Enchantment and Wonder

When I asked a younger friend, "Do you ever wake up feeling agitated for no particular reason?" she answered without hesitation, "God, yes!"

Later, I read a few pages in a book called Enchantment, Awakening Wonder in An Anxious Age by Katherine May:

"Lately, I can't read a whole page of a book.  It is frictionless, this sliding of attention. I thought it would resolve once the lockdown ended, but it did not.  It's as if some kind of lubrication has been applied to my choices.  I intend to do one thing, but my unconscious shunts me discretely away. It has other plans for me.  I am supposed to be watching, I am supposed to be looking over my shoulder, alert to the next threat."

Isn't this a conversation we're all having?  Why do we feel different after Trump was elected, after January 6th 2021, after COVID, after lockdown, school murders with assault weapons happening every week? Older people might assume that anxiety comes with aging, illness, caring for others, or losses.  

When people twenty and thirty years younger are expressing the same feeling, I realize that a kind of homesickness feeling has hit us all.  

But the book has a subtitle: Enchantment, Awakening Wonder. 

I will let you know what I discover in these pages. 

Being Woke

When the MAGA Super-Girls and Super-Boys say "woke," it's not a compliment. Marjorie and The Guy Who Made up His Resume To Win Votes, for example.  

The extreme right uses "woke," as a pejorative.  It's bad to let kids read books about slavery.  Or books written by minority writers they deem to have a "hidden agenda."  It's terrible for teachers--a fireable offense--to talk about human rights of any stripe.  

Just as The Guy Who Made Up His Resume, the inventors of "woke" don't bother with truth-telling.  If a position goes against their own, it goes in the "Woke" basket, pretending that only liberals are curious, enlightened and tolerant. They want us to all go back to the past, to the imaginary lands of "Great" and "Again." 

If you, like me, want to hang out with people who don't fear truth-telling, the podcast On Being is a great place to start.  Krista Tippet has been interviewing scientists, artists, theologians, poets, and thinkers for over 20 years.  The conversations are always illuminating.  

You can listen to the rich archive on the podcast, or you can go to On Being and listen to them or read transcripts.  

For those who welcome awakenings and don't glorify sleeping in caves of right-wing opinion (which is all of you) check out Krista's community. 

On Being

Episode 1, Season 12, Call the Midwife

Not every new beginning is a good one.

There are things we cannot clean away,

but we can invest in the water and the light.

We can choose to listen and to speak.

We are more enmeshed in in each other's lives

than we can imagine.

We are all somebody's memory,

someone's joy, or their regret.

We are the weavers of each other's cloth,

the keepers of our fellow travelers in time.

Change is not a threat.

It is a chance, and if we embrace it

we can begin again.

   

Canaan Harris

Tomorrow I will be attending online my nephew's service in Colorado.  Pastor of Central Christian Church in Denver, here he is with his wife, Niki, two children, Ezekiel and Eden.

Canaan sang and played the guitar with his son,  an accomplished harpist. 

He had been sick for a few weeks, and was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer just four days before his death on March 13th.

Here is Canaan in a wheelbarrow with Day when they were 2 and 5, the first two grandchildren of my parents, Lloyd and Carlene. 

Traveling Without Moving Much

For the past few weeks, I've traveled a great deal--right here on my traveling machine:

From Ireland to Vietnam: Noble on Amazon, a true story about an Irish woman who improves the living situation of thousands of Vietnamese orphans. 

France of olden days: Marie Antoinette

Croatia: Faraway on Netflix is a romantic getaway movie in the tradition of one of my all-time favorites, Shirley Valentine. 

Italy: Paradise on PBS (the Italian version is Walter's Presents, not Masterpiece).  While it's a bit soap opera-ish, it's an enjoyable series.  Season 3 begins mid-April.  It tells the same story, in Italian as BBC series "The Paradise" and "The Selfridges." 

To ski slopes near Durango, Colorado: Pritchett family texts

To the land of childhood memories: A long conversation with my brother Bob. 

To the world of 1925 fashion, the year Carlene was born: Pinterest

When Grief Comes

This is a week when I'm struggling to find words.  On Monday, my 49-year-old nephew, Canaan Harris, succumbed to an aggressive cancer that had only been discovered days before. 

One Christmas when the first five of the six cousins were little, I remember making clown costumes for them all. Day remembers the two oldest of my parents' grandchildren, herself and Canaan, organizing plays for the three little brothers.  I also remember Canaan wowing all the adults on Christmas as a two-year-old, reciting the entire "Night Before Christmas." 

When someone dies, clusters of memories roll in to fill the void. 

Words come when they come.  Jan sent me a poem that says it best, a poem she found in the "Contemplative Home for the Dying." 

When You Meet Someone Deep in Grief

Slip off your needs

and set them by the door.

Enter barefoot

this darkened chapel

Hollowed by loss

hallowed by sorrow

Its gray stone walls

and floor.

You, congregation 

of one

are here to listen 

not to sing.

Kneel in the back pew.

Make no sound.

Let the candles

speak.

I'm trying not to write about physical pain, as I wrote about a few days ago.  So from now on, if I mention it, I'll call it petunias or pickles.   Fields of petunias.  Gallons of pickles.  Still doing everything in my power to turn the corner. 

Stopped at a red light this morning, the man behind me honked his horn.  There was no one coming either way and I could have easily run the light, might have, in fact, had he restrained his urge to blow his blasted horn.

Yesterday, a woman driver waved her hand impatiently as if ushering me forward, quick quick, move it! Maybe she's used to ushering little kids back inside a classroom after recess, but the fastest way to slow me down is to order me to hurry up, rebel that I am. 

Advice is rankling on a good day--except the kind of advice among friends that is implicitly asked for in some cases. Advice (orders, honks, hand gestures, and mouthed insults)  from impatient strangers in a car ranks at the top of my short list of peeves. 

Italian Paradise

About 20 years ago, Nellie and I spent three amazing weeks together in Italy.   I'll never forget the day we flew over the Swiss Alps and landed in a noisy airport in Milan.

Nellie had prepared, impressively so! I had read Under the Tuscan Sun.  Nellie has a wealth of knowledge in the history of Italy and art. She carried a well-studied and marked copy of Rick Steves.  I didn't even know what a duomo was when she led me to the Duomo di Milano.

We were young and agile then--though we didn't know anything else.  We climbed all over the many spired church, and Nellie pointed out carvings I wouldn't have noticed without her.  Then we had the first of many meals of wine and cheese and bread.  

In Venice, I didn't know what a vaporetto was. Nellie knew the schedules for the water taxi and the stop we'd take to get to the Hotel Danieli facing the canal. We shared a room there for five nights, near St. Mark's Square, music everywhere all hours of the day and night. 

In Florence, we stayed right by the market square and museums, a few steps from the home of Dante. During the days, we (or often just Nellie) went to museums.  I went to the markets and sat in outside cafes people watching.  I drove a tiny car through the twisty roads of Tuscany and we were joined the last week in a vila in a Tuscan village.  My only trip to Italy, it was unforgettable!  Without Nellie's guidance, I might still be there wandering around the streets alone!

In the Cinque Terre, we walked through the five villages and lay on the beach.  One day, I was a bit stiff from getting on and off buses and said out loud, "I would love a massage!"  About that time, a young Asian woman emerged from out of nowhere with Tiger Balm in her hands asking if we wanted massages!

As a traveler, I am by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of traveler.  I learned from Nellie that you see a lot more if you go prepared.  Otherwise, you come home and people asked, "Did you see So-and-So?" and I have to say I missed it.

If I ever go to Italy again, I want it to be with Nellie!

          I'm watching the Italian version of Paradise on PBS this week.  It's set in Milan and the duomo shows up at the beginning of every episode. 

The main character is a spirited young woman with thick curly hair and a big personality.  I showed Elena a couple of scenes from it last night.  "Does she remind you of anyone you know?" I asked.  

She grinned.  "Me?" 

Not to be confused with the British series of the same name a few years back, this one is also about a store named Paradise--the main characters being the owner of the store and one of the salesclerks, an opinionated vivacious girl from Sicily intent on escaping an undesirable marriage back home and creating a life of her own.  A girl a lot like Elena. 

Thursday Night at the McNay

When Elena was little, I got to keep her lots more often than I do now.  We often went to the zoo, the Botanical Gardens, or the McNay. She always found a tree to climb.

"Big trees with lots of limbs are like grandmothers," she said--an analogy I didn't quite understand but loved.

Last night I had the pleasure of revisiting the very tree where she'd said that.  She climbed right up into its branches just as she did years ago. 

Inside the museum with Pam's friend Bill, looking at the "Womanish" exhibit, I was amazed at how easily she talked to Bill. He's an excellent listener, as Elena pointed out as we were driving home.  "You can tell what a good heart he has," she said.  "The way he listened and talked to me."

They talked about her multi-cultural heritage and she translated some Spanish phrases for us. "I'm not completely fluent in Spanish, but I understand most of it."  She told him about her large Mexican family from Guadalajara.  And they talked about horses.  He recommended a memoir by Linda Ronstadt about her two cultures.  

She was fascinated by girls in fancy dresses posing for pictures for their quinceañeras.   

The event was wonderful--the trees, the art exhibit, the posing girls, people of all ages sitting on the grounds listening to music.  One couple  did the Texas Two Step, then children emerged from the audience and danced in the totally free and un-self-conscious ways kids dance, feeling the music, not caring if anyone was watching. Without even asking names, children have a way of making instant connections with other kids.  And adults.  And other people's dogs. 

Turning it around

Sometimes in a  dream, I'm squatting with ease, light and agile, ageless.   I wake up invigorated, having visited this alternate reality. 

My daytime life, in reality, has revolved--way more than I'd like--around pain, physical pain and its various brothers and sisters:  A tiny bit bipolar?   Attention deficit disorder?  Definitely arthritis in my feet.  

Occasionally I focus on what other people think, want or need to the detriment of my own thoughts, needs, and desires.  OR I'm so focused on "managing" pain that I neglect other people.  

It's time for a re-set.  It looks like this:

While talking about it (chronic pain)  has yielded lots of care from my family and friends, which I appreciate immensely, I'm going to start answering "How are you?" with "Fine."  Talking about pain  intensifies it and makes me identify with it too much.  

To do the creative things I want to do, I will postpone answering and making phone calls until later in the day.  To untangle myself from the news.  To read and listen to uplifting podcasts and books.  To rediscover hours of solitude to create new things--even if it's just a single card.  

Pain is part of the fabric of growing older--for us all. Nobody wants it, but most of us get it.  I want to transition from focusing on it to accepting it.

When I was a child, my daddy bought me a book called  The Make It Book--a shiny blue hard-cover book of possibilities. In our house, making, re-making, fixing, planting, cooking, and sewing were expressions of creativity, which I regarded as the most important endeavors of all. I still do.

Lately, I've been frustrated that my attempts to make things has been limited, but today I'm clearing the space to make even one simple thing every day before getting sidetracked.  

Yesterday was my sign that something's gotta change.

Edward came to clean and hang curtain rods, but he forgot to bring the proper drill for concrete walls.  While I was making Nathan's favorite chocolate birthday cake, Edward was cursing my walls, my "cheap-ass curtain rods from China," and screws that didn't  fit.  I handed him the accompanying hardware, which he hadn't noticed.  I could feel my agitation rising, bubbling up, spilling over into the cake batter. 

"Your yelling is making me nervous and agitated," I told him.  "I don't know what to do.  The concrete walls have been here all the time.  Wait until you get the right drill and come back.  I need some quiet."

So he went to the casita and spent hours cleaning it to a fare-thee-well.  Then he took the screens off the porch and cleaned the porch.  After the cake came out of the oven, and after my meltdown, I fell asleep for three hours! 

I went to the casita to make a card for Nathan.  Luci vomited on the rug.  A package intended for Carlene arrived at my house instead of hers.  Little things added up and irritated the hell out of me, things that normally wouldn't de-rail me. 

When I left, sweet Edward (and he is that) said, "You're gonna be okay.  Please tell Nathan Happy Birthday for me and tell Elena how proud of her I am for her rodeo wins. And drive safe.  I love you." 

Breathing the country air in Helotes always shifts my mood.  Luci too.  She climbs into my lap and wants the window rolled down.  I think she's going to jump out. The dogs and people are happy to see us.  Big hugs, big smiles. Delicious shrimp and pasta on the porch.  

Elena and Nathan get out the bow and arrow and BB and pellet guns.  They set up targets and shoot--Elena mind-blowingly accurate, Nathan aiming at and hitting cans to watch the coke explode. 

This was my Monday Medicine:

Nathan just got taller than me!
What an awesome kid he is! 

He turns 16 on Thursday
and gets his driver's license!

Elena is happiness
personified!

"I never know what I'm supposed
to do with my face when people
sing Happy Birthday." 

This is what he actually does with his face: 

"Quivering With Anticipatory Delight"

When I was a young Sadie Sadie Married Lady, late 60s, my then-husband was doing his four year Air Force stint, stationed at Lackland, right here in River City.  San Antonio was intended as a temporary home, yet here we both still are all these years later, though not together.

One of our best friends was a 25-year-old bachelor named Frank, a colleague of my ex's at SAC. On weekends we rode motorcycles and  threw frisbees to Tony--on land and into water--and the dog retrieved every time.  (The same game applied with sticks and stones) 

Holding aloft the object to be thrown would make Tony "quiver with anticipatory delight."--one of the many impressive phrases Frank coined. 

I've always mis-remembered that I was at Frank and Joy's wedding. Recently Joy kindly corrected me, reminding me that it wasn't their wedding at all!  Turns out, I had forgotten that Frank was briefly married to someone else before he met Joy.  After this many years, I can't always count on the accuracy of my memories! 

It's wonderful to have friends who remember the same decades as we do (however smudged together), all the way back to the decade when we were all twenty-something.  

When I see that emotion in Luci waiting for Freda or welcoming me home after a long absence, I think what a perfect phrase Frank invented. 

Whatever our ages, breeds, or anything else, I hope we all have things that make us quiver in joyful anticipation of something up ahead!