Author Archives
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An Open Letter to Mom by Natalie Weaver
Dear Mom, I want to take this opportunity to tell you I have learned so much from you over these years that I have been privileged to call you “mom.” I watch you, as you get older, as I also… Read More ›
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Telling Stories by Natalie Weaver
Human beings tell stories. This may sound like a simple truth. To folklorists, literature professors, and people who work in media and in government, I would sound like a rather simple-minded child to be arriving so late in life at… Read More ›
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Another Brick in the (Ivory) Wall by Natalie Weaver
I have recently read a couple of articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education about the challenge of working in academia. One article lamented the paucity of tenure line positions and the great disappointment some ex-academics feel when they finally give… Read More ›
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Time Traveling Letter to Kids of the 70s (especially you, Natalie) by Natalie Weaver
Hmmm…. Time Travel? Maybe, I suppose. I recall a strange video clip in which Steven Hawking throws a Time Travelers’ Party. He sends an invitation for a fancy soiree, holds the event, and sets the scene where future folk will… Read More ›
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Saving Joan of Arc by Natalie Weaver
I’m finished with my first semester as a studio arts major at Kent State University. I am not sure whether I’ll be registering for a second one. There were pros and cons about the experience, and I am not sure if one… Read More ›
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Depicting Mary by Natalie Weaver
In October I had the opportunity to travel to the Louvre Museum on a free day I had from a conference I was attending in Leuven, Belgium. I went predisposed to consider images of the Madonna as I had been… Read More ›
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At the Altar of the Muses by Natalie Weaver
I was asked by my sculpture teacher to make a monument. “A monument to what,” I asked? “Anything,” he answered. The only parameter seemed to be that the work was produced in wood. Having seen some interesting stone and marbleizing… Read More ›
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Neither My Duty nor My Honor by Natalie Weaver
Just the other day, I realized that discussion of my housekeeping has been a fairly regular conversation throughout my life. One of my earliest memories is being about four years old in my yellow bedroom on Ruth Avenue in North Canton,… Read More ›
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Gaining Perspective by Natalie Weaver
I don’t know if I could be a deep-sea welder. I don’t know what the risks of lethal electrocution, broken limbs, or the bends would be. I suspect it can be a dangerous occupation, like operating heavy equipment on good… Read More ›
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Look Up by Natalie Weaver
He said, “Look up.” So, I looked up, and I saw the most beautiful stars. They were like Hubble Space Telescope Images, but I could see them with my own unaided eyes. All the colors were there, close enough to touch, yet glittering… Read More ›
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Gratitudo et Fortitudo by Natalie Weaver
One of the bigger problems with being the only Classics major at a Jesuit university is that all my friends were fairly old men before I had even reached drinking age. Now, they are pretty much gone back to the… Read More ›
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How do you feel about me now? by Natalie Weaver
How do you feel about me now? I was talking to an old friend the other day, and when I asked how he was, he said, “I’m getting by.” “Getting by? Not tearing it up, not taking ‘em down, and… Read More ›
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Call Me the Devil, If You’d Like by Natalie Weaver
Call me the devil, if you’d like. I have just completed the three-hour retreat at the church to prepare my son for his first communion. It was a long morning, to be sure, but during that time I decide I… Read More ›
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A Lenten Reflection by Natalie Weaver
A friend recently asked me whether I believed in sin. It was a strange question for me to consider because the concept of “belief” as applied to “sin” already suggests that sin itself is not a self-evident or manifest reality. … Read More ›
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Exe(o)rcising the Spirit by Natalie Weaver
Why bother? It’s a legitimate question. My oldest son, almost 12, announced that he is depressed. He’s got good reasons for it, so I don’t try to talk him out of it. My youngest, almost 8, told me yesterday that… Read More ›
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Be Still by Natalie Weaver
Be still, and know that I am God. During this season of Advent, I have found great comfort in one biblical passage, Psalm 46:10, which translates as “Be still, and know that I am God.” I take comfort here,… Read More ›
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The Real World Series by Natalie Weaver
I live in Cleveland, and I am writing at the end of the World Series. I don’t know how it will conclude, but like most of the people in my city, I’m holding my breath. As I write, I literally… Read More ›
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Prayers to Black Madonna and Kali Rising by Natalie Weaver
This past Saturday, I had an opportunity to sweat in a traditional Lakota sweat lodge for the first time. It was, above all, an interesting cognitive experience for me. I found myself sort of shaking hands with the ritual, the… Read More ›
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Realize by Natalie Weaver
Autumn of 1977. The faculty wives have come together in the modest University Heights home of a physics professor. Their Aquanet hair is sprayed to the heavens and at significant risk of igniting from lipstick-stained cigarettes that are resting precariously in the… Read More ›
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Storied Women by Natalie Weaver
One of my goals for the summer is to paint more. I find I can often say or think by a picture something that I am trying to work through in a formal, discursive way. Art functions as a methodological… Read More ›
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Wonder Bread by Natalie Weaver
It is a difficult thing to wake up and realize you are living a life you do not recognize. This happens for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes, it happens dramatically as in the case of death, job loss, personal trauma,… Read More ›
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I Used to Paint All the Time by Natalie Weaver
I used to paint and draw all the time as a child. I thought about majoring in art as a college student, but I went to an institution that did not have any applied arts courses in the curriculum. I… Read More ›
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so said black Jesus by Natalie Weaver
Last month, I went to a conference in San Antonio, Texas. Feeling overwhelmed by the combined elements of work, family, and creative writing, I did not have much of a desire to go. It was right before Valentine’s Day, which… Read More ›
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In the Beginning by Natalie Weaver
Dear Friends, Every year on New Year’s Eve, I read creation stories to my family. We light candles, sit in a circle, eat, drink, and read. This little ritual began as my protest to the vulgar commercialization of the New Year… Read More ›
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“Is that your wife or your girlfriend?” by Natalie Weaver
“Is that your wife or your girlfriend?” These words were addressed to my husband a few weeks back as I walked up to a podium, where I was to sit on a panel and give my views on the relationship… Read More ›
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Make-up the Most of Your Moustache by Natalie Weaver
My girlfriend Heidi has a great sense of style. It is theatrical, creative, and always original. I met Heidi when I was eight years old and have had a chance to observe her personal developments and self-presentations grow and change… Read More ›
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The Reaper by Natalie Weaver
I have begun to call my mother the “Reaper,” which I understand could be to some mums sort of insulting. Images of the Reaper are typically not terribly flattering, you know, with all that sunken skin and stringy black cloth… Read More ›
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Venus and Mary by Natalie Weaver
Of the many things I have read recently, one thing stands out in my mind in high relief. It is the opening of Lucretius’ masterwork on Epicurean philosophy, De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things). Here Lucretius invokes Venus… Read More ›
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A Cornucopia Sometimes Curiously Stuffed With Nothing by Natalie Weaver
The summer is getting late. School supplies are coming in, and it is time to try on the uniform pants in order to get them hemmed before the first day. I always feel a little funny at this time of… Read More ›
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Gretchen Before and After by Natalie Weaver
In May, I attended the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra’s presentation of Berlioz’ Damnation of Faust. This work, featuring four soloists, a full choir and orchestra, and a children’s choir, was first performed in Hungary in 1846. Its composition was inspired by… Read More ›
