Wednesday, July 14, 2010

it's a shame to waste a day



Seth's sick with a cold, I'm sick with fatigue and dull pain. But then Seth sent me two poems. This is going to be a personal, kind of too much information post. Maybe a little selfish. But my brain is fuzzy and thinking might make me feel like I've accomplished something today.

Now I sit, calmly experiencing the recovery of a morning of pain and a brief encounter with the bathroom floor and consider our descision of nfp. I've heard the pills help with the pain and that the pills take away from the worry. But the pain to me is more tolerable than than uncertainty, the separation, and the questioning about the authenticity of added hormones. I just cannot trust them.

I went outside and saw our garden. Things are really starting to grow. I can see it. I see our beans, our zuchinni, and that our dying tomato plant is living--and thriving. I see a lone peach growing on the peach tree whose branches suffered through a real late spring snow (mother's day snow--what?! and for a tree that only fruits every other year, we were very disappointed to know that the freeze would have inhibited any of the possible fruits for this year) This is living in and according to Creation. It dies or lives. And when it lives, it lives according to the seasons, the world the good God created. The organic, the real the true. Nothing artificial, Nothing fake. Nothing I can buy. Learn and look at nature; look at how I'm a part of it. I worry when I say things like this I sound a bit new age; "granola girl" as my dad would put it. But I don't really see it that way--I'm not really affiliated with the right or the left; I value conservative thinking in terms of simplicity and "conservativeness" in terms of my grandparents' simple philosophies on life, but I agree with some "liberalness" too. Politics are a load of bs and that's why I hesitate in saying that I'm leaning more towards either "side." Frankly, I think Jesus wouldn't be on either side. Don't we stand for so many things Jesus was so adamently against (rich, materialism, competition?) Anyways, aside from all that crap and all the connotations that go with using the words, "a part of Creation," I believe it's a huge way to live a True, Honest, Christian life. Here's one of the poems Seth sent me this morning. Hoorah, Wendell Berry!

Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay. Want more of everything ready-made. Be afraid to know your neighbors and to die. And you will have a window in your head. Not even your future will be a mystery any more. Your mind will be punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer. When they want you to buy something they will call you. When they want you to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Doesn't this just sound so right? Nothing that extreme but so simply alternative all the same.

And now a great song just came on. Parentheses, by The Blow. For me, tt started as a cute song me, Sarah, and Hannah would sing and dance to. It was the words, "when you're holding me we make a pair of parentheses" that seemed to speak to our friendship--this mysteriously beautiful bond we shared during some of the most confusing and healing months of my life. The words go so fast that only recently I really read the first verse and found that the song really is perfect. This too is the good life--that is living together--caring together--dependency--active love.

Some philosophies fuel a belief in the self,
constructed to keep one's goods on one's own shelf.
Built well you're a strong letter I,
with the feet on the ground and the head to the sky.
Now and then you can bend,
it's okay to lean over my way.
You fear that you can't do it all,
and you're right.
Even diligent day takes relief every day
from its work making light from the night.

This is how I want to approach all of life, all my relationships. We're all so broken. We all need each other. As strange as it sounds, and maybe I'm just taking shots in the dark trying to tie all these weird at times abstract thoughts together, but whatever, as strange as it sounds, I am finding this out as I'm struggling with this aching want of a job--in photography. I haven't really told anyone about this since it's such a strange opportunity, but for the sake of the story I will mention it. This past Saturday I had an interview with a woman who is redesigning her photography business and is looking for four assistants to train--kind of from the ground up...I had written her an email practically spilling my heart, "I JUST WANT TO LEARN I WANT THIS SO MUCH." essentially. no i didn't use all caps. I admitted at the interview that I had had no training, I only use a little point and shoot. Still, I got good feedback from her, and I was encouraged but I'm weary of this program. I don't know what to think of it. OR what to do. Maybe more on that later, but while waiting to hear from that program I remembered to email a photographer (Amazing) who is friends with one of my friends at church. She gave me some of the best, most encouraging advice. And she offered to help. I'm learning I'm going to need to be guided. I'm learning that me asking for help is not a terrible thing...I'm not a burden ? Wow, that's a concept. I only pray that as I'm depending so much on others now that soon I would be able to give what others have given me...advice, comfort, encouragement, love.

"Now and then you can bend,
it's okay to lean over my way.
You fear that you can't do it all, and you're right."

happy wednesday...but i now want to write more! about how stupid the movie Paper Heart was and this funny review of the Twilight movies. ah well.

1 comment:

  1. oh yeah and lately I've really been thinking about my friends and family who have been traveling. First, if I could ask for prayers for my dear sister Lacey who is off studying in India. I think I'm a bit of a mother or something because I worry alot for those who are not nearby. Second is our dear Candy Claws friends who had an unfortunate run in with FIRE. http://alteredzones.com/posts/45/candy-claws-support-zone/ you all have been on my minds and momma forwood will worry until you come home! so come home soon!!!!!!!

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