Half Caminos and Irony

Last Saturday was our final #caminotraining of the season. As we headed up into the hills, Christina Rosetti's poem "Up-hill" ran through my head; the rhythm matching my footfalls. It consistently comes to mind at a certain point of the trail when the switchbacks stop and it settles into a long, relentless climb:

Up-hill

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.

It's a pilgrimage poem short enough to remember and deep enough to encompass both my actual physical hiking and the metaphor for life and death that pilgrimage in general and hiking in particular have become for me.

We were supposed to fly to Spain today: one more coronavirus detour among the billions made by people everywhere. In spite of that particular disappointment we still wanted to celebrate the fifth anniversary (of me being alive? of us all making it through? of cancer held off? surely not the diagnosis itself) in a real and really embodied way. A pilgrimage seemed right, and still does. Instead of the full Camino Primitivo in Spain we are walking a half-camino here in the Santa Barbara area. Over the course of the time we would have been walking in Spain, we hope to walk every other day matching the mileage of that particular day on the camino. We plan for 8 days of walking and just over 100 miles. Some days will be hiking through the glorious mountains behind us, and other days we'll walk the coast: we will have walked most of the coast between Carpinteria and the Ellwood butterfly preserve by the time we are done. 

It will be a very different pilgrimage from what I had planned. We'll be doing the physical labor, yes, but will still be very much tied to the domestic and mundane--all of it while hoping for some sort of space for deep reflection and transformation. Oh the irony! When I teach my course on Christian pilgrimage, I often find myself encouraging students who are embarking on their own pilgrimages (and worrying that God won't show up in a meaningful way): "He's already there!...but we are not guaranteed mountaintop spiritual experiences." I'm grateful for how often I have already plowed that row of thinking. Being tied to the responsibilities of laundry and feeding people and tidying up feels far-off from a mountaintop-like divergence from the routine. We will be coming home every day, and of course spending the days in between at home with the children. 

Adding to the irony is that this season falls after 18 months during which I have felt the call to stay put and tend rather than build, to try to follow-through rather than envision fresh pursuits. I really enjoy coming up with new plans and how to go after them: but am not as excited about the (sometimes quite boring) day-to-day faithfulness required to see those very things through. So it is hard to contemplate the pilgrimage with all of the work and exhaustion of 16-mile days in the hills without many of the perks: the thousand-year-old churches, Spanish food and drink, and time with J away from the daily round. Hard, and also just right.

Christian pilgrims through at least the last 15 centuries have gone on pilgrimage for a variety of reasons: devotion and repentance, but also but also a longing for adventure and a break from limiting circumstances. So I find myself in good company.

As I reflected on all of these things during our hike last Saturday, I was put in mind of a poem by Eavan Boland (it was obviously poetry day on the trail):

The Necessity for Irony

On Sundays,
when the rain held off,
after lunch or later,
I would go with my twelve year old
daughter into town,
and put down the time
at junk sales, antique fairs.

There I would
lean over tables,
absorbed by
lace, wooden frames,
glass. My daughter stood
at the other end of the room,
her flame-coloured hair
obvious whenever—
which was not often—

I turned around.
I turned around.
She was gone.
Grown. No longer ready
to come with me, whenever
a dry Sunday
held out its promises
of small histories. Endings.

When I was young
I studied styles: their use
and origin. Which age
was known for which
ornament: and was always drawn
to a lyric speech, a civil tone.
But never thought
I would have the need,
as I do now, for a darker one:

Spirit of irony,
my caustic author
of the past, of memory,—

and of its pain, which returns
hurts, stings—reproach me now,
remind me
that I was in those rooms,
with my child,
with my back turned to her,
searching—oh irony!—
for beautiful things.

On this particular hike I especially meditated on the end. Here I am in beautiful Santa Barbara county. Here is an opportunity to turn around, and look. Accordingly, I think one of my "words" for this pilgrimage is a confirmation not to despise the everyday tending of life.  I have in fact been given the opportunity to walk my pilgrimage right here in the very midst of it, and starting as I have taught that pilgrimages always begin--right at my own front door.

We start walking on Saturday! 16 miles in the mountains above and coastline below Carpinteria. 👣 

H/T to TK for pointing me to EB ♡

Tour of the Routines

Calendars! Routines! Liturgies! I love them all, love marking time, love thinking about how the ways we choose to shape our time shapes us, in turn, as well. I also thought I'd take you on a tour of some of my routines; so many of you are far away. 

Now that we are five years out, I have a pretty well-established liturgy for this time of year and thought I would share it. It steadies me to know there are certain markers and rituals to look forward to in a season that by nature is one of uncertainty.  

Looking forward to the familiar can help even if it is unpleasant, as with my CT prep by Barium smoothie. I know I'm going to feel really sick as a result of taking this stuff, but I also know I'll get better soon.

                                        

not my favorite flavor

I also know what I'm going to wear to the CT in order to streamline the process (no metal anywhere means no gowns!) and that there will be no milk in my tea. I know that it will probably be Luis or Christine starting my IV, and we will chat, and it will be quick. The liturgy this time was only disrupted by us all being masked. It's hard to feel like a human instead of a specimen in the midst of these scans, but happily in these contexts everyone is pretty practiced at working against that and so the masks didn't make as much of a difference as they do, say, out in public. I was definitely seen (inside and out..haha). 

The more extensive routines come with my testing appointments down in Los Angeles. There's the prepping of the car (thank you, J) and the packing of the lunch (or dinner) in my little cooler. The night before, I pack my bag for the waiting room:

some of my favorite things (detail)

The mask is new. The dark chocolate is a must. The iPad is not pictured.

The visit itself if well-choreographed and extremely familiar; I literally have lost count of the number of MRIs I have had. A dozen visits? 20 scans? However, with COVID, even the familiar landscape has changed: instead of the bustling "city" Cedars-Sinai usually is,  it was a ghost town. Me and a security guard on the street.

Instead of my usual MRI kit, there was an extra addition:

special mask with no metal on the nose ✔

I also have my routines in the car. Usually it's NPR on the way down, reminding me that while I may feel in a tough spot I am part of a wider world with wider problems. On good trips I pray about them. On worse trips I can be sad or angry. This time I listened to some news but also made a lot of space for quiet. 

During the scan I always listen to the Hamilton soundtrack (through headphones and earplugs). Once, early on,  I requested Chopin as my MRI soundtrack with the idea that it would be soothing. As it turns out, the "Chopin Channel" that was piped in played the same famous nocturne about every third piece. Back then I had two MRIs back-to-back--about 90 minutes straight in the machine. The repeating Chopin made me unable to tell how much time had passed and I felt a little crazy. Hamilton plays through in order, and since I am familiar with the show I can know whether I have drifted off to sleep and exactly how long it has been. My two back-to-back scans lasted almost exactly the length of the first act! Hamilton also debuted on Broadway at basically the same time my cancer returned, so it's a marker of an era. 

**I'd like to take a moment and acknowledge how amazing it is that they provide headphones and music during the MRI, and that they even take requests. Thank you, Cedars-Sinai. As an amateur connoisseur of MRI machines across the country I do not take this for granted**

On the drive home, it's often Taylor Swift on repeat:  

Are we out of the woods yet? Are we out of the woods yet?
Are we out of the woods yet? Are we out of the woods?
Are we in the clear yet? Are we in the clear yet?
Are we in the clear yet? In the clear yet, good

Are we out of the woods yet? Are we out of the woods yet?
Are we out of the woods yet? Are we out of the woods?
Are we in the clear yet? Are we in the clear yet?
Are we in the clear yet? In the clear yet, good

This time, as I was driving home and singing those questions over and over, I had a moment where I wondered what exactly asking those questions over and over to myself might be doing.  I knew there wasn't an answer like I was looking for; I've been told that I won't get a permanent "in the clear now, good" answer at any time. Which is true for all of us, in one way or another, if those are the kinds of questions we are asking.

I decided to try switching out those questions for other ones that come with answers, and put this album in around the halfway mark to see me home: 

The whole of nature groans with longing
We ache for that promised glory
Still we rejoice because we know
plans formed of old, faithful and sure

The whole of nature groans with longing
We wait for that promised glory
Still we rejoice because we know
that sorrow’s end is coming

He will swallow up death
and wipe the tears from our faces
He will swallow up death
and wipe the tears from our faces
We’ll sing this is our God we’ve waited for
and he saved us
He will swallow up death
and wipe the tears from our faces

Here in the darkness of our mourning
We wait for the Light that’s coming
And on that day we will return
with joy and gladness singing

Behold, your God
He will come and save you

(also 2015. What a year).

I opened up the sunroof and was amused that the view was basically the same as during all of my scans (you know, the special ceiling tiles they have).

complete with Nutmeg's handprints from a recent "parade"

Besides the change in the homecoming soundtrack, I've made one other significant deviation from the usual routine. 

Ever since I was caught completely off-guard with the metastatic diagnosis, I have not waited to again get surprised by news in a doctor's office. I come home from the CT scan and we immediately fax in a request for the imaging and report, in two sets: one mailed to my oncologist in LA and the other for patient pick-up. Sometime between 48-72 hours later I drive out to Patterson Avenue and retrieve a small manila envelope. I walk to the car and sit inside. I pull out the report, folded around a disc of images that I cannot access, and then read the report which will tell me whether the cancer has returned to my lungs. If the kids are with me, I wait and read it after I get home--still in the car, but in the driveway.  

We are trying to follow the stay-at-home guidelines. I know this particular routine is not essential. I have only requested the records sent to LA this time. It makes me very uncomfortable to wait, but I also hope that the practice in waiting and the space provided will leave room for other questions and hoping. 

That change is definitely the most difficult part of my liturgies this time around.

As we prepare to do a lot of walking that is not routine, I hope we have time to consider which routines we keep and which need to be traded for something new.

PS: I heard back on 6/2 that my MRI on 5/30 was clear: my leg looks good. I'll share here when I hear about my CT scan. ♡ Oh goodness, at the telephone follow-ups instead of in-person appointments this time around.

Happy (Fifth) Anniversary!

Hello, I'm back. Three years later. With the advent of Instagram and teenagers, I left the blogging behind. I almost want to tap and shake the computer to see whether it still works (the blogging, not the computer)! In a season when I feel prompted--compelled-- to step away from Facebook and Instagram, and when I'm wanting to process some new things in old ways, I'm going to see whether it works to dust this old thing off. We'll see. I'm glad you're here. 

In other news--

It's that time of year again!

Our lives revolve around all sorts of calendars: Academic calendars. The Church calendar. Sports seasons. We have chosen to mostly eschew the Hallmark calendar, although I did get this cool T-shirt for Mother's Day this year:

Anyway, since 2015 we keep the Scans calendar as well, and it's that time of year again. The fifth anniversary has rolled around in the midst of a pandemic. It's an anniversary marked in very embodied ways, as every sense is engaged: the taste of the Barium "smoothies," the touch of IV needles and gowns and lying on tables of various imaging machines. Hearing the clanging of the MRI machine--and the Hamilton soundtrack I always listen to through headphones during that scan. Even the smells of the antiseptic are evocative of a specific time and place (in this case, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center) just as the smell of diesel mixed with rain transports me straight to London in wintertime.  No abstract Hallmark cards here. 

Circling back around to face my mortality as regularly scheduled has been a bit more intense than usual. The onset of the pandemic--after the preparatory buying of toilet paper, pesto and chocolate chips (priorities)--was emotionally quite difficult. Loss after loss kept coming, in waves--not particularly for me, but for people I love and their people and cities, for all of us. 

I finally sorted out that part of the overwhelm was that the experience was echoing the emotional signature of 2015. As I've written about before, the cancer diagnoses, losses and changes came fast and furious--seemingly without time to breathe. A whole new normal. Back then we knew that grieving was called for, but without knowing how bad it was going to get; what there would be to grieve. During COVID, it has been the same, but the losses were amplified: this was everyone's storm, instead of just mine. In early April I was flipping through the newspaper when I came across this headline:

Staying Positive Is Not Always Best: A Cancer Survivor Shares Her Lessons.

And it was a relief to read many of my feelings in someone else's words. I've adopted some of her tricks--like no new things in the evening. And I've been a little more gentle with myself about limitations: I got home from my CT exam around 8:30am but felt like I had used up all of my "doing what I have to but don't want to" budget for the day. 

And yet. All of the hard things notwithstanding. Even with fear and side effects--it's a Happy Anniversary. I'm deeply grateful. These past five years have brought so many gifts. Some that I knew to hope for, but others that I could not have imagined. For one thing, I've been gifted with the growth and experiences of seeing the Fab Four grow from this to that:

We've had the privilege of leading another Europe Semester (2018) and the great gift of continuing relationships with those special people.

There have been family reunion(s) and birthday parties and babies born and dance parties. On top of that, the ordinary moments of life--driving carpool and kisses goodnight and grocery shopping and walking with friends and teaching a teenager to drive--are beautiful, terrible gifts. 

So is the hiking I was grateful for in my last post. I have kept training, trying to strengthen my hope muscles along with my legs and lungs. Last summer J started training with me in earnest. This winter we bought tickets to Spain in order to walk the Camino (Primitivo) through northern Spain, where some of my family is from. It has been my dream and the goal that kept me walking my legs back into shape. Of course we are not going now: one of the many plans rerouted in the wake of COVID-19. As disappointing as it is, the refrain in my head has been Proverbs 16:9:

In his heart a man plans his course,
but the LORD determines his steps.

 

So our steps will not be traversing Asturias and Galicia, at least not this year. But there are many reasons to celebrate, the faithfulness of God chief among them. I am grateful for the many Ebenezers of the past five years. We have decided on a different way to celebrate God's goodness in the embodied way that is called for; it's actually why I decided to return to this little space.  We're planning to head out in the wake of scanning season. Lord, have mercy. And Happy Anniversary to us all. 

I remain confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living. (Ps. 27:13).

 

Training

Friends. Today is the second anniversary--two years since the discovery of the tumor that served as a railroad switch and changed the trajectory of our lives. Just typing those words, I still feel the drop and the wind-rush of the roller coaster that ensued.

Next I unconsciously reach and rub my leg, half-expecting to feel the lump that propelled me through scans, flights, and medical offices as if I were on an express train: appointments and procedures flashing by like stations. And on those express trains, there is no getting on or getting off in the regular places. You stay on, skipping past stations and the people waiting on those platforms, everything a blur.

Even so, in the midst of our isolation we were not alone. I still remember and am grateful for the many acts of kindness and generosity that came our way. I remember that scarf you knitted or sand dollar you mailed or salmon you brought for dinner; the card you sent, the internet you got hooked up, the shirt you had made. The check you sent. The car you lent and the children of mine you took into your home when it was inconvenient for you. Later, the rehab walks you took with me that were so slow you must have wanted to scream (but didn’t). I remember how you walked in and joined us in our story--no small thing when it’s a story that constantly reminds of us of something that most folks in our culture would prefer not to ponder.

We have been pondering it anew the past few weeks, life and death and cancer and stories. Viva La Vida fell on Mother’s Day weekend this year. Jesse returned home late last Tuesday from his annual conference in Princeton. The story of my cancer will always be very much caught up in that place and period of our lives. It was such a sweet time, and the sudden loss of it brought a grief of its own.

There is grief, but there is also a great deal of gratitude. I am grateful for gifts I mentioned above. Many of the tangible gifts made it into my #liturgicalradiation series (I Instagrammed my way through radiation, taking some tangible item into my sessions and praying for the person associated with it).

One gift that could not be carried in was a video compilation of some of my nearest and dearest lip-syncing Katy Perry’s “Roar” for me. It was amazing. I have gone back to it again and again. The kids have picked it up as “Mom’s song.” Along with Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song,” it became the theme song of the time (see playlist below). And so when Jesse came back from Princeton this week, he brought us all back presents with an Eye of the Tiger theme. We are all kitted out with tiger stripes and I’m feeling a bit bold and steely and joyful to wear them. Jesse brought me a new hat for hiking in. It’s perfect.

It’s perfect because I now regularly hike. This in itself is no small thing, for me an act of growing courage and hope and strength (we also found out in February that it is probably helping to heal things that one surgeon thought would never improve). I am able to hike because of God’s gracious care of me, and helped along my way by the generous gifts of friends who are still walking with me, both metaphorically and physically. I walk with strong legs and working lungs, fancy boots and steadying poles, all of which have been gifts freely given.

Putting on a tiger hat and walking out of the door brings all of these things to the front of my mind. And now, instead of praying for people during radiation sessions I am praying as I climb the trails. What a tremendous gift it is to walk out of my front door and keep going up the mountain. One step at a time: the opposite of a speeding train.
#caminotraining #dontwaittocelebrate #twoyearslater

Nasturtiums on my last hike

My New Favorite Season

Fall is my favorite season. This is a new development—summer has always been my número uno, with Fall a (very) distant fourth. I despised the shortening of days and the flagrant display of death and loss. As far as I was concerned, the brief and blazing gold of the ginkgo was the only redeeming moment of the season.

Three years ago that started to change. I was on a train on another continent, and after so many years in the land of perennial summer (and youth) I think I was more ready to appreciate the golds and browns. It was then that I began to connect the dots between the glory of a season that had always looked like death to me: and was perhaps more primed to look past the death of winter to the raucous life of spring.

I find myself in the week between all of the scans and the meetings with doctors. I do not expect any big drama, but only the walking forward on this road where we can choose whether to mark time by scans, or by the colors of the leaves, or by the liturgical calendar of the church.

The scans are scheduled and regular. They are very familiar, but there is always some moment in the process where I turn the corner from equanimity to trauma. Sometimes it sneaks up on me, but I am noticing that the waves often start crashing with the injection of one or the other contrast solutions. I reach out my arm, an I.V. port is started, and All The Things are pushed in. Often in these times I have heard an echo of John 21:5 in my head: here I was stretching out my arms, and going where I did not want to go. Tuesday I pulled the full text out in one of the waiting rooms and found:

Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” 19 (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”

What a beautiful and terrible thing to sit with on Tuesday. By what kind of death he was to glorify God. And after this, “Follow me.”

The stretching out of my arms for an I.V. is not death, of course. But it is part of a road marked by death. There is some trauma there, and some being led where I do not want to go. And so I am challenged to consider how, by weak parallel, I might glorify God in the experience. I hope to increasingly turn my eyes to the other sorts of death that might bring Him glory. Like maybe from Colossians 3:5:

“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”

There is so much that is earthly in me, more insidious and more painfully rooted out than cancer. Reflecting on how death might bring glory to God is helpful, as is the promise that immediately precedes the call to put to death what is earthly, indeed what the “therefore” is referencing: “When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” These are the sorts of reflections that now come to mind when I see a ginkgo. Death and life and kinds of death and glory and time passing and future hope. On the way home from church today, I drove past the only one I know of in Santa Barbara to see how it was coming along. It has started to turn but isn’t quite there yet…so I will return and hope to catch it in its glory.

These are some of the reasons why Fall is my new favorite season. I no longer think of the gold and crimson of autumn as all death and loss. Instead I see them as a bonus gift that shouts, “Hey look! There is a death that means glory, and we are not going to let it go unnoticed!” Here is a celebration that points to and promises the beauty that is spring. One season is a death and the other is a resurrection, but they are both glorious. And both say, “Follow me.”

The Glorious First of June

Whenever June comes around, I have been put in mind of two things. My younger brother's birthday is the first--he was born 34 years ago this day (Hooray!). The second is a sea battle that took place between the British and French navies on June 1st--222 years ago. The battle is referred to (in English, anyway) as "The Glorious First of June."

With this year's June, however, I have been playing the "one year ago" game. The first half of June 2015 packed in a lot of action--so there is always something to process. June first -- the anniversary of the MRI and the phone calls with my doctor and the buying of a one-way place ticket to Los Angeles.

Late at night on June 2nd of this year, J and I stood in the kitchen replaying the events from exactly one year earlier--I will not give you the full blow-by-blow of my travel day, but even we had forgotten some of the drama. The switching of airports. The kid throwing up in the car. The switching of flights, again-- me on the phone with my sister while she looked up online to see if there was any option left to us that would get me into a doctor's office at Cedars-Sinai by 8am the next morning. She found it. I booked it. I made it. My luggage didn't. I crawled into bed at Jesse's grandmother's in LA at what was 5:30am on the East Coast. In the midst, so much drama and adrenaline. Looking back, so much to be grateful for. So many offers of help and so much generosity from others.  Mentally we bounce back and forth between the past and the present.

Yesterday, on a glorious first weekend in June, the local cancer center hosted a celebration of life called Viva la Vida (in conjunction with National Cancer Survivors Day). I got an invitation in the mail a few weeks ago, because although most of my care is with the team down at Cedars I did do my radiation treatment locally. At first I thought that it wasn't really for me. Not just that it wasn't the sort of thing that I would want to do; but that it actually wasn't really for someone like me. What does being a cancer survivor really mean, anyway? Who counts? And now that I am doing quite well it is all too easy to remember the dramatic plane rides and forget about the doors that opened with words like "multiple metastases" and "lobectomy" (lung, not brain). Doors that have swung shut again for the present. Who wants to dwell on mortality, anyway? But with now-closed doors there is also at the back of things the concern that I made a great big deal out of nothing. That perhaps this article was written for me: Report: Today the Day They Find Out You're a Fraud. And so accepting an invitation to a celebration for cancer survivors seemed like an assertion of status I don't really have.

Wait a minute? In spite of my fear of claiming something that isn't mine--or that I don't feel that I deserve--as I considered, I took a few steps back. I left the invitation on the refrigerator for a few days (ok, weeks?) and thought about it. I have had cancer. I have. It really happened. I was there. And then less of me was there. It so happens that my cancer doesn't match up with my idea of what qualifies as having had cancer (see Onion article, above, reflecting on a universal condition of man run amok). On reflection, though, I think that outside sources would corroborate that I have had cancer. And survived. So maybe this invitation was for me, after all?

Viva la Vida was also for friends and family of survivors. We haven't talked a ton about cancer with the kids, but they have borne this along with us. And so when I get an invitation that means free sports and lunch and face painting and ice cream and carnival games and crafts and magicians and hair painting nd live music, I decide that I am not going to take that away from them. That maybe it will be good for all of us to name what has gone down this year. And to say it has been hard. And to be grateful to God for getting us through from there to here.

Going to Viva la Vida together was one way to acknowledge that maybe I am doing so well because He has been good and has heard these prayers of ours, and of so many others--not because there was never anything really wrong to begin with. There was something very, very wrong. And for the past year (and who knows how many more?) that part has come untrue. Going into this weekend I realized that not acknowledging the depth of need meant not giving glory to God; meant taking for granted the place in which I now find myself. Which is a good place.


So we went. And we played. And I waited in the (seemingly) interminable line for face painting--twice. It is no small thing that I was able to stand on my own two feet for that long, friends. There were carnival games and an ice cream booth and a cookie booth and a popcorn booth.  Just walk right up, there for the taking--no questions asked. Everything a gift. Painting crafts and lunch and pink streaks in Pixie's hair and jewels on Nutmeg's forehead. Sunshine and sea breezes.

That sea battle I mentioned earlier? War ships have most of their guns along the sides. Instead of lining up his ships with their sides facing a line of the sides of French ships, the commander broke with contemporary conventions and instead ordered each ship to head straight into the line of enemy ships--and through. This meant taking heavy fire on the approach, followed by the ability to blast both sides at once. Into the fire and through. Fully engaged. The Glorious First of June.

Bud "won" the kite because he kept in the air for more than 10 minutes. He ended up letting out ALL of the string.

The Liturgical Calendar on Memorial Day

Here we are again at the end of May.

A year ago this weekend is when everything started to get crazy. When the control I thought I had over my life and activities imploded, and I started waiting for the phone calls that would tell me what I needed to do, or would be permitted to do, and when and where.

As I write, this year, today, the kids are all home from school. It's Memorial Day. They are cooking up some joint activity that involves costumes and bonnets and textiles pulled from neatly folded stacks. They are getting along and working together to realize some vision that I can't quite make out from back here in my bedroom. I don't dare step outside and upset the delicate balance of the magic that is happening.

When I look back on last spring, it seems magical to me, too: a time poised before the precipice. For the past couple of weeks I have been dusting off memories of last year in Princeton: "A year ago today we played football on Princeton's practice fields." "A year ago today we drove up to New York and retrieved Pixie from the cousins." "A year ago today it was so hot we drove down Quaker Bridge Road and bought a Slip n Slide and inflatable pool." (Quaker Bridge: because a Bridge. And Quakers.) That last is bittersweet: how I spent time running between stores, looking for the best deal on a sturdy pool that would last. When the next week I was out of there.

This summer will be a series of anniversaries. I am hoping that there will be time and space to process each in such a way that I can put things to rest and move ahead. 

I have often wondered about my propensity to mark time by specific fixed points. Does everyone keep in the back of their mind what they may have been doing on a particular day the year before? In some ways this makes the regular rhythm of day-to-day more terribly beautiful: an overlay of the past on the pattern of today. There may also have been a time when I would do the same with the future ("This time next month I will be_________"), although I have not been doing it much this year. Since last June the view ahead has been more opaque. For example,  J and I plan to take a lovely trip together soon. We have been planning it and mentally marking it with the hashtag #dontwaittocelebrate. And yet, it keeps sneaking up on me.  There has been little counting down of "this time next month" and last weekend I realized that I am afraid to look forward to it. If I get to enjoy it, great. If not, there will be no smashing to smithereens of expectations.

This feels safe, and yet doesn't quite seem to be the way I want to live in the world: waiting without looking forward. And so I want to pick up the church's liturgical calendar like a piggy bank of stored goodness, and shake it, and see what else it might have for me inside.

I can hear the drumming of Deuteronomy, the Gospels, Paul: "Remember!"

"...you shall not be afraid of them but you shall remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt, the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which the Lord your God brought you out."

"You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today."

"He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.”

"Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound!"

And so of course I think that the church's calendar invites us to remember. To revisit again and again the things that we need keep before us but are liable to forget. Perhaps not all of those are things in the past. I am coming to think that the calendar is a pointing forward, as well. Around and around the years, seemingly marking time and yet (like a corkscrew) moving forward. Reaching out and pulling the future in.

And so as I revisit and remember this summer, I hope to see clearly God's goodness to me in the past: the ancient past, the recent past, the past year. But also to have a clearer vision for where he may be taking me, us. To somehow mark that he knows the plans he has for us: the gift of a future and a hope.