views from the rectory...come visit!

How cute is Lucy?

It's doing it again. The sun is bouncing off the ripples of the breeze-ruffled pond and reflecting in a stretched window-shaped view screen on the master bedroom ceiling. Now it is that I wish my cell phone could capture this as video...and return to it at will for mesmerizing viewing. (hmm...it occurs to me that perhaps my phone might actually do that. Does Motorola have a Hogwarts school of cell phone wizardry? I'd certainly need to attend to become Hermione of all Razr features.)

Long overdue, here are photos of the breathtaking view from the rectory (the interior is in various states of order/disorder, but we're almost there!). These were taken during our first week, when the weather was somber...sometimes stormy...gray around the edges. I like the drama in that. But we've had some brilliant, beautiful, blue-sky days recently which tempt with another view.

The rectory is one of 20 homes surrounding a spring-fed pond with an island in the middle (thus our street name: Island View Drive). The homes vary in age, style, size. But they all have one thing in common: the sloping backyard that ends at the pond, with a second, basement level revealed as you look back at the house. The windmill above belongs to our neighbor; judging from the mowing, I'd say it marks the property line. In the land of no fences and vast expanses of green carpet, I've seen other kinds of 'markers', presumably to remind of that.

View of the opposite shore, from the dining room.

Taken from the driveway: Woods across the street with three of its many inhabitants. Lucy isn't quite sure what they are, but one thing's for sure: they're interlopers and need the business end of a border collie's sheep herding instinct to keep them under control. Translation: lots of barking upon sightings!

The driveway, from kitchen window. The house is full of triptych windows. There are no curtains or blinds at this point, and we almost wish it could stay like that.

One corner of the kitchen. The first week we allowed ourselves the luxury of hanging a few paintings as a reward for progress. The Vine Street kitchen could fit in this space... and still have room for table & chairs...DD's tall desk/cabinet...a newly purchased Martha Stewart 'wicker' sofa (killer sale at KMart! Of course, it didn't come with cushions, but that's a minor detail, right?)...a corner cabinet...and still has plenty of room for walking around!! Oh, and sweeping...

From Lucy's fenced yard: the kitchen at night.

Island view from the deck. What you're not seeing are the stacks of empty Bekins boxes lining the wall.

View from the enclosed porch directly under the deck.
Fr. C has already fallen asleep to a few lightening-filled thunderstorms here.

Bixby looking outside longingly, but securely, from our bed. He's turned into a total candy a$$! Loves the indoor life, doesn't seem to miss catching his own food, has gained a lot of weight and still manages to find time to turn his coat into spun silk, daily. I'm sure it's not as easy as it sounds.

Fr. C's first Sunday: the recessional. St. Anne's is lovely in every way! That will be another picture album.

Ah. Fr. C has just uploaded recent photos from the camera. Sunny day pics!

View from the master bedroom: the pond world, coolly reflected in still water.

The infamous Bixby! Bravely (ha!) venturing out on the deck...which, by the way, is inaccessible from anything below and too high for him to jump off of.

Deep sky blue pond

Sunny deck - and the bridge that connects to the island in the background. Check out the swan boat docked at the bridge!!! I'm thinking 'Christmas present' for DD...but deep down I know it's more fun when you're not the one cleaning and maintaining.

Love to all, near and far!

'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.