The Essential Questions of All Saints

I have noticed in the past few years that I have more trouble adapting to the fall time change than the spring one.  Something about the darkness invading the late afternoon really throws me off.

 

My grandmother was the same way--she hated this time change, and I thought it was about safety.  Now I wonder.

 

This year my mood is further impacted by the gloom of needed hurricane repairs and the slow pace of it all.  Plus, my spouse is feeling similarly gloomy.  We are often not in gloomy moods at the same time.  In fact, I've often joked that we're two halves of a bipolar personality (I'm manic; he's depressed).

 

The hurricane has made many of us down here re-evaluate our 5 and 10 year plans.  I'm re-evaluating to be sure, but I have no idea where it will all end.  I've never been good at being content to live in the mystery, to live in and through the questions.  I want a 5 year plan and a plan B and several back-up plans.

 

Complicating it all is the slow pace of my creative work--and I live in a house where I'm surrounded by reminders that I was once more prolific:  quilts that I made completely by hand on our beds, boxes of drafts, a shelf of chapbooks, several boxes of journals that contain my poems.

 

My Create in Me friend, Mitzie Spencer Schafer, has written a wonderful blog post that connects All Saints Sunday with essential questions for artists: "I guess it is only natural, but I couldn’t help thinking, 'What if I could learn from this? How might I apply this slowing down and intentionality to my own art and creativity?' What would I be making? What would I be designing? How much time would I really want to spend on it? What would it do for my emotional health? 

Would it even matter?"

Read the whole post here.

 

I will warn you that Mitzie's post doesn't give us any answers--and that makes sense to me.  And I know that the answers this year might not be the same as the answers when I was 20 or 40.

 

I just finished re-reading Marge Piercy's Braided Lives, which is a portrait of the artist as a young woman during the 1950's.  It impacted me deeply when I read it in undergraduate school, and I found it just as moving with this reading.  Jill, the young poet in that novel, wrestles with the same questions while trying to decide how to set up her life in order to have space to answer those questions.

 

Today I will return to the task of revising the book length manuscript of poems.  At some point soon, I'll read through the whole draft to make sure that I'm not repeating images too often.  I worry that every other poem has an image of jewels sewn into hemlines as people flee oppression.

 

I will revise the manuscript and read my work and rejoice that I'm still able to do it.  I'll have lunch with one friend and later, wine and cheese with another friend and be grateful for the friends I have here.  We may all decide to move away, but like Jill in Braided Lives, I have hopes that we can stay connected.

All Saints Sunday Wrap Up

There are advantages to being offline for a day.  Yesterday, I turned off my computer when we went to church, and I didn't turn it back on--thus, I missed the news about the mass shooting in the Baptist church in Texas.  It was such a small community!  I went to college in Newberry, South Carolina which was a slightly larger town, so I understand the impact this crime will have on the even smaller town.  

Instead of spending the afternoon bogged down in horrifying details, we had my husband's brother and his wife over for lunch after church.  I woke up very early because of the time change, so I got some chicken breasts into a lemon-garlic marinade.  It was delicious.  We had roast potatoes and broccoli to go along with the meal, and apple crisp and vanilla ice cream for dessert.  It was a perfect Sunday meal.

We exchanged hurricane stories.  After lunch, they looked at the cottage, while I did the dishes.  My sister-in-law said that the damage wasn't as bad as she expected, which was oddly comforting.  We pried up a floorboard in the main house--the standing water that was under the house has receded, which was very comforting.

After they headed home, we took our wine onto the front porch.  It was good to finish the week-end this way.

I'm glad that I didn't know about this shooting along the way.  It was good to celebrate All Saints Sunday in a more general way--to go to church to be reminded of the kind of community God calls us to be, and spending time together in community while we're on this side of the grave.

Highlights from a Creative Week

It has been a good week in terms of creativity.  Let me take a minute here and recap:

--On Monday, I helped orchestrate a successful decorate-a-pumpkin day for students at my college campus.  The very act of putting together a table full of decorations felt creative--and it was cool to see so many students respond enthusiastically.

--On Tuesday, we had a costume contest at school.  I delighted in the variety of costumes.

--On Thursday, I had a great poetry writing morning.  Steeped in Halloween and the feast days of All Saints and All Souls (Nov. 2), I sat down, and a poem just flowed out of me.  I've pasted it at the end of this post.

--On Thursday, I created a Veteran's Day art project for us all.  I'm asking people to post a picture of their favorite veteran or to write a thank you note to a veteran.  So far, we've had some participation, which makes me happy.

--On Friday, I revised my book-length manuscript.  The book-length manuscript included most of the poems that have since appeared in my chapbook Life in the Holocene Extinction.  Awhile ago, I made the decision to only have a few poems from each chapbook in any book-length manuscript--the audience for both chapbooks and longer books is likely to be the same, and I want readers to get mostly new content.  But at the same time, I know that a book-length manuscript might last longer, so I don't want to exclude poems, simply because they appeared in a chapbook.  Plus, some just really fit thematically.

I want to have the manuscript ready for entry to this reading series open only to women over age 50.  I felt a bit overwhelmed when I first realized how many poems might need to be removed.  But in the end, it wasn't as hard as I feared.

--I've done some cooking and baking--delightful!


Here's a poem for today, the day when many churches will be celebrating All Saints Sunday.  It first appeared here, on Dave Bonta's wonderful Via Negativa website.


All Saints Songs

 

"with all the evening music
great as a prayer" 

        Dave Bonta, “Red-Lined“

I awake early on the Feast
of All Saints and take
my coffee to the porch.
Once I would have stayed
awake until this hour, wringing
all the celebration possible
out of our All Hallows Eve.
I say a prayer for all those departed,
the ones gone much too early from the party.

Once I would have lit the candles
and declared my love
of thin spaces. Now I fear the hunger
of ghosts who are not ready
to leave and the hooligans
who take advantage of the dark.

I touch the pumpkin’s crumpled face
collapsed from the candle’s heat.
I put the gourd on the pile
of tree limbs ripped from the body
of the tree canopy during September’s storm.

 I hear one lone bird singing
either a prayer to greet
the morning or a lullaby before sleep.
I look to the sky, still dark,
no message in the stars.

Solace and Self Care with Apple Crisp

Long ago, when both my spouse and I had more flexible schedules, he served on the Board of Trustees of Novus Way.  Novus Way is the organization that oversees 4 Lutheran camps.  I always went along to the Board meetings.

This week-end, I'm seeing Facebook posts from the current Board members, and I feel a bit sad.  I know that our current life won't support either one of us being an effective Board member--that fact makes me sad.

I'm trying to feel happy with the memories that I have of times that we had an autumn trip to the mountains.  I have an apple crisp in the oven, both for solace and because I'm taking it to my quilt group.  I will feel happy to still have friends here who will meet to sew and to have yummies together.

My apple crisp recipe is easy and adaptable and fairly quick, as recipes go.  In case you are needing solace too, I'll post it below.  It's great at all hours of the day, and it can function as dessert, snack, or breakfast/lunch.  It's fairly healthy. 

If you need some self care, this is the recipe for you--in these later years, I make it solely with apples, but there are ways to make it even more healthy, which I list below.  I know that I post this recipe periodically--that's how delicious it is. In the words of the old camp song, I want to pass it on!

Apple Crisp (based on a recipe from Jane Brody's Good Food Book Cookbook)

Fruit
2 or more apples* cut in bite size chunks
carrot shreds to taste or not at all
cranberries, fresh or dried, chopped or not--or not at all:  1/2 C. to 1 C.
blueberries, fresh or frozen, would probably work nicely too

At this point, you can toss the fruit with a few T. of white or brown sugar, but it works well without it.

Put the fruit in your pan:  a greased pie plate or a square dish or a casserole pan or a 9 x 13 pan.  In the same bowl mix the following:

Topping (can be varied, depending on whether you like a lot of crispy topping or little)
1-2 C. whole oats (quick cooking works too)
a few T. brown sugar - 1/2 Cup --1 C. if you're making a big pan or want a very sweet crisp
1-2 T. cinnamon
nuts:  anything from a handful of chopped nuts to 1 C. or more.  I prefer pecans, but walnuts work too.  I imagine that hazlenuts or almonds would be nice.  And of course, you could leave the nuts out.
You could also include some ground flax seeds or wheat germ.
 a few T. of flour--or not

Spread the fruit on the bottom of the pan and the topping on top.  Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes, until nicely brownish on top or less brown, if you prefer.  Enjoy for dessert (goes great with vanilla ice cream!), breakfast, or a healthy snack.

Shopping Lists

More than once this week, I was struck by how much of my life as an administrator now involves buying things or authorizing purchases.  Let me capture my life as an administrator through the medium of items bought:

--Yesterday I signed a purchase order for skinned cats--no, it wasn't for Halloween, but for our Vet Tech program.  There's a shortage of skinned cats, and a back order, so we may not get them for several months.  I tried not to think too much about the implications of that sentence.

--I have approved orders for a variety of office supplies.  No surprise there.

--The day after Halloween I went out to see if I could find Halloween supplies at deep discounts.  I was only successful in finding autumnal ribbon at Jo-Anns.  Our pumpkin decorating event was so successful that I stocked up for next year.

--I was surprised at how quickly Halloween left the stores.  And now it's on to Christmas--what about Veterans Day or Thanksgiving?

--Yesterday I went out for a variety of things:  small litter pans, a fake Christmas tree, materials with which to make a Veterans Day bulletin board, AA batteries, and some paper goods for our Thanksgiving meal on the Monday before Thanksgiving.

--Today or Monday, I need to order the turkeys for that Thanksgiving meal.  I had thought that Corporate might be able to order the turkeys for all the campuses, but it was not to be.

--We also started to plan for our Winter festival week.  We will buy some gingerbread house kits and leave them on tables for students to build and decorate them.  We will have hot chocolate.  We will need candy canes.

I do wonder if anyone above me will say to me at some point, "You know, we did not hire you to make holiday bulletin boards or to plan art projects."  But as long as I'm not neglecting the more academic duties--staffing classes, keeping records, making sure that students are progressing as they should--I think I'll be fine.

Cottages and Chicken Coops

As we've been watching various shows on the Create channel (PBS's answer to Home and Garden and Food channels on cable), I've noticed a variety of shows coming back to chickens--the kind you raise, not necessarily the main course for dinner.  At one point, I turned to my spouse and said, "Let's turn the cottage into a chicken coop."

I was only partly joking.  A cottage will do far more to increase the property value than a chicken coop.  Plus our cottage has a kitchen and a bathroom, which chickens wouldn't need.  Transforming a cottage into a chicken coop makes no sense.

Except . . . it would cost less.  It would take less work.  The chickens would be protected in the cottage in a way they wouldn't if in a traditional coop.

What's really at the root here:  I am weary at the thought of making the decisions that must be made to bring the cottage back to usability:  a new AC/heating system, reinforcing the foundation, replacing some drywall and figuring out the floors.  And then we can figure out furnishings.

I've been looking through my sketchbook, and this theme jumps out at me:

I took the picture without a flash, which accounts for the sepia tone in this picture and the next one.  I like the effect, although it wasn't intended.

I also know that my yearning for chickens shows a deeper yearning for a simpler life, a life where there is time to care for chickens.  There's the self-sufficiency aspect and the wanting a homestead of my own--these elements have been part of my personality since I first learned to read.

I love this goat.  I love the pumpkins and the chicken.  The perspective is screwy, but I find that sort of charming too.

I know that if I had a real goat and real chickens, I would grow weary of their needs and demands too.  It would become a job.  I would wonder why I didn't want a traditional cottage that I could have monetized in a different way or have space for visitors.

I would wonder why I didn't transform the cottage into a writing retreat.  I would resent the animals for taking away my writing time.

But psychologically, that's where I am.  At least for this season.

Early Morning, Feast of All Saints

This morning I walked outside to put the rest of the Halloween candy in the car.  Like much of America, I'm taking the leftover candy to work.

It was dark, of course, and oddly moist, and quiet.  I thought, it's the feast of All Saints.  I looked at our motorcycles, likely wrecked by Hurricane Irma, although none of our insurance companies cover that damage.

I thought about last night's celebration.  My spouse was teaching, and I went over to a friend's front yard party.  All my neighborhood friends (who once taught at the same school, but have moved on to other endeavors) brought goodies and nibbles and wine.  The kids raced around and tried to climb the palm tree, and occasionally, an adult set out with them to trick-or-treat.  It was wonderful.

I spent part of Halloween talking to the flood insurance people.  At first I was happy about the amount of our check that will be in the mail.  And then I wondered how much damage we'd need to have to get the full amount of the policy:  $250,000 minus the $2000 deductible.

I thought about all the losses of the last years, as I often do on this feast day--as I often do on every day these days.  I thought about a time long ago when I first had a sense of these losses, during my sophomore year in college, where we'd spent Halloween going from party to party and watching The Birds, and as October moved into November, we sat on the courthouse steps in Newberry, South Carolina.

I've turned that night into both a poem and at least one short story.  Here's the poem, which was first published in A Summer’s Reading .  I've changed the names, to protect the privacy of my undergraduate friends.



Hitchcock Virgin


Halloween, 1984. True creatures of the night,
we roam the town. Nineteen years old, we know
our currency will soon lose face. We flit
from party to party, refusing to limit
ourselves to the standard fraternity
bores. We head to Main Street, to the spooky tomb
of a house which looks even creepier
crypted for Halloween.

Middle-aged men proposition us in the kitchen, corner
us where their wives won’t hear. They miss
bodies unmarked by childbirth, breasts unbound
by gravity. Their age terrifies them. They stink
of mortality and stale beer. I eat my fill
of free food, avoid the alcohol and desperate
mid-life hormones, feel the rare thrill
of my powers to attract, even if I’m captivating
men I do not want.

We jump by George’s house after all the trick-or-treaters
have gone. We eat the last of his candy
and watch The Birds, for me, the first
time. I’m a Hitchcock virgin, yet immune
to his power. These birds don’t seem evil
as much as demented. It’s a Hitchcock
double header. We stay for the shower
scene in Psycho, the one that haunted
my mother, made her avoid showers for a season.
Once again, I shrug.  Sorrel and I head
out, while George and Diane stay
behind to learn Anthony Perkins’ strange secrets.

As October turns to November, we settle
on the cold, marble courthouse steps that face
College Street, squat in the spot where the county forefathers
pledged their fidelity to the Confederacy.
I feel the history of the place seep
into my bones. My festive mood faints
at the thought of how quickly college will be over,
how soon I will be another ghost haunting this town.