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From the prelude in Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott:
I knew that if you had the eyes to see, there was beauty everywhere, even when nature was barren or sloppy, and not just when God had tarted things up for Spring. Often the people with the deepest insight looked as ordinary as any old alcoholic or serial killer. They might look like Siddhartha or Ananda Mai Ma, but odds were they resembled your bipolar cousin Ruth, or Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. Also, they could be extremely annoying.
Funky moods lately leave me bewildered. I have this nagging suspicion of something major trying to come up for air, yet I can’t place my finger on it or jerk it out so I can scream “what the he** is wrong with you?!”
Social situations aggravate the situation, I go in with energy and leave with defeat; suspicion, anger, annoyance. My aptitude for putting up with crap is enormously lower than usual and my shoulder shrugging and sighing is at an all time high. What to do, what to do?
So I’ve brought out a handful of my favorite books this past week, scouring them for tidbits of wisdom on how to handle myself with more grace. As usual, they do not disappoint me.
“There is something in the depths of our being that hungers for wholeness and finality. Because we are made for eternal life, we are made for an act that gathers up all the powers and capacities of our being and offers them simultaneously and forever to God. The blind spiritual instinct that tells us obscurely that our own lives have a particular importance and purpose, and which urges us to find out our vocation, seeks in so doing to bring us to a decision that will dedicate our lives irrevocably to their true purpose. The man who loses this sense of his own personal destiny, and who renounces all hope of having any kind of vocation in life has either lost all hope of happiness or else has entered upon some mysterious vocation that God alone can understand.”
“We know we are following our [destiny/career/vocation] when our soul is set free from preoccupation with itself and is able to seek God and even to find Him, even though it may not appear to find Him. Gratitude and confidence and freedom from ourselves: these are signs that we have found our vocation and are living up to it even though everything else may seem to have gone wrong. They give us peace in any suffering. They teach us to laugh at despair. And we may have to.” - Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island (both quotes above)
In writer Kathleen Norris’ book Amazing Grace, there is a chapter on her struggle with being a part of the Christian church while an avid reader (and, in her words, therefore believer) of feminist theology. I drew parallels from her struggle to my own tension with this, though not with feminism so specifically. I found her sentence sitting with me, lingering : “It was the false purity of ideology I had to reject, in order to move toward the more realistic give-and-take of community.”
Last week in yoga class, we recited a chant as part of our meditation. As I understand it, the meditation reflects on the cycle of life (I consider re-birth to be a spiritual one, for the record, not reincarnation on earth). The other times we meditate in class, we simply lie still, lights dimmed, listening to the silence. This has made me want to revisit the practice of Lectio Divina that I have read about but never quite got into. I found conviction and frustration in the introductory chapter to The Inner Experience, which are Thomas Merton notes on contemplation, because it is precisely some of the below description of this exterior self that battles for the “contemplative” identity the moment I try to approach the search at all. I am certainly suspicious of my own self-love to bother my way:
“The inner self is precisely that self which cannot be tricked or manipulated by anyone, even by the devil. He is like a very shy wild animal that never appears at all whenever alien presence is at hand, and comes out only when all is perfectly peaceful, in silence, when he is untroubled and alone. He cannot be lured by anyone or anything, because he responds to no lure except that of divine freedom.
Sad is the case of that exterior self that imagines himself contemplative, and seeks to achieve contemplation as the fruit of planned effort and of spiritual ambition. He will assume varied attitudes, meditate on the inner significance of his own postures, and try to fabricate for himself a contemplative identity: and all the while there is nobody there. There is only an illusory, fictional “I” which seeks itself, struggles to create itself out of nothing, maintained in being by its own compulsion and the prisoner of his private illusion.”
And purposefully, lastly, provokingly; lyrics that resonate this week:
“Two Faces” Bruce Springsteen
I met a girl and we ran away
I swore I’d make her happy every day
And how I made her cry
Two faces have I.
Sometimes, mister, I feel sunny and wild
Lord I love to see my baby smile
Then dark clouds come rolling by
Two faces have I.
One that laughs, one that cries
One says hello, one says good-bye
One does things I don’t understand
Makes me feel like half a man.
At night I get down on my knees and pray
Our love will make that other man go away
But he’ll never say good-bye
Two faces have I.
Last night as I kissed you ‘neath the willow tree
He swore he’d take your love away from me
He said our life was just a lie
And two faces have I
Well go ahead and let him try.
Concert last night was vaaandervuuuul! I had only really heard some of the upbeat songs from Feist, but last night she plays a looong set (none of the 3,000 fans complained about that!) and some really incredibly smooth, soulful stuff filled the room. Hubby and I really enjoyed her artistic, random, quirky performances- I’m hoping to get some of her cd’s in my stocking this year!
On another note,
The Imago Book Group is doing Atonement this month. I’m finding the diversion from The Year of Magical Thinking, (my early Fall book- and a non-fiction grief themed book at that), a nice relief!
Check out this paragraph. I love books. Writers are so cool.
“Was being Cecilia just as vivid an affair as being Briony? Did her sister also have a real self concealed behind a breaking wave, and did she spend time thinking about it, with a finger held up to her face? Did everybody, including her father, Betty, Hardman? If the answer was yes, the the world, the social world, was unbearably complicated, with two billion voices, and everyone’s claim on life as intense, and everyone thinking they were unique, when no one was. One could drown in irrelevance. But if the answer was no, then Briony was surrounded by machines, intelligent and pleasant enough on the outside, but lacking the bright and private inside feeling she had. This was sinister and lonely, as well as unlikely. For, though it offended her sense of order, she knew it was overwhelmingly probable that everyone else had thoughts like hers. She knew this, but only in a rather arid way; she didn’t really feel it.”
The movie Atonement comes out shortly after book club meets, which is nice. I wish I could squeeze in Love in the Time of Cholera before I’m tempted to see the new movie of it, but that probably isn’t realistic with my schedule!
Maybe this post is coming from left field, but at this point I’m thinking you guys will take anything so long as it isn’t more poetry. (What’s wrong with you, you uncultured illiterates?!)
Ten things that I find comforting (order is inconsequential):
1. Snacks/food… I seem to have an endless love for popcorn (in a pot, I can never go back to the bag, baby) with lots of olive oil and nutritional yeast all over it; edamame (soybeans in the pod, steamed and served up with some sea salt), avocado and tomato salad (a little cajun seasoning on it), Beecher’s flagship cheese, peanut butter balls… (my husband would think it important to note here that my WAY of eating drives him up the wall and down the block. Whether my lips are smacking, he can hear the crunching, or I’m licking up yeast at the bottom of the bowl, apparently I eat like a stark raving animal. I more or less dismiss his complaints because I was raised with only a dad and brother, both of whom are the social counter of a metro-sexual man. They have hair on their chests, and its a wonder I even know how to paint my toenails, okay?)
2. Movies- as I’ve already shared, I just love movies, talking about them, watching them, whatever. I hate, however, watching movies with some one who does not share my love for movies, who sits there with that -”I don’t get it… they just had no dialog for all of 3 minutes therefore this can’t possibly be a ‘good’ movie”- blank stare. But this is about things that comfort me, not things that irk me, I so digress.
3. Reading. Currently digging through Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, which is quite possibly the funniest book I’ve ever read. Excerpt below:
“I realize there is a whole generation of adults born in the seventies who currently play Sega and Nintendo as much as they banged on their Atari 5200 and their George Plimpton- endorsed Intellivision in 1982. I am not one of them. I agree with Media Virus author Douglas Rushkoff’s theory that home video game consoles are the reason kids raised in the 1980s so naturally embraced the virtual mentality- we never thought it seemed strange to be able to manipulate what we saw on a video screen - but I’ll never accept pixels killing other pixels as an art form (or a sport, or even a pastime). A homeless man once told me that dancing to rap music is the cultural equivalent to masturbating, and I’d sort of feel the same way about playing John Madden Football immediately after filing my income tax: It’s fun, but- somehow- vaguely pathetic.”
4. Beverages… teas, espresso drinks, wine. I used to drink only water because I didn’t want to waste my caloric intake on a beverage that wouldn’t fill me up. Stop and think about that truth, roll it around in your head. Caloric intake… that was a logical and substantial reason to avoid flavored beverages completely. If you do not see something oddly self-oppressive about that line of thinking, go have yourself a beer. Have a few beers, what do I care. Who am I the police? (ah, that “Bronx Beat” is a pretty funny SNL skit)
5. Walking. I love to walk and wish there was more time for it. When you take the time to walk somewhere (or just “take a walk, which I’m less likely to do because of the lack of an end result), you smell things in the air and look around to locate the herbs or tree nearby… you see interesting aspects of people’s backyards or window panes… you have time for acorns to hit you on the head; drizzle to dampen your hair down. This may not seem like an appealing description, all things considered… but when are all things ever really considered?
6. Music. God is currently in the process of redeeming my relationship with music. This is a statement some one came up with in a theology class assignment tonight. There was a period of time in my life when music I could listen to was limited to only that which was not “secular” in origin or nature. I would have burned my classical CD’s had I been told they too were part of Satan’s plan to take down humanity. A whole half decade of my life was sucked dry of pop culture, for better or for worse. With it were many potential relationships, as any one who listened to secular music could not be a regular companion of mine lest they tempt me with their luring beat. I’m finally rediscovering genre’s and artists I used to resonate with, as well as new voices and tempos that communicate something to me, and I’m intently focused on music that does not traditionally “belong” in church because I’m fairly certain that there is no such thing as “secular” (without God, completely worldly), or if there is, there are much fewer things that truly fit in that category than most people think. Because God has a habit/characteristic of imparting Himself in the most unlikely places via these annoying little creative creatures called human beings.
7. Poetry. I realize this closely resembles reading, but I place it in a category all its own because I also like to write poetry, and because I see poetry in things that aren’t necessary known as poetry. In an argument with Hubby, I pointed out once that the difference between us is that “my world is written in poetry, where as yours is written like a manual.” So, yeah, let that marinate a while, ya big meany, while I pat myself on the back for coming up with something so inherently witty.
8. Painting- ah yes, the one thing that can so zone me out that you’ll wonder where I have been for the last 8 hours. Playing Tetris had this effect on my one time, but more consistently, its painting.
9. Practicing conversations. You know the kind I’m talking about. Those times of intense communication where Person A and B are played by leading lady, moi? Usually in whispers in the bathroom, where the two characters will surface and it will take my 2 year old son’s bewildered look to make me realize I was playing out this conversation out loud. However, for some reason these little times of practice are fairly useful in gathering my thoughts, preparing me for the time when I might have some one talking back.
10. Large natural phenomena. This is a little cliche, but just because something is cliche doesn’t mean it can’t be true too. Whether I’m in a great big field, standing on the shore of a large body of water, or looking up at a massive mountain, the sheer size swallows up whatever I deemed substantial about my life thus far and spits them back out into pea-sized Vivian staring out in awe.
P.S. It was no accident that I failed to include things like prayer here- I left that sort of thing off the list because I think it goes without saying and I would have little to add about the subject anyway.
Well, its been a week since I wrote last- crazy huh? Even Hubby had gotten used to checking in on me here, and has been wondering what the heck is wrong with me- no new content day after day!
I’ve been workin and such lately- oh and finished that book. In the end I really liked it still, so I’ll share that it was As If Love Were Enough. Now I’m reading The Year of Magical Thinking, (Joan Didion) and am enjoying that to, although very differently.
Hubby and I finally got out on a date night last night- we saw Broken English at Living Room Theaters (LOVE that place- and they make a mean Spanish Coffee Cocktail too!) then we meandered around the Pearl and found our way into a little cocktail lounge called District. We liked the atmosphere and in all had a great evening, ending it in a nice bubble bath in our claw foot tub (kept meaning to try that but haven’t gotten around to it yet). Well, that’s not exactly where we ended the evening but that’s going beyond pg-13 at that point. (TMI? Hey, you’re at Mama Need Java, what do you expect?!)
I’ve got some pics to upload one of these days, but my laptop is not reading my digital card. I think its due to the vista OS, but I’m not sure. Sometimes the drives aren’t recognized, built in webcam won’t work, things like that.
Well, potato leek soup is simmerin on the stove and Hubby has another evening off, so I’m going to get to dinner and write more later in the week. Just wanted to make sure it was clear that I didn’t drop of the face of the earth!
This morning, my day seemed to lay out before me as an open stretch resembling much too closely the day before, and the day before that, and so on. A little down, a little predictable argument with Hubby here and there, a little inevitable exasperation with Lil’ E from time to time…
Instead, I might have found my voice, for now, for this time, for me -right here, today. (insert post title here.)
Loving a book I didn’t think much of- turning out to be an unexpected page turner with wonderful ties to northern city-life verses suburbs outside of Orlando, with humanist vs. christian topics and Swaggart-christian vs. Christ-Christian topics and family vs. mistress to a married lover topics and suffice to say that so far, I’m not putting it down, which I’ve done with lots of books lately. All from a little fiction, Oprah book club novel… (insert post title here.)
Depression turned to elation when Hubby up and started dinner today- (this, folks, is a rarity of the Hailey’s Comet proportion)- and no, he did not opt for the tempting box of organic “maccy cheese”- he seared chicken breast, marinated in pinot noir vinegar and seasonings, with sides of corn on the cob and brussel sprouts. Like, woah! Now he is totally up against the wall, as they say, because this little known fact as to his cooking abilities has gotten him out of dinner duty for half a decade- not so, anymore! (Although, I did completely forget our rule about cooking and dishes, so this means that I do have to start dirtying my hands with dishes on the nights he cooks. Aaaaalways strings attached, I tell ya.) (Insert post title here.)
Totally a skipper today, in one way, not to dwelve into at this time. Let’s just say something about “learning how to read the bible” was like the last thing I wanted to do today. The bible being, to me, what it is. Anyway. Nuf or not Nuf Said, either way, I’m dun sayin it.
Ok, time to go play Tetris with Hubby. (Insert post title one last time.)
Not much, except that’s what I’ve been up to these past few days; Planting some cool season crops as the first chilly, rainy weather has graced us with its presence for a short time. I wanted to not miss the planting season since I realllly missed it last time and had pretty much zero Fall harvest to celebrate, except apples, figs, and raspberries which were already here. So finally I’ve got the veg beds up to par and have some soft, composted dirt to work with, and planted broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage variety starters this weekend. I’m trying to get the lettuce in the ground as well. I uncovered a bunch of bulbs, some kind of flower, as well as some onions, so Misty and I will be working our way around the yard to find the best place for these for next Spring, along with some bulbs of tulips I just can’t wait til those flower! We’ve got plans for some garlic varieties to put in the ground next month, (which is excited because, you know, I’m Cajun and all, and we could eat garlic like apples- the more the better as far as I’m concerned!) For color, I’ve thrown winter Pansies around, as a flower bed border as well as some in pretty pots. The yard is really starting to shape up and it makes for such a nice place to spend time in now- not the overgrown, unorganized spider jungle we faced a month ago!
On a Lil’ E note, I’ve had some luck curbing his tantrums with less punishment after the fact and more reward/distraction as the tantrum first sets in- what is he so excited about that he’ll do almost anything for? The promise of a sticker on his hand when we get home. Yep. That’s all, and he’ll slow his crying and between sobs mutter, “[I’ll be a] good boy” and “Star on my hand” etc. Now, I know enough about the most common parenting philosophies out there to know that a system of punishment/reward is usually not considered “ideal”- but I really find that he is more or less distracted by the idea of the sticker, and simultaneously sees it as a symbol of a self-affirming “good boy” behavior which he recognizes as favorable compared to, obviously, time out. I think the key is to continuously remind him that he is loved unconditionally and a “good boy” no matter what, but that his behavior can either have good or bad consequences. I haven’t had to do a time out or punishment in a few days, which is amazing when you think that 4 weeks ago I was spankin that bottom from sun up to sun down! He still gets overly hands-on and excited when allowed free play with other kids, and often shows off with defiant behavior, which is extra difficult to deal with because of the other parent’s involved or patrons at a store or whatever- why is it so much harder to parent firmly and patiently when you feel eyes on you? Maybe its just me. But anyway, I also know this is a product of needing a social outlet with kids his own age, to learn to share, not hit, not throw, bla bla bla, so I think it is its own inevitable cure. Practice, practice, practice. I just tell myself that one day he’ll be a charming gentlemen with amazing social skills, lol!
Lastly, I started reading St. Francis of Assisi by G.K.Chesterson and I’m finding this guy way more interesting than I expected- and a certain kinship to some of his loves and struggles, I must say. Though I don’t have stigmata or anything
Oh- and as a total P.S.- Hubby finally got a job he likes, full-time, decent pay, daytime hours, etc etc. He will continue working part-time evenings at Wild Oats for awhile until we’ve caught up a little bit more, but at last he’s got something he is looking forward to (has been looking since mid-May when we moved here)! He gets up at 6:30 tomorrow morning to head out for his first day, and I can hardly curb my enthusiasm, its the lightest I’ve felt in like 6 months. Not just for financial reasons but a myriad of them. So… yay!
Lil’ E turns two years old this month. I’ve been a mommy for 2 years. Holy cow.
On another note, I wanted to share some photo highlights of the last few weeks:
The Vintage Goodness shoes has a little story to it: I bought those shoes at a resale store down the road, Rerun, for 5 bucks. A few weeks later, I was shopping at a larger resale store on Hawthorne called Vintage House, and the shoes, exact same but slightly less wear, were behind a glass case and on sale for $69!!! They pulled them out for me, as they came with a box, and these shoes were made in like 1974 or something. The bargain shopping section of my heart was very proud!
Other than this, work has kept me pretty busy this week so I’ve not read much of my reading list yet, just a few chapters of A Hundred Years of Solitute. Vehrdey en-terrr-esteeeng!
This week we start working on the top stairs unit of the old house we are living in. It was built in like the 20’s no doubt, and has since been split so that each floor is its own apartment. The family that we moved with has moved into the downstairs unit and we have been staying in the studio/office in the backyard for the last two months, sharing a bathroom and kitchen, etc with the other family. For a list of hilarious inside jokes (I think?) about how this is all going, check out Chris A.’s experimental site, “Sometimes Friends Fight“.
I feel very fortunate that our landlords are into sustainability and green building. They have encouraged us to look for low VOC paints for the walls, remnants of wool carpeting for the bedrooms, and bamboo wood floors for the living and dining rooms. I’m so excited!!!
Church today was interesting, I even thought I might need to blog sometime about it… maybe call the post, “The Inerrant Word of God”. I’ll let you use your imagination at this point. It will probably be far more interesting than my actual thoughts!
Thanks, Eddie, for your encouragement about reading all those books! See- you’re holding me accountable, I love it!
Ohhhhh man. I’ve gone and done it now. First a book club, then Powell’s (perhaps the coolest bookstore ever?). A sure recipe for disaster. Especially with used book prices, how can I restrain myself? SO… summer reading list follows (and hopefully won’t grow long before I finish just one of these books!):
In high school, I would have never joined the book club, if my school even had one. For the first couple years, I was too into dating and boys and sports and “popular” clubs to commit social suicide (phrase stolen from the movie “Mean Girls”) by joining something called a “book club”. Yikes. The last two years, I would not have joined said club for completely different reasons. Would all book’s be approved before a committee of Southern Baptist preacher’s for its fragile, innocent youth to read? Then, no sir, not me, that is too “worldly”.
It’s odd, to me, how life goes from one pendulum to another, for a time resting in some semblance of a balance, a fence, a happy medium, until “whish” -its off to the other side, propelled by new knowledge and conviction.
To gain some footing in the scene of the church here in Portland, (not, I might add, a Southern Baptist church), I saw this month’s book and meeting details in the bulletin and decided this was now for me. The book, Arundhati Roy’s “The God of Small Things“, was interesting (sadly, was the thing I liked most about it the fact that a church even picked a “NON” christian book?). The table of 7 people seated at Urban Grind Coffee House was even more interesting. Opinions, personalities, backgrounds: spewing out in awkward self-preservation with little awareness (it seemed to me(!)) of our own insecurities. The leader coining herself as an “over-educated, slightly bored, twenty-something” struck me. First off- “over educated”? Not I, said the fly. “Slightly bored”? Please, have a two year old with you 24/7- the sure cure for having “too much time” on your hands. “Twenty-something”? Now I will relate to that, though sometimes I wonder if my stretch marks and worry lines would agree. (Don’t worry; my rambling about a book club brings me back the reality of my own immaturity.)
And I am only just now realizing that I intended this post for much nobler topics of creation and revelation while at the foot of Multnomah Falls today. Again, twenty-something DOES fit the bill.
In a nutshell, lets just say I’ll be reading lots of books this summer in feeble hope that I’ll fit in better with this “over-educated” crowd Partially, anyway. Partially because I actually want to read more books.
Here’s the Falls, hopefully this speaks for itself:
Coffee leads men to trifle away their time, scald their chops, and spend their money, all for a little base, black, thick, nasty, bitter, stinking nauseous puddle water. — The Women's Petition Against Coffee (1674)
Partially, anyway. Partially because I actually want to read more books.
