A stranger in my own life

The tag and concept of "presence" were created because I'm really bad at it. I got that from my father.

When he was of a mind to, and he had a chance to show it off, Dad could hit some inner switch and could turn his amicability on. He could be the life of the party. A month or so ago, Mom remembered that he could be "dazzling," and the word struck me: Dad actually could turn on Bishie Sparkles if he tried.

My love says that I got that from him, but when I introspect, what I see most of him in myself is the other side of that switch: he didn't try. "It was his story," I remembered to Mom at the funeral reception, "and I was honored to be a secondary character in it." - and it's true. It was my father's world, and we were all invited into it only if and as he made it known. How much of it was the fact that he was devoted first and foremost to his art, and how much was his undiagnosed cancer, I'll never be able to say. But when I compare myself to him, I do see that: I'm in the presence of another world. [viz], and just as he can devote himself tirelessly to photography, so can I to demiurgy: attending to the art and neglecting the world of the artist.

Sometimes it's small, like not even trying to meet up with the friends last night. Other times it's bigger, like revisiting a blogger I haven't thought about in years and discovering that while I was away she became a mother.

Letters, mine and yours

Friday's sonnet was no mistake.

I remember when I first wrote you letters, love. The first one was a tear-streaked confession of how badly I'd destroyed my life, and I never expected to hear from you again. The next dozen or so - the ones I'd photocopied myself - were the ones I spent coming to terms with the fact that nobody had ever said "I like you" to me before you did.

I remember this year's letters, love. The ones that I'd reliably turn out once a fortnight, fifteen pages of them, all blue and (eventually) copper ink. The ones where I would sing your praises, write them beautifully and well and mail them off to you with the Amnesty International letter seals. I wrote them all through this summer, love, and you'd be adorable about getting them on Facebook.

And then, suddenly, it got hard.

The birthday gift

It was a gray day in March, about seven months ago and about three weeks after I'd asked my sister for it, that I went outside to check the mail and found a slip for a package.

It took me a little while to realize that I was supposed to go inside and ask at the front desk for the package, but I did, and I did, and they had it. There was absolutely no evidence that it was what I'd asked for: a cardboard-brown box, sealed up with tape and marked with an Amazon sticker. Even the dimensions of the thing looked wrong somehow. At this point in time, I'm not sure if I had to sign for it or not; there's a patch of my memory that's faded out. The next thing I remember was walking around the complex, back to my room, holding it in my hands. Looking forward to cracking the tape open.

One memorable meal

My father died on February 10, 2012. His funeral was the next week.

At the memorial service, one of his lifelong friends - Aaron - spoke about the morning that he met my father. He also mentioned a detail about my father that I'd never known before.

Every day, throughout his life, one of my late father's hard and fast rules of life was to have one memorable meal. It was an important part of his ethos; he'd spend an inordinate of time driving out of his way, in every state of the Union, to get to somewhere that would allow him to have at least one memorable meal.

It was brilliant. A worldly thing, but a brilliant and beautiful rule of life anyways.

And, because it's not something I actually abide by very much - and it occurs to me that I should write about other things here than Andalusada and miseries - I've established a new tag, "a memorable meal," to prompt me to write about the ones that I've had.

And also, maybe to eat them more often. Thou shalt not live by Concerta and water alone, Edo.

Christmas Eve, 2011

Several Decembers ago, a moment passed out behind the wheel taught me to keep myself alert and my radio on whenever I go on long drives, especially after dark. Usually it's tuned to a mediocre rock station, or a grainy classical frequency - but there inevitably comes a moment When that moment comes, I flip to something totally unlike what I'd normally listen to: a Christian station.

It's a habit that I really ought to break, because my motive for listening isn't because I love it, or even like it: I listen to them for the hatred. Sooner or later, there will come a moment when the music will let up, and the spoken words will begin, and that's the cue for the eight-minute countdown before the station reminds me of everything that is wrong with American Christendom.

There comes a report on "the issue of homosexuality." There comes a plug for Focus on the Family, or a unilateral condemnation of working mothers at a time when my mother was running the house because her husband was dying. There comes the break from the Oberammergau Passion Play to pray against the ACA and for the deliverance of Holy Mother Church from the oppression of the Pill. (I shit you not.) During the Holy Week, there comes... actually nothing at all, and that was the most infuriating part: an uninterrupted block of evangelical pop songs, with nothing even acknowledging that it's 3:00 in the afternoon on fucking Good Friday. ("Positive. Affirmative." Some other Christian buzzwords - at the one hour, of the one day, when Christians and Trent Reznor can join together in one voice to say that God is dead.)

It's not something I do outside of Connecticut-to-Massachusetts driving, for the very simple reason that there's usually other stations once I get off the corridor from Waterbury to Springfield. But last Christmas Eve, I discovered that a few exits into Pennsylvania the devil's music came to an end. And as I pounded through the stations with my good hand, my attention divided between the backlit numbers on the display and the harrowing road conditions of Wilkes-Barre, my worst fears were confirmed:

It was Christian stations all the way down. And with no way to resist it, I settled on the least noisy stations and settled down for a nice winter's Two Minutes Hate.

The Lower Room daily confessional: Serapion and Taliban

III.2. When [Serapion] could not be brought to the path of correct faith... Photinus, a man of very great knowledge, happened to come along from the region of Cappadocia with the desire of seeing the brothers who resided in that desert. The blessed Paphnutius welcomed him with great rejoicing...

III.3. Then he explained... Thereupon [Serapion], moved by the many very powerful statements of that most learned man, was finally drawn to the faith of the Catholic tradition.

III.4. When he gave his unconditional assent in this regard, Abbot Paphnutius and the rest of us were filled with joy.... But the old man... suddenly broke into the bitterest tears and heavy sobbing, and, throwing himself to the ground with a loud groan, cried out: "Woe is me, wretch that I am!

III.5. "They have taken my God from me, and I have no one to lay hold of, nor do I know whom I should adore or address."

-St. John Cassian, The Conferences

On Miss Rumphius, and my backyard

Sarah Bessey is a smarter person than I, and if I don't comment there it's because I regularly find nothing that feels worth adding. On impulse today, though, I clicked over there from Slacktivist, and stumbled upon "In which I share 10 books for tinies," to which I nodded through the list until I got to the honorable mentions:

Honourable Mentions: The Hockey Sweater by Roch Carrier, Sleepy Bears by Mem Fox, Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola, Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, and of course, Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney.

And I stopped nodding there, because that last title took me back.

Tomorrow shall be my dancing day

Not many people get excommunicated, in terms of absolute numbers. But a great many people do excommunicate themselves. That was, in a sense, what I've done; being independent meant being detached. It meant that I could poke fun from outside, or simply just lash out and rail. But it also meant that I don't remember the last time I took Communion, rather than standing by and watching it from the pews at a piss-poor Mass.
I didn't realize that until Monday night, and I've been madly craving it ever since.

Tomorrow is Pentecost. Tomorrow is the end of the written history. Tomorrow marks the final day of the liturgical calendar, the last day of the Easter season, the transition to Ordinary Time. On Monday dawn, Sacred Time will be over, and we will be reduced to the church in the world, living as we await the promised return.

It's been at least seven or eight years since I last set foot across the threshold of the church I walked away from. Tomorrow, no better and only a little worse than when I left, I will darken its doors once again.

Some of it will be to say thank you to somebody I expect will be there. Some of it will be to hear the reading of Acts 2 again. But some of it will be, I hope, to share Communion again.

Tomorrow, insha'Allah, shall be my dancing day.


I bought a red shirt just for the occasion.

As was then, as is now

A friend talked to me on Facebook today. Came to me looking for help; and, when I answered, seemed more interested in ignoring my advice than in listening to it. Demanding that I say something, as I pounded out my thoughts.

Testifying.

Rachel Held Evans started this. Slacktivist made it known to me. The commenters inspired me to join them.

No two members of my family churched the same. Dad didn’t at all, despite those missionaries teaching him to speak English. Mom left Catholicism for various other things over the last thirty years. My sister spent her formative years dragging Mom to the local evangelical church, where the projector screen in the sanctuary was bigger than the parking lot outside. I was the only one raised as a purely mainline Protestant.

In some kinds of testimonies, you’re supposed to get to the part where you invited Jesus into your heart, and then you cry until your makeup runs, and then everybody prays over you. This ain’t one of those testimonies. This is mine. This is why I left.

1. I left because my confirmation was a tribal signifier.

Flag is down

An old forum I used to post on, Flag!, is down. Apparently the domain name expired 6/7/07, and is pending renewal or expiration.

Alas. Hopefully it'll come back. I had to make my leave from it due to circumstances not under my control; one of these days, I was hoping to return.

Something to look forward to.