Meet Addy

I was an American Girl. Addy was my favorite. She's probably responsible for my love of Civil War history. I was a romantic little stoic child. Or at least I was helplessly romantic and tried desperately to be stoic. Addy and her struggle to keep her feeling on the inside when her father and brother were sold to another plantation and when she was terrified on her run North was one of those things that got my little imagination running at ten or twenty time my reading speed. I made up stories about runaway slaves and tragically separated families for the next five or six years...

And it was the history too: the little details of how they lived and what they wore and all that. American Girls was really good at that. There is a long list of historical fiction set in that time that came after Addy and I would probably have missed if I wasn't introduced to the time through the Addy stories. I can't remember many of the names. There was one about a quaker community... Who Comes With Cannons... I think... Across Five Aprils is great... lots of slaves hiding in hay carts and that sort of thing. I would probably not take the Addy books with me to school (though I might bring my mini doll just for old time sake) but those stories were definitely important.

The Silver Chair

Whenever I go away from home I take a book. (Just like the main character in Inkheart by Cornelia Funeke, which is pretty good even thought it drags on forever) When I leave my natural context and go out where I'm not at home and people don't know me, I like to take a story that is part of me out too so I remember who I am. It's usually a Narnia book. Silver Chair almost always gets picked because of the Burnt Marshwiggle. I have to remember that I'm a Narnian and, no matter how far from Narnia I am or how unreal it seems. I ought to live like a Narnian always. It's a journey story and that makes it good to take on journeys. And because in the first chapter Eustace lets Jill in on his terrific secret even though she might laugh at him. Terrific Secrets like that are meant for sharing and you have to take the risk. Christ is my terrific secret.

Book shelf

I'm looking at my book shelf and thinking about stories. If there is one thing that competes with music as the most important cultural force in my life it is stories. Like I said earlier, I didn't read till I was twelve but I heard lots of stories. My mother read to me and Dana read to me and there were books on tape. (Those little cassette tapes that no one uses anymore were a Huge part of my childhood.) In a way you really are what you read and especially when you are a child. I was thinking about what I would bring off my books shelf to college, if I go to a far away college. It was terrible cause I would want to take all the books that stuck and all the stories that are especially well written so I can look and see how it's done.
I am making myself a list. It's quite a mixed bag. Some very silly books and some are recognized Classics. Some are important because of a single paragraph or page that meant something to me. Some I have read over and over because ever word is precious. They are all stories that have shaped me some how. So I think I will put the list in my side bar and maybe tell you about a few of them briefly.

A Bit of Earth

When a thing is wick it has a life about it
Now maybe not a life like you and me
But somewhere there's a singles streak of green inside it.
Come and let me show you what I mean.

When a think is wick it has a light around it
Maybe not a light that you can see
But hiding down below a spark's asleep inside it
Waiting for the right time to be seen.

You clear away the dead partsso the tender buds can form
Loosen up the earth and let the roots get warm
Let the roots get warm
Come a mild day,come a warm rain
Come a snow drop, a-comin' up
Come a Lily, Come a lilac come to call
Callin' all of us to come and see

St. Therese called herself the Little Flower. She wrote beautifully about how God had carefully planted and tended her all through her life. She grew up in the rich soil of her family and was carefully sheltered and cared for until she was transplanted to her Carmelite convent where she lived the rest of her life blooming happily.She is probably not the first one to use a garden as an analogy for our lives and our relationship with God, but she always pops into my head when I think about my favorite musical so I'm giving her an honorable mention.

Frances Hodgson Burnett, who wrote some of those formative stories that make me who I am, used the image of a garden to symbolize changed, growth and healing. The Secret Garden is about several broken people finding healing in a garden. It's a classic of children's literature that every girl, at least, should read at a certain age.

Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman who adapted it for the stage accomplished what everyone who adapts books tries for; fidelity to the heart and spirit of the story. They took a beautiful book and made it into an equally beautiful musical with essentially the same story and message to give us: A person's life becomes meaningful and beautiful when it is occupied with somehow giving life to others.
I really can't discribe it. The more I try the more convinced I am boring everyone and not getting my point across nearly so well as that show does on it's own. You just have to listen to the soundtrack (or read the book first if you haven't). It is my fovorite and, I think, musical theater at it's best because, although the story is told apart from the music, the songs add a layer of meaning to ever scene that couldn't possibly be put into a sript.

Quick, irrelevant reasons I love this musical:

• There are ghosts!
• I want Dicken to be my older brother
• Lots of songs I can sing at the top of my lungs when I'm alone in the car.
• Duets! Trios!! Quartetes!!! Now, if I could find some other people to sing them with me...
• In general I love the music; "Winter's on the Wing," "I heard someone crying," "Wick," "Lily's Eyes" *sigh* "Race you to the top of the morning" so many and SO Good.
• The girl who plays Mary on the soundtrack is briliant. She doesn't sound obnoxious and over confident like a typical broadway child star, she is just a little girl.
• Martha and Dicken and their Yorkshire dialect!
• When Dicken sings, sometimes he is talking to Mary and sometimes he is talking to the audience about Mary and sometimes he is talking about Spring and you can never really tell which.
• The music does such an amazing job of showing how the characters change and their relationships to each other.
  

Update on the Boring Things people ask about

I applied to a college this year. Yeah, I've been at the community college but I was getting frustrated because there are a lot of things I want to do that I can't get at the community college. So, after a frustrating visit to the advisor's office, I did a search on college board and found a college that offered most of what I wanted. It was really hard. I had to narrow done my interests to just the ones I think I could really spend four years studying. I ended up with art, music and creative writing. I found a school in Gettysburg that offered those three as majors (creative writing is a minor but that works for me). It's Gettysburg College so of course there is also a great history program and Civil War studies which is perfect for me. There is a classics program and Italian studies, and a whole bunch of other interesting things that Zita likes.
So I got all excited. I applied and even spent a weekend over there. There were a lot of great experiences. I did a vocal audition for the music school there and didn't get nervous. That was a major triumph for me. I also felt the age gap between me and the kids who would be my classmates. I'm 21 and they are going on 19. There is a difference.
I got to visit Catholic University of America in Washington DC while I was in the neighborhood. That was really cool. There were just lots of 'growing up' experiences and everyone can now say "I told you so" and "it's about time" if you really want to.
But I didn't make the cut for Gettysburg this year. I'm back to square one. I am a little disappointed. Everything seemed so perfect for me but I guess God has something else in mind. I have some more things to learn here yet. I will be applying to schools in bulk now I guess. That was the original plan anyway; spend two years at SFCC and then decide where I wanted to go.
Now I have a better idea of what I want to do. After much agonizing I decided that I really do want to study music, art and creative writing. Nothing practical of course, but I can't see myself going to college and not taking the opportunity to study them. I have a year to change my mind. I know that I want to go away from home. I have a list of places I don't want to go to school. I feel like I'm being picky but anything that narrows my choices is good for me and my poor decision making skills. I even know roughly what I'm going to be working on at SFCC this next year. It's a little weird. All these goals and plans and normal things are not as boring to me as they used to me. I still can't wait till school gets out next week so I can get back to my real life.