A Countermove to Diving Down

I just finished reading Walter J. Ciszek's story of being a priest in Soviet prisons and Siberian labor camps for twenty-three years. The book is With God in Russia, and I highly recommend it. A real page turner and an inspiration to those of us tempted to falter in our faith or our humanity.

At one point Ciszek mentions that when he was moved to a place with better conditions--meaning that they weren't starving, were able to stay somewhat warm, and could sleep sometimes--other problems emerged. People who were not constantly obsessed with finding food and avoiding frostbite now had the luxury of reflecting on their situation. Thus there was a higher incidence of emotional disturbance, depression, and misbehavior. I guess when you are just trying to survive, you have no resources for experiencing life at any other level.

I often say that I have First-World problems. My "bad" day involves a messed-up train schedule or a blossoming sinus infection or a dangerously low bank balance. I have good problems such as writer's block or a boring workday. Sometimes I think that I get depressed because I have the luxury of sitting around and thinking about myself too much. Clinical depression is a condition of physiological as well as psychological imbalance, and I respect the seriousness of it. I'm just not at all sure that my frequent (some days I would say constant) state of depression is really that. It can be a dangerous thing to go deep into one's life. Perhaps some days it's better to live in an intentionally shallow and appetite-driven way.

My work life for just about all of my adult life has revolved around people's spiritual welfare. If I was not teaching ESL in a mission school overseas I was trying to help teenagers appreciate the art and joy of music. Since those early days, my only job has been editing books for the religion market. Is it healthy to be in that diving-down-into-the-soul place all the time? Honestly, it can become a weariness to think about divine life day in and day out. No wonder I've taken up knitting and watching too much television. I would probably drink more except that alcoholic intake exceeding two drinks makes me sick, puts me to sleep, and depresses me further still. I have used food to break up the monotony of trying to live with meaning and purpose, but that adds pounds to my hips and thighs, and let's not even go to the body-image region of depressive episodes.

While complaining about the constant badgering of a purposeful life, I know that I wouldn't last five minutes in a life that did not dive regularly into that deep-down inner place of eternal something-or-other. I'm just not built for a trivial sort of existence, even when I act, speak, and think in trivial ways. Temperament-wise, I have always needed to reflect and communicate.

Life circumstances have also pushed me toward the more contemplative life. There were no babies and small children to distract me for days at a time and prevent prayer or spiritual reading and other interior activities. I married an introvert, which makes for a comfortable life when you, yourself, are an introvert, but it also enables some of the introvert's less healthy habits, such as sitting at home rather than being engaged with life "out there" at least sometimes. We are polite introverts, so we do ask each other, "How are you?" and mean it, but of course we never press for an answer, and there are times when you need an extravert in the room to yank you into a standing position and interrogate you until you finally say out loud what's really going on in that damned deep-down region of meaning.

The mystics tell us that everything we're looking for is already here, and much of the time "here" means that personal interior place where God speaks and you listen, where you look and God hides. But it's a frustrating, devastating day when you dwell in that interior place of wonder and divine wisdom and discover that there's a lot of emptiness in there, too, And it can be an echo chamber that blasts your own stupid thoughts back to you. The deep-down place isn't enough. In fact, sometimes it's too much.

So here's the mystery. Without the diving-down practices of reflection, contemplation, prayer, and conversation, life is reduced to finding the food and staying warm. But it seems that the diving down needs a countermove, and that countermove should probably be a practice, something we do regularly. How do we break the surface? What does a good eruption look like--you know, the kind of bursting forth that releases the pent-up energies of prayer and love?

You Look Like Your Mother!

In recent years, various people have told me, with great enthusiasm, how much I look like my mother. It's taken me awhile to settle into this fact. When I was a child, everyone agreed that I looked just like Dad, so I became accustomed to thinking of myself in that way. Now there's a new reality to which I must adjust, and it's been interesting to observe my own reaction to this.

Mom has always looked young for her years, and she's always been attractive. I've never considered myself attractive, just passable, and so I did not consider that I bore any resemblance to my mother. Now that she's in her seventies and looks older--although still attractive, in my opinion--when people say I look like her, I don't know if they're noticing my signs of aging or if I do in fact have some of her innate characteristics. There are moments when I'm quite proud to be seen as resembling her. But other moments, not so much. Why is that?

I know that I'm not the only woman to feel uneasy about being identified closely with her mother. It goes much deeper than looks. A friend and I were talking about how we have tended to wear clothes like those our mothers wear, and how embarrassed we are when we realize this, especially if someone else points it out. On Mom's recent visit, I found myself attentive to her gestures or the way she placed her arms across her lap, and I checked my own gestures and positioning to see if I mirrored her; at times I did. I would adjust immediately, all the while asking myself, Why does this even bother me?

And how many of us have been somewhat horrified to hear, coming out of our mouths, the phrases, verbatim, that we used to hear our mothers say?

Perhaps a daughter is especially and naturally critical of her mother, who is her first model of womanhood. As children we accept that model without question. But when we become older and attach ourselves to peer groups, one of the first people to suffer our newly formed judgments is Mom. We are desperate to fit in, and Mom represents our earlier forms, our baby-ness and our dependence. We may feel very close to Mom, but we also feel obligated to put distance in that relationship; otherwise, how can we become ourselves?

Well, I'm fifty-six years old now; I don't think Mom is going to embarrass me in front of my friends. Yet, I'm not sure I want to look like her. Maybe I'm afraid that if outward appearance is any indication, I will become like her in other ways, too. That wouldn't be a bad thing, because Mom's a wonderful person. But the insecure adolescent who still lives inside me wants to be her own person. The need to be special takes a lifetime to die, I guess.

And is it possible that my life is so easily predetermined and predictable, that so much of what I do and say and believe is the result of my years in close proximity to this particular adult? Do I fear that, thanks to my mother, my father, and others, my fate was decided long ago and I don't really determine much about who I am? Can people look at Mom and know immediately what I will be like in a few years?

Another possibility: seeing my mother age reminds me that I, too, will grow old if I don't die first. I cannot avoid this progression any more than I can avoid the physical resemblance.

I made sure Jim took this photo while Mom was visiting last week. Despite my ambivalence about looking like my mother, I want everyone to see.

My Online Friends

It's been interesting to reconnect, mainly through Facebook, with people I knew years ago. Many of them were classmates in grammar school and/or high school. Some from college. I moved away from my hometown years ago and never went back, so I lost even the casual contact of the occasional meeting at the grocery store or shopping mall or high school graduation (now of children and grandchildren).

But now, with a few clicks, I can review a former classmate's past twenty or thirty years, see photos of children and grandchildren, family events, big occasions. I can see photos and read posts, and I like that. I don't foster the illusion that this connection is going to turn into a deep friendship because I still live in Chicago, and that person lives states away. We have our established lives and friends, and so there's no need to put pressure on this FB friendship to become more than it is.

In some ways, these reconnections add to my perspective of my own life. For instance, there's the guy I dated for awhile who has become a right-wing conservative evangelical. Actually, that describes both of us back then, but I am grateful now that the dating didn't lead to anything permanent because I am no longer that sort of believer, and that has nothing to do with the man I ended up marrying. My faith sojourn took me where I needed to go, and I suspect that, had I married back when I wanted so desperately to be married (not to that particular guy, but to others like him), the trajectory of my faith life would have led to divorce, or the marriage would have suppressed the growth I needed. Several bullets dodged there.

I also learn that one of the cool kids I would have liked to befriend but didn't because I was not cool--that person has become an ignorant racist, if certain FB posts are any indication. I learn that another popular kid has traversed a hard life that I would not have expected for such an upbeat, on-the-go teenager. Another person from my life back then has become an accomplished academic, and the trials of that childhood certainly did not point in that direction. Others have thrived, and most have sustained the normal damage of decades--illness, divorce, death of loved ones, jagged career paths.

Recently, one of my new-but-old friends on FB posted that her husband had decided to leave after a long life together. I have added my encouragement and compassion and what wisdom I can muster to the many good comments of other friends, comments that stream down the page in an overflow of concern. One of them, who lives close by, went to the other's home to spend the weekend--some girlfriend time to help the shock and pain. I went to church and vacation Bible school with both of them, and I am so proud to see the one supporting the other now at this impossible time.

In fact, it's been heartening to see how faith has held up for so many of the people I knew through church and other faith venues back then. Their posts are positive, faith-filled, good words for the world. And although I know that a lot of that comes from the parents who nurtured them and the organizations that helped form them, I also believe that the faith itself has had its own life in my girlhood friends and acquaintances. And the people they have become--the people represented by their collages of photos and posts and "shares"--are people I am proud to have known. People I still know. The online world offers yet one more arena for the communion of saints.

Tempering Desire

I'm taking a lesson from the Pope Francis playbook. I am tempering my desires for the good life. Well, I'm trying to temper my desires for the good life. We'll see how this goes.

The pope does not take holidays because the poor don't get to take holidays. I can't find it in my heart to give up vacation, or at least the hope for a nice vacation every now and then. I find myself resentful of people who can afford to go to Tuscany for two weeks or to swim with the sea life in the Galapagos Islands. My husband and I hope to spend two weeks in Greece for our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, two summers from now. That will require careful saving, planning, and Vinita doing quite a bit of freelance work. I'm resentful that many Europeans get a month off, that this is the norm, whereas in the U.S. we have to earn our vacation time, one day at a time, for every so many years of work. The Europeans understand that down time is important to quality of life. Here in the independently minded, capitalism-obsessed USA, we are too hung up on being productive and thus we shortchange the quality-of-life aspect.

I understand why the pope does not go on holiday, but I don't think I can follow his lead in this. Maybe I should be willing to become willing.

However, lately I've decided to relax more about other matters that have caused me anxiety through the years. Such as having a nicer kitchen countertop or floor tile that doesn't show dirt so badly. Such as redoing the bathroom altogether because the rehabbers who sold us the house did a cheap, shitty job. Every time I take a shower or brush my teeth, I see the plaster coming loose because no one thought to install an exhaust fan and eventually the humidity and steam did their damage. I have to remind myself that at least I have running water, hot running water, and water that is drinkable from the tap, and the means to pay the water bill. And a toilet (well, one out of two) that works.

For years I have had this long list of things about the house that I hoped to fix or change. Not all of them are expensive, and some of them are necessary for the longevity of the house itself. But I'm going to stop being nervous about it. Somehow, we'll make the bathroom repairs we need, but I hope not to spend hours and entire weekends scouring the world for just the right tile or fixture. I won't buy the nicest material because it looks stunning; I'll buy what we can actually afford.

And I will settle down to the fact that, given our finances, it will take years to fix everything that needs fixed, and that's all right. We just need to prioritize according to the most necessary.

To a lot of people, this post won't seem significant. Some will gloss over it because they don't have the financial restraints I have--when something breaks, they just get it fixed and write the check. Others will read this post quickly and with little thought because they just don't understand how someone could become so upset over countertops and tile. Well, I have that nesting instinct; home is my base of operations in every way, and showing hospitality is important to Jim and me. So it makes sense that we want our physical home to be clean and attractive and welcoming--and there's nothing wrong with that.

But if I go through my days with a true consciousness of those in this world who are in great need, how can I not temper my desires for nice things? How can I spend days and days of time worrying about color schemes or the best mattress?

And, frankly, I have a cozy, flower-speckled back yard and a lovely big porch, which means that I can vacation quite nicely at home sometimes. I may need holiday for the health of my soul, but not a luxurious, weeks-long, out-of-country one on a regular basis. One of my former high-school classmates posted last year that she had decided to do all of her vacationing in her own region of the country, so that her vacation dollars would help the economies closest to home.

Maybe because we're getting older, Jim and I don't feel the compulsion we used to, to try out every new restaurant that comes to our attention. We don't need to eat out so frequently--not that we ever needed to. For one thing, we try to eat more simply and frugally these days, for dietary and budgetary reasons. And we have let go of any vision of ourselves as hip, cultured people. I think I wanted to be considered cultured, years ago. Now I just want to be wise. And more tempered in my desires.

A Point of Stillness

Chicago's summer has been mild this year, and most evenings I sit on the backyard swing for a while and do nothing except perhaps have a glass of red wine and pet Mr. Bones the cat, who has decided that the swing is for our together time. I make a point of not "working" when we're on the swing in the evening--no strategizing for the next day, no reading or writing or problem solving. These days I am too weary to work anyway. My doctor is testing me for thyroid problems, anemia, or heart trouble because the weariness will not go away. My body feels the way it has felt in the past when I have been seriously depressed; yet, I don't think I'm depressed.

I am, though, by some power outside myself, held at a point of stillness. Some part of me cannot move and demands its rest, or retreat. And the summer sky at twilight helps in this regard. Its pale light and quiet watchfulness over my world make it seem that the universe, like me, sits in a swing somewhere, waiting. But for what?

Grim events keep erupting in the world. Their violence resounds from Syria or Iraq or the Sudan or Ferguson, Missouri, or the street a couple of blocks from here where the emergency sirens whined to a stop moments ago. The severe hurt occurring at seemingly countless locations sets itself against the atmosphere of this evening. The breath of cool breeze that comforts Mr. Bones and me exists while all these other things exist. Some evenings, I think I know what it feels like to go mad, or to give up entirely. My life is comfortable, blessed, full of love and food and good work. But some part of me is held motionless on this evening, as a hostage is detained in some dark, blank space, hoping for a good word from somewhere, anywhere.

The world has always been like this, suspended in great tension and confusion and horror and beauty. Perhaps this is why, for thousands of years, people have set themselves upon courses of prayer, meditation, and work that have a schedule and a scheme. They learned that we are prone not only to stillness that refreshes but also to a form of stillness that causes our souls to stagnate. My quiet moments on the backyard swing are, for the most part, good for me, providing some rest and contemplation and a bit of bliss at the end of the day. But nearly always now, I sense my soul being pulled down to a still place that is not helpful. It is a place to which I might remain, staked down to a tepid anxiety, a loss of thought, a lack of desire. At such times stillness is not alive and pulsing and rejuvenating; it is simple lack of motion either inward or outward. It is a type of death before death. And I think it's quite possible to be dead this way for many years and hardly recognize it because the seat is so comfortable and the air so calm.

So I think it's time to be somewhat stern with myself and map out the days, at least loosely, with times for prayer, times for specific work or creativity, and times to spend with others. St. Ignatius advised those seeking to grow spiritually to be aggressive rather than passive when the enemy of their souls made life difficult. Essentially, he said, "Now's not the time to retreat and sleep more; it's time to act and to pray more than ever." I'm beginning to understand his wisdom on this.

A Life Too Stunning to Bear

Robin Williams's death is on the minds of many of us. Not just because his departure is such a huge loss to us and a devastating blow for his family but also because most of us live closer to suicide than we generally admit. Perhaps I am not suicidal but someone I love is or has been. Or perhaps I have been and will therefore always fear, just a little bit, landing again in that dark, immovable place.

The truth is, every day, life is treacherous, and every day it is miraculous. We live constantly between these two breathtaking precipices. If you do not sense this on a fairly regular basis, then you are managing to exist without a certain level of awareness--you are not quite conscious, not really. And I realize that in making this statement I am also making a judgment, something I usually avoid. However, I have been around long enough to know that glossing over dissonance and damage is a greater failure than the occasional lapse into self-righteousness. What I am saying here is that, if you don't understand why a lovely, gifted person would take his own life, there is a whole world of reality with which you are not in touch. There is a shadowy realm of wisdom in which you do not dwell.

We walk and talk and work and breathe within moments of pain and terror. Next door someone is raped or beaten, or in our own home someone falls gravely ill or loses employment. The world is treacherous as long as adults, some of them claiming to be good, religious people, stand at our southern border and scream hatred and rejection at children who arrive already traumatized by lives we cannot imagine. The world is treacherous as long as the Israeli government oppresses and brutalizes an entire people, somehow forgetting how the Jewish people were themselves oppressed and brutalized not that many years ago. And the treachery continues in Palestinian militants who keep performing the same acts of violence, expecting different results--isn't this the definition of insanity? The world is treacherous when we destroy habitats and slaughter thousands and thousands of God's creatures because it makes us a monetary profit. The world is treacherous as long as wealthy and powerful people manipulate the circumstances and outcomes for everyone else while ignoring outright the common good. The world is treacherous as long as women and children are bought and sold, as long as people are tortured, made homeless, and ultimately wiped out because they are the wrong race or religion.

And at every moment we stand at the edge of miracle. We witness wonder every day, even when we are too blind to see it. The world is miraculous because ordinary people go to work every day and do their best and lend a hand and create good things. It's a miraculous place because species adapt to hostile environments and creatures we barely understand allow us to befriend them. The world is miraculous as long as musicians and artists and writers and actors unveil for us the interior soul and its numberless beauties. It is miraculous because scientists and engineers and philanthropists devise the most amazing schemes for improving daily life and helping us thrive in the universe. The world is miraculous because so many people have chosen to spend their lives healing creation and culture and countries. The world is miraculous as long as love endures, truth is spoken, and human life of every sort is valued.

Whether we walk within inches, within moments, of the treacherous or the miraculous, the experience itself requires everything we have. It takes energy to navigate safely in a world where evil is active in so many forms. It also requires great strength of soul to witness wonder and love and respond rightly to them. Existence requires everything from us. Some days we must bear up under pain that is actually unbearable. We must manage hope and strategy when everything falls apart. We must insist on love while withstanding the assaults of its every enemy. And when the day is gentle and we know we are loved--even then, the only true response is to love, and love--true love--expends tremendous power and purpose. Love costs us. Love demands action and awareness and vulnerability and, most of all, perseverance.

Life is not for the faint of heart or the shallow of soul. If you are awake at all, on many days you will feel the great weight of mere existence. You will be overwhelmed just to be here. You will find it quite difficult to bear the acute joy or the severe despair. Of course joy and despair are not the same. But they both make demands. Both sink into us deeply some days. And whether you are giddy with happiness or dizzy with fear, the impact can be a lot to take.

So is it any wonder that sometimes a person standing on the precipice leans too far and tumbles into the void? I think it's entirely possible for a mentally healthy person to slip off the edge if the circumstances on a particular day and hour converge just so. Add to that debilitating depression or the crazy imbalance of addiction or the hopelessness of a wasting disease . . .

What can we do? Hold on to one another. Speak up. Listen. Receive whatever love is there. This life is too stunning to bear alone.

Working from Home

I am fortunate to have a job that can be done remotely. I am also fortunate to get paid for doing what I'm gifted to do, work that on most days satisfies me. These working conditions place me with the elite of the world. I have a job; I am fairly compensated; I receive good benefits; I actually enjoy the work. And sometimes I get to work from home.

So if you ever hear me bitching about work, do not hesitate to remind me of my privilege.

I would feel guilty about working from home, except that I've been doing this work for about twenty-four years, and I have paid my dues. For more than seven years, in the beginning of my career, I commuted 3-5 hours every day. In those days I also took in freelance assignments, just to pay the bills. Also, I was beginning a writing career, and I could not pass up any opportunity to get my work out there. So I wrote or edited all the time. On the train. On the weekends. Late at night or early in the morning. On vacation. The laptop came along on Christmas break, no matter whose family we visited, because there was always some deadline pressing.

Still there are deadlines pressing. Still I take writing and speaking gigs, not so much to pay the bills but to finance home improvements and infrequent vacations. I will probably die at my editorial desk. I am a member of the working, shrinking middle class, and many of us must put off retirement longer than we imagined back in our twenties. I don't point this out to receive any sympathy; but such realities give me good reason to enjoy whatever privileges I can.

And on a day like today, when there was a morning physical therapy appointment down the road, and when my one task was to get a file edited ASAP, it makes good sense to save an hour or two of commuting time by moving my office to the sitting room or back porch. Also, when I'm not in the office, the only interruptions are those important enough to merit someone calling me on the landline. E-mail is the same as always, but no one steps inside my cube for an ad hoc discussion. Some days, other human beings are the biggest distractions. At home, the only other human is my husband, who is, like me, an introvert and spends most of the day messing around with photos on the computer downstairs. We say hello three or four times, maybe have lunch together.

Cats are allowed to interrupt me because they have magical powers and I never turn down the opportunity to stroke soft fur while gazing into eyes that pretend to adore me. If I lose a few minutes every hour because a feline summons me, I choose to think of these not as interruptions but little rejuvenations. Pity we can't have an office cat or two.

I also think it helpful to have a few household tasks scattered through the workday. They get me out of the chair and allow my brain to reboot. Nice not to have to haul food on the train, too. When I leave the house for work, I have automatically begun a twelve-hour day, given commuting time plus the inevitable errand thrown in because my train is within walking distance of Walgreens or my dentist or the gym. So every day I go to the office, I pack for a full day--workout clothes, lunch, reading for the train, work materials, canvas grocery bag . . . Every evening I spend half an hour planning the next day's packing. Every morning I embark upon a mini-pilgrimage.

Today, no pilgrimage, just a candle on the little table next to the teapot. Today I am stationary except for a brief trip to the garden for a handful of herbs--another advantage to a day working from home is that I can cook dinner, something I hardly ever do anymore.

See, even when I don't work from home, I'm working most of the time, because my work happens mainly in thought and phrase, and this stuff never leaves me alone completely. I will be brushing my teeth while trying to solve some copyediting riddle; sautéing onions while dissecting a new manuscript into its main parts. I try to leave work at the office, but a good story about the new pope hums in my mind long after the file is saved and closed for the day. An author's Facebook post reels me in, because, in my world, so many authors become friends. This is the kind of work that a person is quite fortunate to take home with her.

A Case for an Old Western

I have discovered that the old series Wagon Train is on a cable channel on Saturdays. When I can, I tune in. I expected to be embarrassed to see a show I loved so much as a kid. Sometimes I watch a random episode of something I watched faithfully years ago, and I sit there and blush at how lame the show is, and did I really enjoy watching it so much?

But I'm stuck on Wagon Train all over again. Yes, the scripts could be corny and the plots melodramatic. But the stories themselves were entirely character driven, and as a novelist I find this satisfying and fascinating. Each episode is (usually) named for the character whose story will unfold. And every episode has a different main character--someone who is traveling on the wagon train. As a vehicle (pun intended) for stories, a wagon train was perfect. You had a wagon master and his crew, who remained constant; often their conversations opened up the main character's story and interpreted it. But the people around that core group changed constantly because every trip was populated by a different set of people traveling across the country.

The plots, almost without exception, are built from the ground up on characterization. So each episode--and those episodes ran an hour and a half!--explores the character's past, personality, situation, conflict, and choices. It doesn't hurt, either, that a wagon train represents journey, unknown future, process, loss, relationships, hope, and faith. People who traversed the West in such fashion were living on the edge in many ways--leaving behind one life for another, unknown one, taking huge risks, building tentative alliances for the sake of survival. So there is never a lack of conflict; fresh plots spring up all over the place because the life of every person on this trip is both precious and precarious.

I'm sure I love this show now partly because I loved it when I was young and living in a region that had been traversed by many wagon trains a century before. My grandmother's grandmother on her mother's side never knew her true last name. She and her brother were traveling by covered wagon with their parents, and for some reason the parents left the children with a family living in the general vicinity of my home town. The parents never returned, and the children took the name of the family who took them in. Such things happened when people made long unpredictable journeys. Families disintegrated in the face of illness, accidents on the trail, sudden loss and poverty, and death at odd times and places. It was a dangerous thing to seek a new life across the known world.

Wagon Train honors the great mosaic of stories that formed during a particular era of this country. It romanticizes an existence that was probably more exhaustion and drudgery than drama. But we forgive such license because it's not the exhaustion or drudgery that interests us. It's the grit, the grace and the hope. And it's easier to receive stories that are shined up a bit. I doubt that any scout was ever as beautiful and clean-shaven and downright sexy as Cooper Smith. But I enjoy tagging along behind him for ninety minutes, trying to experience history in his steps and see the landscape through his eyes.

Ebb and Flow: Learning Wisdom

Do I catch the wave today?

Do I stand, ankle-deep, in conversations, discerning the best moment to speak?

Do I sleep until it is time to awaken, and then rise to the graceful rhythm?

Do I absorb information, examine it, synthesize it, and then at just the right juncture form a conclusion?

Do I dwell in sounds of the day—radio, internet, television, phone—and understand at which hour it is best to invite silence?

Do I savor the words and ideas of others and then add to them, at the crest of thought, my own words and ideas?

Do I know when to drink, and stop drinking? When to eat and stop eating?

Do I walk until it is time to sit down? Do I work until it is time to cease working?

Do I offer embrace when it is time, careful to measure the weight of need, the moment of asking?

Do I recognize when it is time to be brave and when it is better to hold back?

Do I utter my desires to God? Do I wait for God’s desires to make themselves known to me?

Will I catch the wave today—the moment before the swell, or the moment after its breaking?

 

 

 

 

Lost Weekend

I lost myself this weekend. I wandered for hours, every day of the three-day holiday. I slipped through a doorway that took me outward, to an expansive place. I became lost in a project of memory, so involved in thoughts and images that, although I was in my house or on my porch, I was not fully in those places.

Having made multiple trips to the local hobby shop--mine is Michael's, out on  Western and 91st Street--I finally sat down with a couple hundred photographs, with empty album pages, craft paper, and accent stickers. Also at hand were the detailed route notes and map from my England walk, and my journal. I pieced together the trip, day by day. It will soon be a month since I returned, but while retracing my steps I felt the recollections gather close, as if it all happened a few days ago.

I don't consider myself a visually oriented person, at least not in an artistic way. Craft-related items intrigue but intimidate me, and my art projects back in grammar school definitely were not placed prominently in classroom displays. But this trip was important as others have not been, and I knew that if I let even another month go by, I would begin to mix up events and days and photos and sequences. Retracing my steps would help preserve the journey. And to do it justice, I needed to add notes here and there, include paper bits I'd collected. A straight photo album wouldn't work. So I might as well approach the project creatively.

After struggling with the first couple of pages--choosing which photos, in which order, on which art paper, in which configuration, etc.--I became absorbed. The energy of that natural concentration held through afternoons and evenings. I organized my memories while The Lord of the Rings trilogy played through in its entirety. I trimmed photos and affixed borders through multiple programs on the classical music station, which gave atmosphere to the otherwise quiet back porch.

It was the sort of creative flow that must be interrupted in order to realize that you're hungry and never bothered with lunch. The kind of absorption that draws you away from the minor anxieties that can nickel-and-dime your energy and keep you awake through the night. This weekend, when I got tired, I went to bed and slept.

This evening, at around 7 p.m., I finished the project. What satisfaction! Now I can share the story with others in an organized way. I don't have to worry about mixing up groups of photos and forgetting which church that was or why I took a picture of this particular wall.

Putting together this scrapbook has reminded me what it feels like to enter the creative flow--and the experience highlights how rarely these days I experience such total and blissful concentration. Well, I guess that means it's time to make some plans. 

Fourth of July Present Tense

I don't like to dwell on the origins of July 4th--not the origins of its being a holiday, but the reason we have an Independence Day. The facts are glorious, I suppose, in the soft light of nostalgia, but they are bloody and disturbing nevertheless. Anyone who thinks revolution is glorious has never seen one up close. Today we can see, sort of, protests and revolutionary clashes through instant media. But the people who form my typical, daily world are far removed from the kind of situation that led to the United States of America. The only exceptions are the few people I know who have ended up here for political asylum.

Fourth of July, present tense, is just another holiday--even better, a summer holiday--when we eat more, play more, hang out with friends and family more. There are fireworks, a lot of them, and in large concentrations. Also, parades and community-wide parties. It's all about celebration and having a good time while relaxing with your favorite drink and plate of food.

I have no idea what it cost families in our colonies who chose to revolt, or not revolt, against the British monarchy. Certainly a lot of people suffered during the American Revolution, who never saw the end result, who died in a state of confusion and at odds with neighbors, fellow Christians, and in some cases, most of the people around them. It was a devastating time, a messy time with violence, acts of treachery, and treason--but remember that treason was defined by whichever group was talking. Neighbors called one another traitors. Everyone was on the right side of the issue and yet there were at least two right sides . . .

Today, I think we should turn our thoughts of July 4th toward the messy disagreements that tear apart our communities now, because there are numerous messy issues and so many right sides that it's easy to lose our sense of direction altogether. We cluster on our chosen sides in regard to immigration, education, drugs, guns, healthcare, marriage, religious rights, political reform, environmental policies, and so on. We call one another, not traitor but certainly unpatriotic, which is close to the same thing. We accuse one another of not fighting for the community or protecting the right interests. We think we know who the community is, but then it shifts around on us. People change labels, positions, move into new paradigms.

And our sub-communities spend so much energy fighting one another that we fail to see the larger enemies of us all--the greed and corruption that divert political power and resources from the common good, the powerful players who prevent us from identifying systemic problems and solving them.

Maybe to begin, we could refrain from thinking in terms of whose on which side. Could we imagine a huge circle of life, or globe dotted with small, intimate villages? Could we go into each encounter with the idea that this person is simply here with me, in the present tense?

Jesus Did Not Coerce People

I'm probably crazy to try to write about this at the end of a workday, when I've got a stiff neck and TMJ and ongoing fatigue and still must commute home. But Facebook is abuzz today with the Supreme Court ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby. The upshot is that the corporation can refuse to pay for some healthcare services. Those who are angry about it generalize that Hobby Lobby will not allow its healthcare services to provide for contraception, period. Those in favor of the decision point out that a person doesn't have to buy healthcare through the employer and that Hobby Lobby's healthcare provider continues to pay for some birth control, just not the Plan-B (code word for some: abortion pill).

I haven't read the Supreme Court's decision, and because I'm not an attorney, I probably couldn't understand it even if I did; I rely on others for my information--people who can read that stuff and make sense of it and then translate it to me. So, honestly, I don't know what this decision means precisely. And I have been guilty of re-posting others' posts about the decision even though I don't know all the facts. And I certainly don't know which organizations know the facts--everybody speaks with such certainty that even the professional fact-checkers have a hard time keeping up and warning the rest of us. This is a temptation of Facebook: sometimes a person just wants to vent, and there are plenty of ready-made ventings ripe for the picking and re-posting.

But I do know that Christianity in this country has long had too much power, that large Christian groups have held hands with governmental ideologies too often, and that many Christians in general--and in particular those who feel threatened by "non-Christian" ideas, organizations, and vocabulary--have come to feel entitled to set moral standards for everyone who lives here.

How did we come to this? I guess it began when Christianity became state religion in Rome centuries ago. The power the church gained corrupted it so much that a whole new movement started whereby men and women fled to the desert to escape the church's sins and excesses and give themselves mainly to prayer and meditation. The monastic movement tried to correct the problems of Christians wielding political and financial power, but of course the whole world couldn't live in the desert. Not even the entire church could survive that way.

Christians are often the first to point out that the people who founded this country were trying to escape religious persecution. That's a generalization but true enough. What we don't seem to recognize is that so much feverish activity of religious people wedded to political parties creates whole new forms of religious persecution.

I need to severely truncate this post, sliding by long discussions about politics and religion, and just get to the point that always centers and stabilizes me when I begin to get crazy and bothered about other folks' bad behavior. That centering point is this: I try, not always successfully, to be a follower of Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus never coerced people. He simply didn't. He didn't force himself on others, didn't force belief on them. Yes, with religious, powerful people he could get pretty direct and say things that would scorch their pious sensibilities. He did challenge people. He asked hard questions. He made demands of those who had committed to his cause.

But he never forced anyone to act a certain way. And I don't think he is pleased when any of his followers do. Whenever I try to manipulate the actions of others--through my judgments or conversations or the use of whatever power I have--I'm not being Jesus-like.

I believe Christians--along with everyone else--should participate in government and commerce. We must participate in society in helpful and reasonable ways. That means that we make room for others to act according to conscience. That also means we help protect others. Where freedom and protection meet is a tricky place of discernment and tension--I want you to be free to live your life and at the same time prevent you from harming other lives. So we'll always be debating and running back and forth and trying this solution and that. Of course it's complicated.

But this one idea--Jesus did not coerce others--this helps quite a bit when I'm in that place of discernment.

The Sensual Life

It can be a pain, existing as a physical being. My right knee is acting strange today. And my neck muscles are still strained and tight--will start physical therapy Wednesday. And it's hot enough today to make the sweat trickle. But honestly, who wouldn't want a life in which:

• I'm awakened by the sound of rain and the smell of it pressing through the window screens.
• The cat's tummy is soft, and she makes eager little sounds as we head downstairs to get her breakfast.
• The water in the shower is hot but not too hot; the pressure is strong enough to wake me up.
• That first drink of water in the morning--nothing like it.
• Vegetables at the farmers' market form dark rainbows, lined up in luxurious piles of greens, dark reds, yellows, purples.
• The coffee from Panera is perfectly hazelnut.
• Mozart chamber music pulses from the car radio, giving the city street an aura of majesty.
• At church we clap as we sing a spiritual; the energy snaps brightly around the room.
• We extend to one another a sign of peace; eyes meet, and we shake hands and say, "Peace be with you." Hands have so many textures and temperatures.
• High above the communion table, wide, richly colored streamers of cloth join at the top and stretch out above us in all directions.
• Later, my husband and I sit in the shade on the restaurant patio.
• We taste fresh coffee, also ice-cold water and a cocktail with wine and whiskey.
• Our sandwiches are golden, green, white, brown, yellow: sourdough bread, scrambled egg, bacon, fried green tomatoes, greens, and special mayo.
• We end with chocolate mousse, a delight to eye and tongue.
• Our hands touch there on the table top, while sunshine dances on the street and people of every size, shape, and color talk and eat around us.
• When we drive home, the city skyline is sharp against a true-blue sky.
• In our back yard, the foliage is lush and adorned with bright oranges, reds, pinks, and blues of begonias and impatiens.
• When you lie in the hammock, you can feel the whole world sway.
• Nothing sweeter to the eyes than husband in the hammock, with the cat snuggled into his side; both are napping on this summer afternoon.

What a grand, sensual life. What gifts at our feet and above our heads every single day.

Life Editing

I have begun to edit and sort the many photos I took while in England in early June. It's probably good that I didn't have much time right after my return; now that three weeks have passed, I see the photos from a greater distance, emotionally as well as chronologically. By the time I organize them into an album or scrapbook, I will be able to leave out more of them. Some, of course, I will choose to display because they remind me of a certain meal or a particular spot on the trail. But not every photo will be necessary to the preservation of events I deem important.

The emotional intensity attached to these pictures diminishes as time passes, and so all those shots of birds and flowers and tombstones--taken greedily in the thrall of a blissful experience--will not seem so crucial. I can put those photos in an envelope and store them with the album, but I will not need them to tell the story or even to relive the moment.

Some photos take years to discard. Twenty-five years after I had lived in Jordan (for only three years), finally I could get rid of poorly taken slides and photos. I had been so reluctant to let go of a single remnant of a single memory. But looking at the blurry lines, the too-light or too-dark images or simply the uninteresting ones, I had to admit that some memories don't merit special attention.

Do I clear out my memory banks just as carefully as I sort piles of photographs? I do believe that I have clung to some shreds of experience and emotion that should have been tossed aside long ago. Some moments do not bear repeating; others may have been profound at the time but lent little in the way of enduring wisdom.

How many faded, badly cropped memories does a person really need? How much space do they occupy in a heart already full of today's conversations and discernments? And do I honestly think I can change a memory by revisiting it again and again, holding it at a different angle maybe?

This is an aspect of soul housekeeping I've not considered before. That's rather sad; at my age, you'd think I'd have developed better habits of interior order and cleanliness. Oh well. Better late than not at all.

Get Out the Playing Cards

I'm not really a card person; I know how to play solitaire and gin rummy (did I even spell that correctly?) But when it's summer and we're living on our back porch, playing a few hands of rummy just seems right. We don't keep score or play for hours, just a few hands at the end of the day, after supper.

My stepson and two of the granddaughters are visiting, and because the youngest is six, we brought out the Uno cards. First thing we noticed was that most of us were out of practice shuffling a deck. We are so used to touch screens and mice that click on icons that basic card-handling skills are deteriorating.

A person should play Uno with a six-year-old on a regular basis. There's really no substitute. Add four bigger people and some Corona, and, really, it's better than television. Try it. That's all I'll say for today. If cards aren't your thing, how about board games--remember them? Remember checkers and dominoes and scrabble? It's summer. Turn off the devices and fumble around with cards and little playing pieces you move around a board. Enjoy the sensation of a breeze through the room, the sounds of giggles and cackles when people make dumb moves, and the feel of shiny cards at your fingertips--or cards faintly sticky from that bowl of caramel corn in the middle of the table.

Happy summer. Take a moment and notice the day's gifts.

Let the Words of My Mouth and the Meditations of My Heart

Do the words of today's title sound familiar? As a child attending the Methodist church with my grandmother, I said these words during the liturgy every week; I confess that I don't remember where they were in the liturgy. And this morning I have a house full of company and will not take the time to research properly this prayer, which goes: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.

Musician Fernando Ortega set these words to his own music, and I was playing that CD in the car when I went to the farmers' market this morning. Driving is not good for my meditations or my words--how quickly the profanity surfaces when another driver does something rude or stupid or I hit yet another car-engulfing pothole. So, for my morning prayer, I sang along with Fernando, hoping that singing such a prayer would get in the way of my cussing. And I did not cuss while driving this morning; this could be due to the prayer or to the fact that no other driver did anything rude or stupid. I won't waste energy trying to figure that out--I'm just happy to have run my errands minus the bad mood and the ugly words.

I don't think I cussed with any regularity until I was living in another country. I adapted well to my life there and did good work for that two-year teaching assignment in Ajloun, Jordan. But of course the culture shock sets in sooner or later, and it hit me in the form of sever depression about six months into the assignment. Also, it started leaking out in dribs and drabs of anger and frustration. I had tried unsuccessfully to tune the piano at the school where I taught, and it did not want to hold a tune. And at some point, for the first time in my life, I said, "Fuck" to an empty room. And I have to say, it felt very good. I realized then that there's a perfectly good reason for cusswords.

I do believe that there are appropriate times to swear, but they are few and far between.  Sometimes, swearing is actually a form of prayer--and I know some people will take great offense at my saying that, but if the Holy Spirit interprets our moans and sighs into the prayers they truly are, then I think she does the same for the swearing that is actually an expression of panic or pain or fear.

Three reasons cussing is not a good thing: 1) Usually it's used in a harmful way, in anger toward other people, and anger is rarely the best or most constructive response. 2) It becomes a habit way too easily. I really have trouble not swearing now; it's a habit I'm not proud of and try to put the brakes on. 3) It's death to creativity. I live in the part of town where "fuck" stands in for just about every part of speech. People who swear a lot are not developing creative ways of expressing themselves. In fact, I believe that profanity shrinks the vocabulary. Rather than coming up with a truly accurate description of your feelings, hopes, frustrations, and ideas, you just utter a few raw words, which shuts down the creative process.

Today, we hope to drive to Warren Dunes State Park and hang out on the beach and climb the dunes. This will involve driving on interstates on a Sunday, dealing with parking lots, having uncomfortable incidents with sand, wind, and possibly other people, and being grandparents in person, which we are rarely able to do. There's some stress in all of that--even good events bring stress. And so my prayer today is, truly: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Amen.

Too Serious?

I'm enjoying a book by Deborah Alun-Jones: The Wry Romance of the Literary Rectory. She explores various old rectories throughout England and the poets and writers who lived in them. It's well written, entertaining to read, and we learn a bit about writers such as Alfred Tennyson, Dorothy L. Sayers, and George Herbert.

Some writers sought solitary, romantic places in which to write; some were rectors as well as writers; some were sons or daughters of rectors. Most of the homes they lived in were in remote places, off in the countryside; they were drafty and damp and no-frills, in some cases without running water or reliable heat. Yet they were graced by lush landscapes and gardens in which to have tea or to otherwise party with friends.

I confess that at times I become irritated with a particular writer or poet who drags a wife and kids off to the country, to a pretty hard life, so that he can write in the kind of space he wants. Having written the better part of two novels on the commuter train to and from Chicago, I can't help but wonder if sometimes we take ourselves too seriously as artists. I can write only in a garden--really? I must make other family members suffer isolation and drudgery because I need a quiet study miles from city confusion--really?

Are we too serious about ourselves sometimes? Are we uncreative about our creativity? If I'm truly creative, then I should be able to make any number of situations work for me. And, as a person of faith of the fairly basic sort, I believe that love for spouse, children, and people in general sometimes makes demands of me that render the creative work more challenging.

We folks of the Judeo-Christian persuasion might imagine David the shepherd lounging out in the pasture, blissfully writing psalms. But have you ever spent much time in a pasture? Lumpy earth, animal dung, bugs, rain--at times the outdoors is almost too distracting for me to do much interior exploration. The shepherd psalmist might have imagined a clean, dry room with a flat surface, such as an ordinary table, as the perfect place to write. Actually, back in David's time, I think they simply composed and memorized and passed along by speaking and singing and memorizing some more. An artist simply did what he needed to do. 

Travel Graces

Maybe we notice more, when traveling, what goes wrong and what goes well. For a trip such as the one I just took, alone on a walk in England, because I packed light there was less to keep track of. A tour company had made all the lodging arrangements. For the most part I forgot about ordinary life back home. All of this freed me to pay attention to the day's steps and missteps.

My suitcase arrived with the top of the pull handle broken off and missing completely. This meant I could pull it by one of the upright bars, and fortunately it had four wheels so I could pull it without tilting, which is pretty difficult without that cross bar on the pull handle.

On the second day of walking, the rain made it impossible to walk the full distance. I opted, about a third of the way into the journey, not to return to muddy field and forest tracks (my boots, socks, and clothing were completely waterlogged) but to walk on the road. Roads in the Cotswolds are narrow, curve a lot, and have no shoulders, so this was not a safe option, but I hoped perhaps someone would take pity on me, and someone did; Neville picked me up and drove me the five miles (by road, not by walking track) to Broadway, the town of my next lodging. He didn't live there but made the excuse that he needed to go to a shop there. Also, he needed to pick up his ironing. So I dripped all over his lovely car while he parked in front a house and a young women brought out his ironed clothing and waved at me. When he dropped me off in Broadway, I said, "Neville, you are today's angel" and he replied, "Well, I think you're a resolute young woman."

That first rainy day I discovered that I should have brought my hiking boots; the soles of my every-day boots would not navigate muddy terrain. So, in Broadway, once I'd checked in, gave the housemaid my soggy clothes to wash and dry--so grateful that service was available for a fee--I walked around town, not daring to hope I'd find a shoe store. Yet, one block from my B&B I found "Pairs," which sold hiking boots. The first pair I tried on were perfect, and the price was decent. So, problem solved. I must stress that not every town I stayed in had a shoe store, or not one so obviously placed.

My third night of the trip, I was staying in Chipping Campden, one of my favorite villages of the six on my route. But by that evening I had walked probably nine miles, was very tired, and felt a bit lonely for the first time since arriving in England. I decided to walk across the street to another inn, in which there was an Indian restaurant that did carry-out orders. While I waited for my order, sitting at one end of the room with my back to the other diners, I noticed a gentleman sitting down by himself over to my left, just a few feet away.

I will shorten this: the man was the British actor Mark Williams, who has many screen credits but would be best known by Americans as the Weasleys' father in Harry Potter, as one of the bumbling dog thieves in 101 Dalmatians, and most recently as the new Father Brown of the BBC series that's based on the mysteries of G.K. Chesterton. I've become a Father Brown fan, and of all the actors to see in person, Mr. Williams was the perfect one on that evening of a very long day. I did stop at his table, on my way out the door with my food, and asked if he was Mark Williams, and he answered in the affirmative, and we had a brief, friendly exchange during which I did not act like an idiot fan. However, I grinned like an idiot all the way back to my room and didn't even mind that the coleslaw had been packaged in a  plastic bag, forcing me to eat it with my fingers. Happy, happy.

Every day I walked--and that was five out of the six days (the fifth day I took the bus so that I would have plenty of time to hang out at the Cotswold Falconry Centre in the next town--a good decision)--every day I walked, something went wrong with the directions. Either the route notes were not clear or were inaccurate or I read them incorrectly or a landowner had messed with the markings so that hikers would stop walking across his property. Every day I got lost. And every day I managed to find my way. If you have a sense of direction, you cannot appreciate what a grace this was. I have absolutely no sense of direction, and the fact that I did not panic but simply solved problems and invented a new way--this is one of the graces of the trip I appreciate most.

Another grace: I cussed maybe twice on the whole trip. Anyone close to me understands that this was a freakin' miracle.

.

Back Home

First of all, I had a truly wonderful time in England. No regrets, no bad memories, even though I was rained out one day and had a close encounter with mud on another. Little graces along the way--a topic for probably Tuesday's post. The point is, this was a good journey, one I planned and saved for and built up courage for and followed through on.

And came home from. I did return home, and when it was time to return, that's what I wanted to do. I had feared, just a bit, that some little gap or wound in my soul would find its answer or comfort off in England--in the beauty and quiet and fields, pathways, horses, cows, sheep, dogs, birds. What if I didn't want to leave? What if my personal sorrows wanted to stay for awhile and find their solace? What if I would desire to walk to a certain tea shop every day for the next five years, just to have tea and scones and sit in the quiet and talk with myself? What if that unfinished part of me, that unspoken-to part, would determine to make a new place and nurture a new ritual?

I am determined, now, to find a recipe for true English scones because I've not had anything here in the USA quite like the mile-high crusty wonders that call over to the little dishes of clotted cream and jam, saying, "Here I am!" I will find that recipe. I might even learn to make clotted cream, although this would work against my labors three afternoons a week at Southport Fitness. Still, for a rainy day or a sad afternoon . . .

I am determined to walk more here at home, now that it's clear that a few more miles of movement each day will not tear apart my arthritic joints. There's our glorious 18-mile lakefront. There are neighborhoods and bike/walking paths, parks and preserves. I'll make better use of them, and probably will bring my husband along.

It's good to be home. I brought England's weather with me, and the rainy week has turned our yard and garden spot into near jungle. I've walked in the rain to work, not minding it so much now that I have walked miles in downpour in a country where that is not considered an odd thing, just something you must do on some days. I sit on the back yard swing and enjoy the begonias and dalias and impatiens--their vivid blotches of color against the stone tile and foliage of many greens. I have returned to a place that I already loved, and so I love it still.

The stories we hear--or see in movie form--about people going off to find themselves, traveling in search of love and meaning, trouble me. It took me a few decades, but I understand that, at least for myself, purpose and happiness originate in my interior world. Other people and places cannot give me what I do not already experience. I could go on this journey and love the going because the home had already been built in soul and psyche. If I was content on the journey, it was mainly because the contentment had already developed in my thoughts and spiritual habits. If I was resourceful while walking, and able to solve problems and get lost and found again, I owed that grace to the habits that have been years in development--habits of hope, creativity, calm, and openness.

I highly recommend a walking trip, if you enjoy walking and would like a little adventure. But if you are desperate to find something that will change your life, I might recommend instead that you stay home and learn how to love home and uncover your true self in today's hours. And then in tomorrow's. The hardest work we do is the interior journey. It requires so much energy and courage and time that sometimes it is best done standing completely still.

Scattered Thoughts about England

I'm trying to work at my day job at the moment, although, according to my body, it's about 11 p.m. Feeling a bit guilty about not posting at least one other time while on my walking trip in the Cotswolds. I'll have more to say about that when I'm better rested. For now, a list of impressions.

When the English say "hill," that is precisely what they mean.

There's no real American equivalent to clotted cream.

Maybe it's my imagination, but orange marmalade tastes good in England.

Compared to getting on and off buses in England, Chicago's a freakin' roller derby.

Sheep watch you ever so soberly as you walk straight toward them.

Sheep do not pose for the camera. By the time you've lifted it up to snap a shot, they have realized that they don't know you and have gone trotting away.

Sheep dung has no smell that I noticed. English cow shit smells just like American cow shit.

Wildflowers flutter everywhere, and even the intentional flowerbeds look exuberant and unruly in a gorgeous kind of way.

People in the English countryside really are friendly and helpful.

However, an outsider in a local pub feels that she's an outsider.

England is green because it rains so much.

A hard soaking rain is called a "wet" rain, as opposed to a less aggressive and more pleasant rain, I guess.

There are a lot of doves in England--fat, lovely, sonorous doves whose robust coos can sound downright intimidating.

"Kissing gate" can mean any of several designs.

The English take their dogs into shops, cafes, trains, buses--and no one seems to mind.

Lots of Labrador retrievers and various spaniels, and dog rescue is a big trend.

What the English call a walk, Americans call a hike. I discovered this use of understatement pretty much every day of "walking."

If you are about to fall in the mud, do not grab onto stinging nettle to save yourself. It's named that for a reason. In my case, the points of contact were weird and tingly for almost two days.

Until you have experienced mud in the English countryside, you have no idea what I'm talking about.

First Walking Day

What an adventure. All day on the lookout for stiles, gates, footbridge, and waymarkers, not to mention "clear paths" across pastures. In this photo I have gone more than a quarter of the way. I am smiling because I am yet unaware that I have taken the wrong gate and thus have misdirected my journey. I will solve this later by climbing a steep hill because thank God the written directions include radio towers that are visible to

poor lost me.

No real writing because I don't care for screen keypads. Relaxing train ride to Cheltenham. Received a warm welcome from Rita, who with her husband runs Burlington House B and B. Photos of my comfy room. Walked miles this afternoon around town. Photographed with my camera so cannot upload to this device.

I must say, have concluded that I could eat clotted cream with a spoon every day. And probably will on this trip.

Another Reason I Travel

When I go to a new place, there is always this little dream that I will be a new person. This place, and these people, have never met me. They know nothing of my history or my shadow side. In this new place, I've never screwed up, made anyone angry, let anyone down, failed at a project, said something awkward,  made a bad entrance or exit.

There's always the hope that I will leave behind my irritating habits, my little obsessions, and my prejudices. Maybe I will arrive in this foreign place minus my fears and painful memories. Maybe here I will exhibit more hope and act more graciously.

We received Nala's ashes yesterday--Nala is the dog we had to euthanize two weeks ago--and I had to pack last night so did not open the box. But I did this morning, and I wept many tears for my Baby Girl and placed her on the shelf next to Buddy's canister of ashes. I held Little Buddha the cat and could feel the sorrow welling up. I'm sort of crazy to leave my good home for 10 days to go get lost in a strange place by myself.

I have the habit of touching the center of Jim's chest and saying to him, "This is my home." Because I have such a home, I am free to go do crazy things. And I do try to arrive at my destination as if this is a fresh place, a clean slate. But of course I am still me, and I bring the whole person on this ride. And although there's a lot I'd like to shake off my shoes--the mistakes and bad habits, things I wish I'd never said--I know you can't shake free of the history you don't like without losing bits of what you love.

So I travel to get a fresh start, much as I get out of bed every morning and consider that today I might be more merciful and less fearful, more courageous and less judgmental. There's an Old Testament verse I love that proclaims: "God's mercies are new every morning." I trust that this is true in the place I have worn smooth with my presence, this home of many years. I suppose it will be true as well off in England, where I hope to be walking very soon.

One Reason I Travel

I travel to get away from my stuff. I mean material stuff that requires upkeep, cleaning, sorting, improving, and putting away. It seems that forty percent of my time at home involves walking stuff from one room to another—dirty laundry to the basement and clean laundry back into drawers and closets; books back onto shelves; dishes to the sink or the cabinets; garden implements back to the shed. It fairly traumatizes me to explain in detail the long trail most paper travels in my house. Paper carries so much important information, and it is just so irritating to deal with. You have to read it, understand it, and respond in some way—pay the bill, call the number—and then you have to file the damn thing. Because if you don’t file papers, they have sex with one another and within days there are piles and piles of bastard papers, all over the house.

So, a travel vacation is a way to leave most of that behind. When I travel, I can choose which stuff I want to keep up with—and then leave the rest of it and not think of it at all while I’m away. That bowl that got left on the porch—it is not anywhere in my consciousness when I’m out to dinner in a fresh little town. The papers that remain un-filed and procreating—in my heart they are filed away in a dark place where there’s not enough light to read by. Thus they are unimportant, forgotten.

I used to take too much stuff with me when I traveled. You know—all the back issues of magazines I needed to read, the cards and letters I had yet to answer. I kid you not: I have on more than one occasion thrown all the paper into a grocery sack to read and sort on the passenger side of the car while my husband drove and tried not to engage with a wife intent on bringing all her office stress with her.

I used to haul a laptop everywhere and files of multiple writing projects I might suddenly return to—the novel whose plot problems I could finally diagnose, or the poetry I’d not felt compelled to edit seriously for the past decade.

Back when I was slim and enjoyed wearing clothes, I packed too many things to wear, because who knew what mood I would be in when we walked down by the river or went out to eat or took a tour? A person needed lots of options. Same goes for make-up and things that go with hair, and jewelry.

I’m about to be away from home for ten days. There will be no laptop, no magazines, no letters to answer, no paperwork to sort. Maybe I’ll take a book. I have three pairs of pants and five shirts, a jacket, the pair of shoes I’ll wear on the plane and the other pair of shoes I’ll pack, both pairs meant for walking. I cannot really express how jubilant I am about having so little stuff along. Of course, the journal goes, one I bought just for this trip, and two pens. One necklace bearing three bits of gold: a cross, an Arabic coffeepot, and my wedding ring (my hands swell, so I rarely wear the ring on my finger).

Half the reason I travel is to travel light.

The Perils of Pre-Travel Paranoia (Part 2)

In shopping for the upcoming trip, I tried not to go overboard, although the Magellan and Travelsmith catalogs make this difficult. Bought a small and sturdy umbrella and a wallet made of some type of metal that will help prevent identity theft. I needed a new carry-on suitcase anyway, so that purchase will benefit me for another 10 years. Also needed jeans and a warm-weather shirt. So, I tell myself—because it's myself who needs convincing—this is not frivolous spending. The mini toothbrush, battery operated, will be a sort of test run for a permanent toothbrush of that sort. The gps will become a lifelong companion because I see no indications that aging triggers a dormant sense of direction.

When I was growing up, there were no vacations—none that involved travel, anyway. I have always felt that travel vacations were proof that I had made it to the more stable category of middle-class American. Nowadays, overseas vacations feel more like something only wealthy people do, and I struggle to believe wholeheartedly that I should even take this trip when the money could have done more noble things in this world. Yet, my desire won over altruism, so here I am. And every purchase is weighed in regard to long-term usefulness. And already I am thinking about the tree surgery we just learned must be done and how much it’s going to cost, and I’m planning to return stateside with x amount of money unspent on tours and trinkets and too much frivolous food.

I don’t even ask the question, Would Jesus walk the Cotswolds? I cannot compute such matters and don’t want to. Am a bit wary of such questions plopped in the middle of a time and context far removed from the Nazarene’s. All I can do is refuse to enjoy the maximum level of purposeless fun and leisure. Yeah, this is how guilt-ridden religious people do “vacation.”

And another thing. Even though I have worked out with weights—regularly and without joy—since last November, and even though I’m walking much more and have cut back on portion size, it appears that I will not arrive in the English countryside slim and suddenly attractive. This is a disappointment. At least I haven’t grown any larger. And I do have, let’s see, three more days to work on this. More on this topic Thursday.

The Perils of Pre-Travel Paranoia (Part 1)

The trouble with a long-planned-for trip, at least for me, is that I have more time to become freaked out about it. I bought the tour months ago, the plane fare months ago, have pre-paid for hotels at both ends of the tour, have even bought in advance train tickets from Heathrow to Paddington Station and then from Paddington Station our to Cheltenham. I have saved enough money to have a bit of cushion. Have done basic research on each town, have bought an inexpensive phone that will work in the UK. I even bought a device that will take photos and then post them on the Web (Kindle Fire—makes me feel quite extravagant).

Other than studying in detail the histories of the sites and recording names and addresses of all possible places I might want to visit, I have done about all the prep work there is to do. At one point I realized that, thanks to Google street view, I could actually take a virtual walking tour before I took the walking tour, but that just seemed crazy.

A friend sent me a link to an article about how we’re actually happier while we’re planning and anticipating a vacation than we usually are when we are on the vacation. Well, I didn’t need to hear that. Planning and anticipating has stirred up much anxiety; and now I can expect to feel worse? The point was that a person should enjoy the planning as part of the event, and I suppose I should give myself to this. I prefer to live in the present, to be fully where I am, and in a way it seems like poor stewardship to spend many hours in the planning of this. There is no guarantee that the trip will happen—illness or injury, a death, or some catastrophe . . . Would be a shame to invest in something that does not come to pass.

You have to consider that the longed-for journey might come to pass but also kill you by way of a plane crash or some freak accident involving a bog and a flashlight that stops working. Jim and I had a gift certificate to a really nice restaurant, so I decided we should go ahead and use it before I leave. I have tempered my impulse to sort and clean the entire house before my departure. But I did decide to tackle the writing room and office. If I die on the trip, I don’t want Jim overwhelmed with all our paperwork.

I will not, however, try to visit my mother prior to departure, because that would involve a long journey by car, and who knows what might happen. Stay tuned.

I Am Going on a Journey

On May 31, early Saturday evening, I will board a plane to fly the Atlantic, land in Dublin, board a smaller plane, and arrive in London on June 1. After a day and night there, I will ride a train out into the Cotswold countryside and embark upon a six-day walking trip from town to town and inn to inn. My one small suitcase will be transported for me to each lodging; I’ll walk with my daypack along roads and lanes, through fields and towns.

I’m going alone because my husband is not as crazy about walking as I am. And, frankly, we can’t afford for both of us to do this, and I’m the one who has had the longing for this adventure for quite some time.

I’m going alone because my life is full and my heart is weary, and I think it may be a healing act to walk at my own slow pace and drink in the scenes, tastes, sounds, smells, and textures of a lovely place. My introverted self can hardly wait for the solitude. My anxiety-prone self is giddy with fear at the loose-endedness of this endeavor. I was born without any sense of direction whatever, and the detailed directions I’ve been given read suspiciously like the directions one might receive from an old man sitting on his porch, back in the rural landscape of my hometown. You go through this gate, not that one; travel along the racetrack and then veer off on this other lane; follow a certain waymark; walk the path that will take you along a certain ridge . . . May angels walk alongside, before, and behind me, and simply shuffle me where I need to go and get me to the next town before nightfall.

There will be three or four more blogposts before the journey begins. When I am on the road, who knows? I am now equipped with a Kindle Fire that takes photos and should connect to whatever wifi is available in inns, pubs, or tea shops. If you check in and see a photo or two with a caption or two—that’s probably as much as you’ll get from me. This journey is for me, my present to myself in the middle of my fifties. I will journal, but for me, not for an audience. Sometimes I think that writing for an audience can siphon the best energy from the creative life.

However, you may find subsequent posts entertaining, as I delve into the Perils of Pre-travel Paranoia.

Most Mornings of This World

Let me tell my truth. Most mornings of this world, I awaken and feel, first of all, the weight of existence. Weight like a burden more than a blessing. It aches to be conscious. I lie there and think, I need to go through this day. I think about it and decide that, yes, I will go through the day. Usually, this interior conversation is shrouded in sadness.

Once out of bed, the works are started, like an old clock winding up, and the day does what it does, and I land at the end of it very tired and still sad.

It took awhile to understand, to see, that this is in fact my response to any given day. It wasn't always like this, not at all. But for months it has been like this. Existence--something I am desperate to maintain but that feels so heavy, so difficult.

I was never a sleeper as a kid or teenager. Slept a few hours, then was ready to go do things. Much of the time they were interior sorts of things, such as reading or writing or just being outdoors. But there was this feeling of action, of being swept up in the world in a good way. That continued through college, overseas work, then a long career in publishing. Always being swept into the day, with things to do, words to write, places to be. The memories of these former seasons let me know that something has changed. The inner compass has shifted. Or, maybe it's not a compass at all, just a pointer jiggling incessantly as though distressed and distracted.

There it is. Nothing momentous or desperate. And thus far, I have no conclusions about it. An idea here and there--a hunch or two. But for now, wait, pay attention. Watch and ponder.

What Merits Repeating

It's Sunday afternoon, and I should be writing because I have publicly committed to writing on this new blog on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Saturday flew by and so now I am amending the commitment to Tuesdays, Thursdays, and "the weekends." I'm trying to make this more enjoyable by sitting on the backyard swing with a fresh pot of tea. On the swing with me is Bones the cat, who cares nothing about my blogging life but knows to savor a swing in the sun when he can.

How do we come to this conviction that we must compose things for people to read? Does this grow out of a sense of giftedness or calling? Is it a dutiful response to others' expectations because I've been an editor, writer, and blogger a long time now, and this is simply what I do?

Or do I write to make meaning, to feel significant, to be valued?

Expressing anything in written language nearly always magnifies it. I can end a sleepless night by going to an all-night grocery, and all I'm doing is running an errand because I can't sleep. However, I might later write:

"I went shopping at dawn, the morning wet and the tired aisles ceaselessly bright. I bought mushrooms mainly because they looked beautiful to me."

--and I have transformed a nearly meaningless event into a "reflection" or a "scene" or perhaps with some work later, into a poem.

I look at this one way and it appears that I have found beauty in the mundane. I have practiced mindfulness or gratitude; I have tapped into grace.

I look at this another way, and it appears that I have blown an experience out of proportion, making myself seem wise and my mundane moment filled with significance when, really, it's not.

I don't even have to wax poetic to distort an experience; all I must do is speak it to another person or write it for public record--and instantly the thing is bigger than it is.

After a point, writing can thus become an exercise in pride and self-importance. It's a way of asserting myself, of trying to command others' attention. I am not comforatable with this. In fact, a lot of writing these days--whether my own or others' --just makes me weary. We are all trying so hard to be heard, to make history, or at least to make a dent.

It's probably better for everyone if I devote less time to throwing words out there and more time to enjoying the tea and the cat that is stretched beside me. My hope is primarily to live a good life and to write only what merits repeating.

The Uncrossable Space

I have had relationships with animals since early childhood. My father loved creatures, and people who knew him knew that. So if a neighbor came across an abandoned baby raccoon or a bird, they knew where to bring it. We had various dogs, birds, four raccoons, and at one point a calf with one bad eye--Dad was keeping it in our super-large garage and our vast yard, for the farmer this baby belonged to. We fed it with a bucket that had a huge nipple. Her name was Susie.

This means that I've also said good-bye to a lot of creatures with whom I had relationships. You cry and bury this loved one--back then, in that rural town, we buried small creatures in flower beds, larger ones at one end of the enormous garden--and maybe you say a prayer, and cry some more. You tell yourself that you'll see Blue or Susie or Sydney again in a distant future. When you're a child, just about everything lies in your future, and it's easier to believe in outlandish things. Heaven, for instance; if I don't perceive myself anywhere near my own death, it costs little to believe in Heaven. And it's a comfort to place there all the pets I have loved and now must live without.

But now I am much past the middle point of my life, and it would be nice to believe firmly that I have a future beyond my perceivable future, which likely involves decline and Medicare and loneliness. And grief upon grief.

My husband and I had our dog euthanized yesterday. And I feel this distinct space between me and my Baby Girl. I have felt it for a long time, because now that I'm not a child, I can't pretend that dogs are just people with fur. They are a different species, and yes, I can feel close to Nala, and I can determine that Nala enjoys my company, that Nala is in fact attached to Jim and me. But beyond that, I do not understand this creature. I don't really know the nature of what we call her "love" for us. There is an uncrossable space between this dog and me, and there always was.

I could not cross that space when trying to train out of her the fearfulness that kept her somewhat high-strung and unpredictable all the years she lived with us. I could not figure out her dog brain or dog instincts or dog feelings enough to calm her, to communicate to her safety and structure. We had our routines that worked. She was totally at home with us. But she was different from us.

We chose not to prolong the life of a creature who would suffer more and more and to whom we could not explain the suffering. This is why I would never put a dog or cat, or any other kind of pet, through cancer treatment. All the dog or cat knows is that we are hurting her. We can't reassure her that the hurt will lead to feeling better, maybe.

I could not explain to Nala yesterday that this was our last walk together, that there were good reasons to spare her from the immediate, painful future. And although I said over and over, "I love you, Nala" and "You're such a good dog" and have said such things to her every day she's been with us, I have no reason to believe that those words meant to her what I wanted her to receive from them. That damned uncrossable space.

Will I see my Baby Girl again? Is that even the right question to ask? I can barely imagine a Heaven at all, let alone the sorts of odd constructs that might reunite me with Nala, also Buddy, Phathan, Blue, Sydney, Sass, and all the others who have long departed my life. Grief offers us the opportunity to accept that the time we had with someone, human or otherwise, was enough. We may have wanted more, but reality has finished the chapter for us. Grief calls us to let

go of hopes that have been thwarted a final time.

As for Heaven, filled with my father and grandparents and also my pets--I don't know anything, really. But I am willing to be delightfully surprised.

Just Like That

From 2010: Buddy on the left, Nala on the right.

We have no tulips this morning. The great winds of last night snatched them right off their stems. No longer is there an ethereal plane of color--red, yellow, purple--floating two feet above the front yard.

And, just like that, for the first time since we brought her home thirteen years ago, our dog, Nala, did not prance and bark when I took her leash from the hook. She has a tumor on her right hip, and a couple of weeks ago the vet simply shook his head. Yes, there's treatment, but it's thousands of dollars. But Jim and I don't believe in putting pets through chemotherapy and other invasive treatments, because they can't understand why we are hurting them so, and even successful treatments only prolong life for a while. Now the tumor is affecting Nala's ability to walk. She's also panting a lot, as though overheated, but I fear that it indicates some problem with her heart or lungs. She doesn't seem to be in pain, but Jim and Nala will see the vet tomorrow and we'll get his take on things.

Nala is about fourteen, and she's had a good life with us. Lots of walks, lots of treats, lots of sleeping near us, with us, on us. Lots of naps on breezy days in the back yard. For a few years, she had Buddy, another rescue who just wandered up and claimed us all; we lost Buddy to heart failure last summer. Now Nala has the company of two cats, and one of them loves her dearly, is always following her and rubbing up against her.

Just like that, little things change, and big changes move through us. I have no more to say about this. My words would not change a thing.