Seeing is Believing

Here's an amazing view of disposables in America

http://www.chrisjordan.com/

Easter Sunday

One thing I've learned from this year's Lenten practice of giving up take-out cups (a habit I will continue) and writing about it, is to simplify. In the process of simplifying, of giving up some pressures, I feel richer and more at peace. I've learned that even the humblest of intentional acts is worth meditating on. Today turned out to be one of the most restful and fulfilling Easters I've had for a long time. The highlight was holding my dear little granddaughter Willow for most of the afternoon, trying to lull her to sleep so her tired parents could play an involved board game with the rest of the company, and dozing off myself.

I got up early to bake three strawberry rhubarb pies, a traditional family spring favorite. 21-month-old Willow has discovered pie, not only to eat it, but to say it. "Pie, pie, pie." So the pies were in honor of her. Julia and I went to church early because David was going to perform a Sacred Harp Song, "Antioch," with the "Shouting Boys' Choir." He loves this sacred harp tune,"I know that my Redeemer liveth, Glory Hallelujah," and he loves singing it in his child's mezzo-soprano at the top of his lungs. At first I couldn't find him in the sanctuary (his South Bend friends were supposed to drop him off), but at last I discovered him on a back bench by himself. When he sang with the choir, Julia and I could hear his happy, confident voice rising through the others.

Bryan's parents, Bryan, Elizabeth & Willow were our guests at our Easter feast. It was too cold to hunt Easter eggs outside, but I hid them inside the house for David and Julia. I'd asked the kids exactly what they wanted at Easter and didn't do a bit more than that. David wanted to hunt eggs. Julia wanted only organic dark chocolate. Willow was far too sick with the flu to even want to hunt for eggs, but she loved the jelly beans with natural fruit flavors. After my lovely nap with Willow, during which everyone else washed the dishes, I discovered where I'd stashed all the colored, hollowed-out eggs we'd dyed and decorated last year, and made a table display for the cleared table.

And Bryan's mother offered each of the women in our family a folder she'd decorated with recycled pictures from calendars, inspirational sayings, collaged to create a pleasing harmony of texture, color, and image. She let us choose from a whole stack of them and we spent a long time admiring the designs and combinations she'd created.

A few days back I opened a book by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week, their historically based interpretation of Holy week. I didn't have time to read the whole book, which begins with the claim that Jesus's triumphant entry into Jerusalem was a political statement, a counter-procession to Pilate's Roman procession into the same city. But I read the final chapter on resurrection. Borg spends a lot of time showing how the Gospels each tell a different story of the resurrection, and it's even set in two different places. He discusses the appearances of Jesus to Mary Magdalen and to the disciples on the road to Emaus. Even when I was a child, these stories unsettled me. Even Mary, who saw Jesus in the garden outside the tomb after his resurrection, didn't recognize him. Borg calls the resurrection stories parables. Rather than struggle with whether or not they are literally true or verifiabl we should focus on what they mean.

To me, this year, they mean that the presence of those loved ones we have lost is still with us. We may not recognize them when they appear, because we cannot "see" them. And yet they are with us. And Christ is with us, too, in the ways in which we honor each other, in the invisible connections that bind us to each other. I didn't really understand this until I lost my parents. I didn't know until then how the love they had given me would live on, firmly rooted in my heart, each day. This, indeed is eternal life. Or at least as long as we hold it in our hearts, then pass it on to others in the perpetual rhythm of give and take.

My journey isn't finished. I'm still driving around with two or three boxes of sorted books designated for give-away to the library in the back of the car. I'll be working on the clutter, the sorting of the useful and the not-useful, for a long time to come. But by sharing the journey, I've grown more deeply aware that we're all on it together.

Snow and Sun

This morning we woke to the snow I'd been mentally forecasting for Easter. Julia helped me with some laundry and cleaning before she took off for tennis indoor practice. I then drove David to South Bend to attend a friend's birthday party and stay overnight. About that time, the sun came out and completely melted the snow. I brought student papers with me and decided to treat myself to an afternoon in South Bend, first at Lula's Cafe, and then at Notre Dame's cathedral of a bookstore. I managed to stay away from take-out coffee, got some papers done, and feasted among the books at the bookstore. The year I give up books for Lent--that will be a tough one.

I sat in the sun for a while outside the bookstore, soaking in the light, before I drove home to join Julia, who had enjoyed her own afternoon alone. Instead of baking the pies for tomorrow, I curled up on the couch with her and we watched Sense and Sensibility. A perfect end to a lovely day.

The Big Invisible Hammock

Good Friday. A quiet day at home, at last, with David and Julia, who are not in school. We are cleaning, again. They have both given me their support, and I've decided that this ritual will be fun. Something we can enjoy together. David loves to engage in teamwork, and Julia, when she has time, gets carried away with the creativity of organization. We just need time to be at home with each other. Merv is alone in the snowdrifts of Norway, finishing up his research project and won't be here to join us for Easter. I know I will be sad if the kids and I don't share the holiday with others. With their help, I'm getting almost enough courage to invite my oldest daughter Elizabeth, her partner Bryan, their toddler Willow, and Bryan's parents for Easter Dinner.

Elizabeth came over to help me do the grocery shopping this afternoon, and just as we were leaving the house, my kinesiologist's office called and said they had a cancellation in one hour. Elizabeth and I quickly gathered a beautiful array of salmon, asparagus, ice cream, French bread, and other inspiring groceries from the co-op, and then I went to take the appointment. It's been over a year since I've seen Steve, and he was tremendously helpful. He finds emotions associated with pressure points in the body, and what kept coming up for me was "unsupported." As he worked these tense areas I thought about places in my life I feel unsupported--changes at work, the lack of a partner at home, the absence of extended family--and I began to relax.

I relaxed so deeply that the next few days were a pleasure. As I write now, a few days after Easter, in order to "catch up" with the past, I realize how supported I have been all along, by my wonderful children, by the soul-searching phone calls I've had with Merv, by choosing to spend more time at home and invite them to support me in working together, by a health practitioner who works with wisdom and benevolence. Steve's acknowledgement of what I felt--a sense of weariness and no one to lean on--was, oddly, sufficent to make me feel supported. With his touch, releasing the locked muscles, I found the universe gathering about me like a big hammock. Sending these words out into the ether feels a bit like that, too, when I discover that a friend has been reading with me on these travels and has stumbled on a kindred thought. It's that resonance with another that reminds me of the ways we are all connected.

Still in Order

Today's title is borrowed from Hal Borland's out of print book of nature editorials, Twelve Moons of the year. I discovered this book last spring at the suggestion of a friend and bought it used off the internet. (One might consider this a form of participation in the right disposal of trash, or the flow of possessions.) Full of astute nature observations on signs of the seasons--such as appearance of tree frogs at the vernal equinox-- it has been a good companion in these bleak winter months before spring, in spite of Borland's old fashioned habit of referring to everything human as gendered male. The seasonal observations from the climate of Borland's Connecticut farm, not so different from that of Northern Indiana where I live, remind me of the powerful and ancient rhythms of nature that undergird everything from religious ritual to passing moods. His entry for March 20, the first day of spring this year:

"The vernal equinox is a marker on the great wheel of time, a reassurance of order in a world where confusion and disorder too often seem to have the upper hand. It is a promise of predictable change, certain as sunrise, from the rigors of winter to the benevolence of spring. It is variety in a time of doubt and uncertainty."

From the internet I found out that Easter each year is determined by the equinox. It is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox. No wonder the brilliant moon seemed to light up my window all night a few nights ago. Easter is early this year. And after a heavy winter, I'm expecting snow.

I can see clearly now

New glasses have arrived. Eyestrain gone. Lovely light frames. Support from the universe and, hopefully, the medical expense account. Now back to grading those papers.

The Secret Garden

For the past four days, Julia has been in five performances of The Secret Garden, the high school's spring musical. She's a member of the chorus, a dancer, and for about five minutes, a nurse that the invalid Colin tries to shoo out of his sickroom. She has given hundreds of hours to this musical, to performing as one of the large team of students onstage and in the pit orchestra, making a dreamlike, intense music together.

The musical changes the book in many ways, but mostly by developing the adult plot. The book focuses on the awakening of the children to each other and their mutual healing. But the play focuses on the adults, their losses, and the ways in which they isolate themselves from others by clinging to past hurts. "Most of the parts are dead people," Julia told me when she auditioned. But the dead in this musical are visible and beautiful, dressed in white, and positioned all around the characters whose hearts were frozen, all except for the lively Yorkshire Martha and Dickon.

I've seen three of the performances, plus the parent's night preview--four times in total the past week. Each time I've sat and listened with both a heaviness in my heart and astonishment to a teenager singing the part of a crippled millionaire stricken by grief, another teenager singing out the jealously and pent-up longings of a younger brother deprived of both an estate and the love of his life, a third singing her sorrow from the grave, how she never meant to leave or hurt her husband whose heart has collapsed with bitterness and grief, and inviting all who will listen into her garden. And a whole host of others, including Julia, dedicated to bringing to life and voice such songs as "Come Spirit, Come Charm." But it never occurred to me until today, after the last performance on the first sunny day in ages with a promise of spring in the air, that I was mourning the loss of my own parents as I watched this play.

The day after mother died, three springs ago, it was Mother's Day and I asked everyone to come to the garden store with me to buy plants. With today's sun, I thought of digging in the earth the day after she was buried and suddenly it became clear to me. This part of the year is so long for me because I sat with her dying, losing her breath, every day. On sunny days she would take a folding chair out to the balcony next to her second floor apartment and sit in the spring. Three years ago the winter was much milder, and there were many days of sun even in March. This March the earth is frozen where her grave lies next to my father's, a mile away from here in the Violett cemetery close to the Elkhart River. Soon the earth will soften and the hosta my sisters and I planted by their headstones of dark Pennsylvania Granite, to represent the part of the earth where they spent the bulk of their married lives, will bloom again. And I feel their spirits with me every day, even though I can't see them. Meanwhile, my children, their grandchilren, are warm and full of life in my arms.

After seeing the musical so many times, David has been asking me for "a bit of earth." Today in the grocery story when we stopped to buy roses for Julia, in honor of her final performance, we found some spring bulbs and he chose three for his garden--dahlias and gladiolas and stargazer lilies, his grandmother's favorite.