(Good) Friday

Time passes so fast.  Looking at a picture, seems recent, but it was already six months ago, a warmish October afternoon, sun glaring on the water, birds aggressively begging for bread, a boy cautiously peering down toward them, no bread in hand, the birds tense and ready to spring at the slightest offering.

Tonight, the moon so bright, soon an eclipse, though I don't know how visible here.

Earlier, sang at Good Friday service, probably my favorite service all year.  (Mostly) music I love, the one I haven't liked has been growing on me, I've tried to find things to like about it.  It's supposed to be meditative, and the words are beautiful, it's just very long.  We also sing a chant as the lights go completely out, and sing "Were You There" from the balcony, acapella, in the dark.  There are many moments of total silence.  My favorite piece of music to sing, Ave Verum Corpus, is sung on Good Friday.  Overall, I think it's seven readings (from arrest to crucifixion) and nine pieces of music, lights go off after each section, and everyone leaves in the dark.

And in all that contemplation and somberness, I had a clown moment.  I came home to get my music and change into black clothing, and ran out the door to catch a bus.  I did take my jacket off while we rehearsed.  One of the other sopranos fixed my tag that was sticking out.  But right before the service, I was trying to put a tissue in my pocket, and I couldn't locate a pocket.  And I thought, "Weird, I could swear this dress had pockets."  I made a joke about putting it on backward or inside-out, and the women on either side of me, said that it wasn't either.  When I got home, I looked at the dress in the mirror, trying to figure out why I couldn't find the pockets.  I even lifted it up to look underneath...no pockets on the sides.  Then I looked in the mirror again, and realized I somehow managed to put the dress on sideways...how is that even possible?  The straps were somehow still crossing in the back and one over each shoulder.  At least I haven't completely lost my mind, there are pockets, just happened to be at the front and the back tonight.  Been a bit spacey today.

Been reading Small Victories, by Anne Lamott, and It's Not You, by Sara Eckel.  Both, in a way, dealing with forgiveness and acceptance.  The latter seeming like irreverent dating advice, but in the end, refuting that idea that if you are single you must have some glaring fault you have to fix first.  And it is refreshing to hear once again, that you don't have to be perfect first.  No one is.  Those people who are not single, are also not perfect.  Not that you can't change if you want, but how many times have you heard "You're not ready." "You're too independent." "You need to love yourself more." "You're too needy." "You need to work on yourself." etc.  No more than anyone else.  You are good enough already.  You are as much worthy of love as anyone else.  And then Lamott dealing with forgiveness, especially self-forgiveness.  For all the bad choices that you made; for loving too much, or not enough; for silence, for lack of silence; for treating yourself poorly; for playing the martyr; for trying to solve everything; for walking away or for staying; for loving those who treated you badly, and running away from those who didn't; for wanting things you couldn't have; for holding out hope; for anything else: you don't have to pay penance forever, crawling on your knees through the desert.  You can get up now, and live.  It's enough. (You've done enough.  You are enough.)

End of the year

Twenty-five minutes to midnight.  I can hear fire crackers going off around the neighborhood.  The sky is clear, and even with the moon in the center of it all, lots of visible stars, somehow echoing back the sparkling frost that formed on the car, the ice on the ground.

Feeling loved, inspired, and grateful.  Not bad for New Year's Eve.  Don't think I'll stay up.

It's enough.

I'm enough.

Hope in everyday

Oh, I was wondering why my shoe felt weird, I had a penny in my sock (I have no idea.)

I once heard that four-leaf clovers could be found in any patch of clover. And so I looked and I found them pretty regularly. Then I gradually stopped, it's been years since I've found one, perhaps it seemed silly or greedy. I haven't looked since the early 2000's. In the past week or so, I've begun to casually glance again. I don't know what it would mean to find one. Maybe just to flex the naturalist muscles to pick out birds or plants or mammals in the wild.

I'm trying to move away from my magical thinking that makes up meaning where there isn't any; the part of me that waits for passage in a long abandoned train station...if I only believe enough or wait long enough. Hope is in the everyday, the here and now. I have to keep being reminded of that. Before I ever walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain, I had read stories with big, exciting miracles and I thought I wanted that. As I've written elsewhere, I did have a miracle, not big, not exciting, but transformative all the same. It had to do with everyday life, with trust. And trust can be hard, it's hard to let go of control of how I think things should be or what I think I want. Walking back from the mucky Fill today, I was reminded of that. Sometimes what is here is enough.