Silverware Drawer

“If I were God’s West Coast representative,
I would have a much more organized system,
all sad and weird events were in the
knife slot in your silverware drawer,
joy and peace where the big forks go,
acceptance of the mystery in the salad fork slot,
resentments and the desire for revenge
in with the teaspoons.”
~ Anne Lamott ~

I shared this quotation and photo with my siblings because I know they all like Anne Lamott -- AND because I wanted them to see that I still have our old yellow silverware tray from the kitchen drawer of our childhood. Could they believe that I still have this plastic artifact, going back to 1965 or so? As well as some of the old silverware with stars? Our dad always had one of these beside his coffee cup!

Yeah, yeah, they could believe it, but my youngest brother had just one question:

Q:
"Why oh why, are there spoons in with the forks?
That's bugging me."

A:
"Because my silverware drawer is a complete mess!"

Full Disclosure:

Untidy, but on the bright side,
there’s some good stuff in there!

E.g.
1. my Little Green Sprouts
2. my tiny cereal box stickers
(that came stuck to my bananas 40 year ago!)

If you need a New Year's Resolution,
you can resolve to organize your silverware drawer
(but I'm probably going to keep mine as is).

Dust Only If You Must

Magnified house dust: "The little circles with crosses are starch grains. The flat colored particle just right and above center is from cosmetics. Most of the white fibers are paper fibers. The flat colorless particles are primarily human skin flakes. There is one glass fiber halfway to the left edge from center."

Here's something good to give up for Lent: dusting!
Dust is sacred, right?

As in "Leave it lay where Jesus flang it!" ~Anne Lamott

As in, for a snowy Ash Wednesday such as today,
"You are but flakes, and to flakes you shall return." ~Jay Mermoud

As in "From dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return!"

As in "Ashes to ashes; dust to dust."

As in "We are but dust and shadow."

See also:
"Modernism In A Handful of Dust"

& Yesterday: "Gaudy Night"

Dolce Far Niente

Dolce Far Niente, 1897
John William Godward, 1861 - 1922
[one of several "Dolce Far Niente" paintings by Godward
My friend Nikki recently taught me a new phrase to describe these mellow late fall days when we're inclined to hunker down in the kitchen, whiling away the autumnal hours under a pile of inconsequential projects: a little reading, a little writing, a lot of dabbling. How did I not know before now (especially since I'm so good at it) that the proper name for this kind of time - wasting is dolce far niente: the sweetness of doing nothing, pleasant relaxation in carefree idleness, or, as Nikki puts it, "indentured servitude to the goddess."

I admit that often when I say "I'm working from home today," I am, in reality, doing nothing from home all day! Still, I like to refer to it as "working" because, after all, I am always making connections:

Similar proverb: "How beautiful it is to do nothing and then to rest afterward."

Mark Twain: "Work consists of doing what a body is obliged to do; play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do."

And of course dear Anne Lamott: "puttering . . . my main spiritual practice."

Sometimes, I'm practicing the piano!

Spirit, 1885
George Roux, 1853 - 1929
Thanks to Sir Igor for sharing this scary painting!

In - Between Times

Elan = momentum

"The sky was a rich, mindless, never - ending blue, like a promise of some ridiculous glory that wasn't really there. . . . The days were clear and beautiful; and, as September [and October!] rolled around, the hateful glare gave way to a certain luminosity, a dusty, golden quality. . . . all the more stirring since it was drifting towards autumn, half - ruined, careless of itself."

from The Goldfinch, 232, 234, 228
by Donna Tartt (American author, b. 1963)

"I like these out-of-season crossings. When you're young you prefer the vulgar months, the fullness of the seasons.* As you grow older you learn to like the in - between times, the months that can't make up their minds. Perhaps it's a way of admitting that things can't ever bear the same certainty again. Or perhaps it's just a way of admitting a preference for empty ferries. . . . The sky is a theatre of possibilities. I am not romanticising."

from Flaubert's Parrot, 83
by Julian Barnes (British author, b. 1946)

Early Autumn Sunset Over Lake Geneva
Lausanne, Switzerland

*Both Anne Lamott and Jimmy Fallon
make similar observations.

Believe It Or Not

Palm Sunday Sunrise

Notes toward next year's Easter Sermon:

1. Cassandra. Be sure to liven things up a bit, shed a little doubt, spread a little worry, a little realism, a little heartbreak.

2. The friend (ordained, Wise Woman, Spiritual Advisor Extradorinaire) who paid me the compliment of likening my blog posts to sermons.

3. The friend (self - ordained, priestess, Earth Angel & Goddess Among Women) who told me something she remembered from childhood -- when "a preacher came to our church when I was a kid, part of whose credentials read "self-ordained." HA! That's me, I think, in the advice department." Me too, though such a faithless one at times, as well as self - certified primary health care provider; I know best! (gmail: 2 / 28 / 09)

4. A Prayer for Owen Meaney: "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief" (Mark 9: 24). Doesn't that say it all? Especially for a Gemini -- belief / unbelief -- what's the difference really? They go together.

Vernal Equinox Over the Wabash

5. Statement of belief from an introspective friend:

"Sometimes I wish I still went to church. But the boys picked up early on that I wasn't really connecting with the creeds, like I think you should if you're going to say them. And I couldn't satisfactorily answer their excellent questions. But I'm still somehow the "mascot for God" in our family, because I sometimes want to say grace or go to a church service, or talk about the Mystery in some form or fashion! That qualifies me, among this apostate crowd! Of course I do believe every second that God exists and wishes me and everyone else every good and perfect thing, and I am thankful for these blessings in a pretty steady stream of beatitudes. It's a faith that just comes out, moreso than goes in, if that makes sense." (gmail: 8 / 28 / 06)

6. Subversive murmurings and how I feel about repeating some so - called truths about mysteries that I can never really be sure about, e.g.:

God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God -- yes
of one being with the Father -- no
He will come again in glory -- okay
to judge the living and the dead -- no
his kingdom will have no end -- yes
We believe in the Holy Spirit -- yes
who proceeds from the father and the son -- no
We believe in the resurrection of the body -- well, not really
and the life of the world to come -- surely yes, in some way or another . . . (such as, "then shall I know . . . ")

7. I know that everyone is always quoting the "Faith, Hope, and Love" part, but I have always liked the "Knowledge" part best:

"For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity / love."
1 Corinthians 13: 9 - 13 (KJV)

I actually do believe that "now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known." I like to think that someone out there somewhere knows more about me than I know about myself, and that one day I'll be able to see the complete picture of my own life in a way that I just don't have access to right now. One day my partial (i.e.,"imperfect") knowledge of this entire puzzling, chaotic universe shall be made whole (i.e., "perfected") and that will be heaven.

Rise and Shine Over the Atlantic

8. Some other things to believe in: Christmas, the precession of the equinoxes, the miracle of oxygen, the lifelong quest for truth and beauty, and of course the pursuit of knowledge. "All who seek the truth are welcome here." "None forbidden, none compelled."

9. The wisdom of refreshingly cynical kids, blurting out things like, "Okay, now remind me again just what is so important about Jesus." Or "Well, maybe that's just not any of God's business!" On the April 29, 2008 episode of the Colbert Report, author Anne Lamott quotes her ten - year - old son Sam as saying, "God has to sort of let life do its thing." I think my sons would agree.

10. If my life depended on it: "I believe, I believe, I know it's silly, but I believe."

The Ecclesiastical / Paschal Moon

Oh, Goddess, how long?
May the Goddess hasten the day!

Better Watch Out

Anne Lamott Favorites

Taylor Swift expresses a similar sentiment
in her interview with Newsweek (October 29, 2012).
Treat me bad and it'll come out in the autobio!
So you better watch out!

If there were someone who was a good person, I'm not going to write something bad about them. But if they handled a situation in a way that really messed up my life for a while, that's what I'm going to write about."
~~ Taylor Swift ~~
P.S. Let's just agree to overlook pronoun agreement error this time.
No need to be Mean.

Thank You Fall!

Autumnal Diorama
American Museum of Natural History
~ New York City ~

Thank you wikipedia
for giving me the name of someone else (like me)
who photographed this mural,
but not the name of the actual artist.
[I took the above photo on 2 June 2011 ~ my son Ben's 21st birthday]
Comedian Jimmy Fallon is the funniest when he writes his ridiculous yet heartfelt "thank you notes" on Friday nights, always to the tune of sappy background music.

Today is perfect for a couple of my seasonal favorites:

"Thank you Fall,
for arriving this week.
I was really getting tired of Summer's bull---t." *

from Thank You Notes 1

and

"Thank you Fall,
for occasionally going by the name 'Autumn' --
just like my cousin Megan who became a stripper."

from Thank You Notes 2

A few more favorites:
Thank you . . . F12 button on my on my keyboard. What is it you do again? Oh, that's right --nothing.

Thank you . . . the name Lloyd, for starting with two Ls. I'm glad both those Ls were there, because otherwise I would have called you "Loyd."

Thank you . . . lasers, for being spelled with an "s" even though you'd be totally more badass if you were spelled with a "z." Just sayin'.

Thank you . . . people with sesquipedalophobia, which is the fear of long words. Your picked the wrong thing to call your fear.

Thank you nickels, for being the redheaded stepchild of the coin community. You're so thick, yet you're worth so little. You're like the quarter's fatter, less successful brother.

Thank you . . . fun - size candy, for calling yourself "fun" to distract me from the fact that you're smaller than regular candy. Nice try. They should call you "disappointment - size candy."

Thank you . . . horseradish, for being neither a radish nor a horse. What you are is a liar food. (I'm looking at you, too, Grape Nuts.) [I think he should have also included "Pineapple"!]

* I'm reminded here of Anne Lamott's characterization of Summer as "the teenage season -- too much energy, too much growth and beauty and heat and late nights, none of them what they are cracked up to be" (see my previous post "Buckle Up!").

Cursive Writing

D'Nealian Script, a cursive alphabet —
lower case and upper case.

"I've always believed that there was a certain age
after which I would be all well and I'd stop feeling
as if I'd been abandoned here on earth with no explanation.
When I was little, the magic number was 6 --
the first - graders had maturity, secret information
(like gnostics), and lunch boxes. Then 13, 18, 21 . . ."
~ Anne Lamott ~
from Grace Eventually (p 243)
When I read these words a few years ago, I identified at once with Lamott's first - grade faith that all would be well and her misconception that the bigger kids had all the answers. Her gradual deflation expresses precisely the dismay that I felt back in grade school when I learned the truth about cursive writing -- that it was a sham, a trick, a false lead.

I shared my cursive writing story recently with epigrammatist, writer, and artist Michael Lipsey when he posted a similar sentiment on facebook:

"The biggest misconceptions of youth are that
somehow things will fall into place as you get older,
that there will be answers to the larger questions,
that you will attain maturity, and certainties,
and self-confidence. Perhaps this is true
if you have a talent for self-deception.
But eventually you figure out
that there won’t be any of these things --
that you will just have to muddle through
as best you can until the end."
For more on Cursive Writing and the Meaning of Life
see my new post "Cursive"
on The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker

Leap Day

A Tale from the Decameron
John William Waterhouse (1849 - 1917)
My last Fortnightly post, "Love You Can't Imagine" ~ in celebration of Valentine's Day ~ drew to a close before I was able to incorporate all of the great selections that I was hoping to connect. So I have assembled another Fortnightly post out of that remaindered material, including a couple of somber sonnets by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and a few sobering thoughts from Anne Lamott. As my father used to say when we had inadvertently left something behind -- a garment for dry cleaning, an overdue library book, a stack of newspapers on trash day -- "Well it's alright to save some over for seed." Over for seed. We weren't even farmers, but how I grew to love my dad's rustic way of saying, "I meant to do that!"

Another little intentional error ~ as in, "I meant to do that" ~ was saving this post, scheduled for the 28th, until today, Wednesday, February 29th! Since the opportunities for celebrating Leap Day are relatively rare and complicated, it would be a shame to let the chance pass by unobserved. Many of the customs and traditions of this every - four - yearly occasion are romantic in nature, providing a most fitting coda to Valentine's Day.

New Fortnightly Post ~ Love Is Not All

On The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker:
A Fortnightly [every 14th & 28th] Literary Blog of
Connection & Coincidence; Custom & Ceremony
The Enchanted Garden
John William Waterhouse (1849 - 1917)

Gatsby: Sad Eyes

But I --
Ah, sooner would I die
Than see tears in those eyes of my soul.

Stephen Crane, 1871 - 1900
from The Black Riders and Other Lines, #LIII
Original book cover for The Great Gatsby

"It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes
at things upon which you have expended your own
powers of adjustment." (105)

F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1896 - 1940

**********************
Poor Gatsby. The form of his dream is pure, but the content is corrupt. Or is it the other way around?

" 'You can't repeat the past.'

'Can't repeat the past?' he cried incredulously. 'Why of course you can!' " (111)

No, you can't.*
**********************
P.S.
Since it's Mardi Gras,
just pretend that the fun fair
pictured at the bottom of the book cover
is New Orleans!

*Similar sentiment:
"Forgiveness means giving up all hope of having had a better past."
~ Anne Lamott ~ Lily Tomlin ~

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

from "Like Pale Gold"
John Green's Crash Course on The Great Gatsby
Dear Heroic Past,

Like champagne poppers, you’re always a little bit underwhelming.

The thing is, Heroic Past, which of our pasts was so heroic?

Was it the part where we owned other human beings?

Was it the part where we fought over the right to own other human beings?

Was it Gatsby’s Jazz Age, with its fast cars, deliciously illegal alcohol and rapidly expanding stock portfolios?

I mean the amazing thing about the Great Gatsby is that Fitzgerald didn’t know the Great Depression was coming, [or did he?] but his book sure reads like prophecy.

The truth, Heroic Past, is that we may think we want to recreate you, but what we actually want to do is we want to recreate you without all the problems we don’t remember.

And that’s how you ruin your life over a girl you dated for a month five years ago.

Best Wishes,

John Green

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.

My Friend Hair

Melisande
A Princess of Greatly Conflicted Hair
In the world of make believe, Melisande is a princess with extreme hair issues. Her hair is too long -- much too long and much too big. Poor girl: it was either that or endure the curse of baldness! Well, we all have our hair issues. In Traveling Mercies, contemporary writer and activist Anne Lamott describes her first - hand experience with extremely curly hair:

"Can you imagine the hopelessness of trying to live a spiritual life when you're secretly looking up at the skies not for illumination or direction but to gauge, miserably the odds of rain? Can you imagine how discouraging it was for me to live in fear of weather, of drizzle or downpour? . . . Obviously, when you really want this [spiritual] companionship and confidence but you're worried about your bangs shrinking up like fern fronds, you've got a problem on your hands."

Lamott recounts the liberating scene in Shawshank Redemption when Andy stands in the pouring rain with his arms outstretched. She confesses, " . . . if I were the prisoner being baptized by the torrential rain, half my mind would be on how much my bangs were going to shrink up after they dried." Ultimately Lamott concludes that "it would be an act of both triumph and surrender to give up trying to have straighter hair."

Sure you want to have the right priorities and keep your mind on higher things, but you also have to live down the prejudiced notions: "good children have shiny combed hair, while bad children, poor children, loser kids, have bushy hair"; the unkind remarks: "did you you stick your finger in a light socket"; even racist insults in Anne's case, because, though fair in color, the texture of her "crazy hair crown," tends toward wiry and kinky -- making it perfect for the cool dreads that she now wears. I admire her soul - searching explanation of making the switch to this new style:

"First of all, I felt it was presumptuous to appropriate a black style for my own liberation. But mostly when I thought about having dreadlocks, I felt afraid and disloyal. Dreadlocks would be a way of saying I was no longer going to play by the rules of mainstream white beauty. It meant that I was not longer going to even try and blend. It was a way of saying that I know what kind of hair I have, I know what it looks like, and I am going to stop trying to pretend it's different than that. That I was going to celebrate instead" (all quotations are from Traveling Mercies, 6 - 13, 229 - 37).

Anne Lamott







Alice Walker








Interestingly, both Anne Lamott and Alice Walker cite over-investment in haircare as an impediment to spiritual liberation. In Walker's terrific essay, "Oppressed Hair," she explains why accepting your hair on its own terms is crucial to a larger sense of self-acceptance and personal growth. She personifies her hair in the most delightful way: "I discovered my hair's willfulness, so like my own! I saw that my friend hair, given its own life, had a sense of humor. I discovered I liked it. . . . I would call up my friends around the country to report on its antics."

She describes her realization, practically an epiphany "that in my physical self there remained one last barrier to my spiritual liberation, at least in the present phase: my hair. Not my friend hair itself, for I quickly understood that it was innocent. It was the way I related to it that was the problem. I was always thinking about it. So much so that if my spirit had been a balloon eager to soar away and merge with the infinite, my hair would be the rock that anchored it to Earth. I realized that there was no hope of continuing my spiritual development, no hope of future growth of my soul, no hope of really being able to stare at the Universe and forget myself entirely in the staring (one of the purest joys!) if I still remained chained to thoughts about my hair" (emphasis added).

Well, it requires thoughtfulness and fortitude to break those chains! However, if there's anyone who can put the issue into perspective, it's these two admirable women: wise Alice Walker who asks if we can ever achieve equality as long as woman aspire to look another way than what they are: light instead of dark, tan instead of pale, blonde instead of brunette, straight instead of curly; and honest Anne Lamott who points out that surrender is not all bad: "giving into all those things we can't control," letting go of "balance and decorum," befriending our hair.

This excerpt is from my essay"Ad Hairenum"

read more on The Fortnightly [Every 14th & 28th]
Kitti Carriker: A Literary Blog
of Connection & Coincidence; Custom & Ceremony
P.S.
My friend Cate recommends mnmlist.com
Blogger mnmlist (i.e., minimalist) asks
can you live without . . . your hair?
Subscribe for more . . . I mean, for less!

My Friend Mumbi ~ see letter below

To Soften and Blur

~ Space Center, Orlando, 2006 ~
Some have called Sam's photo "blurry"
but I call it "impressionism" (that's a mom for you)!

Claude Monet
in his garden
in Giverny
with an unidentified visitor.
New York Times, 1922.















Monet Refuses The Operation
Doctor, you say there are no halos
around the streetlights of Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don’t see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.












Fifty-four years before I could see
Rouen cathedral is built
of parallel shafts of sun,
and now you want to restore
my youthful errors: fixed
notions of top and bottom,
the illusion of three-dimensional space,
wisteria separate
from the bridge it covers.
What can I say to convince you
the Houses of Parliament dissolve
night after night to become
the fluid dream of the Thames?











I will not return to a universe
of objects that don’t know each other,
as if islands were not the lost children
of one great continent. The world
is flux, and light becomes what it touches,
becomes water, lilies on water,
above and below water,
becomes lilac and mauve and yellow
and white and cerulean lamps,
small fists passing sunlight
so quickly to one another
that it would take long, streaming hair
inside my brush to catch it.
To paint the speed of light!
Our weighted shapes, these verticals,
burn to mix with air
and change our bones, skin, clothes
to gases. Doctor,
if only you could see
how heaven pulls earth into its arms
and how infinitely the heart expands
to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

Lisel Mueller (b. 1924)
German born American poet
Pultizer Prize for Poetry, 1997

When I sent my brother Dave a copy of this poem, he wrote back: "I suppose the same could be said for the strange and often comical and interesting things that I hear when people speak to me. They assure me that I am missing the point and have not heard them correctly. I in turn assure them that whatever their intent, my perception is much more entertaining. Then accursed technology is plugged into my head and all returns to its cold and logical correctness with no whimsy."

A few additional points to ponder:

Check out this interesting poetry blog for commentary on
"Monet Refuses the Operation"

"Monet Refuses the Operation" appears as the prologue to
Anne Lamott's book, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

To read Lisel Mueller's poem, "Moon Fishing," see my post:
"Many Many Moons"

Contemporary Watercolor of Monet's Garden
See more at maboysen.com:


My friends Victoria & Steven
Standing on the bridge at Monet's Garden, 2012

Prognosticator's Dilemma

Cute Kids' Book, Available on Amazon
It's not easy being a Groundhog on February 2nd . . . or a School Superintendent the night before a Snow Day! With his usual veritas and hilaritas, Brian Andreas captures the dilemma of the prognosticator:

"I'm best at predicting the old year,
she said, & you'd be surprised how many
people are even skeptical about that"

www.storypeople.com*

HAPPY GROUNDHOG DAY!

*One StoryPeople reader shares this from Peanuts:

Linus:
"I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow.
Maybe we should think only about today."

Charlie Brown:
"No, that's giving up. I'm still hoping that yesterday will get better."

So irrational, yet, so hard to stop hoping for that better past . . .

Wise Lily Tomlin says:
"Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past."

And Anne Lamott's version, just slightly different:
"Forgiveness means giving up all hope of having had a better past."

One more from Charlie Brown:
Charlie Brown:
"I keep having these tiny self doubts . . . do you think this is wrong?"

Lucy:
"Of course it's wrong, Charlie Brown . . . "

Post - Thanksgiving

Our Family: Paper Placemat, ca.1972
Embellished by "us four little kids": Aaron, Bruce, Di, Kit
(after Dave & Peg had graduated and gotten married)
Family is just accident. . . .
They don't mean to get on your nerves.
They don't even mean to be your family, they just are.

Marsha Norman (b. 1947)
American playwright, screenwriter, novelist
Pulitzer Prize for Drama, 1983

"Our lives are filled with people who provoke us,
especially people we love.
They help us figure out our own shit
and why we are here.
And why are we here again? . . .
We don't know. . . .
We only sort of know. . . .
To live, love, help -- to decorate.
To sweep our huts and find some food."

from Grace (Eventually) Thoughts on Faith, 135
by Anne Lamott (b. 1954)
American writer and progressive political activist

And, of course, there's always Brian Andreas to capture the essence of the occasion. He is clearly in agreement with Lamott about the food:

REAL REASON
"There are things you do because they feel right
& they may make no sense
& they may make no money
& it may be the real reason we are here:
to love each other
& to eat each other's cooking
& say it was good."

And full of humorous advice for the long weekend:

PRETEND VISITOR
"We stood out on the porch before we went inside
& she told me her secret.
Pretend you're just visiting, she said.
That way you'll forget that they're family."

SUCCESSFUL HOLIDAY
Rules for a successful holiday:
1. Get together with the family
2. Relive old times
3. Get out before it blows

Brian Andreas (b. 1956)
American writer, painter, sculptor
Designer of StoryPeople
P.S. Just for the record, I actually wish I saw more of my family, not less! By the way, Aaron and I were wondering about his lips & Di's teeth in the family portrait above! How did we come up with those features? All I can think of is that maybe it was around Halloween & they were wearing those wax lips & fangs that we used to buy! Ha!

P.P.S. It's true that some of the above passages appeared on this blog last year (June 2009 and November 2009), but I think they are solid enough for a repeat -- and just so appropriate for Thanksgiving that I couldn't resist posting them again this weekend.

Buckle Up!

A Late Summer Sunset
Photograph courtesy of Nancy Allen
(my sister-in-law-in-law)

Some Autumnal Observations from Anne Lamott
"Thank God for fall. Summer nearly does me in every year: It's too hot, and the light is unforgiving, and the days go on way too long. . . .

"Then summer turned to autumn. . . .

"I talked to more than one person . . . about the snap in the air. Everyone seemed glad summer was over. Spring is sweet, the baby season; summer is the teenage season -- too much energy, too much growth and beauty and heat and late nights, none of them what they are cracked up to be. Fall is the older season, a more seasoned season. The weather surrounds you instead of beating down on you. Clouds bobble across the sky, and there are fresh winds, and misty salmon sunrises and then cool blue skies. The weather is lighter, marbled, and it makes you feel like striding again, makes you feel glad that so much works at all.

"There has been less light as the colors begin to change and the world has grown more desperate. . . .

So when the seasons change, buckle up."

from Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith,
217 - 18, 221
(emphasis added)

**********
"It is autumn now, following a treacherous August, and I awoke this morning to find that the leaves in my heart have started changing color, from green to yellow, persimmon, and red."

from Grace Eventually, 139
Autumn, by Georgia O'Keeffe
~ a bit different from her usual florals ~

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

I Believe, I Believe, I Know It's Silly But I Believe

Every year, we hear the complaints about the relentless commercialization, the laments that Christmas is no longer a religious holiday but has become a religion in and of itself. Well, if you ask me, that's The Good News; that's something I can believe in.

Every Christmas, I look forward to watching Miracle on 34th Street and hearing skeptical little Susan / Natalie Wood mutter under her breath, "I believe, I believe, I know it's silly but I believe!" I've said the same thing myself a few times (and not just about Kris Kringle).

More than merely a childish sing-song, Susan's mantra offers the same perspective of near-belief as the half-doubting, faintly hoping father in the New Testament who cries out: "I believe. Help thou mine unbelief." Those who are fans of John Irving's novel, A Prayer for Owen Meany, will recognize this verse from Owen's funeral. Pastor Merrill reads aloud the entire passage (Mark 9:14-24), concluding in his grief: "Owen Meany helped my 'unbelief'" (566).

Believing in the face of your own unbelief, believing when it seems silly. I think I can believe in both of those things. And I can believe in Christmas!

As Kermit The Frog and John Denver sing on one of the best Christmas CDs ever (John Denver & The Muppets: A Christmas Together, 1979):

I don't know if you believe in Christmas
Or if you have presents underneath the Christmas tree
But if you believe in love, that will be more than enough
For you to come and celebrate with me . . .

For the truth that binds us all together
I would like to say a simple prayer
That at this special time you will have true peace of mind
And love to last throughout the coming year . . .

from "The Christmas Wish"
Music & lyrics by Dan Wheetman

A FEW OTHER THINGS THAT I CAN BELIEVE IN:

Puttering as a Spiritual Practice (see Anne Lamott, Plan B, 149)
The Miracle of Oxygen
The Precession of the Equinoxes
The Lifelong Quest for Truth & Beauty
The Pursuit of Knowledge
The Great Conversation
The Origin and Destiny of Cats
Curiosity, obligation, the holidays.

I believe . . . I think I am; therefore, I think I am . . .

FOR MORE ON PASSION & BELIEF
SEE MY FORTNIGHTLY BLOG
DECEMBER 14th: "Three Passions"

KITTI CARRIKER: A FORTNIGHTLY LITERARY BLOG
OF CONNECTION & COINCIDENCE
www.kitticarriker.blogspot.com