circles, all around
my purple room friend is a gentle prodder. she had not heard much from writemuch these past few weeks and was wondering what i was thinking. writemuch in fact was, too, wondering what i was thinking, as this, my double-nickel birthday week began.
it began in fact with circles. walking in circles, that is, which when i think about it, is pretty much how my mind works. i start out thinking i'm going to clean out the pantry but that leads somehow to the bedroom closet which leads to the tomato patch which leads to the kitchen window sill which makes me hungry which leads me back to the pantry. and on and on. or how my day goes. circle my block three times with the dog and his friend. spin the tires to work and back. move from desk to copier to kitchen to church and back again. circles.
back to walking. i don't know much about labyrinths or their mystical properties, but there is one where i work. sometimes i walk up through the grass to take pictures of it, but as of last week, i had not actually walked it in a good long while.
but my week began there, with my purple roommate and the others who occupy the work hall with me. our instructions were to walk in silence, and if we bumped into each other along the path not to worry about it too much. that's life, isn't it? distancing ourselves from each other, then circling back, bumping into, distancing again. oh, and we might recognize it as how we meet God on occasion. distancing, bumping into, circling back. letting God circle us sometimes.
i set out on the path and walked those circles and thought, thanked, questioned, petitioned — tried to listen to something more than the soft scuffle of my shoes on brick.
i found myself thanking God for all my years however poorly i have sometimes lived them. just to get up in the morning to begin the circle is a blessing. as i turned a corner down the path (which is really a yellowish sort of brick road) my thinking turned to my hope for my children, which is easy and hard to think about at the same time. both are at corners, each facing change that is unknown and surprising. and as my week began, it was hard for this mother to sit tight and watch, to wait and see.
another corner. another thought. the husband. the job. the community i work for. my own ability to do good in that world and the larger one. what people think of me. and who i really am. heavy and light. light and heavy, thoughts kept coming as gentle as the slow breeze circling me.
back in the office, one of my work friends said they noticed as they turned the corner each time, their thoughts turned a corner, too, their conversation shifted. just like mine.
when i started out my career so many years ago, i worked for a tiny daily newspaper, taking pictures of friday night lights and check presentations. i spent hours in a dark room wearing a shiny yellow apron, dipping my fingers in developer and fix, watching an image emerge from blank paper. the next job — my second one — lasted only one year, yet i wrote and wrote and wrote, made awful mistakes that somehow were forgiven and learned much from them. i learned how to lay out a newspaper, to tell a good story. that job led to this and that through the years, to the job i have now, taking pictures, writing, teaching, designing, questioning. a bit of every little thing i've learned in these 30 years. and last week i produced a little magazine for the people i work for, using all of those skills. circles.
that second job, too, changed me the most, set me on all sorts of paths. it's where i met my husband. got my first dog.
on thursday of last week, my son landed his second career job. oh, the hope i have for him. circles.
on thursday of last week, my son landed his second career job. oh, the hope i have for him. circles.
on friday, i headed home. if you are born in the South of course you may live anywhere but you are always from one place. on the eve of my birthday, i broke hushpuppies over barbecue and stew at my childhood kitchen table, listening to my parents talk. when i asked them if i was early or late, my mother said a little early. and i learned something new: i had been delivered not by the doctor who was my father's partner, but by the nurse who worked for him much of my childhood. Both doctors were busy with a patient when my mother couldn't hold me in anymore, so the nurse pulled my screaming head into the world.
my mother had a couple of gifts for me. one, a small pillowcase hand-embroidered by an elderly neighbor more than 50 years ago. miss applewhite was blind, and though we can't figure out how, she designed a perfect bouquet of flowers with circular centers, never dropping a stitch. i had used this pillowcase as a child. circles.
yesterday, i spent my birthday lunch over burgers with my boys, then we drove around the block to where my son's new office will be. my supper shared with "friendless" friends whose son shares his birthday with me. more circles.
back in the spring, i took part in an online writing community. each day for 37 days we were to answer a prompt. i was working on my novel at the same time, so on some days, i skipped the prompt, including this one on day 11: notice all the circles you see today.
i guess the circles were tired of me not paying attention.
as is usual when i start to write, i have no real notion of what something is about. just a little niggle in my head. blind-like, i fiddle with stitches that seem not to connect, until somehow something whole emerges, just like images from the developer in that dark room years ago.
as is usual when i start to write, i have no real notion of what something is about. just a little niggle in my head. blind-like, i fiddle with stitches that seem not to connect, until somehow something whole emerges, just like images from the developer in that dark room years ago.
circles.
like double nickels taped to a birthday card from my lifelong friend. a new camera and lens from my family. candles for my patio. a casserole dish decorated with a labyrinth of circles. the last of the season's tomatoes on the window sill. zinnias. the communion cup.
writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
9/11/11
we sat in upholstered chairs this morning in a small Episcopal church in mid-coast Maine. no kneelers, just clear glass windows looking out over scrubby pines dotting the landscape. save for one small stained glass window above the altar depicting Jesus calming an angry sea, and these words: Fear not.
we shared our chair pew with four friends we have met in the past eight years. the six of us are in Boothbay Harbor taking in the crisp air and celebrating 80 years of marriage between us. at supper last night, we shared memories of our earliest years as married couples, laughed at our naiveté and marveled at our sticktuativeness if there is such a word. the oldest among us married at 22 and 23, will celebrate 40 years together on Sunday. the newlyweds have been married just 10, tying their knot tightly around each other and changing their world as a couple, just 10 days before our whole worlds changed — 10 years ago today.
the readings for today were about forgiveness, how when Peter asked Jesus how many times he was supposed to forgive someone who had wronged him, Jesus launched into hyperbole, saying seventy-seven (or seven times seven, depending on your translation.) and then He talked about the master whose slave owed him the equivalent of around a billion dollars in today's world. a price he could never pay back.
'we owe God everything,' the priest said. 'just because we opened our eyes this morning, we owe more than we can ever repay.'
i listened, waiting for the lesson about 9/11, and it was there, in the middle of all that need to forgive. how personal forgiveness, which is often the hardest, is based on the illusion that we might have had a better life if the person who had wronged us had not done so. and how as Americans living in a post-9/11 world, forgiveness is not so simple anymore. it was no accident, he said, that our lessons for today — of all days — were about this subject. chosen years in advance, this is just how God works.
++++
in the past week, my husband and i watched several specials about that Tuesday 10 years ago none of us will ever forget. it was harrowing to watch once again, as planes that seemed to come out of nowhere hit the Twin Towers and forever changed our lives as Americans. as i watched and listened to survivors and our nation's leaders tell their stories, i said a silent prayer that nothing like this would happen again.ever.
our daughter lives in NYC, and last week, she and her husband moved into a new apartment. her Upper West Side home is far away from Ground Zero, but as the anniversary of that day approached, i knew it is much on her mind. when i talked with her yesterday, they were staying home. traffic had been horrible since Friday, when the only news, it seemed was about a new, credible threat.
she was a senior in high school the morning of 9/11, and i was set to teach writing to members of her class later that morning. at home, preparing for the day, i saw the second plane hit in real time. then the Pentagon plane. it was almost impossible to pull myself from watching to get to my work. a little more than an hour later, after both towers had fallen, and as i walked up the steps to the high school, i listened to a silence so absolute I could not remember a time when my world had ever been so quiet. a man i didn't know came out of the building and we stared into each other's eyes for more than the split second strangers allow.
she was a senior in high school the morning of 9/11, and i was set to teach writing to members of her class later that morning. at home, preparing for the day, i saw the second plane hit in real time. then the Pentagon plane. it was almost impossible to pull myself from watching to get to my work. a little more than an hour later, after both towers had fallen, and as i walked up the steps to the high school, i listened to a silence so absolute I could not remember a time when my world had ever been so quiet. a man i didn't know came out of the building and we stared into each other's eyes for more than the split second strangers allow.
six months later my daughter and i visited Ground Zero ourselves with my best friend and her daughter. we stopped in at the office of one of my husband's colleagues, an Indian woman who told us the story of walking across the Brooklyn Bridge toward home and how it took hours to get to her little boy. 'the smell is gone,' she said as we stared into the canyon that still seemed to smolder. it was not gone. she was only used to it.
we were deeply moved awhile later by the thousands of fliers and bouquets of flowers posted on the fence that surrounded St. Paul's Chapel —the nation's oldest public building in continual use — which stands across the street from where the towers once stood. the minutia of the grieving, put there by families searching for loved ones missing when the towers fell. from September 2001 to May 2002, St. Paul’s opened its doors to firefighters, construction workers, police officers and others for meals, beds, counseling and prayer.
we were deeply moved awhile later by the thousands of fliers and bouquets of flowers posted on the fence that surrounded St. Paul's Chapel —the nation's oldest public building in continual use — which stands across the street from where the towers once stood. the minutia of the grieving, put there by families searching for loved ones missing when the towers fell. from September 2001 to May 2002, St. Paul’s opened its doors to firefighters, construction workers, police officers and others for meals, beds, counseling and prayer.
Doug Remer, a former associate rector at my church and a family friend of my friend Anne Boone, was a relief worker at the chapel and invited us in. we knelt in pews where George Washington worshiped. we read some of the hundreds of letters lining every pew and wall, written by children from all over the world and sent to relief workers, thanking them for their service.
this is not something you ever forget.
+++++
the priest today said people have approached him in the years since 9/11 saying: where was God in this? why did God cause this to happen? "i don't know what kind of God you believe in,' he said, 'if you think God caused it to happened." he did not believe in that kind of God. nor do i. i can tell you where God was. in every single fire fighter and police officer who entered that building. in the couple, as the priest reminded us, who jumped out of the burning buildings, holding hands, knowing this was something that could not be done alone. there, in the community of strangers who huddled together for comfort, in elevators, in stair wells, on the top floors unable to get out, in those airplanes as their fuselages broke the windows of the towers, my God was there.
the priest today said people have approached him in the years since 9/11 saying: where was God in this? why did God cause this to happen? "i don't know what kind of God you believe in,' he said, 'if you think God caused it to happened." he did not believe in that kind of God. nor do i. i can tell you where God was. in every single fire fighter and police officer who entered that building. in the couple, as the priest reminded us, who jumped out of the burning buildings, holding hands, knowing this was something that could not be done alone. there, in the community of strangers who huddled together for comfort, in elevators, in stair wells, on the top floors unable to get out, in those airplanes as their fuselages broke the windows of the towers, my God was there.
i found myself weeping — i can't remember a sermon in a long time that has made me weep — for the 3,000 souls gone, for the children of 9/11, for my daughter living in a city targeted yet again by terror. and closer to home, for the man sitting next to me, whom i have failed to forgive too many times, but who never fails to forgive me.
10 years ago, i had not yet met the friends that occupied my pew today. we were all in different places in our lives — Tim & Linda living in Birmingham, Lee and David living on base at Fort Bragg, NC. Lee had not even unpacked her belongings when David — who was supposed to be on vacation — came home to tell her he would be needed at work. (last week, as we recalled our 9/11 memories, several of us spoke of the quiet. Lee could not help thinking of how at Fort Bragg, there was no silence at all. just mayhem.
within five years of 9/11, the six of us would be brought together by church, and as Tim said over dinner last night, our connection to each other has changed us all.
within five years of 9/11, the six of us would be brought together by church, and as Tim said over dinner last night, our connection to each other has changed us all.
++++
after church we took a car ride to a beautiful little island and found a tiny church built in i think 1918, nestled in the pines and rocks, right by the sea. inside, i knelt, finally, and said my prayers, once again, for having safely arrived at this spot, on this day, with these people. for my children, husband, parents and siblings. for the world, and peace.
after church we took a car ride to a beautiful little island and found a tiny church built in i think 1918, nestled in the pines and rocks, right by the sea. inside, i knelt, finally, and said my prayers, once again, for having safely arrived at this spot, on this day, with these people. for my children, husband, parents and siblings. for the world, and peace.
this afternoon, we sailed in 12-knot winds aboard a three-masted 60-foot schooner. i braced my feet against the side as we heeled, her rails almost into the chop, tried to take a few pictures. and i thought about how to connect all the moments of this day: the church, the priest's message, the friends, my marriage and this sail.
i thought about the small stained glass window of St. Columba's, depicting to me, Jesus calming the waters during the storm. "fear not' read the words in one corner of the small window.
i didn't know until just now this about the window: "the theme 'fear not' was adopted (by the church) soon after the tragedy which we now know as 9/11. It also takes into account that we are a seafaring town. the touches of green signify the headlands of a safe harbor as the angel speaks peace from a bruised and stormy sky."
well. after 9/11, we are all bruised. thought it's a gift to be married so many years, sometimes it bruises use, too. as the priest said: God is in the midst of them. and us. in our lives and in our friendships, in our tragedies and our marriages.
fear not. angels speak peace from a bruised and stormy sky.
Oh, How I Miss Reverb
Reverb 2010: Gift. This month, gifts and gift-giving can seem inescapable. What's the most memorable gift, tangible or emotional, you received this year?
Ok, so I skipped this one last month. Let's just say it is because I was holding out to see if my fairy godmother Merriweather would stop by long enough to wave her wand over me and say: Muffintop, be gone!
But however much I still want that to happen, she has yet to show. Maybe it was because it snowed on Christmas night and the inches were much deeper than she was tall. Or she got stuck in the ice storm the next week. Or maybe Princess Aurora finally started behaving like a true adolescent, leaving poor Merriweather with her hands full. Or maybe she did show, and her gifts to me in fact were the afternoon naps I was able to snag during all that ice and snow. She did give dear Princess A. her own longwinter's nap, after all.
Truth is, I have been thinking about this gift thing for awhile now, and it is so hard to pin down one that has been most memorable. The writing? Yes, that's been a wonderful gift, something I felt I had lost for awhile, but now, my blog stats are falling in the New Year because I am not posting, and something tells me I have to actually keep it up. So this gift has come with beautiful ribbons tied so tightly to it that they are impossible to unknot.
But what about something else? There was the pocketbook my children gave me, the charms I got from my husband, but I'm thinking, that though I love those things, it must a gift I haven't thought of. Tangible or emotional, the questions reads.
Was it the hour on Christmas Eve, when I sat in the pew with my husband and all of my children — together for the first time in months — listening to the choir and the trumpets and the harp?
Or our beach week, when I woke every day to the sunrise over the Atlantic, was able to sit with my daughter and know that we had space to breathe in the ocean air and laugh and dance and that at the end of our week, neither one of us would be leaving the other on a NYC street corner, crying in the cab?
Could it have been sharing a hot dog with my father at his favorite stand, knowing that he always orders a Chicago dog (mustard, chili, onions and slaw) and because it is his favorite place, it became mine, too, long ago, and my children's, too?
Might it have been the $150 in cash my rector handed me a few days before Christmas, and learning that someone in our parish gave — anonymously — the same to every single person on our staff, because of jobs well done?
Surely, wasn't it also watching my son walk out the door, suit coat in hand, headed to his first career job, knowing I had a small part in helping him find his path?
And then there were the times when funny three-year-old Cheney and her her super cool three-year-old friend Davis ran to me, their arms open wide, and said: whatchadoin' Sooze?
Or was it when we laughed til our hearts hurt at the dining room table with our friends as they searched their DROIDS for the best song ever — (how do you compare the Allman Brothers with Bill Deal and the Rondels, really?) — and then sang it, loudly, with our grown children in the next room at the grown-up kiddie table, laughing at us. And later when my Pea said she hoped one day to have good friends like that? Was it that?
Couldn't it have been watching my mother make the turkey gravy at Thanksgiving with my grandmother's gravy spoon, worn on one edge because she always stirred, holding it just the same way?
Was it finding out that my sister, at age 6, skipped first grade one day, curling herself up in the gnarled old roots of a giant oak tree, after she crossed a highway by herself — by herself! — because her teacher had been mean to her too many days before? Or watching my husband and children open the paintings I gave them of the dogs... yes, that was a gift. Surely it was time spent with Boone and Martha, with Hilda Kay and Cloos' Club and in the purple room and sailing with my husband (though I didn't do it nearly enough), and walking the dog and reading in my napping room.
Will all these things be the gifts I will remember for 2010? They each made my year memorable, to be sure.
But maybe it is this one, the one that brought tears to my eyes at the end of the year, given to me in a purple a bag by my purple room friend, with these words: When I saw this I thought of you, because you have to be, to accomplish all you plan to do in 2011. It's the piece of a puzzle, and Lord knows I am that. One side just says: I AM. The other says this: BRAVE. I AM BRAVE.
Well. I am not, but my friend thinks I am and maybe I need to look back and see what I said I'd do this year that made her think so.
No. I am not brave. Brave is our boy Ryan in Afghanistan. Brave is my friend with cancer. Brave is my first grade sister. Brave is that woman in Arizona who took the shooter's ammunition away.
Brave is 'fessing up and facing it, changing direction even though the wind is trying hard to blow you a different way. Brave is ditching the excuses. Doing the harder thing. It is telling the truth to yourself before you try it with anybody else.
Oh...no, I am not there yet. Not even the tiniest bit close. But it makes me feel just a little bit braver knowing my friend thinks I am. I have been brave before, a few times in my life. But these days not so much. But could I be again?
Put the puzzle piece somewhere you'll see it every day, Lee said. So it's on my key ring. And a million times a day as I fiddle with my keys in search of the right one, every now and then that little piece of puzzle that is BRAVE will pop, reminding me that maybe I can be brave again, and that one day the piece of the puzzle that is me might just fit.
sbr
Ok, so I skipped this one last month. Let's just say it is because I was holding out to see if my fairy godmother Merriweather would stop by long enough to wave her wand over me and say: Muffintop, be gone!
But however much I still want that to happen, she has yet to show. Maybe it was because it snowed on Christmas night and the inches were much deeper than she was tall. Or she got stuck in the ice storm the next week. Or maybe Princess Aurora finally started behaving like a true adolescent, leaving poor Merriweather with her hands full. Or maybe she did show, and her gifts to me in fact were the afternoon naps I was able to snag during all that ice and snow. She did give dear Princess A. her own longwinter's nap, after all.
Truth is, I have been thinking about this gift thing for awhile now, and it is so hard to pin down one that has been most memorable. The writing? Yes, that's been a wonderful gift, something I felt I had lost for awhile, but now, my blog stats are falling in the New Year because I am not posting, and something tells me I have to actually keep it up. So this gift has come with beautiful ribbons tied so tightly to it that they are impossible to unknot.
But what about something else? There was the pocketbook my children gave me, the charms I got from my husband, but I'm thinking, that though I love those things, it must a gift I haven't thought of. Tangible or emotional, the questions reads.
Was it the hour on Christmas Eve, when I sat in the pew with my husband and all of my children — together for the first time in months — listening to the choir and the trumpets and the harp?
Could it have been sharing a hot dog with my father at his favorite stand, knowing that he always orders a Chicago dog (mustard, chili, onions and slaw) and because it is his favorite place, it became mine, too, long ago, and my children's, too?
Might it have been the $150 in cash my rector handed me a few days before Christmas, and learning that someone in our parish gave — anonymously — the same to every single person on our staff, because of jobs well done?
Surely, wasn't it also watching my son walk out the door, suit coat in hand, headed to his first career job, knowing I had a small part in helping him find his path?
And then there were the times when funny three-year-old Cheney and her her super cool three-year-old friend Davis ran to me, their arms open wide, and said: whatchadoin' Sooze?
Or was it when we laughed til our hearts hurt at the dining room table with our friends as they searched their DROIDS for the best song ever — (how do you compare the Allman Brothers with Bill Deal and the Rondels, really?) — and then sang it, loudly, with our grown children in the next room at the grown-up kiddie table, laughing at us. And later when my Pea said she hoped one day to have good friends like that? Was it that?
Couldn't it have been watching my mother make the turkey gravy at Thanksgiving with my grandmother's gravy spoon, worn on one edge because she always stirred, holding it just the same way?
Was it finding out that my sister, at age 6, skipped first grade one day, curling herself up in the gnarled old roots of a giant oak tree, after she crossed a highway by herself — by herself! — because her teacher had been mean to her too many days before? Or watching my husband and children open the paintings I gave them of the dogs... yes, that was a gift. Surely it was time spent with Boone and Martha, with Hilda Kay and Cloos' Club and in the purple room and sailing with my husband (though I didn't do it nearly enough), and walking the dog and reading in my napping room.
Will all these things be the gifts I will remember for 2010? They each made my year memorable, to be sure.
Well. I am not, but my friend thinks I am and maybe I need to look back and see what I said I'd do this year that made her think so.
No. I am not brave. Brave is our boy Ryan in Afghanistan. Brave is my friend with cancer. Brave is my first grade sister. Brave is that woman in Arizona who took the shooter's ammunition away.
Brave is 'fessing up and facing it, changing direction even though the wind is trying hard to blow you a different way. Brave is ditching the excuses. Doing the harder thing. It is telling the truth to yourself before you try it with anybody else.
Oh...no, I am not there yet. Not even the tiniest bit close. But it makes me feel just a little bit braver knowing my friend thinks I am. I have been brave before, a few times in my life. But these days not so much. But could I be again?
Put the puzzle piece somewhere you'll see it every day, Lee said. So it's on my key ring. And a million times a day as I fiddle with my keys in search of the right one, every now and then that little piece of puzzle that is BRAVE will pop, reminding me that maybe I can be brave again, and that one day the piece of the puzzle that is me might just fit.
sbr