Mirrored Longings: An Introduction

Welcome to my little corner of the internet.

After years of pouring myself out in education, and a few blissful years of taking in as much as possible, I am ready to write again. I write when I have something to say, and I want my words to be worthwhile.

Mirrored Longings is a place to share books worth reading, ideas worth considering, and beauty worth seeing. Not a place for ranting (who has the time) or snobbery (I’m allergic). I want to be a keyboard librarian, not a keyboard warrior. Sampling the internet’s momentary offerings can leave me feeling empty. Here we fill the void left by evil with good, handcrafted loveliness.

Why Mirrored Longings? A few years ago I re-read Irene Hunt’s 1966 novel Up a Road Slowly. It’s the coming-of-age story of Julie, a young girl sent to live with her Aunt Cordelia in the countryside after her mother’s death. Julie dreams of being a writer, and on her twelfth birthday, she receives a copy of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poems. As she reads, Julie narrates:

“And turning a few pages, I found lines that mirrored an ache and longing I had so often felt when the beauty around my woods cathedral was too intense, when the need to grasp and keep loveliness left me with a sense of desolate frustration.”¹

When we touch transcendence, we are left with the sense of being caught between the sublime and mundane. I want to “grasp and keep” that moment, but the experience is fleeting. Some have called this sensation Joy, or Glory, a “queer funny ache,” a “flash,” a “homeward ache.”²

When those moments are “too intense,” sharing helps us “grasp and keep loveliness,” which is why so many writers touch on this topic. Here, I share my thoughts and the work of others in expectation that they will mirror your longings, too. I hope to cultivate those “What, you, too?” moments that C. S. Lewis described as companionship deepening into friendship. 

I’ll send out issues twice a month. First will be an essay like this one, perhaps humorous, perhaps on liturgical living, perhaps on the reading life, or something else. Second will be a profile of a book or author, especially out-of-print or reprinted books, Anglican women writers, and whatever is worth sharing. You can count on finding unusual, but worthwhile, book recommendations, in this space.

Despite how we feel at our worst moments, we are never alone in life. I hope you find your longings mirrored and a smile or two in this corner of the internet.

1. Irene Hunt, Up a Road Slowly (1966). Winner of the 1967 Newbery Medal. The Millay poems that mirror Julie’s longings are “God’s World” and “Renascence.”

2. Respectively, C. S. Lewis, Ruth Pitter, L. M. Montgomery in the words of Anne Shirley and Emily Starr, and Amy Baik Lee.