Pen,

Enclosed please find photographs for what turned out (according to the pictures) a very strange and winsome January. With each photo see explanation. I am loathe to analyze what such pictures might say in total as with the blog for instance one can only wonder what one gathers about the two of us. Though only brave and determined voyeurs, moms and best of friends read such a thing as letters back and forth between friends.

And unless otherwise noted there was a trip to Gardens of the World which was really quite ordinary but nice, some thorne/danica outings, walks, laying out, walks through the church basement, and of course camping, and camping while sick is just awful, though mom persists she had a good time despite my dead weight. both financial and otherwise.

Note that Marley is actually tucked into my sweatshirt. I am convinced he would rest quite well in a baby sling.



joanna sent me a christian calendar in which to mark my days, and following is my lions share of the holy day collection.



here we are finally covering the dumpster up in the lot next door to church. the morning glories are actually not at all visually assulting as i previously had feared. carole is the awesome greenteam director.

these are a couple of pictionary attempts: firing squad and moustache.

oh and do note the friendly old man in my ceiling.

after this we finally got some safe traps so that we can release them into the garden. 3 survived marley and it seems we've gotten them all.
coots!

Advent- to Come.

i kept checking the blog to see if penelope updated it, maybe harass her over the mind-blowing fact she's responsible for children now. i totally don't get it. this mom side of her. and since i haven't seen her in 3 years it's imagined interaction. i mean, will her kids even like me?! anyway she's off doing adult things like christmas shopping. i haven't even considered the possibility of gift giving yet so obsessed have i been with my various escapes.

but anyway this sunday, after ditching the last 2 holy day meetings... (pentecost and kingdomtide) i remember just being very specifically in a really foul mood, i came to the advent celebration. where we select band of women gather "the order of the apostle of the spoon". there was some talk of our mentor cancelling the gatherings- i mean we made it a year, mostly... so quit while ahead. and we're all busy or irritable... but something made her decide to keep us going for now. so, advent is about waiting for jesus. both the fulfillment of the promise made to the hebrews and his 2nd coming for christians and this lasts all the way up until january 6th.

lately i haven't really been seeing a lot of of what god has for me. meaning i think i'm so used to drawing upon the circumstances of my life, conversations, what i've been learning and coming up with a meta-narrative or a grand conclusion of what jesus is trying to teach me... and a flat line is just buzzing annoyingly across the screen. i'm telling you, i've been stuck on that river for a long time. but my recent transition to a golden field, near a stream with mountains in the distance has a glimmer of hope. and part of what's awesome about these gatherings is this candid talk about a spirit that unifies us. that humanity is all enjoined in the threads of joy and sorrow and can relate to one another in this... and besides singing O'Emmanuel accapela which rocked, was in a round of prayer all we said were names of people we knew who were in pain, and that none of them were alone in their suffering because we gave voice to them.

and i think what i learned yesterday, as our mentor asked to read a poem i wrote, and at the time didn't know that she would or which one, and this other thing happened in the morning-continues now to remind me that god hasn't been silent at all this entire time but has so loudly put me in a place to learn what community might really mean, even when i thought i'd already learned enough over the last 3years, what love comes in the place of spite, or a bitter spirit, that everytime i returned to those thoughts of rejecting, of being rejected people rise to the occasion and prove me wrong- that they're still there, that i'm loved, and appreciated and thought after, and that relationships can be renewed and healed and continue on- and that this new life coming soon in epiphany, this new word spoken over me, shows my oldself now, so far in the distance that the new struggle might be in the naming of the new- and how i can define this new person over the past 4 years that prayed for community and got it, that prayed for peace and received it, that despite my lonliness or my odd jobs i'm no longer on a familiar shore of my past but that there's something in the future that i can't at all see...

so as i wait for jesus, impatiently wanting rain and partnership and wondering what my new name is... i am glad of being able to finally speak it.

ALONG CAME LAMENT

sooo apparently i'm not immune to the 'i could give a fuck' about the blogging thing.' good to know. (usually it manifests in surly and malaise driven posts but this time it was purely focused on tv and manual labor. thus silence.)

in my conversations with jesus 2 (you know me in the boat on the river 1) during this stilted 3+wk period i find my words to be bordering the sacreligious. i hit lake placid- i'm pretty well convinced- and it's driving me fucking nuts. my sentences to god are laced with a bitter breath, i know god's got this. i know god is faithful... and all sorts of encouraging things but every word might as well be this FUCKING SUCKS. I'M GOING TO BE FUCKING STUCK HERE FOR EVER. GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW. FUCK.

so i stopped praying to god bcs really laced with that sort of malice i was pretty sure the words were choking the air, and started to confess about what an ungrateful asshole i am (possibly human). mainly bcs after Epiphany celebrating the HolyDays is pretty cool... and the idea of Lent that intrigued me most was that some early christians did lent bcs they were preparing for baptism by sort of purging themselves of the 'bad'. and i'm so tired of myself right now that really a better newer me better be fucking coming along SOON.

I confess:

• I do not think my hearts desires will be fulfilled (a husband, a sustaining career)
• I am inconstant (natural but true)
• I am ill-disciplined
• I am ill-tempered
• I am impatient
• I do not believe when I pray 4 things like Nicaragua, god cares, bcs I do not feel worthy of it. I feel guilty and demanding of it, of buying clothes, of eating out.
• I am complacent and lazy
• I am 'biting'
• I am resentful of not being in god's peace and power more (as i used to be)
• I am mired in procrastination
• I am not joyful
• I am a petulent 3 yr old
• I am lonely
• I am in distress
• I am a petty complainer
• I feel the seperation distinctly from me to the divine
• I think to not care much about life but I am most times divided and expectant
• I am full of grumbling
• I confess my heart is hard from waiting
• I confess it spills from my lips in sharp words uttered under the breath against people, against my community, it is hard to still the quick tempered surge within. it is hard to set my heart in labor for you, for abundance.
• I confess I am dissatisfied.

Then at church, of all places, I absentmindedly decided to read Lamentations, ignoring the loud singing around me, wryly amused at the timing...

... "I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore have hope: Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.... The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,... it is good to wait quietly... it is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young. Let him sit alone in silence, for the Lord has laid it on him. Let him bury his face in the dust- there may yet be hope.... For men are not cast off by the Lord forever."

And my conclusion despite my totally irked inner life: Though I lament, I do not despair.

An Epiphany's Tale

Epiphany: 1 capitalized : January 6 observed as a church festival in commemoration of the coming of the Magi as the first manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles or in the Eastern Church in commemoration of the baptism of Christ : an appearance or manifestation especially of a divine being (1) : a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something (2) : an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking (3) : an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure b : a revealing scene or moment ...


On the day of Epiphany the light in my room went out. Or rather when i came in, the flick of the switch produced a loud pop and short from the lightbulb and i stood in the dark wondering why today of all days, let alone ever, must my light periodically and probably dangerously cease to be. I have auxillary lights but they don't satisfy, and by what happened to me later i took it as a significant harbinger of what was to come- not unlike poor tess of the d'ubervilles when a crow kaws and a flagarant air of doom possesses the entire novel, and poor tess walks on oblivious. As did i, but so far i have a much happier and redemptive end then homicide.


The next day went on as Sundays should. Late, fashion crisis, reluctantly tread I to church. I sit and listen to the service in the lobby. He's talking about the problems we have adjusting to being 'adopted' into God's family- but people are coming and going, and at one point i'm pretty sure my director/slash/pastor is crying or 'choked up' bcs he's talking about his beautiful adopted daughter and her serious trust and control issues and how in his struggle with this he feels God working. Fairly heart breaking the destructive tests we put people thru in order for us to prove they don't really care, or will when tested, abandon us... I glazed over the rest and it was over, and after some tasty el pollo loco, and a redeux of the mango/aloe dessert of '06, I went to a celebration of Epiphany. Reluctantly.


But sometimes I like to be made to do things. My twisted form of peer pressure. If they say, M, go. Just come. I more than likely will bcs I recognize in most instances I'm completely anti-social. And also now that I have to be in bed by 830 I have an excuse to disappear from most events. But this one, accompanied not only with tea in china cups, and a random assortment of women, and artists at that- stood a woman looking a lot like the blonde bette midler who has a passion for the younger generation- is so intent on being a mentor to us and wanting us to be christ-minded and celebratory all year long (so that it's not about the days endlessly ticking by from monday to friday, thank god for saturday, but that there's more satisfaction in exploring outside the self and your continum boredom with life or days like wed-nes-days) inspired a sentiment in me with words like sharing my abundance and building my community and expressing awkward emotions like affection and love... she passed around a bottle of port and we toasted: 'to the revolution'. O Captian My Captain!! I will kiss your feet and follow you anywhere.


Perhaps warmed by the port and slumping frightfully into the winged back chair of this modern day victorian drawing room my friends and i departed. Feeling blessed by friendship and in communion with all my fellow man, driving over over the hill, the crisp sparkling lights contrasted with night, saying that the other day I looked left and could see the ocean, so clear was the day... I dropped off my friend D to her husbands care, pulling up to her apartment and in the redzone, took an abandoned plant of hers and hopped back in my car to speed tardily home and on my way- so past was I on my appointed slumber hour...


When: the danger chord struck and the key would not do it's work. It stuck sadly out. I jiggled the wheel, checked the gear, flipped the key, shook, shimmyed, hammered... and nothing. I called my mom and dad for idiot proof advice to no avail and then with chagrin trudged back up to my friends apartment, moped in to use the bathroom and told them my car was broken.


I came back out and as true friends do they were also jiggling the wheel, checking the gear, flipping the key, shaking, shimmying, hammering... and nothing. We checked the manual, googled the situation and found quite possibly that my ignition switch was dead and that it was a wide spread ford focus problem, which if you've had this happen you should lodge a complaint immediately. We contemplated getting it out of the redzone but alas no. Or leaving it, but no.


One of the best presents my mom ever gave me was my AAA card. And having utilized it for numerous LA related freeway issues or like when I was 21 and freaking out and late to class how i locked my keys in my car with the engine running... but i digress. They said that, gee, wasn't i lucky to have a $60 free assessment service... sure. okay. The guy shows up pretty frickin quick and within a munite I'm informed that the switch has to be replaced and that it'll be $265. Yes. $265. I have $50 in my bank for the next 2 wks. $3o is for gas. My discovercard is approaching max and I give out a bit of a whine and then a frowny grumbly sound and a big sad pouty face. S says that he will charge it to his card and that I can pay him back. I grumble mainly bcs I hate to impose in such a manner and like most good daughters do, blame their mothers for getting the car in the first place. I call mom and we work out the options, as there is none, and she says she'll write S a check- as the pressure of being indebted to my mom is a much less ominous feeling. It's not my fault she bore me!


I gave S/D a group hug, hopefully thanked them for the cherries and tea and the moral support and the being there part and wended my way home in the now AM hours. SO unbelievably grateful for friends and family and twinging with regret at people who don't have such wonderous things... and overwhelmingly grateful to have made it home, the time, malfunction, and the lack of sleep and the money seemed not to anger me at all.