My jam

I've been on a serious Alison Sudol kick lately. A Fine Frenzy is just so good! Need proof? Check out this totally fun video for "Electric Twist" from her most recent album.

Oh, and by the way...

The title of this blog, "Spirit, Fire, & Dew" comes from a poem by Robert Browning called Evelyn Hope, part of which reads: "The good stars met in your horoscope, made you of spirit, fire, and dew..."

The quote also serves as an epigraph to Anne of Green Gables, which became one of my favorite books of all time at age 12. I wanted to be just like Anne: fiery in spirit, but dewy and gentle too. Don't think I'm succeeding at the gentle part...

Temperance Brennan

It is one of those gloomy, thunder-clashing Saturday afternoons in Virginia, the kind that require curling up with Wuthering Heights or listening to melancholy, contemplative songs to round out the mood. I love days like these; they force stillness and introspection, as if being indoors forces us to open the doors of our own souls and poke around a bit before the sun returns.

Speaking of poking around, I've been watching a lot of Bones lately. In case you've been hiding under a rock for six years, the show is about a brilliant but socially inept anthropologist who helps the FBI solve murders by examining dead bodies and using her formidable powers of forensic analysis. After many back-to-back episodes of Season One, I had to stop and consider why this show had hooked me so powerfully. The answer: I am Dr. Temperance Brennan. No, not a beautiful scientist who works at a lab in DC. But I am her in that somewhere along the way, despite an excellent formal education throughout high school, college and now grad school, I missed some sort of emotional and interpersonal development. I have always been taught--and encouraged to--rely on logic and reason to guide my relationships, career choices, and other major decisions. When it comes to people though, I feel hopelessly inept. I am blunt, sometimes unsympathetic, too logical, too frightened of being vulnerable. I don't cry while watching The Notebook, my conversations are peppered with trivia and random information, and many subtle social cues are lost on me. My friends tell me that all of this is endearing, and I hope they're right...but I still feel that my emotional, empathetic, relational side is underdeveloped, that I'm missing some big part of life. A long series of painful events from age 15 to 23 required me to find some sort of coping mechanism, which manifested itself an over-reliance on using my brain, rather than my heart, to guide me. As a result, it takes me a LONG TIME to work out how a person, event, or issue makes me feel, and even longer to be able to verbalize those emotions.

I think this is why I am so obsessed with music. The melodies produce powerful and undeniable emotions in me, and thoughtful lyrics help to name my feelings and let me know I'm not alone in experiencing them. I'm sure this is true for most people, but its especially comforting to people like me and Temperance Brennan who need a little extra help with the "feelings" side of things.

Well, the wind continues to whip and wail around my windows, and thunder is crashing ever closer...time for this scared California girl to find out if the weatherman was only joking when he said we'd get a tornado. Or maybe I'll just escape my feelings and go help Dr. Brennan and {sexy} Special Agent Seely Booth solve that next murder.

Come on, Come Out

The weather is warm. Enjoy this lovely video by A Fine Frenzy.