First Museum Day of my Seminary Years

I have been riding the Metro, the DC subway, since I was a pre-teen, so I wasn't expecting the hardest part of my museum day to be the Metro.  Yesterday morning I walked to the Tenleytown Metro and tried to figure out how to get down to it because the escalator was under repair.  There was an elevator, but I didn't want to ride down in an enclosed space with breathing unmasked strangers if I could avoid it.  Happily, I could walk down one of the non-working escalator.

And then I had to take the longer working escalator down.  It was steep, and there was no place to look into the distance so that I could fight my rising anxiety.  The elevator felt a bit rickety, so I hung on and focused on breathing.

The farecard machine didn't want to take my cash, but happily, I had a credit card which worked beautifully.  Finally I was on my way downtown to make my appointment with the National Museum of African American History and Culture.  I signed up for a timed ticket my first morning in town, and September 14 was the earliest slot available.

I got downtown early, so I walked over to the National Museum of American History, another Smithsonian.  I didn't go into any galleries, but I was able to take this great shot of a Greensboro lunch counter with the reflection of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the exhibition screen, and me in the exhibition screen where John Lewis was talking:

Then it was time to head to the main attraction.  

I went to the top floor and worked my way down.  In the end, the first gallery I went to was my favorite, the one with the visual art.  I loved this quilted Harriet Tubman:

I did go down and do the winding history gallery, me and hordes of people.  

Here's another lunch counter:

I was pleased that most of the history wasn't unfamiliar to me.  I was impressed by the way the material was put together, but I didn't feel the need to read every panel.

After I went through all the galleries, I felt a bit exhausted.  I thought about getting lunch, but the cafeteria in the museum was crammed full, and I didn't want to be around those people.  I thought about going back to my seminary apartment.  I thought about how much I enjoyed the art in the upper gallery.  I decided to go over to the Hirshhorn Museum, which is often one of my favorites.

I had read about the Yayoi Kusama exhibit, so I was happy to see that it was still here, and even better, I could get a timed entry ticket.  Since it wasn't crowded, I didn't have to wait.  The infinity rooms were like not much I've experienced before.

Although it was a bit dizzying, I loved this one with the changing lights.

I also went through the exhibit that was devoted to the work of women and non-binary artists.  What a treat.  My eye went to the more sculptural art, like this collection of Virgin Marys.  

The author did plaster casts of each one and then painted them; here's a close-up:

There were also intriguing 2 dimensional works; this one was created from bits of silk, instead of paint:

And combinations of flat and sphere:

After the Hirshhorn, I was ready to head back.  I popped down into the Smithsonian Metro station and my trip back was fairly easy.  As I walked back from the Tenleytown Metro, I saw a labyrinth being constructed at the local Episcopal church--a promise of art to come!

A Potato Palooza of a Day

This morning, I slept until 5:15 a.m., which is sleeping in for me.  I was surprised because at 2 a.m., I thought about giving up on sleep and getting my day started.  Happily, I was able to drift back to sleep.  I went to bed close to 10:00 p.m., and even for me, 4 hours of sleep isn't quite enough.

Yesterday was jam-packed, but in some of the best possible ways.  I went on my early morning walk for the first time in days; I spent much of last week waiting for the locksmith, plus it was rainy, so I didn't get as many walks in as I hope that a normal week will have.

My spouse is in North Carolina, with the little house that needs updates.  It was built in the 1970's as a vacation house, so it needs some basics, like an HVAC system, along with updating.  He's staying there for now to get some of this work done.  He says that he's always wanted to do a rehab project where he doesn't have to work around the people living in the house and where he's not on an impossible deadline.  Now he can have that experience.

We talk once a day, usually by way of a Facebook video call, so we had a chat yesterday.  After we hung up, I got my reading done for my 1:30 class and headed to chapel for a nourishing worship service.  

After the service, Wesley offered us a Potato Palooza.  I was expecting a basic baked potato bar, but it was so much more.  I thought that the school might re-open the kitchen facilities, but they had the food brought in.  We were told to pick a goody box, a baked potato in a separate container, and a cup of chili (with a choice of chicken, beef, or veggie).  Inside the goody box was a veggie salad, a fruit salad, a corn muffin, and a dessert.  We had enough so that everyone could take extras home for a later meal.

Even better than the food (and it was good) was the chance to share a meal together.  I ate with one of my professors from Spring and one of my professors now, both teaching in the Arts and Religion track.  We were joined by the Admissions person who remembered my application and an HR person.  It was delightful.

I did wonder if I should make more of an effort to meet my fellow students, but my inner new kid was doing well to force herself to stay for the meal, so I gave myself a break.  And I also realized that I might have more in common with the people at my table than with a table of students.  It's hard to know.

My spring semester professor turned to me at one point and said, "It's so good to have you here on campus."  Wow--my inner new kid will treasure that comment, well, forever.

After the Potato Palooza, I felt like I'd already had a very full day, but I still had two classes ahead.  Happily, they, too, were very full, in the best possible way, full of valuable information, full of smaller group interactions, full of good feedback.

I have had a few moments in the past weeks and months when I've wondered if I would look back on this time and see it as a terrible mistake, a huge loss of money, a slow motion separation from all whom I've held dear.  I don't know that those moments are based in real information or on fear, but I'm forging ahead.  

I think back to the Ignatian concept of decisions made out of consolation or out of desolation.  To explain it in an overly simple way, if a decision/answer makes one feel inspired and fulfilled, like one is living into one's purpose for life, that one is moving closer to God, it's a decision/answer made in consolation. If it makes one feel otherwise, it's a mark of desolation.

And here's where it gets tricky. One can come to a decision/answer in consolation, but still feel some tinges of desolation as one goes on.  This concept has been one of the more helpful things I learned in my certificate program for spiritual direction.

Yesterday was one of those days that reminded me that my decision to come to seminary and all the subsequent decisions were choices made in a place of consolation.  And it's not just me who thinks that--I have the support of my home church, of family and friends, of my candidacy committee.  I understand how rare it is to have this level of emotional support.

Particular Geographies and Yearning

For the past 2 months, I've spent a lot of time driving long distances.  I realize that not everyone likes to drive the way that I do.  I should modify:  I like to drive the way I do when I'm driving alone.  Driving with others in the car is a whole different experience.

When I've made a long car trip, I sometimes feel like I've fallen out of time.  I used to think that I only felt that way after an airplane trip and that a long car trip would help me feel cemented in time.  That's not the case for me, at least not right now.

In the past, I've felt a longing to be in places other than where I am:  it's been a longing for a particular geography mixed with a longing for particular people.  At this time in my life, I feel fully present wherever I am, almost as if other places have ceased to exist.  When I'm in my seminary apartment, I rarely think about my little house in the mountains.  When I was in the mountains this week-end, my seminary life seemed like a dream I had.

Have I finally mastered the art of being fully present in the moment?  I'm so often thinking about parts of my past, usually with a mix of regret and sadness, mixed with yearning and nostalgia.  When I'm not thinking about the past, I'm plotting the future.

Sadly, I don't think I've mastered the art of being fully present.  I think I'm fully present because my living situations are so new.  I had only lived in the North Carolina house for a month before moving to seminary housing.  

The fact that seminary housing is temporary might also explain why I'm able to stay with the present moment more successfully now than in the past.  Or maybe it's because I'm so happy with my current situation.  When I'm mired in home repairs or job stress, my go to relief has been yearning for either the past or the present.  Right now, I'm happy with my classes and my seminary apartment--no need for my escapist coping strategies.

Can I learn techniques from this time?  Let me think about how to sustain this being present in the current moment, even when I'm less thrilled about my circumstances.  Let me think about how to train my brain to be more often in a state of Zen acceptance, less yearning for something else.

Week-end of Abundance

I head back to DC today.  I have a 6:30 pm class, so there's plenty of time.  Once, though, I'd have thrown the last load of stuff in the car, filled up my thermoses, and been on the road by 4:00 or so.  But that was back in the South Florida days, South Florida where it is never truly O dark thirty.

Here in the mountains, it's dark--dark--before the sun comes up.  It will be safer to wait until a bit closer to sunrise to leave.

Yesterday at the Crafts for Christmas retreat, one of the woman said that her father had told her that for every fog in August, there will be a snowfall.  I said, "Well, we're in for a humdinger of a winter."  Everyone nodded.  One of the few non-foggy days in August was August 28, when I headed back to seminary by myself at 4:00 a.m.  The roads weren't foggy, but they were dark in a terrifying way.

The women at the Crafts for Christmas retreat talked about weather wisdom of the elders, and about Harriet Tubman and navigating by the stars and about how younger generations have no sense of any of this.  What a relief to be amongst my people:  educators and people who know how to make all sorts of soul sustaining things, from preserved food to cookies to quilted hearts.

I ate as many cookies in one day as I eat in six months.  When I got the invite for the retreat, I said that I couldn't bring a craft to share, but I was told there would be plenty.  Yes, plenty--many people brought not only supplies for their craft, but other supplies too.  It was heaven:  tables loaded with cloth, beads, baskets, papers, wood, found objects, on and on.  

We were similarly equipped with food.  In fact, I'll be taking some of it back with me.  I felt a bit bad for not bringing food to share, but there was plenty, and I know that more than one person delighted in the fact that they were helping the seminary student who didn't have time to cook or gather craft supplies.  I apologized once or twice and then decided to quit nattering on about it.

We are all from religious communities who believe in sharing, who believe that the sharing produces abundance.  And we had an abundant week-end.

Soon I will head back to my abundant life in DC.  I have a car crammed with all the last minute items that I didn't take last time, from a laundry basket to a lamp.  I have some groceries and some treats.  I have books that I planned to read for this week's classes; I did skim them, but for the most part, I devoted myself to crafts this week-end.  My spouse and I had time to reconnect.

I indulged in the abundance of crafts and Christmas music and cookies and reconnections, and I have no regrets.

Crafts for Christmas Retreat

I am back at my little house in the North Carolina mountains, rain pattering outside, peppermint mocha in my mug.  I made a quick trip back for a Crafts for Christmas retreat that's happening this week-end.  

I am remembering past autumns when I would make a quick trip to the mountains for a planning week-end for Create in Me.  I could never figure out how to come to both the planning week-end and the Crafts for Christmas week-end.  This year, my schedule is more flexible, there is no in-person planning week-end for Create in Me, the drive is shorter, and I have a house at Lutheridge with a spouse here doing work on the house.  In short, this year I have many more reasons to come.

Yesterday, I got up and was on the road by 4:15 a.m.  Even so, there was more traffic coming out of the city than I expected, and some road construction on I 66.  Eventually, the traffic thinned, and the fog rolled in, which made the merge onto I 81 feel harrowing in the dark.  The trip became much easier after 6:30, once I had more light to see by.

It is a lovely drive, mostly mountains, and yesterday, not too many big trucks barreling by.  I listened to various NPR shows, and marveled at the life of Queen Elizabeth, who died on Thursday.  On Thursday night, I made this Facebook post, which I want to preserve here:  "While many corners of the world discussed what the death of Queen Elizabeth would mean for the larger society, both in and out of England, I was in Church History class, learning about a much more ancient empire (first century Rome). And then I walked back across campus under a mostly full moon, which made me think about empires ancient and modern, how they come and then they go, and the moon shines on, oblivious."

I also loved Monica Hesse's article on Queen Elizabeth, with this insightful summary:  "Was it a fairy tale? Was it feminism? The highest-ranking woman in the world, and her power came not via her hard work or via a wedding ring on her finger but via a chaotic ladder of genealogy reaching through centuries: beheadings and infertility, abdications and overthrowings, all leading up to this singular woman holding the throne longer than anyone had before, or likely ever will again."

Back to yesterday's trip.  Soon enough, I was back home.  We talked about HVAC options, talked about what to have for lunch.  I took a shower while my spouse went to the grocery store. We ate lunch, cleaned up, and talked about a few more house renovation decisions that are coming up.  Then I wandered over to the retreat.

It's held in the big, ramshackle house where my family gathers for Thanksgiving and where my spouse and I stayed for Music Week this summer.  Yesterday, the tables were arranged in stations with a variety of supplies at each station.  As with the Create in Me retreat, there will be so many options to try.

Last night, I made a potholder, in the way that I made potholders as a child, with a loom and loops.  Why did I make a potholder?  I only have one at my seminary apartment, and I'd like to have more.  It was fun until the end, when I had to get the very tight loops off of the loom.  Even so, I marveled at how much progress I've made with my right hand.  Not too long ago, I wouldn't have been able to do this at all:

A few women joined me to make potholders of their own, and we talked about our memories of potholders.  I remembered my grandmother, who kept the potholders that I made for her when I was a child.  They were in her kitchen drawer when she died, even though she hadn't needed them in years.

Then we had pizza for dinner and more conversation, and I headed home to sleep in my own bed.  

Today will be another day of creating for me, while my spouse goes to a church choir retreat to work on music that they will sing from now until Christmas.  I look forward to seeing what we all create today.  What a gift to be able to be here for this time.

Reaction Drawings

In my Creative Process as Spiritual Practice class yesterday, we explored an interesting practice that our teacher called Reaction Drawings.   She gave us a stack of blank paper (just regular paper like the kind you'd use in a copier or printer) and a graphite stick (like pencil lead without the wood around it and squared edges).

It was a 30 minute exercise.  Every 30 seconds, the timer dinged, and we turned the sheet of paper over and did a new sketch/drawing/scribble.  That was the only instruction.  Here's my first sketch:

And my last sketch (which might be upside down):

And a selection of the ones in between.

It was an interesting experiment.  Thirty seconds isn't enough time to worry about technique--it's not even enough time to finish a sketch.  Some of our sketches responded to past sketches, while others went in a different direction.  The frenzied pace didn't let us sink into a meditative space (both a plus and a minus).

I said that I expected to go through my pile of sketches and find one that I didn't remember drawing.  That didn't happen.  I was also intrigued by my approach to the graphite stick.  It took me about 12 sketches before I turned it on its side and experimented with broader strokes.

We spread out all of our sketches in one space which was an interesting way to see them.  It also allowed us to walk around the room, once we all gave permission, and to look at everyone's work.  And because we had all went through the same process, it wasn't a chance for one person's sketches to shine, for one person to be lauded as the best artist.

Our instructor talked about using the process as a reaction to something specific like a newscast or a piece of music or a mood.  She talked about her own experience, about using the process to journal in a way or to jolt herself out of boredom/blockage or to move herself out of a bad mood.

My teacher brain also thought about other ways that this group process could be interesting.  Could it be used in a Composition classroom?  Are there other places where fear of the blank page might need to be overcome this way?  I think the answer must surely be yes.

What a great class!  When I begin to doubt my reasons for being on campus (yes, it happens--I'm never far away from self-doubt), let me remember this class and the opportunity to take it.

Waiting for the Locksmith

Soon I will go for a walk.  Yesterday, I spent the whole day in my seminary apartment, waiting for the locksmith, so I need to get a walk in.  I'll go up to Wegmans and get a few items to finish the week.  I hope to do more substantial shopping this week-end when I'm back in North Carolina.

The locksmith did come, but the new lock won't be here until this morning.  Hopefully we can get the problem solved today.  It's good to know that it's not just my imagination that the lock is difficult.

Yesterday was a good day to stay close to the apartment.  All day, the sky looked like it might storm.  We never did get a storm, but it was lovely staying inside, watching the sky, baking bread, sending out poems for possible publication, updating my Books Read list and my offline journal.

Plus, my sister called.  She was in the neighborhood for a follow up appointment and wondered if she could drop by.  I was happy that I was home and could say yes. She had seen the apartment when we dropped off boxes a few weeks ago.  It was cool to be able to show her how I had settled in.  Plus, we had a good chat.

I got my reading for Church History class done.  I checked and doublechecked my class shells to make sure I was caught up on assignments.  I'm never caught up for long, but I'm caught up this morning.

Along the way, I heard of deaths.  Anne Garrels has died.  She was an NPR reporter, going to unsafe places I never would dare to venture.  Peter Straub died, and his daughter Emma created a powerful tribute thread to him.  On Facebook, I heard of the death of a pastor, who happened to be a friend from college.  We had fallen out of touch, and when I heard his death, I regretted that I hadn't tried to regain contact when Facebook helped so many of us reconnect.

The sky is getting lighter.  Let me get ready for a walk.  And then I'll wait for the locksmith.

It could be worse.  In 2017, I was waiting for the arrival of Hurricane Irma.  I'm glad not to have that anticipation.