Ten Things

Due to the Giant Storm, I decided to skip my Tillich class today and drove home from seminary last night ~ apparently a good idea. The last 25 miles on the interstate were treacherous, an hour-long trip with cars every which way, since no one could see the lines, and judging from the looks of things, I would not have been able to come home tonight. I thought that I would spend the day holed up in the house finishing a paper, but I am still procrastinating (actually, I just got up) and have given myself a 10:00 am start time.

Therefore . . . since I see that my friend Stratoz is playing one of those list memes, I thought that I would make one up for myself. I am 55 so: ten things about myself, one for every 5th year starting with age five (and ignoring this one, which has nothing to recommend it):

1. When I was five, I went to the second half of kindergarten in a church in Vero Beach, Florida.

2. I rode a horse for the first time, on the trails of Grand Teton National Park, when I was ten.

3. I went to the Harvard-Dartmouth game in Cambridge when I was fifteen, which was followed by an unfortunate double date involving my boarding school rommate and two Dartmouth freshmen.

4. When I was twenty I used to wake up in my dorm room in Williamstown, Massachusetts listening to classical music on Morning Pro Musica with Robert J. Lertsema of WGBH-Boston.

5. When I was 25, we lived in an apartment two blocks from where we live now and one of our upstairs neighbors, now a city councilman who lives two blocks in the other direction, led our tenants' revolt when the furnace broke down during a storm like this one.

6. When I was 30, we had a large and silly black dog, named Renko for the character in Hill Street Blues.

7. I don't remember many details, but I would venture that 35, with two four-year-old boys and a year old daughter, was one of the most perfect years of my life.

8. When I was 40 my three children were in Montessori school and I opened my family law practice.

9. When I was 45, we took a family trip to Italy. Our favorite parts were ~ everything! The Duomo, the monastery out in the middle of nowhere, Pompeii, the Cinque Terre, the Vatican Museums, the Roman Forum, the gelato, St. Peter's, the full moon over Florence. Lots more.

10. And when I was 50, I had one of those completely unexpected and life-changing encounters, when I resignedly signed up for a graduate class with the Jesuit who would a couple of years later guide me through the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises and become the mentor, counselor, guide and spiritual father who would nurture me through the seminary process and now through this horrible past year.

I see that I did not make my 10:00 deadline. Guess I'll procrastinate a bit more and look for photos of Florence.

Miscellaney

I keep thinking that it did not happen. Any minute now the front door will slam and he will call, "Hi, Mom!"

A friend whose husband died in a biking accident in the metroparks says that she thinks the same thing. "I imagine him standing in the doorway and saying, 'Hey, I've been lost in the Park for four years ~' "

I wonder how we can ever move out of this house. If he comes back, he won't be able to find us.

My friend says that when she sees changes around town ~ a new paint job, or a new building ~ she thinks. "He won't recognize where he is."

There is an article in today's paper about a woman who lost her 28-year-old daughter a year ago to a sudden wave that washed her out to sea from a spot near Manarola on the walk at the Cinque Terre. We walked that same walk as a family on our 2000 trip to Italy. The mother, who was ordained to ministry a couple of months after her daughter died, notes that the experts says it takes four to seven years to recover from the death of a child. I have watched my father for what in another week will be 48 years. Obviously the experts are clueless. I assume that by "recover" they mean reaching the state the mother's blog reveals today, a blend of hopeful joy in life and anguished sadness and distress in loss. Or maybe they don't mean anything at all.

At the root of Ignatian spirituality is the conviction that God is to be found in all things. Yesterday I began to wonder, for the first time and in the most tentative way, where God might be found in this. A beginning, I thought.

And in the afternoon I accepted my CPE supervisor's invitation to sit out on the beach with her at sunset and I talked nonstop for more than an hour. In May I thought that I was doing CPE this summer to meet a Presbytery requirement. And then in July I thought that I was doing it so that I would discover the work I would want to do for the rest of my life. And now in September I think that maybe I was doing it so that I would gain a friend who can look death directly in the eye, because I would need her only a few weeks later.

Last night I paged through the guestbook from the funeral home. People from California, from New York, from North Carolina, from Arkansas. Rabbis, priests, nuns, ministers. People I have met once or twice in person via the internet. People I have known my entire life. Our son's teachers and classmates from Montessori preschool through middle school, from high school, from college, colleagues from work.

One person said that night, "I thought you said that Montessori school was small. Is the entire school here?"

A phone call from France. "I am so sorry I cannot come; it is just so far...".

We asked that memorial contributions be sent to the summer camp he so loved as camper and counselor. Word has come to us that the camp directors are responding to every gift with a personal note.

Just the thought of God's grace at work is disorienting and exhausting. But perhaps it is there ~ in the friend who sits at the kitchen table sharing ash-scattering stories, in the people who drive or fly for hours to share a few minutes with us, in the evening light over the beach.

They Say It's Your Birthday...

I spent an inordinate amount of time this afternoon, before going off to a good-bye party for someone else, trying to upload a picture of me on my seventh birthday, exactly twelve years ago tonight.

Having failed at that, I offer some every decade reflections:

I don't remember my 5th birthday.

I spent my 15th birthday having dinner with my beloved grandmother in a rooftop garden restaurant in Florence. She bought me a pair of antique gold earrings in Grenada which I still wear all the time.

On my 25th birthday, I was an intern in a law firm. A couple of the guys took me out after work. I'm afraid that I drank a little too much.

I suppose that I can be forgiven for remembering nothing of my 35th birthday ~ hardly surprising, since I had three children three and under.

I don't remember 45 either -- but I know that I was practicing family law and my children were 10, 13, and 13. That age span probably means that they were all off at camp in North Carolina.

And now . . . well, from here, 55 looks pretty damn good.

Let's see if I can find a photo somewhere of Florence. Hey ~ Brunelleschi Hotel sounds good to me! Gonna have a good time ...!

Friday Five Part Two

I've spent most of the day writing a paper on the Book of Revelation. It's actually been a surprisingly fascinating exercise. This morning it all suddenly came together in my head so, instead of dragging it out over the whole week-end as an alternative to studying for finals, I just whipped it off. (Meaning, I spent a couple of hours outlining and a few more writing. But that's a big improvement over the four days I spent on a five-pager a couple of weeks ago, when the thoughts and words just would not jell.)

However, the Friday Five (see prevous entry) has been in the back of my head all day, and I now have an addendum. My question for myself: Suppose you learned that you have exactly two weeks left on this planet of ours and, while you must spend the second one with your family, you are also required to spend the first anywhere that you like with all the friends and family you want to bring. One place. Money no object.

And so:

I think my choice is the Cinque Terre. Right about this time of year. Several consecutive days of walking the paths among the villages along and above the Mediterranean,broken up by boat trips and kayaking IN the Mediterranean, and sunning on the rocks jutting out into the Mediterranean. Lingering over long lunches and longer dinners -- a different cafe and a different bottle of wine every time. Standing on the balcony OVER the Mediterranean and under a full moon every evening. All of it with a rather large group of all the people I love most.

However:

I would cheat.

I would get there by flying to Paris and taking the train to Chartres first.

I need to see those windows again almost as much as I need to breathe. Yes, they are that wonderful.

Italian Dreamin'

I have been having such intense dreams.

I am lost, I am in the wrong place at the wrong time, I miss flights and busses, I can't find things, I can't remember what I am supposed to have with me or what I am supposed to say.

It doesn't take a genius to recognize reflections of the stresses of a new life.

On the plus side, every single one of these dreams has been situated in Tuscany.

Go figure.

Late Dreams

A late late late response to the Friday Five:

1. Think back to the time you left High School, what were your hopes visions and dreams for your life/ for the world?

This is a sad thing. I don't recall having had any hopes or visions or dreams for my life when I left high school, which only goes to show that even the most rigorous of educations in the most beautiful of settings cannot compensate for a complete lack of an inner sense of self-worth and direction.

As far as the world was concerned, the Vietnam War was in full swing, so my hopes for the world were not much different than they are today, although the geographical focus lies elsewhere now.

2. Have those hopes visions and dreams changed a lot, or are some of them still alive and kicking? (share one if you can)

Ummm.....there have been a few changes. The major problem for the past 20 years and into the forseeable future is that no one, least of all me, could have enough time or energy to fulfill all my grown-up dreams.

3. Hebrews 11:1 " Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. " Comforting, challenging or frustrating?

I usually find faith challenging, often frustrating, and sometimes comforting.

4. If resources were unlimited, and you had free reign to pursue a vision what would it be?

I'm one of those retreat center people. But I'm beginning to have a different sense about that than the place with the water and kayaks I've always imagined. An idea is starting to form in my head about a place in the city that might be available to working people during the day. I think it's emerging out of a dual thought process.

In the first place, I wandered back into the church largely out of my frustrations with and ambivalence about the demands of a corporate legal career. In my late 20s, I was having a hard time reconciling my work with what my education in two religious schools had emphasized as life's priorities in terms of service and justice. Now, of course, I know that the world is full of people trying to reconcile faith and daily life. Maybe a work arena retreat center would be a good thing.

And in the second place, the one thing I have been pretty sure about in the past few years is that I do not want to be called to serve in the city. I so need the balm of the natural world. And therefore, given the general labyrinthine path of my life, I am probably called to serve in the city.

5. Finally with summer upon us- and not to make this too heavy- share your dream holiday....where, when and who with...

Oh, that's too easy. A month in the Cinque Terre, hiking from one charming hostelry to another, with any or all members of my family. Click to enlarge the photo of Manarola, and you can see the paved path along the Mediterranean (where we once spent a day walking) and imagine the rocky path on the hillside above.