Stripped of your ordinary surroundings, your friends, your daily routines, your refrigerator full of food, your closet full of clothes -with all this taken away, you are forced into direct experience. Such direct experience inevitably makes you aware of who it is that is having the experience. That’s not always comfortable, but it is always invigorating.
-Michael Crichton
(This was one of my E4K writing prompts)
The television show, Shake it Up has a song, “Fashion is my kryptonite.” It got me thinking: What is my Kryptonite?
I would say #1 is my real Kryptonite. I love the different ways different bags are organized. I have yet to find the perfect bag. I like the cross body style of a messenger bag. I like the flap that keeps everything covered, but most of these don’t have a zipper to keep things secure. It keeps me from carrying my wallet in there. The one I’ve been using for my retreat has a front and a back zipper pocket on the outside, but putting my wallet in there will make the bag too lumpy. This bag also doesn’t have a drink holder for a water bottle. I actually prefer two of those – one for the water bottle or tea tumbler and one for the umbrella which, while usually unneeded was indispensable this wet, rainy week.
I do have an excellent wallet at the moment, but it’s really a phone case and often that’s too small to go it alone. I need a regular everyday pocketbook to be able to hold my Kindle in addition to the other absolutely-must-have-can’t-leave the house without it things. Lately, I’ve needed my camera and I always need my ginger candies.
I do carry too many notebooks now that I’ve compartmentalized them, one notebook for one function. One notebook goes with my content planner, which is a re-formed day planner. One notebook for my AW* tasks. One notebook for first drafts and lists and medical expenses and to-dos and to-don’ts and all of the crazy. Too many notebooks. Maybe pocketbooks, purses, and briefcases aren’t the problem; maybe notebooks are my kryptonite.
Like too many notebooks, I have too many ideas and not enough tangible use for them.
Write about what you know.
What happens when you know nothing?
Like kryptonite, pocketbooks do make me weak-kneed.
Like kryptonite, they are often green.
They don’t literally burn to the touch, but when the bill comes – ooh, ouch; that hurts.
Kids’ backpacks sometimes come with matching lunch boxes. I would like something like that. A green messenger bag with a matching detachable cross body bag/purse. Like those kangaroo things but with a zipper and a strap.
I’ve tried to make the perfect one but I can’t translate the idea to the concrete. I made a backpack once. It was okay for a while. It certainly served its designated purpose, but there are better ones floating around in my mind.
If I had the money to waste, I could buy four of my favorites and put them together, Frankenstein-style. I wonder if that would work. Hmm. It wouldn’t have the ethical controversy of creating new life, but it would give my bags new life and possibly fend off the effects of my kryptonite.
In the meantime, reinforce those straps. With everything I need to fit, they’re going to need to be sturdy. I just remembered – my mother had a friend who made quilted tote bags and the handles went all the way around and under the bag and they were made of seatbelt straps. Those held up really well, although I don’t know whatever became of those bags.
I still have two briefcases I don’t use, but that mean something to me. One was from my Grandmother when I began student teaching and one was from my mom’s friend, Barbara. It was leather and perfect with retractable handles and pockets. It was a hard leather though, and rough.
I think I like soft with a good frame and support. Well, now that sounds like a bra.
Week 42/14
Prompt: What have you discovered about yourself that surprised you?
Photo: Perfect Day for Applepicking
Quotation: “When you can’t run, you crawl. And when you can’t crawl, you find someone to carry you.” – Firefly, Episode 12, The Message
Links:
REBLOG: You Clean Up Good: 8 Hygiene Tricks for People with Body Issues
Crazy Mixed Up Soundbites Meet Pastoral Reality (reblog)
Let’s Make a Coping Skills Toolbox
October Recharge, 2014 (Summer Retreat Wrap-Up Also)
Week 43/14
Prompt:(None) Replaced with apologies and quotation: “All will be well, all will be well, in all manner of things, all will be well.” – Julian of Norwich
Prompt: Write about something you find sacred – like a personal talisman or inspirational item.
Photo: Local Eatery
Water from the Last Three Days
Quotation: “There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” -Elie Wiesel
“If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” -Vincent Van Gogh
“As we journey, we do our best.” – Fr. J
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” – C.S. Lewis
Rec: My Retreat Resources (So Far)
Links:
Weekend Update (Plus Quotations!) (Reflection)
Weekend Update – Sunday (Reflection)
The Unexpected (Reflection)
The Train Station (Reflection)
Follow Me (My Personal Reflection on Mark 1:17)
Gospels Used During Retreat:
You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.
– C. S. Lewis
Since today I’ve decided to be Sam Winchester and work in a library since a motel room wasn’t available, I thought I would share his words from season 4, episode 8, Wishful Thinking.
It is also one of the reminders that I have for myself this week that helps me accept my changes and who I might become.
We can’t go back to our old lives. We’re not the same people.
-Sam Winchester
Something my priest said in church last spring. I thought it was apropos to me for this week.
As we journey, we do our best.
The Word Among Us – Catholic monthly that follows the Roman Missal
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
Together on Retreat by James Martin, SJ
One World, One Heart by Susan Polis Schutz
St. Kateri Tekakwitha National Shrine
Shrine of the North American Martyrs (Feast Day was October 19)
If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.
-Vincent Van Gogh
So far this week, at least the start of it, has been something else, in many ways, both good and bad. My anxiety reared its ugly, irrational head, some personal and family issues came up, and to be honest, this is my only week and I’m ignoring them/head sanding for the moment. That’s not to say that I’m not thinking about them or the situation; on the contrary, I’m thinking about them a lot, but this is the one week I can concentrate on me and not feel guilty about it. There are some health issues that I need to think about and deal with and I’ve been praying on that as well. That is one of the reasons I went to the healing/anointing mass on Monday. The one regret that I have for this week is that I can’t afford a couple of nights at a hotel/motel, like a pretend vacation, but not a vacation, kind of a prayerful, working (writing) vacation or some other word that hasn’t come to me yet.
Back to the guilt, I have always been in Mommy-mode, even in high school and college. I guess it’s hardwired in my nature, but it backs me into a corner and despite the instinct that everyone comes before me. It hasn’t always bothered me; it’s just the way it is, and because of that it’s kind of expected, including by me.
Part of the last two years, as I write often about, is discovering who I am. Part of that person has been hidden under fear of expectations of who I was supposed to be. The past can’t be changed, but those losses can be acknowledged and mourned.
The enormity of how much has changed for me is almost too much to confront, but who I am now is still evolving.
An obvious change is my level of religiousness. It isn’t just that I believe, because I’ve always believed in G-d and afterlife, but I believe in other things. I attend church at least four times a week. I’m thinking of joining a ministry. I didn’t become Catholic to fit in, but because Jesus asked me to follow him, much in the same way he called to the first disciples to follow him. For me, not the literal words, but the essence in a shimmering light. I don’t often talk about my moment. I still may write separately about it.
I have ideas of what I want to do this week. Primarily, I try to jump start my writing, but it appears the Spirit has other plans for me, guiding me to more spiritual places: the water, the train station and the city murals, the Anointing Mass and now today, to St. Kateri. I almost took her name as my confirmation name; she was one of my choices before settling on St. Elen. St. Kateri’s story is somewhat similar to mine, choosing the path apart from her family; speaking openly of her conversion.
I’m meditating and pondering more on what G-d’s plan is for me. Where do His wants and my wants meet? Can I openly, more openly be the spiritual person I feel deep within myself, rising more insistently to the surface? How can those around me get used to my love for the church and church things? I don’t have to go to church; I want to. I need to. My soul needs to. Not my immortal soul that goes to Hell if I fail my “obligations” but my soul-self, the me I am deep within who needs the church like I need writing.
Like I need air.
I know it’s not who I used to be. I know it’s not what my family and friends are used to, but it is who I am, and while I’m still changing, this won’t.
It won’t all spill out at once, but I can’t keep myself hidden. Some things are still hidden from me. I can feel them poking, but they’re not ready to be released and I’m probably hot ready for them just yet.
I’m not the same person. And once I truly accept that, I can start being my authentic self and slowly the people around me can adapt, hopefully.
As you can see, this consciousness streamed. My impromptu writing almost never ends up where I’ve expected it to go. I do wonder where tomorrow will take me. Maybe somewhere to help me explain what I need and who I want to be.
On Sunday, I woke up not knowing what I would do for the day. My family would be home again later in the afternoon or early evening, but I still had most of the day to myself.
As I wrote in my journal, what better place to start the journey this week but at the train station.
In the last five years, I’ve been luckily been able to travel in three of those years: Wales in 2009, Denver in 2011, and Williamsburg, Virginia in 2013. By far, the trek with the least amount of travel stress was in 2013 when I took Amtrak. I would love to do that again. I loved the traveling by train.
I spent about two hours there, amid the noise of hellos and goodbyes, the Red Caps rushing about helping passengers, people asking for the bathrooms, a man working on his laptop, even a Tardis hat. I had a bag for my books and things, so I didn’t look out of place.
I took out my Kindle and read the first part of James Martin’s Together on Retreat. His first prayer was the calling of the first disciples. Jesus’ very simple, but powerful “Follow me” said out loud what I felt when he called me two years ago. I think that sometime this week, I might be ready to write about that in more detail.
After the train station, I followed the signs to a place where you could look across the river to the Albany skyline. I was surprised at how close I was to the water. To be honest, this looked like the place in the movies where you find the dead body or where the thugs take you to shoot you in the head and let you fall into the water, never to be seen again.
Despite this, there was a playground nearby with laughing children, painted murals on the highway support pylons, which after Doctor Who’s most recent episode, Flatlines, made me very, very, very nervous. I took pictures of the boats, of the water, of the bridge above me and the tall buildings across the way.
It wasn’t the Sea of Galilee that Fr. Martin was writing about, but it was still a beautiful place to meditate on a few things.
I haven’t sorted out what I’m doing with the rest of my week. I had only formally planned Monday and Saturday.
Monday, at my church was their annual Anointment Mass, and with my current health issues, I was really looking forward to going to this healing mass. It was beautiful, and very moving. There was music, which I loved singing with; most of the songs I’d had a little knowledge of, and the Fathers came to where we were sitting to anoint us and give us the Eucharist. It was very welcoming and intimate, and I got a lot out of it. They also served a lunch, and I sat with people I’d just met. It was lovely.
Out of the blue I’ve decided to drive out to the St. Kateri Tekakwitha shrine tomorrow. We’ll see what I find there.
Hopefully, all will be well, as was quoted from Julian of Norwich during the homily.
Griffins and Ginger Snaps 