My sisters and I were first to arrive at a luncheon following my uncle’s funeral mass yesterday. The catering hall was dark but appeared to be expecting a crowd with a room full of tables and chairs ready for our group. We turned on the lights and soon everyone had arrived and was chatting. Having just lost our own father 2 months ago, it felt like a welcome chance to really catch up with all the cousins that had been there for us that sad day in November. After 40 minutes of a mini family reunion, someone looked up and realized there was still no sign of a lunch or caterers. A few phone calls were made and we found out that the caterer had a second location a mile or so away and lunch was ready to eat there. Everyone piled back in there cars and drove to the right spot where the reunion continued. It felt to all of us like a final prank from our uncle. Strange to be at the 2nd funeral in so many months with this group, but likeable that we were too absorbed in conversation to notice we were all in the wrong place.
Is there a word for being in a place that you want to be in but you are nervous to be in, kind of like you want to leave but you know you should stay? I feel like that’s where I am right now with the impending semester. In addition, our house has been under construction since September, and with three kids and the winter chill and living with my mother-in-law, it has made for a feeling of being displaced in a home-place.
As a person that travels with teabags (and panics that they'll be mistaken for little drug pouches in airport security), your tea-as-survival comment made perfect sense to me. I'm interested in the objects we use to ground ourselves in new places. My family traveled far, far away for Christmas, and alongside my longing to "live like a local" sat my need for familiarity—for orientation, for tradition. In addition to my herbal tea, I packed the same copy of "The Night Before Christmas" that my father always read, two small gifts for my son, and the Happy Birthday sign we always hang at home. Did I mention that my husband and Jesus share a birthday (#suckstobehim)? On Christmas Eve, we purchased a lightup balloon in a festive city square, and propped it up in my son's Nike shoe in the hotel room. Voila—a Christmas tree! We woke up to just enough of the familiar and just enough of the new for it all to feel quite magical. And just so no one loses any sleep—Santa found us;-)...
I live in a Rectory. My husband is an Anglican priest. It's a house right beside the church. It comes with the job. It is a place of welcome. It is ours to live in but it does not belong to us. It is too big for just the two of us. But it is just right when the grown children and grandchildren need shelter or come home for Christmas. On Monday we will welcome a second refugee into this house. This time, a single mother, displaced, bumped from one shelter to the other after arriving from Africa 6 months ago. She and her baby, born December 31, will rest and find a place here, for a time. As long as she needs. There is room here. She will join our household of transient people. We only ever stay in one place for a time, not knowing when or where we will live next. Each place we have lived has transformed me in ways I could never have imagined.
"Partout où la vie vous plante, fleurissez avec grace." Old French proverb (Wherever life plants you, bloom with grace)
I wonder if place is more fluid than we realize. How is place/space created? Place and spaces are very multi-layered. There are spaces that are restrictive on some level and spaces that are very welcoming or perhaps slowly open to all that is alive within any given space. How do I/we create or influence the place, space where we are and what else impacts or influences that quality of space or place?
This weekend I am attending a textile conference with Black women quilters and sewists. It has filled my cup tremendously to be with my own people enjoying making art that I love.
I just came back from NYC yesterday after just two nights to see friends. Took the train from Boston and back, and it is such a lovely form of travel. You can get a lot of reading and thinking done. The sound of the train is soothing; the landscape always interesting (at least to me). But going from one metro area to another it strikes me how precious the green space is, like emeralds embroidered into the gray utilitarian canvas of the modern world. A bit of living iridescence.
I too get to stations earlier. I hate being rushed, and I am a happy people watcher. Travel is full of negotiating limbo spaces, and it is interesting to see how people navigate these interstitial moments.
I am at home which is a little bungalow located on a peninsula in rural New Brunswick, Canada. The fir and cedar trees outside of my living room window are dusted with snow. It looks a bit magical. I've just listened to a couple of conversations - one with Sharon Salzberg and one with Robert Plant. I feel lucky to be in a warm cozy home this cold January morning with a big cup of tea and some candles. Now I am going to listen to the latest episode of Poetry Unbound, which always brings me joy. Wishing you all a good day, whatever that looks like for you.
I am in a place where others have moved to as the climate is changing, as Covid is chasing them away from their other homes. But Climate (capitalized, and you’ll see why) has come here, too, with a vicious storm that has wiped centuries old fishing shacks from the shores, a sea that now lives in living rooms and tourist shops, old fir trees perched on roof tops. What would have, should have been a snow storm in the past, has now become rain storms, dumping rain in more than buckets, creating waves that are gobbling up the shore, toppling trees, flooding the streets and shops, tossing lobster boats as though they’re toys not someone’s livelihood. I love this place, and I worry for the changes.
At 5 am this morning, I went outside with the dogs so they would not bark at the sleepy deer. It’s been cloudy recently, so I was surprised to see the stars: so strange, so likeable (autocorrect wants the “e” out of that word, but I like it there). The stars reminded me that they are always there, even when we cannot see them, and that it’s good to look at them when we can. The sleepy deer agree.
I'm dismayed to find myself yet again living from my bed this past week. Covid became my companion and has joined in with loyal Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; a powerful pair to reckon with. Summer laughs at me...
In Maori culture, here in NZ, we have the word 'turangawaewae' which means a sense of identity and independence associated with having a particular home base - a place to stand.
I find this a powerful concept, more so because of fractured family relationships and living alone. So I continue to work on strengthening something solid within. This is not how I thought it would be...
I have just arrived home. I have been here physically for about a week after traveling to various places for about 2 weeks. But my mind and spirit felt very much detached and completely unsettled in a way I hadn’t felt in many months. I was afraid that I had fallen back into a void I lived in for quite a long time beforehand, and that the climb out would be just as excruciating as it was previously. This time, fortunately, I was able to look in a mirror and see myself fully. I acknowledged the pain and unsettled feeling as just fleeting feelings and thoughts that sometimes happen as you settle back into yourself after you’ve learned something new, met beautiful new people and seen wonderful things, but must return to your previous path. Though setting in can be sometimes be tough. I enjoy home. I enjoy being likeable. I enjoy being here.
I am a person of the prairies now relocated to a place of trees and hills. My 12-year old dog, Molly, has embraced the move, finding our way through forest trails, hopping over downed tree trunks, and trotting down the paths like a natural! I am enjoying the opportunity to enjoy the quiet beauty of the forest, learn the names of trees, and listen to new birdsongs. It has been such a pleasure to come upon a bright red cardinal and hear the gentle flowing sounds of water over stones in the creeks.
The part of my move that is where I work is still overwhelming with cars, motor scooters, bikes, honking horns, and sirens all coming at me while navigating unfamiliar streets.
I don’t feel quite at home here, but also didn’t feel quite at home any longer where I lived for a long time before this. I am so glad to have my rock solid life partner and our dog all together here, but miss my daughter something fierce.
We open the door to hearing men chatting loudly, banging or clanging. Some days. Other days it is silent. Quiet while the men have stayed away waiting for the next phase of construction. We began a kitchen remodel by having half our living room ceiling come down. An accident of poor house design in the 70s. And so it began in mid July. Two adults, two kids, two dogs and four cats. Two of which live in our bedroom which has become a makeshift home to all of us. We watch TV, sleep, eat and play here when kids are tired of living through a kitchen renovation that means we haven't had appliances or laundry in 6 months. Or friends over. Or gatherings. The place we are now is not where we were. I feel internally displaced after losing both parents before this, coming thru covid and having a child with asthma who's sick alot. Sometimes I wander outside and watch as nature does her thing. Always on time. Never hurried. Nature leans into the cycles of life. I find it harder in an internal desert landscape where my church and home and marriage all feel torn apart. Inside our home new life is being made and created for us to enjoy. It will be amazing. Someday. Someday soon perhaps. Until then the place we are feels pregnant, waiting to be born. Baby may be stuck and need an extra push. The birthing process is never smooth or easy to bring this baby (kitchen...life) home.
My home is within a short distance to the big fat river Rhein (Rhine), I walk and/or cycle along its shores daily. In the last two months, the river has burst its banks four times, flooding the neatly manicured promenades and parks along this part of its course. I feel very connected to this water, most of it coming my way from the Swiss Alps, from glaciers which will have disappeared by the the end of this century, leaving a devastated trickle instead of this life line. The air is grey at the moment, the hills across the river are hidden in deep fog. The Romans - according to historians - never felt safe crossing the river, instead they built their cities and temples right where I walk or cycle every day. The other side, the crooked side, as locals call it here, remained wild and uncivilised.
This word has “appeared” twice for me this week, from two separate sources:
Peregrinatio
“This is the place where one’s gifts and the needs of the community come together...and are able to serve fruitfully.”
I hope this is the place I find myself, wherever my feet take me.
My sisters and I were first to arrive at a luncheon following my uncle’s funeral mass yesterday. The catering hall was dark but appeared to be expecting a crowd with a room full of tables and chairs ready for our group. We turned on the lights and soon everyone had arrived and was chatting. Having just lost our own father 2 months ago, it felt like a welcome chance to really catch up with all the cousins that had been there for us that sad day in November. After 40 minutes of a mini family reunion, someone looked up and realized there was still no sign of a lunch or caterers. A few phone calls were made and we found out that the caterer had a second location a mile or so away and lunch was ready to eat there. Everyone piled back in there cars and drove to the right spot where the reunion continued. It felt to all of us like a final prank from our uncle. Strange to be at the 2nd funeral in so many months with this group, but likeable that we were too absorbed in conversation to notice we were all in the wrong place.
Is there a word for being in a place that you want to be in but you are nervous to be in, kind of like you want to leave but you know you should stay? I feel like that’s where I am right now with the impending semester. In addition, our house has been under construction since September, and with three kids and the winter chill and living with my mother-in-law, it has made for a feeling of being displaced in a home-place.
Place, strangeness, likeable, nervous, uncertain, home-but-moving-beneath-you.
As a person that travels with teabags (and panics that they'll be mistaken for little drug pouches in airport security), your tea-as-survival comment made perfect sense to me. I'm interested in the objects we use to ground ourselves in new places. My family traveled far, far away for Christmas, and alongside my longing to "live like a local" sat my need for familiarity—for orientation, for tradition. In addition to my herbal tea, I packed the same copy of "The Night Before Christmas" that my father always read, two small gifts for my son, and the Happy Birthday sign we always hang at home. Did I mention that my husband and Jesus share a birthday (#suckstobehim)? On Christmas Eve, we purchased a lightup balloon in a festive city square, and propped it up in my son's Nike shoe in the hotel room. Voila—a Christmas tree! We woke up to just enough of the familiar and just enough of the new for it all to feel quite magical. And just so no one loses any sleep—Santa found us;-)...
I live in a Rectory. My husband is an Anglican priest. It's a house right beside the church. It comes with the job. It is a place of welcome. It is ours to live in but it does not belong to us. It is too big for just the two of us. But it is just right when the grown children and grandchildren need shelter or come home for Christmas. On Monday we will welcome a second refugee into this house. This time, a single mother, displaced, bumped from one shelter to the other after arriving from Africa 6 months ago. She and her baby, born December 31, will rest and find a place here, for a time. As long as she needs. There is room here. She will join our household of transient people. We only ever stay in one place for a time, not knowing when or where we will live next. Each place we have lived has transformed me in ways I could never have imagined.
"Partout où la vie vous plante, fleurissez avec grace." Old French proverb (Wherever life plants you, bloom with grace)
I wonder if place is more fluid than we realize. How is place/space created? Place and spaces are very multi-layered. There are spaces that are restrictive on some level and spaces that are very welcoming or perhaps slowly open to all that is alive within any given space. How do I/we create or influence the place, space where we are and what else impacts or influences that quality of space or place?
This weekend I am attending a textile conference with Black women quilters and sewists. It has filled my cup tremendously to be with my own people enjoying making art that I love.
I just came back from NYC yesterday after just two nights to see friends. Took the train from Boston and back, and it is such a lovely form of travel. You can get a lot of reading and thinking done. The sound of the train is soothing; the landscape always interesting (at least to me). But going from one metro area to another it strikes me how precious the green space is, like emeralds embroidered into the gray utilitarian canvas of the modern world. A bit of living iridescence.
I too get to stations earlier. I hate being rushed, and I am a happy people watcher. Travel is full of negotiating limbo spaces, and it is interesting to see how people navigate these interstitial moments.
I am at home which is a little bungalow located on a peninsula in rural New Brunswick, Canada. The fir and cedar trees outside of my living room window are dusted with snow. It looks a bit magical. I've just listened to a couple of conversations - one with Sharon Salzberg and one with Robert Plant. I feel lucky to be in a warm cozy home this cold January morning with a big cup of tea and some candles. Now I am going to listen to the latest episode of Poetry Unbound, which always brings me joy. Wishing you all a good day, whatever that looks like for you.
I am in a place where others have moved to as the climate is changing, as Covid is chasing them away from their other homes. But Climate (capitalized, and you’ll see why) has come here, too, with a vicious storm that has wiped centuries old fishing shacks from the shores, a sea that now lives in living rooms and tourist shops, old fir trees perched on roof tops. What would have, should have been a snow storm in the past, has now become rain storms, dumping rain in more than buckets, creating waves that are gobbling up the shore, toppling trees, flooding the streets and shops, tossing lobster boats as though they’re toys not someone’s livelihood. I love this place, and I worry for the changes.
At 5 am this morning, I went outside with the dogs so they would not bark at the sleepy deer. It’s been cloudy recently, so I was surprised to see the stars: so strange, so likeable (autocorrect wants the “e” out of that word, but I like it there). The stars reminded me that they are always there, even when we cannot see them, and that it’s good to look at them when we can. The sleepy deer agree.
I'm dismayed to find myself yet again living from my bed this past week. Covid became my companion and has joined in with loyal Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; a powerful pair to reckon with. Summer laughs at me...
In Maori culture, here in NZ, we have the word 'turangawaewae' which means a sense of identity and independence associated with having a particular home base - a place to stand.
I find this a powerful concept, more so because of fractured family relationships and living alone. So I continue to work on strengthening something solid within. This is not how I thought it would be...
I have just arrived home. I have been here physically for about a week after traveling to various places for about 2 weeks. But my mind and spirit felt very much detached and completely unsettled in a way I hadn’t felt in many months. I was afraid that I had fallen back into a void I lived in for quite a long time beforehand, and that the climb out would be just as excruciating as it was previously. This time, fortunately, I was able to look in a mirror and see myself fully. I acknowledged the pain and unsettled feeling as just fleeting feelings and thoughts that sometimes happen as you settle back into yourself after you’ve learned something new, met beautiful new people and seen wonderful things, but must return to your previous path. Though setting in can be sometimes be tough. I enjoy home. I enjoy being likeable. I enjoy being here.
I am a person of the prairies now relocated to a place of trees and hills. My 12-year old dog, Molly, has embraced the move, finding our way through forest trails, hopping over downed tree trunks, and trotting down the paths like a natural! I am enjoying the opportunity to enjoy the quiet beauty of the forest, learn the names of trees, and listen to new birdsongs. It has been such a pleasure to come upon a bright red cardinal and hear the gentle flowing sounds of water over stones in the creeks.
The part of my move that is where I work is still overwhelming with cars, motor scooters, bikes, honking horns, and sirens all coming at me while navigating unfamiliar streets.
I don’t feel quite at home here, but also didn’t feel quite at home any longer where I lived for a long time before this. I am so glad to have my rock solid life partner and our dog all together here, but miss my daughter something fierce.
We open the door to hearing men chatting loudly, banging or clanging. Some days. Other days it is silent. Quiet while the men have stayed away waiting for the next phase of construction. We began a kitchen remodel by having half our living room ceiling come down. An accident of poor house design in the 70s. And so it began in mid July. Two adults, two kids, two dogs and four cats. Two of which live in our bedroom which has become a makeshift home to all of us. We watch TV, sleep, eat and play here when kids are tired of living through a kitchen renovation that means we haven't had appliances or laundry in 6 months. Or friends over. Or gatherings. The place we are now is not where we were. I feel internally displaced after losing both parents before this, coming thru covid and having a child with asthma who's sick alot. Sometimes I wander outside and watch as nature does her thing. Always on time. Never hurried. Nature leans into the cycles of life. I find it harder in an internal desert landscape where my church and home and marriage all feel torn apart. Inside our home new life is being made and created for us to enjoy. It will be amazing. Someday. Someday soon perhaps. Until then the place we are feels pregnant, waiting to be born. Baby may be stuck and need an extra push. The birthing process is never smooth or easy to bring this baby (kitchen...life) home.
My home is within a short distance to the big fat river Rhein (Rhine), I walk and/or cycle along its shores daily. In the last two months, the river has burst its banks four times, flooding the neatly manicured promenades and parks along this part of its course. I feel very connected to this water, most of it coming my way from the Swiss Alps, from glaciers which will have disappeared by the the end of this century, leaving a devastated trickle instead of this life line. The air is grey at the moment, the hills across the river are hidden in deep fog. The Romans - according to historians - never felt safe crossing the river, instead they built their cities and temples right where I walk or cycle every day. The other side, the crooked side, as locals call it here, remained wild and uncivilised.