Story – THE DAILY ROUND

Becoming, Daily Round, Equinox, Family, Full Moon Cottage, Home, Humor, Love, Noticing, Relationship, Spring, Story

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

March 22, 2015March 23, 2020by Kitty9 Comments

As a reader, I go on historic-biographic benders, becoming fascinated by a specific person or period of time, and then reading everything I can find to round out the picture. The perspectives can be in utter opposition, depending on each different author’s point of view and proximity to the subject. I especially enjoy when a new discovery or the passage of time leads to a revised outlook and therefore, another series of books that will enlarge my own understanding of someone or some event.

Storytelling, of course, occurs every time we put pen to paper, sit at a computer, pick up our phone, open our mouth or engage in thought. We tell ourselves and others stories about ourselves, our families, our countries, our gods, and the infinite and infinitesimal events that have shaped us. They tell us theirs. Often, we are the heroines of our tales; we are the wronged, the misunderstood, the courageous, and occasionally the foolish leading characters, but I’ve encountered people who seemed largely absent from their stories as well, giving the stage over to their parents, or teachers, or voices unidentified yet dominant in their story.

We tell ourselves stories about other people, too, trying to understand their behavior and choices, or trying to justify our own.

Given his scientific bent and inbred humility, my husband’s stories are not nearly as fanciful as my own. In the absence of data, he seeks to discover it; I leap to fantastical explanations, to keep the story exciting and moving along. I give you this recent occurrence as an example.

Friday marked the first day of spring, and so a friend and I thought we should meet to celebrate this fact with wine and a meal and a good long visit.

I decided to wear pants long enough to make me feel taller than I am (or, as tall as I am in my stories) and needed to wear my favorite pair of Eastland leather clogs—the ones with the two-inch heels—to accomplish this. I reached for the pair and discovered only one.

I searched the closet floor, and then another closet’s floor. I looked under the bed and in the other rooms of the house, which, as a neat-freak-hyper-orderly type, began to make me feel frustrated. I always place my shoes on a given shelf, beside each other. The 4-leggeds have never shown the interest in footwear commonly ascribed to their breeds. There are only two humans living in our home…where, on earth, had my shoe gone? Back to the closets.

No partner to the lonely clog.

And then it dawned on me. I had read an article about Birkenstock shoes in The New Yorker this past week. Although ugly, they have remained popular because of the utter comfort they offer the feet lucky enough to wear them. The brand has even become fashionable, for some. I have always wanted a pair, but they are pricey, and I am “prudent.” (That’s my story. Others might say, “parsimonious.” Or “a tight-fisted, penny-pinching miser.”)

But Phillip, along with being logical and humble, is also loving and romantic, so I quickly concluded that he had also read the article and wanted to surprise me with a pair, but had required one of my shoes to check the size. This conclusion, of course, was based on no evidence, but it explained the mystery of the missing shoe and created a pleasing story.

However, even given my impressive ability to suspend disbelief, the story felt a tad implausible. I called Phillip at work to check it out, but sought to gently tease out the truth I’d already surmised. Picture him in a classroom surrounded by adolescents eager for the school day to end.

“Hello?” (High school noises in background.)

“Hi, honey…Have you by any chance seen one of my black clogs?”

“What?”

I pretended to be innocent of his plan to surprise me with Birkenstocks. “Would you happen to have taken one of them? For any reason?”

(No response. Long pause. Then laughter.) “Do I have one of your clogs? Um, no.”

“I’ve looked all over the house and it’s nowhere to be found, so I was just wondering…” Here is where he should have broken down and admitted he had planned a lovely surprise for me. But no. Nada. Zip. I faltered. My story began to dissolve. There were no Birkenstocks winging their way to me from Germany, or wherever they’re made. I offered a false laugh of my own. “Well, I better get going. See you later.”

He continued laughing. “Yup. Have a good time with Heidi.”

I pulled on some boots with heels and walked down to the basement to check once more for my clog, switch the laundry to the dryer, and get on my way before I became late. Being on time is part of my story, too.

Nope. No clog with the various sneakers and boots in the basement.

I pulled the last bit of damp clothing out of the washer and there was my clog. It had, apparently, fallen from the shoe shelf into the laundry basket and been washed and spun to almost-dry. I brought it upstairs, stretching it back into a shape approximating that of my foot, impressed by the shoe’s ability to withstand a wash cycle. I set it next to its partner, imagining their joy at being reunited.

I met my friend at the pub and told her the story, and we had a great laugh and lovely evening.

When I came home, I told Phillip the rest of the story as well, even, sheepishly, the part about my expectation of Birkenstocks. He followed me into the bedroom and laughed while I changed into my comfy clothes. And pulled on the almost-dry clog to help it again reacquaint itself with my foot.

And then I saw the bouquet of a dozen pink tulips on my desk.

The first day of spring! My beloved always gives me a bouquet to celebrate the equinox! I hobbled across the room and hugged him to bits and pieces.

Sometimes the stories we tell ourselves aren’t nearly as wonderful as what’s actually happening now, right before our eyes. That’s my story, anyway, and I’m sticking to it.

P.S.: Today I noticed this mysterious hole in the riverbed. Phillip says it’s a tire or a tire rim, but I’m thinking it’s probably a portal to another universe…yeah, that’s it.

© Copyright of all visual and written materials on The Daily Round belongs solely to Catherine M. O’Meara, 2011-Present. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited, without Catherine O’Meara’s written approval. No one is authorized to use Catherine O’Meara’s copyrighted material for material gain without the author’s engagement and written permission. All other visual, written, and linked materials are credited to their authors.

4-legged companions, Becoming, Cats, Celebration, Change, Christmas, Community, Daily Round, Family, Full Moon Cottage, Gifts, Home, Love, Photography, Slow Life, Spirit Level, Story

A Story for the Season

November 28, 2012March 25, 2020by Kitty9 Comments

On Sunday, after I’d put away Thanksgiving decorations, we decided to begin setting out a few Christmas pieces to ready our home for the holiday. Every day, I’ve pulled out a new box and selected a few decorations to place in a window or on a mantel, noticing the stories all around me: stories behind every decoration and every piece of furniture where they’re placed…I cannot separate myself from these stories; my own accrue and add new layers to the objects until finally, everything shines with story.

My great-grandfather made this little table, from scrap lumber and fruit crates, for my mother when she was a child. She collected the pewter dishes.

Due to our new cat, Fergus, and his continued period of adjustment to our home, and us, and the 4-leggeds, we’ve decided that maybe a Christmas tree encrusted with all of our glass ornaments wouldn’t be such a great idea this year. In past years, the cats have enjoyed playing and resting on the quilt beneath the tree; this year, I’m afraid that feline power struggles might bring it all crashing down. Better to lower the odds, I think. There are plenty of ways to make the home festive without a tree, but we’ll miss it.

Murphy and Mulligan napping beneath the tree.

Fergus and the dogs are doing fine with their introductions; the other four cats (oh, God, I’ve become the Crazy Cat Lady) are struggling a bit more with the refinement of pecking order and ego assuagement. We have every reason to believe all will be well, but these relationships, these stories, will need to progress according to their own timing, and I think we owe our 4-leggeds all the time they need. Fergus is as placid as Buddha sitting in his kennel, despite the sniffs, spits, and indifference form his new siblings. He forbears.

When he’s alone with me in my office, he loves to sit beneath the computer screen and watch the birds through the picture window. He runs to the door when he hears the other cats; he yearns for community, it seems. He loves fearlessly.

Today, his siblings entered his private room and began to sniff and acquaint themselves with Eau de Fergus. Murphy and Mulligan were especially intrigued, meticulously conducting their version of a CSI, and covering every square inch of the room before accepting a treat.

Tonight, we’ll supervise a first face-to-face visit and see how it goes. We’re hopeful that by the time the New Year rolls around, we’ll have a larger, peaceful, and happy family. Fergus appears to be a force of love; he audaciously chose me on the trail one very cold, wet day and followed me home, and has never stopped exuding that charming trust and desire to connect. All creation, it seems, can reveal the Love of our Source. We often overlook, I think, the myriad ways those with whom we share the planet can teach us about love and loving.

I read that Pope Benedict XVI (“Buzz-Kill Ratzinger”) has written a new book in which he states there were no animals or angels present at the birth of Jesus, nor was that birth date calculated correctly. While I understand his point is to de-mythologize Jesus and place his life within a more historically exact context by removing the inaccurate embellishments that surround our handed-down version of Jesus’ birth, I also believe that for many people, the animals, shepherds, and angels are intrinsic to the story, especially for the young and young-at-heart. For Christians, this was a life like no other, a life that serves as a template, worthy of celebration, as all lives are, but one that was recognized as such from the start.

So rarely do we see the ways Love in-breaks and enters our world, causing unnoticed eruptions of hope and joy all around us. But once, more than two thousand years ago, some of us were actually paying attention. The story that celebrates the birth of one of us who got it right needs no updating or fact-checking; it was never about the angels or animals, but they pin it down in our imaginations and allow us to vicariously enter the birth and so the life, and so the dance of pure goodness modeled for us, however clumsily we misstep.

And when I do falter in my dance, I have always found animals whose love can lead me back to the path quicker than any sermon. Humans like Jesus are rare indeed; animals who love as selflessly as Jesus are not.

I believe we should be very cautious about re-writing well-known and beloved stories, and even Pope Benedict, a Vatican correspondent said, agrees that the traditions surrounding Christmas play a role in nurturing our grasp of the deeper truths the story reveals.

Our own stories, the ones we write with our lives, reveal their deeper truths, too, if we listen. This Christmas, we won’t have a tree, lit and splendid; instead, we’ll celebrate two stories: the birth of Jesus (which is the story of Love’s possibilities being born every day, always, in our hearts), and our story, too, about a tiny abandoned cat named Fergus, who loved everyone he met, and his new family, who had to learn more about loving so fearlessly.

It’s going to be a good story, I can tell: the echoes of other stories and the spirits of those we’ve loved will shine all around it…There will be many animals as featured characters in this new story, and I’m quite certain that on Christmas Eve, when we gather together for treats where the tree would have been, we’ll hear angels singing.

Full Moon Cottage, Humor, Nature, Photography, Story, Transformation

A Tall Tale Made Short

July 14, 2012March 25, 2020by Kitty7 Comments

I belong to a family of rodents called Sciuridae. We have been dancing through trees, scurrying along the earth, and burying our treasures for millions of years, although my own story might have been all too brief had my wits not saved me. Here is how it happened:

One fine morning I woke, stretched, listened to birdsong, and pondered my possibilities, open to surprises, should they come my way. The days had been long and lovely, and I had no reason to expect this day would be any different.

How many adventures have begun with just such happy disregard for unforeseen consequences?

I looked about for friends to share my exploits. It is better to travel in the good company of one’s companions, but I was a fellow known for my daring, so not finding my friends at the ready, I set out to seek food and whatever excitement presented itself.

The morning passed merrily enough; there is a place near my summer home where a large creature sets out kernels, water, and seeds we squirrels enjoy, and there is usually enough food to fill our bellies and allow us time to chase across trees and play by the river. The nighttime monsters are fast asleep and we are free to enjoy ourselves.

This day, I was playing rather further into dusk than I should have been, I realized later. (This is what the Wise Ones Who Hoot call retrospection.) I heard my family chattering for me to return home to the summer nesting grounds, but I was observing moths and bats, the endless circle of predator and prey, and trying to recall where I’d hidden seeds and nuts for a special treat. When I recalled the place, just near the forests’ edge, I hurried and began to dig, unearthing a very large acorn as my reward.

And so, when the monster seized me by the tail, I did not have time to react. I was at once so overtaken by panic and pain that my mind could not conceive of escape. I twisted and turned and pulled, by instinct.

And then I thought to toss away my treasure, pulling away with the last bit of strength I could muster as I threw the acorn far to the left. I heard, but could no longer feel, my tail ripping away as the monster tugged. Then he stupidly—as I had suspected—fled towards the acorn. I bounded away to my home and friends, not daring to look back.

The pain—and wisdom—came later, as I healed. My elders have told me this is often the way of it.

I have lost the balance, agility, and ability to communicate that my tail afforded me, but I have become a much more eloquent and careful communicator in my chatter. And my adventures now take place in the good company of my companions, for I have learned that one who is heedless of community exposes himself to monsters who hide in the dark.

But if you still have an independent spirit of adventure, as I must admit all great Sciuridae do, take care that you are armed with treasures and prepared to throw them away.

And, for goodness sake, learn how to craft a tale, for doing so has won me many a tasty tidbit!

Such is the wisdom of hindsight.

Thus ends my “cautionary tail.”

© Copyright of all visual and written materials on The Daily Round belongs solely to Catherine M. O’Meara, 2011-Present. Unauthorized use is strictly prohibited, without the author’s written approval. No one is authorized to use Catherine O’Meara’s copyrighted material for material gain without the author’s engagement and written permission. All other visual, written, and linked materials are credited to their authors. Thank you, and gentle peace.

Creativity, Listening, Loss, Silence, Story, Writing

Lost and Found

April 30, 2012March 25, 2020by Kitty8 Comments

Dear St. Anthony,

Come around,

I’ve lost my _______,

And it can’t be found.

That was the prayer-poem we were taught when we were very, very young and trying to locate a toy, or shoe, or homework assignment that had been misplaced. In the Catholic Church, St. Anthony of Padua is the patron saint of lost articles (extrapolate and extend metaphors as needed), and the prayer seemed to work. At any rate, it alleviated anxiety and allowed us to focus on finding what we’d lost, but I’ve never discounted the energy of holy mystery and its role in easing life’s burdens, either.

I’ve been reciting the Prayer to St. Anthony this past week, not in search of my mind, which I sometimes think would be a recommended “best practice,” but in search of a novel begun and stored on my computer and then one day accidently deleted or carried over to the trash bin. Poof. Lost. Without any recollection on my part. This is proof that age doesn’t automatically yield wisdom: I certainly know my manuscripts should be backed-up and stored on a flash drive and/or in a cloud. (Would that sentence have made any sense at all a few years ago?) But my new computer seemed so strong and safe; I relied upon it and let down my guard.

I forgot to practice safe text.

Writers will sympathize with the torment and agony this causes; the loss is real and deep. The child of my creativity is alone, abandoned, and floating somewhere in the ether. I can’t retrieve it…I can’t duplicate it. All the work; all the magic…gone.

My husband took the hard drive to the local computer doctor, who has been running searches for the past week; so far, unsuccessfully, but I haven’t surrendered all of my hope yet. Maybe St. Anthony will help me find my story. If not the actual document, perhaps I’ll be inspired to re-create it anew. Still too heartsick.

Damn! I loved the way it flowed, and I had so finely polished the words; each was a jewel, artistically conformed to the mood, setting, and action and poetry. The characters were distinct and intriguing…oh dear; even writing this hurts.

And on top of the loss, to be without a computer for days and days was initially like lemon juice on an open wound. I felt like I was floating free in the ether myself. The lack of my computer seemed to expand the day by innumerable hours. Had I really spent all that time checking e-mail, writing, visiting Facebook, reading links…?

I’d thought my days were fairly silent; I believed I wrote in stillness all day long. I discovered, though, that my hours had been full of the endless chatter the world creates and thrives upon. My computer was like some techno-umbilical cord connecting me to the constant stream of the world’s anxious head-noise.

Without it, I had time to enter my meditation space and stay for an hour. Meditating. I wrote in longhand, wandered and weeded in the gardens, meditated some more, and still had plenty of time to complete my share of our family’s tasks…and all of this in real, deep silence. Unplugged. Listening.

I had no idea until I lost my computer how silent silence could be. I knew this once, but I forgot. Technology seduces us and even when we think we’re being mindful, we’re enticed, led into reliance upon its endless connections and the desire to keep in touch. I HAVE to know what is occurring in the world now, and now, and now…

No; I don’t.

Phillip gifted me with a little (as in Lilliputian) notebook this weekend, so I can write and post, and e-mail. I appreciate it, but I don’t want to lose the lessons this past week taught me, lessons I thought I’d already mastered, but hadn’t. Twice a week, I plan to refrain from turning on any computer.

I learned again that moments of deep healing can come when we are silent and our spirit is deeply still. We can enter a space where everything we’ve ever been, and dreamed, and suffered, and where everyone we’ve ever loved lives, and waits for us to meet their energy and be with them.

I lost my story last week, and I lost a very precious friend. He was 86 and had been my spiritual director for several years. This will be a deeper grief to heal, a longer journey in the landscape of loss. But I know again that when I travel in silence to the still point in my heart, I’ll find my story and my friend. Both of them are there, alive, forever.

Thanks, St. Anthony.

Gardening, Nature, Passion, Relationship, Spring, Story

The Cost of Spring Beauty

March 22, 2012March 25, 2020by KittyLeave a Comment

Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you. ~ Ernest Hemingway

For several weeks, we’ve experienced temperatures 35-40 degrees above normal, and it looks like this will continue for another week or so. Such sustained warmth, this early, has thawed the earth and considerably accelerated the growth of plants. Trees are leafing out, as are the wild roses. Two wildflowers I’m always happy to see in late April or early May are already sprinkled profusely along the trail: Bloodroot (Sanguinaria Canadensis) and the tiny pink Carolina Spring Beauty (Claytonia Caroliniana).

Everything about this magical spring activates my curiosity and listening. 15 years of walking a five-mile route on the trail have not diminished the stories all around me, and a slower pace enforced by recent back injuries also allows me to ponder and be with these stories.

I’ve always noted the wildflowers’ succession on my calendars; Bloodroot and Spring Beauty usually come at the end of April or in early May. That they’ve arrived so early this year has made them all the more startling in announcing spring is here: ready or not.

As I was entering this week’s data regarding the birds’ migrations, my own gardens, and the evolving trail flora, I researched more about each of these early wildflowers.

Little did I know where that would lead: you know how it is with stories.

Bloodroot (Genus Poppy) has long been used as a source of vivid dye, extracted from its roots’ juices; hence, its nicknames of Red Indian Paint and Red Puccoon. Because it’s both toxic and escharotic (tissue-killing), I admire it and leave it alone. I’m not trained in handling such plants and grow plenty of herbs and plants with which I’m more familiar regarding teas and tinctures. I enjoy it as a herald of spring and its sweet white and yellow blossoms.

Spring Beauty is connected to an entirely different story. It is of the Genus Purslane, and abundant throughout North America. A delicate pink with darker red veins striping its petals, it’s scattered in colorful patches along the trail like stars across the night sky.

I understand the designation “Spring Beauty” (though I give it low marks for creativity); it was the “Claytonia” half of its name that intrigued me and led me into hours of searching, reading, learning, and reflection.

Because the story takes place in the years preceding the American Revolution, many of the records that would flesh it out more thoroughly were later destroyed by fires set by the British Army. What remains, however, offers rich themes and imagery to a vivid imagination.

John Clayton (1695-1773), arrived in America from England around 1715, either with his father or soon after John Sr.’s appointment as Attorney General for the colony of Virginia. By 1720, the younger Clayton, because of his probable training at Cambridge University and certainly because of his privileged connections, was employed as the (then) Gloucester County, Virginia, clerk. He was to hold this position for the next 53 years. It wasn’t a strenuous job; he was responsible for recording documents like deeds, land surveys, wills, etc., and was expected to attend the county court sessions. Apparently, the position of county clerk adequately supplemented his family wealth and provided a surprising amount of the leisure time necessary for John to pursue his one true passion: botany.

John married Elizabeth Whiting, the daughter of another prominent and wealthy colonist, and they eventually raised eight children (three girls; five boys) on their 450-acre plantation (tobacco and livestock) in the colony’s wealthiest county, near the Chesapeake Bay.

Clayton’s work in botany soon led to associations with other passionate naturalists and botanists throughout the colony and drew the attention of Dutch naturalist John Frederick Gronovius, who corresponded frequently with Carolus Linnaeus, the famed Swedish botanist, physician and zoologist who created our modern format of binomial nomenclature for classification. (He’s known as the Father of Taxonomy and has also been called the Father of Ecology.) It was Linnaeus who named the genus Claytonia, wildflowers of the Portulacaceae family, in Clayton’s honor.

John Clayton seems to have been driven to seek, discover, describe and share all he could about the flora of this new world. (New to Europeans, anyway.) He may have traveled north to Canada and as far west as the Mississippi River, collecting plant specimens and seeds, and writing highly-respected and detailed descriptions of these. Initially, he sent dried plants to Gronovius, who would identify and name them, but eventually, Clayton grew confident enough to name some himself: he was the first to name the genus Agastache, perhaps better known as hyssop. His own plantation featured an extensive garden of native plants John grew and tended, at least in part.

During the 1730’s, Clayton collected, classified (using Linnaeus’s new system), and documented about 600 different plant species in a work called Catalogue of Herbs, Fruits, and Trees Native to Virginia, which he shared with Gronovius.

Here the history becomes confused, depending upon the source, but apparently, in 1739, the Dutch Gronovius translated Clayton’s work into Latin, re-titled it Flora Virginica, and published it without Clayton’s permission. Clayton’s reaction is not clear; it seems he continued to work with Gronovius, but also to work on his own version of a new and more thorough catalogue of native plants.

In time, Clayton became famous for his knowledge and naturalist work in the colonies, and became a member of both the Swedish Royal Academy of Science and the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, along with several Virginia learned societies. His friendships and correspondences with others in this field kept him engrossed and, it seems, enthusiastically occupied.

It seems his own Flora Virginica was again trumped by Gronovius, whose son published an updated second edition before Clayton’s—which was to have been illustrated by a famous botany artist of the time (Georg Dionysius Ehret). John Clayton’s own copy of his manuscript was likely destroyed in a clerk office fire in 1787.

Failing eyesight and health didn’t deter his avid passion, it seems, as he joined specimen-collecting expeditions the year before his death, which occurred at home, on December 15, 1773. He was buried at his plantation beside Elizabeth, and two of their children, who had preceded him in death.

After locating a lot of these details from various places, I paused to reflect upon John Clayton’s life and energetic pursuit of his passion. How exciting it must have been for an Englishman to explore and discover so many marvels and to share them with the wider world. What a rich and full life he led and what great recognition he received in the field he loved.

And then it hit me.

A 450-acre plantation in Virginia, owned by a wealthy Englishman in the 18^th century? The main resource I’d located hadn’t explored this; had, indeed, glossed right over it: http://www.floraofvirginia.org/flclayton.shtml

Eventually, I found another that supplied, in part, greater detail: http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Clayton_John_1695-1773

Here, I learned that (at least) 30 slaves, uprooted from their own homes and families, purchased as merchandise and deprived of their humanity, had labored and tended John Clayton’s land and family while being denied their own right to freely pursue innate passions, gifts, and enthusiasms. They likely nurtured his garden of natural specimens, so much more highly valued than their own lives.

What was gained and lost in this malformed relationship?

Do we benefit more for the love of nature that fueled John Clayton’s life than we suffer because he was a slaveholder?

I wonder if John Clayton was considered a “nice” man, if he was a loving husband and father, if people were pleased with his work as county clerk. His death was reported three weeks after it had occurred, without additional comment, in a Williamsburg newspaper. He wanted no “ceremony or sermon,” and received none. Was this due to shyness, humility, a rejection of religious beliefs, pride, or a mixture of these?

Was he mourned by his children?

Or slaves?

All of our gains and pursuits, our passions and glories come at a cost. Whenever I see the Carolina Spring Beauty (Claytonia Caroliniana), I’ll wonder about John Clayton’s life and the price he paid to pursue his dreams, at the expense of all those other broken and disregarded lives.

What does this sweet pink messenger of spring represent regarding the price our country continues to pay for being built upon the backs and lives of people in chains, viewed solely as a commodity?

“There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story,” writes Linda Hogan. And often, our own stories of love and misery become tangled up in those of the land. Some of these end in death, and others go on forever.

4-legged companions, Blessing, Celebration, Daily Round, Ritual, Slow Life, Story

The Impulse to Celebrate

February 3, 2012March 25, 2020by Kitty7 Comments

Celebration is when we let joy make itself out of our love. ~ Thomas Merton

It’s that time of year; it’s that lovely point in the wheel’s spin when longing and hope comingle and form the solvent that cleanses winter’s dreary weariness. Our stories begin to focus on illumination and viriditas, the sacred upsurging greenness of co-creation and new life…

The energetic excitement of the Christmas gatherings and partings seems to spin gradually away from the holiday festivities, shooting out random sparks and then quietly fizzling away into the gray days and weeks of the long and anti-climactic month of January, which is largely characterized by some form of moisture and some shade of nothing. (Though that’s really not fair, I suppose, to the many combinations of black, white and gray offered up by the January world, since they’re such lovely backdrops for cardinals, blue jays, and finches.) Still, “drab” is almost too exciting a word for January.

And, for a few weeks, I appreciate the post-holiday serenity that leads my spirit back into balance. My walking and meditation practices, my writing, my regular communications with friends and loved ones, even my Masterpiece Theater dates, are all restored to their dependable routines.

But then the month closes and it’s time to bring up another box from the basement storage shelves. [Insert close friends’ and family’s laughter.]

The boxes—organized, labeled, and ever-ready to be hauled upstairs and lovingly arranged—contain holiday and season-related decorations I’ve collected and created over the years.

This week marks the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, and is connected to celebrations of Imbolc, Beira, Calleich/Brighde, Candlemas, and Groundhog’s Day. Roman Catholics designated this time for honoring Mary’s purification following her son’s birth and the presentation of the Christ in the temple…and, of course, St. Valentine’s Day’s festivities and gifting bless the month of February. (Any celebration that translates love through chocolate is highly regarded in my book).

It’s a joyful time of year for celebrating light, hearth/home, fertility, transition, and rebirth: our stories evolve, but our human yearnings cycle reliably and tenderly. For me (Gaelic Girl to the core), the inclination and invitation have always been to name and celebrate wherever we are on the wheel.

Academics will argue whose version of a given story is authentic, or whether it’s been appropriated from its source, or become reductive, or recombined into a completely altered format, but I don’t concern myself with dissecting and arguing such points: instead, I enjoy reflecting upon the deeper themes revealed by our stories and recognizing their universality.

Stories were first shared by word of mouth; they naturally evolved to reflect the subjectivities of storyteller and audience. I love the “braided” aspect of every story I hear, and am enchanted when I trace similar stories through different times and places, imagining the long chain of roving storytellers intertwining, carrying, and sharing their precious cargoes of metaphor, myth, symbol, and meaning. And I’m overjoyed when I discover that two tribes of people summoned similar frameworks and cause-effect relationships, but created unique characters for describing some aspect of the natural world or human condition. Whether Caillech is witnessed gathering firewood or the groundhog sees his shadow, we’ll have a longer winter…

No visitor to Full Moon Cottage will leave without the invitation to celebrate the current season, which I extend to include monthly anniversaries of just about everything. (Why not? I have an official “June birthday anniversary,” but why not celebrate on the 17^th of every month? And, of course, it’s the same with the anniversaries of meeting and marrying Phillip, and enjoying a monthly Christmas on every 25^th…) How much fun is it to wish someone, “Happy October Birthday!” and “Merry May Christmas!” Why not? For goodness’ sake, life is brief and the point is that it’s all worth sharing and celebrating.

I inherited this orientation from my parents. My mother loved to routinely set out a few decorations, make festive meals and desserts, celebrate achievements and anniversaries, and look for the “adventure” in the commonplace. And my father made up silly songs for no reason but to delight us and recognize the blessedness of the ordinary; I do that, too.

Phillip would maybe say I’ve taken it up a notch. Or two. Morning Parties, Breakfast Songs, 7 PM Popcorn Parties, Bedtime Songs and Parties…the 4-leggeds love these and hunt me down with barks/meows if I’m delayed in initiating our celebrations at expected times. (I am very well and happily-trained.)

And then there are the boxes.

Friends love to tease me and ask, “Have you brought up your ‘2 PM Sunday Box’…or your ‘Tooth-Brushing Box?’” (Such Molierian wits!) While I don’t celebrate life’s minutiae quite that intensely, yes; I’ve brought up and distributed the “February decorations” around the house and celebrations are in full swing. If none exist, I make up rituals to mark special days. For example, this week was a great time to light candles, smudge the hearth, bake bannocks, feel and express gratitude for the warmth and sunlight, and take time to savor the gardening catalogues that have been filling up the mailbox lately.

Noticing and honoring the uniqueness of the daily round has taught me that we need to love our days—all of them and each of them—for their distinctness and blessedness, despite our cultural messages to “get through” them “endure” them till we can go shopping or overeat/drink our way through another week’s end. If we let them blur together and “can’t wait” for them to pass, we miss so many holy messages and invitations that are offered for our enrichment and that help us finally accrue days threaded with light, lives infused with acknowledged meaning, and stories that outlive us.

On Valentine’s Day in 1987 I came home from work to learn that my father had suffered the massive stroke that would alter the course of his story, the story of my parents’ marriage, and certainly our family story. 18 years later, on February 4, my mother changed worlds here at Full Moon Cottage in a small basement bedroom Phillip and my brother, Mike, had put together and painted in 2 days, like some hurried stage carpenters (wainscoting, photographs, a lamp, 2 beds, a rocker), for her final comfort and peace. She was taking her last breaths while a huge crane was placing the 30-ft. beam in the addition to Full Moon that we’d envisioned as her new home.

Such days are also marked as holy, as are all of our losses and the moments of deepening that contribute to our stories of healing and transformation.

When I worked as a hospital chaplain I elicited and recorded patients’ stories of healing. It was valuable—both for my patients and for me—to hear what healing meant to them and how they defined it, for we often cannot begin to heal without reflecting upon and sharing these stories. And we can heal all the way through our dying.

I came to know a patient who had CHF (congestive heart failure), which is a disease that progressively disables our bodies, and so she returned often to the hospital, and we discovered we were kindred spirits, delighting in each other’s company. She was a charming woman, who used her sweetness and humor to deflect introspection, but the awareness that her life was ending brought increasingly deeper excavations of her truths, and one day, when she was 92 and coming to accept her dying, she honored me by sharing this story about the greatest healing of her life:

What would healing look like for me? I suppose for me it would be a return to optimum health…and if that is a lower level of health than I had when I arrived at the hospital, then healing would mean acceptance. (Long pause.) The most illuminating healing of my life happened after my husband’s death. The hardest time of my life by far…it took years, although it was the first year that was completely black; it was the heaviest, darkest, most silent year of my life…but it wasn’t until five years after he’d died, when I was 61, and traveled to London with a friend, that the sorrow palpably lifted. I remember the very moment: we were in Piccadilly Square, shopping and having a grand time, and I pushed through the door of a shop and came out onto the street: there was bustling and life and people and color and activity everywhere…and just like that: I said, “I am happy. I want to live again.” Just like that. Healing can happen like that. Grace.

I agree. Healing can happen just like that, or sometimes only after long years of re-planting our spirits and regaining our balance, but there’s always a time we can pause, look back, and see that healing has and is happening.

I know that is so as I set out trinkets and mementos that honor and celebrate the great loves of my life and the stories we’ve shared.

Books, Story, Writing

Winnowing Books; Treasuring Stories

January 9, 2012March 26, 2020by Kitty7 Comments

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. ~ Thornton Wilder

My home holds hundreds of books; it’s like living in a library, with a kitchen and beds, a couch, tables, and chairs—but mostly, books. They are mine, although there are many that Phillip has read and valued. He is far less tied to the material than I and rarely feels the need to keep a book he has read.

I am an insatiable addict with a jones for story. Garrison Keillor said, “You get older and realize there are no answers, just stories. And how we love them.” Except, for me, the passion for story started at birth and has only increased. Before we could read, we were read to, frequently. The library outing was a weekly ritual before and after word decoding skills were mastered.

I am congenitally bibliophilic.

Reading, writing, and storytelling were the other Holy Trinity of my childhood, and nothing has altered their prominence in the course of my lengthening history. My mother was a gifted teacher who revered books all of her life. I am convinced she began reading to me when I was in utero. In my memory, Mama is either reading from a pile of novels, biographies, and her beloved English mysteries, or listening to “Chapter a Day” on NPR. She never returned from a trip to the store without stories about the people who stood in line with her and we would marvel at how quickly—and deeply—she elicited these. When we gathered with her sister and brothers, stories about their childhood and hometown community flowed for hours.

My father was a Journalism graduate who had edited his college newspaper and moved into a career that depended upon his facility for organizing, creating, editing, and sharing information. The latter half of his career was spent traveling to hundreds of college campuses as head of his large company’s corporate recruiting department. When he came home, I’d join him at the kitchen table and listen to stories of his travels. My father would describe the flights, hotels, restaurants, placement office professionals, campuses, and then the dozens of job applicants, usually engineers and accountants, whose so-far-biographies were encapsulated in hopeful resumes, piled on the table for review.

He taught me that a list of superlative achievements wasn’t nearly as interesting (or likely to secure employment) as a story of how one young man had to care for his parents, work a part-time job, and complete his studies, or another applicant was “all A’s and no sense,” or how this person was “well-rounded” and why, and that person was “too narrow to succeed on a corporate team,” while another job required a singular-focused “odd duck.”

I guess my father matched their stories with his employer’s needs, and was talented at this, because he listened to and appreciated the unique value of each person’s narrative. I remember my father as also gifted in helping rejected candidates understand that their stories wouldn’t proceed well at the job they’d applied for, and that there were better stories to find in order for their gifts and happiness to be challenged and grow.

Regardless of the titles and disciplines of my own jobs, for me they’ve all been immersions in hearing, creating, sharing, exploring, and collecting story: The meaning, spirit, and adventures of life; the wins and losses, the choices and directions, the lessons, surprises, twists and mysteries, the cliff-hangers, comedies, and tragedies.

Books have been my touchstones, companions, and comfort throughout my life. They are place-markers in the infinite flow of existence. We enter them and co-create worlds with the author and other readers. Books thus become our lifelong friends; their presence alone conjures beloved memories, places, and experiences that rival and often become associated with those lived outside their imagined realities.

But I have made a commitment to a simpler life, and that means I must winnow, again and again, through possessions I no longer need, which includes tackling my many bookcases. A New Year seems an appropriate time for such sorting. I slowly create the “give away” and “keep” piles; Phillip reviews; we negotiate; and out goes another box of books, off to St. Vinnie’s and—oh, how I hope—a good home.

There are authors and books—probably too many—with which I will never part, but there have also been reading passions that went excitingly deep, but in the long run, didn’t last, and I need to reassess, make peace, part company wherever necessary…it’s a way of reorganizing my spiritual geography as well, and always an insightful exercise and practice.

But oh, the hours and decisions it requires! More than once this past weekend, Phillip discovered me surrounded by piles of books (holding one or two as well), immobilized by indecision. But I’ll keep at it. These are my sacred relationships and no one else can do it for me.

When my mother made her last move to our home, her books, furniture, and possessions, except for clothes and a few articles, were put into storage. We thought this would be temporary, until she found a home she liked, but illness made this transition astonishingly and quickly her last.

I learned that sorting through the belongings of someone you love is almost too much to bear, but I retained hope that my love for, and familiarity with, her possessions conferred the sacredness they and the event deserved.

I do not want anyone I love to have that task at all, regarding our possessions, but certainly not to the degree I can take responsibility for making decisions now. And I think it would be even worse, perhaps, to have a stranger, ignorant of all the hallowed memory and meaning, pawing through books and fragments only Phillip and I knew as treasures.

So the Great Sifting continues. It’s time to lighten up, make way for new adventures, remind myself again that the books and the stories are elementally different things: the books, like everything I own, are objects for passing on to others, when I’m ready; the stories will always and forever be mine.

Category: Story