Ghosts of Girlhoods Past and Other Thoughts on Costumes

It's been one of those strange weeks where I haven't gone home after work.  On Monday, I went to dinner with friends in Delray Beach, Tuesday was a BOLD Justice assembly, and last night was a PAC meeting at the Ft. Lauderdale campus.  As I've driven through the evenings, I've loved seeing the occasional house decorated with Halloween/autumn lights; one house was strung with lights and autumnal garlands which transformed the tiny cinderblock house into something glorious.

I've also been intrigued by all the Halloween pop-up stores--they're here for a month, and then they're gone.  It must say something about the economics of our capitalist Halloween culture that it's worth it to some business entity to do all that work for a month.  And then what?

I read an article in The Washington Post about a costume company.  Most of the year, the company sells costumes to people who will use them for sex stuff.  At Halloween, they do ten to twenty times the business selling the Sexy ______ costumes, with or without matching handcuffs, to adults who are dressing up for Halloween.

Yesterday we had a great spin class with Halloween music.  Some years, we've had a decorated spin class room, but not yesterday.  Our teacher did wear her cat ears headband--the ears have LED lights.  I found myself thinking about them all day, and that's how I found myself in one of those pop-up Halloween stores last night.

I pulled into the parking lot and reflected about the years I would have gone shopping in the smallest Publix ever.  Now that Publix has moved to the glamorous condo building across the street, and the old space has been transformed into a Halloween wonderland.  O.K., wonderland is a bit of a stretch.

The store was organized according to theme:  steampunk, medieval, Star Wars, etc.  But nothing that lit up.  I was secretly relieved.  The check out line was very long, as I might have expected the night before Halloween.

As I drove home, I thought, what's wrong with me?  I have lights of all sorts.  Why aren't I creating a costume?

In part, because I don't have time--I didn't start early enough.  In part, because I have a few disparate supplies and a vague vision.  I did pull my wedding veil out of the closet, and I'll take it to school, along with the lights.  Maybe I'll play at some point today.  We do have a costume contest after all.

It's been one of the kinds of week at school that I really enjoy.  I set up the pumpkin decorating station earlier this week, and I've enjoyed having the art supplies out and watching people drop in.  Each day, I set out a few more pumpkins.  Even the people who aren't creating seem to enjoy being around the pumpkins and the art supplies and the people creating.

Should I be thinking about the fact that I enjoy setting up creativity stations more than I enjoy the policing aspects of my job?  Lately, I've been thinking a lot--A LOT--about what I think makes a good manager and the ideas of other people about what managers should be doing.  But I may write more on that later.

Now it is time to think about the day.  I've added some dolls to the wedding veil and the battery powered lights.  Perhaps I shall create a Ghost of Girlhoods Past costume.  Or maybe I'll write a poem on that theme.  Or maybe both!

World Series Memories

I don't always pay close attention to the World Series, but I'm always aware of it.  Let's be honest--the World Series isn't always as interesting as this year's is.  Often the teams seem mismatched from the beginning.  Often the Series goes exactly as predicted. 

My spouse played baseball as a child and always regretted that he didn't continue to play as he went through middle school and high school.  So he watches the game differently.

One year we listened to the game.  We were traveling to Jacksonville, and we listened to the game on the radio.  I had trouble visualizing what was happening.  At one point, my spouse said he almost preferred the radio to the TV.

My earliest memory of the World Series is from 1980.  I was old enough to take my sister trick-or-treating.  My maternal grandparents were visiting.  My grandfather watched the World Series, even when he could have been celebrating Halloween.

I have since met many people who would arrange their social lives around baseball.  Their numbers get fewer, as other sports have taken cultural priority.

I remember the year that Boston got into the Series after a long dry streak.  I had students skip our evening class to watch the game.

In the autumn of 1992, I was finishing my Ph.D., but I was entering the stretch where many students get bogged down:  Comprehensive Exams and the dissertation.  That autumn, the Atlanta Braves, which had once been not much better than some Little League teams (according to my sneering spouse) began to change their fortunes.  I tried not to see any one game as a sign and get spooked. 

I have been alive long enough to see many teams that once were the losingest teams in baseball become World Series champs--and sometimes go back again (hello Marlins).  I know that it's simplistic to see this idea as a metaphor for larger life.  But in years like this one, the metaphor is irresistible.

If I had more time, I might write more about that.  But my spin instructor has put together a special ride for us--it's not only World Series time, but Halloween!

Delray Beach Musings

Last night, a friend and I went to see our other friend who sold her very big house in Ft. Lauderdale and moved to a glamorous apartment in Delray Beach.  We had a glass of wine at her place and then went downstairs to see where we wanted to eat.  We ate at a seafood/sushi place.  We ate outside, which sounds lovely, but it was sweltering.

I realize that just as I've spent the last weeks complaining about my weariness, I may have also mentioned the unrelenting heat.  Ugh.

As I drove home and heard about the fires in California, I thought about sweating through autumn.  We've usually had a small cold front by now, but there's nothing that looks promising to our north.  I thought about how I no longer know whether my sweating is due to global warming, menopause, and/or some fever flaring occasionally.  I wondered if I could write a poem about that.

As we looked at restaurants, I ruled some out because they seemed too loud.  At some point, I told myself to quit being so fussy, which is how we ended up sitting outside.  There were ceiling fans above us, but they didn't offer much resistance against the humid, hot air.

Am I becoming a little old lady, years before my time?  But in some ways, I've always been a little old lady:  I like the early bird special (none to be had at Delray Beach, or maybe we weren't early enough), I like a quiet environment so that I can hear my companions, I go to bed early (although there won't be many early bedtimes this week).

When I think about my friend's new location, it seems so perfect.  But I remind myself that calories are still calories--she can't eat out every night for the same reasons that I can't (calories, price, calories, price).  And while part of me sees the swarms of people on the streets as a sign that a place is happening/vital, part of me years for something more contemplative.

Contemplative and cooler--by which I mean the temperature, not the hipness.

I think about when we first moved down here, back in 1998.  I wish we had stretched a bit financially, bought a shabby house just off the main drag.  But even then, it would have been too much of a financial stretch--and Delray Beach is just far enough north that commuting back to our jobs in Broward county felt like a challenge.

To be honest, we didn't really consider it--that's a memory created by reflections in hindsight.  Maybe I should write a Wordsworthian poem:  Lines recollected at midlife influenced by reflections in hindsight. 

But I do remember taking out of town visitors to Delray Beach, exploring the interesting shops, wondering what it would be like to live there.  And once, long ago, my in-laws stayed in a time shore just across the ocean--which is a different setting in Delray Beach than in beaches to the south.  The beach side of the road isn't developed, and there are dunes protected by vegetation.

And now it is time to get ready for the day:  spin class and then off to work, followed by a county-wide church justice event.  Let me pack some extra veggies.

A Week-end of Treats

--I confess that we have eaten not just one, but two bags of Halloween candy.  By we, I mean primarily my spouse.

--We live on a street where we get 9-20 trick-or-treaters.  I'm not sure why my spouse felt the need to load up on candy.  One bag wasn't even the kind of candy he particularly likes (think Butterfingers, Baby Ruths, and such).

--I made sure to have some treats of my own this week-end.  On Friday night, I made the dough and assembled the pumpkin cinnamon rolls.  I baked a pan on Saturday morning and another pan on Sunday.  Delicious!

I tried taking a picture from above--trying to capture a bouquet of autumn flowers too, which was another kind of treat.

--I also worked on a small scale art project for church.  I volunteered to shift the worship space decorations from green to red.     I needed an element to fill in a hole:

I knew that we would be having an interfaith service--so what would be ecumenical and still speak to Reformation?  I thought about a flame or a labyrinth or spiral.  My spouse suggested a butterfly.  In the end, I went with what I knew I could pull off:

Here's a close up:

I though it worked nicely in the space:

--There was something so satisfying about swirling the paint on the cardboard, blending the colors, and it turned out exactly how I envisioned it, which doesn't always happen.

--I was thinking about past Halloweens and past autumns and at one point, I said to myself, "How did I have time to do all of that?"  And then I thought, because I was only working one job.  I thought about tying in this idea to the idea of tricks--that we tell ourselves we can handle some part-time gigs so that we can afford more treats.  And then, at some point, it morphs into being necessary just to cover the bills.  Sigh.

The Turning Point of Reformation Sunday

Fifteen years ago, I celebrated Reformation Sunday in a chapel at Mepkin Abbey.  Let me be clear:  I may have been the only one celebrating.  We had no red paraments or stoles, and nobody wore red.  We did not sing "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God."  We went much further back in church history chanting Psalms the way that people have for several millenniums.

I was there with a Lutheran and an Episcopalian.  The Lutheran was relieved to have a reason not to go to the high church celebration that her congregation planned for Reformation.  She said she was in the mood for the severe honesty of the Psalms, not the self-congratulatory language that often crept into Reformation Sunday.

I was happy to be able to get to the monastery.  I'd fallen in love with the work of Kathleen Norris, and I wanted a taste of what she experienced at a different monastery.  Of course, I discovered her work years after I moved away from South Carolina, where I would have only had to travel 10 miles to discover Mepkin Abbey.  In 2004, it took a plane ride.

I've since traveled back many times.  The monastery has changed, and I have too.  After that first trip, I felt transformed.  Re-entry was tough, and I yearned to go back permanently, even as I knew it was impossible.  I know I'm not the first person to fall in love with an object we cannot have, but I don't know how many people fall in love with a monastery.

As I reflect further on that week-end, I realize it was a confluence of holidays.  That year, Reformation Sunday fell on the actual day that Martin Luther nailed those theses to the door:  October 31.  Of course, it was also Halloween.  I remember sitting on a bench where we could see across the river, and I realized that we were watching children trick-or-treating.

At one point, my friend and I walked as late afternoon was shifting to dusk, with Spanish moss hanging down off the majestic trees, and we saw two monks walking ahead of us.  They looked as much like ghosts as they looked like monks.

It was 2004, the year of a big election which was just days away, and one of the monks asked if we were going to vote.  We assured him that we would.  He said, "I hope you vote for the right one."

I've always wished that I had engaged him more, asked him to elaborate, but in those days, I worried that engaging with the monks would seem disrespectful, especially if we talked about politics.

I think that it was that visit when one of the older monks prayed that our nation would wake up to realize how morally wrong it was to send our women to fight in wars and that we would soon bring them home.  I thought about how that might have once offended me, when I was a younger woman, but as an older person, I found it touching, even as I might have prayed that we bring everybody back from a war.

Looking back, I am shocked to realize how much longer that war in Afghanistan and Iraq would last.  I am shocked that we still have troops in both countries and that it feels more like a pause than an end to those conflicts.

On Monday, November 1, I realized that the chapel had changed.  It was All Saints Day, and we gathered in a dark chapel lit by candles that morning.  There was a framed print, and I'm almost sure it was John August Swanson's River of Souls.  At that point, I'd never been part of a church that used art in that way.  We had flower arrangements and banners that had been made decades before I was born and paraments and music.  I had attended churches that changed the paraments as the liturgical seasons changed, but that was it.

That week-end, and the visits I would make later combined with Create in Me retreats, ignited a yearning to be part of a church where we did more with the various elements to deepen worship.

In a way, I am now part of a church like the one I envisioned.  It's far from ideal--I'd like to have more of a team of people who inspire each other.  I miss the interactive services that we used to have.

But at least I have a pastor and  church members who are open to these ideas.  There's no altar guild with a stranglehold on the sanctuary.  Most of the church seems to support the idea of creative elements in our church--or at least, there's not a lot of active opposition. 

There are advantages to being part of a very small congregation.

This afternoon, I will have my own celebration of Reformation.  I'm going to finish my application to the spiritual director certificate program.

Maybe 15 years from now, I'll look back on this Reformation Sunday and think about the turning point of a different Reformation Sunday.

Just a Week Ago . . .

A week ago, I'd have been getting ready to go to work--yes, on a Saturday.  We are now required to give up part of a Saturday each month, one of us per Saturday, to have management presence on campus.  I requested the Saturday before the accreditation visit because I knew there might be work to do.  Knowing that I was working on Saturday relieved a bit of pressure during the week.

When I arrived on campus, my boss was already there, much to my surprise.  He, too, was anxious, so he came to campus, just to go over a few things and make sure he was ready.  We looked at the box of documents one more time.

Then he went home, and I kept preparing.  I bought some fruit juices and mixed fruit from the grocery store so that we'd have it on hand for breakfast for the accreditation team.  I added some documents to binders.  Our registrar read an e-mail which prompted her to stop by after her workout at the gym, and we created some documents so that we didn't have to think about getting that done Monday morning before the team arrived. 

We left, and I spent the rest of the week-end trying not to fret. 

In retrospect, I was fretting about some items that wouldn't give us trouble in the end.  My boss had heard that the accreditor that would be looking at our Business program had also been at the Miami campus, and he was spooked by their report of interactions.  His anxiety fueled mine, but we needn't have worried.  Our lead faculty member for Business and the accreditor had a great time talking business and education and the future of the field.

My colleagues across the campus had similar experiences.  We had no trouble talking to the accreditors.  We had good conversations, in fact.  Over and over again, we heard about our well-run campus, about the satisfaction of our students.

Let me remember that nugget in the days to come.  Let me remember that the visit went well.  Let me remember the positive feedback.

Planning for Joy

This week has been one of the more exhausting weeks of my adult life:  it began with an accreditation visit, and I haven't really recovered.  Actually, this week has been exhausting not because of the week itself, but because of all the weeks leading up to it.

I am still waiting to feel the happiness about a fairly successful accreditation visit.  Part of the reason I am still waiting is that we have shifted to some of the policing parts of my job that I like least:  who is letting their class go early, who is voicing emotions that should not be expressed to others, how to explain the need for more staffing.  It is the grinding stuff that wears me out.  It reminds me of how many of us can't rest in grace but need the harshness of law and judgment to feel comfortable.

Or maybe I'm reading theology where there is none.  The lack of theology would help explain many a situation.

Yesterday I decided I needed to insert spots of joy into my week-end.  I have plans to bake pumpkin cinnamon rolls.  I will write something that brings me joy--I have written many accreditation documents so I deserve a different kind of writing.

I will take some time to enjoy the pumpkins on the porch.  At work, I have been enjoying the pumpkins I bought for next week's pumpkin decorating station:

I even found the bewitching fabric remnant that I got a few years ago and set aside for myself:

And I couldn't resist this bit of whimsy (even though I was sad that I couldn't stay up until 8 p.m. on Tuesday to watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown):

Let me also hope for some sleep this week-end.  Part of my lack of joy and my irritability stems from deep exhaustion.

And I will also get some reading time in.  On Wednesday, my copy of Tressie McMillan Cottom's Thick arrived and I consumed half of it on the spot.  I will finish the book this week-end--the thought of doing that brings me joy, as does the actual reading.