Bits & Bobs #2

I've noticed towards the end of the semester that I'd got a slightly excessive number of quotes saved up to share with you, so I thought it was time for another bits & bobs post! So here we go. (This post spans from mid-April through late May, and is roughly chronological, but not exactly. XD)

One of my favourite parts of Chesterton's Orthodoxy (largely because it's one of my spiritual father's favourite parts, and he gives a FABULOUS talk about it) is the part where Chesterton talks about Pimlico. 

“Let us suppose we are confronted with a desperate thing – say Pimlico. If we think what is really best for Pimlico we shall find the thread of thought leads to the throne of the mystic and the arbitrary. It is not enough for a man to disapprove of Pimlico; in that case he will merely cut his throat or move to Chelsea. Nor, certainly, is it enough for a man to approve of Pimlico; for then it will remain Pimlico, which would be awful. The only way out of it seems to be for somebody to love Pimlico; to love it with a transcendental tie and without any earthly reason. If there arose a man who loved Pimlico, then Pimlico would rise into ivory towers and golden pinnacles… If men loved Pimlico as mothers love children, arbitrarily, because it is theirs, Pimlico in a year or two might be fairer than Florence. Some readers will say that this is mere fantasy. I answer that this is the actual history of mankind. This, as a fact, is how cities did grow great. Go back to the darkest roots of civilization and you will find them knotted round some sacred stone or encircling some sacred well. People first paid honour to a spot and afterwards gained glory for it. Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.”

When I was in London right before I went to Rome, I visited Pimlico both because of that quote, and because it was right near the church I went to for Mass, and I needed lunch, which Pimlico promised to provide. 

And it was remarkable. Apparently, when Chesterton was writing about Pimlico, it was something along the lines of a slum, with perhaps elements of a red-light district, as well. Now, it's a super fashionable district, with beautiful houses, trendy cafes, and beautiful streets. (It's not exactly ivory towers and golden pinnacles...but good enough.) 

Someone, between Chesterton writing that and now, has loved Pimlico. That made me smile. And it also reminded me of the Gospel. The whole Pimlico thing is meant as an analogy for God's love of us--when we allow His love, His love for us that is completely arbitrary, to pervade us, we will rise up in ivory towers. And so every time we see a great saint, we may rightly say "someone has loved Pimlico", in a way. Or rather, someone has allowed him- or herself to be loved like Pimlico. 

***

One of the most fun things my family did while we were in London (or most of us did--Mom and Gandalf went to the zoo and saw the lemurs that inspired his quote below) was go to the Harry Potter Studios! The oldest four kids in our family (and Dad) are die-hard Harry Potter fans (although Eomer and Galadriel still haven't watched all the movies) and it was one of the most anticipated parts of the trip for all of us. And while there were parts of it that were rather commercial, overall it was a TON of fun. One of the most fantastic things about it was getting to actually walk into a whole bunch of the sets. It was fun to see the sets and the costumes, but the feeling of actually walking into Gringott's, or Diagon Alley, or Privet Drive was unparalleled. And kind of unreal. I don't have an excessive amount to say about it, but I do have a few pictures to share, hence the little blurb. :)

***

My family's visit had the side effect of getting me absolutely addicted to clotted cream. Like. YOU GUYS. It's quite possibly the best British food there is, with apologies to biscuits and haggis. It's basically a similar thickness to room-temperature butter, but it's refrigerable, so it never gets too hard to scoop. But the flavour is more like sweet cream--not sweet because of the addition of butter, but just sweet because cream is sweet. And it develops this little crackling milk layer on top that you cut through with your spoon to scoop it out of the tub... It's ridiculous and I have no idea why we don't have it in the US yet, I need someone to get on that very soon. 

***

When my family was in Oxford, there was an interesting moment that I've pondered a bit since then. We were touring C. S. Lewis's house, the Kilns, and the tour ended in a larger room that's been added onto the house since Lewis's time (possibly in order to accommodate tours & such?). On the mantlepiece of this room there were two red candles in candlesticks. Our guide asked if we had any questions, and my smallest brother raised his hand and asked why the candles were red. My knee-jerk reaction was to be embarrassed--what a silly question! It was probably just a decorator's choice! But later that afternoon, my dad brought up the question again and pointed out that it really showed that my brother had a sacramental worldview. Colour (and physical nature in all its forms) means something in the Catholic Church, and if candles are going to be red (or, really, white, or unbleached, or any other colour) there's a reasoning behind that, because the physical world is one of the ways in which God communicates Himself to us. Seeing the physical world as meaningful is also how my family's household has been run for years. We bring the sacramental worldview into our home with coloured candles for some seasons and feasts, special foods for others, and so on. From Dad's point of view, my brother's question was a confirmation that he and Mom are doing a good job of raising kids who have a Catholic mindset. I thought that was cool! 

***

I recently, missing my Newman Center and inspired after washing the dishes, wrote my first ever sonnet! (I had the idea and was like "it has a twist, so...sonnet form?" and was really surprised at how easily ten syllable lines came...although I guess I have read a lot of sonnets, so I guess that makes sense.) While it's not a very good sonnet (several feet are misplaced for no good reason, for one thing), I still like it and wanted to share it. 

I return back to those familiar halls

And those sweet rooms, the chapel, and the desk

The dining hall, the room where I confessed

The sins I had from our first parents' fall.
I walk beneath the chapel, seeing there
My friends' familiar faces, greeting me
And walking with me, as we go to see
Our Lord, and bend our knees to Him in prayer.

And as I clean the dishes, rapt in thought
of hall and chapel, room, and desk, and friends
I wonder if I'm there, though I am not.
Ghosts are not real, but maybe my thought sends
An image of myself, there in that spot

E'en strong enough to see, before it ends.

***

Luna: "I've now heard you say 'based' and 'not based' in the same day. You've cancelled yourself out!"

My professor, to her class: "Okay, my darlings..."

Me: "I'm happy to be a dead daughter, especially if my dad's name means moustache-haver."

Thomas: "It's not penance, it's stupidity."

Dad: "You have a young person ticket."
Me: "I feel like there's a joke to be made there."
Dad: "They didn't have an old soul ticket for you?"

Galadriel: "What would the world be like if guinea pigs had never existed? Can you miss something you never knew? Bedtime is the best time for delving into deep philosophical questions." 

English Catholic friend: "It's the house of God. We're children of God. We're not trespassing." 
Other English Catholic friend: "If we were Protestants, then we'd be trespassing." 

Legolas: "Bro, the liberal arts majors are going to come after you. They're creative. And underemployed."

Galadriel: "I was thinking in the middle of Mass that they should do more Latin. And then they did, and I realized they shouldn't."

Professor: "More... *pause* Um, I can't use that word." 

Gandalf: *to a large gathering of my mom's siblings (mostly sisters)* "A lot of people here will really like this...lemurs have a mostly female dominant society!"

Me: "I kissed the Blarney Stone!"
Galadriel: "Do you have some horrible lip disease?"

***

You know how sometimes when you're really stressed out, you can't face reading, say, hypothetically, Beowulf, and instead need something quite a bit lighter to just escape and turn your brain off a tad? Yeah. Turns out that need is just as real in the UK as in the US (perhaps more so, given how little sleep I got the last two weeks of April, trying to get ready to submit my final projects), but since I've been trying to almost entirely read solely books from or about the UK while I'm here, I needed to find something light and UK-y to read. And lo and behold, up pops the Dales Detective series! It's a light-ish series of mysteries set in the Yorkshire Dales (one of my favourite places to read about, although I've not made more than a passing visit) featuring a suspended cop and a young woman who's just trying to figure out how to stand on her own two feet again. Oh, and an adorable dog. The cop has had to return to his home village after leaving in disgrace several years before, and the young woman is trying to ride out the waves of gossip and weather her overprotective family. He ends up renting an office in a building she owns to start a PI office; she's not sure if she can trust him but ends up getting pulled into helping him solve his mysteries. It's a delightfully sweet series, and unique in that while there's a romance element, it seems to a be a slow burn that's going to last for the whole series (I've only read the first few books so far), while each book has its own set of mysteries. And so far, they're entirely clean (I mean, minus the crime part), which I appreciate. My one quibble with them is that the mysteries themselves are a bit un-Chestertonian in that they're often written (with twists) such that the reader doesn't have the chance to solve the mystery themselves, which bugs me somewhat. But the small town feel, and the character dynamics still pull me back. :)

***

Quite possibly my favourite thing I saw when I was in Scotland was when I was up by Loch Lomond, and this backpacker walked by, who had a whole entire camping backpack, hiking boots, the whole nine yards...and was wearing a kilt. Absolutely iconic. 

***

When I was in the Dublin airport waiting for my bus and drinking coffee at a little coffee shop with free charging ports, an older man, not a native English speaker, came up and asked if he could charge his phone with my charging cable. I told him he could, and he sat down a few seats away from me. I had about half an hour before my bus, and so I kept working on a blog post, but about fifteen minutes before my bus was due to leave, I closed my laptop and caught his eye, which prompted a very interesting conversation. 

He apparently was Greek, and we somehow got to talking about how the modern world is messed up (it was mostly him talking and me nodding along), which included him observing that the greatest love in the world is the love of a mother for her children, and if we loved more people with that sort of love, the world will be a better place. And also him observing that young people now are always on their phones and never getting married and starting a family, that women don't want to care for their families anymore, or have more than a couple of children, or nurse their babies because they'll lose their figures. He was delighted to hear that I was from a family of five and went on to tell me "I can see that you are a good girl. You should find a good boy and get married. People don't believe good boys are out there, but I'm sure they are. And then have six or seven children." XD His final observation, which I hope wholeheartedly is true, was that someday, people are going to see where we are and want to turn it around--we'll go back to bicycles and leisure time and connected families.  

We shall see.
The whole convo also reminded me of something I was reading recently by Wendell Berry in which he observed that people hear that his wife does his typing and assume that he's taking advantage of her, whereas if she was working for a company as a typist, they'd approve wholeheartedly and not wonder if the company was taking advantage of her. An interesting thought, and reminiscent of Chesterton's quote: 

“Ten thousand women marched through the streets shouting, 'We will not be dictated to,' and went off and became stenographers.”

***

For whatever reason, Ireland has the most stringent border control I have encountered yet. Granted, I've only been through the border control for England, Ireland, Italy, and Germany, but you'd think at least Germany would be as stringent as Ireland, but noooooooo. Going into Ireland, it felt like I was being cross-examined (what's the purpose of your visit? how long are you staying? are you going back to America afterwards? why aren't you going back to American afterwards? how long will you be in England?) and simultaneously eyed with a Suspicious Stare. It was very disconcerting. Ironically, going back from Ireland to the UK, there was no border control at all--not even a passport check. *sardonic eyebrow raise*

***

Speaking of Germany...I was just there for a weekend in mid-May, and it wasn't exciting enough to merit its own post, but it was a great deal of fun! My aunt & uncle and their three kids are living in Munich right now and invited me to go visit them for a weekend. I got to see the kids' school, go to the park with them, and go on a walking tour of downtown Munich (fascinating!). The highlight, though, was definitely visiting Neuchwanstein, Mad King Ludwig's palace, and afterwards going down the sommerrodelbahn, which are these slide-things set up on ski slopes during the summer. that you go down on sled-type structures that make you fear for life and limb (but was also the best roller-coaster-type experience I've ever had). Munich is a beautiful city, but one thing that struck me was that during the tour, the guide was telling us how most of what we saw had been rebuilt after the war because of the bombings. For some reason, I always think about the Blitz and forget that the UK and the US bombed Germany during WWII, as well...

***

One of the songs I've been minorly obsessed with lately has been "Heaven's Light" from the Hunchback of Notre Dame musical (not the same as the movie--much more faithful to the book and also quite a bit darker, lol). You know how there are some songs where you hear one lyric and it just grabs you? "Heaven's Light" is sung by Quasimodo and there's a lyric in the middle that goes "no face as hideous as my face/was ever meant for Heaven's light". 

And oh. my. gosh. that hits SO HARD. It's insane. I was musing about it the other day, because there's a sense in which, well, of course his face is meant for Heaven's light (like, he's a human, and so his vocation is holiness, just like everyone else's, and thus, Heaven) and hideousness doesn't change that, but there's also a sense in which there will be nothing ugly in Heaven, because beauty is one of the attributes of God. The tension there is fascinating, and I'm still musing on it. (Although the whole "glorified bodies" thing probably has a lot to do with resolving it.)

And that's all I've got for you for today! I hope you're having a great summer--I can't believe it's here already!