Oct 5, 2011

Second Verse, Same as the First

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I’m waiting for LP, who is at an extracurricular, and I’m sitting in a downtown coffee shop in City By the Sea. (Have I called it that lately? I loved the days of the nicknames.) I’m drinking a Milky Way Latte (decaf), which is almost indescribably delicious. This is a coffee shop that used to be further down the block. I remember sitting on similar furniture worrying aloud with a friend I never see anymore about how the price of heating oil had hit — gasp! — $1.25. When was that? 2000? 2001? A long time ago.

I’ve lived here a long time. I’m starting to re-recognize people. And I’m living out a repeat of an unpleasant chapter. No matter how good an idea it is to get divorced in a particular situation, even if you wanted it, it’s not fun to know your ex is out there meeting people via the personals. When Ex1 (The Father of My Children) and I divorced in 1997, all the personals that were personals were in the back of a weekly newspaper that doesn’t exist anymore. You recorded a message, and people could call up and leave you a message in a mailbox. I never ran an ad, but I did leave a few messages, and to my horror, one time, I called to listen to a recording and recognized my recently former husband’s voice. Ack!!!

Now this time I’m not looking myself, but I’ve had the rather hilarious post-marriage experience of having my first ex run into my second ex at a well-known local walking path, where they discussed the health and welfare of my children, after which my second ex thought it appropriate to mention that he had met a woman known to my first ex (they are both contra dancers), and my first ex decided to tell me about it. He theorized that the meeting of his friend and my second ex probably took place courtesy of that new hotbed of personal interaction, Craigslist.

Given that Ex2 had been finding rooms to rent while away at work via Craigslist for the past few years, this all added up.

Although I knew Ex2 was back in the area, I hadn’t let myself think about his social activities. But now I am on the lookout. And today it occurs to me that it’s a happy thing he doesn’t drink coffee, because there’s a very low chance that he’ll make a Craigslist personals date in a coffee shop. So I feel free to drink my Milky Way Latte in peace.

Filed Under: All the Single Ladies, Divorce ·
Sep 14, 2011

September

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Last September I wondered if I would ever feel whole again, if I would have a sense of hope for the future, if I would be able to manage a new call with a heart breaking over a dying dog and a broken relationship and what I feared would be another door closed.

Last September, despite all that, I went to all the meetings and appointments that were part of the new school year for my daughter and the new program year for my church.

Last September I spent literally sleepless nights reading Psalms and emailing friends in other time zones.

Last September, I awaited the visits of friends coming to dig me out from under the rubble of emotional shock and awe.

Last September, our backyard apple tree had exactly two apples.

Last September, I survived. I remember my relief when it came time to turn the page on the calendar.

This September, I’m mostly adjusted to my new reality. My neighbor (another single gal) and I agreed to forgo the plow service this year and shovel the darn snow our own selves. LP offered to help.

This September, I’m feeling the average pastor’s version of Autumn Overwhelm.

This September, I have a different old dog, who doesn’t walk well on the leash and defies all efforts to train him better. He makes me laugh.

This September, I await a visit that will symbolize the new normal and the distance from last year.

This September, the apple tree has enough fruit for a pie, and I’m going to bake it.

This September, I’m beginning to understand what it might be like to feel whole.

Filed Under: All the Single Ladies, The Inner Landscape ·
Jun 8, 2011

Bad Hair Year

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It’s been a complicated, challenging year in many ways. It’s almost the anniversary of Snowman’s car accident, and from around that time, other things devolved, and here I am a year later, happy to have a live son but still in the latter stages of grieving our dog, Sam, and wondering how thing turned out the way they did, and learning to live with my new old dog and my new old name, too.

To make things worse, I was having a Bad Hair Year. There may have been days or evenings here and there where my hair was reasonably presentable, but I have spent just about the past year growing out the tragic layers of a haircut that was little more than a shag.

It’s my own fault. I encouraged a very nice hairdresser to cut my hair for curls I don’t really have. What I really have is waves, waves that occasionally, under the right combination of humidity and barometric pressure, do curl. Somehow she coaxed them to life, every time I saw her, and for the “do” she created, the layers worked. But at home, under my less accomplished hands, it became a shag. A shag!!! I didn’t even have one of those when they were popular. How demoralizing to have one 35 years after they were sort of fashionable!

For the past year, almost, I’ve been living through growing out the layers. And today, after a heart to heart with my new hairdresser, I gave the order to cut over 2 inches and  make those tired ends go away. It’s already starting to do its own thing, including waving in places where my new hairdresser made it smooth.

I’m a hair-changer. I don’t know if I’ll keep it this short. But I’m hopeful I’ll keep from doing anything too radical. My hairdresser could tell you, there was a time last fall I came in and discussed cutting it super-short and/or dying it red. (She could also tell you she doesn’t do that kind of thing without sending a client home to sleep on it. Smart woman.) It seems like I’ve passed the danger zone of emotional hair choices; I believe this will be a Good Hair Year.

Filed Under: All the Single Ladies, Personal History ·
May 9, 2011

Signs of life

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Last year, in the midst of seeking a call and a considerable amount of personal turmoil, there were some parts of my life that I just dropped.

I didn’t knit.

I didn’t read much.

I stopped listening to podcasts.

I didn’t knit because the stress of life caused my RA to flare, and I just didn’t have the shoulder or the wrist for it. I think it was the first year in the past seven I didn’t give at least one person a knitted Christmas present.

I didn’t read much because it was hard to focus. I’ve been keeping track of the books I read on my blog for several years now, and I had an informal goal of 60 books for 2010. I didn’t even come close.

I stopped listening to podcasts, and that is provable by the way iTunes stopped getting new ones for me. I lost track of Fresh Air, and This American Life and the NPR Religion podcast. I didn’t have the detachment to laugh at Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me. This meant I didn’t know much about what was going on in the world, since I relied on Fresh Air to tell me about the movies I don’t go to see and Wait, Wait to point to any news stories I might have missed. And This American Life? I turn to it for the comfort of knowing I’m less messed up than most people, and that didn’t seem very honest.

A little at a time, those things are coming back.

I’ve been knitting, and I’ve finished two projects in 2011!

I’ve read 15 books, which while not on the pace for 60, is encouraging.

The last holdout is podcast-listening, and I  don’t know if it will ever come back all the way, because I listened a lot while I was walking with Sam. With Hoagie I listen to music, and our walks are too short to listen to much of a podcast anyway.

But just today I thought, wow, I really miss Fresh Air. I wonder who Terri Gross talked to last week?

Like the hyacinths Hoagie stopped to sniff today — and he stops a lot, I need to tell you — these are signs of life.

Filed Under: All the Single Ladies, Knit Without Ceasing ·
Feb 15, 2011

change embossed name

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a wallet full of little cards
requires renovation
each one to be replaced

“change embossed name”

that was the command
on the bank computer
telling the system

–telling the world–

the new reality
but after two weeks
when no card came

“change embossed name”

I went back to the bank
to ask what had happened
and where it could be

the first card of many

some are printed but
most are hard plastic,
cold, some embossed

“change embossed name”

it sounds so easy
so clear and yet
there was another rule,

another commandment
to follow, to fulfill,
on the drop-down menu:

“reissue card”

it’s not enough to type
a name in a box; you
must make a new card.

Filed Under: All the Single Ladies, Poetry ·
Feb 13, 2011

All the cheese in Wensleydale

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Every Sunday night our public TV station shows “All Creatures Great and Small,” a show so deeply loved by my mother that it still makes me tear up to watch it almost eighteen years after her death. She watched the first run and then the reruns, faithfully. The first time I heard the theme music after she died, I sat down on my kitchen floor and wept.

Which is why I usually flip right past it. Sunday night is not a great night for a preacher to be wistful, when the work of the day is over and the darkness draws in and it’s hard to avoid reviewing the little things (or big) that didn’t go well in worship or after, and really the best solution is a tonic more along the lines of “Desperate Housewives.”

But tonight I saw their young faces, James’ and Tristan’s and Helen’s, and I wanted to hear their voices, and once they started talking to me, and I could see dogs wandering around on the set, I had to keep watching. It was the last episode of the original run of the show, first aired in 1980, and World War II had begun, and in between attempts to heal various ailments of dogs and a pony, Siegfried (not so young as the rest) and James are preparing to go off and join the military. The two of them reminisce, giving each other the credit for their successful practice together.

And James avers, “I wouldn’t have missed it for all the cheese in Wensleydale.”

And I think of the time that has passed, since the show was made, since my mother died. I think of how I didn’t know anything about Wensleydale then, and what I was like in college in 1980, and how little I knew about myself and how much I loved some boy I thought I would marry and how wrong I was about that, among other things. And I think of 1993, and what I expected from life and the people around me, and how wrong I was about those things, too.

And then I wonder what I will think when I look back on this time, wonder if I will feel sorry for this me, or give her credit for having handled things well or wonder what in the world she was thinking.

I wonder if I’ll feel like there was any forward motion.

All the cheese in Wensleydale…well, at least now I know what James meant, thanks to the Wallace and Gromit fans I’ve raised.

That’s some progress.

Filed Under: All the Single Ladies, Family History ·
Feb 11, 2011

Variety

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One of the things I love about ministry is that every day is different. Sometimes that means a long day, such as the one I had yesterday. After time spent in the office in the morning working on our new website and visiting with the people rolling out pie bottoms for our Chicken Pie Sale, I took off for a meeting to the north, driving with a friend and colleague and catching up on things that matter to both of us. We saw other faithful UCC people from around Maine and worked together on plans for our Conference Annual Meeting in June. We drove back later in the afternoon, and I stayed around North Yarmouth to meet with the Trustees last night.

All of which is to say I left the house at 7:45 a.m. to take LP to school, and I got home again around 9 p.m.

And there was still one thing on my to-do list: a Stewardship letter.

At that point, the variety of my day added up to physical tiredness that overpowered my ability to think straight, much less cleverly. I knew I needed a hook for the letter, and I knew the letter needed to be printed, folded and stuffed into envelopes this morning.

So, I prayed.

There are varieties of prayers, some more articulate than others. Sometimes it’s better just to listen. And when I did listen? I got my hook, thankfully.

Today also contains great variety. I rose early and wrote the letter. At the office we figured out how to get it onto adorable UCC stationery. I signed each one. Now the letter is all set, labeled and stamped by my marvelous Administrative Assistant, ready to be mailed by a diligent Trustee tomorrow. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, people rolled pie tops and pies were assembled for pick-up this afternoon.

Now at the end of the day, many pies have gone home for people’s dinner. I’ve sat over coffee with a friend and colleague hoping to solve the woes of the world. Phone calls and emails have been exchanged, on topics as varied as parking for wedding receptions, plans for the RevGals’ Big Event and my new haircut. And soon I will head home again, with a pie and a pint of gravy to put in the freezer for a night when I am not the only one at home.

After two days of face time, I’m okay with an evening tucked up on the couch. But if you should call me, I promise to answer the phone.

Filed Under: All the Single Ladies, Church Life, Pray First ·
Feb 4, 2011

All Yours

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This week I went for an annual physical, and I had that mammogram I mentioned the other day, and then the next day I got a call saying they needed to take some more pictures, and oh by the way it needed to be an appointment right next to an ultrasound appointment, just in case.

It’s been a hard few months, and I will admit that I sunk to the floor, even though this was not bad news, actually, only a request to have me come in and give them a chance to get more clarity. But in this era of being afraid to wonder “what’s next?” it felt like hard information to take in, emotionally or intellectually.

Over the next two days I told a few friends, employed avoidance/denial as a spiritual practice, cooked soup and baked muffins from scratch, wielded a shovel with unexpected power and wrote a sermon.

Today, I went for the second mammogram, and I had to admit I was terrified. Suppose something was actually wrong with me? I have a new job and I’m newly divorced and I live alone with a teenager and I have no family in the area and  not a long list of the kinds of friends locally who would see you through a crisis because I stopped being a regular person when I became a pastor and became all about my work and my friends are also clergy who work too many hours and…

then I was standing in the dressing room in a gown, waiting. And I prayed.

“I’m all yours. No matter what. I’m grateful to be alive and grateful for the love I have in my life. I’m all yours.”‘

It should not be amazing how much better I felt after that. I mean, I am a pastor. I am living a committed spiritual life. Not that the two necessarily go together, but I’d like to think they do for me. Mostly. But I am so easily spun off my stem, so ready to throw my own petals onto the fire and send myself up into smoke, when there is no need.

It felt good to stop that and pray.

Various new views were taken, in an attempt to get a better view of a suspicious area that might be nothing. The technician was fabulous, explaining exactly what we were doing, as if we were teammates in this effort, which was basically to compress the tissue (aiyiyi!!!) exactly right in case all they had seen was a wrinkle or something, in hopes that the wrinkle or something would clearly not be there after all.

I sat in the dressing room waiting, surprisingly calm, wondering if it was better or worse for her to come back quickly. Did it resemble how long a jury stayed out? I thought about the many women in my new church family who are breast cancer survivors. I thought about how they are thriving, in fact. I thought about how bad news doesn’t have to be the end of the world and wondered why I always assume it will be? I thought all this in an oddly calm fashion, for me.

Then she reappeared, smiling, and said, I kid you not, “Yay!!! We made it go away!!!”

I had to listen hard to understand what she was saying, but then I smiled, too. 
And I prayed the same words again. “I’m all yours.” And then, “Thank you.” And I thought, it’s not in my belief system to believe that God would make something wrong suddenly disappear while we were taking more pictures today, but I feel just as grateful as if that had happened exactly. 
(Not a picture of me, or my technician, but you get the idea. And weirdly, this was the poem on Writer’s Almanac today: Mammogram.)
Filed Under: All the Single Ladies, I Sing the Body Electric, Pray First ·
Feb 3, 2011

some things

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when things change

you wonder
what you love
what you like
what you enjoy
what was pretend
what was real
what was deep
what was fun
really
and 
some of those things 
will never be again
things you loved
things you hated
things you miss
things you regret
things you did well
things you didn’t
all gone
but some 
you remember
with a smile
because some things
can’t be ruined
no matter what
Filed Under: All the Single Ladies, Poetry ·
Jan 31, 2011

Eat, Pray, …

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This morning found me sitting in a government office, using my divorce judgment and an application for a new Social Security card as bookmarks in a copy of “Eat, Pray, Love.”

Having turned myself into a hilarious divorce joke, I began to wonder where I would go if a publisher agreed to send me on a one year journey of self-exploration. Liz Gilbert went to three “I” countries: Italy, India and Indonesia. I’ve been to two out of three of her destinations. And I’m not sure going to the other side of the world holds appeal for me. But if I could go anywhere? Hmmm.

A number called out, “B211,” ended my reverie and began my fetch quest. “You won’t like what I’m going to tell you,” said the nice young man. The divorce judgment in my possession was not a certified copy. I needed to make a trip to the courthouse and have the Clerk’s office stamp the darn thing.

It was freezing downtown, freezing everywhere. I wondered why I was wearing a dress prone to static? Why I hadn’t thought to put on a hat? Why a lot of things.

I wrote a check for five dollars, wondering how much longer I can keep using these checks with what is now the wrong name. As long as people will take them? As long as they don’t ask for identification that matches?

I’m saving the Driver’s License for next Monday, after I have my hair done, because I want to look good in the picture. But meanwhile, I needed to register my car, with the old name, so that I can change the name on that next Monday, too.

LP, who is having exams, walked to City Hall from the high school, which is just around the corner. I stood in the basement hallway waiting for her, me and a homeless man, both getting in the way of people who appeared more purposeful, less vague. We got the car registered successfully. I remembered I need to go see the car insurance agent and change my name there, too.

There are a lot of things to change.

We went from City Hall back to the Social Security office. The nice young man said, “If you can come back today, don’t take another number, just sit down in front of my window and I will help you.”

But his shade was pulled down. I asked the security guard if he knew where the nice young man had gone? “He stepped away for a few.”

A few? A few minutes? Hours? Cigarettes? LP was hungry, and there was no sign of a quick return, so we came home.

Next: Annual physical and mammogram. I heard the things anyone my age might hear. Lose some weight and improve that cholesterol count. Mix up the exercise. Try the Lose It app for iPhone. See the dermatologist about that mole no one has ever, ever mentioned before. Plan on a birthday colonoscopy.

Oh, and try to get out more with friends. (But no pressure.)

About the mammogram, well, I wish I could say it’s nothing! It’s no big deal! Instead I’ll say, make your appointment. I did.

And that guy in the waiting room at the Imaging Center ranting about “Obamacare?” Could have lived without him. Could have used an active awareness of the advice for dealing with hostile people in the book I wrote about yesterday. Because where a person with a chronic illness feels threatened? Is in a conversation where people criticize health care reform.

On Visit #3 to the Social Security office, I found the nice young man sitting pleasantly at his counter with no one else to serve, and he made quick work of my application. I should get the new card in about two weeks. I’ll have the name I started with, if you don’t count my pre-adoption name, which they don’t.

From there I went to the bank, where I learned something fascinating. We are no longer our names. We are our Account Numbers. Nice Young Man #2 looked me up, typed in the five letters of my last name, and said it was good for all the accounts I’m on. Did I want a new debit card? He’ll have them send one. No big deal. He didn’t even examine the divorce judgment.

In the midst of all this, I have a plane ticket and a cruise ticket with the old name, because that’s the one that matches my passport. I’m grateful for the good advice not to count on having all the name changing done before the Big Event 4.0. It wouldn’t have been possible, and I would have been out of luck trying to get on the ship with my new/old/real/maiden/last/final name.

As for Liz Gilbert, she traveled with me through the day, and I’m engaged by her story. I don’t have the freedom to take off and explore the world. I’ll have to do my journeying closer to home, as the change errands continue. I’ll eat less, pray first, and…

Filed Under: All the Single Ladies ·
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