the sequin dress). They seem less jaded, less cynical, in some way, from Europeans or Coastal Americans. It is as if Minnesota emptied and all the Minnesotans ended up in a place with super weather.

Next to Hyde Park, there was a great vintage car show. One car was a tiny German make from just after WWII; I remarked that it looked just like the cockpit of an aeroplane, even to the point of opening from the top, the same way. The owner told us that it looked like that because after the war, Germans were not allowed to make anything metal-industrial, so they had to use scraps from the war to create new machines and autos. This was one of the more creative results. The cutest entry is below:

We took an old-fashioned London double-decker bus (no charge--Australia does many discount things to make it easier for families to enjoy the sights) down to the QVB, or Queen Victoria Building. This was built on the occasion of a state visit by the Queen, probably in the late 1800s. There was a large statue of Victoria near the entrance, and she would be absolutely frightening if she stood up--impossibly thick and muscular-looking, a bit like Soviet statues of workers I saw. Huge and strong. The propaganda is very apparent, I suppose. Lynnette and I stared at what must have been a mistake. Her Garter Star was firmly affixed, I might say plastered, right to the tip of her left breast. It looked awfully uncomfortable (no wonder she looked so morosely thoughtful), and then I remembered an Amazon costume, or Athena, or some Greek goddess in war costume, with the very same idea. Maybe more propaganda. Or just too tempting for the sculptor.

And sometimes, the Australians dress her up.

The statue has an interesting history; once installed in front of the Irish parliament building in Dublin, it was removed sometime after Irish independence and was finally given to Australia in 1986, upon the restoration of the QVB. The statue,  left in the tall grass in a school yard somewhere in Ireland, was shipped to Australia and given a home in Sydney. Perhaps it is one of those interesting ironies of history that the Queen whose government oversaw many of the homeless and unwanted Irish shipped to Australia to finally--after rejection--find a place in a New World, had the same sequence of events happen to her image in bronze.

Regardless of the rather imposing Victoria, the QVB, though, is really quite beautiful- not muscular at all, just a beautifully feminine, intricate shopping centre. Poor Victoria. I bet she was more like the building than the statue, and had to be made into an imposing figure, in order to keep an empire, in its long afternoon, together. The QVB reminds me of Gum's in Moscow: Gum's was one of the first true malls in the world; about a mile long, Gum's is a marvel of stained glass arch-ceilings, lovely wrought-iron railings, and fluted pillared walkways. The QVB is very similar, but different from the Gum's I knew during the end of the Soviet era; here the walls were colorful, the place was full, and the shops were lovely. There were places like a pewter soldier-model shop, complete with a whole Nazi scene, Gallipoli, and other famous Australian battles.

Clocks formed a part of the building: clocks in the shape of huge castles, and a complicated Australian history-themed one. 

This section of the clock commemorates the forced taking of Aboriginal children, to inculcate them into white culture. The inscription below the diorama says, "The Taking of the Children."

We then went down to Darling Harbour; we ate lunch, visited the Maritime Museum, where we saw the replica of Captain Cook's tall ship, the Endeavour, come in to dock.

We went to the Vikings: Beyond the Legend exhibit (who wants to get beyond the Vikings as a legend?). Actually, it was quite interesting; the gold filigree crucifixes from the Christian era were astoundingly beautiful. The kids (and Thaddeus) had fun:

Brad and I met a coffee barista from Mauritius, a small island far out from the eastern shore of Madagascar; he had a lovely French-Australian accent, and traded me an American dollar still left in my purse for a two-dollar Aussie coin. I've been having fun, by the way, planting money surprises in church collecting baskets. I like to put the dollars I have left in the basket and then watch the usher when he sees them. Anyway, the young barista from Mauritius told us, "My father wanted us to have education, and so we were either going to go to America or to Australia. He chose Australia because America is so violent."

I told him that many places in the US are quite safe, but that yes, there were some disturbing trends--like what in the heck is going on in Colorado?!

Here's some Australian police on lunch break. Brad said, "Even the police must eat lunch sometime."

As we walked back towards Hyde Park, Lynnette and I talked a little about the culture of Australia: she talked about the tension, in Australia, between maintaining a history and culture in the midst of tremendous immigration. Like many western nations, Australia values both its culture and history, and yet does not want to discriminate or keep people out, simply to maintain it. Yet, there is a real danger of it becoming unhinged from its roots, to become a meaningless, hyper-pluralistic place, a place without a sense of place.

This is something I have noticed here, and I wonder what the Australians will do, over time. They have made something of a success of 'the middle way' in terms of economics. They are not completely socialistic (it is a very different feel here from Canada or even the UK), but they are not laissez-faire capitalists, either. Economics is a cultural response to a situation; it reflects deep values, really, religious values. What is the end of a person? What is the responsibility of the family that is a nation towards individual members? Economics reflects this.

I didn't feel the same excitement as the 4th (really, the only flag I immediately want to kiss is the Greek flag, actually); I do feel a love for my country of birth, though, third-culture as I am. It was funny on Australia Day to see lots of people around you emotionally attached to an idea, a group, to which I have as of yet little emotional attachment.

So far, though, I respect Australians, and Australia. They have built something quite amazing, with very little time, out of terrible circumstances, and they have been more quick than Americans to deal with their injustices to aboriginal people. Everywhere, on Australia Day, one sees the Australian flag next to the Aboriginal flag. I am interested to know more about these mysterious people, people who were some of the last initial-participation people in the world, people who saw the creation as full of magic and mystery.

Meeting Bishop Fisher of Paramatta

No, it wasn't him.

Here's a little bio on Bishop Fisher from Salt and Light org:

"Most Rev. Anthony Fisher OP, was Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney, Australia and served as Coordinator of Sydney's World Youth Day 2008.  He is now Ordinary of the Diocese of Parramatta in Australia.  Bishop Fisher received a doctorate in bioethics from the University of Oxford in 1995 and became the founding Director of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Melbourne." 

Here's a link to an interview with Bishop Fisher on the scientific dilemmas around stem cells and many of the important moral and bio-ethical issues of our time:

http://saltandlighttv.org/witness/anthony-fisher-bioethics.php

And here he is:

The Bishop Fisher I met (and of course I thought of one of my heroes, Bishop John Fisher of Rochester, UK, martyr) came in a white Holden (looks like a British Camry) in the rain. We were all assembled at Karin and Ryan's home: Kozinskis, Messmores, and--oh yes, not a nickname--Peter Pelican, who is the new Dean of Students for Campion. 

All I knew about Bishop Fisher was that he was a well-known bio-ethicist.

He came in the door in his plain, white Benedictine habit, the only thing marking him as a bishop being the simple, gold pectoral cross hanging down his chest, partially obscured by the cowl. Looking just slightly older than myself, he is not a tall man, and seems all of one blonde color. He looks a little English, a little Scandinavian. This white-blonde-cream blandness was only apparent. 

As we ate together, Bishop Fisher became visible. He has a stance at times, when the Bishop part is there: he instructs and answers questions as one used to constant interviews; at other times, he was busy winning wit ripostes with Thaddeus (I've only seen one other person turn Thaddeus' own wit upon himself: in this he reminded me of Jason Baxter); at times he laughed more deeply, and seemed deeply interested in what someone was saying; at other times he looked suddenly tired and lonely. 

He said that he first thought of being a priest at fifteen, and then became ordained ten years later; he said, "Bio-ethics chose me" meaning that it was the call of need in culture that took him in that direction. He wanted to work, for a doctoral degree, under John Finnis, and would therefore go wherever Finnis was (Bishop Fisher did not know at the time). I asked, "If he'd been in Egypt, would you have gone?" 

He laughed and said, "Sure."

Finnis was at Oxford, and so Bishop Fisher attended there, and began his work as a religious bio-ethicist. About bio-ethics he said, "Of course philosophy is essential here; yet there is also the moment when you meet the person who is asking you to shoot them because they are in a burning car, and in these extreme lines, often only revelation answers us adequately. Thus, in this field, you need people who are not simply scientists or philosophers, but also theologians and doctors. You need someone who can see the reality of the thing, not get into these--" and here he rolled his eyes delightfully, and continued, "--these stupid formulas like the ones coming out of Georgetown. Just absolutely stupid stuff, such as 'balancing respect for autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, and justice'--with that kind of nonsense, you always end up preferring autonomy over everything else. It just doesn't work in real life."

From several comments he made throughout the night, I gathered that his time is simply rarely his own. I asked, "Do you have time to write in your field?" 

He said, "These days, my subject matter is usually chosen for me, by the needs of the moment, by the conferences and speeches--" and he waved his hand around lightly. 

His face did light up when he spoke about World Youth Day in Brazil; he said, "We took the youth to Peru, also, for a week of helping the poor. Most of them have never seen such poverty; in Lima, there is no water to speak of because it never rains. And if it did, the little villages perched on the sides of hills would disappear." For next World Youth Day in Poland, he thought of perhaps taking Aussie youth through India for a similar exposure. "It changes them profoundly," he said. 

We asked him about the Catholic culture in Australia. He said, "The Catholic population in Australia is the largest religious group here; in most areas of institutions and politics, the largest group is made of Catholics, the second-largest is people who were Catholics at one time. It was, in the beginning, the Irish, but in Paramatta, since WWII, it has been waves of immigrants from Lebanon, India, Sri Lanka, the Phillippines, and even the Mediterranean. What's interesting is that within a generation, the Italians and many Mediterranean people were completely secular; the Filipinos, though, and the Lebanese have held on to their faith and traditions. I think they have a deep and consistent value on family and family prayer life."

He related that he was going to do some public event with Miss World, who is a Filipino woman. "Unlike most beauty queens who want to talk about world peace, she talks about the rights of the unborn and respect for family life. Should be interesting."

When he laughed, or was interested in something, he had a light-filled, sparking expression in his blue eyes; he had the alternating deep interest and sudden tedium of those who are deeply intelligent, as if his own brain sometimes made his spirit tired. At times I sensed what I often sense with celibate religious, which can come across as something like contempt for us in the world...but I think that is only what it feels like. I think perhaps there is a little envy for the simple pleasures of family life; a certain sense of loss around little children, and a single-mindedness about the duties of the vocation. But what do I know? I would have to walk in those shoes to really understand the gap of emotional connection I sometimes feel around those called to the religious life. I've met a very few priests and nuns who seem to be able to live emotionally in both worlds; I am thinking of the few golden moments with the pastor of the little church in Friday Harbor, WA, who was able to love me deeply and listen to me while yet having one foot away in heaven. Instead of making me feel far away from heaven, he pulled me in with him, it seemed. 

This bishop is not like that generally, although there were moments when he was; he mostly seemed like a man whose heart was deeply embedded in the call to obedience, to the cross.

He seemed to relax, though, as we joked about the Arnold Schwarzenegger cross in the cathedral; he seemed to take delight in Thaddeus' absurdities about funny things in liturgies and Catholic stereotypes gone bad, in Peter's questions about his life, in Ryan's enthusiasm for Campion, in Karin's comments. He paid especial attention to little Katie Messmore and told her she grew more beautiful every day. 

He struck me as one, like Pope St. Gregory of the sixth century, who was called out of study, reflection, into that beautiful cross of kenosis, the especial masculine form of self-emptying for the sake of the other. It seemed his life was guided, to me, not by his own desires, but by the needs of others; not even his own considerable talents were what lit up his eyes, but rather the conversion of the youth.

When I kicked Thaddeus for bantering about his cathedral, the Bishop turned to me and laughed, "A bishop called to his cathedral is like a husband called to a wife he's never met; sometimes you lift the veil and she's missing an eye and has a mustache...yet you love her, anyway."

Foibling

Today I got lost trying to get to a park for a play date. Karin (president's wife) got the Campion ladies together, and I didn't have the gps and got lost. Karin directed us via phone, with Ana talking in the back, and I just hope Karin didn't hear my language as I made U-turns and got honked at. I think my sense of direction is off--north just does not seem like north, and so on. I wonder why; I'm sure there's some good scientific explanation, but I just feel like a compass that's lost its magnet. As Fr. War-greg told me, "Our patience is only real when we're in a situation that tests it."

I've got a long way to go. It reminds me of being in Costa Rica, and losing patience with the Costa Rican men who seem to have few words around American women that don't sound like sick cats mewling. I began flipping them the bird, as I walked to work along the side of the road in San Jose. At some point, I didn't even look up: just the finger. Maybe not such a good idea. Don't want to do that here with honking Australians. I should be past that by now. Now I know where TJ gets it. Oops.

We finally got to the *&^ park, and kind Karin came out to meet us; she has three children, her oldest being the same age as my youngest. Helene, the Business Manager's wife, has four kids that I can remember; two older girls, two younger. Like little goats in a new pen, the girls eyed each other and with the help of us older ladies, eventually started talking to each other.

Leone was also there, the wife of the new Dean of Students; her children are little-little guys, very blonde and cute. They've just moved here from up north, in Queensland. It felt funny to be talking about the 'warmer north.'

An interesting part of the conversation was listening to Helene talk about Australian government and culture; we started on this tack because of Australia Day approaching. Helene is a second-generation Dane, and she said, "I have no connection with the Queen; I don't see the reason for a queen at all; she's as far away from Australia as the Queen of Denmark."

Someone else mentioned that this an issue among Australians generally; some feel a deep connection with the constitutional monarchy, and the British Governor General, and a Prime Minister, but others feel it is a pointless connection.

Australia Day is held January 26th, the anniversary of Captain Arthur Phillip's first claiming Australia for Great Britain in the late 1700s. The Governor General and Prime Minister give out awards to various Australians on the eve of Australia Day.

Another Aussie I spoke with later today, who shall remain happily nameless, just said it was a reason to drink a lot ( 'it' being Australia Day, not the Queen, Governor General, or the Prime Minister).

I then went over to Campion to see Thaddeus. Poor Thaddeus; already having trouble with Google Drive, he gave me his payslip numbers as a matter of course, and when I saw the numbers, I lost my breath and almost my lunch. This is happening a lot.

Why did I lose my mind? The gross salary appeared to be about half of what we had budgeted. I envisioned myself busking at Manly Beach to pay for everything else. Not a bad idea. I was already planning this as my new career; Thaddeus tried to calm me down and we went into see Ryan. He looked at us, smiled and said, "They pay here fortnightly, not monthly."

Silence.

Then laughter. Then we three Americans started having fun with the odd billing cycles here--rent is per week, not month; car payments per month; salaries fortnightly ("roughly 26 pay periods per annum"--what?? why?); who knows what the electrical company does?

We went out in the hall and Geoff and Tony, in the office, gathered around and asked if I was alright. I like the Australian straightforwardness, and want to join in, so I just told them my mistake. They said, "You need a drink for Australia Day."

Tonight we are to have dinner with the Bishop. No idea which one...but exciting anyway.

Naming

The cistern in the back of our Bulli (Bull-eye) house turns out to be ingenious. Through a system of gutters, any rain coming off the roof is collected in the green tank for use in the garden. The antennae is something cute, once you know what it is, like the shadow of a tree that changes from a monster to a friendly shape in the light of dawn. It measures the height of the water in the tank.

Ah, a full tank of water. And the recent rain, drizzly, warm rain, has helped our thirsty yard.

Just up Bulli Road from our house, there's a little Old Constitution village centre...there were three fresh bakeries, a Pizza Piece Place, a post office, and a library. Australians love their libraries; it isn't just Angela; a library for Australians seems to hold an important cultural name that I as of yet do not know or understand.

After we'd got back to the house today, Maddison (nine-year-old realtor with make-up) came over to help me answer questions like the one about the cistern. She seems competent, always in a bit of a hurry, poor thing, and was very kind. She was dressed in the Hooker outfit (I'm really starting to think that they do have a sort of outfit): black and white professional clothes, with a waterfall necklace of white enamel; a Chanel purse, black of course, and a wonderfully multi-colored blonde and dark brown dye on her hair. She still looked nine, for all that, though.

She went around looking for places where screens aren't, and said she'd propose a solution to the owners. After she left, we started unpacking. I've never had the experience of unpacking most stuff out of new boxes; there was plastic and paper litter strewn like confetti all over the polished wood floor. In the midst of it, I put furniture together. My favorite is the outdoor teak table and benches, with the early spring grass-green cushions. We are using it inside, because it was 50% off. It looks awesome, so outdoorsy indoors. We can picnic in our kitchen. I placed a blue silk Indian cloth on it; there are many Indians here, and so you'll find stores full of beautifully embroidered silk and organza-type cloth. It feels nice to be able to say "Indian" without all the Columbus confusion about whether you should even say that. These people are simply Indians, and that's it. I think now we should do the native Americans the service of calling them by their true nationalities--either "Arapahoe" or "Shoshoni" or "Navajo"--or just Americans. When you are around real Indians from India, you realize how little sense it makes to say "American Indians." A name of ignorance perpetuated.

The kids were roaming around the house and the neighborhood, and as I used the Allen wrench, twisting (and I was wondering if even that is backwards here--as if the Australian mind, like the water in the toilet, runs consistently the other way--but maybe I'm just still a little stressed), I listened to them running around upstairs, organizing the red couch, I realized that they were happy.

Once, when we lived in the little dollhouse in Chappaqua (seriously..a wealthy friend of mine had a playhouse that wasn't much smaller), I came back from our Mommy Group in the evening. Ana was five, Sophie three, and TJ a little baby. The windows of that house were across the front, so that at night, if the lights were on, you could see all the different rooms like little aquariums. I stood outside, in the darkening day, and watched the kids like one watches fish. Ana and Sophie were toddling back and forth...living room to kitchen, to dining room...dining room to kitchen to living room. They were very busy toddling, and talking in animated voices; like a reverse Charlie Brown, I could only hear the burbling sounds of their happy little voices. I could see TJ bouncing with excitement in that thing that hung from the doorjamb between the living room and kitchen. I wondered, laughing, how many times he'd been spun around and thought it was a game. Maybe that was the game. I treasured that five minutes, in the dark, in my heart.

No family is always safe; ours is not, nor has happiness been ours without a large measure of sadness and human frailty, but as my mom always said, "Your kids know they are loved. That's all that matters." All parents need a parent to tell them that from time to time. I think this basic need for love in the midst of frailty follows for any community of human beings, whether a college institution or a church, a business, or a discussion group.

I heard those same reverse Charlie Brown sounds upstairs as I put furniture together. They were 'naming' the places, beginning to create memories. They roamed around the neighborhood, looking at Council Chuck-Out piles (you would be amazed at the nice stuff Australians are chucking!) and came home with the find of the century, according to them: White leather hydraulic bar stools,  of a style that reminded me of South African Craig from the Super-Deal Bed Store, who seems to have a liking for cushioned rhinestone bed-heads and yes-oh yes-white leather dressers. I think Craig's time in New Jersey rubbed off on him.

The kids came in the with the stools for their 'bar' in the rumpus room upstairs. I just stared blankly, then remembered that they were beginning to name our life here, and just smiled as the stools were placed ceremoniously, and with animated discussion, upstairs.

Thaddeus, meanwhile, was in meetings at Campion; he is beginning to learn the art of Deanship--I'm not even sure what that is, but perhaps the art of providing a structure so that the faculty and students 'name' the place, and to help them know their value as 'facilitators' of the education and formation of another human being, of the future in some measure. How to help continue the growth here, in a large city marked by "No worries" (which means, I think, "Whatever" on a rather deep level), where many people commute in, including students, of a community of learners, a community of faith? To me, and from just my inexperienced thoughts, Academic Deanship seems the art of a farmer: knowing enough about a lot of things (soil, weather, plant types, which plants can be next to each other to ward off pests, which plants will take from each other) to bring out the value of each person's gifts, to help people know they are valued, loved. Then, I think, community just happens, just like in a family. Just like the human body is made to default into balance and goodness, so communities will grow in love if the things that kill it, the weeds, the frailties, are managed. It sounds hard.

Thaddeus and I talked of the simple things that seemed to work well at WCC--one was the lunchtime community between students and professors. It seems simple in a way--make the lunches attractive by making them free for professors. Free food, like a gift, does indeed help grow community: the Passover was a meal, which Our Lord used as a deep sign of unity. Feasting together is essential, and it is more than the human interest in food.

We heard from the kids' schools. They gave us 70% off. Whoa. That's a clearance sale price. So now I can rejoice in the cute uniforms.

We were so tired after a day unpacking that we gave in and went to Hungry Jack's (Burger King). The man at the counter, Vfinradowner Shifani, took my order. He has a thick Indian accent (when I hear it, I have to almost physically kick Bart Simpson out of my brain). I have a thick American accent. It became an Indo-American war of "vhut?" "whaaht?" "vhut?" "Whaaht?"

After finally calling a truce with Mr. Shifani (we both just slowed down), I was happy to find the the Double Cheeseburger Stunner meal was only about $6, in American dollars about $5, and it comes with a somewhat flattened, beat-up double patty (but has that wonderful msg taste), fries, soda, and sundae. TJ said, "Wouldn't it be bad for us if we ate here every day?" which, in TJ language, means that he knows it wouldn't be good for him, but would like to think about doing it everyday anyway. He may end up a great ethicist, unless he does eat at Hungry Jack's everyday, which would destroy too many brain cells.

Australia Day is coming. I don't know what that means; I have no place in my cultural memory for it, because it isn't quite a 4th (rockets were not being shot in 1901; it was a more reserved,  less mythologized affair, I think...like many things Australian, just a straightforward federation, a step away, as in a dance, from Britain). There was no need, really, here, for a Thomas Jefferson bending beautiful and powerful rhetoric to its breaking point. There are cars around with Australian flags flying, like in the US in the days after 9-11... the Australian flag has a little British flag and the stars to the right are the Southern Cross constellation; the large star on the bottom left is the unity of Australia, the seven points on it being the seven territories united. More Australia Day fun: The Mean Fiddler pub in Kellyville is having an Australia Day concert; the stores are carrying chocolate cakes with little blue, red, and white Australia continents on the top...Australians also do love chocolate--oh yes, maybe something close to the Swiss or Belgians. There are 'chocolate lounges' all over. I'm dying to go in, and afraid to go in.

Overdrive

Everything was just mildly exciting for me until yesterday--then it went into overdrive, for some reason, as if everything we've done in the last few months struck me all at once.

We were at Tangara School for Girls buying uniforms. We don't even know if we'll be able to afford the schools (waiting on scholarships of sorts), but as school starts in a week, I've been going like a robot through all the hoops. In the uniform shop, my blood pressure skyrocketed, and true to my normal reaction, I ignored it and went on as if nothing had happened.

As the cash register rang and rang (beautiful wool kilts, swim costume, sports outfit, a lovely hat, a blazer with the emblem stitched, and on and on), I just watched, numb.

On the way home, Sophie began voicing her concern that she wouldn't be able to be herself in a place that measured how many centimeters a hem fell on the floor when the person is kneeling. I was wondering how on earth I would get them to school in time every day...I still have a hard time parking, and being on time is not my strong suit.

"She's got a point," I thought to myself; my experiences with the boys' school, Redfield, and the girls' school, have been really different. All the people of the boys' school, men and women alike, look a little more worn in, even beat up, but they are helpful and sympathetic to this immigrant family. The girls' school has seemed cleanly, clearly efficient, but almost cold. I wonder why. They seem a little picayune; maybe that is a fall-out of separating the sexes. Does the girls' school become archly cute and terrifyingly well-kept; does the boys' school just smell worse and worse? If I were Sophie, I might want to be in the boys' school, too.

I listened to the kids' discussing and I remembered the feeling of dread I had when coming to a new school.

When we went to Greece, I was starting first grade. I remember, being somewhat shy, that empty feeling of fear in the new classroom; that is when Iris and I became friends. Iris had been born in Athens; she was German-Viennese and her father worked for the Goethe Institute in Thessaloniki. Iris was true to the spirit of her namesake; she was like a messenger from the gods, a rainbow of healing, for a frightened little kid. Being an old Pinewood School hand, she came right over to me and invited me into her group. There is nothing like a friend to calm us, to sweeten life; and I was her devoted, fast friend because of the first few minutes of our aquaintance. We have remained friends all these years, something special for two rollling stones. I could see that she was a real friend, because she reached out to me when I was alone; she had the sight of those who understand friendship: She knew that to have real friends, one must first jump off the cliff and be one, that to be a friend requires risking ourselves on a gamble that is another human being.

When we moved to California, there was no Iris at first. I found only coldness and lived in the twilight of those who are seen as foreigners, too odd to fit in anywhere. Eventually, I did find Kelly--or, like Iris, she found me. Funny that they are both red-heads.

So, if the school thing works out, I hope each child finds an Iris.

Sometimes our anxiety becomes physical; this has happened for me. My throat actually swells, and it swelled last night. There's lots of anxiety monsters having a frat party in me right now--what do they eat for lunch at school? What kind of shoes do they have to have? Why aren't there screens in the bedrooms on the ground floor in the house? WTH is that cistern for?

I lay in bed last night and read Mary Dean's card to me....there's nothing like the love of a friend. I miss my friends, and wonder WTH we're doing here. Sometimes God seems very blank...

It is, I think, that He is so Other. Beyond being, being-in-act, not potency (something like that), He cannot even be classed as 'different from us' because there is simply no comparison between those who receive their being, live within it, and Someone who has no source. Well, it just doesn't compute, so I imagine concommitantly, how He answers us, and reacts to us, often doesn't compute. When we try to naturalize Him too much, we run the danger of trying to prove Him with our own categories, categories that can diminish the mystery. Christ is an absolute, fertile mystery as well as a brother.

That's when I start talking to the Cloud of Witnesses, because they aren't so Other. I ask them to pray for me from their eternal, but human view, so I can stop freaking out at money and efficient girls' school ladies in uniform shops, or Hookers, or cisterns with an antennae topped by a big red ball, or even my own children having very normal doubts. I often remind God that He doesn't know what it is like to be a middle-aged, hormonally insane woman who has a hard time hearing in the spirit when things get overwhelming. He does know about being a young man--totally different worlds. I'm probably wrong, though; He probably, somehow, understands better than I do.

I was thinking about being lonely, and the chapel door at Campion was locked, so I sat outside and said, "I guess you can hear me from here" which, of course, makes no sense at all for One who is so other. I said, "I miss my friends."

Ana came up behind me as I walked along a path away from the chapel, and put her hand on me in her gentle way. We played the beautiful piano together; she is composing another haunting song. Then Angela came in, following the unusual musical sounds. Angela, the librarian, is one of my favorite people here, the one I remember most fondly from our visit in August. She is the child of immigrants from Czechoslovakia, or whatever it is called now, and she is part Jewish. She loves the library; in fact, I've never seen someone who loves a library so much. She is like the mother hen here, I think, and has millions of stories to tell. To Angela, the Library is a magical place of wonder and healing and relationship. I never, not once, thought of a library that way.

I continued to freak out all night, listening to the much-needed, relieving rain falling gently, but God willing, it will pass. It has been a wild six months, closing one chapter of life, and trying to turn over the page to the next.

One of His Little Ones

We went to Our Lady of the Angels in Rouse Hill yesterday at 5 pm; the morning was spent with the Poco's van and moving furniture into the house. It was again pretty hot yesterday, and thankfully the church was air-conditioned. I never realized how hard it is to concentrate on the liturgy when it is hot like this until our foray into what felt like one hundred years ago at the Latin Mass last week. There was an older beauty all round there, and the quietness of the mass along with the heat, and the old cathedral had its attraction. I ended outside in the courtyard for a number of reasons, one being the heat.

This week's mass was so different for a number of reasons. Apart from air conditioning, this mass is held in a temporary building, as the new European-style church is built next door. It looks like it will be the best of both old and new--that all-important nod to organic development of beauty, but I bet it will have air conditioning.

We got there early, to the temporary building, and inside there is a strange conglomeration of obviously old and heavily venerated statues, very traditional (and not pastel colors), with the low ceiling and basic windows of pre-fab. Fr. Warren Gregory (Or is it Fr. Gregory Warren? I've always found reversible names suspicious) sat in the back for informal confessions (the confessionals are probably way too hot). Thaddeus and I decided that Fr. War-greg looked like a mixture of Chris Baker and Jeremy Irons. He is a real man and a good priest, it seems, upon first impression. He strikes me as a humble man who loves what he does.

I sat with one child of mine who has a hard time with the idea of confession. First, it was "It's stupid. I hate it." Here we have a choice as parents, as I well remember from being the child questioning what feels like an imposition into my freedom. We can put guilt trips on (sometimes necessary); we can dismiss ("You don't know what you're talking about"); we can listen ("What is it that bothers you?"); we can go alongside ("I understand why you'd feel that way").

I chose the alongside route. I do know that I don't easily understand this child, that often what is on the surface is simply hiding fear that she has a hard time showing. I've prayed about being able to understand this one, and when I do, I always get an image of her as a little, tiny baby. I believe the whole personality is there, even during pregnancy. This one was a quiet, tiny, frail thing (born at six and some pounds). Her pregnancy was quiet, with only little flutterings, like butterfly wings brushing on my insides. I remember in the seconds after her birth, she lay wrapped in my arms, her intense brown eyes with an intense look of connection and almost a knowing of us already, as if she'd been listening intently to us for nine months. She loved sitting in her little seat, just watching golden-haired toddler Ana living life. She slept a lot, and when awake, her little eyes were like open windows to the world around her, a flower open and perhaps, even, a little helpless in the face of the winds around her. She received us all in as a matter of course, not as a choice.

Our family is not easy to be in; we are all rather intense people, lots of cholerics under one roof; this little one has tried, I think, to keep up with this and so has grown a bit of a facade, shell, over the soft little heart.

So, I sat there with her and tried to be alongside, instead of reactive. I saw the facade begin to crack, and a still small head lay on my breast. "I'm just afraid, Mommy. It is a new place, and I'm uncomfortable."

My reply was, I think, God-sent: "God doesn't want you to be afraid, or uncomfortable. The sacraments are like gifts he offers you, like vitamin pills, to help you. He wants you to take those gifts only when you are ready, and feel comfortable."

Never have I understood better the Church's wisdom in asking for very, very minimal obligations, like confession once a year. There would be something wrong with a family that did not allow for the timid, the troubled, to simply be timid and troubled.

Later, I saw her go sit with Fr. Greg-war. She is a brave person, too. For her, this newness in a new country is not exciting like it is for me; she is someone who sees, instinctively, the value of home, of an ordinary life in the same place, with roots.

Losing It at Hooker's

Hookers

LJ Hooker's is a real estate company in Australia, with offices all over Sydney. They're really house pimps, pimps of houses...they manage the houses and the big business that is rentals. This office is what I would call a dwarf-scraper; not like the ones making canyons, complete with canyon-winds, in New York City, but a building that stands out like a large alien ship in the middle of an older, more quaint part of Paramatta.

They did their best to make it look like an alien ship inside, too. When sitting in the white lobby with the white walls and the white, white-lit letters "JLHOOKER" on the wall, in the space ship chairs with the weird red carpet in the shape of an amoeba, I watched the very young realtors in tight-pant suits (which made the men's feet look like Bozo in Italian leather), and loads of expensive hair gels and make-up, and then I knew I was in a space ship. We were the aliens, I found. We didn't fit in in so many ways: Thaddeus was wearing his Frassatti T-shirt and cut-off sweats (oh please), and I was just a tiny cut above that. Our accents also marked us as experimental entities in that smooth-running, efficient Office.

And then the trouble started. When you move to another country, you really do need people to be more clear than they are usually, because even if the terms like 'cheque' are the same (which often they are not), what is omitted is sometimes even more important. We'd not been told outright that we were only allowed a 'bank cheque' (why don't they just go all the way to France and say 'banque cheque'? Or go completely rebel and say 'bank check'? Come on, get out of this colonialism (( 'cheque' is French; the English upper classes after William the Horrible Conqueror spoke French, so this is a vestige not only of English colonialism, but of French imperialism of English Colonialism))).

Anyway, back to the Hooker's. So, we made a little American protest. "We weren't told you would get a surcharge for using a debit." And then we asked a rather unforgiveable question (I still haven't figured out why, although I have my suspicions): "If it's coming straight out of the bank, why does it matter?" Up. Too practical. Or maybe it was too dumb.

We got the blank look. Everyone who has traveled or immigrated knows what this look is. It is an inexplicable rejection of you; your question, indeed, your very being is chucked like I chucked the inexplicable sign in Outback Jack's. It simply does not compute, and they don't want it to.

So, eventually, our techie Thaddeus worked on it, the maze of banque cheques. Meanwhile, I was starting to use bad language as I went to sit in the space lobby. I wonder if they, as they heard me mutter, "Pain in the ass," thought about how peaceful and compliant American culture appears on the interntional news. I had lost it. Why?

I think anyone who's even moved across the States will know. I lost it a couple of times like this when I moved from California to Maryland. Things that you really do take for granted suddenly become difficult again--and you're mad because, dammit, that one I figured out. Now, everything's game for difficulty. I know, in my rational mind, that of course it will be this way. I've had enough experience of it by now, and I'm supposed to be the one helping Thaddeus and the kids through the more intense process of small difficulties that happens in another country. Most of the time, I even like it.

But I sat there in that lobby and wished for familiar things, like the kind ladies at Wyoming National Bank, for a home I owned, for the RAV that has the steering wheel on the left, for a routine that ran itself. I felt suddenly a feeling of being an alien rush in.

Our agent, Maddison, who looks about nine with make-up, came in and was very nice, although she ran through the lease at double-speed (in Australia, closing time is sacred...maybe it is that way in offices all over the world...I've worked in an office and still have the clock face at five pm burned in my retina). We got our keys and got ejected through the space doors with our keys--and fan remote controls?

Thaddeus was looking at me all the way home like a shark, sideways, but a shark that felt sorry for me. I went over to Campion and lay down on the soft bench in the cloister walk, and just looked at the trees. I went over to the statue of Mary and looked at her peaceful face and I touched her out-stretched hand, a hand of reception--"Let it be done unto me according to Thy Word."

Later, I went over to 143 Bulli Road, our new house. It has a doorknob in the center of the door, which always strikes me as funny ("Let's be cool and put the doorknob in the middle"). The wood floors are shiny, and the layout makes you feel normal--everything in a rational place. The yard is really something else; my farmer blood immediately noticed the thirsty trees and I got the weird water cistern pump going, and started watering the poor plants. As I watered, I realized that this had, until recently, been a home, not a rental. You can just tell--there's a certain personalism, a care, in the little touches all over the garden, because it didn't get scoured and painted the way the inside of the house did. There are six garden plots, fruit trees, vines, palm trees, eucalyptus, and little colored rocks, a bird perch, and a little child's soccer ball hidden in the planter.

As I watered in the evening, thinking about how relieved the little trees must be, I felt better. I'm a farmer inside a city person.

Homeschooling Burnout Case

Yesterday was business. We took TJ up to Redfield College for a financial meeting and uniform fitting. The PARED (Parents-Educators) Foundation has started a number of schools, of which Redfield is one. Their idea is to create an education that relies on parents as the primary educators; to that end, they have tutors for each student who oversees not only academic progress, but spiritual, social, etc--the whole person. These tutors meet regularly with parents, working together towards a formation in virtue.

Sounds great to me. I've been seriously burnt out from homeschooling for about two years. The kids have suffered from it, of course. Ana has been okay, because she pushes herself. The other two were younger when, even unbeknownst to me, I had burnt out. I got to the point when I couldn't even look at a math sheet. I lived with the guilt of not doing enough, but there wasn't much choice about what to do. What happens when a homeschooling mom gets burnt out? Most women, I don't think, will be able, right away, to admit it. We think of it as failure, I suppose, in our primary duty after the kids are out of nappies.

I started homeschooling when Ana was born in 1999. She was always a little sponge for everything, poor thing. We had some good years, especially in California, when we sat in a little corner of the dining room, on the floor, in the sun, and read things like Chats with God's Little Ones and made Montessori letters.

My goal in homeschooling was to create independently motivated learners, not factory workers. John Taylor Gatto articulated my concern with traditional school better than I could, and the positive side, the exploration and learning for learning's sake, was my goal. I believe I accomplished it with Ana; she was old enough before I burnt out to get that meta-lesson. Sophie and TJ, though, I think have suffered from being too young when I just got mired down, although I think they benefited from the freedom, the freedom away from heavy scheduling and having things imposed on them.

Sophie I think benefited from the safe and same environment that was home. She is, underneath, more of a homey person than any of the rest of us; her room is always the place you want to be, because it is so loved and kept so carefully, her little things carefully and lovingly placed on windowsills and little tables, her dolls cared for. The rest of us are pretty random.

TJ has played more than many kids his age; a big deal for him was to learn that if he's patient, he can overcome the Lego set. He still hasn't quite got that in writing yet.

But I burned out. Why does this happen? I think it is because we are all different, and I am also an older mom; I had my first at 31. I've gone into the Forest Dweller stage of life, when your kids are supposed to be gone already, that stage when you start just saying what you think and desiring to go live in the forest. Even in burn out, though, I could still see the great things one could do with homeschooling, and the great things we did: filmed a movie, learned poems, acted in a Shakespeare Company as a family, traveled, learned boating and fishing, mountains and lakes. And some math and stuff like that.

Now, I knew, it was time for them to take the step out into a more organized environment. These are Opus Dei- inspired schools, and they are beautiful--lovely buildings, green pitches, all outdoor, not prison-type things where students shuffle from cell to cell. It looks Montessori in that it seems built for human development, not factory training.

TJ tried on summer shorts, button down shirt (it MUST be double-stitched because boys pull on them all day), winter shorts, legionnaire cap , back-pack. He looked really great in his tie and shorts, like Edmund and Peter at the train station.

I hope it works, because like everything else, it is really expensive. I just have to leave it with God, and do my best. I see school, a good school, as a real opportunity; a gift. I see teachers of younger children as real servants, for burn-outs like me.

Emblems

Swing at the St. John's/Navy Croquet Match

Yesterday was hot. Really, really hot. It almost massages you, which I actually like; you can't stand in the open sun, however. If you did, you'd actually feel yourself burning. I love this, because it reminds me of the sun in Greece. The water here is as good as Greece, in my opinion.

Because of the heat, the Campion Summer Camp was very quiet in the afternoon. TJ is a Social King, though, making friends in quiet and heat, noise and cool, alike. Sophie and I walked over to the campus to find him and rescue whoever he was asking to wrestle. We found him with Liam, a Third-Year who is helping organize the camp. Liam looks very Irish, a delightful smile to go along with his delightful accent and delightful sense of humor. I decided he was our analogous Tony Bonse, but with blonde hair.

He was welcoming to all of us, and patient with the Social King, giving him tasks and including him in sprinkler football (soccer). Along with Liam, some of the students are having fun with The American Boy, as they call him. Sophie and I followed a TJ trail to find him; this consisted of remarks from students strolling by: "Did you hear what The American Boy said? 'Haak-aye' instead of Hawk-Eye."

We found TJ with candy.

Liam invited us back to the dance for the summer camp, so we all came back over at 7:20 pm, in the cool, to see what it was like here. The students were learning ballroom dances like the cha-cha, samba, and the waltz, some in lovely skirts, others in shorts. Some couples were taking tentative, off-beat steps, running into each other and laughing, and others were really waltzing with that beauty of waves rolling past the prow of a ship. Liam asked, "When's the dancing going to start?" meaning, I knew, that the swing dancing was about to commence.

The summer students were being initiated into what seems to be a Great Books college tradition: classic forms of dancing, but especially swing dancing. I'd never seen this until I walked into the Governer's Mansion at the top of the green hill of well-kept grass that swept down like a woman's silken lap, down to the Severn River. This was 1996, St. John's College. I knew there was to be a dance, and my last experience was at the Graduate at UCSB, when I vowed I'd never enter another dance club like that, the feeling of being unmentionably grabbed by drunks as I made my way through the animal crowd still a raw memory.

The Governer's Mansion, or the Great Hall, at St. John's had a real ballroom, all wood floors and white balustrades, with a real viewing walk above the floor at the level of the great brass chandelier. Like students for near fifty years before them, the Johnnies wore swing dresses (even some of the guys had period suits), and the Hall was a fireworks of color and movement, but unlike the Horrible Graduate, it was ordered and fun at the same time, an expression in dance of that integration that we studied during the week.

Every Great Books college I've been around since has this same tradition of swing. My educated guess has always been that it started at St. John's, when the original Johnnies were actually living, as young people, as Great Bookies, in the forties. For some reason, rather than giving way to Disgusting Disco (all you have to do is think of John Travolta Revolta in that white suit), or the sad excuse for dancing that was the eighties (all you have to do is think of the imbecility of Van Halen's Jump, because that's about all we did, jump around without form), the Johnnies held onto the mixture of fun, beauty, and sport that is swing-dancing. TAC took it on in the seventies, and WCC has the same tradition now. The Campion students also dance swing, and what they call "The Peeled Bahnahnah" which is, really, the Virginia Reel. Peeled Reel.

Dancing. It delights us, even us older people who have fun dancing with their daughters leading. Ana and I got quite a waltz going, and tried our old swing steps. Thaddeus and I used to try and dance at St. John's, but because his arms are really long and strong, and he doesn't have much sense of it, my arms nearly got ripped off...so we rarely dance.

Dancing. I always think of Austen's Northanger Abbey, and the wonderful discussion of Henry Tilney and Catharine as they dance. She is distracted by an aggressive suitor when dancing with Henry, and tries to be polite and pay attention to both men. Henry protests, and I paraphrase (because I don't have my book here):

"I have engaged you for this dance, Miss Morland. Dancing is, I believe, an emblem of courtship: the man has the power to ask the woman, she has the power to accept or refuse. Once we are engaged, the man deserves the attention of his partner and might see attention paid to another as an affront. We are in an ordered relationship here that requires rules, as does courtship and marriage."

Indeed, Austen cleverly shows deep characteristics and vices in the ballroom scenes (she herself hated the parade of it, but saw it's real meaning). Catherine's chaperone is lazy about helping her get partners, and this laziness shows up more deeply later, as Catherine tries to navigate more serious waters; Isabella, her shallow friend, has a protesting, moral front about her choice of partner, but gives in all too easily to any handsome, rich man who asks her, just as she protests too loudly her deep affection for both Catharine and James Morland, both of whom she betrays.

The intricacies of a dance does show character; those young men who see a young woman who looks timid, like Jim who asked Sophie, and gently invite her into the group; those young women who pay close attention to the lead of the dance and create a flowing, swirling skirt beauty (what would a dance be without beautiful swirling dresses); the way a young woman refuses a dance, with courtesy or callousness. Yes, a dance does show to a certain extent the characters of those involved. It is an emblem for many things, not just courtship: community, rejoicing, learning to work together.

We left the Campion Hall as the stars shone out fully: I keep looking for the Southern Cross, but I am a star dunce and the city lights do indeed mask many of them. We walked back to our house (I am still on the lookout for terribly large poisonous whatevers, so it is 'stars?' 'snakes?' 'stars?') and I listened to the kids share their youthful impressions--"Don't you think she looked like--?" "This made me miss home." "Do you think they know how old I am?"