Still Life

01 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by Janell in Life at Home, Soul Care, Writing

Tags

Blogging, Evening, Everyday Life, Soul Care, True Self, Writing

“And if she did not remember these things who would? After she was gone there would be no one who knew the whole of her life. She did not even know the whole of it! Perhaps she should have written some of it down…but really what would have been the point in that? Everything passed, she would too. This perspective offered her an unexpected clarity she nearly enjoyed, but even with the new clarity, the world offered no more explanation for itself than it ever had.”

– Evening, by Susan Minot

I woke up thinking about last night’s mad dash to post a few October stills while October still had breath in its body. As if this blog was my very own Pinterest board to remember life with a few little links.

Then as one thought always leads to another, I began thinking about all those October moments — no less important — that passed without an attempt to preserve the moment. No written words. No images, published or otherwise, at least in my possession. Like,

last Sunday’s final Moveable Feast for the year, a rare event where every family member sat in attendance,
a cute almost 10 month-old Reese Caroline dressed up like a little lamb for her first Halloween, so unhappy in her costume you’d think she was being led to … (no I can’t say it…),
the beauty coming forth in the east garden, once a forgotten side yard used to grow weeds and hold leftover stone,
the nine Nellie Stevens hollies planted on Saturday — doesn’t this sound like it belongs as a stanza in the Twelve Days of Christmas?, and
my new kitchen finally finished… except that I’ve decided to repaint it all again.

And the list lives on into infinity.

And then I look up to see the morning light casting this lovely November image on the wall — the very one that became header for this post. Perhaps, I think, it’s a gift for All Saint’s Day to remind me that what we see is not all that’s there?

I reach for my camera to capture it. To find, with no surprise whatsoever, that it wasn’t at all what I saw, it wasn’t at ALL what I experienced. Not by half. Because what I observed was so much better and richer than what I’m able to preserve.

I post a few words and images knowing, even as I write, it’s not necessarily the best of everyday life or even the best of me. But sometimes, yes sometimes — perhaps when the light is just right, and maybe’s it when I’m most aware of the play of the light and shadows, that a few words are born into the blog that mimic life in the moment enough to breathe shallowly upon the page.

A still image begins to sway and dance so that it’s a trick and treat to the eye. Mere slats from my window blinds cast shadows on the wall which mysteriously transform into a musical staff; the shadow of curled ironed work of the floor lamp looks like a treble clef; and something — I’m not sure what — maybe leaves on the tree outside my window? — begin to jump up and down the lines looking like musical notes dancing upon staff lines.

The shadow and light become a symphony like this.

And I think: Can life get better than this? If life is like THIS every moment of every day, then there’s no such thing as an everyday life — at least, as. everyday is commonly thought of — COMMON. PLAIN JANE. VANILLA. Dare I say….BORING?

And because of this mind set, and our own lack of attention — for surely I’m not alone in attention deficits — is it any wonder we can’t know the whole of our lives?

Responsive Readings

11 Friday Feb 2011

Posted by Janell in Soul Care, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Blogging, Soul Care, Spiritual Direction, Writing

Intimate, as if conversing over morning coffee, Rose caught me up with a smattering of old family news.

She shared stories about family I knew only by name, like my new-found eighty-year old cousins living in Vermont. She told another about Great-Great Aunt Mary – who’d emigrated from Greece to America with my grandfather in 1911. She pulled a few special stories out about her father, who died when she was thirteen — even his prized family recipe for a Greek chicken-egg-lemon soup I whipped up last night.

Her bold script flowed fast over fourteen pages. But what amazes me most about Rose and this handwritten letter is how she refuses to allow her stories to grow stale. In spite of being recycled countless times, over ninety years of living, Rose tells it all fresh, reviving it to life again with rich detail.

In this week spent contemplating my writing, Rose’s letter has me wondering what makes for good writing. Does it come with a long-familiarity of subject addressed? Or is it an intimate sharing on matters closer to the quick of life? I only know her letter inspired me to response. And maybe, in the end, that’s what’s important – regardless of whether we spell our responses in words or actions.

Sometimes, as a reader of blogs, I respond by merely tuning in as a faithful reader — by listening to whatever it is the blog author wishes to share about life. When their words spark a written comment, I do so without thought of reply, regarding my blog post comments akin to prayer, knowing I’m heard whether or not I receive a direct reply.

I sometimes wonder if my best writing isn’t tucked away in personal notes and comments written over the years. It’s something I’ve wondered more than once, even out loud, a while back, to my spiritual director. The words spoken in spiritual direction are like prayer, too, in that I mostly speak into an attentive silence. Sometimes my words inspire a slow and thoughtful response. But rarely does one come rushing at me — as it did that day — when my director responded by saying he imagined St. Paul had probably expressed a similar thought about his own letter writing a time or two.

I confess I find it hard to read a response like his. I wonder what to make of it. And then I shift mental gears by wondering what his response will ultimately make of me. All I can say — two years later — is that I’m still working on a response to his response.

I’m thinking I may have one by the time I’m ninety. You can check back then — if not before.

Woe, the Signpost

07 Monday Feb 2011

Posted by Janell in Writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Blogging, Writing

All Saturday and Sunday and even some today, I’ve been wondering about my role in the blogosphere.

My thinking leads to questions. About purpose, for one.

More to the point, it leads me to question myself. I’ve wondered what unique gifts I bring with so many out there in the wide blog yonder.

I’ve wondered in the heavy silence that stands between me and the computer screen why I think I can write. Or want to, for that matter, since writing isn’t easy.

Writing always feels like carving in stone blind-folded. Far too often, I don’t know what end the stone will yield until I get there myself. Sometimes I walk away from a partially completed bust knowing I’m too small for the subject at hand. But there are other times, too, and it’s these that keep me pounding away at hard white space.

In spite of its shaky feel, this is no “woe is me’ signpost. I’m just expressing my truth du jour. In part, because I know I’m not alone; I realize we must all have days when we wonder about life purpose and its associated questions. So I write to confess, because admitting the truth is freeing. And for good measure, I’ll forgo pan-handling for encouragement, by placing a lid on the spot where comments typically go

But before I place a lid on today’s thoughts, I wish to confess that I’m not without consolation. That today’s has strangely come from that stranger-than-truth locust and wild honey eater, who many mistook for the Messiah; because at his memorable best, John the Baptist served as a solitary signpost in the wilderness pointing a finger at one greater than he, whose sandals, he confessed, he was unfit to untie.

So today I confess how I know this feeling well. How it comes in part from keeping company with my blog betters — those on my roll and others not. And how I think, as I read their blogs: Now, why again, am I blogging? And for whom am I blogging?

It’s always this last question that gets me. Some days, I struggle to answer it with a few original words — words I later baptize with a title after it’s known by me. Other days, I’m content in being a signpost for my blogroll.

The one which comes without woe — well, it’s the wrong one. Which means I should have called this piece, Woe and the Signpost.