Daze

There were many things I expected to be doing this summer, particularly writing, but it turns out that hasn't been happening so much.  In fact, the majority of my time has been spent reading, watching movies, and lounging by the local public pool.  I have worked in my classroom some, I'm house sitting for some friends, I've had some really wonderful dinners and lunches with colleagues and former students, but I haven't been terribly productive in the sense that I have produced anything.

And you know what?  I could care less.

Sometimes, it turns out, even the most well intentioned people with the loftiest of goals--well, okay, maybe not the loftiest--turn out to need to just stop.  To breathe.  To reconnect with what it is in them that makes them fundamentally who they are, and it turns out, for me, it's water, words, and movies.  They're a pretty great foray into my little mess.  There are other things that make up the sum total of who I am, namely the fact that I am a fiercely loyal friend and daughter and sister and aunt, a teacher who loves her job, and a woman who dreams of one day sharing her life with a good man, but all of that stuff has been on the back burner this summer.  Not because it isn't important, but because--when I pulled my head up from the daze that is every day life during the academic year--I realized that I am important, my mental health, my sense of self, my, well, me-ness matters, and so I'm getting back in touch with that.

Does that mean I'm lazy?  Unproductive?  Wasting a lot of time doing a lot of nothing?  Some may think so, but for me, this is the best summer I've had in years because there is no point, there is no pressure, there's just me and the sun and the words and the images I love, and we're all--it turns out, much to my total shock--doing just fine.

Quotations

I've been reading a lot this summer, and I'm sure there will be a post on that at some point, but for now, these are a few of the tidbits I'm chewing on.


"One man all by himself is nothing. Two people who belong together make a world." — Hans Margolius

“The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.”--Rumi

“Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back in our hearts. Love is the essential reality and our purpose on earth. To be consciously aware of it, to experience love in ourselves and others, is the meaning of life. Meaning does not lie in things. Meaning lies in us.”--Marianne Williamson

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.--From "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver

 "Change happens when you understand what you want to change so deeply that there is no reason to do anything but act in your own best interest."--Geneen Roth

"What is to give light must endure burning."--Viktor Frankel

'It is time the stone made an effort to flower

time unrest had a beating heart,

it is time it were time.

It is time."--from "Corona" by Paul Celan

"Every universe, our own included, begins in conversation. Every golem in the history of the world, from Rabbi Hanina's delectable goat to the river-clay Frankenstein of Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, was summoned into existence through language, through murmuring, recital, and kabbalistic chitchat -- was, literally, talked into life."--Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

"The thing about love is that we come alive in bodies not our own."--Calum McCann, Let the Great World Spin

"Ever morning, until you dead in the ground, you gone have to make this decision. You gone have to ask yourself, "Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today?"--Kathryn Stockett, The Help

Summer Cold

I can't exactly name the ailment that has befallen me, but for the sake of argument we'll call it a summer cold.  I have been super sick the last few days and am hating it.  I'm chugging water like it's been deemed illegal, I'm running through pectin cough drops like their candy, and at this point I should own stock in Kleenex.

I'm on a Z-Pack, Sudafed, a brochial inhaler, Tessalon Pearls for my cough, Tylenol for pain, and I'm fairly addicted to bad movies by now.  As we speak, I'm watching Drive Angry, a particularly bloody Nicholas Cage film with pretty rotten dialogue, but at least Amber Heard is hot.

So, here's how I'm trying to get over the illness: reading, bad movies, and thinking about how much fun I have every time I see this sweet little girl.

Faith

Trying to let go of the need to control the universe is exhausting.  I spend half my day, it seems, trying to conform the world to my vision of how it should be rather than conforming myself to the reality of the world and that, according to GB Shaw, is a surefire sign that I am an irrational human being.  Pretty sure he's right.

Lately I've been asked to blindly trust that certain things are going to go well: finances, personal life, the health of loved ones.  As a woman of faith, I know there is a greater plan that has already decided these things, but as a woman of letters, I also wholeheartedly believe in the power of free will and so I am torn, most days, by the desire to trust and the fundamentally ingrained tendency to doubt and speculate.

I do not need proof of God to believe in Him, I feel His presence in my life and that is enough.  I see His acts and love in action in the world, and that is enough.  These things are, I suppose, my proof.  Where others see senseless acts of random kindness, I see God.  Where you might see a scientifically explainable situation, I say the science behind the situation is proof of something miraculous.

Albert Einstein said there were two ways of looking at the world: as if nothing is a miracle or as if everything is.  I am trying desperately to follow the latter.  But, as is the case of all fallible humans on this little blue planet, I trip up.  I get caught in the trap of wanting what I want right now, wanting my vision of the world to come true immediately, wanting the world, as aforementioned, to conform to me, even when I know such wants are ridiculous.

Troy Girsgonelle believes that being in love is chemical while loving someone is active, and not always pleasant.  That to truly love someone we must be willing to sacrifice our wants for the sake of what it is they need in the moment.  While it is easy for me to follow this logic in terms of those I love--I will always and without hesitation sacrifice for them, it is the right way and only way for me to behave (no judgment if you disagree, it's not for everyone--but I've been thinking a lot about how this applies to loving ourselves.  If I have a vision for what should be, what I actually believe will come to be, then maybe--just maybe--I ought to be willing to sacrifice my want of the culmination occurring now in exchange for loving myself enough to wait for things to happen as they must.

[Cryptic enough for you?  There are just certain aspects of my life I'm just not comfortable writing about on the interwebs.  However, I am grappling with these concepts, so they feel like good blog fodder.]

I guess my point here is that I'm wondering how to do it, to just believe that things will all work out for the best, to have faith not only that the universe will provide & that God has a plan, but that those provisions and plans mirror what it is I want.  Of course, I know that's not how it works.  The act of faith means not expecting what happens to follow your preconceived notions, but instead trusting, blindly.

So here's to trying not to see in the dark any more.  To breathing deep.  To saying yes.  To faith.

Neruda

Sonnet XVII, Pablo Neruda

I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or where from,
I love you simply, without complexities or pride;
I love you in this way, not knowing any other way of loving
but this, in which neither I nor you exist
so close that your hand on my breast is mine,
so close that your eyes close when I sleep.

Joplin Benefit

I've spent the last week planning this benefit; if you can make it, I'd love to see you.  Excellent music for a truly worthy cause.