varying degrees of light

I'm in the quiet stillness of almost 3 in the morning. I'm not well rested and it doesn't seem I will be for tomorrow either, but there is the sad hope of catching a few hours of rest during dinner time. And why not?

A Separate Peace by John Knowles
One of the first novels I read critically, analytically - and that I hated at first, but grew to enjoy after the weariness of the first few chapters (like in most novels) wore off. A lot can be said about the setting and theme and how it's so very close to Great American Novel material, but tonight I think about the instinct we have in us to destroy - that we can push our friends off the branch, and watch them fall back down to the earth.

Droll Stories by Honore de Balzac
I found this book in a perfect used book store in Duluth. I've been there twice, with Renae, while visiting with her family, but she says it's closed now and I wonder what has happened to all of the books? Were they bought up by some other used book store, or are they sitting somewhere in the dusty dark, listed on Amazon or half.com, and hoping to be shipped off to some young punk or chick's waiting hands, ready to turn the pages carefully, and to mind the crackling sound an old spine makes. I regret to say I've yet to read a story from this collection, though I'm very much inclined to augmenting my semi-often droll days with droll stories, or droll music.

Great Plains by Ian Frazier
A required text for last semester's Advanced Composition with Schaap. Frazier basically travels in his van - staying in at times, checking into hotels at others - and chronicles his journey alongside those of the other people who have lived in the sprawling sea that is the untouched American landscape: Montana, the Dakotas, Wyoming, Kansas, Colorado etc. Non-fiction and, personally, a testament to the power and value of passionate, individual, story-hungry interests. One the first day of Spring Break, before we venture to Chicago and I meet with my brothers, I'm taking my dad to Omaha early in the morning, and driving back in time to depart from Sioux Center. At the moment, I'm looking forward to that drive back more than anything else.

My Life in France by Julia Child with Alec Prud'homme
A friend called to tell me the news that Child was a spy during her time in France. Crazy. And I learned to make hollandaise.

Mythology by Edith Hamilton
My Ancient World Lit. professor at Calvin College recommended this book to me as we sat in her office when I came in freaking out and bursting of dependency because I couldn't find the sanity to tie my thoughts on The Aeneid together, right before discussing life in Iowa (the course was an offered summer program that I attended after my first year in Sioux Center) and, I remember this, she had lived in Pella and loved it and raised her eyes as she described how the wind blows and the grass waves and... ... ... at least five years later, I found this text in the annual library book tent. It's a straight-forward guide to the characters of Greek and Roman mythology.

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
It's lovely and illogical that, while one character basically exists to give to the other, both are happy. The tree doesn't crawl about, trying to have the boy show some gratitude or reverence at all. The tree doesn't hesitate to invite the boy to play in its shade or climb up its branches or eat its apples and neither does it falter when the boy declines, opting instead to leave the shade, cut off the branches and sell the apples.

Six random books - one from each of the six shelves to my right, watching over me as I sit at my desk. I've come to find that I'm gradually losing my ability to push along as I stay up at night. I'm awake, as awake as I've always been, but the obligations of the hours with the sun aren't as forceful as they have been in previous semesters and years. Is this growing up? That time and efforts are inadvertently managed for duty and stillness?