There are still a lot of items on my moving punch list, and numerous items on my calendar that narrow down when I can get them done. Then there are the usual chores that have to be done if I want to keep my living space from descending into dusty chaos. Things to do, places to go, people to see must be done, gone to, and seen. But just as important are the spaces in between all that – the places where joy and love shine, and grief and sadness find their way into prayer. Stillness offering unexpected refreshment and a glimpse of the wonder that surrounds.
And, if I’m lucky, the presence of a kindred spirit.
Most of the curtains are up, most of the boxes are emptied, and the majority of what everyday life requires is in place. There are still quite a few things on the punch list, but none of them need to be done RIGHT NOW. So there’s a new jigsaw puzzle set up on the table in the living room, and I spent an hour reading last night.
Sometimes, time is better spent without getting things done. The work can wait – sometimes, the rest cannot…
I had my work space all set up in a cozy nook on the second floor. The window offered a lovely view of the street, which becomes a mountain view once the leaves fall off the trees across the street. That spot also gets the best light in the house, and is the one place that is perfect for growing plants. But that spot isn’t big enough to provide a work space and a growing space. So I packed up my work table and bookcases and moved them into a spare bedroom.
It was a journey of thirty-five feet, but it took four hours and a bit of rearranging to get the space in good order (I snapped this picture about halfway through the process). With such a short distance to travel, I was surprised at how dislocated everything got. It took me almost as long to relocate everything in the new work space as it did to set it up in the first space.
In the grand scheme of things, this little move up a hallway doesn’t amount to much. In the present, this little move doesn’t feel as little as I thought it would. This dislocation and relocation are small tremors that barely affect my life, not full-on quakes that throw everything into chaos, and I should not confuse the two. Perhaps one of the gifts of this mini-move is a chance to put such things in proper perspective.
The work space is all set now; the table is in front of the window, so I get a lovely view of the side yard. I have yet to set up the plant space. I’m sure that will involve some dislocation and relocation as well…
With two cats, two humans, a couple of plants, and workers in to finish this and that project, the floors require a lot of cleaning. It takes at least an hour a week to run the vacuum over all the upstairs and downstairs floors; it’s up to almost three hours when I wet-mop afterward. Throw in bathroom cleaning, laundry, dishes, dusting, and neatening and it’s an eight hour commitment every week to keep things in decent shape. Those eight hours of work aren’t making any noticeable difference: their effectiveness is only noticed in their absence. When there are no clean towels or dishes the value of such upkeep becomes visible. That upkeep is a necessary part of a life well and fully lived.
The older I get, the more I think daily prayer is the spiritual equivalent of keeping the house clean and in order. It doesn’t seem to get me very far and rarely produces obvious results, but things go quickly downhill in its absence. I need it to live a meaningful, full life. Over time, daily prayer has changed my spirit’s home, deeply and incrementally. I doubt I’d ever be at home in the world and in my own skin without it.
Light bulbs, curtain rings, shelf liner, a couple of cleaners, and some paper bags – a bunch of stuff that didn’t make it into the more organized boxes. It took me a good two hours to pull them out of the box and put them in their proper places. Once this box was empty, I moved onto another full of thrown together things. It took another couple of hours.
A friend of mine who was a professional mover said that eighty percent of the packing and unpacking takes about twenty percent of the time; it’s the last twenty percent, the catch-all boxes and thrown together piles, that takes eighty percent of the moving time. That small percent of odds and ends consumes so much time and effort. Is it worth all that effort for these few things? Hard to say. I don’t think my life would have suffered much if I’d just thrown these items away.
Sometimes it seems like the same eighty/twenty rule applies to people – the high maintenance few taking a lot more time and effort than the lower maintenance many. Unlike items in a box, it’s clear that they are worth every effort – the lost, the fragile, and the difficult are treasures that we cannot discount or discard without incalculable loss to our inner and outer lives.
He told them this parable. “Which of you, if you had a hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that was lost, until he found it? Luke 15:3-4
In the past twenty-two months, I’ve called four houses home: the place my husband and I raised our two sons in Massachusetts, a rectory built for the previous priest, a rental with a view and good neighbors, and the newly renovated original rectory. I still have boxes to unpack in this new space, and there is a list of things left undone that need attention. I’m still figuring out what life here will look like – and how these changes in location and configuration have reconfigured both my inner and outer lives…
If you’ve the inclination, feel free to unpack a few boxes with me – and a few of your own as well…
If the sun hadn’t glanced off the field as I walked to town, I’d have missed it. But it did. Condensation + Sunlight + Vantage Point = Illumination.
At first, I saw only the sparkling. Then, the amazing variation in color and form. Finally, abundant and sacred life with its own purpose. A whole world of wonder at my feet that asks of me nothing but attention.
Soon, the winter will bury the field in snow, and these blades will crumble into the soil, making way for next year’s growth. It won’t last, just as my own life won’t. But isn’t it amazing? And isn’t it enough?
All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, the flower falls, but the world of the Lord endures forever. I Peter 1:24-25
Friday, I drove from Manchester Center (Vermont) to New Durham (New Hampshire). The roads started looking familiar thirty miles before arriving on Birch Hill. This isn’t surprising: I lived on Birch Hill from seventh grade well into my college years. It’s been over thirty years since I called Birch Hill home, but it still feels like coming home whenever I’m on it.
Saturday, I made the drive from New Durham to Wareham (Massachusetts). Once the treads hit Route 24, I was in home territory. This isn’t surprising: I’ve spent the past twenty years there. It’s where my children grew up, and where my husband and I found life-giving work and play.
Today, I made the drive from Wareham to Manchester Center (Vermont). When I hit Route 11, the landscape and houses started looking familiar. I got a feeling of getting close to home. This is surprising: I’ve only lived in Manchester since mid-September. It’s where people will come to visit me, and where I will find life-giving work and play in the coming years.
I’ve had other places I’ve called home, and felt that same love deep in my bones when I drove back there. But I’ve never had that feeling of homecoming for three different places in a matter of a couple of days and a couple hundred miles. I can’t say why this moves me so, but it does. To find a single place in the world to call home is a blessing. I suspect finding more than one is catching a glimpse of this world’s true nature: holy and infused with love.
The chive plant came from the library learning garden – originally from seeds I planted in 2002. It’s new home has a view of the Green Mountains. The Day Lilies moved from Kingston, Massachusetts, leaving a beautifully landscaped side yard to bring color and joy to the front walk of the rectory in the coming Spring. In a week, the heirloom irises that originated in a great-grandfather’s Cape Cod garden will take up residence around the two lamp posts – making a hundred year stop in Sandwich and Wareham along the way. If perennials could talk, how many could tell such travel tales?
I inherited a whole banking of perennials when I settled in Wareham, and I’ve sent cuttings from most all of them out into the wide world to grace the many gardens of friends, family, and strangers. The love and hard work of gardeners past and present grow in beauty and grace in the plot of land I call home, just as my love and hard work has gone far beyond my little world. From one place to another, from one gardener to another, the bounty of the earth binds me to so many others. Through space and time, life flows. I’m just a small part of the ongoing blessing of creation.
[Many thanks to Debbie Hill for the Day Lilies, Jeanne Condon Pena for the Irises, and Alice Atkins for a whole banking of plants.]
The drill is still in Wareham, along with the level. The spade and my garden bag are here. That’s not a problem until I have a specific task that needs doing – hanging a curtain rod here in Vermont or digging up bulbs there in Massachusetts. So the choice is to buy a second set of supplies or wait until the next trip to get the right tools in the right place. I’d rather not have two of everything, so the tasks will have to wait until the next time I travel from one house to the other. Being in two places at once, calling two places home, has its challenges.
The same is true of my inner life. When I let my mind and spirit wander from one idea to another, when I skip centering my whole self, I find myself without the tools I need to live a life that values God and Neighbor over convenience and distraction. When I move through the daily tasks with my mind in another place, I appreciate neither activity nor thought. Trying to be in two places at once I cannot find either. It’s a peculiar way to get lost. I know the way home, of course; I just have to set my feet on a single path and walk. God and neighbor are still at the path’s end. Along with my whole self.
