travel

Travel – Star Trek Original Series Set Tour, Ticonderoga, New York

Standard

It hasn’t been a week since my birthday surprise, and at times I feel as if it were just yesterday or a year ago that we took the long drive to Ticonderoga, New York to visit the Star Trek Original Series Set Tour.

It was all the more wonderful to celebrate my 50th birthday among the stars that had been in our world for those same fifty years.

I was completely speechless and wide-eyed. I had no idea that this place existed. Upon entering and checking in (we’d bought our tickets online), we were led into a large warehouse space. The modern displays and wooden walls stamped with Desilu Studios 9 were wonderfully deceiving.

Continue reading

50-47 – Niagara Falls

Standard

I can’t remember how many times I’ve been to Niagara Falls. It is the one place that I’ve been to in almost every place of my life. I went as a kid with my parents and siblings, I went with my husband while we were dating, we brought my young son right before he started kindergarten, and we recetnly went with our whole family of five.

The city iteself changes, and over the last forty years or so, the Falls have even changed, but yet, they still remain the same.

I recognize the crowded streets, the carnival like atmosphere, the bright lights, the cold spray from the Falls, the huge ferris wheel that we could see from our hotel room window.

Parking was worse this last time, and I had trouble with my knee, but overall it was a lasting memory that we will enjoy for a long time.

Standing across from the Falls, my hand on the cold stone wall that kept me from falling down the hill to the sharp rocks below. I would stand there and stare, occasionally taking pictures, occasionally closing my eyes and just standing there, listening to the wind, the water hitting the bottom. I couldn’t feel the spray from there, but I could see it.

We wanted to take the kids on the Maid of the Mist, but the boats had also changed. Maid of the Mist only docked on the American side. The Canadian had a new tour from Hornblower Niagara Cruises. The boats were red trimmed, and the ponchos were red and biodegradable. The boat was less choppy and I liked it much better than when I was a kid.

When I was a kid, I refused to go on until my family came back safe, then my Dad took me alone. Since they didn’t drown, I figured it was okay for me to go. The anxiety is strong in me. At that time, you couldn’t keep the rain jackets. They were much heavier, rubbery, and hot, so very hot.

This boat still rocked and we were drenched from going under or close enough to the falls that the spray was heavier than any torrential downpour I’ve ever been in.

Continue reading

World Toilet Day

Standard

​Today is World Toilet Day.

Part of me wonders who comes up with these commemorative “holidays”, but another part of me wonders what we’d do without toilets.

In my first child care job in the very early 90s, we had a plumbing problem, and we needed to use porta-johns, for us and the children, ages 3-5. Not only did we have to use the porta-johns, they were outside the front door, so every time anyone needed to use the toilet, we’d have to go outside and wait until they were finished. It is a horrible memory. I think it might have lasted a few weeks, maybe a month, but it feels like much longer.

When my siblings and I were kids, we did quite a bit of traveling with our family. My parents believed in the family vacation. I wish things were less expensive and I could give that to my own kids. It was a brilliant childhood and fostered my love of history and other cultures, including those regional differences just along the East Coast where we typically went. We drove everywhere, even to Florida. No planes for my mother. Driving had its own charm; sometimes. Every trip began at around 4am and we drove into the sunrise. Sometimes we left in our pajamas and got dressed at the first rest stop, hours later. Many hours later.

Although, sometimes, those long, lovely travels trapped in the backseat fighting over the windows or who didn’t want to sit on the middle hump, were punctuated by bathroom requests beginning from whenever the first one woke up.

My father used to ask if we were writing a book on the bathrooms across the country for the amount of times we asked to stop. We just had to see every bathroom. Three kids and we never needed to use the bathroom at the same time. As a parent now, it is pretty ridiculous, but such is life. In fact, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

When my oldest son was young and began to use the toilet, we’d stop on the way to Grandma’s (who lived far away). For some of those long trips we carried a portable potty with us so he didn’t have to use the dirty public ones on the road. First time parents; what can I say?

As a joke we decided to take photos of my son in front of the places where he used the bathroom (outside), like McDonald’s, the thruway rest area, etc, and we made a picture book for my Dad. He loved it! He thought it was the best thing in the world! He had a great sense of humor.

I have a recurring nightmare that takes place in a toilet. It’s horrific. I won’t even describe it here; it leaves shivers on my spine. Suffice it to say, it has to do with not finding a clean toilet, wet floors, and I’m the only one bothered by it. I’m not even a germophobe; this dream really is the stuff of nightmares.

We are a very spoiled people here in the United States. You can go into any bathroom, assuming there is indoor plumbing, which more than likely there is, and there is no way to make a mistake. None. It’s almost relaxing how easy our toilet flushing systems are. Even using a port-a-potty at an outdoor event or in an emergency, it’s all pretty obvious where everything goes or how to get rid of the “evidence”.

My travels in the United Kingdom, especially in 1987 still pump terror through my veins if I think too long about it.

Before England, I’d never seen a pay toilet before. Or a paid shower for that matter. Nothing was automatic like it is today. You had to pump your own soap, turn on your water, turn it off, and find the paper towels. I can’t remember, but I don’t think there were any hot air dryers back then. Most water faucets had a hot knob and a cold one, but it wasn’t always standard which was which. 

For one pub toilet, you had to slip past the first stall while someone was using it to get to the end stall. My friend and I went in together and out the same way. I don’t even remember if it was single gender.

There were no second glances using the men’s room, or pretty much anything else as long as whatever it was was finished with, “Sorry, I’m American.” Shrug and smile, and a college student on holiday could get away with almost anything. After all, the men’s toilet lines were much shorter than the women’s, especially on New Year’s Eve.

To the toilets themselves, because as most of us know, the English bathroom doesn’t contain the toilet but the tub. No showers unless you were in a hostel or had an updated loo. Usually no sink either, but sometimes there was one alongside the toilet. Saved time and grime to wash before you left the stall.

Toilets.

I never put much thought into flushing a toilet before. I don’t think I spent this much time on the topic since my kids were potty training and even then it wasn’t rocket science.

Like ours, most are the typical seat with the tank right there. Almost none of them had a flushing lever attached to the tank, though. Once in a while, but it was never guaranteed.

It was a scavenger hunt every time I used the bathroom.

There were push buttons on top of the tank, on the side of the tank, on the floor to the left, right and back of the tank, on the wall behind the tank, and quite possibly near the door for on your way out. I personally liked that one because if there’s a problem with the plumbing you’re long gone before your shoes are wet.

But wait, that is a mere sampling of the flushing techniques on display in jolly old England.

Some had chains. Chains from the ceiling, chains on the side of the tank.

One had a tank about eight feet high attached to the wall with the chain hanging down like a light chain. The chain was the only way I noticed the tank in the first place, and I’m sure I did a double take.

I remember one had a metal rod sticking out of the tank that you had to push down, maybe like part of the thing you’d use at an old-fashioned water pump.

Toilet paper was scratchy, and there was never enough.

There wasn’t anything really in the way of latches. It was really a hope for the best that no one walked in on you.

Bathrooms were also very cold. No central heat, but they did have towel warmers which sadly hasn’t made it across the pond, at least not in a middle class home way.

There were big changes when I returned in 2009. I didn’t have quite the toileting adventures that I had twenty-two years earlier. There was central heat in most places. I stayed in mostly hostels, so those loos were dormitory style, all shared, with showers in another room. There were, however also bathrooms with weird blue lights. Apparently studies found that this put people off, particularly teenagers, so they didn’t loiter in the bathrooms doing whatever it is that teenagers loiter in the bathroom for. Smoking, drugs, sex. And this wasn’t even the pub; this was in the grocery store.

As much as I complain about our plumbing and antiquated septic system at my house, I know that when I flush ninety-nine times out of a hundred it leaves and doesn’t come back. I know exactly where it goes, in fact, so no matter how you flush it, I can spend my adventures on something simpler, like which plunger to buy next.

I was excited to learn that Japan has a museum dedicated to toilets.

For further reading, please click:

A Brief History of Toilets

Is it Time to Kill Off the Flush Toilet?

50-41 – Salisbury Tea

Standard

​Some memories are clearer than others. When I think of Salisbury, I remember several bits rather than a cohesive narrative. I have vague images of people and places and really strong feelings evoked by the smell of rain on stone. Simply the mention of the Cotswolds region and I think lovingly of the hostel warden who let us in early because of the freezing air. He showed us his books on the area and we talked with him for what seemed like hours although it was probably closer to minutes. I can picture Kathy and I poring over the books in what I remember being a study with overstuffed chairs and shelves of books. It was probably less of a study and more of a nook but it is in my mind’s eyes as from an Austen novel.

I have no memory of coming off the train and walking on a regular sidewalk. Our bags were heavy. We’d just left London and I already had an extra bag. In some ways, twenty odd years later would be much easier with my own car.

The street was narrow, going hurriedly but clumsily over the cobblestones and through the slate colored grey stone archway that matched the sky. Salisbury held everything from prehistoric and Druidic to medieval and Christian to modern with that extra touch of living in a British comedy. All there for tourist and native alike, slight eye roll and wondering if this was real or if it was done as pantomime for our benefit.

I take pictures of everything so it boggles my mind that I do not have a photos of the actual medieval clock in the CAthedral. It is possible that photographs weren’t allowed. It’s possible that the picture was blurry and lost to the annals of a box of college things that will never be seen again. I do remember amazement, thought, and I recall sitting on a wall near the Cathedral – I have a photo of a flowering tree in January from there so it must be true – and we eating peanut butter spread on crackers, although I think it was either Melba toast or mini bread squares the size of crackers – non-perishable, easy to carry and thrifty. Let’s be hone now, frugal or cheap is a more appropriate designation.

What stands out most vividly, besides scaring another hosteler that evening while watching Poltergeist, was the wacky tea shoppe that Kathy and I wandered into. There were so many things on the wall, it was hard to miss the tiny flowery wallpaper. There were small round table with two or three chairs. I think they were metal, like patio furniture rather than wood, and they were all white. I feel as though a doily factory exploded in this shoppe. People were there, chatting quietly, sipping tea, adding milk, dabbing creme onto scones, the click of the spoon hitting the tea cup unmistakable and nearly constant.

At the back of the shop was a counter where you got your order and behind the counter were three old women. Ancient would be more apt. They were all quite deaf or extraordinarily hard of hearing. Although they didn’t have one, it would not have surprised me one whit if they had one of those ear trumpets that you would put into your ear and had someone scream into.

They were shouting orders back and forth and repeating as necessary because of the hearing. It was very much like the Where’s the Beef commercials.

As Americans, we were already loud, but not quite loud enough for this place.

I’d like a tea with milk please.

What?

Tea. With milk, said a little louder.

What?

One more time.

She turned to the lady behind her, in the more kitcheny area and repeated my order.

What? came the reply from the back.

The first woman repeated it.

What?

A third woman back there repeated it even louder and was met with a silent nod as tea kettles were poured and prepared and given to us on a tray. We must have paid but I don’t actually remember paying. I also don’t recall if we got anything to eat with our tea.

We sat and sipped and listened in astonishment as our conversation was repeated with the customers who came after us. We grinned occasionally at the absurdity of it all.

It was so perfectly, stereotypically British that I would not have been surprised had Mrs. Slocum come out of the back complaining about her day.

I don’t remember what was upstairs – there was a little shop, but I do remember going up the narrow stairs and then coming back down relatively quickly. We slid past other customers coming in, back onto the narrow cobbled walkway, under the stone arch that had been there since before America was a nascent thought and back to the hostel; or more likely to the hostel for the first time after our very British sustenance. Tea cures all ills, and with its special powers we were able to walk the rest of the way to the hostel where we would stay the night and then continue west by train through the lush green countryside bordered by grey sky.

January in England. We made our own sunshine.

50-40 – Collections

Standard

I have always been a collector. I’m not quite at the hoarding stage yet, but it’s not that far off, so I need to be ever vigilant and aware so I don’t end up on the nighttime news when they come with a shovel.

Our whole family collects something or other. My oldest son collects fire department memorabilia and history, books and pictures. My husband and middle son collect comic books and action figures. My middle son also collects Lego. He loves to build them and display them. He also continues to play with them. My daughter collects clothes. She wants to be a fashion designer and she loves putting new outfits together and seeing how she can make something old new again.

In my basement, I have videotapes and newspaper articles, magazines that I wanted to keep forever. I have the newspaper when NY Yankee Thurman Munson died. I have magazines when Princess Diana was married and I saved the newspapers somewhere for President Obama’s inauguration.

I have a collection of pewter pieces, primarily on the medieval theme, but also groupings of griffins, my favorite animal. Yes, of course, it’s a real animal.

I collect some stamp sets and sheets, usually the ones that my kids would want to have when they’re older. I’ve showcased some of them on here recently.

I collect coins. Not anything really worth much, but just a remembrance of where I’ve been or gifts that I’ve been given. I’m not sure where they all are, but I have German marks and French francs. A shekel and a Scottish paper pound. My friend sent me New Zealand money from his home and my husband brought me coins from the Philippines when he was there for his work. I almost always have Canadian money on me somewhere. We just went over the border this past summer for a couple of days vacation.

I also collect Hufflepuffs. They are a rare find, so I’m pretty sure I’ve got everything sold in our local stores, including Hot Topic.

My biggest collection is my pins. I love pins. I buy them wherever I am, and I am sent them by frineds, although I usually have to ask. I have San Francisco and Las Vegas from a friend. I have a Hello Kitty from Japan and my son brought me an Eiffel Tower pin from Paris. He recently went to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum and he brought me my newest pin from there commemorating the fire department. Another new pin is my 50th anniversary Star Trek pin that a friend got for me at a convention. I have loved Star Trek since I was a little girl, and I thought that since I was also turning 50 this year, I’d really like the pin. The picture below is what my jacket looks like currently, but I display my pins on corkboard and need to get a few more squares of it to get the rest of them on.

My collections remind me of things, whether they’re what’s depicted on the pins or they remind me of the person who gave it to me, or the adventure I had when I got the pin. That’s especially true of my Gettysburg Bike Week pin.

All of my collections remind me of who I am and the important things I’ve done and want to remember.

The pins currently on my jacket: from the top, clockwise: my RCIA cross, trio of crosses from the Shrine of the North American Martyrs, rainbow Pride, Gishwhes, safety pin, Niagara Falls, 9/11 Memorial, 50th anniversary Star Trek, Hufflepuff, Supernatural anti-possession symbol, Star Labs, Michonne and Daryl from The Walking Dead, Wales, Niagara Falls/Hard Rock Cafe, 9/11 Memorial larger version. (c)2016


Pewter, Top, clockwise: Griffin hatching out of an egg, Griffin, Ceirdwen, griffin, medieval table, Ladron, griffin. (c)2016


Hufflepuff, Coins, Stamps. Left, then top to bottom: Hufflepuff pin, Hufflepuff key chain, coins from Canada, UK, and US Bicentennial, Repeal of the Stamp Act stamp sheet. (c)2016

Reflection at St. Kateri’s Shrine

Standard

​[Note: This reflection ended up encompassing many things: travel, spirituality, prayer, politics, and again part of my year of mercy. I hope you enjoy all that it is, and that you see the National Shrine in Fonda, NY one day yourselves. It is a very peaceful place to visit, to sit, and to pray.]



In the early part of November, just because I was in the neighborhood, I decided to visit the Shrine of St. Kateri Tekakwitha. I had a lot on my mind and in watching what was continually unfolding at Standing Rock in North Dakota, I felt helpless towards a people that had captured my imagination and inspiration since I was a child.

I remember playing cowboys & Indians. That was a thing in the 1970s. I always wanted to be an Indian. In college I chose a class titled North American Indians as my anthropology elective. As a preschool teacher, I changed the curriculum for Thanksgiving to avoid making headdresses. I added Native foods to our school’s Thanksgiving feast. Instead of the headdresses, we made more Native American crafts and listened to the drum beats and chanting of Native American music. I can still hear the cassette in my mind as I write this.

On the hill above the Shrine, I went up to the spring, but when I followed the signs to the spring, and walked through the crunchy leaves carpeting the path, I saw the way down and the supporting handrails. I could hear the water.

But I was alone and the rest of the way was steep and I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to climb back up, so I missed the spring. I chose not to go down on the slippery leaves. I still felt okay, though, because the spring was the cherry.

At the Shrine, I stood by St. Kateri’s plaque which included the dates of her veneration and canonization. I looked out passed the sign of the cross to the rustic looking buildings to the close knit trees, their narrow trunks rising into the sun. The sun was bright that day, coming down in rays through the pines. The green grass was beginning to be covered in their shedding pine needles.

The buildings themselves were closed for the season, but you can’t close the sky or the air or the land.

I stood there and I prayed. I asked St. Kateri for her intercession for North Dakota and the Sioux and their companions and their supporters. Water protectors. An end to DAPL. An end to the violence against them by more people trying to take their land. Again.

There were water protectors in Bismarck – the citizens and politicians. Dogs weren’t sicced on them. They changed the route to the pipeline. Maybe if there were water protectors in Flint, Michigan they wouldn’t have allowed lead to be in the water.

I guess you could call this a kind of pilgrimage; with purpose and spirit. It was spontaneous and it felt right and it fit in with everything I was trying to do in this past Year of Mercy. I was guided to action, something I could actually do and my heart swelled.

I prayed for peace and I prayed for resistance and strength and the outcome that protects the land and the spirit of the land for everyone who comes after us.

At the Shrine, at the Native American Peace Grove, is the following prayer:

Speak evil of no one, if you can say no

Good of a person, then be silent.

Let not your tongues betray you into

evil. For these are words of our Creator.

Let all strive to cultivate friendship

with those who surround them.

-Handsome Lake – Iroquois Prophet

Recipe – Jacket Potatoes

Standard

​Recipe

Jacket Potatoes

I will usually use 1 1/2 large potatoes, but use your judgment for your appetite.

Take the potatoes, wash, dry, and poke holes on four sides with a fork. Bake for 1 hour at 400*.

When the potatoes are ready, cut them in half. Put two or three halves in a cereal or soup bowl.

Keep the potato flesh in the skins, but mash it a little with some butter.

Add to the potato whatever you like. my personal preferences are:

chopped up chives,

bacon pieces (real bacon, not bits),

shredded cheddar cheese (or your favorite flavor), and

a dollop of sour cream.

Jacket potatoes are very versatile. You can smother them with chili, leftover hamburger meet, pasta sauce with meat (I’d recommend mozzarella for that one), broccoli, beef stew leftovers. The options are endless.

They make a great lunch, and pair them with a hearty salad, and they can be very filling for dinner.

– – – –

Recently, we had jacket potatoes for dinner. We’d run out of groceries except for a 5lb. bag of potatoes, and some odds and ends in the fridge. No one wanted to make dinner. When I suggested potatoes for that dinner, my husband thought I was being crazy, but since he didn’t have to make the meal, he went along with it.
It’s funny how the simplest thing can seem like the best, most wonderful, unique food on the planet. The first time I had a potato as a main dish like this I was in England in the eatery at Warwick Castle. My friend and I were on a three week adventure through the UK, and we were watching our pennies. We still had another week to get through with the cash we had on hand, and as any tourist place, even twenty-odd years ago, the castle’s food was expensive.

Looking though the menu, we both chose this odd but very interesting sounding thing called a jacket potato. It really was an oddity. A baked potato with stuff in it. It was huge. It was like the size of two potatoes with what looked like four ounces of cheddar cheese on top. I loved it. I came home that spring and started making them for my lunches.

Many years later, upon returning to North Wales, I visited another castle. This one was Caernarfon, 13th century built by Edward I to subjugate the Welsh. They had a gift shop, but no place to eat on site. It didn’t much matter; there were enough places to choose from in the small town.

I ended up in an alleyway, called Hole in the Wall. Too narrow for a car, but perfect for walking or bicycling. There were several places along the small lane, and at least three restaurants all on the same side of the lane, and I chose the cafe across from where the bell tower used to be. The stones that made up the tower and surrounded the bell were still there but half of the stones were missing so one side was open.

Appropriately named The Bell Tower Cafe, it was a tiny place, maybe ten tables, mostly filled with regulars, a variety of ethnicities all speaking the lyrical Welsh language. They were all getting a good, hearty British breakfast. It looked amazing, but I had already eaten breakfast at the hostel, toast and jam. I watched as the steam rose from the white tea someone had ordered. In searching over the menu, I discovered that old favorite from Warwick – the jacket potato. I had that big potato covered in cheddar cheese with a salad and a soda, and it was delicious. I went back the next day and had the exact same thing.

50-34 – Stonehenge

Standard

I’ve been once. Very nearly thirty years ago. What is most amazing apart from the stones themselves and the sacred space itself is how much of the feelings remain with me after so many years away.

I’ve always had a thing for rocks. Pebbles and larger, colored and polished, rough, formations that can’t be moved no matter how hard you try. When I returnd to Wales in 2009, I touched the stones of castles and rock formations, and almost none gave me the feeling that I experienced at Stonehenge.

I was lucky when I went. You could still touch the stones and move in and out, around them and about. There were some ropes to keep you from sitting on the flat ones, and of course, they didn’t want you climbing, but just being there, surrounded by the cool plains air, the cold to the touch stones, gigantic, and not just tall but broad and sturdy.

The sun was setting. We were one of the last buses allowed in for the day, and I was very thankful. This was our only chance to visit, and this was one of the important places that I wanted to see. To touch. To feel. To be.

If you’ve never been to a place of great spirits, you can’t imagine the electricity coming off of not only the stones, but the ground below them. I’ve been to Gettysburg, and I imagine Standing Rock in North Dakota has the residual of all that has gone before it, but Stonehenge….Stonehenge is in an entirely other category; another world.

You almost don’t notice the other tourists. I was spellbound, moving from one monolith to the next, placing my hand, palm flat against the cold, rough edifice. I didn’t have to imagine what had gone before in this place; I could feel it: the heartbeat. The pulse, the pulsating of life, of forever.I never wanted to leave.

The sky dimmed and then darkened, the powerful stones becoming shadowed and dark against the darkening sky. I can remember leaving, sitting in the bus, looking out the window at the stones growing smaller as we ambled slowly away, getting further and further distant, and yet, they are still with me; within me.

There is magic there, so much that it is able to let a little bit leave with its visitors and keep them in touch with the pulse of the land, the stones, the past, and the future, and of course, whatever else we believe is out there, be it Druidic or Diety, Nature or Nurture, Spirit and Faith.

It’s taken thirty years to get this much down, and I still feel more wanting to bubble up, but not ready – I’m not ready to let it all out. I want to be selfish and keep it inside for me alone. It can’t be shared in a way that anyone else can feel what I feel. It’s too much to share so I’ve shared what I could.

(c)1987, (c)2016


(c)1987 (c)2016


Amazing. (c)1987, (c)2016


Stonehenge. (c)1987, (c)2016


Sunset at Stonehenge. (c)1987, (c)2016

50-29 – Wales, The First Time

Standard

​When I first arrived in Wales many years ago, I didn’t know how profoundly it would affect me and change my viewpoint of everything. It wasn’t until years later that I discovered the word for what I was feeling: hiraeth. Hiraeth isn’t homesickness, but a longing, a yearning for one’s homeland, and it is not so much that you know it when you feel it, but the emotion of hiraeth is so much more than its literal definition. In fact, it doesn’t really have a literal definition, but a broad emotional meaning. It’s spiritual.

Wales, that first time, was in so many ways, a surprise. I wanted to visit a castle, not realizing that the castles I associated with Wales were English castles used to subjugate the Welsh people rather than built by the Welsh to protect them and their interests.

Wales is a surprise, and never what you’d expect. If you expect rain, the sun will shine. If they say hill, they mean mountain. Their lifeblood is slate and coal, daffodils and leeks, but most of all the people. It’s palpable. No matter where you are in North Wales it seems that you can see the mountains. The English call it Snowdon, but it is Eriyi in Welsh – the haunt of eagles. So much more evocative, isn’t it? So much more poetic like the Welsh lilt and cadence.

That cadence of the Welsh tongue is much like the valleys and peaks of Wales itself. They know their history and remember their independence, although that mostly ended in 1282 with the beheading of Llywelyn the Last and the drawing and quartering of his brother, Dafydd, their blood as much a part of the land as the craggly rocks and the rivers.

My first trip to Wales came about by accident. Luck. Fate even. I was asked to join my college roommate in England. Sure, why not? Of course, there was more to it than that, but that’s the gist of it. I borrowed the money from my brother, who was better at keeping his than I was with mine and off I went.

My roommate asked me what I wanted to do. My only response was, “I don’t care. I want to see Stonehenge and a castle; I don’t care about the rest. I’ll follow you.” She planned it all through trains and buses and hitchhiking, hostels and B&Bs. I followed along, collecting pictures and memories.

We made our way from London at this first day of 1987, a new year. We went westward and south and west again, and eventually entered Wales. I don’t remember crossing the border but Wales was different. Welsh had made a resurgence so all the signs were bilingual. I began keeping a little dictionary in my journal although no one made us speak in consonants. W is a vowel by the way, but that’s another memory.

Wales was different.

The air was different.

The sky was different.

The sheep were different.

It didn’t rain in Wales; at least not the Wales I was in. This was January, and Britain was grey; very grey. It held the first patch of blue sky I’d seen in the two weeks I’d been on this island. It was that perfect cloud peppered Crayola sky blue color that exists nowhere else, its reflection off the quarries deepening it and the snow evening out its perfection. It must be special.

But the sky wasn’t all that made it special. There was a feeling I’d never experienced before, not deja vu, but I had been here before. I don’t know how or if, but physically I’d never, but I was.

How can everyone not feel it?

It was overpowering. I needed to be here, high in the mountains, midnight hikes, counting the stars, not having an historical clue, but knowing that I walked in the footsteps of ancestors, of family, of specialness, feeling as though I’d taken these steps before. This wasn’t restless spirits like I’ve felt at other historical holy places; these were memories, memories of feelings.

Crazy, I know.

There was a weightlessness, a joyful singing in my soul that nothing else compares to. I only imagine this is something of the feeling that people get when they travel to Israel, but I don’t actually know.

It is my spiritual home, an ancestry I wasn’t born to, but I was called on to feel, to be a part of,  to let inside and settle into my soul. It is always there, this feeling of Wales and the Welsh, the people as much a part of the land, and as much a part of me as my own children.

When I went back almost twenty-three years later, I found the feelings still strong with only my research and readings that gave me more context and made it more tangible to breathe in. My footsteps following Welsh princes, understanding how remote a castle stronghold really was breathing the same air, wondering if I would ever understand these feelings.

Even home, I get fleeting glimpses through a looking glass – the wet colored leaves on a rural road and I forget that I’m not in Wales. The hesitation at a roundabout, confused about which way to enter it. The tree outside my church’s window when it rains – it is always a surprise and always a physical reaction and then I realize it’s through a window and I’m not in Wales. These come upon me through no special thought, but there is the realization that Wales is a part of me and who I am, and maybe one day I’ll find out why and maybe even how I have this connection.

3/8 – Pilgrimage

Standard

​”This (Holy Year) is the opportune moment to change our lives!” the pope has said. “This is the time to allow our hearts to be touched!…May pilgrimage be an impetus to conversion.”

 – Pope Francis

 This is what Pope Francis said when he opened up this Jubilee Holy Year of Mercy. He also mentioned that a pilgrimage would be equally beneficial closer to home if a trip to Rome wasn’t possible.

That intrigued me, and I began to think about pilgrimage in a more tangible, more accessible way.

In a mere five weeks,  we are coming to the conclusion of that Extraordinary Jubilee Year.

In some ways, I have done much towards creating a better understanding of mercy – for myself and for others. I have also reflected much more on forgiveness – again, both for myself and for others.

It took me some time to initially walk through our Holy Door; to feel as though I were ready; worthy of the entrance. I didn’t want to rush through and have it be done, like a ticky box to b checked. I wanted to discern and meditate on what it meant, and perhaps that meant that I would never walk through the portal.

I’ve written before about how I did finally reach a moment to enter, and then a second moment. When our family went on a short holiday to Niagara Falls, I wanted to go to reconciliation and to enter through the Holy Door with prayer and reflection before our journey.

Niagara Falls is one of those places that I grew up visiting and loved as a child, and that I eventually shared with my husband and later with my oldest son. Now, I was going to share it with my two younger children, but I was also going to see the magnificent and powerful falls with new eyes; eyes that had been touched by G-d and by faith.

I had spent much of my year of mercy as a spiritual pilgrim, going to places that struck me as important on my journey. Sometimes that was as simple as sitting in Starbucks or outside on a bench with a cool breeze waving my hair around.

Sometimes, it was taking a week in the spring to visit some local historical places, taking my camera and my journal and discovering new things about the places, the people, and myself despite my lack of stamina.

I went to the Shrine of the North American Martyrs, wandering in the rain, praying, and just being in the stillness of such a place of faith.

I joined three ministries at church; things that I felt a calling to, in education, in adult faith formation, and in service. Time is short, but I’m working through the process of balancing it all. 

I went on two weekend and one four-week retreats that reenergized me, and my creative spirit was able to blend with my faithful spirit. It gave meaning to the Scriptures and the environment, and propelled me forward and given me strength.

My pilgrimage of writing has been equally in the forefront and as important as my spiritual pilgrimage. I am always on the path of a pilgrim, whether I write about it or not. It is who I am.

This year of mercy will remain with me much longer than the physical year.