Encroaching Realization that I've Done it AGAIN

Thursday evening, realizing that I didn't have any meetings or whatnot I had to get done, Bevin and I went shopping. Just errands, really--Target for diapers (when will this end I do not know), the fabric store for sew-on velcro and quilt binding. Nothing shocking, expensive, or incredibly fun, except that it was good to get away for a little while and just chat, I mean complain, about our lives.

It occured to me that August is over. That last August, Mike and I biked almost every weekday evening. But that this year, the heat built up fast and we just didn't--except I remember biking on the hottest days of the year last year, even if they weren't in a three week span of killer heat. I reflected for a moment. What was different? I love biking. I love feeling better after I exercise. I have more weight to lose before I dare get pregnant again. What's the deal?

Because without really seeing it happen, I let other people decide how I was going to use my time. Seriously. Suddenly, I'm at a ton of meetings--church, school, atrium, even things I really enjoy. A once a month meeting, when multiplied by 4 or 5, becomes a whole week lost. Especially when a meeting is poorly run, like the girl scout council meeting I went to Monday. I have this free time--and then I say yes to a half dozen things. And that's the end of that.

My Sundays, starting in a couple of weeks, are going to look like a high school schedule--including five minute pass periods between classes. Sundays will start at 7:30 in the morning at one church, and end after 1 in the afternoon at another. Five and a half hours already scheduled, from here until Pentecost 2008. This actually doesn't bother me that much--Sundays have always been odd days for us anyway, one way or another. I never have something planned for noon on Sunday, for instance. We hang out. But one Saturday a month is going to atrium training. One Wednesday night a month goes to parish council. Every Thursday, perhaps every other or something like that, Sophia has Irish dance (carpooling with the neighbors sounds fabulous). I signed up for girl scout leader again. Girl scouts brings me joy--but really, now, does a meeting about my parish's school building?

In the introduction to Thomas R. Kelly's Testament of Devotion, the author, whose name I do not recall, spoke of making internal decisions, setting a path, making things clear to oneself so that external decisions and deciding which way to go are essentially already decided. I did this long ago regarding cats. I love cats. We have two. They are lovely. I will not disrupt their lives or mine by introducing another cat until they have died. I just won't. So I am never tempted by Petsmart's adoption windows; friends with kittens; sisters with a friend-of-a-friend's cat they just can't give away...it's already been decided and that's that. I don't apologize, I don't fret. It has already been determined what I will do.

I've got some internal decision making to do regarding the use of my time. The weather broke tonight--not for good, but we have the AC off and the fans on--and we are biking tomorrow. And Saturday. And Sunday. And Monday. And that's not all. I'm tired of Maeve's little ditty about Mommy going to meetings.

Henna Girls Night

Last Friday we had a little girls night in. Jiminy, that was already 10 days ago. Janine had us over, and she had some really good henna. No, that's not something we smoked. It's a middle eastern plant that is somehow processed (leaf? root? unsure) into a powder, that you mix with sucrose solution, lemon juice, and lavender oil. Apply like cake decorating with tiny gauge tips. Leave it on as long as possible without letting it dry out too fast, and when it finally flakes off, it leaves this orangey-brown mark behind. The palms and soles last the longest--my palm still has a discernible design, although the back of my hand is all washed away. My feet, too, will probably take a long time to flake those layers of epidermis off, since I don't wash them as often as my hands, after all.

I was the artist for most of the evening, I think mostly because I'm not afraid of drawing on skin. I held this dreaded job one summer between teaching gigs, doing face painting at the Science Center for half the take. It was dreadful, but I learned a bit about how to make a flat design work on a pliable curved surface. Plus I did all those murals in college on the dorm walls. Miss those. But anyway, we had yummy food and I sat down at the kitchen table, did a little Chinese dragon for Trisha. Repeated it with some glitter glue on Janine's daughter's leg. Moved on to a fleur de lis that isn't as big as it looks in the picture. A couple of "avoid the evil eye" designs. One on my sister Bevin, one on Amanda. A claddagh for our Mrs. McCarthy (she wanted a shamrock...unless I thought I could do a claddagh...). Vines on Janine's ankle, a Benedictine cross on one of my hands, a random mandala design on its palm. Janine's friend wanted the mother design, which was funny, actually.

Of course, halfway through this, the mah jongg came out. We're gearing up for the tournament in November, which will be great if we can remember that so much of what we play is house rules. I didn't even realize they were house rules when I taught them originally, thanks to my teacher. But it's becoming clear to me that many things we do are not exactly kosher (ha).

So we played mah jongg and didn't mar our hands or wherever we got the design. Went home, Mike was still up working. That man o' mine. Yikes. What did I do to deserve that? I better make something from scratch, and quick.

SPV Blogging: St. Andrew's Cross

Martyrs. Peter gets the keys to the kingdom, Matthew gets money bags, and James the Greater a traveling bag and staff, but most of the apostles are remembered for the way they died. Andrew is known for the X-shaped cross, which is supposedly how he was martyred, crucifixion, but a different twist. Of course, Andrew was more than how he died. He's also the patron saint of women who wish to become mothers, which, trust me, is a large group who need a good patron. He also covers sore throats, Greece, Scotland, and fishermen.

And Andrew was one of the disciples in John 1:35-39 who saw Jesus pointed out to him by John the Baptist as the Lamb of God. This is a peculiar passage that was our reflection at the beginning of our RCIA year. When this is pointed out to them, they follow Jesus. He asks him what they are looking for. In what must have been an awkward moment, one of them replies, "Teacher, where are you staying?" Instead of giving them a direct answer (with my cousin; at the inn; by the lake) he says, "Come and see."

We are all seeking, yearning for answers, connections, but we don't even know the questions we should be asking. Where are you staying. Not something profound. Like something Maeve would ask--"what her name?"--as she points to a girl walking up the sidewalk. Or like the first question I asked Sr. Jean Frances--does anyone come from further away than Kansas City?--Instead of asking something like I am searching for a way to grow my faith and have a relationship with God again because it's been a long frustrating time and do you think this might help me? Even that is a befuddled question, like a stammered "Where are you staying?" but Jesus sees it for more than that. It is the beginning of search.

Andrew found the beginning of answer there, too. For he goes to his brother Simon Peter and tells him, bluntly, "We have found the Messiah."

SPV Blogging: Seat of Wisdom

This is one of the first Marian windows I figured out with Sr. Mary's help. We were told they all came from the Litany of Loretto, but most of this was just mystifying. Some we still have to decipher. But this one, the lamp and book, was obvious to her, and as soon as she said it, obvious to me. Seat of Wisdom. This one stands between St. Peter and St. Andrew, just in front of the choir loft.

Sr. Mary has asked me to take photos for St. Pius' Christmas card this year. Which is a nice thing for her/them to ask. After church this morning, I took the photograph. Three people walked up to me and asked if I'm the "young lady who takes the photographs" and I said that it was probably me, yes. I just can't believe two things about this--how many people are reading the St. Pius V website, and also, the idea that nobody seems to notice the windows in our church until they are pointed out. Of course, some things are easy to miss, like Jesus' hand behind Mary's head when he says goodbye to her. And others are hard to understand, like that durned pomegranate. So I guess it shouldn't be that big of a surprise. But it is humbling.

Kind of Flipping Out

Suddenly I'm busy again. A lot of this will move into routine once the school year is established, but right now it sort of looms ahead of me and I feel weightless and ungrounded and unready. Sophia starts school tomorrow, which will help establish rhythm again, but there is so much to do this week. I have a new tutoring student, alas, it is pro bono work, and it's going to be tough. He starts Monday. Maeve has orientation, and I am going to be up at church I think only 2 days this week, but that's still a lot of time. I have a ton of knitting to do, sewing for Sophia's school, oblation stuff to write, the garden to maintain--I can't believe how busy it is suddenly.

But I wanted to share a couple of links as well. What I've been doing instead of what I need to be doing. For instance, you may know I write a 365 blog as well--a daily entry, this year's theme is music (last year was 32 words for 365 people I knew, but this year is 365 songs and some three paragraph vignettes to illustrate them). That link is over to the side, but if you know me, they will probably come off as irritating repetitive navel-gazing. However, there are a few other 365ers who are enchanting to read. Indigo Bunting, for instance, is also keeping a music 365 (the project is called Dancing about Architecture, but each of us named our own blog separately). Hers is Songs from the Field. She's writing to us from Vermont, and her life is lovely to read about. Then, there are two 365ers who are still working on their people: Kat and Mali. Kat is brand new and is brilliantly concise; Mali's life is astonishing (many of her entries start "after the coup...". A Summer's Afternoon is Mali's. Kat's is Kat's 365. Lastly in that crowd is Mrs. Slocombe. Not his real name. He writes about music you've never heard of at Old Boots and Panties, but even better, his 365 about people, heartbreaking in its eloquence and your vocabulary will grow tenfold, is Just a Stone's Throw Away From It All. The nice thing about 365s, if they withstand the test of time, is a daily entry, usually small, with a consistent theme, an unfolding of a life. These seem to be proving themselves.

On other topics, motherhood being a big one for me right now, White Trash Mom is friggin hilarious. And locally, LisaS is writing at Clearview. I think LisaS and I were separated at birth. Well, perhaps not--I think she's older than I am. Perhaps a long lost cousin. She's also doing a 365 song blog, intertwined with other commentary. and speaking of motherhood, my mom is taking a stab at this whole blogging thing at Running on Empty. Just a bit.

Outside the world of blogging, there's Blurb. Have a book you want written? They're focused on photography-type things. The template is a lot like yearbook templates for the computer. I've just finished one that covers our lovely trip to California last year. I'll let you know how it goes, although I've heard great reviews of their end product. (It just came to the point that I realized I was NEVER going to scrapbook this stuff. And this is cheaper and fewer trips to the store for the perfect sticker....).

And...a wonderful little find, considering my music blogging, is seeqpod. They don't have everything, but you can embed what they have. Below is a basic example.

Restoring the Work

Last weekend, I went to a three-day training kick-off for Good Shepherd Catechesis (AKA "The Atrium"). It's a Montessori-based children's catechesis for ages 3-12, although I'm only being trained in 3-6. About halfway through Saturday, I came to the realization that I had to do this. I had to run an atrium at my parish, or in my attic, or somewhere. Even if no children even come. It is so beautiful, simple, true, deep. The philosophy is that children desire truth, beauty, and reality. They want to know the names of things because names give you power over your world. So in this 3-6 year room, there are no fluffy Precious Moments artwork, no watered down "God Made the Rainbow" kind of catechism. Using beautiful, simple materials, the catechist sets up an atmosphere where the child can encounter God. It is slow, muted, and based in Scripture and tradition. The basics of faith are here--Ann compared it to a rosebud. Throughout the Catechesis, you never get deeper, only broader. You don't start at the edges and work in--you start with the Kingdom of Heaven parables, the Incarnation, and the Liturgy. There is no nonsense here.

Just as in a Montessori classroom, there are dozens of "works" a child can do once they have been introduced. At the end of each work, the child is to "restore the work" for the next child to use. Everything has a place and a set way to put it away. There is even an early lesson on rolling a mat.

My house is a work that needs to be restored. In a serious way. And just with this one weekend's exposure, I can see why it is the way it is. The things I need to complete a work--laundry, dishes, making coffee--are not all together in one spot, the spot where they happen. And my house has three floors, soon to have four. That is too much space to not have things where they belong in neat orderly ways. I don't know why this never occured to me before.

And it is very Benedictine, too. Treat the kitchen tools with the same reverence as the vessels of the altar. Approach pruning a shrub with the same methodical focus as reading a psalm.

Sitting at Atrium training on Sunday, Ann mentioned that getting the Atrium together at one's parish/school/etc. is a "very long work". That we shouldn't rush out and try to get it done by Christmas or Easter or perhaps even by next school year. It is a long work.

On my way home, I realized that life is, too, a long work. A long practiced work.

Wabi Sabi

A few years back I read this thing about the Japanese philosophy of wabi sabi. I am not expert--I think it was in a magazine while waiting at a doctor's office. What struck me was the full-circle attitude about it. The idea is that you don't want everything perfect--things age, and you honor that, whether it's mismatched plates on your table, a few with a chip or two, or roses in a vase that you allow petals to drop from without frantically sprucing it all up and clearing away detritus. You eventually clear away detritus, of course, but you let things kind of sag a bit before you discard them. Things around you should evoke a sense of past, of "serene melancholy" as the wikipedia article says.

I found this article, the one in the magazine years ago, very satisfying because I took it to mean that it was hip not to clean house. Just kidding. But things around this big red box I live in are quite wabi sabi--and nothing more so than my backyard right now. It is mowed, and not atrocious, but the pool could use a cleaning, the vines are growing up the wrought iron table, and the garden is starting to sag a bit. I had a huge bounty of tomatoes from this sagging garden this afternoon, but the plants are showing their age. Everything seems to be exhaling in the late August heat. In a good way.

This is not the shocking rotting smell from last summer, post-storm. This is a gentle falling of a green leaf turned yellow and dry.

Ah. Every moment of the year has its pleasures, even mid-August.

Ian's Vacation Exhausts Me Part Two

I'm still recovering. Like this anteater here. Doesn't he look exhausted? Hottest week of the year and we go to the zoo. Living in St. Louis, I'm used to everything being free; I think Ashley was shocked that we just could walk into the zoo without standing in a line to buy tickets first. I love St. Louis. It was Wednesday morning and we did just enough zoo, actually. Hippos, because the houston zoo doesn't have any, and then the train, the carousel, the bears, penguins, and gift shop. Kennedy was so excited by our hippo hideaway, or whatever you want to call it, with the tank you can walk next to in order to see them basking with the fish. We saw a few incredible views of the elephants, too, I guess it was hot but not hot enough to make every animal want to curl up and die. We felt sorry for the bears. On the way out, Ian turned to me and said, "What this zoo needs is a couple more penguine houses. Like at every entrance." The penguins, of course, live in a new little house, kept below 50 degrees.

Then we went back to my parents' for lunch, and all of us, including my sisters and parents, went to the City Museum. Oh my. It is so overwhelming when you first walk in. We spent several hours there--the caves, the circus, art city (my mom and sisters visited the snowflake lady and stayed long enough, they were making rag dolls together by the end), the train, the slides--everything, really, except the outside stuff. It was too. hot. But here are pictures from our afternoon. In the evening, we all met in Tower Grove Park with Renee McMahon, who took Sophia's and Maeve's photos back when Maeve was 2 weeks old (awww) for family pictures. They're due back today or tomorrow. I hope they turn out well. Dinner at Chuy's (come up from Texas to eat...Texmex!). Scrabble at my parents' house and oh my. So done.

Kennedy and Sophia ride the train upstairs at the City Museum.
Kennedy and Sophia in one of the terrifying crawlspaces at the City Museum. Ian kept looking at these tight curvy spots, made of rebar, essentially, shaking his head. They combine all sorts of fears all in one!
Maeve likes the City Museum. She and my dad spent most of the day together at a slightly slower speed--the toddler area, the juggler at the everyday circus.
Umm, yeah. My sisters. In their natural state.

But I gotta say this

In an hour and a half, it will be time for book club. Right now, Mike is making lemonade pie, and I've cleaned up enough that I won't be mortified to have Ann and Julie and Janet and the rest into my home. I would have been mortified about a week ago. But not now. It's a good feeling to have things halfway decent, even if this litle house of mine would never make anyone's bells ring.

speaking of bells ringing, the book I chose for the club this month was One Perfect Day, the Selling of the American Wedding. It's basically a little expose about the wedding "industry" including planners, photographers, rent-a-chapels, and so on. Fluffy in comparison to, oh, Zora Neale Hurston; not as meaty as typical book club choices (my mom's book club is reading something about Muslim-Jewish relations). But it's August, I'm hot, it's sleepy, and this sounded fun. Plus it's my choice. Everyone has bad wedding stories, their own or others, and I thought it would be fun. When I offered the choice at last month's meeting, one of the clubbers said, "oh, wouldn't it be fun to bring our weddng albums!" So we made the plan--bring a wedding album if you're married, for folks to look at (and probably make fun of frankly). Not everyone in the club is married; some are on second (happier) marriages. So Julie made this clear right away on our email loop that this was happening.

If I were a bitter divorced woman who read that email, I'd probably just not go. Or I'd read the book and be convinced of everything I already believe. And I'd probably make fun of everyone's wedding albums. Maybe take some time to complain about my ex-husband. But I'm not a bitter divorced woman so perhaps I can't empathize. But I had it all explained to me by a bitter divorced woman in my book club when she sent this email:

So sorry I will not be able to attend the book club
this weekend. I am out of town, but chose not to read
the book, which I had heard about on NPR earlier, and
REALLY had ABSOLUTELY no interest in reading, but
understand the importance of trying out forbidden
fruit, even if it is junk food empty mind candy. As
for the sharing of wedding albums....very personal,
but have at it and enjoy.

Looking forward to a more challenging read next month.

Michelle

I just wanted to say a couple of things about this.
1. "I am out of town" Dear Michelle, you could have stopped right there.

2. "chose not to read the book" Fine; I didn't read your last choice either. So be it.

3. "heard about on NPR" Well, at least you are showing how erudite and openminded you are. Notice--no one who listens to NPR (myself included here) ever says "I heard about it on the radio" or simply, "I heard about that". They always add "on NPR." They are so friggin impressed with themselves. But let's be honest: it's radio. It's not like saying, "I read about that in Summa Theologica."

4. "REALLY had ABSOLUTELY no interest in reading" REALLY? No interest ABSOLUTELY? COULD YOU USE SOME MORE CAPS FOR ME, MICHELLE? I'M NOT SURE I CAN HEAR YOU THROUGH THE EMAIL.

5. "understand the importance of trying out forbidden fruit" Is this book, a pulpy non-fiction 4th grade reading level book really forbidden fruit? Or was this reference to something else, something nobody else seems to be able to decipher?

6. "junk food empty mind candy." Michelle, tell me how you really feel about my choice of reading material, could you? Because I really value your well-reasoned patient opinion at this point.

7. "as for the sharing of wedding albums...very personal" What the hell is in your wedding album that's very personal? Were you married in public? And if not, why do you have a wedding album? I didn't suggest we bring birth videos or lingerie from our honeymoons. Photographs.

8. "have at it and enjoy" Thank you for the insincere well-wishing. Much appreciated.

9. "looking forward to a more challenging read next month." Well, you don't have to wait that long, even. I changed my mind at the last minute about this month's book. Instead of One Perfect Day, we're going to be reading I Ride a Motorcycle and Pretend to Have an Eastern-Thought Belief System to Cover Up My Low Self-Esteem, by our dear book club member, Michelle.

So Much To Say

And so little time to say it in. I am trapped in the Quotidian Mysteries. There is too much of the daily to do right now to sit down and finish writing about Ian's visit, about The End of Summer, the heat, the tomatoes, henna, mah jongg, and the lovely Atrium training I've started this weekend.

I host book club tomorrow night, for instance. And my house is shameful. And Atrium training is kicking my rear end. And, oh, yeah, I have like 5 more reflections to write for Sr. Jean Frances before my oblation. Rear end...I'm trying to find you...using both hands...not working.

But I see it again: the laundry, the dining room (eek), the laundry. Did i mention the laundry?

The idea behind the Quotidian Mysteries, which is a lovely slim volume by Kathleen Norris, is that everyday drudgery, like laundry, dishes, taking a friggin shower, all that STUFF is there for a reason. Not to punish us either. God interacts with us through matter, through the stuff of life, in life, around life. God is there in the dishes, the laundry, the vacuuming. God rejoices in the tasks that can never be finished once and for all (as opposed to a college degree...a cake...an essay). As hard as that is to recall when I get home exhausted and trip over the crap in my front hall. It is all sacramental.

I will end with this thought. This Atrium training. This Benedictine formation. This, well, this everything I'm steeped in. It is such a gift. Things keep overlapping and coming around again and saying in my ear, "yes, Bridgett, this is where you belong, this is what you are called to do, this is the stuff that will feed your soul."

I am now going to go fold laundry. But I'm going to watch Law & Order while I do so. My brain is full.

St. Alphonsus Liguori Church Burns

St. Pius, what have you done to me. I mean that in the best possible way. My friend Rob called tonight to tell me that St. Alphonsus Liguori "Rock" Church was on fire. It's another one of the Grand Avenue churches--St. Teresa's, Rock, College, Pius. Another church that, in a less Catholic town, would be a cathedral. Limestone (hence, "Rock") facade, dedicated 1872. Stltoday.com reported that the building was "devestated" by the fire, and that only the outside walls remained. The only thing that seems to be good news is that they believe it was a lightning strike, not arson. At first the news was saying arson (I should have known better; it was our local Fox station), but the paper quotes the former pastor as saying he heard the lightning strike (all the computers died).

But when I say "what have you done to me?" I mean that I have found myself this evening profoundly affected by the news. Not just the sadness for parishioners, hope that no one was injured or killed (they don't think anyone was), grief for the neighborhood that needs a good anchor. Church families go on or evolve into something new in the face of tragedy. People join new parishes, people leave, people rebuild.

But look at this nave. I've sat in those pews. I've gazed at those windows--I didn't have any pictures of them, but I can see them in my head. Too old for Emil Frei, they are Franz Mayers' from Munich. His dot the nation just like Frei's, same style, same era, same "Munich School" pictorial style. (The church my family attended in Macon, Georgia, has Mayer windows).

I'm just sick when I think about it. And not just the windows. The pews, the hat clips. The marble. The smell of 100 years of wood soap and incense. The place in the pew in front of you where that kid tried to carve his name before Sr. Bernadette caught him, but you can still faintly see LAR worn down by a thousand overcoats and the little church ladies who come in and polish on Saturday mornings.

Deciding to stay put (stabilitas) brings a whole new level of emotion to place. And I am sad for those parishioners, all those babies baptized there, all those young couples married there, all the families who said goodbye to their fathers, mothers, sons in that church. Profoundly sad.

UPDATE: According to KWMU this morning, the damage to the church was not as bad as stltoday.com reported--roof, steeple, but not interior. The damage was smoke and water inside. The building inspector hasn't been through yet, but it no longer looks like St. Henry's in my head (a Gate District church that burned several times--mostly tire fires--after its closings; my grandfather was baptized there). I'm going north today for Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Training; I'll look.

Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.

I've been burning the old candle at both ends lately. Been up early in the mornings to take Sophia down to Janine's for a ride to camp, and I've been up until way too late being crazy. I've been writing in my Most Nigh Blog (link at right), 365 days of music and little vignettes about each song. Mostly about my life and what was happening while that song was popular/in my car/appropriate lyrically to the situation. and I've written about 15 extra entries, post-dated (the 365 blogs are one-a-day, like a vitamin). I wrote and spread some of them out, because about 8 of them are concerning an awful unfunny situation I found myself steeped in back when I taught at St. Pius, and 8 in a row would make my dear readers consider jumping out the window. And I realized last night as I wrote these out that I really hadn't dealt with the situation. Really, at all. I mean, I'm writing about ex-boyfriends and stupid things I did in high school, too, and Mike's ex who used to haunt me. But all of that at least is tinged with the idea of humor, or at least that I was at fault somehow or can look back and just kind of shake my head. I'm over all that. But I went straight from handling this student to miscarrying my first pregnancy, and so any grieving I might have done here was surpassed by that. But it's been a long time (7 years) and it was good to write it all out. And shake my head at it and close that chapter at last.

SPV Blogging: Peter's Clerestory Window

Well, it's been a long time. Life gets busy and what can you do? But I was in church this past week, working on cleaning up the sanctuary floor, and I was drawn back to those windows. Sr. Mary wanted me to take a few photos of the sanctuary from the choir loft, and while I was there, I snapped a few clerestory windows as well. Clerestory windows, if you recall, are the second story of windows in a church like ours. In fact, when ours was built, there were truly "clear story" windows--they were plain clear glass, mostly because we didn't have the money to make them stained. So they're a later addition than the main windows from the life of Jesus & Mary.

This was one of the easy windows to decipher, frankly. Peter's keys to the kingdom. Do you love me, Peter? Then feed my sheep. Peter is one of my favorite saints. To screw up so badly, with such intent (or lack of any intent) and not to flee. He didn't run and hang himself from a tree. He didn't slip into the crowd and never try to be a part of things again after the resurrection. He came back and tried again. He stuck with it, he stuck with Jesus, even though there were probably folks around him who thought he shouldn't. That he shouldn't be allowed to.

I've been there. Not to that extreme, of course, but I've sinned, publicly, against people who probably had the right to never forgive me, and they did. And we continued onward together. I find it's actually easier to do the forgiving than it is to ask the forgiveness and receive it. I never know where to put my hands after that sort of experience. It takes a long time to come out of that darkness. But I'm working on it--Sr. Jean Frances quotes a Quaker philosopher who said, instead of focusing on the harm that you've done in your relationships, turn to the light that showed you the harm in the first place. No need to beat myself up, really. Time to fix it and be stronger next time. At some point, the abbot must turn to the penitent and say, "Enough. We have to move on." Like Christ did with Peter.

Ian's Vacation Makes Me Tired: the Arch

The thing is, this is the first day. Already kinda tired. Ian and Ashley, and my niece Kennedy, who is 5 months younger than Sophia, drove up this week to visit, getting in Tuesday morning. By the time we came over for piano lessons (which went MUCH BETTER!!), they were ready to do something. Anything. So we went to the Arch. Ashley and Kennedy had never been up in the Arch, and that's just one of those St. Louis things you hafta do. It was already pretty hot--the block party was that evening and it follows according to prophecy that it must be the hottest week of the year to have National Night Out. So we had a late lunch at Morgan Street Brewery (I had a naughty burger with goat cheese and onions that was the best thing I'd eaten in weeks). We walked back and caught the 5:10 tram up to the top.
It was late in the afternoon, so the sun came through the west side. This made for an interesting shadow of the Arch on the river, which I'd never caught before.

Maeve and Sophia weren't scared this time, although Maeve was DONE. She was tired from walking and being in the heat all day, and he was ready to go home. So a couple more pictures, and then we headed back to the cars in the parking garage. She was asleep before we hit the street. But this was only the first day. Wednesday? Zoo. City Museum. Photography in Tower Grove Park. Dinner. Scrabble. Thursday and Friday and Saturday were just about as big. No wonder I'm tired.

Why August is Allowed to Exist

It's a good thing I'm not a crazy Roman Emperor with tertiary syphilis. (Actually, I could probably just end the blog entry there--because as basic statements go, that's pretty durned obvious). If I were, I would surely eliminate the month of August.

We've been lucky the past few years. Yeah, St. Louis gets some hot days, but it's always a few days on, a few days off. Well, not always. The summer we got married was a scorcher. Two summers ago was pretty bad, too. There are some icky ones. (Luckily for me, the summer I was pregnant with Maeve was magically cool, and the summer I was pregnant with Sophia, we had air conditioning and a bedrest order).

It's been really hot. I haven't complained about the weather in a long time. But it is insane outside. Today was 101, Friday was 103 (I think--maybe that was Wednesday). Wilting plants, a touch of heat exhaustion at Grants Farm (my brother and his family were in town, hence, my lack of entries this week), the van is just unbearable to get inside. This week I have to--have to--run several errands with Maeve in the van and there's nothing I want to do less. Unless that's getting diagnosed with tertiary syphilis.

Anyway, since I can't outlaw August, I'm going to tell you why August can continue to exist without further punishment. Tomatoes. Tomato Basil Mozzarella salad eaten on the back porch (north side of the house, shady). The tomatoes still warm from the garden sun, four different varieties including the first ripe Tula of the year. No--FIVE different varieties. Forgot the little orange grape tomatoes from the front porch. My recipe? Two fist-sized chunks of fresh mozzarella, chopped into bite sized pieces. Two big handfuls of basil. Tomatoes until the bowl is full. Toss. Vinaigrette to taste in your own bowl. Eat with bread and olive oil and iced coffee you picked up on the way home from the Hill where you bought the mozzarella and bread.
Have your youngest sister wear a vintage yellow dress that shows all her tattoos, sit her in front of a bowl of it. Let your kids and your niece come share bread--but not salad unless they try a bite of yours first. This is not "you have to eat three bites of yellow squash" kind of food. They have to want this to get any.

Each tomato has its own nuance. The Mr. Stripeys are citrusy and crisp, acidic, tart. The Tulas are smokey, earthy, Russian and proud of it. The grapes and cherries pop when you bite, tasting just like a tomato should. The romas and patios are larger versions of the cherries--the best regular red tomato ever. And the mystery plant, the black tomato shaped like a deformed pear? Don't know what it's called, don't know if it's a black plum or a black krim or what, but it shares the Tula smokiness without losing firmness. I'm savin those seeds this year.

The basil is turning--it is tasting less like basil now and more like anise, but it is pungent and dances with the mild mozzarella with ease. We sit at my back porch table, the hottest Saturday of the year so far, eating this and bread dipped in olive oil--the girls get to have some of that--and I think to myself, this is why I live here, now, this place, these people. I know, I think that a lot. But here is yet another reason. I've figured out what grows in my yard (lasagna, basically--basil, parsley, garlic, tomatoes, oh, and hot peppers), I know where to buy the bread and cheese (The Hill). We've got the big hoosier horse trough pool cooling down the kids, starbucks on ice keeping Colleen and me cool. A big salad, a breeze...it can't be all bad, this August.

SPV Blogging: a little sanctuary rehab

So there it is. In the next few days I'll post some close-ups, but for now, there is the new church.

We took down the chintzy Alpha & Omega--they were made of a masonite-like substance, spraypainted gold. A team of parishioners painted the back walls a warm gray color, and Magic Wayne (Fr. John's friend, he seems to be able to do anything in the church that needs doing) devised a way to hang the crucifix so that it didn't sit flush with the wall.

Then on Sunday, a crew of about 20 people stayed after mass (Easy like Sunday Morning indeed) and ripped up the carpet. The (non-asbestos) tile underneath came up surprisingly easily. And I was a big silent naysayer about this part of the project. I thought for sure we'd spend days and days ripping up the tile, only to find the hexagon tile in horrible condition.

It wasn't. It was covered in a tar-paper of some kind, with glue on both sides (glue to hold the big tile down, glue to hold the paper underneath down). But Sunday evening, we'd already released the step where the communion rail sits. Monday, we started on the main floor. Justin Stein brought this scraping tool with razor blades--it worked wonderfully. We uncovered the hex tile and found that besides two cracks that run parallel alongside the altar, in front, the floor was perfect.

But the marble steps are going to require more work. Perhaps more work than we can do alone. The glue is not coming up--and then the bottom step is just a concrete patch. There will have to be some decisions made. The step where the altar sits, the glue came up all right. But the step is actually concrete after a 16 inch deep step of marble. We think we'll put down a nice rug behind the altar, actually, after we clean up the concrete really well. That is easily fixed. But the steps leading up to the sanctuary are going to be haaard.

I can't believe it worked as well as it did, though. And the small ambo (pulpit/lectern) is so refreshing. That size is so much better than the barge we had up there before. That specific one is a little rickety, but the arrangement reminds me of Clyde's chapel. A candle, a reading stand, a few plants. All you need. And then, suddenly, you can see the altar.

It's going to go well.

SPV Blogging: It's coming back

I took a couple months off after doing a few choir loft pictures. Then I got distracted by kids and gardening and coffee and house and neighbors and so on. Darn it. But the school year is fast approaching, and I've been up at church a bit this week tearing up the sanctuary floor. One of the parishioners asked me if I'd done any more with that. So I decided that I needed to do something more with that. I have the entire north side of the church--the stations, the large windows, the clerestory mysteries. And then the sanctuary. So I'm going to trot over to church tomorrow (Friday) and take a few pictures. Get back in the groove. Because I can feel that itch coming back again. I need to do some writing.

ps: a cicada just hit my window outside. Ew. Ew. Ew.

Catholicism, Anyone?

Sr. Mary, I mean Sr. Mimi, has asked me to join the RCIA team. For the non-Catholic readers, that's the group at a parish that assists folks in becoming Catholic (the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults, I believe is the acronym).

Sr. Mimi has done this before, you know. She got me in charge of church cleaning and flowers and whatnot almost a year ago. I said yes then, too.

I have some large hesitations about this, but they all have to do with not being good at it. Which I have a feeling are either false modesty or due to lack of experience. I want to be good at this. I like talking about my faith, how I came to be where I am, where I'm probably headed next. These are things I obviously talk and think a lot about.

I went through RCIA myself, in fact, in 2000. At St. Pius, got confirmed. Should have happened years before. Just never in the right place at the right time. But Sr. Joan and Fr. Mike and St. Pius were the right place at the right time, and I did this with little fanfare, no bishop asking questions, no confirmation saint's name, no nonsense. I've been a sponsor to an 8th grader that included fanfare, and I think I'm glad I waited. I'd still be second-guessing my saint, thinking of better things to say to the bishop, wondering if I really received those gifts of the Holy Spirit or not, since I was really spending my time counting the ceiling tiles when I was supposed to be attending to confirmation class.

RCIA was good for me. I'd like it to be good for people coming to Pius looking for something. I find converts endlessly fascinating. Having them talk about the Eucharist always takes my breath away. I don't know many (I do live in St. Louis, after all--there are a lot of Catholics here already), but the few I do know always impress me. To take one's life and make a slight turn. But a turn of belief. Amazing.

Of course, I almost did that myself. And then I almost did it again. And then I found Benedict and decided I could stay. I don't know if this makes me the best apologist, but I think it makes me realistic and the expression of my faith attainable--I don't have a bunch of fussy devotions or the catechism memorized. I find statements like "you need to read the catechism and find out what you really believe" thoroughly silly and offensive (that is a quote, said to me, a long time ago). I'm Catholic because a) I was born into a Catholic family, and b) it matches me best. For now. Today. Probably tomorrow. Because I've decided to be.

Oh, and, c) Because I'm steeped to far in St. Pius V to turn back now.

Oy, Sr. Mimi. What have you gotten me into this time? Just kidding--I saw the writing on the wall a long time ago.

Walkability Walkabout

LisaS's blog led me to the Walk Score. Somehow LisaS and I have been living in this same city and have never met even though her reading list looks eerily like mine and she has similar things to say. Perhaps I'm not that far off from typical after all. Meaning, perhaps there are more folks out there like me than I thought. Anyway, the Walk Score. You type in your address, and it produces a little map of where you live, and starts adding icons for shopping, parks, coffeehouses, libraries, schools, and so on. The closer you are to 100, the more walkable your home is. The easier it is to be a pedestrian. We were listed as 83, which does not surprise me because we walk all the dang time. I have neighbors who have moved here and given up their second car.

But it made me curious about other places I've lived. I don't have all the addresses, but I did what I could.

Pearland (Houston suburb)? 14
Macon, Georgia? 43
The Colony (Dallas suburb)? 25
Columbia, Missouri? 14

Keep in mind those are my specific addresses. Other parts of Columbia, for instance, are extremely walkable.

And just for one last curious moment, I put in my inlaws address in Cairo. My addresses are all suburbs, medium-sized cities, and St. Louis--but Cairo isn't them at all.

A shocking 57.

I need to walk more when I visit, obviously.

A Course in How To Be a Better Mom

AKA, the Piano Fiasco.

Sophia takes piano from a wonderful teacher from Serbia named Sanja. (Which leads to a funny story where I just assumed she was Bosnian, but no, she is Serbian, her husband is at Wash U, and she is in fact not Muslim, but Orthodox. the reason she didn't know Christmas music? They were AMERICAN songs. Not because they were Christian--I was mortified to be wrong, but she thought it was funny).

When Sophia started, last October, she would practice a few minutes a day, and it was easy. Really easy. She learned a black keys only method for a while, and then added white keys, but everything was marked on the note. Easy. In April, she moved to amore traditional bass/treble clef arrangement with no notation on the notes. This was a big jump, and I as mother was not ready for this jump.

Practice used to be "Sophia, go practice, then come in for a snack." A few times a week. Nothing more. And that's all we did, really, in April and May as well. Then Sanja went to visit her family in Sarejevo, and we pretty much ignored piano for June. A month.

July comes, and Sanja returns, and suddenly, piano is too hard. Sophia dreads piano. Sophia hates Sanja. You see, the problem is all me: if I practiced with her, if we did so daily, none of this would be happening. Bad mom.

This past Tuesday was the last straw. She'd had two lessons in a row with no progress, with whining and distraction-seeking. And we had another one just like it. Sanja, of course, is on to me. She doesn't say it, but I know she knows it's my fault. It's not like Sophia is 14 and disobedient. She's 6 and compliant. It's me.

Sanja left and I brainstormed. I decided that my biggest problem is that the piano is at my mom's house. We don't own one. So practice involves a big trip. Something for Maeve to do. Probably some cable TV. To sum up: a big chunk of day. So we headed to Target. I told Sophia I was going to get her something to help her practice. I don't know much about piano (I played flute, yes, flute), but I figured at her stage in this process, a little kid electric piano/casio kind of thing was going to at least help her learn those 6 notes around middle C. And maybe it would be fun.

We found one, and I put it in the cart. Sophia looked crushed. "Is that all I get?"

What we have here is failure to communicate.

She's in tears. I'm suppressing my frustration really successfully, but we both know this is going badly. Maeve is fine, sitting in the cart pointing at everything on the shelves yelling MINE.

In the end, we put the little piano back because Sophia says "If it is at home, I'll have to practice all the time." She's upset, and I decided not to argue. We drive home in silence. I wonder if I started her too early--if I should just wait and see if she wants to play an instrument when she's older. We do talk a little bit about quitting when things get hard. But I let it drop. We get home, she goes up to clean her room (already a plan) and I work in the kitchen.

About an hour later she comes downstairs. "Is it ok if I change my mind?"

We got the little piano. She has practiced with Mike every evening. The song Sanja thrust at me before she left last week, I think as a final "if she can't do this by next week, there's no point," Sophia can play fluently without mistakes.

Isn't craziness defined as doing the same thing but expecting a different result? We're doing a different thing. And guess what. She likes piano again.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. That's about how I feel--but I have to step back and realize life's all a learning process. For me too.

A Week in Review

It's not Scott Simon and Daniel Schorr, but here's my week in review:

So tell us about Vacation Bible School, I believe you filled in for a friend? Actually, a friend was running a VBS, and one of her teachers needed a sub. So I did teach a first grade class for two mornings this week, yes.

And how did it go?
Not as well as I might have liked. It taught me a lot about what I would want it to look like when/if we ever put one together at St. Pius. It would involve fewer teenage boys playing football in the parking lot, for one. And probably a better understanding instilled in the attendees that while we are in church, and the pastor says the name "Jesus", you as third grade boys are not then to call out "and Jesse James!" at every chance.

What do you mean by that Jesse James comment?
For instance, the pastor would close a morning prayer meeting with the words, "and we ask this in Jesus' name," pausing for us to say Amen, and the boys behind me would invariably say, "And Jesse James!" before the Amen came forth. The helpers, too, mostly 12-17 year olds, were split into two camps. About half of them were assigned to classrooms or stations of some kind and did their jobs to varying degrees, and then there were the boys assigned to "recreation", essentially, the worst PE class ever taught, who mostly played football and acted like jackasses at all times.

I see--what about your class?
I had 19 first graders in a room the size of my kitchen, and even though I was told it was a "no brainer" and that materials and lesson plans would be provided, the lesson I was handed was dependent on the woman I replaced having done any work with the kids on the first two days, which she hadn't. So the first day, I kind of winged it, I guess ok, and by the end of the 40 minute class period my group knew about Jericho and Joshua and marching around and whatnot. It was a week of Joshua at that point--three days surrounding the Jericho story. Of course, then Thursday was the Resurrection. Because, yeah, I see the connection so clearly.

How were your kids?
Oh, they were all right. Typical almost-first graders with a smattering of almost-kindergartners. The kids are never the problem, because I'm a scary whatnot in the classroom when I need to be. My classes--either brief encounters like this or long term in a school year--are always obedient. They learn, too.

But you had a good time, with the other adults?
This is my big problem. I just don't get along with people very well. I was the only adult not dressed identically, which was a problem, and the other adults saw this for what it was, not what it could be. It could have been a fun program surrounding iconic bible stories. Instead, it was a week of cheap morning babysitting and inane Christian songs.

Did Sophia have a good time, at least?
Yes, certainly. She loves this kind of thing still. Of course, she now has faulty notions of how the Battle of Jericho went down biblically--she has intertwined shouting out bible memory verses and the presence of buffalo, but she is six and Good Shepherd Catechesis will get her where she needs to be.

Thanks for talking with us about VBS, Bridgett. More to come after a break. I would love to hear your thoughts about the rest of your week--the trip to Rend Lake, the piano fiasco, and why the heck you can't get your act together.

Thanks--it's always good to talk.

It's not my story

but i'm going to say a bit anyway.

Tonight was mah jongg and a shower for Amanda, who is due, tick tick tick, in just a few weeks. We chatted and snacked, watched her open presents, and played mah jongg with my favorite bakelite set and the new pink sparkly set of Janine's. There were nine of us tonight, and it was a really good time. It was so nice to share easy time with friends and neighbors, newcomers and those who have been playing since I first decided to teach.

Then the phone rang and our hostess answered--it was 11:30, and she was quiet in the living room on the phone. We waited for her, thinking it was probably bad news. But bad news comes in many forms, and some bad news I've received in the late evening would not have broken up a mah jongg night. Like, if a friend's grandfather passed away, or my sister was in a car accident but all was well and she was on her way home already (that one has happened, of course). Things I can't do a thing about or a thing for the person calling, at least until the morning.

This wasn't one of those. She came back into the room and said we were going to have to call it an evening. A friend's eight month old baby girl had died. She'd called her husband to come home (he was out for the evening), and we started cleaning up the sets. Then we put plates and dishes and glasses in the kitchen. Tried to wash Amanda's bowl at least three times. Wandered around splitting time between busy-ness and attempting to comfort until her husband got home and they headed out to the hospital to be with their friends.

It's a second hand tragedy for me--I know my neighbors, but I've never met the grieving parents. But either as a mother, or just as a human being, it made me deeply sad and anxious. She should have been in the clear for SIDS, we kept saying to each other. There's this checklist every mother keeps in her head--baby can lift her head, baby can roll over, whew, time to start working on the next checklists of worry.

Something like this--being there at the raw moment of information, but not directly involved--can put life in perspective for a time. Just for a time--as humans we are easily distracted from what is most important. But for this moment, it directs my focus like a laser. Sophia's piano troubles? They fade like so much background noise. Maeve's complete obstinance about potty training? What was the problem again? And little tragedies, too, not just annoyances, suddenly don't exist so large in the memory. It makes me want to tread very lightly on this earth, to be close to those around me, to make connections, to hold my children's hearts and lives so very gently as I coax them into adulthood.

There are no guarantees. God never says, "I'll make it easy for you." But against all evidence to the contrary, we keep the stubborn hope that all will be well, all matter of things will be well. We make connections. We fall in love. We raise our babies and hope. What else can we do? Anything else would be cowardice, a stinginess of heart. This is who we are.

I cannot envision the horror and pain this night has brought into this family's life. We sat in that dining room waiting for her husband to return, letting any distracting conversation lighten the mood for just a moment before our hearts returned to the matter at hand. We helped Amanda across the street with her bowl of fruit salad leftovers and her gifts, and went home in silence.

I love this mah jongg group. I love these neighbors; I am so blessed to live here.

I came home, went upstairs, and put my hand on Sophia's calf (she is on the top bunk and sleeps with her head on the other end from the ladder). Just stood there for a moment. Then glanced at Maeve, lying sideways in a crumpled lump in about a two foot square area of her bed. Held her hand while she slept.

This week, I've found myself saying too many times, "there but for the grace of God go I." I used to hear other people say that and it sounded so fatalistic or trite or like magical thinking (I have God's grace, therefore...). But that's not how I mean it when I heard it in my head this week. More of a baffled amazement at what can befall us all, and I'd better start praying for God's grace to help me through if it comes my way.

I am not meaning to forsake you

Dear reader, life got really busy this week.

R E A L L Y B U S Y.

There are things I'd like to write about. They will have to wait.

I will say that it is hot. Houston hot. And we are all wilted, lying around the living room.

As Johnny Carson would say, more to come.