snow in Chicago

The sky is white; light flakes, like bits of torn paper, fall and float on updrafts, landing on knitted hats and window ledges.

This is my new blog (www.xanga.com/la_fleur_epuisee is at its end; how many people remember that before xanga, we used livejournal?) -- and I'm at a bit of a loss for a wide-sweeping and profound way to begin. I hope to continue posting bits of thoughts, maybe include more pictures (I adore the visual but am not so good at photography ... this is perhaps a lesson to learn?), and generally better integrate the rather disparate facets of my life. The tags should help us sift through book reviews, crafty inspiration, theological ramblings, and the like. I've also realized that I post an awful lot about what I am eating and drinking.

These days my thoughts are really taken up by the tensions in our embodied existence: thinking and feeling (feeling anger, feeling cold), hurting (family problems, papercuts), how we look (our ways of seeing, the ways our bodies are seen), etc. These ponderings relate strangely to my faith, relationships (including my relationship with my forever-changing self and husband of three and a half years), and academic work (have you ever read Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon? Henry James's Portrait of a Lady? strange resonance). More to come on this, perhaps.