Kristins, Past, Future, and Present

I used to read the journals of my younger years looking for a specific reference to a cultural event or some sort of writing that I'm sure must be there--and usually I realize that the event or writing that looms so large now, when I think back to a past year, either didn't register as fully at the time or I was writing about something else.

I wonder if Future Kristin will wonder why I wasn't writing about politics more.  I certainly can't remember ever being as interested in primary results as I have been this election, but it's not what fills my head during most hours of the day.  And I'm sure that some day I'll wonder why I didn't write more about the first female candidate who seems viable and my worries about her baggage--I just didn't anticipate that the Republicans would have a candidate that had even more baggage.

I wonder if Future Kristin will wonder why I didn't write more about all the bathroom controversies of 2016.  Perhaps she will remember that I didn't write about them because then the world might discover how neurotic I am about this issue.  I'd prefer not to have anyone in the bathroom with me, regardless of gender--but it's not because I'm worried about attacks or anyone seeing anything private.  I am a bit of a medievalist--I tend to think of myself as a soul trapped in a body, even as I realize the cruddy theology that shapes that kind of thinking.

If I was reading past journals today, I'd be looking for a reference to Daniel Berrigan, who died over the week-end.  I think of him as shaping my theories of social justice and Christianity, although it was through the way he lived his life rather than through his writing.

I think of the ways that I've tried to live my life as witness.  It hasn't been as flamboyant as the ways that the Berrigan brothers lived their lives.  We can't all be dumping blood on government records  and nuclear warheads, after all.

Last night, my spin class was cancelled, so I headed home.  Our Comcast service is disrupted again, this time the phone, not the Internet.  So I called and requested that my bill be reduced to reflect that I only had a half month of service--this was granted.  My spouse grilled the fish, and we headed to the porch for supper.

What a delight.  My spouse is finishing up a semester of teaching Ethics at the community college, and he's been having a great time.  We talked about how teaching Humanities in general, Ethics specifically, is the most important subject, about how the Humanities teaches students how to live an honorable life.  I like to think that our work is as important as the work of the Daniel Berrigan, although it's a different type of work in some ways.

And let me just contemplate this:  our work might impact more people in the end than the more flamboyant social justice demonstrating.  In so many different settings, we have both worked with students who come from a disadvantaged place in society--education may be their best shot at a better life, and we have helped.

In these later years, I've worried about the amount of debt that students take on as they work towards this better life.  I've worried about being part of the system that enslaves the modern student.

I suspect that Daniel Berrigan would lecture me about how I am complicit and therefore must make different choices.  I think of students who need more people like me, people who care about their success and want to help them through.

Ah, living the moral life--it's not as easy as my 19 year old self thought it would be.

Passionate Kisses and Poem Creation

I wrote a poem this morning--my poetry notebook tells me that the last poem I wrote before this one was April 14.  Can that be possible?

On the one hand, I'm surprised.  I feel like I've been writing a lot, and perhaps I have, but it hasn't been poetry.  My goal is two poems a week, and for much of the year, I've been successful.

But on the other hand, I'm not surprised.  Two weeks ago, I was getting ready for the arrival of our college friend, and 1 week ago, I was taking him to the bus station.  In between, I did a lot of travelling in conjunction with the retreat in Richmond that I helped lead.

This morning, I wove a poem out of the couple that I saw at the bus station, the ones kissing passionately and looking mournful, as if one of them was headed off for a long exile.  The poem considers old Prince videos and the last time we danced.  The poem suggests that we will all go off into exile at some point.

Here is the beginning of the poem:

In between the grocery store
and the laundry, there is the passionate kiss
at the bus station,
the kiss that is not yours.

These lines came to me when I was feeling a bit of despair at having let so much time slip by since my last poetry writing session, when I felt uninspired, like I couldn't remember ever having had an idea for a poem.  And then the first 2 lines came, and then the rest of the poem came fairly easily.  I needed this kind of experience this morning--I'm glad it wasn't the wrestling line by line that I sometimes experience.

I am glad to get back to the creation of poems. 

Snapshots from a Week-end

I had a great week-end--let me count the ways:

--On Friday, we ate a real meal, of salmon, with side dishes of steamed carrots and cous cous.  I also made a great sauce:  1/2 c. sugar, melted in a large sauce pan, then 2 C. wine added (Mark Bittman's recipe called for pinot noir, but I had cabernet), then the whole thing is boiled down to 1/2 c. of syrup, add a T. of balsamic vinegar and a T. of butter.  Yum.

Why does it feel so significant, a meal with side dishes?  After all, we've been eating--but usually it's been cheese later at night or a salad or just a burger from the grill--all satisfying and nourishing to certain extents, but not a meal, the way I've been trained to think of a meal.  And we ate it at the table, with music on the stereo, not in front of the TV or gulped on the go.

--After our meal, we sat on the porch, enjoying wine and watching darkness settle over the neighborhood.  We spent every evening this week-end on the front porch.

--On Saturday, I had a really vigorous, really wonderful spin class ride.

--We got a lot of chores done, like grocery shopping, laundry, mowing the bit of grass we have.  We have been neglecting some of these chores for weeks, as we have had house guests and I have been off on travels.

--I had time to do creative work.  On Saturday, I sketched several different times.  Here's my favorite, with a quote that comes from a PBS show I was watching on the creation of the sculpture on Mt. Rushmore:

On Saturday morning, I figured out how to weave together 3 chunks of a short story that I hadn't been able to figure out.  Here's the second paragraph:

I typed an e-mail, an e-mail on the company computer, which I knew might be monitored, but I didn’t care. I wrote to my oldest friend whom I had known since our college days: “I am watching old Prince videos while ignoring my self-imposed deadline on spreadsheet submission. The door to my office is wide open, and the volume is up. This may be the most subversive thing I have done in a decade.”

The way I envision the story right now:  most of it will deal with a pivotal summer in the narrator's past, the summer that "When Doves Cry" dominated the airwaves.

--On Sunday, we went on a motorcycle ride to help raise money for a police benevolence fund.  It was mostly flawless.  It seems like a long time since we've had a ride that perfect.  The weather couldn't have been much better, and it was great to ride through the Keys, a place of so much beauty.  Our ride took most of the day, but it what a wonderful Sunday.

Prayers for May 1 Holidays

So, how will you be celebrating this first day of May?  Will you weave ribbons around a Maypole?  Will you go to a demonstration in favor of worker's rights?  Will you bring a bouquet of flowers into the house?  Will you sing "Solidarity Forever" or "L'Internationale"?

I will be on the motorcycle with my spouse, so that we can do the Spring POAT (Police Officers Assistance Trust) ride; it raises money for the fund, which helps officers and their families who need help for various reasons.  I like riding in a big group, especially with the police going along to stop traffic and give us the right of way.

It's not a traditional way of celebrating May 1.  I should have gone out before daylight to leave flowers on doorsteps and such.  So, as we make our way to the Keys, I will look for flowers that are growing in nature, and say a prayer of appreciation.

I will also say a prayer for all the workers across the globe, many (most?) of them who are working in conditions that are far from fully safe: the worker who sews those clothes in those factories, who grows the food we eat, who ships all of our goods to us.  It's a good day to think about who cleans up our workplaces after we're gone for the day.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about meaningful work and what I'd like to do with the second half of my life.  It's a good day to be grateful that I have the luxury to do that, and to say a prayer for those who don't have that freedom.

We could also say a prayer for workers of the future.  We are at the point for many schools when students must put down a deposit to secure their space for fall.  What will they study?  What career fields will exist for them that we can't even imagine now?

I will also say a prayer for those who are creating something today.  If you need inspiration, try this:  can you create something that weaves these strands together?  Here are some possibilities:  a sculpture made out of ribbons that explores the world of migrant workers.  A poem that celebrates flowers and contemplates the ways that we love some blooms (flowers) but not others (algae, cancer).  A painting that uses weaving in some ways to think about the past century of efforts to enlarge the workplace and make it safer.

We are close to halfway through the year.  As I sit on the bike, appreciating the natural beauty all around me, I will also think about my goals for the year.  How do I need to change my trajectory so that I can be on track?  Are there new goals that I need to add?

So, in whatever way we decide to celebrate, I hope today is a joyous one. 

Retreat Retrospective (with Pictures)

A week ago, I'd have been about to head to Richmond for the women's retreat put together by the women of my mom's church, St. Stephen Lutheran Church in Williamsburg, Virginia.  We went to Richmond Hill, a retreat center in urban Richmond, in a gentrifying neighborhood (or perhaps already gentrified).  Above the door is a reminder of one of the missions of Richmond Hill:

The retreat center is 2 or 3 buildings:  a historic house, a historic church and school, and parts of the building which look newer.

And of course, there are lovely gardens--someone has designed amazing creations in what is actually a very small space for walking gardens.

There's an amazing labyrinth:

I love the old church/chapel, where the community gathers 3 times a day to pray for Richmond and for a variety of other people and places:

The chapel has a wall of historic stained glass windows:

The meeting room, contained in the historic house part of the center, had windows on three sides; it was a great space where we gathered throughout the retreat to discuss parables, to experience contemplative movement, and to make cards that will be sent to parishioners throughout the year.

Along the hallway to the main meeting room were smaller spaces.  Here I am facilitating a workshop on spiritual journaling:

Here's a different meeting room:

My mom used the word "austere" to describe the rooms, which are simple with single use community bathrooms down the hall.  The rooms were spacious and the beds comfortable.   We remade the beds when we were done, and we prayed for the next retreatents as we prepared the room.

The retreat center has 10-16 people who live at the center full-time and take care of it.  The community has elements of a monastic order, although they are not vowed to place and they do not require a lifetime commitment.  There are small apartments for them tucked into various spaces throughout the center.  And there are common spaces; below is the lounge just outside the dining area:

Along the way, we were reminded of the overriding purpose of the retreat center:

And thus renewed, we headed back into the world, to be the light, the salt, the yeast, the city on a hill.

Passionate Kisses of the Young and Desperate

We have been having Internet/router and phone issues--hopefully the 3rd visit by Comcast today will fix everything for good.  I am trying not to despair by reminding myself that in the grand scheme of life, these problems are relatively easy--but exasperating as they happen.

So, let me capture a few of the events of the week that I want to remember:

--On Tuesday morning, I took my friend to the bus station.  Once I saw that he was safely on the bus, I went back to my car in the parking lot on the other side of my car.  Beside my car was a thriftstore-glamorous couple clinging to each other and kissing in that desperate way that one sees when one part of the couple is going to leave momentarily..

I thought about how seldom I see this kind of kiss these days, even though I've been traveling.  I didn't see it in the airports I've been to in the past month.  I don't see it in the parking garage of my school.  The other passengers in the bus station that day were not in passionate-desperate kissing mode.

--On Wednesday night I drove home after 8, as darkness was starting to settle in for the night.  A Queen song came on the radio.  I marveled at the great quality of the sound.  I stayed in the car in the driveway to hear "Somebody to Love" all the way to the end.  Has there ever been anyone else as talented as Freddy Mercury?

--Prince may not have been as vocally talented (see this story to understand why Mercury's voice was so amazing), but he certainly was more talented in a number of ways.  Last night, we had a spin class ride with the music of Prince.  It was amazing.

--I got an idea for a short story as we spun:  a woman who makes a life-changing experience based on the reactions to the song "When Doves Cry."  Stay tuned!

--I also thought of a poem based on that passionate-desperate kiss and watching old Prince and Duran Duran videos on the computer at work while eating my sturdy breakfast of yogurt, raspberries, oats, and pecans.  Men in make-up contrasted with a sensible breakfast.  Hmm.

--I hope to have a chance to actually write in the coming days.

--Last night, after my spin class ride, I pulled out my markers.  I need to get back to daily sketching, drawing, journaling with color.  You can see the influence of Prince:

Straightjacket or Smorgasbord

On Thursday, I caught a ride to work very early with a friend; we got there so early that we had to wait for the building to open.  I sent some e-mails at 7 a.m., and I was amazed at how quickly my colleagues answered them.

I was there early because I was going to catch a flight to Richmond at mid-day.  Somewhere in there, Prince's body was discovered.  I didn't hear the news in real time, the way I have with other deaths of famous people.  We were waiting at baggage claim, and my mom asked a woman if they had figured out how Prince died.

I thought, Prince Charles?  One of Diana's boys?  And then it dawned on me.  I said, "Do you mean the musical figure, Prince?"  My mom nodded.  I did quick calculations.  Was he that much older than I thought?  Had he had some disease I didn't know about?  And I felt that blow:  one more amazing, creative person gone--will this year never end?

I was offline much of the time between Thursday and Monday, and I felt strangely disconnected.  I was fairly sure what would be posted on Facebook--the same kinds of things that my friends posted when Bowie died.  I missed that aspect of communal grieving.

I don't have any Prince albums.  I couldn't have spent the whole day revisiting the past that way, which is a shame.  The music of Prince, like the music of so many others, was a backdrop to many of my most formative years.  I remember a hot summer morning in 1984 when my boyfriend (who would become my husband) reached over to turn up the radio.  "This is the most amazing song," he said about "When Doves Cry."

I thought about Prince, who wrote what seemed to be the essential party song "1999," a year that seemed impossibly long into the future when I was in high school when the song came out.  The music and the movie from the Purple Rain period seemed a change in direction--and it was and it wasn't.

As a teenager, what both scared and intoxicated me about Prince, and about David Bowie, was that sense that they didn't buy into the dominant cultural message about how we must be men and women.  And I still find that aspect deeply compelling.  That undercurrent of androgyny in the 70's and 80's seems an important development to getting us where we are today.  It's also important to getting us where I hope we'll be some day--while we've made progress, many of us still find gendered expectations to be more like a straightjacket than a smorgasbord of choices.

In my later years, I've come to appreciate both Prince and Bowie as artists who never let the dominant culture tell them about how we must be artists.  That message, too, is one we sorely need.

Too often, we let ourselves become experts in one art form, and we ignore the yearnings to try something new.  We tell ourselves we're poets, so we can't also write a novel.  We're writers, so why invest in fancy markers?  On and on we go like this.  And some of us might add the soul deadeners of "I'll never master this, so why start?" or "I can't make money at this, so why bother?"

Or worse:  I'm too old, it's too late.

In this year of deaths that startle me out of my lethargy, let me use this unsettled feeling to return to the work that is important--and to remember to play with abandon.  Let me do some of both each day.  And let me be delighted by both.

And let me remember that the work that is important may come disguised as play that has no apparent purpose other than joy.