Monthly Archives: March 2011

Aging, Family, Travel

A Third Thing

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Imbolc                                         Waxing Bloodroot Moon

We went to the St. Paul Grill tonight for our anniversary dinner.  Our first date was coffee there after a St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Concert.  I learned Kate was a physician and she learned I was not a lawyer, but a clergyman.  Both surprised.

Tonight the place was hopping, full of an odd mixture of opera buffs and hockey fans.  The state high school hockey tournament is in town at the Excel Arena and the Opera is at the Ordway Theatre, both next to each other only a block away from the St. Paul Hotel, location of the Grill.

In addition, just across the block on the diagonal is the Landmark Center, where, in 1990, on this day, Kate and I tied the knot and stomped on a glass in a silken napkin.

Over the meal tonight (lamb chops, medium rare for both of us with a creme brulee for dessert) we talked about the South America cruise to which we committed yesterday.  37 days, an Inca discovery theme, with ports of call all along western South America and up the east coast as far as and including Rio.  This is a retirement present for Kate, a thank you for all her years of hard work as a doc.  I’m just going along for the ride. (Ha.)

Marriage has a palpability, is a third thing in and of itself.  When two come to anniversary, the thing they celebrate is not themselves, but this third thing they have made together.  It is, in every way, as precious and significant as a child, as difficult and rewarding, too.

General

21

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Imbolc                                             Waxing Bloodroot Moon

Two tours today, a long time on my feet.  Hamstrings quivering when I came home.  Gotta back to the resistance training.

Gave a quick tour of the Mourners after the last Titian.  These are remarkable works of art.

Ate lunch with Joy, Tom and Morrie, all three had attended the Seven Days in the Art World lecture.

In just a few minutes Kate and I head out for our 21st anniversary dinner.

Dreams, Faith and Spirituality, Politics, Writing

Dreamin’

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Imbolc                                                  Waxing Bloodroot Moon

Still adjusting to this early rising, write, then do the rest of the day which included, today, my 2 hour mentoring session with Leslie, more writing, the legcom call, then doing a quick study on the mourners for a brief tour of them tomorrow.

So, I didn’t have much time to get here today.

Here’s an idea I had before going to sleep last night.  What if our dream life is our real life and the process of this embodied life is the aberrant condition which death resolves?  Actually, the Mexica had a similar idea.  Crazy I know, but maybe worth a story or two.

Aging, Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, News of the Strange, Writing

Story Problems. More Story Problems.

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Imbolc                                                        Waxing Bloodroot Moon

OMG.  I can’t count!  I did about one-third the number of words at Blue Cloud as I thought I did.  A silly arithmetic error.  Have you ever seen that Gary Larson cartoon with Hell over the door and a bookcase containing books titled:  Story Problems, More Story Problems, Story Problems the 11 edition?  That’s me.

It doesn’t change how hard I worked, not at all.  Or, the value of getting back to the writing.  Just deflates my overall sense of accomplishment.  Which, come to think of it…

On my last night at Blue Cloud I met an unusual guy, Lawrence Diggs.  Lawrence is a bald headed Africa-American about my age, a Buddhist and refers to himself as the Vinegar Man.  Lawrence and I had a two hour long conversation about reality, economics, racism and writing.  It was strange to meet a fellow flat-earther as far as divine metaphysics go on the last night of my stay at this Benedictine Monastery.  Strange and exhilarating.

When the Woollys go back to Blue Cloud in September, I’m going to set up a visit to the International Vinegar Museum in Rosslyn, about 40 miles to the west on Hwy. 12, toward Aberdeen.  I mean, how many chances will you get to see it?

As I now calculate it, I have about 60-65,000 words done on Missing, counting the Blue Cloud work.  That’s about 2/3’rds of the way.  Just gotta keep plugging away.

Great Work, Politics

Pawlenty and His Upbeat Environmental Message. No, I’m Not Kidding.

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Imbolc                                                      Waxing Bloodroot Moon

This video, made by the House DFL caucus, casts an odd light on the current debates about gutting environmental review and pushing back standards for coal pollution, the nuclear moratorium, and softening the sulfate standards for Polymet.

Aging, Bees, Dogs, Family, Garden, Writing

Home Is Where the Garlic Is

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Imbolc                                       Waxing Bloodroot Moon

This journey has begun to bend toward home.  I”m more eager know to go home than I was to come here when I left.  That seems good to me.  Home is the place you know you’re away from when you’re gone.  No place else on earth has that lodestone attraction for me.

Home is where the heart is, yes, and my heart is with Kate, with Vega, Rigel and Kona, with the raised bed and the garlic, the asparagus, the strawberries, with the bees and the grandkids play house, with the flower beds and the woods, with our house which, in exactly the same way a church is sanctified, has become sacred.  The life and the love,, our history there, has made it a sacred realm, a realm of the heart and a sanctuary for our life.

I have two yellow pads, one full, the other on its way, scribbled with this story of another world and these people I’ve come to know over the course of writing it.  Brag, Constance, John, Aeric, Gullen, Arton, Isaac, Cern.  Well, maybe a couple of these are speaking animals and one is a god, but they’ve come alive for me over the months I’ve spent on Missing.  Their journey, I see now, has only just begun, will only finish its first phase as this novel draws to a close in another 30,000 words or so.

This writing is and has been such a strange act for me, virtually solitary save for Kate, who has stuck with me in my up and down moments, my more confident moments and, most important, in my melancholy.  Otherwise, I’ve written these novels, these short stories and they go in a  file or in a box and sit, George Plimpton once called an unpublished work of his, A Monster In A Box.  This will be my sixth or seventh monster.

Not complaining just observing that’s been strange.

Commentary on Religion, Writing

Next to Last Day

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Imbolc                                   Waxing Bloodroot Moon

I’ve had visitors now for lunch every day.  Father Chris and I discussed being hard of hearing.  When I mentioned saying something inappropriate occasionally in noisy places, he recounted a time when a parishioner said he was going to his sister’s funeral.  That’s nice! Father Chris replied.

Brother Paul presented me with a pound of Blue Cloud Abbey honey, from one beekeeper to another.

I’ve gotten to know more of the monks on an individual basis, mostly through lunch since I spend most of my time here in the room writing and when I finish in the afternoon no one’s around.  Dinner is in silence and afterward the monks retire.

Breakfast is usually in silence although Sunday morning is not, I learned today.  The rhythm goes silent breakfast after morning prayers, then day prayer and eucharist followed by a lunch when talking is ok and a silent dinner not long after evening prayer held at 5 pm.  Vigils come at 7:30 and after it, at 10 pm, the night or grand silence.

The silence at regular intervals and the quiet in general make this a wonderful place to write.  The only noises here are bells, singing and chanting, howling wind and the occasional train.

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Travel, Weather +Climate, Writing

Heading Home Tomorrow

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Imbolc                                     Waxing Bloodroot Moon

Snow has begun to come down in earnest.  I like the view out of my window here in the Bishop’s room.  Snow falls between the two pines that frame the central pane and I can see across the service road toward what I now know is the Monastery orchard.  This is a wonderful piece of land, wooded in parts, with two lakes and ample space for agriculture.  The Monastery did have a large farm at one time.

I’ve decided I’ll head home tomorrow afternoon.  I’m a bit lonely here now and I want to see Kate and the dogs.  Since I get my writing done in the morning, sometimes a bit after lunch, I can write tomorrow morning, eat lunch and head out.  That way I can be back at my desk on Tuesday morning, ready to keep on writing.

So ancientrails will hit the road around 1 pm tomorrow, driving east on Highway 12, then north on 494.

Breakfast today is at 8, not 7:30.  Feels pretty soft, writing here at 7:50 instead of dining in silence.  The Monastery is a great place to focus on writing and I think I’ll return when it comes time to revise one of my earlier works, perhaps in January.  Once I finish the first draft of Missing, I’ll have Kate read it and comment on it, perhaps Lydia, then I’ll set in a manuscript box on the shelf in my study.  6 months or so later, I’ll take it out and read it like a stranger, making the first cuts and revisions.

Though I’ve not practiced it, they say writing is in the re-writing and I believe it.

Art and Culture, Garden, Minnesota, Our Land and Home, permaculture, World History, Writing

An Expansiveness That Opens The Heart

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Imbolc                                                New (Bloodroot) Moon

Immersed again in the history of ancient Rome, that interesting period when the Republic gives way to the reign of emperors, night has fallen, a clear night.  I’ve wanted a clear night because I want to see the stars here on the prairie, away from city lights.  That’s next.

Brother Dusty (James) Johnson has lived out here under the big sky of South Dakota for several years now and fell in love with it.  I can see why.  There’s an expansiveness that opens the heart, yet somehow too points back to the very spot where  you stand, a sort of universal and a particular in one moment.

In Andover due to tree cover our focus is resolute and local.  We see our yard, our neighbors, our woods, our gardens, our bees.  Out here you can see  your neighbor’s pasture, your neighbor’s cattle and their neighbors.  The weather doesn’t sneak up on you here, as it can in Andover, coming up over the woods to our west, it announces itself far in advance, scudding clouds, lightning, wind.  All out there.  There’s a frankness and an honesty in that.

I only have two more writing days left, Sunday and Monday, but I’m very pleased with the amount of work I’ve gotten done.  In fact, as I hoped, this intense focus on Missing has let me see what I’ve been missing, this anchor to my day, the writing anchor.  I’ve let the ship slip its moorings and float away on the winds of Latin, art, politics, bees and gardening.  I need to bring this ship of daily writing back into harbor, keep it where its protected.

It means, I know, a change in my schedule, an earlier rising and an earlier bedtime, but to be honest with who I am, I need to make the change.

This has to be done while not losing the gains I’ve made in those other areas, that will be the trick.

Aging, Dogs, Garden, Humanities, Hydroponics, Memories, Writing

Walking and Talking

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Imbolc                                        New (Bloodroot) Moon

Took a walk along the road that goes around the Monastery.  A beautiful day with a blue sky and sun.  The sun has, like me, been on retreat this last week, and it seems to have returned bright and shiny, ready to get on with its job of sending us truly elemental energy.

While walking, I talked to Kate.  Cell phone reception is fine outside the Monastery, but inside, nada.

It’s rare for a person to find someone whose life and lifestyle fit so well as Kate and mine do.  At least I think it’s rare.  We both enjoy time alone and we enjoy being together.

She says the plants, the dogs and herself are doing well.  The dog are outside and  have been nearly all day.  She’s been sewing and made grandson Gabe a new shirt, this one with trains.

Today I finished writing early, still putting out about 6,500 words.  I tried to go further but the well was dry so I’ve been reading Conspirata, the Robert Harris novel about Cicero’s Consul  year and his life immediately after.  Cicero is a favorite of the conservative classes, but he seems more pragmatic than conservative, at least as Harris portrays him.  It might be his deep suspicion of populist politics that gains their favor, but that seems more complicated in this fictional biography.

Just as I was in a Chinese phase last summer, I’m in a Roman phase right now, learning Latin, reading Roman novels, translating Ovid.

If our plans for a fall cruise congeal, at some point I imagine I’ll turn toward South America and its ancient and contemporary history.  Read a few travel books on various ports of call.  We’re leaning toward a 37 day cruise that starts in NYC and ends in Rio, passing through the Panama Canal and traveling around South America through the the Straits of Magellan and Cape Horn to Buenos Aires and Rio.

My lunch table  today had Hoosiers, monks from South Bend, north Terre Haute and Indianapolis.  We talked about the old home place, Wabash College, Indy, the crazy time change rules.