Winter Light

On Jane

2009-10-20T11:51:00.001-05:00

On occasion I like to sit outside at Starbucks and breathe the cigarette smoke because it makes me feel that I am at a fair.

So much has changed for me lately inwardly and outwardly. I want to pause to take it in, but there doesn't seem to be time. All the things I want to try dart to the front and back of my mind on occasion and only their frequency gives me any clarity as to whether I should pursue that idea. I try to start with a blank slate each day, not wanting to carry over the previous day's ideas, which so quickly become baggage.

So despite my endless searching I can't really say anything for sure until it is soundly felt.

Today I have felt like Jane Eyre. A little older than the crowd, or perhaps born old. Desperately in need of a wardrobe update and a trip to the salon. This morning I looked at my black stockings and found them covered with cat hair. A dead giveaway of any introvert, not that I have anything to hide anymore.

The omnibus bread and ginger cookies

2009-10-13T15:11:00.001-05:00

Last weekend I made the Herb Bread from Betty Crocker’s classic cookbook. The main differences were using milk instead of water and a copious quantity of herbs to season the bread. Despite a shorter rising time, it became gigantic in the oven, making for very large sandwiches.

I also made ginger cookies throughout the last couple of weeks with some dough I kept in the refrigerator. I cut my last batch with larger cutters and frosted them. They were softer and much tastier.

This cup not mine

2009-10-09T19:10:00.001-05:00

I wonder if it can really be true that I am not meant to know or be intimate with my Creator. That I will spend a lifetime wandering, eating, concerned with my own life, while my Creator’s face is never revealed to me.

This morning I felt my Creator’s love. I felt it many times over this week. It has been a difficult week as I have struggled with depression, and I have had certain breaks in luck, and I have caught myself and looked at those breaks and thought, I don’t know how I would have gotten through without this or that to light my path this day or that day. These things must be the work of some divine creator watching over me, but I don’t know how to connect with this creator.

Internally I am wracked with frustration. I have studied religion. I have tried to pray. But it seems that this cup is not mine. I have no mind to understand my Creator, no matter what I read or how I try to communicate.

Rainy season

2009-10-08T08:56:00.001-05:00

Every day, it rains. A few weeks ago I couldn’t even remember the sound of rain. Now I can’t remember our land’s former aridity. Due to the rain our grass has sprouted and is a six-acre sea of blue-green through which Reginald swims.

When I took these pictures I still considered him half-wild and was a little afraid to pet him. Hard to believe two weeks later he’s curled up on the couch with me. It didn’t take this cat long to get domesticated. We are still trying to make him live outside.

Barista

2009-10-02T17:24:00.001-05:00

It was 1998.

“I’m not… sure I… want to go to college. I mean, there’s nothing I really want to do-“

“You’re going to college.”

I keep wondering. Will I really live my whole life through without being a barista? Could life really be so short? If I am useful to the machine at all, which I doubt, if there is anything at all I can do, I think it is make and serve coffee. For one thing, I excel at rapid customer service, multi-tasking, and operating machines. I doubt an espresso maker is much trickier than an HPLC – and just think, there wouldn’t be any columns or mobile phase. Just lovely water and coffee grounds.

For another thing, I excel at friendly but not intimate discourse with complete strangers.

Beauty and the machine

2009-09-17T15:34:00.000-05:00

NaNoWriMo 2009

2009-09-16T13:29:00.001-05:00

Somehow I always find it hard to believe summer will become winter, and winter will become summer. It's becoming fall now. It hasn't been truly hot since the heavy rainfall this weekend.

I have been thinking about NaNoWriMo. I have never competed successfully two years in a row. Yet there's no reason for me to bow out now. I have the time, and I have the story. I've scarecely written ten pages of prose put together since my novel last November. I don't know what I'd do without this challenge to keep me going. And now I have one more NaNo Livejournal community to keep me going.

Though I have cancelled all my other social accounts, I have become truly needful of Livejournal. The journals and communities are so well-aligned with my interests. A lot of costume and artful blogging and photography.

I took some pictures of Marguerite yesterday. What a mess. Not only can I not remember how to take photos I can't remember how to edit them. My photos got noticeably better as I progressed. There's some at the end of the shoot I will probably share here and with the comms, and the rest in my doll journal. Who would have thought a doll in a lace-covered dress would look awesome with a rusted-out lawnmower in a creek bed? It's very post-apoc., very me.

It's so dreary. My spirits have struggled to stay up all day. I miss a creative space most now. It's hard now, because I'm aware that our rooms aren't "finished," and I do my creative/browsing in coffee shops, which is not relaxing on the whole. Today I got an Awake latte -- very good, also a pumpkin scone for the first time. It seems like everyone has a usual but me. I don't like to have anything twice, though I have a couple of "specials" that I bring out for the hard times -- like the iced white chocolate raspberry mocha -- for those special 10-12 hr. work days. Another would be the white chocolate peppermint. One sip of either of those is like sugar straight to my blood. I can feel the rush.

A Better Resurrection

2009-09-15T08:46:00.001-05:00

“I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numbed too much for hopes or fears.
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.”

Christina Rossetti

Sunday morning our road was too waterlogged to allow us to get to church safely, and we had to turn back. We spent a busy day at home that seemed to last forever. I made bread and ironed and put up our laundered curtains, which now look fresh and new.

Saturday night’s sleep was savory and deep. When I woke, my mind was rested, my heart at peace.

Over breakfast I read the words of Christina Rossetti, the poem of which I quoted the first stanza above. I realized that I have not been the first person alive to suffer spiritually, to say the least, to suffer doubts because of what I experience in the world. Even the voice of logic in my mind for weeks has been too weak to master my resentment with the world.

My resentment with the world, my qualms with the Bible – oh, they are so real. Feminism is dead. It needs a second wave. I have been remiss in taking a stand lately. As I have gotten older I have dreaded more and more standing out and being ridiculed. When I was in high school I didn’t mind, and when I was in Aggie-land, I took a lot of pleasure from others’ scorn, feeling defiant as I did about the obvious sexism. But in the working world I have grown very quiet. It’s a different situation—oh, how it is. In high school and college I felt protected by some administrative or adult guidance and at liberty to flaunt social customs all I liked. Now – I’m on my own, let me tell you, as are we all once we enter the work force.

I believe I have allowed my lack of initiative toward others’ sexism to build and harm me inwardly. I have focused my resentment instead of my spirituality, blaming Christianity on the patriarchal structure that objectifies and disengages women. I can see that younger women are not at all concerned with checking the momentum, and my failure to meet any woman that holds a similar belief to mine about a woman’s right to power has disappointed me deeply.

Because of this, I began to believe that Christianity was a farce men of the ages have wielded as a tool to control classes of people, women, races and other countries they conquered, crudely stamping a Christian symbol over a pagan one, and so on. Actually, I still believe this. Christianity’s history has an overpowering stench.

But this weekend I came to recognize the heart of my personal struggle, which is my anger at the world. Throughout my turmoil about the falseness of my religion I have never been able to say that Jesus is sexist. I have never been able to feel that Jesus would treat me as second-class or feeble-minded. God I’m not so sure about, but Jesus—I can’t feel that Jesus would.

I have not been able to forget about the Song of Solomon, the coming together of man and woman, the appreciation of nature’s beauty, and the Rose of Sharon. I haven’t been able to forget the “lilies of the field,” or that for every thing there is a Season.

And I decided – there’s nothing in the Bible to back me up or help me take a stand against the sexism rampant in my society. But I’m going to do the best I can anyway.

These past several days have been painful and searching. I realized at the heart of my struggles is my fear of letting go. I’m afraid to let go of some things, and this fear causes problem after problem to build up. Even now I have a tight ball of stress in the pit of my stomach because of some of the problems my fear has caused.

Today something opened my eyes to the immensity of my error, something finally broke through. I had to face my other self, this whole other person who has come into being formed of this pile of errors. I realized the immensity of this person’s faults, and then I forgave myself so I can re-direct my life immediately and have no more of this.

There is nothing in the Bible to help me prove women and men are equals. Women were second-class citizens in Biblical times. There is nothing to help me prove the importance of our Earth and our caretaking of it.

But in the words of the United Church of Christ, which is where I attended church in college, when I first discovered that wonderful place, Friends UCC --

God is still speaking.

Truth

2009-09-12T16:18:00.001-05:00

What a man most wishes to hide, revise, and unsay, is precisely what literature is waiting and bleeding for.

Jack Kerouac

My cat is a human being

2009-09-11T15:50:00.001-05:00

Picture was taken by Nathan yesterday morning.

When I arrived home this afternoon, Henry came down the stairs to greet me. I couldn't believe what I saw in his face -- simplicity, humanity, warmth. As I looked directly into his face and tried to shudder off the day I was thunderstruck by the fact that my cat is saner than many people I know, and I mean this sincerely. I don't have to hide any weakness from him that he will pounce on, I don't have to hold a boundary firmly in place with him. He is a self-contained peaceful being. As I met his gaze I felt really awkward, knowing at that moment he was more clear-headed than me.

Henry has faults and weaknesses. He wants to attack Princess. He wants to eat the canary. He knows these impulses are wrong, and he works on them. We have seen him (and laughed at him) warring with himself. But this puts him miles above most human beings I have met right there. I know very few humans right now who are visibly working on themselves. Most folks let it all hang out, and that's the truth.

In literary terms there is something called the human condition. Some believe that a great work must embody the human condition. Henry has the human condition. Many people are only animals.

Ten minute writing challenge

2009-09-11T09:27:00.001-05:00

The barista swept the dishes, napkins and crumbs from the table in a graceful gesture. Cassandra watched him, peering over her cup of masala coffee. The note of cardamom was strong, slightly bitter. She concentrated on it rather than on her unsteady nerves.

"Everything all right?"

"I think so." She took a deep breath. "I hope I get this job."

He smiled understandingly. Cassandra looked at him appraisingly. There was something about his smile remarkably un-stunning. Perhaps he was a human after all. She didn't know why, but it gave her a slight relief. Humans were complicated enough in their own way.

"Why did Dr. Thorn interview you here, rather than at the lab?"

Cassandra was crestfallen as she realized she had been trying to avoid asking herself that question. Perhaps Dr. Thorn hadn't had an official reason to turn down the interview and had gone through something hurried and informal out of obligation. Then she reminded herself of the doctor's detailed questions and her positive vibes at Cassandra's response.

Confusion

2009-09-10T12:26:00.001-05:00

I am wracked with confusion. Though nothing in my outer world has changed unexpectedly, my inner landscape is a wasteland, devastated by some war of which I was not even aware. I knew when we moved to our new home that I would embrace a new life, and I had the sense that I would embrace my inner longings for a new religion. I didn't anticipate the way everything would get all torn apart though.

I am torn between loyalty to a comfortable and repressive faith that would more deeply connect me to others, and a faith that promises to dishevel my life with controversy, isolate me from others and color me with stereotypes.

It is a matter of how I can bear to live. Can I bear living with an inherited faith, fighting down my own convictions, for the rest of my life? Can I bear becoming even more isolated from the rest of the world, my own family, perhaps even my husband, even being stigmatized?

I do not want to abandon the personal faith I have felt as a Christian, the world understanding or ethics I have held previously. But as I think more deeply on life I feel a deep revulsion for the Christian religion. I don't know how to separate it from the teachings of Jesus. I have a sense that seeing Christianity as the be-all and end-all has led to great chaos in my society. A patriarchal society reigns, deriving confidence from a deeply patriarchal religion. I am a nameless form in my society and my religion, a second-class citizen. Jesus's teachings haven't given me the philosophical structure to combat this. There is something deeper, more powerful, that has been repressed for centuries, the balance of the masculine and the feminine, the reverence for the woman and for the earth.

Scary closet

2009-09-09T16:56:00.000-05:00

I spent the rest of the evening cleaning the bathroom closet -- I am putting my sewing stuff here. As vast as the closet is, it is now completely full of my stuff.

I spent the twilight hours ironing in the kitchen. That is one of my favorite things to do now. I really enjoy the dishes, but ironing is better.

I saw Reginald outside across the yard once it was dark. He was lying as usual in that strange uninhibited way of his, as though every inch of this property is his sofa.

Rain

2009-09-09T15:56:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was a lonely day but a productive day. I hit the ground running after work, took on crickets, beetles, spiders -- still troubling over the ethics of vacuuming up something alive? cruel? -- and while I worked I heard a strange rattling sound outside. I stared out the window transfixed. The very last thing on my mind was rain -- it hasn't rained in so long I actually forgot that it happened -- and I stepped out into my first rain in our new home.

I went out to the covered shed, which is my favorite outdoor place, but the rain became so intense that the sound on the tin roof was deafening.

Walls of sheltering pine on either side of us

2009-09-05T16:18:00.001-05:00

The same feeling of protection always comes over me when we are in the pine woods again.

Going home…

2009-09-05T16:10:00.000-05:00

My heart is burning as I imagine being home. I don’t know its nooks and crannies, I really don’t know its noises in the middle of the night – but I will.

There’s an old bird’s nest I salvaged from the hedge I desperately want to cut down. I have been keeping it in the shed for a month now waiting for picture time. It’s made with scraps of plastic, styrofoam and string – an amazing feat. We hate ourselves for the trash we make – but I think that bird really appreciated its sturdy nest. I was awed.

There’s a little cat who lives in the pasture and barn like a wild thing – wild but needy. We have named him Reginald. He’s small but huge – huge paws, huge head – white with gray and black mottling in places. We had glimpsed him but only at a distance. Like a little rabbit when our presence was revealed to him he fled. However our first night he came into the backyard and sat, crying to us through the kitchen window. When we went out to him he fled, but we left him food and water. Later when I went out again and looked around, he was simply lying in the pasture. He appeared terrified but purred and dragged his head along the ground as though longing to be petted. I’d never seen an animal like it. I reached out to him, and he rubbed along my arm, leaping away at my every flinch of movement, but returning quickly. I coaxed him over to the barn where we had laid food and he began eating voraciously, all the while starting at my every sound or movement. The next morning he was lying out in the middle of the pasture when I went to my car. It was almost unnatural the way he lay, so white along the grass.

His combination of wildness and desperation for affection seems straight out of a novel from one of the Bronte sisters – perhaps we should name him Bronte.

The wedding

2009-09-05T10:40:00.000-05:00

Looks like we're all set for a wedding.

Ave Maria

2009-09-05T10:39:00.001-05:00

Stairs at St. Catherine of Siena

2009-09-05T10:37:00.000-05:00

I wonder where they lead.

Dairy Palace

2009-09-05T10:32:00.000-05:00

My favorite stop between Ft. Worth and Metairie. This time I got fish n' chips. It was great!

Tea and company

2009-09-02T17:19:00.001-05:00

I bet you thought I died!

It's been a busy week, let me tell you. Henry and I are enjoying the front view with freshly-brewed mint tea, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and vitamins. I am exhausted, but I am coming to life again. I can feel the stirrings. I am emerging from my silent, thick-walled room of contemplation to begin sharing what I have felt in my inward sojourn.

I thought my spiritual questions were just a lark, an outpouring of anxiety and stress in the midst of this life change, that they would be forgotten, my little journal abandoned or repurposed in a while. However as soon as I find myself with inner space to think I find myself returning to my spiritual studies.

Nathan’s Indian cooking

2009-08-28T08:28:00.001-05:00

Nathan made this delicious dish, pureed and spiced chicken fried in mustard oil with green peppers. It was very good and spicy – we had it at about 10:30 on Saturday night… so much fun. The chicken is supposed to “blossom” when it fries. You can sort of see it cracking open.

The winds of change

2009-08-24T16:45:00.001-05:00

I'm reading Twilight with all the satisfaction of devouring pie with whipped cream on top, and I have a strange desire to pick up the Harry Potter series next.

Life is too short not to follow my heart.

Whenever I realize what I should do I become filled with this remorse that I wasn't doing it sooner. I regret that I didn't have the desire sooner. I can't do what I do without the desire.

Today I started Twilight, and today was the first day of a whole week in which I am totally convinced that whatever I have been doing spiritually for the past several years has been empty and suffering. I'm going to follow my heart now. I'm going my own way. When my life is at an end, there won't be anyone around me to criticize me. I won't have to face accusing eyes or listen to tiresome arguments. When life is at an end, there will be only me, and I thought this morning, life is too short not to pursue what has been burning in my heart since I read a literary criticism of Snow White one night late in Hart, and first heard of the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone and felt the deep truth within that concept, and in the eight or so years since have felt the lie overspreading the society around me, the system that crushed that truth which brings balance into the world.

Faced with that simple undoing truth, I myself am undone, I am at a loss, I am without religion, but I am not without belief.

This week is the first whole week in which I live in awareness of what it is that I truly believe.

Listening

2009-08-21T09:09:00.001-05:00

I believe that religion/spirituality is different for each person. I believe that it is hard. I also believe, after studying various religions and their timelines that it is blatantly obvious religion evolves, and what I have been reaching toward is what I see society reaching more and more toward. I don't think I can accept the religious beliefs of anyone else any more than I can wear their clothes. But it isn't something I can pick out myself. It's something that's already within me. Time and again I have found names of beliefs or philosophies and discovered that I practiced those myself, albeit crudely, and a more expansive account of the belief helped me. Then there have been things I have researched only to find they fit me as badly as someone else's shoes. My faith is my faith alone.

Christianity blanketed what are now known as the Old Ways. Yes, I have felt called to the Old Ways and have researched them for a while. What I can't help but feel is that the Christian philosophies deemphasized one important entity split in two directions, that is, the close ties to nature which keep us from damaging the environment, and the power of the female. How different my life personally would be right now if this were not the case. The world would be so different I can't even imagine.

I am seeking a daily path to reconnect to nature and to find ways to avoid doing harm. Trying to align myself to a patriarchal religion has been no joke. I can't live anymore confined to other people's ways. I wish I had started finding my own way sooner.

Antique switch plates, home notes

2009-08-16T17:10:00.001-05:00

I was amazed by these switch plates. They are everything I want in a switch plate. I want them in the music room and parlor. Their golden tones will offset the warmth of the floor and contrast with the wall color I have chosen "Spanish Bluebell."

Other rooms will have subtle switch plates, but I actually want to replace everything, including the telephone jacks, which we won't use, because the plastic is so old they have yellowed and become dingy.

This weekend I weeded one front bed but didn't dig up the bulbs. I think they are amaryllis because I saw amaryllis blooms earlier this year. They need to be thinned out and replanted elsewhere because they have migrated randomly and are really on top of each other. For the front of the house I best like a color scheme of blue and yellow. The side yard will be white flowers, and an accent of red won't hurt. I also see them looking well near the gates. I still don't know where to plant a rose garden. There's no obvious good place. The front yard is very shady.

I cleaned one of the tables. I'm thinking they may stay in the shed for a while. I have become so familiar with spiders and beetles today. The spiders aren't the same as in east Texas, not at all. The ones south are rangy and move quickly, are often tarantulas. The spiders here have large, decorated abdomens and those bent-needle like legs. They look like black widows, but are brown with white markings. They make me uncomfortable, I need to look them up. It's amazing how it comes back to you.

I find I am not that excited about chickens right now. Maybe I find the stables too intimidating. I more desire a dove cote. Not very useful, I know. I also wish for ducks, but I'm afraid we don't have enough water. I also don't know if something would eat them.

I painted one pole over completely. I didn't strip the old paint that well, and I've applied two new layers. For the next pole I stripped it twice, and next I will repaint it, compare it to the first. If my extra stripping made a big difference I'll strip the other poles likewise, including the one I already painted, which will probably peel quite easily since it is so fresh. Actually painting is pretty tiring! The muscles in my hand hurt for clenching the brush. I'm sure I'll toughen up. If two strippings don't improve the texture of the second pole I'll resort to three. Need more Simple Green and white paint. I turned my rubber gloves inside out because they've gotten so moist. They have red mold growing all over the palms apparently. Maybe I should just throw them away.

Already I feel life changing so much. I am not writing anything right now. I feel this is not the time for that. This is a time of great change for us, a time to live and experience things.