Hope is a thing with feathers

 (Emily Dickinson)

So I participated in this thing on Twitter this evening that was sort of between a Zoom and well, Twitter. A woman I follow named Sarah said "Let's hang out at 7 and light a candle." SHE MIGHT DO THIS EVERY WEEK!!

I took copious notes. 

Hope has bloody knuckles from fighting, hope is scrappy, wait, what? Hope is a crow not a sparrow? Crows collect shiny things and hop down the street after voices they recognize...a crow might be menacing but not with God's breath brought into it. Hope and crows are gritty. 

A man with a ripping Scottish accent stayed up really late to be with us, and he said "hope is not wishful thinking, like I hope we have lasagna for dinner." No, hope is not vague, it is assured, we can rely on it. 

Grittiness of hope. 

Folks waited and waited for a Savior. 

1 Cor. 13 (Love chapter) Glimpses, part not whole, LATER: receive it in full. 

Apparently this quote is a meme: "I always come limping into Advent looking for the Light and then I realize the Light came looking for me."

Then there was a riff on community using a boat as a metaphor--we are not tied to a rock, we are a whole crew (and then the metaphor fell apart and I know that preached and tickled my funny bone at the same time, my favorite kind of preach.)

At the end Sarah read Psalm 27 (go read it, so powerful), and Hector prayed us out. 

Wait for the Lord:
Be strong and take heart
And wait for the Lord (Ps. 27:14, NIV)

Friends are friends forever...if the Lord is the Lord of them

(Michael W. Smith) 

But what of those friends who don't know God? Those prodigal friends who come in and out of your life, begging you to lash back when they lash out? She has dumped me again. 

It hurts, because she says words that aren't true, and I cry. Do I let her worm her way back in again? I guess I'll have to see. 

But for now, I have unfollowed her on Facebook (which seems so final) and stopped following her on Instagram. 

Is all this making room for other friends? I've started dating this week. We'll see if he passes muster when l finally meet him in person TODAY. We met on Match.com, and all week have been talking on the phone. 

It took me a while to fall asleep last night, I got up and demolished a bag of nacho chips. Jane (the Virgin, my favorite show) wasn't putting me to sleep so I put on my Girl from Ipanema station on Pandora. I fell asleep quickly after that. (The Benadryl probably helped.) 

Today is busy. I have a show for my side hustle, at 11. I have more cleaning to do, probably. And at 3, I meet my Frenchman. (Yes, he's really from France.) 

As a bipolar woman, I have to watch myself. Romantic relationships can trigger mania. 

Tomorrow I turn 50!! 

It's now my regular wake up time. I have been awake for an hour. It was some bad sleep math, I only got 6 hours of sleep. I thrive on 8 or 9.

But yesterday was a lot. Joy and pain, like sunshine and rain. 

The reality is you will grieve forever...

(Elisabeth Kubler-Ross)

Jessamyn always said blogs should have links. So I'll start there, because I don't know where else to start...

Invisibilia: A Friendly Ghost Story. 

This ghost story is so well told that I missed my stop on the Metro. 

I ghosted someone this summer and I was ghosted. And they are both haunting me. I'm grieving the loss of both friendships. 

Yesterday my therapist laid out the truth: if she wants to reach out, she will. (The friend who ghosted me.) And we also talked about the fact that I needed to say goodbye to my other friend, because it was affecting my mental health.

I've already written about this...but grief isn't just one blog post. Grief comes and goes. Grief is not taking showers for days on end, and letting the dishes pile up. Grief is crying and not being able to cry. Grief is watching Jane the Virgin on end.

Grief is wearing an actual mask every day, but not taking care of the skin underneath it. 

And grief is living in a country where everyone knows someone who died this year, from friends and lovers to parents and so many children's writers and illustrators. 

The rest of the quote in the title from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross? 

"The reality is you will grieve forever. You will not 'get over' the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to."

I'm at a loss for any more of my own words, so I'll share one of my favorite poems:

Childhood is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies

Edna St. Vincent Millay - 1892-1950

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age
The child is grown, and puts away childish things.
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.

Nobody that matters, that is. Distant relatives of course
Die, whom one never has seen or has seen for an hour,
And they gave one candy in a pink-and-green stripéd bag, or a jack-knife,
And went away, and cannot really be said to have lived at all.

And cats die. They lie on the floor and lash their tails,
And their reticent fur is suddenly all in motion
With fleas that one never knew were there,
Polished and brown, knowing all there is to know,
Trekking off into the living world.
You fetch a shoe-box, but it's much too small, because she won't curl up now:
So you find a bigger box, and bury her in the yard, and weep.
But you do not wake up a month from then, two months
A year from then, two years, in the middle of the night
And weep, with your knuckles in your mouth, and say Oh, God! Oh, God!
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies that matters,
—mothers and fathers don't die.

And if you have said, "For heaven's sake, must you always be kissing a person?"
Or, "I do wish to gracious you'd stop tapping on the window with your thimble!"
Tomorrow, or even the day after tomorrow if you're busy having fun,
Is plenty of time to say, "I'm sorry, mother."

To be grown up is to sit at the table with people who have died,
who neither listen nor speak;
Who do not drink their tea, though they always said
Tea was such a comfort.

Run down into the cellar and bring up the last jar of raspberries;
they are not tempted.
Flatter them, ask them what was it they said exactly
That time, to the bishop, or to the overseer, or to Mrs. Mason;
They are not taken in.
Shout at them, get red in the face, rise,
Drag them up out of their chairs by their stiff shoulders and shake
them and yell at them;
They are not startled, they are not even embarrassed; they slide
back into their chairs.

Your tea is cold now.
You drink it standing up,
And leave the house.

Thanks for stopping by. 

The blankiest of blankest pages -- UGH

Since I wrote the title, I have eaten breakfast and taken morning meds. I still feel pretty blank. We're experimenting with Ritalin (fun times!) and so far my experiment (not sanctioned by doctor) of 2 Ritalin was good for attention but crap for sleep. 1.5 Ritalin doesn't seem to do anything. I'm back to drinking leaded coffee instead of half caff. 

In my boredom, a match came up on Match, so I'm exchanging texts. 

Wow, yeah, boredom. Ennui.

I went to Pittsburgh this weekend! And I was so thrilled to go, so thrilled to be there. So I wonder if this blah is the "what goes up must come down" syndrome. 

Going to Pittsburgh is multi-faceted--I love the open road (mostly). (I mean, we all hate bad drivers.) Trucks I can live with, I mean, we NEED trucks. I hate having to rush. I learned this time around that after dark I need to take breaks or it gets dangerous. If I take breaks, I'm good. So I didn't get home until LATE on Sunday. Oh well. At least I didn't feel at any point like I was going to crash. (I had some moments Friday night because my eyes and too much dark for too long...getting OLD.) 

What else? I have ordered a book from a woman who calls her company "Struggle Care." It's all about taking care of your environment and yourself when you feel like crawling back into bed. Stay tuned. 

On the way to Pittsburgh I visited my friend C. She is my only childhood friend--we've known each other since I was in 5th grade. We clash on some issues but mainly agree to disagree because we love each other. It's nice to have a friend like that. WHY DID SHE HAVE TO MOVE AN HOUR AWAY? She lives in West Virginia right now, so we explored Harper's Ferry. 

In Pittsburgh, I went on a walk at my beloved reservoir with my friend Eric. I was in Sue and Eric's wedding 25 years ago!!! Time flies. They have 2 kids at home, 2 out in the world. C is non-binary, so that was new to me, working around "they" as a pronoun. But C has really blossomed since the last time I saw them, pre-pandemic. So that's awesome. My friend Sally and I went to the free pictures at the Frick Art museum. Mostly from the 1400s. (right?!) I don't do art very often with friends, but I always see something new when I do. 

Went to the Open Door on Sunday. The new co-pastor is amazing! She preached on Job, it was amazing! I will link the sermon if possible. (Sometimes they put sermons in their podcast.) I think I took notes...okay, here they are: "Remember that there will be better days." "A God who has been there the whole time." Not a lot to go on, but it was LIT. 

In the afternoon, I learned how Sally's son B is doing (he told me!!) I mean, when a young person just says, hey, this is my life, that is SO SPECIAL. Then I had lunch with an old coworker and found out that my old POW (place of work, not prisoner of war) is under a regime worse than Dolores Umbridge. Yikes. In other news, I have decided to stay where I am, (aka I cancelled next week's interview) because starting over makes me want to hurl and doesn't make sense financially. I have it pretty good. 

Well, I have to leave soon-ish. 

MTC,

Sary Lou

It's always darkest before the dawn (Thomas Fuller, theologian)

I am forever learning about myself. Some things I have to re-learn, somethings I learn in pieces until it hits me, WHAM.

Recently I put together this about myself: when I get a low-grade something (common cold, depression) it seems to last forever. When I get it hard, it usually corrects quickly. 

(I am not a doctor or scientist. This is just what I have observed about me, by living in my body.)

This happened recently with some depression. I was seesawing up and down for a couple of weeks and then boom, the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 happened and I was a MESS.

Don't want to get out of bed, don't want to shower, don't want to eat MESS. I made it to work, I made it to church on Sunday (albeit late). And I was real with people. People asked me how are you doing and I told them. 

And then last night, I decided to just go to bed. At 8. I did brush my teeth, and I did fall asleep quickly. I woke up at 5:38 a.m. feeling decent!! I lollygagged in bed until my alarm went off at 7, and I WANTED to take a shower! Which I did. 

But like any illness, it's like getting your sea legs back. You feel that burst of health but you've been sick so long that some things have atrophied, so you forget your laptop at home, and you forget you were going to install a StoryWalk® in the front windows and the short dress you decided to wear is not an "installing" kind of dress. Fortunately, I always remember what an old boss at Fox Books said, "There is no such thing as a book emergency." I'll wear pants on Thursday (I'm out of the building tomorrow) and install it then. 

I had a "Defend Yourself" training today and WHOA was that a bit overwhelming. But I made it through the two hours of Zoom. Trainings like this are not Zoom friendly, but whatever, it's the world we live in right now. Fortunately I am home for the second training tomorrow (still on Zoom). This will give me a bit of a break. 

One of my blogging friends used to sign off every time with mtc, so I might start doing it too!

MTC! (which means "More to come.")

xo,

SaryLou

When your Burger place has a power outage...

 ...you sit in the parking lot panicking, because nothing else in the strip mall is open at 8:30 and you need dinner. You open Google maps and finally find a place called Burger 7. 

Do not go to Burger 7! OH MY GOODNESS!! I would have rather had gone to McDonalds. At least they have desserts. (I'm not talking about overpriced shakes.)

Everything was overcooked and I had a piece of gristle stuck between my teeth all the way home. At my burger place (BGR at Spout Run), they know my order, they have cheddar cheese, and they are happy to be at work. That's the difference between a small business and a chain. 

I'm reading a Christian Chick Lit book right now. The Christian part is that one of the heroes in the love triangle had a Bible with him because he was putting together a Bible study for his men's group. It's pretty cheesy fluff. 

But sometimes you need cheesy fluff. Like when you get a really nice rejection email. Yeah. I went for a manager position and didn't get it. Blech. 

So after my horrible burger I came home to my CVS, got a pint of chocolate Haagen Daaz, and watched some TV while texting my sister. 

I was up super late. Which meant I slept in. I woke up to a text from my mom, so I'm taking a vacation hour today to soothe my wild child niece who will be desperate when "Mommy" (my sister) leaves for her anniversary date. My sister has been married 10 years!!! 

Yesterday...

Yesterday I picked up a table from the curb. I carried it home. It's the spitting image of a pink table I had in Pittsburgh, except it's blonde. 

Yesterday I found a profile on Match that I liked. I couldn't think of anything interesting to say, so I asked him what he meant by "no pen pals." He didn't like me back. 

Yesterday I made a flamingo at work. It was creative and made the quiet morning hours go more quickly. I sewed it using pink and yellow felt, and gave it hot pink legs and a sticker eye. 

Yesterday I finally decided to add weeding to my list. This is when you go through old books and decide what needs to go. We have a computer program that tells us what books are "dead" (aka haven't circulated in 3 or more years) and it makes lists. I decide which books to keep. For instance, we are not weeding Gary Paulsen. You want to have all the books, because once you read one, you have to read the rest. But our audience is particular in Anacostia. Dork Diaries rule. 

        Note: We send our good books to Better World books. Our books that are in bad condition go in the         trash. No one needs a bad book. 

Yesterday I looked up Better World Books and purchased the Silver Palate Basics cookbook again. 

Yesterday I skipped my sales meeting again. I have decided to not work my business this quarter, to give myself some time to get used to living alone and taking care of my apartment. To spend more time writing and reading. I had quiche at Barnes and Noble and bought my coffee for the next month. I went to Target and finally got more groceries. I stuck to my very small list. I took my own bag. It's a Giant Eagle bag that has drawings of Pittsburgh on it. I bought about seven years ago, but it hasn't been used much. I'm determined to recycle, reduce, and reuse. 

Yesterday I talked with my health coach about abs work. Weeding made me use my abs when I took the box of weeded books from the ground to the cart. I need to strengthen my abs so that I don't injure myself every time I lift something heavy. Librarianship is much less physical than bookselling and I have let myself go, though not on purpose. 

Today? I need to buy stamps (they are going up by 4 cents!) and meet with my therapist. It's almost 8:30, I better get going. See you tomorrow! 

Thanksgiving in August

Department stores used to have Christmas in July sales. So here is a Thanksgiving in August post. Because I am very thankful.

The little things add up: I'm trying to just watch two hours of Jane (the Virgin) each day and by yesterday afternoon I'd already watched one and a half. How was I going to spend the other hours of the day? My mom texted to see if I wanted to come for dinner. This brought in so many extra thankfuls:

• I don't have groceries, so dinner was taken care of!
• My dad got to see me do my story time on FB Live and
• I got to hear in person how much my mom enjoyed it. 

Both nights that I had dinner with my folks, I ran into neighbors just at the moment that I was leaving, and that seemed orchestrated too. Sunday, I got to let my Swedish neighbors know that I had moved to Del Ray, and last night I got to see my neighbor P, who I used to walk with almost daily. Gosh I miss those walks. 

On the way home, I listened to Night Life with Brandi, my favorite DJ on the local Christian station, WGTS, and last night she had some folks call in with stories of when things seemed so hopeless but they turned around. 

The ones that I remember:

• A woman who was told she had one year to live back in 2009. 
• A woman whose college paid off her debt at the last hour. 

Right now I feel like there is no plan, I languish at work. But the small and big thankfuls and how they seemed (and probably were, thanks God!) orchestrated, I have to see that there is. Today I'm taking my tiny sewing kit to work so that I can work on sewing some felt animals, something I did two winters ago. 

Naming and not naming

My mother asked me at dinner if I was doing okay. I have no idea why I didn't name it and say, "I'm a little depressed." No, I just said, it's taking me a while to get into a routine. 

I used to talk to my mother a lot. Then I lived with her for almost five years. We talked while making breakfast, or when both of us woke up too early. When I lived alone, in Pittsburgh, I called her every day on the phone. Now that I live alone again, I don't call her every day.

After church yesterday, I could see the day yawning ahead of me. Eating somewhere, a nap, and a "Jane the Virgin" binge-fest.  

So I came up with a plan. A tomato plan. I would take my tomato from her garden and share it. 

Making dinner with her and eating with my folks last night was a good choice to quell my demons for a few hours. When she fawned over me sharing the tomato, I didn't tell her about how much food I'd thrown out because I hadn't been cooking and the food all went bad. 

Why didn't I name it? Maybe because she asked at dinner and my dad was there. Hearing and not hearing, as the moments go. I hate how he just tunes out because he can't keep track of the conversation. But I'd probably do it too. Hearing loss is worse than blindness. 

*****

I called her. I wished her a happy anniversary. She put me on speaker. I almost didn't tell her. But then I did. And she said she thought maybe I was. We talked for a while, and it was good. 

Writing helps. I had to edit out some sentences that weren't true, like giving myself some cognitive therapy. 

A little depressed. A lot going on.

 As I look around my apartment (yeah, I moved since I last wrote!) everything is unfinished, from dishes in the sink to a paused episode of Jane The Virgin, to laundry a week behind, piles of stuff...

I'm lonely. After living with my parents for 4.5 years, I come home to "me, myself and I" every night. My closest friend lives in Michigan, and my sister has a very clingy almost 2 year old. I think her 7 year old starts school on Monday. 

I'm waiting on news of an interview from one library system (what's taking so long?) and news will come next week about a job I interviewed for last week. A manager job that could start as soon as August 30. 

Smile. It was the best interview I've ever had. I slayed. I don't know if I'll get the job, but I have now had a management interview, and I slayed. So that's good. 

Not sure it's the best time to be online dating, but I'm lonely, so I took the bait. I think it was the stories that people told about my uncle at his memorial--I mean "celebration of life"--service. He had a sense of humor and the son thought he'd never see his mom laugh after the divorce but my uncle took care of her and she was alive. He made her laugh. I. WANT. THAT. Can you get that from Match.com? The jury is still out. The first guy was not like his picture at all, and I was not attracted at all, after almost 2 weeks of messaging (because I was on vacation one of those weeks.) (Otherwise I would have done a video meeting sooner.) 

Oh, and we're still in a pandemic. (And there's stuff going on in Afghanistan, and Black Lives still seem to not matter to most of the country, and there's a storm named Henri...and don't get me started on the Jeopardy fiasco...)

And I live in a neighborhood where everyone is concerned about their health and their children and their pets. I have a first floor apartment, so if I have the blinds open, I get to see everyone walk by, babies in strollers and wearable baby carriers, checking their fitness watches.   

And I have a tiny fruit fly problem. Did I mention laundry? I was going to go to Richmond today to see a museum exhibit (on mental health) that is going away on Friday but I don't see driving 2 hours there and 2 hours back for a 30 minute event, by myself. Especially when I have to go back to work tomorrow. Where I sit and do nothing, because we are still experiencing low indoor numbers (see "Oh, and we're still in a pandemic.") 

Naming things. That's what writing is. (We did an exercise at my latest church Session meeting where we gave each other words and the word given to me was "name." If I name things, it's a little less OVERWHELMING. I feel a little bit better having written this. I still don't want to do anything but lounge around in my super cute pajamas, but I did something. I named where I am. I tried. Maybe I could do the dishes? 

"Honor the space between the no longer and the not yet" (Or, some more liminal thoughts)

 (Nancy Levin)

It's been a while. Have you been waiting with me? I get it. 

So what was preventing me from writing? The list is boring. You probably have the same list: scaredy cat, the cat got sick, the dog got sick, someone waiting for a COVID test, someone else waiting to make a career decision, waiting, waiting, waiting...

My nails are waiting. I bought a fancy nail polish set on the Internet a month or so ago and my nails are still too long, cracked in places, and unpolished. The brown square box is underneath some mail. 

Honor the space...

I honor the space between me and my unkempt nails. 

At the moment, I can't do anything about them because I'm not at home, where the box is. (Also, could I really justify stopping a writing to do my nails?)

...Between the no longer...

I no longer want my nails to be unpolished, cracked, unkempt. 

...and the not yet. 

Writing this, I feel incredibly silly. Who cares, Sarah Louise, if your nails are pink like flesh or pink like polish? 

What does it have to do with making a career decision? 

I'll tell you why I haven't opened that box. Because painting your nails, even with the fanciest polish, requires waiting. Requires patience. Who wants to open a box just so they can wait some more? Who wants to send out a resume just to wait for the automated response, the inevitable interview, and then the phone call or letter that (it seems) never comes? 

I shift in my chair.

Let me tell you about my favorite song. It's by a Polish artist, Basia, and it's called "Time and Tide" It's all about waiting for the right moment. And waiting, and being patient. The lyrics aren't necessarily anything special, but coupled with the music, it's magic. 

 

And that's what waiting is. Nothing special, until it's put to music (after the waiting, after the writing, after the painting.) 

Here's your link to the countdown clock. When I'm writing this, it's 47 days till the Inauguration, 21 days till Christmas, and 28 days till 2021. People are doing their nails, making Christmas cards, writing their resumes. And maybe, as I wait, I can do some of those things too. 

Happy First Week of Advent! 

"This year's felt like four seasons of winter..."

 

(Unspoken, band, song: "Reason")

I remember hearing this song last January, as I parked my car and walked to church. Boy, did I have no idea. None of us did. "Always winter, but never Christmas" (a paraphrase of C.S. Lewis' description of the reign of the White Witch in the first Narnia book The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.) 

And here it is, almost Thanksgiving. We're in our fourth season of winter. I wrote in a tweet last night, "Here's the thing: they are sacred days but they are different this year. We can't get stuff, so let's celebrate with what we got, let's celebrate, but it's got to be different this year. We can't insist on tradition, we have to create different magic." 

Not everyone is going to be at the table. Some have died. Some are sick. Some are sheltering in. I hope your loved ones are all in the third category. Not everything is going to be at the table: there are shortages, and sides that would have been made by the missing ones at the table. 

Grim. 

But if you listen to the song, it tells you that LOVE is the reason. Love keeps coming back, love goads us on to keep trying. The video I didn't show is of Evel Knievel type child, trying stunt upon stunt. I couldn't keep watching this child, as each time he tried, he left the hospital with a sling, or crutches, or worse. At some point the father gets him a helmet but it was too late for me, I thought, we'll go with the Lyrics video. 

"All we need is just a little patience"

(Axl Rose)

*warning, the video is NSFW*

This song was popular the year I dated A.J., who idolized Slash, of Guns and Roses. (Red Flag anyone?)

It was also the year that had a lot of waiting and the results of patience:

Results of patience: The Berlin Wall Fell. (28 years!)

Results of patience: I graduated from high school and went off to college. 

Waiting: to get through on the phone to my parents, who were living in Poland, while I was schooling in Pittsburgh. I swear, this is one reason I think I have patience with technology (when I have patience with technology, which isn't always.) I would call Vienna. When I reached Vienna I would punch in the numbers to call Poland. (I know this doesn't make sense, but it's how the phone lines worked.) And invariably, I would get this recording: "The country you are trying to reach is busy right now, try again later." And I would sit in the phone booth on the 9th floor of Frances Warde Hall and pray and cry and try again, 10 times, 13 times, 17 times, until I finally got through. 

Waiting: to get to see my parents, I'd hop a plane in Pittsburgh, maybe change in New York, fly to Frankfurt, arrive in Warsaw. All told, about 13 hours, including all the layovers. Once I was waiting during some snow and instead of New York, I flew from Pittsburgh to London. Fortunately, there was a guy there (cute!) who was also going to London, so we waited together, sharing stories about places we'd lived, as he was also a TCK (Third Culture Kid, someone whose parents were working overseas). 

And isn't that what makes waiting easier? Someone to shoot the breeze with? Someone to remind you that it's not futile, all this waiting. We're going somewhere, and we're going to get there, but let me tell you a story while we're waiting. 

Is that maybe why we celebrate Advent? To help us tell stories until we get to Christmas? Not just to prepare our hearts (which is of course important) but to calm us down from all the anticipation. 

So tell me a story, in the comments. When was a time someone made waiting easier for you? 

"We keep waiting"

(John Mayer)

This has been a hard morning. 

I had to pay a bill late b/c I forgot to pay it online yesterday. Hello, late fee!

I ugly cried because I miss my friends, one in particular, who stopped talking to me in April. 

I had to figure out why my credit card bill was so high. Oh, hello, things I've been paying for and not realizing it. 

And my Bible study was all about how the Jews and Christians were so at odds but they finally came together. Oh, how I'm waiting on that to happen in this nation I live in (the U.S.A.)

 

"Every bad situation is a blues song waiting to happen"

 (Amy Winehouse)

What do you do when all the waiting (or some of it at least) is over? Yesterday I felt bereft, so I took a long nap. It's that feeling, after you've been in a play production in high school, all the work that you put into the production and then, in two days, it's all over! 

Grief sets in. How can it not? Life hasn't changed, but all of a sudden this big thing you were striving towards, working on, praying about, HAPPENED. 

It's like watching the Awards show and yes, it's fun and glitzy but then you have to get up and go to work the next morning. 

That's what this in between feels like. Because we now know who will be president, but we haven't started Advent, and the start of the new presidency is still 72 days away [Countdown timer].

I was struck by the reality of this tweet: "Everything is quieter now...and when the world gets quieter, grief turns up its volume." (Shannon Dingle, a writer who recently lost her husband and is raising 6 kids on her own.)

I'm so behind...all the work I haven't done because I've been too distracted. Not a very exciting blues song, but a blues song nonetheless. "I got so much to do bum bum...I don't know what to do, bum bum."

What's the blues song in your life?

***

Three things:

• Sleep: Discombobulated due to the nap.
• Walk: upcoming
• Work: I'm "teleworking" today, and have so much to catch up on. Thankfully I have a holiday on Wednesday. 

Final thought: I keep thinking about the author of It is well with my soul, because I heard the story again in my online Bible Study. 

When peace like a river attendeth my way
When sorrows like sea billows roll
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say
It is well, it is well with my soul

Comment prompt: What is the blues song in your life?

“I grew up with six brothers. That’s how I learned to dance — waiting for the bathroom.”

 

(Bob Hope)

Oh my blesseds. Well, one waiting is over. [Reuters]. I have to say, click the link, it's so satisfying to watch the numbers go from 0 to WON! The pictures above: these graced my desk at my old job 4 years ago, when my life fell apart from depression and then I decided to move to Virginia to live with my folks. Today marks 4 years of when I voted for a woman for President [Wikipedia] for the first time. I packed my car, I went to the dermatologist, and I voted. No line, just a cupcake from the bake sale at Dilworth Elementary. 

Can we laugh a minute? Four Seasons Landscaping????!! As the story goes, and I'm sure it will either become a myth from now on, 45 announced it would be at the Four Seasons and when it was confirmed, the Four Seasons Hotel said, no, it will be at Four Seasons Total Landscaping. I will never not laugh, and I'm planning to buy a T-shirt. I just bought a mask from Victory Masks DC, because I can't wear anything political at work.

I was all prepared to write something pithy and memorable but all that T-shirt and mask buying really killed my creativity. A LESSON IS IN THERE. (Today, I don't care.) 

***

Three things:

• TV: Watched A LOT of news yesterday. 
• Sunrise: today's was beautiful
• Something else: I can't think of anything. (Seriously, don't write and shop.) (It's like drinking and driving. DON'T DO IT.) 

Waiting...for wings and things

So we as a nation are still waiting for an answer. Waiting for votes to be counted, [Reuters] to be declared.

As we wait, a title keeps coming back to me: Waiting for Wings, which I think is a Lois Ehlert title. Lemme check. Ooh, I found a YouTube video!

Let's see if I can embed it: 

I'm a children's librarian by day and a network marketer by night. I also write, walk, and watch lots of Jane the Virgin on Netflix.

But we're talking about waiting here. I like this book and video because it continues to go back to the life cycle again and again--waiting isn't a one time deal, it's something we all do, again and again. 

Three things:

• Video I watched this morning: Joe Biden being patient and calm.
• What I ate for breakfast: Raisins with Grape Nuts and Oat Squares
• Thankful for: a day to dig in. I have a lot of work to do to get ready for Christmas in my network marketing business with Mary Kay. 

Liminal places and waiting

I think it was Nadia Bolz-Weber who said we are in a liminal time right now. It sounds like something she would say, but I can't confirm.

Liminal:  Of, relating to, or being in an intermediate state, phase, or condition. 

We're actually in the threshold of three different stages of waiting, at least. The three that I am identifying with are:

1. Waiting for a Presidential Candidate to be declared President Elect [Reuters] (from now until ??)
2. Advent [Wikipedia] (the time that Christians designate to "wait for Christ" and Christmas)
3. Waiting for the Inaguration [Countdown timer] (because if Biden is President Elect, there will be all kinds of nonsense from #45)

There are other things we are waiting for, of course, like the Winter Solstice (when the days stop getting shorter and start gettting longer), Friday (which happens to be today, woo hoo!) and...(fill in the blank). 

That's a good comment prompt. What are you waiting for in this season? 

I thought of creating an "advent" calendar using toilet paper rolls and tissue paper and chocolate and verses about justice and waiting but I don't think I have that kind of time and patience. And I do need a writing project right now. 

So I'm going to show up here every day from now until January 20, 2021 (within reasonable limits). And I'm going to talk about waiting in some way/shape/form.I don't know what it will be like, but come along, if you dare. 

***

Podcast I listened to this morning: Food and Faith Podcast: "Conversations on Hope and Lament"

Book I'm reading: The Off Season by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

What I saw along my walk: Zinnias in various stages of living and dying, and roses, same. 

This is a fall picture that was previously published to this blog, a look out on my back yard from my third floor walk-up in Pittsburgh. I currently live in Falls Church, Virginia. 

I love comments! So just to recap: what are you waiting for in this season? (Or anything else you want to put in the comment box that is PG-13). I reserve the right to police the comments. 

Camus on a rainy day...

i've never read Camus, but he's got a lot of great quotes, like this one:

In the midst of winter, i found within me an invincible summer.

And this one, which i had on a plaque in my bathroom:

Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend. 

This is one I need to learn and relearn again. I'm relearning it with Henry. Remember Henry? He's the guy I thought was crushing on me only to find out he's just a friend, which is okay too.

Today I was grumpy. I had to do some lady kind of laundry this morning, I was running late, I couldn't find my Advent devotional on Mary, not that I would have had time to read it, and I was feeling sorry for myself and crampy when Henry came down for lunch. So I pretty much ignored him, read my book.

And then I saw that I had to do my dishes. So I started a conversation with Henry, who has stuff going on too. It felt good take the focus of me, to listen. In the end, that's what matters. Listening to people when you finally have the energy to not be grumpy.

I don't want to write/I want to write

It all comes back to Pierre. "There once was a boy named Pierre/Who only could say I don't care"

He stays home and a lion comes and eats him because he doesn't care if the lion eats him and the moral of the story is "CARE!"

I think none of that made sense unless you are familiar with the Nutshell Library by Maurice Sendak, popularized in the 70s TV show, "Really Rosie," music and vocals by none other than Carole King.

I linked it up.

It's 10:53 and I work at 2:30. Which means I need to leave by 2, or 1:55 is better.

So I bought a Lenten devotional, and wouldn't you know it, unbeknownst to me when I purchased it, it's about poetry and they hope you write poetry, they write about it in the introduction, which I promptly closed when I got to that part. How dare the Holy Spirit trick me like that!!!

My mother is sitting next to me, writing emails.

Today or yesterday I read that Lent is a gift. It's not another self-improvement kick, it's a gift from God to let us be.

I can't write anymore. I won't write anymore. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. Okay, I care, but I don't see how anything can come from these ashes. Huh, the whole point of Lent is that we can't see what's becoming of the ashes. Humph. I'm going to hit publish and go get my laundry from the basement.