Category: Pondering Quietly

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

transformation

At church in small group ministry, we are talking about transformation this month. And to a person, everyone  in my group had a bit of trouble with this topic. We all wanted that Disney Cinderella transformation, the magic wand that turns a pumpkin into a coach and rags into ball gowns. And we could not think of any or many transformative moments in our lives that was quite like that.

Someone suggested that it is more evolution than magic wand, and this morning, I think that so much is in the eye of the beholder. The heart of the dreamer. What and when is that magic wand moment?  And how?  Therein lies a mystery.

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process & peace

Another eve. Gray today. My christmas lights, sweet during the dark nights, don’t light up a day time room, even a gray day. I’ve finished the work of the days before—tree decorated, presents bought and wrapped, times for visits and choir and gift opening and dinner set, even cards signed and sealed even though not yet delivered.  Yesterday, with only little bits to do, Julia and I drove around to deliver cookies to those who were not where they were expected earlier in the week.  We stopped once and chatted and that was good. The car needs packing for this afternoon at Ed’s family, for tonight at choir, for later tonight at Cheshire’s and for tomorrow morning’s gift opening. 

And what to anticipate watching someone at 16 months on Christmas?  He is all eyes and questions . . tat? tat? with arm outstretched and fingers pointed.  Last night, I dreamed that he was walking around the living room, secure and proud of himself. In reality, he is taking a few steps  between two sets of arms when he forgets his caution. 

He tasted and liked my yearly baking of poppy seed rolls on Friday at lunch.  A new person to bake for is my own delight. I can hope that he remember my baking like I remember my grandmother’s Easter bread—white, not moist and perfect with butter.

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dinner party

I read my posts from the beginning of last month, days before we left for Tokyo, and I feel like they were written by a person from another time.  Not another person.  I am the same in many ways.  Still mothering Julia with a lot of resistance, still looking for what she will do when we get home (You can email from anywhere although responses are no quicker from far away), still bickering with Julia which is doing neither of us much good, still trying to figure out how to deal with her body dysmorphic perseverations, still trying to inspire her to desire to do something, anything.  

But there are other “stills.” No, perhaps, still is the wrong word, the wrong idea.  

Three weeks into this journey and I acknowledge that I feel challenged on many fronts.  In these wee hours of a night time becoming morning, I acknowledge that watching Julia fit into our Asian adventures brings a certain amount of pleasure.  I have not technically brought her home, not yet anyway, but we are somewhere where she is much more related to the dominant culture than I am and that feels right.  I’ve found a way to get her drawing and painting, at least somewhat.  A few days every week we trade a very small notebook back and forth, taking turns drawing and painting.  Not great masterpieces but some simple pleasure.  It is also wonderful to have a traveling companion who likes to do so many part of travel that I love—long and sometimes multiple visits to museums, days when we are closer to just living here than sightseeing and being tourists, and reveling in the unexpected which lies around almost every corner.  It has meant that I have to give up control of everything but there is comfort in that too.  Not that releasing my killer grip on travel plans has been without discomfort.

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not in my own skin

Always we see times colliding and melting together. The woman on her bike in the early morning. The back of the bike is loaded with produce that she will sell today. As she walks down the street, the motor bikes whizz past her, all busy, all rushing. They are the predominant inhabitants of these streets. There are far fewer bicycles than there were 20 years ago. They no longer command the speed of the streets and take very few parking places.

The cars, of which this picture has only one of a quite moderate size invade and take up so much room. There are big ones–SUVs of the biggest variety that honk and push through. Everything else, motorbikes, bikes and pedestrians slow those huge monsters down, but they persist. They don’t feel like the trucks delivering or the buses picking up and letting off or touring. The SUVs feel like money being shown off. Rarely is there more than one person in those SUVs and that person is occupying valuable real estate. And currently, as a walker or sometimes motorbike rider, those SUVs are what puts the fear of god in me.

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dualities

This is a city of such contrasts.  All cities, all places are but perhaps because this time has been so multi-sided for me, the contrasts I see here are particularly tender and touching. 

This small cemetery, tucked into a corner of Yanaka was surrounded by a wall with an open gate.Some of the graves were very old, some from earlier this year. A few had an announcement tied onto the stone which said that it was suspected that this grave had been abandoned and the upkeep was unpaid. If someone did not come forward to claim the space, the remains buried would be dug up and respectfully burned, and the space made available to another family. I wonder if this was just the reality of a city where all real estate is valuable.

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the unravellings

In all of the 12 previous times when I wrote about David’s Death Day Anniversaries, I have never thought about or made mental notes for the contents before I open my lap top and started writing.  Many times I wrote and then edited fiercely before posting, but that was all.

This year is different.

Every year is different. This year is different in an unexpected way.

First off, last night I dreamed of Jimmy Brennan, a high school friend who I had a crush on while we were both doing variety shows at school.  He was not a close friend; however, we had some wonderful talks together.  We lost touch but beginning in my 30’s, I would have dreams in which Jimmy appeared just before some notable change happened in my life.  The dreams were never noteworthy, rather something ordinary, visiting a place I knew, walking through rooms, ordering in restaurant. And Jimmy would make an appearance. Again, nothing noteworthy.  He would stop by a table at the restaurant and chat, he would be sitting in some living room I walked through.  It took years to notice and put it together but eventually, I noticed that these appearances presaged some change. Always, the dream came before I knew what the change was but there was always a change. I came to view Jimmy Brennan, in his charming high school form, as my personal John the Baptist.

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surfacing

4:00 a.m.  My own witching hour.  Up in the dark and out of bed, leaving my VNM sleeping peacefully.

We, Julia, VNM and I, have had Covid this last week.  We were all ready to go to the wedding of the daughter of a dear friend, trek to Cleveland to party and see old friends, when I felt ill on Wednesday morning.  “Felt ill” lacks the drama of the experience. It was more like getting slammed to the ground and wrestled into stillness. I managed to get Julia up and out, dropped her at Elliot House, drove back home and crawled into bed.  I begged out of a class to make Yaprakia and skipped choir rehearsal that evening.  I asked Julia’s therapist to pick Julia up, stay out of the house with her and drop her when their session was finished.  During the day, I held out hope that I would recover quickly from whatever it was that I had and still get on a plane on Friday; however, by the evening I gave into the inevitable and by Thursday morning, I tested positive for Covid and cancelled all our plans.  I was pretty sick—temperature, head ache, body ache, awful cough, loss of smell and taste and a few other symptoms I’d rather not describe.  During the next four days, I ran through almost everything, apart from severe breathing problems.  I was fortunate to call my doctor in time for a Paxlovid prescription and this morning I took the final dose.  Symptoms did not retreat as quickly as they came on but after three doses, I began to feel more myself albeit very tired and still coughing.

VNM fell to the Covid test on Friday, and Julia on Saturday.  Julia has had a deep cough and had taken a lot of naps, but otherwise is symptom free.

So, we’ve had a long weekend of naps, soup, cough and cold medication, water and juice and tea and more soup.  

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moving

Sitting in the small built-in nook beside the fireplace, the same one Julia sat in when we first arrived at the blue house, the day before furniture came from Madison.  I snapped a picture of her looking both wistful and content that day.  Or is it just that I am feeling that way today and projecting onto an old picture that I only dimly recall?

I have spent the best part of a month packing and with the help of my VNM have moved everything we could possibly carry to the new apartment.  This is not like the last move or the one before that when I packed up everything and moved very far away.  Right now, those moves feel so much more organized—labels on every box and everything in a box, except for me and Julia and Muta and the cello, a few plants and a carry on bag. This time we carried boxes and plants and plastic bags and clothes on hangers. I labeled a lot but not everything and the piles in the new house are not orderly. Why does it feel like so much bigger a job?

The movers—three very nice guys—have worked hard for the last two hours, emptying the house of what we could not carry.  The head of the moving crew, Mark, comments on the moldings and built-ins and wooden archway and we fall into conversation about the empty flat.  And I cannot help but start missing this pretty blue house. I get wedded to spaces. They are hard to leave.

 

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perhaps it is always

Sunday morning we sang Where the Light Begins (music by Susan LaBarr, text by Jan Richardson) (a pretty version to listen to here): 

“Perhaps it does not begin,
Perhaps it is always.
Perhaps it takes a lifetime

“To open our eyes,
To learn to see

“The luminous line of the map in the dark,
The vigil flame in the house of the heart,
The love so searing we can’t keep from singing,
from crying out.

“Perhaps this day the light begins,
Perhaps this day the light begins in us,
We are where the light begins.

“Perhaps it does not begin,
Perhaps it is always.”

This is one of those songs, whose melody and words pierce the heart like an arrow.  I sang it every day at home last week to learn it. Sometimes it takes me so long to learn music, but singing it every day moved me closer to meaning. And after singing it in choir amidst many voices, I carried around a lump in my throat all day.

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cook, talk, laugh, eat

I’m up before the alarm, that I turned off last night, would have sounded and ready to . . . back in some old day, I would be . . . um, I wonder how far back I should be going to say what I mean to say today.  This is the traditional time of gathering beloved souls together for cooking and eating and hopefully taking a walk before falling asleep in front of some movie on a cushy couch.  And this time has been hard won.

I cast the net far enough back to state that my mother’s traditions did not fit me well; and during our East Village days with baby Cheshire in tow, we started to cook for ourselves and our friends. Cooking and talking and laughing and eating.  Sometimes too many people crowded into our tiny apartment on First Avenue and sometimes we all went to Park Slope and celebrated in Carolina and David’s sprawling apartment.  On a marble topped coffee table with one chip out of the wood frill frame, Carolina served glorious antipasto and David made margaritas.  And we got to the turkey much later.  Cooking and talking and laughing and eating. 

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