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Mrs. Woolf, Would You Care to Join Me for a Cup of Tea?
Prelude: I turned the corner of Great Russell Street and realized I was about to meet my favorite author, Virginia Woolf. My heart was filled with a mixture of awe, some intimidation, and the realization that we came from such different pasts. I finally decided that I would be just who I am – a woman who had fallen in love with her works in graduate school. Her battle with “moodiness” or what we now call bipolar illness interested me, but I probably would not be able to approach that most difficult subject. I had carefully chosen The Bloomsbury Hotel, not only because it was elegant, but also nearby were…
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Random Thoughts
I know I say I am doing well and In comparison to most that is true But there are thoughts ringing in my head that never Were there before. Thoughts of suffering and change around the world. In Bangladesh cancelled clothing orders have snatched meals from women and families. Elderly musicians in Louisiana and North Carolina keep singing and playing without any income. Even with a modest income I am privileged. I try to divide up my pie to help the hungry here and far away, but it is never enough. I don’t sulk, but reflect on what it is to live alone. I thought I was fine with this…
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“The Tender Gravity of Kindness”
This is a time when we need to lean into kindness. I was going to write about how I am experiencing kindness and what I am doing to engage in kind acts. However, I would rather we look at this poem by Naomi Shahib Nye. It shows us how kindness is the other side of sorrow. Journey with it and let it grow within you. A bird just flew into my window where I am writing. I wrapped it in a cloth, thinking it might have been in shock and took it to my favorite neighbor who knows everything about birds. We talked while it gently breathed its last. It…
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In the Midst of a Pandemic – Change
Jane Goodall tells us that four changes would help the world’s climate. We must eliminate poverty. Unsustainable lifestyles must change. Abolish corruption. Reverse our growing human population. And now here we are in the midst of this devastating pandemic which is actually changing our behavior. Here are a few observations: The sighting of the snow leopard and a new baby bison has been magical. 10,000 flamingos landed in Mumbai, India for the first time. Reserve gas and oil storage are full beyond capacity because airplanes are practically grounded, and cars are driving less. Countries with rampant air pollution look cleaner and healthier. China’s emissions fell by 25% and their fossil…
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Happy as the Grass was Green
When I wake up in the morning, it is hard for me to remember my dreams from the night before. But, occasionally a dream will drift into my daytime hours. Even a waking dream can give clues to who I am and what’s on my mind. The other day I found myself thinking about two jobs that I had during my college years. The summer of 1972, I took a job working at the Brockway Glass Company in Washington, PA. The company hired college students to make boxes and watch for flawed glass coming out of the hot furnaces on the conveyor belt. Often I worked the midnight to eight…
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Solo
Scarcity vs. Plenitude A while ago my mother told me that I would never make it through a real crisis, because I didn’t store enough food. She may have been thinking of her own experience as a young girl on a family farm during the depression. She did have food, but lacked other necessities. I am urban. She would be happy to know that I have extended my days of food stocking to 12 days, but I have not been able to reach 2 weeks. Having enough is what I believe I have always enjoyed and this is the first time I have doubted that belief. The cupboard is almost…
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Hello in There: a Reflection
Here’s where we were a year ago: As I write this the “USNS Comfort” is making its way up the Hudson River to dock in New York City. This is a time when our swords have been beaten into pruning hooks– instruments for trimming back, nurturing and growth. For this one moment, we are fighting a war not against others, but against ourselves. This is a time when we get together by being alone, when we sing in isolation with hundreds of people — virtually. There is some happiness in here. We continue to sing, because we are in a sort of captivity and it is all we can do.…
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Isolation and Contact
Slowly we are finding new ways to communicate while remaining isolated in our homes. I am reminded of a movie I saw many years ago — it might have been a Truffaut — in which a small girl is left alone in her family’s apartment. She’s pretty upset by this, but never in danger. She gets a megaphone and begins to tell her neighbors what her family has done to her. They rig ropes and soon fruit, fresh bread and desserts arrive at her window. In a way she has the last laugh as now everyone is suspecting that her parents have been negligent. We, too, are feeling sorry for…
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One Big Time-Out
Recently I spoke to a friend about what we’re going through right now. She said that the world and now the United States is in “one big time-out.” I was surprised to think of it in this way, but the isolation we are experiencing is different from anything I have ever known. Time-out is usually a temporary break from an activity that has become somehow problematic. We have been given this opportunity to make something out of the unknown. Time-out as social distancing: In child rearing, a “time-out” is a technique for giving a child a break from a pattern of behavior that is unacceptable. But all of us are…
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Kinship with all things
I am returning to a blog written over three years ago, knowing that my aging cat Tabitha has passed on and the people of Syria continue to suffer. It is a difficult time for many around the world and in this country. There is so much that fills me: plants, animals, clouds, day and night, and the eternal in man. The more uncertain I have felt about myself, the more there has grown up in me a feeling of kinship with all things. ~Carl Jung; Memories Dreams, pg.359 I have found in prayer a kinship with humanity and with animals. I love the liturgical prayers, but I also find myself…
