Jayber Crow (technically, Jayber Crow: The Life Story of Jayber Crow, Barber, of the Port Williams Membership, as Written by Himself) is a novel written by Wendell Berry. if you and I have talked through the topics of contemporary culture, religion, community, and/or literature, you’ve heard me gush about him. poet, novelist, thinker, farmer, and inspiration for my sole tattoo, berry is, I believe, a much-needed voice in this go-go-go, me-myself-I, big boxed, urban sprawled world. I not only find his ideas compelling and poetry breathtaking, but his prose nothing short of masterful.

beyond these thoughts I’m ill-equipped to be a critic. what I can say, however, is that there are so, so many lines and passages in this book that are profound, if not simply beautiful; Jayber Crow is littered with these. and so as not to forget them, I’ve decided to transcribe selections that I can’t shake from my soul as I work through the book.

here they are, from page 3 to 54.

“But it was her eyes that most impressed me. They were nearly black and had a liquid luster. The brief, laughing look that she had given me made me feel extraordinarily seen, as if after that I might be visible in the dark.” (p. 10)

“I don’t remember when I did not know Port William, the town and the neighborhood. My relation to that place, my being in it and my absences from it, is the story of my life.” (p. 12)

“The river was a barrier and yet a connection. I felt, a long time before I knew, that the river had shaped the land. The whole country leaned toward the river. All the streams flowed to it. It flowed by, yet it stayed. It brought things and carried them away. I did not know where it flowed from or to, but I knew that it flowed a great distance through the opening it had made. The current told me that.” (p. 18)

“The river, the river itself, leaves marks but bears none. It is only water flowing in a path that other water as worn.” (p. 19)

“I was a little past ten years old, and I was the survivor already of two stories completely ended.” (p. 28)

“Telling a story is like reaching into a granary full of wheat and drawing out a handful. There is always more to tell than can be told. As almost any barber can testify, there is also more than needs to be told, and more than anybody wants to hear.” (p. 29)

“Order was of the soul, whose claims the institution represented. Disorder was of the body, which was us.” (p. 32)

“And so there would always be more to remember that could no longer be seen. This is one of those things I can tell you that I have learned: our life here is in some way marginal to our own doings, and our doings are marginal to the greater forces that are always at work.” (p. 37)

“I watched her all the time. When her class went out to play, she did not take part but only stood back and watched the other girls. She always wore a dress that sagged and brown cotton stockings that were always wrinkled. She was waiting. I did not understand that she was waiting but she was. And then one day as her classmates were joining hands to play some sort of game, one of the girls broke the circle. She held out her hand to the newcomer to beckon her in. And E. Lawler ran into the circle and joined hands with the others.” (p. 39)

“Finally I reasoned that in dealing with God you had better give Him the benefit of the doubt.” (p. 43)

“It was as if the world had turned itself upside down above my head and poured over me the rivers and oceans of warm water.” (p. 45)

“In most of them I saw the old division of body and soul that I had known at The Good Shepherd. The same rift ran through everything at Pigeonville College; the only difference was that I was able to see it more clearly, and to winder at it. Everything bas was laid on the body, and everything good was credited to the soul. It scared me a little when I realized that I saw it the other way around. If the soul and body were really divided, then it seemed to me that all the worst sins – hatred and anger and self-righteousness and even greed and lust – came from the soul. But these preachers I’m talking about all thought that the soul could do no wrong, but always had its face washed and its pants on and was in agony over having to associate with the flesh and the world. And yet these same people believed in the resurrection of the body.” (p. 49)

“If we are to understand the Bible as literally true, why are we permitted to hate our enemies? If jesus meant what He said when He said we should love our enemies, how can Christians go to war? Why, since He told us to pray in secret, do we continue to pray in public? Is an insincere or vain public prayer not a violation of the third commandment? And what about our bodies that always seemed to come off so badly in every contest with our soul? Did Jesus put on our flesh so that we might despise it?” (p. 50)

“And where do you find the strength to pray ‘thy will be done’ after you see what it means?” (p. 51)

okay, so off the bat, I want to acknowledge that “bourgeoisie” is a pretty loaded term, with a good amount of variance in meaning to different people. I also want to acknowledge that “bourgeoisie” is one of those words that, along with “hegemony,” “jejune,” and “undie-run,” college graduates use to prove that they went to college. so forgive me for using such a term as this, but I really enjoy how it fits in with that insufferable new black eyed peas song I’m forced to listen to while I drive children to the club from their school. I intend on using this word (if I use it at all in this post) with respect to the middle/upper-middle class lifestyle/value set/ethos.

with that said, I’ve endured a recent spate of thoughts about comfort, stability, calling, and my future. the astronomical number of my friends who have gotten married in the past few years moves me to think about my own futuredays; the slightly-smaller astronomical number of babies my friends have produced just stokes those thoughts and questions. I’ve only managed some quarter-baked thoughts, but I seem to only write inconclusive, underdone thoughts on my blog anyway, so whatevs.

see?

basically, in my mental staggering, I think I’m becoming a little bit uncomfortable with the notion of working toward a life of comfort. I get that this in itself may be a very bourgeois thought exercise (in that this assumes mobility and choice), but that’s not the point. never in my life have I heard “work toward complete instability,” and probably for good reason. similarly, I’ve never been told “work toward excess,” though I know people who have been told that, have become very successful, but have still managed to remain very decent, grounded people. like in all things I think about, I assume that there must be a middle ground – something between an ascetical life and a gluttonous life; in my line of reasoning, that would be a life of comfort.

but it seems to me that this middle ground is extremely vast and ambiguous, checkered with matters of personal preference, principle, and perception (quadruple alliteration score!). comfort is not by any means bad, evil, unbiblical, or unamerican. but the reason it gives me slight pause is that, like salt water, the more of it you have, the more of it you need. in my experiences (let me say that again, with feeling: my experiences), comfort, by its nature, demands more comfort.

to achieve comfort, accruement becomes the name of the game. I sow my hard work, time, and dilligence, and I hopefully reap something proportionate to that. but when I do that – and I can’t help but feel like a crazy TBN televangelist when I write this in rhyme – the more I reap, the more I want to keep (cue crazy pink-haired lady’s emphatic clapping and nodding). the feeling of entitlement creeps in and slowly spreads under the radar, beneath one’s vigilance against such things. after all, can’t entitlement be seen as merely a perversion of a sense of fairness? and from my own struggles, I’m pretty sure that entitlement is the arch-nemesis of giving. this is the core of what troubles me, I guess.

on the other hand, it would be naive to believe that, for most people, comfort is pursued for comfort’s sake. families (actual and future) need to be fed and provided for. rent or mortgages need to be paid, things maintained. is it so wrong to desire a life marked by stability/non-instability, especially with a family in tow? I certainly don’t think so.

at this point, I need to admit that I’ve obviously manipulated my use of terms. are stability and comfort one and the same? I don’t know, but I have a suspicion that they are not, though I think each bleeds substantially into the other. and if comfort and stability are two unique ways of living, can a line, however faint, be drawn? this is where my brain needs more time to process.

or maybe this is the point in my thinking that I admit that my life just needs more time to experience.

perhaps living a life of comfort is totally cool, but only if it’s counteracted by courage.

courage to give more. courage to feel entitled to little and hoard even less. courage to live within my means and courage to increase the means of others.

this all could be a semantical matter that I’ve taken far too seriously for the sake of my own intellectual and idealist vanity. but I really, really don’t think so. even if 99% of what I’ve written above is misguided or plain wrong, I think there’s something okay about exploring the boundaries of whatever lifestyle I choose or fall into. I think there’s some merit to the belief that, whether we want to admit or not, the more we reap, the more we want to keep.

I draw no conclusions except one: if you’ve stuck with me through this post, thank you. I’m 25 and still feel uninitiated to the rest of my life, which is an obvious thought that still manages to be hauntingly overwhelming. questioning and being okay with drawing no hard truths from those questions is the best way to cope with that overwhelming feeling, I think, so thanks again.

for some reason or another, I recently came across a clip of Nancy Kerrigan right after she had been attacked (here’s a video. skip ahead to about 1:55). she cries “why?” and “why me?” over and over again. it’s uncomfortable and sad. it’s also just a tiny bit funny, but maybe only because we know now that if 1994 had youtube, this clip would have gone viral faster than you can say “Oksana Baiul.” and also because we know that she ultimately recovered from her injury to win a silver medal. and by “we know,” I mean wikipedia says.

of course, lots of things happen that cause me to wonder “why?”. some are small and trivial, like when ants show up in a cleared-out dishwasher, or when my macbook screen flickers. some are gigantic, like the proliferation of various injustices in this otherwise decent world, or why someone like ke$ha matters one bit in said otherwise decent world.

but perhaps the things that affect me most – and by most, I mean in the most immediate, day-to-day way – are the situations and circumstances that occur somewhere in between trivial and gigantic.

their explanations reside in that weirdly unique place between nonexistent and ineffable. if I’m somehow able to pinpoint some order behind the chaos, I skeptically discredit myself with charges of arrogance; definitive answers to life scare the heebees out of me. and I think that’s an interesting pattern of behavior that, for the sake of my sanity and sense of semi-normalcy, I hope others find themselves in, too.

when I hear myself asking “why?”, it’s because of something I didn’t ask for. and in those moments of reflection and questioning, I find myself desperately wanting to (terrible figurative language alert!) box up the fun little gift left for me on my doorstep and return to sender.

of course, unless I decide to fall off the grid, this is largely impossible. there’s the canon of “you’ll get through it!” sentiments, which, in my opinion is like hold music. it plays and plays until something happens, but it carries no causal effect. there’s utter resignation, but I think that resignation and misery often go hand-in-hand, assuming that resignation and acceptance are slightly different things. there’s also the option of doing something completely (b)rash, but it’s sort of outside my character to “go all office space” on something.

what remains is people; to be more precise, community. will community fix my life? not necessarily. will they gracefully (and humorously) remind me that I can lean into them for support and non-hallmark encouragement? yes. instead of looking for an eject button, I’m reminded by community that I can work within and through my current lot. things can be done to practice forbearance, to seek purpose behind calamity (however mild it may be compared to those gigantic questions), and even to take action. and when I need it most, they remind me of a providence beyond me, which is, frankly, pretty rad.

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

-Wendell Berry, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front”

1. stepping into the shower with an article of clothing still on. this happened to me once my freshman year of college after a particularly long day, and I felt so, so foolish for it that I’ve been fearing repeating this scenario again ever since.
2. getting into a fatal car crash while listening to an embarrassing guilty pleasure song. “in local news, a 25-year-old portland resident passed away today after colliding into the side of a dairy queen. the man was originally from california, and he was listening to taylor swift’s ‘you belong with me’ at the time of the crash.” aziz ansari (tom haverford on the ever-improving and hilarious NBC comedy, parks and recreation) talks about a similar fear in his standup routine, except he’s afraid of what he’ll be googling on his blackberry (i.e. himself) when he crashed and dies.
3. sudden death due to cardiac shock when the shower water suddenly turns cold. another shower-related fear. weird. I haven’t done any scientific research on this, but it’s plausible, no?
4. getting water on my pants while I’m washing my hands in a public restroom and people thinking I peed myself. this one’s pretty legit, I think. I’m not as confident as Billy Madison was, nor am I as convincing.
5. electric shock. any way you think about, this does not seem in any way acceptable. I’m super careful when I plug/unplug cords. I vaguely remember putting a key into a wall socket when I was 5 or so, but I’m not too sure, and understandably so.
6. losing a penny forever and then finding out my parents had to go bankrupt by the margin of one cent. alright, so this one is from my childhood, but still. granted, I didn’t understand the meaning of bankruptcy (I obviously had some vague understanding that it involved money and not enough of it), but I meant well. I used to keep every coin I found in the couch or on the sidewalk in a jar just in case I found out my parents were “going bankrupt.” this is probably the result of witnessing stressed, budgeting, scrimping-and-saving parents throughout my entire childhood.
7. failure. alright, this isn’t so frivolous. but, it is a great segue. next post will be about my forreal fears.

after taking the GRE, I assume most people like to relax a little. never one to follow in lockstep with the crowd (except on.. well, I’ll be honest: a LOT of occasions) I went grocery shopping for produce. another resolution for 2010 is to purchase and eat more produce, so after completing one resolution in the morning, why not work on another one in the afternoon?

I stopped at freddy’s and new seasons and brought home a moderate, if not humble, harvest. here is said harvest:

there are some leeks, yukon potatoes, poblano peppers, onions, red leaf lettuce, red and green peppers, avocados, chives, scallions, and a few more things. it’s not much, or is it all that exotic, but it’s a start. (and yes, that hideous thing in the upper-left corner of the picture is a teapot made to look like a middle-of-the-woods cottage. it was a part of my christmas gift to aubrey. we decided to share joint custody of that thing.)

a few hours after coming back from the store, energized by my produce area conquest, I set out to follow Alton Brown’s recipe for leek potato soup, something I had always wanted to do but simply never did. I guess it’s the same thing as a vichyssoise.

a short tutorial on the proper way to clean leeks, a messy pile of potato skin, and a 22-ounce bottle of Hopworks DOA later, I had made this:

didn’t taste that bad, either! I had it hot, which was delicious. tonight, I had some cold, and it was, as Alton claimed, refreshing. like, disturbingly refreshing.

next up, I think I’ll go for the poblano peppers. gotta find a fun, promising recipe..

A) The quantity in Column A is greater.
B) The quantity in Column B is greater.
C) The quantities are equal.
D) The relationship cannot be determined from the information given.

2. Paul started studying for the GRE x weeks ago.

A) The quantity in Column A is greater.
B) The quantity in Column B is greater.
C) The quantities are equal.
D) The relationship cannot be determined from the information given.

3. 0 < amount of effort spent studying < a billion

A) The quantity in Column A is greater.
B) The quantity in Column B is greater.
C) The quantities are equal.
D) The relationship cannot be determined from the information given.

Solutions:
1. A
2. C
3. B

since my last post, stuff has happened. to be more exact, lots of stuff has happened. not too much stuff, but a lot. I’ll get around to that in a later post.

I’ve never been one to make new year’s resolutions. well, that’s not entirely true. I made a set of resolutions my junior year of high school on a piece of scrap paper. but I ended up losing it, and then not caring about it (I think my concern for things moved pretty quickly from new year’s resolutions to SAT scores and music I could find on Napster), so that probably doesn’t count.

this year, however, I’ve decided to write some things down. part of my wish to do so may stem from the fact that I spent the last few months of 2009 thinking about 2010. not exactly carpe diem-y, but I’m suspecting 2010 could be pivotal, if not formative.  do I have evidential basis for that suspicion? no, except that my hunch has yet to be proven false.

so here are my first documented resolutions since the year I thought “drops of jupiter” was a great song. specific and nebulous, significant and silly – here’s to 2010.

1. buy more produce, eat more produce. remember that things like sugar snap peas are crazy delicious, and not just because the word “sugar” is in the name.
2. make a stop-motion video to a song I enjoy. the process will be time-consuming and taxing. the final product will be shitty. do it anyway.
3. write more. moleskine, blog, bathroom mirrors, arm, whatever. do not be afraid of your own words. reject self-censorship, embrace expression. grammar and syntax are secondary to honesty.
4. take the GRE. you’ve already registered. prepare, then show up. bring an ID, breathe, and be sure to wear pants. everything else will work out.
5. (finally) apply to grad school. remember that this was one of the reasons you moved to Portland. this was your original plan. you now have a timeline. stick to it, go for it.
6. get into grad school. actually, let’s start with making sure you remember to wear pants on the morning of the GRE.
7. try my hand at the harmonica. just try. success is not guaranteed, or even expected. there’s no instrument more emotive than the harmonica, and it may behoove you to attempt to play it.
8. speak less, listen more. make 2010 a year of listening. to others, to yourself, to non-verbal cues, to that gentle whisper that echoes with truth, love, and knowing.
9. recover from the heel injury and pick up running again. it’s been nearly 2 months. body, hurry up!
10. 185. it’s possible. even 200 seemed impossible just a few months ago.
11. lean into spiritual practices. a moderate fascination with old testament practices that seemed really, well, pointless and moot was stoked a few years ago after reading the year of living biblically. continue and further that trajectory.
12. give an unfamiliar genre of music a chance. who knows, maybe you’ll totally dig argentinian new wave.
13. finish books. you currently have five books that aren’t even halfway read. don’t move on until these are done.
14. keep loving mom and dad, even when it’s hard. over christmas, you were able to broach topics like postmodern theology, interracial relationships, and tattoos without having to storm out of the house out of frustration. mom and dad will not get much better at english, and you sure as hell aren’t getting any better at korean. be thankful for the dialogue you can have and their willingness to try. they love you more than you will ever comprehend. remember that and act accordingly.
15. engage in more DIY projects. DIY projects are fine when you come across them in the blogosphere, but try some out! dare to be a yip-yip for halloween.
16. keep exploring Portland. this is home. know your home, know it intimately.
17. if 2010 disappoints, take it in stride. things fall apart, and sometimes, those things happen to be plans, expectations, and fondant on a cake. life can be brittle and messy, but every shard of a broken reality can be redeemed. roll with it.
18. care. the world cannot afford a generation of apathy. do your part. act. make your words flesh.
19. continue to refine the recipe for the “you know what I’m sayin’?” cupcake. literally and metaphorically. this will take time, dedication, grace, passion, and patience. but it will be worth it. every batch, every morsel.

they also all ask the same questions.

I guess part of the fun in working with kids – especially the ones that I work with – is that they speak without filters. tact doesn’t exactly appear early on in the list of developmental traits. I mean, this is kinda what youtube was made for, isn’t it? lots of people enjoy watching NASCAR for the potential of a flaming wreck; I enjoy talking with kids for the potential of them saying something crazy.

of course, as some unfortunate people who attend NASCAR races know, waiting for a crash can also mean that a piece of wreckage could fly at your face and break your jaw. similarly, waiting for kids to say funny things can lead to hearing really hilarious, sometimes mean, and always puzzling questions… about you.

so, in reaction, here’s a FAQ to provide answers the kids so desperately seek.

Q: Are you Chinese or Mexican?
A: Neither. Guess what I am and I’ll give you a prize.
note: only one kid has guessed correctly, and he was Korean.

Q: Why is your hair so crazy?
A: Because it is. I don’t know what else to do with it short of cutting it all off, and you don’t want to see that. My head is uuuuuh-gly. And also because you keep touching it, so stop.

Q: What language do you speak?
A: English, por que? I also speak un poco espanol.
note: Jaws tend to drop due to my impeccable spanish accent, especially when it’s limited to use in five words. Also, the kids are obviously looking for an answer like “vietnamese” or “chinese,” but I’m not going to give that up so easily.

Q: Why don’t you take off a few pounds?
A: Why don’t you?
note: I’ve never actually said this, though there are some kids I could easily say this to and be justified in doing so.

Q: Why are you a jerk?
A: I know.
note: this usually gets a pretty good laugh.

Q: Why is [place of my employment/their membership] so boring?
A: Well, for what you’re paying, I’d say it’s pretty awesome. I understand that losing to me in ping pong every day might get kinda boring, but to be honest with you, for me the thrill of victory knows no minimum age. Here, let’s play connect 4. At least you haven’t lost to me already. Or, you can fill out some grant paperwork and tell me how that feels.

Q: Why do you sag your pants?
A: It’s really a combination of things. First, you have no idea how much I used to sag when I was a little older than you are now. Back then, we had something called JNCO jeans and miller’s outpost super baggy jeans, and you don’t have nothing on those now. Secondly, I have oddly proportioned waist, hips, and butt, so that kinda makes the pants hang a bit more than I’d like them to. Lastly, I’m trying to relate to you in any way I can. This is why you actually saw me do the stanky leg once a few months ago.

Q: Are you rich?
A: [uncontrollable laughter]