My friend Catherine had an idea this morning: use Mondays as a day to remember and look forward to Good Things. As one of the many who has a normal workday Monday, I want to implement this idea. Even if I can't come up with something to write every Monday, I want to at least make a mental list.
Right after reading Catherine's post, I came up with my own mini-list:
- Dancing barefoot with the pug to hits from the '40s. She thinks the samba is foot-tag.
- Flowers and leaves EVERYWHERE! Spring has splashed itself on every single plant right now. Stunning.
- Liturgy. I'm getting some of the tunes memorized, so I can think about the words while I'm singing instead of focusing on hitting the right notes. And the words are good.
- Ideas. My head's full of them, and I like that.
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Idea: read at least three short stories each week.
Idea: find a book of Mary Oliver's poetry, and read a poem before sleep each night.
Idea: get kombucha going by Mother's Day.
Idea: continue editing my list of science fiction to read, making it useful for deciding both if and how I could design a Master's program I'd love.
SubIdea: religious ideas seem rare in sci-fi. But is this a good thing? Is it merely a sign of our cultural divide between religion and science, or does it also serve to increase their opposition?
SubIdea: if sci-fi tends to function as a questioner of the status quo, would/should the role of religion in sci-fi be different now than it was in, say the 1950s?
Idea: form some sort of structure that will a) ask me to write, and b) hold me accountable to some form of regular sentence-making.
SubIdea: try to post weekly here?
SubIdea: create a new space (wordpress?), and share it with those who will read it, and call me to task if I write nothing.
SubIdea: but what do I want to write? To get going, I think I need a trigger, something to trampoline the ideas out of my half-consciousness.
Idea: find a time-machine, and go back to the 1800s to listen to George Eliot and her friends converse.
Idea: dance in my room more often. To this end, put more music on my computer. And let the pug in more often.
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It's Monday, and it's often hard to be with Mondays. But my Monday evenings are usually mine alone, and it's not Monday's fault it got stuck at the beginning of the work-week. I want to start out the week well, with gratitude, with rest, with fun, with a good dinner.
What will this week bring? I'm not sure. Probably some of it will be frustrating. Some of it will be beautiful. Some of it will be side-splitting laughter. Some of it will be poetry. Some of it will be music.
But Spring is here at last. And somehow that makes everything alright.
It's still, at the moment.
Not much has been still lately, it seems. Is it because of my situation, or because inside I am not still? Am not calm. Am not at rest. The last two months constant whirlwinds have been pulling and pushing in my head. So much to plan, to buy, to coordinate, to prepare for, to think about, to dream ahead. I've had much more inter-personal conflict than ever I remember. Even now though the traveling is past, I've been thinking about the future, my future - about work, about school, about church. Some of these have been hard thoughts, bred by frustration, unmet expectations, and desires unreached. Some have been hopeful thoughts, too, but even those are confronted by my desperate need for miracles to make them possible. What do you do when your hopes come against the specter of the impossible?
What do you do when you never seem to get enough sleep, now in this season of sickness when you need it most? Or when you get so little time alone, or when that book you've been reading takes up so much of your mind-space? Or when you lose your appetite, and the taste for food? What do you do when it looks like the next 6 months will hold significant changes, and you're not sure how you feel about them? When, to be honest, there is fear lurking all around the periphery. Fear of what? I wish I knew.
This month is, to most people, the turn of the year. My year turns over in late fall, for some unknown reason. And since then, I haven't quite figured out where my feet should be standing for this new year. This uncertainty - this wobbliness on my feet - is not entirely unusual. But having so many things (apparently) at stake is. Having so many things potentially changing drastically is.
What is this the year of? What word-post can I hold onto, and follow confidently into the annual unknown? The word that keeps coming up is hope. And no fear. But mostly hope.
How, then, can I form an internal and external space in which to hold and strengthen hope? How can I make room for its largeness, its scope, its reach? How can I, practically, make room for hope and practice paying attention to it? That, I feel, is what I've been wrestling with. What, then, shall I do to engage in the newness of this year?
