'a life worth grieving': mystical sake -- viewing a bad day through a warm lens...

'Good Grief'

Terror. Depression. I awoke to these 'possibilities' this morning.

The director of financial aid stopped in my office for kaffee klatch. I sensed the opportunity for cathartic counseling and plunked down a dime ('Peanuts' inflation). When it didn't go that/my way, I added a jumbo paper clip as psycho-currency. Desperate, I added the Office of Enrollment debit card - including a Pacific lanyard. In the end, his 'George Carlin wisdom' failed me -- or rather, the grief and fear were too strong. I removed the currencies one at a time.

On my glum list: we had an appraiser in to evaluate the house yesterday. He is Eeyore. Can't expect much good from him. Further complication -- the friends wanting to buy our home, sans realtor, are the eternal hope of my wonderful neighbor across the street, who is desperate to sell his home and wants them to buy it. If they buy ours and not his...for a less than desirable sum...he is hurt twice: his buyers become ours...and his home is devalued by a lower than market sale. Ouch.

Then I ask -- Can I really sustain all aspects of life in Warsaw -- hey, I'll drive to Ft. Wayne when I need to. Nope, F.A. man answered - not in the winter. The roads will be impassable (it's been decades since he lived in Indiana...).

My boss interviews a possible me-replacement: I don't like 'Molly'. She's not good enough for him. In fact, when she arrives, I ask her to wait in the lobby, rather than in my office, in an uncharacteristic display of distancing.

An email arrived from a piano parent - 'We will miss you forever'. Another says she will organize a piano student/parent petition and send it off to Indiana. Will I ever have a stable of students again?

I go home and weep at the beauty of our back yard, newly groomed by a young pacific gardener...a yard that bears the marks of efforts that I only appreciate now...though they are incomplete. I try to live in the 'now' -- and pot new ivys for a front porch hanging garden...even if I can't take them with me.

So...after a day with no perspective...little strength insight/in sight with which to fight the grief over the loss of our lives here, I poured myself a small glass of sake at home before walking down the 'Mile' to CoCoRo's for a meal that might never happen in Warsaw (we can open a japanese restaurant in Warsaw, I declare to C!!) -- to avoid having to order (pay) for a japanese carafe of the same...but I ordered one anyway...and wish I had gotten a large.

Grief. That's the heart of the topic. I can't stop today.

Fr. C. says, it's OK. This stage takes a long time. It's not OK with me. I want to find a way to spiritualize it. To rise above it...or rather travel outside it. There is the calling that, by grace, I can live. I keep declaring that I can live by gratitude, not loss. But...the grief continues.

The weather today -- warm, but not humid. When, I ask the carioca, will it be this way in Indiana? Oh, September 4th. Or maybe May 24th. Suddenly, the breezy perfect evening is a knife. We discuss the music program in Warsaw. It's clear that most (except the search committee...) do not know I am a church musician. C's concern - and mine: that the current and talented pianist/choral director not know of it...not have it in her awareness. Yes, I concur -- I would only take up that roll/role (a la CoCoRo's) in the same way I did here: when the one doing it no longer does -- and no other way.

Then...in sake wisdom over raw fish, I see our first year as the 'Year of the gathering'...by spiritual centrifugal force...a melding of hearts and spirits and minds...in a way that would galvanize and minister to them...and do the same to us. A celebration.

So - in/through my sake-sobbing - I come to the soil of my heart...where I desire to till -- self-sacrificially, joyfully and without overthinking -- the garden ground for a new life.