On Living

"I know sometimes it seems difficult..." I began.

"Difficult!" All she seemed able to do was echo my words, spitting them out as if they tasted bitter.

"Yes, I know, but we are alive," I argued, "Think how alive we are. It isn't like Southstone where we just went on and on and nothing ever happened. Here I can feel us living. Don't you feel as if you were being stretched?"

"It hurts to be stretched."

Greengage Summer, Rumer Godden

Living right now is just like that quote. The type of Living that stretches and stretches, pulls and pulls. There's just so much. I can't put my thoughts in order, so I'm leaning on quotes.

"We are never more in touch with life than when life is painful, never more in touch with hope than we are then, if only the hope of another human presence to be with us and for us." (Clown in the Belfry, Frederick Buechner)

"The characteristics of Pains and Pleasures is that they are unmistakably real, and therefore, as far as they go, give the man who feels them a touchstone of reality." (The Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis)

If pain makes life real, it also makes hope unmistakably real. Hope becomes something to hold, something to wield. Also, something to lose. But it's there, undeniably there.

Sometimes, I have to pull myself out of my narrow world and just laugh. It's not a cynical laugh or a despairing laugh, but a laugh of pure joy. A laugh that realizes how small I am and how great God truly is.

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;	5
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;	10
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

(God's Grandeur, Gerald Manley Hopkins)

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Documenting Life, Part 2

For Jacqueline
I made you a cookie. But I eated it.

I love the hollyhocks.

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The Rhythm of Life

I woke up today and saw the sun shining through the window onto the peaceful sleeping faces of my sisters. It was one of those moments when time just stands still. And I felt the piercings of joy. It was beautiful.

A week ago, Allison has an absolutely beautiful post on Lent and the metaphysics of catching light. And I've been thinking about it a lot. I can see and thank God for the light that falls into my lap, like this morning, but when light seems far off, I do not go actively seeking it. But I am going to try and do so.

...

A portrait of my evening.


We all lounge around the living room. I play a quiet melody on the piano. I love sitting there playing and watching life go on, like having a soundtrack for life. I could see Jazz doing homework, Jacqueline just sitting happily, Leo quietly reading aloud. Well, as quiet as he gets. It's after four, and I'm surprisingly not tired. Thankfully not tired.

Dad comes home, and the family is complete. I segue into another song, a jazzy Gershwin piece. Dad loves jazz pieces. My cousin comes over and visits while I play through Clementi sonatas and play Jason Mraz by ear. Mom asks if I'm too tired to do chores, and I'm not. I love sweeping... it's the only chore I like, heh, but still. I'm glad I'm awake and have the strength to help around the house.

I'm coming to love this spontaneous rhythm of life. It's different for me, very different, I used to plan out every minute of the day. But my illness leaves no room for any type of plans. And so I spend my days like this, listening to laughter, watching memories unfold before me, sharing joys with my family ... and catching light.

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