Category Archives: quotes

Scary holiday that is not Halloween.

October 29, 2015Christmas, family, grief, quotesGretchenJoanna

“One of the reasons that loss can feel so overwhelming is that it disrupts many components of your identity all at once. The loss of a loved one hurts because a relationship that formed a cornerstone of your experience of the world is no longer there. It’s as if someone removed all of the familiar landmarks in your neighborhood.”

It is in sections like this, when he is describing the experience of grief, that Sameet M. Kumar is most helpful to me, in his book Grieving Mindfully: A Compassionate and Spiritual Guide to Coping With Loss.

My current sense of this disorienting loss of familiar landmarks has to do with the Christmas season. From my widow’s perspective, Christmas is frightening. I don’t consciously think that in my mind, but I gather it from my sudden reactions to the displays of decorations in stores, and the way I start to choke up at the thought of buying a tree and taking the ornaments out of their boxes.

The tree was always my husband’s project; had the decision been left to me, our family might never have had a Christmas tree, if my feelings at the beginning of our marriage were any indication. I always felt that his family, because of their Christian focus, knew better how to “do Christmas” than I did. I learned a lot from them over the years, and my husband and I passed on traditions to our children.

In the last fifteen years I’ve also come to know that the heart of Christmas, my own Christmas-heart, is in the kishan tree pic Church, and for that many years I have attended Liturgy on Christmas morning, and I keep the Nativity Fast; those practices will be unchanged. I would suppose that after all these years Christmas would have its own richness and momentum supported by the Church and by all the Glad people loving each other, and that I would be carried gently along in the flow.

It’s not like that. In our family’s culture and history, Christmas is mostly about Family. For me, the heart of my family was my husband, and he’s a pretty big landmark to go missing.

What I’m hungry for.

October 7, 2015quotes, writingCatherine Drinker Bowen, Gloria Steinem, Isaac Bashevis Singer, William Makepeace ThackerayGretchenJoanna

Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. The chasm is never completely bridged. We all have the conviction,
perhaps illusory, that we have much more to say than appears on the paper.
-Isaac Bashevis Singer

Life has been good. I have been busy — not just to be busy and distracted, but busy with people I love, and taking care of household business. I assure you that doesn’t often mean housecleaning.

I’ve made trips, and hosted guests. I’ve worshiped in God’s temple and admired the butternut squashes ripening in my garden. I’ve cooked and pondered and and walked and read. Every day I think of what I want to write about the many facets of my life and thought, and every night I go to bed unsatisfied in that one desire.

Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living.
The writer experiences everything twice.
Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind.
-Catherine Drinker Bowen

This dissatisfaction hasn’t been at the forefront of my consciousness until the last few days; I normally go to bed happy and thankful for the sweetness of my existence in the arms of God. But now I’m aware as never before that it’s a gnawing hunger I’ve got to attend to.

There are thousands of thoughts lying within a man that he does not know
till he takes up the pen and writes.
-William Makepeace Thackeray

Probably the next blog post I write after all this blather will consist of some pictures of flowers, or include an icon of the saint of the day, with hardly any words. But I have a new laptop! I can type upstairs or downstairs now, to put down all that’s swarming in my head. I hope it helps.

I do not like to write – I like to have written.
-Gloria Steinem

tears

September 10, 2015quotes, realitySt. Gregory of Nyssa, tearsGretchenJoanna

It is impossible for one to live without tears
who considers things exactly as they are.

-St. Gregory of Nyssa

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Botanical with Familial

September 5, 2015family, nature, Psalms, quotes, wildflowersBodega Bay, lupines, North Coast, Psalm 104, Tilden Park, VespersGretchenJoanna

GL Tilden succulents 9-15

This weekend I had the unusual experience of having separate visits back-to-back with the families of two of my children: one on Friday midday, the other Friday night and Saturday. First Soldier and Joy invited me to meet them at Tilden Park in the Berkeley hills, a place I’ve been a few times in my life, most notably as a Brownie attending day camp there in ages past.

GL Tilden Bot Grdn path 9-15 — Tilden Park Botanic Garden

GL rabbitbrush Tilden 9-15 — Rabbit Brush

This park covers more than 2,000 acres, which makes it twice as vast as Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, which already is 20% larger than New York’s Central Park. Within its boundaries you can find wilderness areas, a lake and a golf course; ride the merry-go-round or horses, and feast on great views of San Francisco Bay. We only had time to focus on three pleasures.

GL No Calif Fuschia Tilden 9-15 — Northern California Fuschia

Our firs P1000830crp G w Liam t fun was riding the little steam train that winds around among the oaks and conifers. Liam took careful note with a serious countenance of the scenery going past, but Laddie has little patience for sitting still, so he was glad to get off again and run. We soon were picnicking on pasties and lemon cake that Joy had brought, and then decided to look at the botanical gardens.

These gardens were founded in 1940 and have well established and extensive paths and plantings. Even though it is late summer, we found many flowers and things to look at, but we all imagined coming back in the spring to see it when it is not so dry.

GL Tilden sign 9-15

It showcases California native plants, from all over the state, which are often grouped in habitats imitating their natural homes, such as a redwood forest and a mountainous granite slope.

GL Tilden Bot. Gardens redwood grove 9-4-15 — redwood grove

GL Bodega Coast from Head 9-5-15

Since a couple of our party were people who need their naps, and I had the nasty three o’clock rush hour traffic ahead of me, we weren’t able to ramble long enough to feel completely satisfied in our explorations, so I think we all want to return another time. Hugs good-bye, and home I went.

A couple of hours after I arrived home, Pearl’s family came to visit, all but one. The oldest is in the process of flying out of the coop, so their numbers are diminished. We had a relaxed visit, especially for the first twelve hours or so, and then we drove out to Bodega Bay for lunch and hiking.

GL crp bayshore shallows — bayshore shallows

We also couldn’t do everything we’d have liked. The Marine Lab is closed on Saturdays, and we had hoped to visit there. But we did go out on Bodega Head and hike up to the bluffs – what a gorgeous day we had for it! The Northern Coast is foggy a lot in the summer, until August and especially September when you can hit more pleasant weather. Today was not too warm, and the breeze didn’t turn into wind. We could do without our sweaters most of the time.

GL crp yellow lupine pods — yellow lupine with seed pods

Out here nothing is getting watered, and the hills were a dull brown. I kept thinking of the sign from the park yesterday. But as usual, I found many specimens of plants that interested me, mostly old friends. Because I’m planting a new garden, and hope to have a greenhouse in it, I broke off some of the crackly seed pods from the big yellow lupine bushes, and dropped them into a pocket of my purse. Maybe I can get them to grow at home.

Pearl and Maggie and everyone departed in the afternoon, and I went to Vespers, which is always a blessing; but on a day when I’ve been out in nature it is especially lovely to hear Psalm 104 which always opens the service, with its mention of the watery depths, the birds and mountains, trees and grasses, and how God lovingly provides for all of us.