hgoodman's blog

A short essay to my fourth-grade teacher about what I did on my summer vacation*:

This summer, we went to Long Island (population 3,000), an out island in the Bahamas. We discovered many beautiful and sacluded sicluded empty beaches. Sometimes we would play on the beach without seeing anybody! We spent most of our time at Dean's Blue Hole, a sink hole that dips 633 feet a couple of meters off the beach. The man who holds the world record for the deepest free dive achieved that here.

Dean's Blue Hole

Here are some things I did at Long Island:

• ate fish I caught (namely tuna, grunt, and bonita)

Yes, that's fish blood on my shoulder. I wore that sucker's blood on my ankles, legs, and shirt. I am conqueror!

• played hide-and-go-seek with pilot, parrot, tang, yellowtail, trigger, and other random assortment of fish
• made friends with one particular fish--Danny--who liked to swim circles around me when I was still and tucked himself under me when I swam (if you're reading this, Danny--hi!)
• saw fish fly (also fish fry, but we covered that)
• survived an incident with the reptile that shall not be named (hint: it tempted Adam and Eve and God foretold that there would be animosity between it and women forever; my fears are biblical)
• tasted the best mango in the world (delivered to us by some locals from their trees on almost a daily basis; if you're ever in Long Island, I recommend the kidney mangoes)
• encountered several barracuda and lived to sing about it (All that night and all the next / Swam without looking back) 

Here I am, relaxing nonchalantly on my raft above the blue hole (you can see by the color change where it drops off into never-never land). Notice the barracuda (which I conveniently circled for you) about five feet from me. This was not the scary encounter because (1) I did not know at the time that he swam nearby (my husband neglected to mention it to me while he photographed us) and (2) I was out of the water--not snorkeling mere feet from him.

• read several books on my Kindle since the Calvin Festival (can I say how much I love Niall, my Kindle? I didn't have to cart tons--and when I say "tons," I almost mean it literally--books; watch Shelfari for upcoming reviews of my favorites)

We had lots of fun, and I can't wait to go back. And that's what I did on my summer vacation.

*I wonder what Ms. Harle is doing these days? 

I've been honored with an invitation to blog regularly at The Master's Artist.

As my friend (and now co-blogger) said, "What is this place coming to?"

Nevertheless, I will pop my head up on The Master's Artist every other Tuesday, beginning today.

A snatch from my inaugural piece (unless you count my guest blog a few weeks ago, but since that was a trial run, I suppose we can still call this one the inaugural post):

In my college music composition study, I worked on a violin unaccompanied sonata for an upcoming master class. For the first movement, I took a five-note motif and stretched it, condensed it, turned it upside-down and inside-out. I layered it in fugue and counterpoint. I syncopated its rhythm with hemiola.

In other words, I made that sucker work.

For the second movement, from the same five-note motif, I created an idyllic, fairy-inspired melody.
Proud of my gut-wrenching, music-changing first movement, I showed the work to my professor.

“Nice ideas in the first movement, but the second movement is where you really shine.” He pointed his long, bony finger at me. (Okay, so it wasn’t really bony, although it was long, but bony fingers make better stories.) “In this lyricism, I begin to see you.”

Harsh words to take as a young composer. It got worse.

Read the rest here.

Update: Sorry the links were not previously working. They're working now.

I'm guest-posting today at Everyday Liturgy about worship and creativity.

A sneak peek:

When Chris and I joined our church, we attended a smaller service (at our larger church) with simple, acoustic music in tune with our everyday lives and with opportunities to use our creativity in the service—readings, films, and music.

A couple of years later, our church canceled that service. Now we attend a larger service at the same church. The music (think The New Main Street Singers from Mighty Wind) makes me want to put my eardrums through a shredder, and I no longer have the chance to offer my writing and music in the Sunday morning service.

When Thomas posed the question “how do you use creativity in worship?”, I jumped at the chance to blog about it. I’d been struggling with this very thing for over a year.

You can read the rest here.

I slouched back into the seat, feet propped on the dashboard (don't tell my dad), book in hand. I felt dirty, but relaxed.

We'd been camping.

The water bottle in the cup holder started rattling. My husband turned down the radio.

"Do you hear that?"

Th-thump, th-thump, th-thump. The car kept time in a syncopated rhythm to our drive home. Still driving, on the highway, though half pulled over onto the shoulder, my husband opened his door and looked at the back tire.

"I think it's flat," he said. He closed the door and parked on a stretch of highway between Evant, TX (population 371) and the greater metropolitan area of Hamilton (population 2,922).

Or, we stopped between two cemeteries.

On our left, the Pilgrim's Rest, for weary souls such as ours:

On our right, a rest for other wearied travelers:

Chris got out of the car, inspected the offending tire, and returned to confirm his initial diagnosis.

"It's flat," he said.

Naturally, we first made sandwiches. 

Side note: If you ever need to have a ripped tire, do so when mostly stocked with leftovers from the camping trip. (I always buy too much.)

After a repast of ham and turkey on organic multi-grain bread (with omega-3s and unbleached flour), topped with cheddar cheese and Dijon mustard, and finished off with orange creme and cherry vanilla sodas (also organic), my husband got out to change the tire.

"Funny thing," I said. "I never learned how to change a spare." I'm sure my dad tried to teach me and I decided to play with my imaginary friends instead.

"Good time to learn."

I grabbed our Nikon. "Je suis artiste," I said.

Events like these need documenting. Now, if we were both heaving and hefting, who would take the pictures?

I snapped photos as he unloaded the camping gear from the trunk.

"You're a big help," he told me.

Big, strong, sexy man taming tire-gone-wild.

Chris soon had the spare on, and we were ready to head toward Hamilton to search out a tire store brave enough to be open on Memorial Day.

(We found one--a John Deere sales and repair/used tire sales/vehicle sales shop. I think there may have been a candy shop on the side. We drove in accompanied by Reba's "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" on their radio.)

Mr. Motorcycle waves goodbye to us.

The End

It's all the rage these days to lament the state of reading in our nation. I don't buy it. I know too many readers to believe that all is lost.

All may not be lost, but LOST is a good place to start. (Cheesy rimshot, please.)

The end of an era may be gone with the final episode of LOST, but its legacy carries on. It may no longer be a Twitter trend, but I'd like to pay one last homage to it here. This one's for you, dear readers.

It's no secret that the writers and producers of LOST are readers. They spiced up dialogue and shots with the books of their lives, and reader-watchers picked up on it. It even spawned LOST book clubs.

Dear fellow readers, it's our time down here.

Today, for anyone who would like to join me, let's talk about the books of LOST--our favorites books quotes on LOST and those it inspires us to read.

Here are four of my favorites that I glimpsed on LOST (and proceeded to do the dance of joy in said glimpse):

1. The Chosen by Chaim Potock: Chaim Potock is one of my favorite authors. In Israel, I met a man named Asher--not a rare occurence as it's one of the twelve sons of Jacob. When he introduced himself, I said, "My name is Asher Lev!" He looked at me strangely (Asher is a boy's name). "Nice to meet you." "No," I said. "The book? By Chaim Potock?"

2. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle: This is one of those books that revved up my imagination as a girl. And as an adult. Who doesn't love Meg?

3. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury: A world where books become meaningless. I group this with 1984, and Brave New World, partly because that's how my English teacher grouped them, but because all 3 represent societies where books are lost. (My favorite is Brave New World, but I don't think that one was referenced by the LOST writers and producers.) I applaud the readers of the world who find meaning in the novels, poems, essays, and other books they read to fight this idea.

4. Gilgamesh: Okay, this isn't one of my favorite books, but I'm putting it on the list because (1) I think it influenced LOST more than just an answer on a crossword puzzle--there seems to be quite a bit of this myth in the story, and (2) studying this story helped me understand how story and myth worked in ancient times, and this affects how I understand how the writers of the Bible told God's story.

There are so many other books I'd like to list here, but I'll stop.

I will add a few books LOST inspired me to read. (Note: they mentioned several books on my reading list, but these books I added to my reading list specifically because of LOST.)

1. Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie: In high school, I devoured every Agatha Christie book in our house. (I have yet to discover the perpetrator who snuck all those books onto our bookshelves. They were ancient copies that probably belonged to either my grandparents or my parents when they were in high school.) I missed this one. Seeing Sawyer read it made me miss my Agatha Christie days.

2. Island by Aldous Huxley: As I mentioned, I loved Brave New World, and I'd like to read more Huxley. From some things I've read, this book influences the Others on LOST.

3. Watership Down by Richard Adams: Shocking that I've never read this classic, I know. Even more shocking that I've never had the desire to. (Who wants to read a story about bunnies? They plague my garden.) But if Sawyer read it, I can, too.

There you have it, folks. The inspired books of LOST. If you'd like to join me in this final homage, leave a comment with the link to your post, and I'll link to it in this post.

We have camping buddies. We rarely camp without Patty and Charl, although they camp more often than we do. They have set the rhythm of our routine, though I'd like to believe we've added a syncopation here and there. They taught us things like the best camping breakfast is Nutella on croissants.

A word about Patty and Charl: when they immigrated here from South Africa and had to pare down to the essentials in packing, they made room for their good hiking boots. When they splurge, it's for a pair of Keens.

The Hiking Shoes

Chris and I started camping with Patty and Charl before we got married, before they had their second child. On our first trip, I packed a pair of old running shoes. I had acquired these shoes on some crazy sale, and they had run their last track. They had been delegated to the camping pile. And so, when the time for our hike came, I donned the crazy-sale running shoes.

"Those are some shoes," Charl said.

A word about the shoes: They are mostly silver, glistening silver, with a swatch of plum down the hull and tongue.

"We won't lose you," Chris said.

On our second trip, Patty called to talk food arrangements.

A word about our food arrangements: We like to think of ourselves as gourmet campers. We pack salmon and steak, wine, and air mattresses.

At the end of our conversation, she said, "Make sure you bring those shoes!"

So pack the shoes I did.

Every trip since then, those shoes, less silvery and less glistening, get packed along with my hiking clothes, sunscreen, and water bottle.

The Tent

Last year, a tear near the zipper of our tent rendered it unusable. Sure, if I were the hearty sewing type, I could buy a new zipper, thrust a heavy-duty needle through the canvas, and fix the tent.

I am not the hearty sewing type.

Also, my husband seized the opportunity for a new tent. He shopped online; he shopped REI; he shopped Academy. When it comes to new toys, my husband is thorough. At last, he found what he wanted at (what he told me was) a good price.

One particular weekend closely following the procurement of said new tent, Patty and Charl rung us up.

"Time to go camping," they said.

I would be out of town the weekend they had in mind, so Chris went without me. (The nerve of him!) And he set up the new tent.

"Looks like you've got the Taj Mahal there, brother," Charl said. (Charl calls his male friends "brother" often. He's like Desmond in that way. Thirty-second break to mourn the end of LOST.)

Today I spend my afternoon cleaning our camping accoutrements, shopping for our gourmet foods and wines, and packing the silver purple shoes and the Taj Mahal. 

She slides into base, and she steals second!

For the second week, I've stolen Popinjay from Michelle to host here. The team's after me, so I don't expect my glory will last much longer. I'm on the run. Bound to end up with Al Capone, John Dillinger, and Bonnie.

Until then, let's enjoy the show, shall we?

A reminder about Popinjay, as defined by Michelle:

pop⋅in⋅jay--noun--a person given to vain, pretentious displays and empty chatter.

In other words, blogging.

Isn't that what this personal blogging is all about? Me. Me. Me. For this photo challenge, that's perfect. We're going to dig inside of ourselves and do some concept photography.

I'm going to give you a word and you're going to take a photo of something that describes the concept of the word. 

And, again, no silly rules about pictures you can or can't use, such as kids or pets.

Today's word: gaudy.

From dictionary.com:

gaud·y

–adjective, gaud·i·er, gaud·i·est.
1. brilliantly or excessively showy: gaudy plumage.
2. cheaply showy in a tasteless way; flashy.
3. ostentatiously ornamented; garish.

I have to admit, I struggled with this one (which is why I'm posting a day late). No one thinks of themselves as gaudy (unless I piled on all my scarves), so a self-portrait was out. Neither do we think our own homes gaudy.

Then I remembered, the adjective gaudy was derived from the man Gaudi, a Spanish architect most known for his (unfinished) cathedral in Barcelona, La Sagrada Família.

So, in keeping with the architectural aspect, I give you my offering of gaudy.

 

And, as a bonus, the architectural piece my niece and I built:

It was a globalized society. Man ignored God's command to go out into the earth. Instead, they stayed home. Had they migrated, emigrated, immigrated, their languages and cultures would've shifted, developed in different directions, explored new beauties. Instead, they clung to what they knew.

Who knows why they decided to build this magnificent tower? Perhaps to display what they thought was their own grandeur. Perhaps (as was the typical reason) as a refuge and protection for the city. Perhaps as a beacon for those lost longing for home. Whatever the reason, one thing is clear: no matter how magnificent and grandiose they thought their tower, no matter how tall, God still had to look down at this tiny thing to find it.

And he was displeased.

So he did what should have happened naturally. He diversified their languages, forcing them to disperse into the earth. After all, how would they fill the earth if they cluttered in one area?

Fast forward to Pentecost, the beginning of the church age. In this day that signals the birth of the Body of Christ, God doesn't undo the Tower of Babel.

He redeems it.

We worship God in every language and culture, and that is only a taste of the diversity and beauty we'll experience in the re-created, restored earth. We won't cluster. We won't be the same. We'll glorify God by our diversity. 

Babel is no longer meaningless babble. It is a symphony.

Confession: I don't love words.

Not as some do, studying etymologies, saving pennies (George Washingtons, Ben Franklins) to purchase the Oxford Dictionary.

An odd confession for a writer, I know. But saying "I love words" or "I love the word fructuous. Don't you just love fructuous?" is akin to claiming an adoration for a certain note. "How wonderful is Eb? I just love that note!"

I leave the word-loving to the poets. I take words, without care to their feelings, and manipulate them, use them willy-nilly to create stories, characters, and, yes, rhythms. I don't care if the word sounds nice or crass, if it would impress a Cambridge scholar or a soldier on the frontlines of Afghanistan.

This is not to say that I don't agonize over word choice. I stare at a sentence for hours trying to figure out what's not working about it, which word offends. Changing a single word can transform a maudlin sentence into a heartwrenching one, a bland paragraph into something amusing, a bitter passage into a sarcastic one.

This is not to say I don't turn words over while washing the dishes, folding laundry, or showering. I take the words of my story wherever I go. (Hence the need for my handy-dandy Nancy Drew notepad.)

In the end, if you want to know the truth, the words I use are not up to me. My characters make the decisions. Don't blame me if that curse word's there. I didn't put it there. My character did. Hey, I can't help it if one of my characters likes antiquated terms. She likes to read old books. Personally, I think she's a pain in the neck, but what can I say? And yes, her husband uses all of those economic terms. Everything can be broken into financial illustrations according to him.

At least I don't have a character who talks in limericks.

Yet.

Cue The Bourne Identity theme song. Or any other music that intimidates covert ops, high-speed chases, and MacGuyver-like intelligence on steroids.

I stole Popinjay from Michelle Pendergrass.

For those of you unfamiliar with the weekly Popinjay Photo Challenge, here's the explanation Michelle gives:

pop⋅in⋅jay--noun--a person given to vain, pretentious displays and empty chatter.

In other words, blogging.

Isn't that what this personal blogging is all about? Me. Me. Me. For this photo challenge, that's perfect. We're going to dig inside of ourselves and do some concept photography.

I'm going to give you a word and you're going to take a photo of something that describes the concept of the word. 

Michelle gives one rule:

You may not use pictures of your children and/or pets.

Seeing as how Popinjay is mine (all mine! mwuhahaha) for the next two weeks, by all means, use any pictures of your children and/or pets you'd like. Rules, schmules.

Today's word: joyful.

joy·ful
[joi-fuhl]
–adjective
1. full of joy, as a person or one's heart; glad; delighted.
2. showing or expressing joy, as looks, actions, or speech.
3. causing or bringing joy, as an event, a sight, or news; delightful: the joyful announcement of their marriage.

Sample from the Heather Goodman "Glimpses of the Resurrection" collection:

 

Ah, my beloved beach. Of course, I'm not picky about beaches (exception: Galvestion, TX--for those of you who have been there, you know what I mean). But Ocean City is the beach of my girlhood. It conjures contrasts of the warmth of the sun on your skin and the cold Atlantic numbing your bones, the salt of the sea air filling your sinuses and the sweetness of Italian water ice on your tongue, the laughter of the crowds and the white silence of the crashing waves.

Ocean City reminds me that God created the earth, that he called it good, and that he will redeem it.

Your turn. Let's see your images of joyful. Please remember to leave a comment when you put up your link to make sure I don't miss you.