Apparently, a quirky sense of humor is one of the requirements of employment at the hospital where I've been twice in the past 4 days to deal with accidentally stabbing myself with a utility knife on Saturday. First the admitting nurse (see previous post), and yesterday's conversation with the hand specialist/plastic surgeon.
He walked in the examining room, squinted at me, and said, "You look really familiar, have we met before?" I said, joking, "I don't think so, but a WHOLE lot of people look EXACTLY like me, so chances are it was the person you saw before me." He smiled, then pretended to scowl and said, "No, it's not that. Do I owe you money?"
I wish I'd said, "You sure do, pal. I believe you're underwriting my adventures in blogdom to the tune of $100/hour, which is 33% less than I would charge if I were a plumber coming to pump out your basement." But, alas, I didn't. Still, it was funny to me that a doctor whose business card says he specializes in "Plastic, Reconstructive and Hand Surgery" is even pretending to wonder if he owes me money. Maybe operating on plastic just doesn't bring in the Benjamins anymore.
The skinny: my scofflaw of a hand surgeon says there's a 50/50 chance he'll need to "go in there and clean it out" if I still have pain in my fingers and hand by the weekend. Oy. And with that, I offer you this. One of the top 10 concerts of my life was getting to see and hear Ella Fitzgerald in person. The chick, may she rest in a jazzy peace, could get her sing on.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Saturday, March 20, 2010
"Do you feel safe at home?"
This was among the many questions the ER admitting nurse asked me this afternoon. I just looked at her and laughed and said, “Absolutely, though maybe I shouldn’t, since I was, in fact, at home when I put this nasty gash in my forearm with a utility knife while cutting a plastic downspout extender.” She said, “Let’s take a look at this bad boy.” Upon removing the skanky paper towel I had been using to cover it up, she said, “Oooookay, we won’t be taking your blood pressure on THIS arm!”
Two hours later I have five stitches in my left forearm and a requirement to see a hand specialist as early as possible next week. The scoop: the ER folks don’t think I’ve damaged any tendons, but they want the hand specialist to take a look to be completely sure. For now, I’m on a two week course of antibiotics, I have a brand new tetanus shot that I elected to have in the same arm that I cut, and my left arm is splinted and wrapped from fingertip to elbow.
The ER folks who poked around in the wound in my arm, putting me though all sorts of finger movement tests, kept telling me how lucky I was because I didn’t appear to have done any damage to the tendons. But after spending 2 hours in the emergency room, I had already been feeling pretty lucky. I kept looking around thinking, “Ew, glad I’m not THAT guy.” One could argue that if I were really lucky, I wouldn’t have cut myself. So maybe my primary luck isn’t that great, but my secondary luck is awesome.
But you know what? I’d put even my primary luck up against anyone’s. I’ve spent a significant amount of time this week in four of life’s great levelers: prison (for volunteer work, so it wasn’t nearly as leveling as if I were actually serving time), public transportation, the local motor vehicles office, and, today, the emergency room. I've had more than enough glimpses of how much worse my life would be if I weren’t so lucky.
But you know what? I’d put even my primary luck up against anyone’s. I’ve spent a significant amount of time this week in four of life’s great levelers: prison (for volunteer work, so it wasn’t nearly as leveling as if I were actually serving time), public transportation, the local motor vehicles office, and, today, the emergency room. I've had more than enough glimpses of how much worse my life would be if I weren’t so lucky.
Do I feel safe at home? Yes, I do and I count my blessings every day for that.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
"Contact the police department by phone, or look us up on Facebook"
Today we had our first sunny day since the 18th century, I think. The previous three days saw somewhere between 8 and 12 inches of rain dumped on our state, depending on your location. On Monday afternoon, we got a recorded call from the local police department saying that our town had deployed its Emergency Management Office, to help residents and public safety officers cope with flooding, deteriorating roads, sewer problems, and power outages. The title of this post is a direct quote from that phone call. I still haven't gone to the Police Department's Facebook page. And since I tend to use Facebook for witty commentary and general fun-wreaking, they're probably happy I haven't stopped by.
If not for our constantly hungry cats
and ONE constantly hungry cat in particular
who knows when we would have discovered the water in our basement. We heard a guy interviewed on the radio last night who said that he only went to his basement because he didn't have any hot water for his shower. When he went down to check the water heater, he found 2 feet of water in his basement. That could easily have been our situation, too.
But we have these cats who love to eat, just not while standing shoulder deep (for them) in cold water. Pansies. So on Sunday evening, they were doing their Feed Me dance at the top of the stairs, and when SweetP went down the stairs, they didn't follow her. Hmmm. A clue a clue! We know for a fact that Mrs. Bates isn't down there, lounging decrepitudinously in her rocker. So maybe it's...
2" of water! No biggie, except we're already an hour behind on sleep from dang Daylight Savings, plus we're late to a church potluck. So, we threw caution to the winds and headed out across town for the eating of food and drinking of wine. I was privately harboring this idea that our animals, with their ultra absorbent fur, might band together to hatch a scheme that involved taking turns soaking up the water in their fur, then coming up to the bathroom to wring themselves out tidily in the tub, and repeating as necessary.
No dice. We returned home from the potluck around 9 pm to find the water at 4" and rising. We changed into our best versions of hazmat wear, and set about bailing our domestic Titanic with the equivalent of a thimble. We ran this crazy Wet Vac Relay, where I stood in the driveway with the canister end of the Wet Vac, and SweetP stood in the basement with the business end of the Wet Vac. We could get the Wet Vac about half full before it would begin spewing instead of sucking, and then I'd turn it off, pull off the lid, wheel the canister to the end of the driveway and dump the water in the street. Then I'd run back to the basement door with the empty canister, re-assemble the Wet Vac and we'd start again. We did this for about an hour and a half and got the water down to about 2". Oh, and did I mention that this entire time it was pouring sideways-blowing-rain and cussin' cold, with 40 mph gusts of wind?
We went to bed Sunday night with the now all-too-familiar sound of wind and rain whipping the windows. Monday morning, I got to the local big box store before it opened, and was about 20th in line. When they opened the doors, I was too far back to hear the initial exchange with the store employee, but I saw quite a few people ahead of me in line turn away from the store and sprint through the rain back to their cars. Finally someone yelled, "There are NO pumps!"
So I went home and called the plumber. He showed up around 9, pulled a brand new submersible pump out of the box and rigged it to pump the water up the basement stairs and out to the driveway. Apparently, he's tried the Wet Vac relay and found it lacking. Within an hour, the water was almost gone, and in a sudden stroke of genius, I asked him if we could buy the pump from him before he left. He agreed, and the Little Pump That Could is still down there, keeping our basement dry. If I could figure out how to pay myself the $150/hour that the plumber was charging, I wouldn't need the professional outplacement services that I began using today. But that is another story for another day. Now it just might be time to check out the Police Department's Facebook page.
We'll close this episode with a seasonally appropriate tune, which you may preview here. Actually, I recommend you just download the whole album, which is a masterpiece, in my humble opinion.
Kris Delmhorst's "Water Water" - adapted from Robert Herrick's 1648 chart-topping poem "Scare Fire"
If not for our constantly hungry cats
and ONE constantly hungry cat in particular
who knows when we would have discovered the water in our basement. We heard a guy interviewed on the radio last night who said that he only went to his basement because he didn't have any hot water for his shower. When he went down to check the water heater, he found 2 feet of water in his basement. That could easily have been our situation, too.
But we have these cats who love to eat, just not while standing shoulder deep (for them) in cold water. Pansies. So on Sunday evening, they were doing their Feed Me dance at the top of the stairs, and when SweetP went down the stairs, they didn't follow her. Hmmm. A clue a clue! We know for a fact that Mrs. Bates isn't down there, lounging decrepitudinously in her rocker. So maybe it's...
2" of water! No biggie, except we're already an hour behind on sleep from dang Daylight Savings, plus we're late to a church potluck. So, we threw caution to the winds and headed out across town for the eating of food and drinking of wine. I was privately harboring this idea that our animals, with their ultra absorbent fur, might band together to hatch a scheme that involved taking turns soaking up the water in their fur, then coming up to the bathroom to wring themselves out tidily in the tub, and repeating as necessary.
No dice. We returned home from the potluck around 9 pm to find the water at 4" and rising. We changed into our best versions of hazmat wear, and set about bailing our domestic Titanic with the equivalent of a thimble. We ran this crazy Wet Vac Relay, where I stood in the driveway with the canister end of the Wet Vac, and SweetP stood in the basement with the business end of the Wet Vac. We could get the Wet Vac about half full before it would begin spewing instead of sucking, and then I'd turn it off, pull off the lid, wheel the canister to the end of the driveway and dump the water in the street. Then I'd run back to the basement door with the empty canister, re-assemble the Wet Vac and we'd start again. We did this for about an hour and a half and got the water down to about 2". Oh, and did I mention that this entire time it was pouring sideways-blowing-rain and cussin' cold, with 40 mph gusts of wind?
We went to bed Sunday night with the now all-too-familiar sound of wind and rain whipping the windows. Monday morning, I got to the local big box store before it opened, and was about 20th in line. When they opened the doors, I was too far back to hear the initial exchange with the store employee, but I saw quite a few people ahead of me in line turn away from the store and sprint through the rain back to their cars. Finally someone yelled, "There are NO pumps!"
So I went home and called the plumber. He showed up around 9, pulled a brand new submersible pump out of the box and rigged it to pump the water up the basement stairs and out to the driveway. Apparently, he's tried the Wet Vac relay and found it lacking. Within an hour, the water was almost gone, and in a sudden stroke of genius, I asked him if we could buy the pump from him before he left. He agreed, and the Little Pump That Could is still down there, keeping our basement dry. If I could figure out how to pay myself the $150/hour that the plumber was charging, I wouldn't need the professional outplacement services that I began using today. But that is another story for another day. Now it just might be time to check out the Police Department's Facebook page.
We'll close this episode with a seasonally appropriate tune, which you may preview here. Actually, I recommend you just download the whole album, which is a masterpiece, in my humble opinion.
Kris Delmhorst's "Water Water" - adapted from Robert Herrick's 1648 chart-topping poem "Scare Fire"
Sunday, March 14, 2010
"Who holds your hand when you're alone?"
I have one of those faces. You know the kind I'm talking about. I'm the one who forgets all the self-protective or task-oriented protocols and makes eye contact with you and smiles sweetly in the grocery store, or standing on the sidelines at the soccer game or, yesterday, sitting in the visiting room at an assisted living facility. The next thing you know, you're telling me your life story, or a snapshot of it.
Yesterday, while waiting for my wife to visit a parishioner in said assisted-living facility, I camped out in the visitors' lounge and played Bejeweled on my iPod. I had every intention of minding my own business, not looking up, not talking to anyone (especially strangers!)
Across the room from me were 4 generations of a family. A 94-year-old woman, S, who lives at the facility, her 60ish year old nephew, M, and his wife, their 2 daughters, and the 2 daughters' 3 young sons (ages 6-8, I'm guessing.) S kept trying to figure out who these young boys were. She doesn't see them often and she has it all written down but it's back in her room, or maybe she has it in her purse and is this one Nathan or Jared and which one isn't here? After the fourth or fifth time through this line of questioning, where her various family members were correcting her, I looked up and made eye contact with M and smiled, thus breaking the seal of the gasket of the isolation bubble I had around me.
The next thing I know, they're including me in the conversation, and S is asking me if I can believe how beautiful these boys are. On their way out of the visitors' lounge, M stops and tells me his aunt's life story, the one minute version.
After S's family left, she came back into the lounge and sat down with another family and told them all about the visit, bringing me into the conversation as necessary to verify the details of her story. "What were those boys' names again? Weren't they such beautiful children??"
So this lovely Patty Larkin song is for them, and for anyone else who finds themselves constantly surrounded by people, but still feels alone, in that "Who holds your hand when you're alone?" kind of way. The kicker to this is that some friends of ours took us to the concert where this video was recorded. And, true to form, it was SO much better live. If you ever get a chance to see this woman work her magic on a guitar, take it.
Yesterday, while waiting for my wife to visit a parishioner in said assisted-living facility, I camped out in the visitors' lounge and played Bejeweled on my iPod. I had every intention of minding my own business, not looking up, not talking to anyone (especially strangers!)
Across the room from me were 4 generations of a family. A 94-year-old woman, S, who lives at the facility, her 60ish year old nephew, M, and his wife, their 2 daughters, and the 2 daughters' 3 young sons (ages 6-8, I'm guessing.) S kept trying to figure out who these young boys were. She doesn't see them often and she has it all written down but it's back in her room, or maybe she has it in her purse and is this one Nathan or Jared and which one isn't here? After the fourth or fifth time through this line of questioning, where her various family members were correcting her, I looked up and made eye contact with M and smiled, thus breaking the seal of the gasket of the isolation bubble I had around me.
The next thing I know, they're including me in the conversation, and S is asking me if I can believe how beautiful these boys are. On their way out of the visitors' lounge, M stops and tells me his aunt's life story, the one minute version.
After S's family left, she came back into the lounge and sat down with another family and told them all about the visit, bringing me into the conversation as necessary to verify the details of her story. "What were those boys' names again? Weren't they such beautiful children??"
So this lovely Patty Larkin song is for them, and for anyone else who finds themselves constantly surrounded by people, but still feels alone, in that "Who holds your hand when you're alone?" kind of way. The kicker to this is that some friends of ours took us to the concert where this video was recorded. And, true to form, it was SO much better live. If you ever get a chance to see this woman work her magic on a guitar, take it.
Friday, March 12, 2010
"Uh. Uh. Ah-ah uh uh UH!"
Last week I was in San Francisco briefly, and squeezed in some time with two of the swellest, loveliest people in the world: my niece E and her husband N. E wasn't able to join us for dinner, so N and I met in Berkeley and enjoyed a delicious dinner at a Himalayan restaurant. No, the title of this post is NOT quoting from the yummy noises we made while eating.
After dinner, we went back to their apartment to wait for E to come home, where N did homework while I began performing CPR on my resume (it pulled through and is now making its way across the greater metropolitan area.) It was a timelessly quiet evening, with the sounds of N sketching at his easel, the tippity tap of my fingers on the keyboard, the grinding of the gears in my head, and a steady stream of jazz coming from the stereo. At one point, I asked N what the music was. "Duke Ellington."
I immediately asked if N had ever heard Ellington's version of the The Nutcracker Suite. He had not. I know, this is not seasonally appropriate music, given that we're in the abstemious season of Lent, and not the comparatively lush season of Advent. But sometimes, in service of the greater good, boundaries have to be crossed. N and E, this is for you, with thanks for a delightful evening, and abiding gratitude for the fact of your existence, as individuals and as an embodiment of what love can look like.
Uh. Uh. Ah-ah uh uh UH!
After dinner, we went back to their apartment to wait for E to come home, where N did homework while I began performing CPR on my resume (it pulled through and is now making its way across the greater metropolitan area.) It was a timelessly quiet evening, with the sounds of N sketching at his easel, the tippity tap of my fingers on the keyboard, the grinding of the gears in my head, and a steady stream of jazz coming from the stereo. At one point, I asked N what the music was. "Duke Ellington."
I immediately asked if N had ever heard Ellington's version of the The Nutcracker Suite. He had not. I know, this is not seasonally appropriate music, given that we're in the abstemious season of Lent, and not the comparatively lush season of Advent. But sometimes, in service of the greater good, boundaries have to be crossed. N and E, this is for you, with thanks for a delightful evening, and abiding gratitude for the fact of your existence, as individuals and as an embodiment of what love can look like.
Uh. Uh. Ah-ah uh uh UH!
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Comments
I've heard from several people that they were unable to post comments to my blog. I've changed the comments settings to make comments available to anyone. I do this with some trepidation, given the screed that people are willing to say anonymously on this phenomenon called the Internet. If this backfires, I'm reeling it back in and people will just have to figure out how to get their feedback to me by another way, say, the road less traveled or some such. For now, comment your hearts out, if you so desire.
And if you were wondering, there is more stuff about the weekend coming. I'm still sifting and mulling. Plus, I just ate an obscene amount of pancakes and bacon, so my brain is kinda floaty and buzzy. Perfect time to work on my resume!
And if you were wondering, there is more stuff about the weekend coming. I'm still sifting and mulling. Plus, I just ate an obscene amount of pancakes and bacon, so my brain is kinda floaty and buzzy. Perfect time to work on my resume!
“If I hadn’t come, I would never have known how important it was to be here”
Isn’t that just so IT? So much of what matters in life, so much of the meaning OF life, flows from the act of showing up. Not necessarily because you think you’ll have a great time, or that you’ll even get anything out of whatever the IT is. Maybe you KNOW you’ll have a terrible time. Maybe you’ll never know how important it was to other people that you showed up. If you’re lucky, you get to know how important it is to other people, and if you’re REALLY lucky, you get to have a sense, maybe only a glimmer, or maybe a huge cascading fireworks of an AHA!, of how important it is to YOU that you were there, wherever IT is, bringing your particular you-ness to an event, a day, a weekend, even to a fleeting moment.
A lot of people showed up this weekend for SweetP’s institution as the 12th rector of her parish – the first woman and the first openly queer person to be chosen for this position by this parish. Some people traveled great distances. Some came with a lot of baggage (of various kinds.) Some brought only themselves and whatever they could fit in their pockets or purses. Some came with babies. Some came with conditions (physical, philosophical, emotional, psychic, etc.) that required them to make enormous, even exhausting, efforts to be there. Some were dressed to the nines. Some wore costumes. Some wore whatever they usually wear. Some sang along. Some didn’t. Many of us wept, some of us sobbed, some of us giggled uncontrollably, some of us were still, solid, and strong, and some of us were the emotional equivalent of a clown car, veering and lurching wildly among all sorts of states. Some of us were dressed as dragons. Yes, Internet, there be dragons, even -- and maybe especially -- in church.
The title of this post is something my sister-in-law said to me after we had processed to the back of the church during the final hymn of “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise.” I think she exclaimed this as she hugged me shortly after I had come completely unglued when I hugged my brother. Poor guy, there I was, hugging him, and as I whispered into his ear the words, “Thank you SO much for being here today,” I was completely overcome with body-wracking sobs. I buried my face into his shoulder and, because I wear glasses, it felt a lot like I was smashing my face up against a window. Picture the sobbing guard at the gates of the Emerald City, with tears fire-hosing out of his eyes, but have him pressed up against a pane of glass. That’s the scene. Oh, plus, somewhere in there, I’m pretty sure my brother was holding me up. I bet I outweigh him, but he’s essentially all muscle, so I think it all worked out. I haven’t heard that he’s being treated for a hernia, so I’m assuming he’s okay.
The whole weekend, the day on Sunday, the ceremony itself, they were all like this weird combination of a wedding AND a funeral. All sorts of people doing the miracle of showing up, and lots of SweetP’s favorites: music, readings, flowers.
The church looked like it was decked out for a wedding, with red tulips and gerber daisies and other flowers everywhere. There were huge beeswax candles at the ends of every 3th or 4th pew. The place smelled so intensely of beeswax that I could have sworn that there was incense burning.
Many gifts were exchanged. The night before, at the big family dinner we hosted for 18 of us crammed into the renovation project that we call home, SweetP opened some cards and gifts from the extended family. I had been wracking my brain trying to think of something significant that the girls and I could give her. In a phone conversation earlier in the week with my eldest brother (the same one whose suit suffered water damage from my sobbing episode detailed in the previous paragraph), he was telling me about a book I had first heard about a few weeks ago. He said that the first time he looked at it, he didn’t move for 2 hours as he pored over it. I knew it would be the perfect gift for SweetP for a whole bunch of reasons. So this is what the girls and I gave her:
Now she’ll NEVER get any work done! The Red Book is every bit as stunning as I expected it to be, and every bit as perfect as I hoped it would be.
But I digress. Back to the ceremony on Sunday. The last part of the gift exchange in A Celebration of New Ministry involves the priest giving gifts to her family. Before we went up to receive our gifts, I asked the girls if they’d be willing to huddle up and all put our hands in the center and do a cheer, like a team does before it takes to the court or the field. They nixed that, but they did agree to huddle up after SweetP presented her gifts to us, which was really all I wanted in the first place. I’m sneaky like that.
Several people came up to me afterward to tell me that this was the most intensely moving part of the service for them. Some people sought me out to say that they were especially moved by hearing and seeing the word “wife” used to refer to me. One of the small but mighty gifts of marriage equality is the witness to the power of words that a lot of people take for granted, words like “wife.” Conversely, I know that the opposition to marriage equality reflects an awareness of how powerful these words are, and betrays a deep fear of us queers having access to the power of such language. But THAT, dear Internet, is a topic for another day.
So. This family that I have, that the five of us have made together, quite simply leaves me speechless with awe, wonder, delight, and a deep abiding love that makes the very word “love” seem tiny and utterly insufficient. And this moment right here, when we all circled up, put our heads together, wiggled our toes, and laughed, I officially have no words for it. Still. Days later.
But enough about us. Here’s a hairpin turn for you. Check out the artistry of a young pastry chef who was born and raised in the parish and is now on the young adult leadership team! I had told her that SweetP’s favorite flowers are red tulips, so she created these edible tulips out of some sort of candy wrapped around jellybeans. Some of the cupcakes had the letter P written on them. Also, there were little white P’s created out of some sort of icing that were strewn across the tablecloth like confetti.
At the reception, I was approached by a man I didn’t know, who said something that made me realize that he was James Primosch, the composer who created the amazing setting of e.e. cummings' poem “spiraling ecstatically” that SweetP chose as one of the musical offerings of the service (the EMI chorus sang it beautifully, with a bonus version offered in the morning service, for additional rehearsal purposes.) I’m not usually given to swooning or being rendered speechless by meeting new people, but I’m pretty sure I made a fool of myself when my hands involuntarily flew up to my throat and I gushed something to the effect of “Oh my gosh!!! You’re James Primosch!!! Thank you SO much for your work!!!” I don’t usually speak in exclamatory triplets, but I just couldn’t help it. Then I blurted, “I just know that [SweetP] wants to thank you” and before he could object I grabbed the poor man by the hand and dragged him across the crowded reception as though I were some sort of human cow catcher, pushing several well-wishers aside (no well-wishers were harmed in the making of this introduction.) I planted him in front of SweetP, and announced, “THIS is JAMES PRIMOSCH!!!” I sure as hell hope I didn't also say "Ta Daaaa!!!" I'm pretty sure that stayed in my head, along with the sounds of trumpets announcing the arrival of an important guest to the ball. I was somewhat relieved to see that SweetP had a very similar response to him that I did, nearly sloshing her glass of wine onto all three of us as she struggled to free up her hands to greet him.
Speaking of spiraling ecstatically. Whoa. I need a deep breath.
Even though my reflections on the weekend continue to ripple, and our life in and with an amazing and complex parish is beginning anew, and my old job is ending, and my new job – whatever it is – is somewhere out there, this particular blog post needs to end. This song, "Rise" by Eddie Vedder, seems like a fitting song with which to honor both beginnings and endings:
P.S. Very special thanks to Duane Dale for the exceedingly generous gift of the lovely photos from the ceremony and reception that I've included here.
A lot of people showed up this weekend for SweetP’s institution as the 12th rector of her parish – the first woman and the first openly queer person to be chosen for this position by this parish. Some people traveled great distances. Some came with a lot of baggage (of various kinds.) Some brought only themselves and whatever they could fit in their pockets or purses. Some came with babies. Some came with conditions (physical, philosophical, emotional, psychic, etc.) that required them to make enormous, even exhausting, efforts to be there. Some were dressed to the nines. Some wore costumes. Some wore whatever they usually wear. Some sang along. Some didn’t. Many of us wept, some of us sobbed, some of us giggled uncontrollably, some of us were still, solid, and strong, and some of us were the emotional equivalent of a clown car, veering and lurching wildly among all sorts of states. Some of us were dressed as dragons. Yes, Internet, there be dragons, even -- and maybe especially -- in church.
The title of this post is something my sister-in-law said to me after we had processed to the back of the church during the final hymn of “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise.” I think she exclaimed this as she hugged me shortly after I had come completely unglued when I hugged my brother. Poor guy, there I was, hugging him, and as I whispered into his ear the words, “Thank you SO much for being here today,” I was completely overcome with body-wracking sobs. I buried my face into his shoulder and, because I wear glasses, it felt a lot like I was smashing my face up against a window. Picture the sobbing guard at the gates of the Emerald City, with tears fire-hosing out of his eyes, but have him pressed up against a pane of glass. That’s the scene. Oh, plus, somewhere in there, I’m pretty sure my brother was holding me up. I bet I outweigh him, but he’s essentially all muscle, so I think it all worked out. I haven’t heard that he’s being treated for a hernia, so I’m assuming he’s okay.
The whole weekend, the day on Sunday, the ceremony itself, they were all like this weird combination of a wedding AND a funeral. All sorts of people doing the miracle of showing up, and lots of SweetP’s favorites: music, readings, flowers.
The church looked like it was decked out for a wedding, with red tulips and gerber daisies and other flowers everywhere. There were huge beeswax candles at the ends of every 3th or 4th pew. The place smelled so intensely of beeswax that I could have sworn that there was incense burning.
Many gifts were exchanged. The night before, at the big family dinner we hosted for 18 of us crammed into the renovation project that we call home, SweetP opened some cards and gifts from the extended family. I had been wracking my brain trying to think of something significant that the girls and I could give her. In a phone conversation earlier in the week with my eldest brother (the same one whose suit suffered water damage from my sobbing episode detailed in the previous paragraph), he was telling me about a book I had first heard about a few weeks ago. He said that the first time he looked at it, he didn’t move for 2 hours as he pored over it. I knew it would be the perfect gift for SweetP for a whole bunch of reasons. So this is what the girls and I gave her:
Now she’ll NEVER get any work done! The Red Book is every bit as stunning as I expected it to be, and every bit as perfect as I hoped it would be.
But I digress. Back to the ceremony on Sunday. The last part of the gift exchange in A Celebration of New Ministry involves the priest giving gifts to her family. Before we went up to receive our gifts, I asked the girls if they’d be willing to huddle up and all put our hands in the center and do a cheer, like a team does before it takes to the court or the field. They nixed that, but they did agree to huddle up after SweetP presented her gifts to us, which was really all I wanted in the first place. I’m sneaky like that.
Several people came up to me afterward to tell me that this was the most intensely moving part of the service for them. Some people sought me out to say that they were especially moved by hearing and seeing the word “wife” used to refer to me. One of the small but mighty gifts of marriage equality is the witness to the power of words that a lot of people take for granted, words like “wife.” Conversely, I know that the opposition to marriage equality reflects an awareness of how powerful these words are, and betrays a deep fear of us queers having access to the power of such language. But THAT, dear Internet, is a topic for another day.
So. This family that I have, that the five of us have made together, quite simply leaves me speechless with awe, wonder, delight, and a deep abiding love that makes the very word “love” seem tiny and utterly insufficient. And this moment right here, when we all circled up, put our heads together, wiggled our toes, and laughed, I officially have no words for it. Still. Days later.
But enough about us. Here’s a hairpin turn for you. Check out the artistry of a young pastry chef who was born and raised in the parish and is now on the young adult leadership team! I had told her that SweetP’s favorite flowers are red tulips, so she created these edible tulips out of some sort of candy wrapped around jellybeans. Some of the cupcakes had the letter P written on them. Also, there were little white P’s created out of some sort of icing that were strewn across the tablecloth like confetti.
At the reception, I was approached by a man I didn’t know, who said something that made me realize that he was James Primosch, the composer who created the amazing setting of e.e. cummings' poem “spiraling ecstatically” that SweetP chose as one of the musical offerings of the service (the EMI chorus sang it beautifully, with a bonus version offered in the morning service, for additional rehearsal purposes.) I’m not usually given to swooning or being rendered speechless by meeting new people, but I’m pretty sure I made a fool of myself when my hands involuntarily flew up to my throat and I gushed something to the effect of “Oh my gosh!!! You’re James Primosch!!! Thank you SO much for your work!!!” I don’t usually speak in exclamatory triplets, but I just couldn’t help it. Then I blurted, “I just know that [SweetP] wants to thank you” and before he could object I grabbed the poor man by the hand and dragged him across the crowded reception as though I were some sort of human cow catcher, pushing several well-wishers aside (no well-wishers were harmed in the making of this introduction.) I planted him in front of SweetP, and announced, “THIS is JAMES PRIMOSCH!!!” I sure as hell hope I didn't also say "Ta Daaaa!!!" I'm pretty sure that stayed in my head, along with the sounds of trumpets announcing the arrival of an important guest to the ball. I was somewhat relieved to see that SweetP had a very similar response to him that I did, nearly sloshing her glass of wine onto all three of us as she struggled to free up her hands to greet him.
Speaking of spiraling ecstatically. Whoa. I need a deep breath.
Even though my reflections on the weekend continue to ripple, and our life in and with an amazing and complex parish is beginning anew, and my old job is ending, and my new job – whatever it is – is somewhere out there, this particular blog post needs to end. This song, "Rise" by Eddie Vedder, seems like a fitting song with which to honor both beginnings and endings:
P.S. Very special thanks to Duane Dale for the exceedingly generous gift of the lovely photos from the ceremony and reception that I've included here.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
"Next thang -- you shinin' right back at the sun, blowin' right back at the wind, roarin' right back at the ocean"
If you write me, or comment here, that you're having a cussin' bad day, I will offer you a song for sustenance, a melody for mending, a chant for, uh, chug a lug. You may not like the song, and if you don't, well, I guess it'll give you something new and different to cuss about other than whatever it was you were cussin' about before. Sometimes, that's all it takes to get through One More Day.
My fellow middle child (he's 2nd and I'm 3rd of 4), JasP, commented on the previous post about having one such cussin' bad day, or maybe it's a bad cluster cuss of days. JasP, this is for you. If you look up the lyrics on the Web, I think various people have at least one line wrong. Instead of "I've seen you with your head long" I think the line is "I've seen you with your head LOW." Oy, people. Do I have to do EVERYTHING around here?
As for more info about the weekend, it's coming. I'm just trying to break it up into manageable chunks. I believe in culinary terms, that's called chunking, which honestly sounds like an Australian term for something to be avoided. Patience my friends.
My fellow middle child (he's 2nd and I'm 3rd of 4), JasP, commented on the previous post about having one such cussin' bad day, or maybe it's a bad cluster cuss of days. JasP, this is for you. If you look up the lyrics on the Web, I think various people have at least one line wrong. Instead of "I've seen you with your head long" I think the line is "I've seen you with your head LOW." Oy, people. Do I have to do EVERYTHING around here?
As for more info about the weekend, it's coming. I'm just trying to break it up into manageable chunks. I believe in culinary terms, that's called chunking, which honestly sounds like an Australian term for something to be avoided. Patience my friends.
Monday, March 8, 2010
"Take me to the end so I can see the start"
I'm still recovering from an extraordinary (trust me, that is an understatement) weekend. It was both exhilarating and exhausting. I could maybe spend the rest of my life writing about it and never be able to convey the intensity of being surrounded by so much support, love, crying, laughing, breathlessness, and a good amount of intermittent weirdness thrown in for seasoning. It was church after all. No church worth its salt (yes, that's an intentional Biblical reference) is free of weirdos. At the very least, as soon as I cross a church's threshold, I can be assured it has at least one weirdo: me. In fact, I've always assumed that the word "weirdos" got excised from the original scriptures pretty early: "Where two or more [weirdos] are gathered in my name..." More people would enjoy their encounters with the Bible if that stuff had been left in.
But I digress. I could have picked a zillion songs to offer for you to ponder the mystery of life, either your specific life, or life in general. This song is as good as any, although I disagree that there's only one way to mend a broken heart. Perhaps I haven't yet plumbed the true essence of the song if I'm repeatedly getting hung up on that one line. Regardless, one thing I know is that no matter whether an ending is expected, there is a suddenness to endings that is bumpy, at the very least. Remember those movies about the Apollo space program? How when those early space capsules re-entered the earth's atmosphere there was a good amount of uncontrollable shaking, unbearable heat, and the not-exactly-minor fear of dying on impact. Those are features of every ending I've ever had, it's just that in my endings, I'm not wearing a protective suit, sitting in a space capsule, with a parachute to help break the fall as I smash into the ocean. Astronauts have always had it SOOO easy. (;
Back to the song, I find it so much easier to bear endings, like the one I am now navigating, when I can remember that the end of one thing is always the beginning of new territory. The Wailin' Jennys sing real pretty, and I love a bunch of the other lines in this song "Beautiful Dawn," including the one I selected for the title of this post. Don't settle for the less-than-stellar audio of the song as presented here. Download it and then: Listen. Rinse. Repeat as necessary.
But I digress. I could have picked a zillion songs to offer for you to ponder the mystery of life, either your specific life, or life in general. This song is as good as any, although I disagree that there's only one way to mend a broken heart. Perhaps I haven't yet plumbed the true essence of the song if I'm repeatedly getting hung up on that one line. Regardless, one thing I know is that no matter whether an ending is expected, there is a suddenness to endings that is bumpy, at the very least. Remember those movies about the Apollo space program? How when those early space capsules re-entered the earth's atmosphere there was a good amount of uncontrollable shaking, unbearable heat, and the not-exactly-minor fear of dying on impact. Those are features of every ending I've ever had, it's just that in my endings, I'm not wearing a protective suit, sitting in a space capsule, with a parachute to help break the fall as I smash into the ocean. Astronauts have always had it SOOO easy. (;
Back to the song, I find it so much easier to bear endings, like the one I am now navigating, when I can remember that the end of one thing is always the beginning of new territory. The Wailin' Jennys sing real pretty, and I love a bunch of the other lines in this song "Beautiful Dawn," including the one I selected for the title of this post. Don't settle for the less-than-stellar audio of the song as presented here. Download it and then: Listen. Rinse. Repeat as necessary.
Friday, March 5, 2010
"I know when I know nothing I will always know your name"
Might as well close out this crazy week with a couple of great love songs by a lovely couple, clearly doing what they were born to be doing. I love that both these songs refer to him as her "midnight ringer." I love in the first video when the camera pulls back to include both of them and right around 1:40 she starts mouthing the words to what he is singing. Mostly, I just love how they sound together. May we all be so lucky to a) do work that expands our spirits rather than extinguishing them and 2) find another whose voice, in whatever form, blends beautifully with our own.
It'll be a little slow here in Bloggytown this weekend as various subsets of our families roll in for SweetP's institution as the 12th rector of this amazing and unique parish. More news about all that after Sunday. Remember to learn, laugh, and love, in whatever order works for you, or, if you prefer, all at once. Peace out, homeslices. I'll see you around you around you around...
It'll be a little slow here in Bloggytown this weekend as various subsets of our families roll in for SweetP's institution as the 12th rector of this amazing and unique parish. More news about all that after Sunday. Remember to learn, laugh, and love, in whatever order works for you, or, if you prefer, all at once. Peace out, homeslices. I'll see you around you around you around...
"When are you due?"
See what happens when you take the lid off my brain? All this stuff is coming fast and furious. Since the very early days of knowing each other, my beloved SweetP has said, "You DO go on." And she means it in a good way, bless her heart. If this is all just too much for you, then set your dang firewall to block my dang blog. If you don't know how to do it, send me a message and I'll walk you through it. How many English majors from Williams College who won the Academy of American Poets Prize in 1981 can say that? Turns out, 100% of them: yours truly.
Anyway, I was just driving down the road yesterday, minding my own business, hands at 9 and 3 on accounta how with air bags and all the 10 and 2 position would break your arms if you were in a collision, and this scene unfolded in my brain. Two library books, one a big huge fat coffee table type, and one a "slim volume" as they are always called. Slim looks Coffee up and down and asks "So, when are you due?"
I had to wonder, is this an original thought, or a cartoon or greeting card that was buried deep in my brain? Anyone know?
Anyway, I was just driving down the road yesterday, minding my own business, hands at 9 and 3 on accounta how with air bags and all the 10 and 2 position would break your arms if you were in a collision, and this scene unfolded in my brain. Two library books, one a big huge fat coffee table type, and one a "slim volume" as they are always called. Slim looks Coffee up and down and asks "So, when are you due?"
I had to wonder, is this an original thought, or a cartoon or greeting card that was buried deep in my brain? Anyone know?
"We're going to keep this meeting short and stupid"
I used to work as a contractor for a US government agency, and one of my clients was always mangling colloquialisms. I had a list that of them that ran for 3 pages, and this one (above) is one of my favorites.
One advantage of being a short-timer is my ability to keep already stupid meetings even shorter than they were originally planned by simply hanging up.
You may wonder, why, having already been given the heave-ho, am I on these stupid meetings in the first place? And all I can say is, that is a very good question, grasshoppah. I'll answer that in a future post when I have concocted the wittiest possible explanation. That way, you'll be so entertained by my cleverness that it will distract you from my stupidity. Hey, it's a strategy that's worked for me for 50 years, why stop now?
One advantage of being a short-timer is my ability to keep already stupid meetings even shorter than they were originally planned by simply hanging up.
You may wonder, why, having already been given the heave-ho, am I on these stupid meetings in the first place? And all I can say is, that is a very good question, grasshoppah. I'll answer that in a future post when I have concocted the wittiest possible explanation. That way, you'll be so entertained by my cleverness that it will distract you from my stupidity. Hey, it's a strategy that's worked for me for 50 years, why stop now?
"If it were that easy or quick to figure out how to do what feeds and fires you, you would have done it by now."
Thank you to my dear, long-time friend Patty who told me that, and also sent me this.
If the quality of one's friends and family are the measure of a person's wealth, then you all should be buying stock in me, because my profits are off the charts. Also, fearlessly mixing metaphors, I'd put my family and friends against anyone's in a game of Red Rover. We'd win every time because of the wild array of unexpected weapons we have. Three examples that barely scratch the surface of our mightiness:
My mom could take out at least half of any opposing team using the vastly underrated weapon of hospitality. I remember scraggly dudes coming to the house to have god-knows-what sort of transactions with my older brothers, and my mom would answer the door with a big smile and invite them in with offers of cookies and something to drink. Every time. "Uh, what, uh, yeah, sure, uh, okay, uh, thanks."
In junior high, one of my brothers got into an argument on the school bus that spilled out into a neighbor's back yard. Now, mind you, the greatest affront to my kind is dim-wittedness, or even worse: no-wittedness. So this poor no-witted boy screamed at my brother, "Come on, we're havin' a street fight right now! I'm street-fightin' you NOW!" My brother smiled, snorted, and said, "What does that even mean - a street fight? What, you'll pick up a piece of pavement and try to hit me with it? REALLY??" The other boy looked really confused, the assembly of adolescent onlookers burst out laughing, and everyone sort of trailed off to their respective houses.
One of my brothers-in-law tells a story about dating some girl in his younger days who made the mistake of revealing her deeply ignorant prejudice by saying something about how the apartheid system in South Africa (I told you he was young) was really good for blacks, just like slavery was here in the US. My brother-in-law retreated to the kitchen in horror with a friend (or two, the story is a little fuzzy in my head) and they emerged from the kitchen banging on cookie sheets with wooden spoons, like riot police. And THAT was how he announced his breakup with said girl.
All I'm sayin' is, don't mess with my tribe. We came to PLAY.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
"He asked me how I am, and, because he's a monk, I told him."
I can't really quantify how much of my domestic bliss is the direct result of being married to a woman who says things like this. It's bigger than huge, and probably somewhere between big ol' herkin' thang and infinity.
Mind you, she said this in passing, on her way to sharing some other part of her conversation with said monk. In my head, I actually raised my hand to ask for some clarification. I can't remember if my arm responded to the command that my head attempted to send, or whether it felt that imagining the raised hand was sufficient. At any rate, SweetP stopped, and I asked what the dude's being a monk had to do with her telling him how she's doing. Because I'm neither a priest, nor do I play one on TV, I assumed it had something to do with the fact that when he's not praying, he's living in silence most of the time, thus, when he finally gets those rare moments for secular conversation, probably his first conversational stop is to gossip about the other monks he lives with: "When's the last time Brother X had his robes washed?" or "Did you hear Brother Y at Compline? He can't carry a tune in a bucket!"
But that's not what SweetP meant. She meant that since he's a monk, he's praying a lot of the time, and it can't hurt to have someone who prays frequently to have you and your concerns on his prayer list. And since she told him about my imminent lack of gainful employment, he is now praying for me.
I felt like Emily Litella. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh. Nevermind.
Thanks for the prayers, Brother J. Clearly, I need all the help I can get.
Mind you, she said this in passing, on her way to sharing some other part of her conversation with said monk. In my head, I actually raised my hand to ask for some clarification. I can't remember if my arm responded to the command that my head attempted to send, or whether it felt that imagining the raised hand was sufficient. At any rate, SweetP stopped, and I asked what the dude's being a monk had to do with her telling him how she's doing. Because I'm neither a priest, nor do I play one on TV, I assumed it had something to do with the fact that when he's not praying, he's living in silence most of the time, thus, when he finally gets those rare moments for secular conversation, probably his first conversational stop is to gossip about the other monks he lives with: "When's the last time Brother X had his robes washed?" or "Did you hear Brother Y at Compline? He can't carry a tune in a bucket!"
But that's not what SweetP meant. She meant that since he's a monk, he's praying a lot of the time, and it can't hurt to have someone who prays frequently to have you and your concerns on his prayer list. And since she told him about my imminent lack of gainful employment, he is now praying for me.
I felt like Emily Litella. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh. Nevermind.
Thanks for the prayers, Brother J. Clearly, I need all the help I can get.
"You may think this is the end, but it's only the beginning"
In June of 2004, just shy of turning 8, my youngest daughter GForce figured out how to ride a two-wheeler. One morning shortly after she had mastered this skill, we went out together to walk our dog at a nearby historic home that has a parking lot around it, along with a gravelly path through the surrounding woods. GForce pedaled around in the driveway for a bit, veered off into the grass, then up onto the gravelly path. I stood back marveling at how quickly she had gotten whatever is the bicycling equivalent of sea legs. After experimenting with the variety of different surfaces available to her, she rode back towards me and came to a screeching stop right in front of me. I chirped, "WOW! This is SO COOL!!" GForce looked up at me, all beamy and happy, and then got a very serious look on her face and said, "Mom, you may think this is the end, but it's only the beginning."
I've thought a lot about that moment over the past week, first when I heard the rumor of layoffs at my company, and then again this past Monday when I found out that I was among those being discarded. It didn't take very long for me to feel like Monday was a kind of Emancipation Day. In fact, one night over the weekend, prior to Emancipation Day, I was awake for awhile during the wee hours and I realized that I was feeling anxious about NOT being laid off. What if I had to stay at the company while someone else got laid off?? The prospect of that was way too much to bear, thus the insomnia.
When I woke up this morning, I had the Emmylou Harris/Patty Griffin duet "Way Beyond The Blue" echoing in my head. What's not to love about hearing those gals' voices upon awakening?! Then these cascading layers of colored ideas flew through my head, about a book I could write, about a blog I could start (DONE!), about all the amazing people I've known at various jobs across the country, about how I could turn my resume into a show-stopper, about what if I never have another corporate job again because I'll figure out how to do something different, amazing, and very much me.
At lunchtime, I drove into the city to hear this week's installment of the Bach Harpsichord Partita series at my wife's church. As I was sitting there, in this stunning chapel,
listening to the plinky pluck of the harpsichord, I started thinking about vibrations, about how that's all music, or any sound is, moving the air in a certain way. Stringed instruments have to be rubbed or struck or plucked or hammered to make noise. And what lovely noise this music was. And then I realized my heart was thundering in my chest. And I looked up at the rows of female saints sculpted out of marble on the altar,
and my heart pounded louder and louder and then came this sudden Aha! that made me weep: "I'm alive! I. Am. Alive. So THIS is what resurrection feels like. This is what resurrection IS: that feeling of being alive AGAIN."
You may think this is the end, but it's only the beginning.
I've thought a lot about that moment over the past week, first when I heard the rumor of layoffs at my company, and then again this past Monday when I found out that I was among those being discarded. It didn't take very long for me to feel like Monday was a kind of Emancipation Day. In fact, one night over the weekend, prior to Emancipation Day, I was awake for awhile during the wee hours and I realized that I was feeling anxious about NOT being laid off. What if I had to stay at the company while someone else got laid off?? The prospect of that was way too much to bear, thus the insomnia.
When I woke up this morning, I had the Emmylou Harris/Patty Griffin duet "Way Beyond The Blue" echoing in my head. What's not to love about hearing those gals' voices upon awakening?! Then these cascading layers of colored ideas flew through my head, about a book I could write, about a blog I could start (DONE!), about all the amazing people I've known at various jobs across the country, about how I could turn my resume into a show-stopper, about what if I never have another corporate job again because I'll figure out how to do something different, amazing, and very much me.
At lunchtime, I drove into the city to hear this week's installment of the Bach Harpsichord Partita series at my wife's church. As I was sitting there, in this stunning chapel,
You may think this is the end, but it's only the beginning.
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