again

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I read The Wasteland today —
for the first time in a long time.

I do not understand it all, and I don’t try to.  Not really.  I’ve never thought that was the point.

But reading it again after a long pause, I realised how much it shapes my experience.
It feels familiar.  Life long.

The poem is
for me at least
more a process — a shape of living — than a thing to understand.

Having gone away, and come back after a few years, I see more, understand more than I did.
there are ways in which my life has converged with the poem
ways in which is hasn’t
but what is being done feels familiar
the way of seeing, hearing, perceiving
the way of life

tears come too.  Sometimes as Lear enters with the woman’s anxiety.
Sometimes with lilacs.
Today, with Da, Datta, a moment’s surrender.

Elizabeth, you do not like this poem?  Tell me:  what is is about?

I am not sure I like it either, but there it is.  A part of me now.  An inescapable truth.

hedgehogs, bluebells, and twitchy tails

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Late at night, after a long but productive vestry meeting, I find myself pondering the following:

  1. if hedgehogs could learn to be quiet, would they need so many spikes?
  2. do pain and healing grow up together like nettles and dock leaves?
  3. were the blue bells more intense this night or last, and did they miss me?

Molly, is here now, and she says:

  1. are you ever coming?  you said you were,  and then you didn’t.
  2. if you don’t come soon, I’ll get cross and go away.  And then you’ll be sorry.
  3. (and so will I, but not as much as you)

right now, right away

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Elizabeth has jumped in with such a lovely splash that I dare not lose a minute in response.

Her first suggestion is for a question game.  Do feel free to pass them around…

If your blog was a colour what would it be?

right now, I suspect it’s a dull sort of khaki.
At it’s best, its a deep sapphire blue, and I still dream that one day it might be dancing dappled shades of gold.

What clothes would your blog wear?

This is more difficult than I thought it would be.   It is hard to imagine that the answer could be anything other than ‘long swirly skirt’ — but I’m not sure it merits the swish, and without it the image was too Amish.  Can it be the twirling hem of a garment, please?

(ah, wait.  I turned this into an ontological question.  Well, too late now.)

If your blog took you on a date, where would you go?

my blog knows me well enough to know how very unlikely that is.

The only paradigm I have for dating is over twenty years old, and would involve me driving my blog to the bottom of the hill and saying ‘left or right?’

If your blog was an animal, what would it be?

a dragonfly

or perhaps (pace Di) a grey wagtail

And in honour of my pronoun game, if your blog had a gender, what would it be?

she is surely a she (of sorts)

writer’s block

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So, how does one begin blogging again?

It’s been a year since I’ve come to Dunblane, and a year since this blog fell into a pattern of weary neglect.  And yet, I can never quite give it up.  I do the same thing to houseplants:  ignoring them for weeks till they turn a sickly pale shade, and then swooping in with over-abundant water and profuse apologies and promises never to let it happen again.

This time, I tried to begin blogging again by redesigning the thing.    Still longing for beauty.  Still foolish enough to think it can be found through Cascading Style Sheets.  WordPress had a whole host of new styles for me.  But none of them helped.  It’s still the same old blog — and actually, I like this old theme that I’ve been tweaking for so long.

So, there is no easy fix.  No fresh look, with which I can spur myself to action.

I shall have to do this the hard way by thinking of things to say.

I celebrated Pentecost by losing my voice.
Through my laryngitis, I preached (in part) about how the Spirit helps us to find our voice:  refuses to let us be silenced.

Do stop and enjoy the irony.

But it occurs to me that that is precisely where I am:
struggling to speak
still believing that it is worth speaking
trying to find my voice.

again.

Blogging as discipline…

But really, that’s about as realistic as telling my plants I will never again abandon them to the desert.   I need your help with this.  A few of you have been very loyal, despite my not writing.  Can you nudge me on the way?

I’m going to try to blog most days again.  (oh dear, how non-committal I’ve become)  But I’m hoping you’ll get me started…

What shall I blog about?

Give me a word, and image, a sentence, a question, and idea.

Each and every day.  By Twitter.  By comments.  By phone.  By email.  What shall we talk about today?