Birds, books, and hope

Three baby titmice were learning how to fly, pick up seeds, and roughhouse on our balcony this afternoon.  They were all grey and fluffy, without the adult white and orange plumage, and with their tiny little crests just beginning to stand up.  My favorite little one spent most of its time fluffing its wings and making peeping noises at its brothers and sisters, opening its beak widely with each noise, like a puppet.

Sarah listened to Uncle Tom’s Cabin on her mom’s Walkman as we walked through the neighborhood this morning at 7:30.  She’s excited about using audio books for her Comprehensive Exams next January, because listening makes activities like walking and driving doubly productive.  Having just read Beloved by T. Morrison and Z.N. Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, it’s very interesting to see what a writer of European ancestry gets and misses when portraying characters of African ancestry.  She and I both prefer Beloved.  While she listened, I reviewed my Greek flash cards.  

Hopeful farmers – that’s Sarah and Nathan.  We just started year 2 of being married.  Our apartment is looking much neater now that the semester is over.  We brought four bookshelves from IKEA into our apartment to manage the heaps of books for graduate school.  Next to our couch are the shelves for the library and currently-being-used books.  The 100-some books we needed for our seminar papers on Alcuin, the liberal arts, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez have been returned and replaced by my summer books - Augustine’s Confessions and my Koine Greek textbook, and Sarah’s 20-some works of important American and British literature.  She’s got Mrs. Dalloway in her hands at the moment.

Life is ridiculously cool.  And ridiculously hard.  We’re trying to cherish hope this year, to see where it comes from and how it can sustain us.  ”Spes alit agricolam,” so goes the old saying…