Things here at the cottage have been a bit hectic of late, and computing time has been quite limited. The four-legged ones are quite demanding in making sure they get their share of lap time daily, and with the hurry and scurry of working retail during the holidays that time has been severely curtailed! Somehow, providing the necessary lap time has been more important than computer time and I find that it has been a blessing to simply unwind when I get home late at night with a cat on my lap and a dog beside me.
There has been much discussion about the future here at the cottage as well. The four-legged ones haven't really had much to say, but those of us who have two legs and are responsible for it all have sure been talking about it! Not only because it is a New Year, but also because it marks a season of new beginnings in all of our lives. My husband has lost his job - and the backstabbing involved in my firing was a massage and spa day compared to what the same people are putting him through! - which is necessitating a very new beginning for us along with a time of grief and turning inward to heal and figure out what next. One or the other of us (briefly both of us at the same time) have worked for this group since we met, and so there has been no time in our relationship that has not been under the shadow of this group of people. While it is very much a blessing to not have them watching over our shoulders and judging our private lives as well as our work lives it is a bit disconcerting to realize that there has never been a time when we were not somehow under their influence!
Dreaming big, praying, and a good bit of shuffling things around are the order of the day here!
Showing posts with label Overcast Days. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Overcast Days. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Easter Vigil and Easter - Not the Holiday I had Planned
My journey through the rest of Holy Week and Easter did not turn out as planned. I last wrote on Good Friday, and though I had the best of intentions of completing my meditations on Easter Vigil/Holy Saturday and Easter, a big thing got in the way. Easter Vigil began like any other Saturday before a Sunday holiday - preparing good food, enjoying the time puttering in the kitchen with my husband. I wasn't feeling my best, but not so bad that I could point out that I was feeling any worse than usual.
We gathered up our bells and went to church, where I realized something might not be right. The Easter Vigil service starts in the dark, out on the porch of the church where the priest strikes the new light of Easter and lights the Paschal Candle. The congregation lights their own candles from this great big special and beautiful candle, and then turning to share that light with their neighbors before filing in and filling the church. The first part of the service is then conducted solely by candlelight, as we read and sing together of the salvation history, from creation through the resurrection. Just before we read the Gospel, the whole church is lit up, we sing a beautiful Holy, Holy, Holy while ringing our bells and removing all of the black drapes that have covered the flowers and dressing the altar and clergy in their glorious golden Easter vestments. Easter has arrived!
With my uncertain balance, I waited inside for the rest of the congregation and choir. I had a bit of a headache, but nothing too horrible. I did notice myself flinching from the brightness as the lights came on and we completed the service, but I put it down to being tired and late at night. Joining the feast after the service I still felt a little odd, but again put it down to eating a light supper at 11:00 at night which is totally outside of my usual routines.
I went to church on Easter morning with a headache, thankful for my Easter bonnet that shaded my eyes from the direct glare of the overhead lights, even though I was still staring into the bright stained glass window that forms the wall behind the altar. Later, at brunch with my parents I noticed that the headache hadn't eased and that I did not eat as much as usual.
It hit that afternoon after the earthquake. My husband and I had gone back to our bedroom to lie down for a while and enjoy the quiet. Suddenly the quiet was shattered by the unmistakable sound of the house shaking with an earthquake. No big panic, but the intensity kept growing and the shaking kept going. At one point I stood up, thinking that it was over. No dice. It just kept on, and I began to feel a bit of panic as all of my childhood "earthquake preparedness" stories bubbled up, and the terrors that I thought I had put away came with them. Finally it ended, and we lay back down (after spending quite a bit of time looking it up online!). I stoically rode through the aftershocks, privately waiting for "the BIG one" that my childhood fears told me was still coming - especially since the cat was still crammed into the few inches between the floor and the bottom of our bed!
Shortly after that I noticed that my headache was ratcheting up in intensity. My husband was ready for dinner, but I was starting to get a bit nauseous so I passed. By six or so I called the nurse line to find out if I should be going to urgent care. Around seven the lovely nurse called back after conferring with a doctor - with my symptoms I should go to the Emergency Room.
By eight my mother had joined us for the wait. I had blood drawn and a couple of other tests. By that point I could barely walk. Finally, a bed was available and I was taken back. I've never been so happy to have drugs that work extremely quickly in my life! Unfortunately, they seemed to wear off quickly, too. A second dose and they sent me home around one in the morning.
It didn't do much beyond make me feel sick to my stomach. I think I slept a little, but not much. I listened to the rain and my husbands breathing until the alarm went off. My mom was coming to sit with me while my husband went in and got things started for the week with his staff so he could head back home and not have the phone ringing off the hook. I was in agony. The neurologist was called, and decided that we needed to try a migraine medication. Migraine? I've never had anything anyone ever called a migraine before, but I'll try it if it might help. I'd probably try anything at that point. It helped. Immediately.
So now I am working on yet another possibility for all of this pain and frustration. Migraines. In the meantime, we will still be doing a spinal tap to at least get a baseline reading if not a definitive diagnosis on the intracranial hypertension and removing my gallbladder as soon as we can get it set up. I'm so tired of being in so much pain!
We gathered up our bells and went to church, where I realized something might not be right. The Easter Vigil service starts in the dark, out on the porch of the church where the priest strikes the new light of Easter and lights the Paschal Candle. The congregation lights their own candles from this great big special and beautiful candle, and then turning to share that light with their neighbors before filing in and filling the church. The first part of the service is then conducted solely by candlelight, as we read and sing together of the salvation history, from creation through the resurrection. Just before we read the Gospel, the whole church is lit up, we sing a beautiful Holy, Holy, Holy while ringing our bells and removing all of the black drapes that have covered the flowers and dressing the altar and clergy in their glorious golden Easter vestments. Easter has arrived!
With my uncertain balance, I waited inside for the rest of the congregation and choir. I had a bit of a headache, but nothing too horrible. I did notice myself flinching from the brightness as the lights came on and we completed the service, but I put it down to being tired and late at night. Joining the feast after the service I still felt a little odd, but again put it down to eating a light supper at 11:00 at night which is totally outside of my usual routines.
I went to church on Easter morning with a headache, thankful for my Easter bonnet that shaded my eyes from the direct glare of the overhead lights, even though I was still staring into the bright stained glass window that forms the wall behind the altar. Later, at brunch with my parents I noticed that the headache hadn't eased and that I did not eat as much as usual.
It hit that afternoon after the earthquake. My husband and I had gone back to our bedroom to lie down for a while and enjoy the quiet. Suddenly the quiet was shattered by the unmistakable sound of the house shaking with an earthquake. No big panic, but the intensity kept growing and the shaking kept going. At one point I stood up, thinking that it was over. No dice. It just kept on, and I began to feel a bit of panic as all of my childhood "earthquake preparedness" stories bubbled up, and the terrors that I thought I had put away came with them. Finally it ended, and we lay back down (after spending quite a bit of time looking it up online!). I stoically rode through the aftershocks, privately waiting for "the BIG one" that my childhood fears told me was still coming - especially since the cat was still crammed into the few inches between the floor and the bottom of our bed!
Shortly after that I noticed that my headache was ratcheting up in intensity. My husband was ready for dinner, but I was starting to get a bit nauseous so I passed. By six or so I called the nurse line to find out if I should be going to urgent care. Around seven the lovely nurse called back after conferring with a doctor - with my symptoms I should go to the Emergency Room.
By eight my mother had joined us for the wait. I had blood drawn and a couple of other tests. By that point I could barely walk. Finally, a bed was available and I was taken back. I've never been so happy to have drugs that work extremely quickly in my life! Unfortunately, they seemed to wear off quickly, too. A second dose and they sent me home around one in the morning.
It didn't do much beyond make me feel sick to my stomach. I think I slept a little, but not much. I listened to the rain and my husbands breathing until the alarm went off. My mom was coming to sit with me while my husband went in and got things started for the week with his staff so he could head back home and not have the phone ringing off the hook. I was in agony. The neurologist was called, and decided that we needed to try a migraine medication. Migraine? I've never had anything anyone ever called a migraine before, but I'll try it if it might help. I'd probably try anything at that point. It helped. Immediately.
So now I am working on yet another possibility for all of this pain and frustration. Migraines. In the meantime, we will still be doing a spinal tap to at least get a baseline reading if not a definitive diagnosis on the intracranial hypertension and removing my gallbladder as soon as we can get it set up. I'm so tired of being in so much pain!
Friday, December 18, 2009
Seeking Christmas
Christmas Eve is a week from today. My creche is on the mantle, waiting for the small figure of the baby Jesus. My tree is in it's stand, waiting for the lights and ornaments that will make it sparkle like magic. I have a list of things to do to keep me busy... baking, wrapping, watching. Yet it feels almost empty this year.
My decorations sit in their boxes, waiting to be set out in their places. There is the beautiful nativity scene embraced by the wings of an angel, lit gently as a nightlight. The lovely Madonna figure crafted many years ago by my aunt that used to grace my Grandparent's house with her gentle presence each Christmas. The sweetly smiling Santa figure that my husband and I picked out our first Christmas that we were together. The angel with feathered wings. The glass ornaments. All of them are waiting patiently for me, sitting reproachfully in the boxes that fill up the space on the floor where I walk around them and carefully avoid looking at them.
I had planned to make lovely goody bags for friends and family this year filled with homemade candies and cookies. The list of what I am planning to make grows smaller and smaller as Christmas grows closer. My alternative plan is ready to go.
Instead, I sit on the couch and wait. I wait, along with my special decorations, along with Mary, Joseph, the Shepherds and the Wise Men. I watch in the dark stillness of the night, wrapped in a nearly finished blanket and unable to sleep. I seek and hope that I am prepared when it breaks through.
I seek the joy, the light, the love of the season. My spirit is cold in me as I wait for the nights of joy that I pray are coming soon. This year it seems that my heart is duller in my breast, my spirit farther away from me, my energy sapped. I have heard myself say, more than once, that "Christmas is just another day this year" and I wonder at how it got this far.
So I press my face close to the spicy needles of my Christmas tree, inhaling the sharp aroma of the sap and rejoicing in the tickling of the branches against my skin. I light a candle to ward off the darkness, praying for the light to lighten my heavy heart. I play the music of the season; carols and ancient tunes sung by joyful voices, ballets played in tuneful splendor by orchestras, thoughtful musical meditations played on the organ. I pray that the music will wash away the slowness that is shadowing my every movement and weighing me down.
I seek out the beauty and I pray. I wait, I listen, and I yearn for that moment in time that is coming when a miracle is born in the darkness of an unknown night.
My decorations sit in their boxes, waiting to be set out in their places. There is the beautiful nativity scene embraced by the wings of an angel, lit gently as a nightlight. The lovely Madonna figure crafted many years ago by my aunt that used to grace my Grandparent's house with her gentle presence each Christmas. The sweetly smiling Santa figure that my husband and I picked out our first Christmas that we were together. The angel with feathered wings. The glass ornaments. All of them are waiting patiently for me, sitting reproachfully in the boxes that fill up the space on the floor where I walk around them and carefully avoid looking at them.
I had planned to make lovely goody bags for friends and family this year filled with homemade candies and cookies. The list of what I am planning to make grows smaller and smaller as Christmas grows closer. My alternative plan is ready to go.
Instead, I sit on the couch and wait. I wait, along with my special decorations, along with Mary, Joseph, the Shepherds and the Wise Men. I watch in the dark stillness of the night, wrapped in a nearly finished blanket and unable to sleep. I seek and hope that I am prepared when it breaks through.
I seek the joy, the light, the love of the season. My spirit is cold in me as I wait for the nights of joy that I pray are coming soon. This year it seems that my heart is duller in my breast, my spirit farther away from me, my energy sapped. I have heard myself say, more than once, that "Christmas is just another day this year" and I wonder at how it got this far.
So I press my face close to the spicy needles of my Christmas tree, inhaling the sharp aroma of the sap and rejoicing in the tickling of the branches against my skin. I light a candle to ward off the darkness, praying for the light to lighten my heavy heart. I play the music of the season; carols and ancient tunes sung by joyful voices, ballets played in tuneful splendor by orchestras, thoughtful musical meditations played on the organ. I pray that the music will wash away the slowness that is shadowing my every movement and weighing me down.
I seek out the beauty and I pray. I wait, I listen, and I yearn for that moment in time that is coming when a miracle is born in the darkness of an unknown night.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Night is drawing in. It happens daily - sometimes with a flourish of stunning color, sometimes with a whisper and a gentle fading of the daylight. Tonight it feels sudden and it brings my sadness closer to my heart.
I try watching the cat as he races around chasing prey that only he can see, but find tears pricking my eyelids. I watch the dog as he jealously guards his food and water, and find that I am guarding my wounded heart. Doubts wash over me in the growing darkness and all the lights in the cottage are not enough to keep them away tonight.
Lord, why this way? Why, when I try to serve you as faithfully as my human limitations will allow me to, do you allow my world to be swept out from underneath me? Where are you in this?
There is comfort, but it feels cold and hollow in this moment of darkness. One more reason for those friends who look at my life wondering how I can remain so stubbornly a member of a christian church when those whom churches have lifted up as leaders have let me down so many times to ask me if I can continue to be a part of it. Tonight I cannot answer their question. I have no answers left.
I want to wander out into the darkness, away from the street lights and headlights. To find my place like Jacob and wrestle with God over this latest betrayal until I can find the blessing in it. Instead I wander in words. I try to put names to all of the fears, doubts, worries, and tangents swirling through my head. I know that someday I will be able to claim the blessing in all of this pain. To see the light shining through the darkness and not feel as if it was there to burn me instead of heal me.
These words begin the healing. A simple, concrete act of moving forward. Allowing the cleansing of the wound to happen. It hurts, but each time it will hurt less. Morning will come and one day I will notice that the light no longer burns me and I will be free.
I try watching the cat as he races around chasing prey that only he can see, but find tears pricking my eyelids. I watch the dog as he jealously guards his food and water, and find that I am guarding my wounded heart. Doubts wash over me in the growing darkness and all the lights in the cottage are not enough to keep them away tonight.
Lord, why this way? Why, when I try to serve you as faithfully as my human limitations will allow me to, do you allow my world to be swept out from underneath me? Where are you in this?
There is comfort, but it feels cold and hollow in this moment of darkness. One more reason for those friends who look at my life wondering how I can remain so stubbornly a member of a christian church when those whom churches have lifted up as leaders have let me down so many times to ask me if I can continue to be a part of it. Tonight I cannot answer their question. I have no answers left.
I want to wander out into the darkness, away from the street lights and headlights. To find my place like Jacob and wrestle with God over this latest betrayal until I can find the blessing in it. Instead I wander in words. I try to put names to all of the fears, doubts, worries, and tangents swirling through my head. I know that someday I will be able to claim the blessing in all of this pain. To see the light shining through the darkness and not feel as if it was there to burn me instead of heal me.
These words begin the healing. A simple, concrete act of moving forward. Allowing the cleansing of the wound to happen. It hurts, but each time it will hurt less. Morning will come and one day I will notice that the light no longer burns me and I will be free.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
The Path Ahead
The sun is warm on my shoulders as I stand, contemplating the beauty of the single rose on my bush as it blooms. This double blessing - the sun and the rose - are my total focus for the moment, and I am content. Sometimes it takes a serious trauma of the heart to make us remember to see the wonder in the simpler things. The trauma is still there, I will continue to deal with the fallout of lies and betrayal on a daily basis as I move forward, but I can start to see the beauty and the hope.
I wish that I could say that I am thankful for the hurt and for the way I have been moved forward to lean even harder on God than I have in a long while, but I can't. Not yet. I have to take this thing one day, one moment, at a time. I will pick up some little bit of something out of the muck, rub at it a little to find what it once was and will be again, decide if it is something I want to keep or let it lie in the refuse of the path I am walking and move on. If it is something valuable enough for me to keep, I will use my rags to clean it off before putting it into my bag and moving forward. It is hard work, this particular growing edge. But I walk it with companions who have been here in their own way and are standing on the other side to offer me hope and support as I need it. My husband, family, and friends offer me what strength they can and the gracious gift of their prayers. It will be enough to see me through.
In the meantime I am thankful for my single rose and the warmth of the sun on my shoulders.
I wish that I could say that I am thankful for the hurt and for the way I have been moved forward to lean even harder on God than I have in a long while, but I can't. Not yet. I have to take this thing one day, one moment, at a time. I will pick up some little bit of something out of the muck, rub at it a little to find what it once was and will be again, decide if it is something I want to keep or let it lie in the refuse of the path I am walking and move on. If it is something valuable enough for me to keep, I will use my rags to clean it off before putting it into my bag and moving forward. It is hard work, this particular growing edge. But I walk it with companions who have been here in their own way and are standing on the other side to offer me hope and support as I need it. My husband, family, and friends offer me what strength they can and the gracious gift of their prayers. It will be enough to see me through.
In the meantime I am thankful for my single rose and the warmth of the sun on my shoulders.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Storm Clouds
Have you ever had someone do something that broke your trust in them? I'm sure all of us have. Lately I've been grieving the loss of trust in someone, and realizing that I am of a sensitive enough nature that it takes more time than some for me to "get over it". I keep wondering what I could have done differently, said differently, to have made the betrayal not happen. In reality there is nothing that I personally could have done differently, but it doesn't take the sting away.
Perhaps my brooding comes from a deeply feeling nature that has always been a peacemaker. I would much rather sit down with someone over a pot of tea and repair a relationship than let it go. Unfortunately I have learned that sometimes that makes things worse. The second betrayal always cuts deeper, somehow.
So I brew my own pot of tea, perhaps a nice healing infusion of chamomile, lavender, rose, and lemon balm, and set out to nurture my own heart. Time with my journal and a good book, perhaps a nice long, soaky, hot bath, and maybe even some baking, and I'll be back to my usual peaceable self soon.
Perhaps my brooding comes from a deeply feeling nature that has always been a peacemaker. I would much rather sit down with someone over a pot of tea and repair a relationship than let it go. Unfortunately I have learned that sometimes that makes things worse. The second betrayal always cuts deeper, somehow.
So I brew my own pot of tea, perhaps a nice healing infusion of chamomile, lavender, rose, and lemon balm, and set out to nurture my own heart. Time with my journal and a good book, perhaps a nice long, soaky, hot bath, and maybe even some baking, and I'll be back to my usual peaceable self soon.
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