new age religion

the church at the corner is having a service to bless the animals. i imagine that old marmaduke will trot up the aisle as the humans sing a verse from all things bright and beautiful.

this is somewhat similar to the modern day apostles that some churches have appointed, or perhaps prayer marches - strange blips on the radar that hover at the border of doctrinal acceptability and beguile us into unmurmuring assent.

these might be good issues to pose to a disinterested man of the cloth. the answers will sift out the theologians from the empaths.

the torment of intimacy

i gingerly give the new hairdresser a try because my regular lady has upped and decamped to korea. i am called honey and subjected to some touchey feeley pawing, which makes me squirm secretly. at the end of the haircut, i squirm some more. i hope helen comes back soon.

my pet peeves:

1. cab drivers who attempt conversation.

2. hairdressers who attempt congeniality.

agony

there's chinese water torture, and there is the college application process.

the other side

to be fair, loving a whinebag is not easy either.
to love and speak kindly to a whinebag must be a test.

he has done his part.
i would follow to the ends of the earth.
if only the ends were not ithaca.

submission

to honor and to obey.
how difficult when every instinct would rebel.
to honor and to obey without whining is most difficult.

yet not my will, but thine be done.

journey to ithaca 2

ithaca calls at me. i am being inexorably sucked into a bottomless morass of tribal enthusiasm and cultural chauvinism.

i find myself asking, is it reprehensible to be happy with my lot and to be not curious about my beginnings? is it shallow to be satisfied with stories without yearning for the experience? is it immoral to be reprehensible and shallow?

at forty-four, i don't feel like professing heartiness for projects that do not thrill me.

halloween

our neighbor has built a graveyard on his front lawn, complete with tombstones. HOM is unable to believe his eyes. these people, he says, have obviously never met an oriental ghost, of the vindictive korean or thai variety, or the pontianak, or our regular hungry ghost.

back east, half-wits would not consider grave markers a kind of home accessory.

the meaning of cool

i turn up at school to volunteer at the vision test for the year.

J1 sees me in the corridor and accosts me in horror. what am i doing in school? it's so palpably not cool to have your mother where your buddies are.

J2 hears about my session and goes, ooooo can you be there tomorrow when i have my test? that would be so cool!

a time to embrace

today i think, what have i gained professionally in twenty odd years apart from strong opinions and a clutch of qualifications? my friends are the movers and shakers. i stay home and wonder if it is worth the effort to begin again in a new place at my age.

then i recount my gains:

my family, which trumps any professional achievement.

the privilege of quantity with the children, without which quality is a dream.

the great privilege of being able to inform my children's worldview.

the partnership, friendship, comfort, of my lover.

the exhilaration of frivolously, confidently, living, because i know this is non-accidental.

there is a time... my times will change. but i am grateful for these years of building and planting and uprooting and weeping and dancing and loving.

the art of the epistle

people of a certain age remember having to end their letters, yours faithfully, or less rigidly, yours sincerely.

these days emails end with, blessings. or, emmanuel. this seems to be a new, affirming, trend. i favor, regards, which i find un-maudlin and helpfully non-emotional. J1's coach is always energetically, go saxons! some people do not sign off at all, and lately, some have a final line, sent from my iphone.

's okay. st paul's closings are yards longer than emmanuel.