Category: Pondering Quietly

Some deep thoughts in the shallows of my mind, some shallow thoughts . . . somewhere else.

manifesto

A small truth gently unfolded itself very quietly last night.

I have been working on a book-length memoir for a few years, and it is close to finished. It needs one more good edit, maybe some beta readers, and another edit before I either try to get it published or create a Substack.  But.

But . . . but . . . but . . .

There is no way that I am going to get it finished. Not right now, not before the end of the year, or before my January birthday—both goals. Maybe I will never finish it. This is an awful truth. Maybe everyone else sees it, has seen it for a long time, and is rolling their eyes or mentally saying, “duh!” Okay, but not me. I am either that eternal optimist or someone who refuses to look reality in the face.

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vermont 2

It is Indigenous Peoples Day. We are in Vermont, ready to leave today to return home. Julia’s day center is closed today. It will rain for most of today and tomorrow. I hope to stop to do some food shopping on our way home and make butternut squash soup for tonight’s dinner.

There the scene is set. 

It disturbs me greatly that trump proclaimed today a celebration of “the original American hero, a giant of Western civilization, and one of the most gallant and visionary men to ever walk the face of the earth.” It goes on to say that “[u]pon his arrival, he planted a majestic cross in a mighty act of devotion, dedicating the land to God and setting in motion America’s proud birthright of faith.”

Why does he—or they because that man cannot speak a single coherent sentence. There are way too many grammatically correct sentences and way too much warped “history” to believe that trump had anything to do with the drafting of his proclamation.— but why does he need to lie ALL of the time?

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more on uncomfortable feelings

My post on Kirk has been bothering me for days.  I posted it on Facebook and here.  

And on Facebook, someone responded: Suzanne, please help me understand your words “my empathy is gone for such a monster and obviously at least one person agreed”.

I responded: I can no longer care in any way for those who spew hate and make this country unsafe for so many people I love and care about. Kinder people than I have expressed much softer, gentler sentiments. I cannot. He paid the price that he thought prudent and rational for our school children to pay. His death… a prudent deal.

And the someone replied: As a firm believer in God my Father, I cannot for the life of me understand how it is okay to condone the death of a fellow human being because opinions and beliefs don’t align! Praying no one ever decides your children or grandchildren deserve death due to their opinions and beliefs.

And I wondered if that was what I had done, that is, condone the death of someone because our opinions did not align.

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process

Working on specific projects — this Sunday’s service at my church, the writing prompt for next week’s meeting of my new writing group at FUUSN, and the agenda for the writing class I’ll be facilitating at HILR in October. Both the writing groups are called Letters—In the Company of Writers.

I need to say that this was not the way I intended to spend my summer—I had “simplified” my usual routine and intended to be editing the “big” memoir all summer. I had blocked out days that were not going to be for anything other than writing/editing and had given up any wish for leaving town for any length of time.  

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wednesday

I’ve left breakfast dishes in the sink this morning. On purpose. If I was my mother I would have washed them as soon as Julia left for the day. If I was myself ten or 14 years ago, I would have washed them as Julia got into the van.  Back then, I needed to control something and washing dishes was a doable task. An easy success. And I needed success. 

Now, I am willing to let them slide. To let them wait until . . . . until later.  I will wash before I go to bed tonight. So, okay, I still have some need of control.

Instead of washing, I poured a glass of clean water, taped off a page of my sketchbook and spritzed the water colors. I am trying to paint. I am painting. I cannot seem to sit in meditation these days. I wander, I obsess, I plan. I slip too easily into past and future. I bring my mind back time after time, but I am not patient with myself, with the practice that I’ve had for years.

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friday status

Hard week for me and for Julia, but our challenges pale in comparison to what is being inflicted upon young people who our universities invited here to study and practice being Americans.  Since law school, I have put a good deal of faith in our legal system, checks and balances, respect for the law, the ethics of judges. I don’t always agree, in fact, the republican packed Supreme Court disappoints me regularly; but I’ve believed in the process. That belief that is shattered daily. There is no way to keep up with the barage of awful news, but miss one day and life as I’ve always known it may turn completely upside down. No hyperbole at all.

This was not what I began to write but it is very hard not to follow rabbits down deep holes.

Today, I need to reset from the overwhelm of the week.  I am privileged to be able to sit back and take stock and right myself. I am aware of that.  

Morning painting after Julia was picked up, some writing, a quick vacuum of floors that have gotten very dirty in some unknown way, folding four, or is it five, loads of clothes (temporarily giving up on getting Julia to notice that an over full laundry basket is a good sign to wash clothes). I have reading for next week’s classes and writing that needs to be finished, but the sun is out, the gardens need cleaning and the sadnesses need airing before the day is finished. 

What was personally challenging and hard for us, for me should follow soon.

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healing

Eleven days into the new year and I have been sick each and every day.  What a way to begin something new no matter how artificial the construct of time and new years are. 

So, first off, I am home and have been since late Tuesday, arriving by ambulance because I was attached to oxygen. I am participating in a Home Hospital program. I am still technically a patient of Newton Wellsley Hospital—my wrist band and IV port prove that—but I am getting my care and monitoring at home. I needed to meet some health criteria—after lots of tests to rule out other causes for my condition, I was found to be relatively stable and treatable —as well as home condiitons like a supportive carer.  I wear a very sensitive arm band which is constantly monitored, two nursing visits each day, PT and PA visits and daily deliveries of meds. It felt like too much activity the first day to keep track of everything. Meds are delivered by the nurses when they visit but I must coordinate for myself the early morning and late night meds including five times using the nebulizer during the day.  It felt like too much to take in and actually do on Wednesday and I was quite grumpy about it all.  It didn’t help that my cough was still wicked then and answering either in person or on the phone was tortuous for everyone. 

For me; however, this is a great program. I am home.  Julia, who had a hard time when I was in the hospital, is doing much better with me home. Other than the visits and care that I am getting, there is nothing more that a hospital stay could offer me.  And I have my best carer, Ed, seeing to what I need.  I feel a bit guilty for all the cooking and shopping and cleaning up and caring for Julia and just making me as comfortable as possible that he has done.  But it is lovely having his support.  He is much more than taking-up-the-slack these days. 

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of ghosts and christmas tree lights

I have been trying/drafting and deleting/ to explain just how this week is.  It is time out of time, ordinary moments out of ordinary order, days of big meals and late church services and traveling and visiting. And too much traffic through tunnels and delays at airports.

No flying this year, but I noticed something I have not really taken account of before.  I have been aware but not articulated to myself the presence of so many ghosts in and around every event, every visit, every meal, every ornament hanging on the tree, every candled trimmed to fit into Julia’s great grandmother’s menorah.

Not one of those events, practices or things stand by themselves. Nothing is new. Rather they are the latest version, the pencil sketch with many erased sketches beneath, the latest in the series of what I remember as winter holiday times. I am aware of both what my eyes perceive and also what I hold in my heart.

The winter holidays always bring on some blues, as they did a few weeks ago, but the sitting with the revelation of sketches in time has brought some awareness, some clarity, some way to find the joy, the blessings in the times that have past.  I am aware of the richness and the subtlety, the near inmoveable traditions dressed with the changes that time brings.

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unexpected life

Begun on the 5th, finished on the 7th.

Sitting on my back porch, in some stillness. In my sight lines are some less than perfect pots of flowers and herbs that I’ve planted and babied in the blistering heat, a brilliant hydrangea in our back garden that is in full bloom, and the garden behind ours, long neglected yet still punctuated with blooming perennials that are too stubborn to recognize that they are no longer tended.

Yesterday was rather idyllic.  A summertime community picnic in Concord.  Hot dogs, Wilbur’s first, and hamburgers, sweet tea and strawberry shortcake.  And apple pie with vanilla ice cream. Firefighters set up a flat house with flames coming through windows and doors, all on hinges, and gave children the chance to aim a “real” fire hose and shoot water at the flames until the flames were defeated.  The line was too long for Wilbur to wait, for any of us to wait, but he loved watching other kids with the hose.  There was a playground with a sand pit for the pleasure of the littlest ones including Wilbur and his aunty Julia. There was a four piece band of what I thought of as old codgers playing blue grass and old rock standards.  Those codgers may have been younger than I am.  Best of all, we took a train to the picnic!  Wilbur’s current high interest topic is trains of all sorts and sizes, and so we met three stops on the transit line from Concord and took two little train rides to and from the picnic.  It was well worth it as everything about the train, especially moving, was fascinating to the little boy.  

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an old lesson, once again

I have spent a month sick, in one way or another—coughing, first and foremost. A chronic cough that I could not shake. From a flu.  It was not so bad as to not go about my daily round, but bad enough not to be able to do anything without cough drops and my water bottle to keep the eruptions at bay.

But they were not really kept at bay. I sat through classes and choir practices vainly attempting to hold back my coughing. I was not, however, feeling ill enough to do more than use home remedies and rest a little bit. Just a little bit.

Finally, I was too long coughing and thought something funky was going on with my eyes, I visited the doctor, had an x-ray taken and sent home with the usual rest and fluids instructions. Oh, and medication for conjunctivitis.

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