Stars, Moons, Phosphorescence

Falling asleep and waking up to the intense light of this month's full moon made me think of my sister Diane's pre - Christmas epiphany. Back in mid - December, she wrote:

"Early this morning I took our garbage to the curb. Our subdivision is very dark, as we have no street lights and the lots are big. Other neighbors are hard to see. It was raining a little, and I almost changed my mind about going in the dark. But when I opened the front door to look out, I saw a big bright star. It was only a decoration on my neighbor's house, but it shone down on my driveway just enough so I could tell where to walk. Taking that walk so reminded me of that long ago walk taken by Kings to see our Savior. God bless your day."

Reading her description of the bright Christmas star, even if it was "only a decoration," brought to mind my favorite quote from the movie Apollo 13, when the television reporter asks Jim Lovell (as portrayed by Tom Hanks) if there is "a specific instance in an airplane emergency when you can recall fear?"

Both Lovell's revelation and my sister's epiphany give me goosebumps. Reading their words, I feel exhilarated and humbled at the same time.

Lovell:"Uh well, I'll tell ya, I remember this one time - I'm in a Banshee at night in combat conditions, so there's no running lights on the carrier. It was the Shrangri-La, and we were in the Sea of Japan and my radar had jammed, and my homing signal was gone... because somebody in Japan was actually using the same frequency. And so it was - it was leading me away from where I was supposed to be. And I'm lookin' down at a big, black ocean, so I flip on my map light, and then suddenly: zap. Everything shorts out right there in my cockpit. All my instruments are gone. My lights are gone. And I can't even tell now what my altitude is. I know I'm running out of fuel, so I'm thinking about ditching in the ocean. And I, I look down there, and then in the darkness there's this uh, there's this green trail. It's like a long carpet that's just laid out right beneath me. And it was the algae, right? It was that phosphorescent stuff that gets churned up in the wake of a big ship. And it was - it was - it was leading me home. You know? If my cockpit lights hadn't shorted out, there's no way I'd ever been able to see that. So uh, you, uh, never know . . . what . . . what events are to transpire to get you home" (ellipses in original text).


Awhile back (see "How to Keep On Hoping"), I mentioned a favorite passage from E. L. Doctorow, quoted by Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird, describing a similar phenomenon: " 'writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you are going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you" (18).

That's what stars are for . . . and moons . . . and headlights . . . and phosphorescence . . .

P.S. A friend writes:
Tonight, the first full moon
after the winter solstice.
The "Wolf Moon" or the "Old Moon."
A beautiful full moon over Lee's Summit
as we roasted marshmallows.

The Little Door

Here is the Little Door
Lift up the latch; O lift!
We need not wander more,
but enter with our gift . . . "
~ Chesterton

"Strive to enter through
the narrow door:
for many, I tell you,
will try to enter
and will not be able."
~ Luke 13: 22

[L: The Cutest Playhouse
in all of Philadelphia!]


There are numerous symbolic doors in literature: opening, closing, revolving, inviting, forbidding, remaining locked forever. As I read on a poster once, "There are as many doors as there are desires." Here are some of the most meaningful doors that I have come across in my reading:

1. In Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird,
a door representing one's own humanity

2. In Edna St. Vincent Millay's sonnet "Bluebeard,"
a door representing privacy

3. In Franz Kafka's parable, "Before the Law,"
a door representing the Law

4. In E. B. White's essay, "The Door,"
a door representing (in)sanity

And most recently . . .

5. In my friend Jan Donley's new novel The Side Door,
a door representing "secrets . . . everywhere . . . under carpets, in closets, in pockets, underground . . ."

















FOR MORE ON DOORS
SEE TODAY'S NEW POST: "THE LITTLE DOOR"

ON THE FORTNIGHTLY KITTI CARRIKER
MY LITERARY BLOG OF CONNECTION & COINCIDENCE

Grief & Relief

Dandelion Dancer

For an updated version of this post,
please read "Grief & Relief"
on the Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
March 28, 2023
A couple of weeks ago, I posted some of my favorite Anne Lamott quotations here and on my Book Blog. Another one of her anecdotes that has always stayed with me is the conversation she has with a priest in Traveling Mercies when she is first pregnant with Sam and can't decide what to do.

This passage is tied in with her difficult decision about whether or not to let young Sam go paragliding for his seventh birthday. I like the way that "grief" and "relief" are woven together in Lamott's thought process and in the priest's advice. He says that when it's a question of feeling "a deep and secret sense of relief, pay attention to that. But if you feel deeply grieved at the thought, listen to that" (Traveling Mercies 86).

Of course, sometimes (this is my observation, not Lamott's), the decision that brings deep relief is also deeply grieving. Maybe in those cases you just have to focus on the relief and give it precedence over the grief. Otherwise, you end up trying to fix one mistake by making another mistake, and that never works.

Additional thoughts on grief and relief:

"The truth about our childhood is stored up in our bodies, and although we can repress it, we can never alter it. Our intellect can be deceived, our feelings manipulated, our perceptions confused, and our bodies tricked with medication. But someday the body will present its bill."

Alice Duer Miller (1874 - 1942)
American writer, mathematician, suffragist

I came across this passage a few years ago in The Old Farmer's Almanac Millennium Primer. This turn of the (recent) century handbook features a lot of silly old rhymes and folklore, but occasionally a thought or two will strike me as meaningful. I was wavering on this passage -- smart or stupid? love it, hate it? I kept going back to it, even though I had moved beyond that page. It seems a rather modern idea if you assume that what she means by "body" is what we post-Freudians might call "psyche" and if we assume that "childhood," as Miller uses the term, can be equated with "grief." Thus: "The truth about our childhood [GRIEF] is stored up in our bodies [PSYCHES]."

Rereading Anne Lamott, I came across a comment that increased my understanding of Miller's perspective:

"But what I've discovered . . . is that the lifelong fear of grief keeps us in a barren, isolated place and that only grieving can heal grief; the passage of time will lessen the acuteness, but time alone, without the direct experience of grief, will not heal it" (Traveling Mercies 68)

Anne Lamott (b 1954)
American writer and progressive political activist

*********************************************

And yet another way in which the bill is paid:

"Time engraves our faces with all the tears we have not shed."
Natalie Clifford Barney (1876-1972)

American writer, lesbian activist, and salon hostess
expatriate living in Paris and writing predominantly in French

**************************************************

You can cover grief [or childhood] up and refuse to experience it, but it's still there, under layer upon layer of life, making you sad at the very core of your being -- that "barren, isolated place." Maybe experiencing all that buried pain as a path to self - acceptance is our 21st Century understanding of Miller's earlier metaphor of the body presenting a bill. The psyche will present its bill. Or the disasters of your life will be your bill. We either experience and accept that grief (i.e., pay the bill), or we live out our adult lives sick at heart, sick in body, soul, and spirit.

But not to sound too hopelessly hopeless! In fact, Lamott says that sometimes something amazing can happen. She says, "I would call it grace, but then, I'm easy. It was that deeper breath, or pause or briefly cleaner glasses, that gives us a bit of freedom and relief, " (Grace (Eventually) Thoughts on Faith 232, my emphasis).

Here's to briefly cleaner glasses! That's a good start!

The Cosmic Dandelion!

FOR MORE ON ANNE LAMOTT'S NON-FICTION

OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS:
A JOURNAL OF MY SON'S FIRST YEAR (1993)

BIRD BY BIRD:
SOME INSTRUCTIONS ON WRITING AND LIFE (1994)

TRAVELING MERCIES: SOME THOUGHTS ON FAITH (1999)

PLAN B: THOUGHTS ON FAITH (2005)

GRACE (EVENTUALLY): THOUGHTS ON FAITH (2007)

READ THE LATEST POST ON MY BOOK BLOG:
"CATCHING UP ON ANNE LAMOTT"
KITTI'S BOOK LIST

"Your wish will come true!
Thanks to my cousin Linda for sharing this one!

Little Gnome, Little Mice

Current Fortnightly Post:
"Play With This!"I can appreciate Anne Lamott's anecdote about the evening when her son Sam hugged her good-night and they both suddenly realized how much taller than her he had grown: "Wow," he said, stepping back, "When did this happen? You're like a little gnome to me now."(PLAN B, 150)
Speaking of which, in above photo:
My Younger Son Sam, Me [Little Gnome], My Older Son Ben
March 2010, Formby Pine Woods, Merseyside, England
Lamott on quieting the voices in your head: "Close your eyes and get quiet for a minute, until the chatter starts up. Then isolate one of the voices and imagine the person speaking as a mouse. Pick it up by the tail and drop it into a mason jar. Then isolate another voice, pick it up by the tail, drop it in the jar. And so on. Drop in any high-maintenance parental units, drop in any contractors, lawyers, colleagues, children, anyone who is whining in your head. Then put the lid on . . . imagine that there is a volume-control button on the bottle. Turn it all the way up for a minute, and listen to the stream of angry, guilt-mongering voices. Then turn it all the way down . . .and get back to your shitty first draft" (Bird by Bird, 27).

Another Safe Place: Little Mice in Cookie Jar
(click & scroll down)
Lamott on caution / conscience / consciousness: "Don't be afraid of your material or your past. Be afraid of wasting any more time obsessing about how you look and how people see you. Be afraid of not getting your writing done. . . . Don't worry about appearing sentimental. Worry about being unavailable; worry about being absent or fraudulent. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it" (Bird by Bird, 226).

FOR MORE ON ANNE LAMOTT'S NON-FICTION

OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS:
A JOURNAL OF MY SON'S FIRST YEAR (1993)
BIRD BY BIRD:
SOME INSTRUCTIONS ON WRITING AND LIFE (1994)
TRAVELING MERCIES: SOME THOUGHTS ON FAITH (1999)
PLAN B: THOUGHTS ON FAITH (2005)
GRACE (EVENTUALLY): THOUGHTS ON FAITH (2007)

READ THE LATEST POST ON MY BOOK BLOG:
"CATCHING UP ON ANNE LAMOTT"
KITTI'S BOOK LIST
www.kittislist.blogspot.com