I should be upstairs with the others, drumming up ways
to heal the world, save the animals, pray for water
in a far-off continent, devote the remainder of my days
to a catalog of restorations.
But this morning, it was a matter
of scones that drew my gaze,
and my feet remained planted in the kitchen.
One must never ignore the instinct
to create is what I told myself,
and soon the counter was stained
with flour, my hands sticky with dough,
the house inked
with the smell of blueberry possibility,
and I knew I was not wrong.
This was my prayer, my act of healing, my offering,
my song.
--
Maya Stein
I have spent a lifetime thinking if I were only a real artist, a real writer, a real photo- grapher… then I would be somebody. And thinking I should be more interested in/passionate about saving the world, fighting for justice, getting involved in causes. Then my space on the planet would be justifiable. I am glad that there are people in the world who fight for the children, keep alive the rant for taking care of our planet, write great novels, and paint works that hang in museums. But they are no more special than I am; that is
their ordinary, not mine. What if I were just willing to open to the possibility that my ordinary is unique, too; that my creativity is just right for me; that I make a difference in my world? What if I were willing to rejoice in the fact that my friends think I am special--as I do them, and let go of thinking that people whom I will never meet need to know I am? What if I were willing to trust that who I am is just right?
With one significant exception, this has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week. Is it a law of nature that for every good thing that happens in a given period, there must be bad stuff in equal measure? The good was a wonderful evening of fun and kudos at the farcical premier of the “movie” I created as part of my work. The bad began last weekend when I attempted to install a track light over my kitchen bar. After three trips to Lowe’s for missing or defective parts and a fall off the bar stool I was standing on, I got it up. It looks great. It doesn’t work. I spent one entire evening trying to figure out why the wifi service I finally gave to myself wasn’t working on the day I was told it would be hooked up. Then, after an hour on the phone (the new phone I also treated myself to that is making me insane), I learned that they are “behind schedule” and it won’t be hooked up for another week. I was furious when I discovered that the paraments I co-created for Advent, Christmas,
and Epiphany were removed from the sanctuary before Epiphany Sunday. I don’t know how the wisepeople are going to find their way to the Baby without the stars to guide them, but I will not be finding my way to worship this morning because I will just sit there and be mad all over again. I averaged eleven hour days at work and skipped yoga because I had too much to do (exactly why I should have gone) and because of the knee pain sustained in above-mentioned fall. The church bank made a large error that will make the year-end books less than the perfection I strive for before it is corrected in the new year. I lost my work keys twice and cannot find the charger adapter for the new camera I bought a week ago (a Christmas gift from myself, though at the time of purchase I didn’t know it was going to be mostly from myself). Thank you, St. Anthony, for help with the keys; and now about that adapter. I cut my week-anchoring cafe/blueberry scone/journaling time short yesterday to attend a class for new camera owners taught by a guy who spent the two hours telling the class all the ways he is beyond ordinary. I could barely sit through it. And no, I didn’t learn a damn thing. And fifteen minutes ago as I wrote the last words of this post, about what a happy thing it is that it is a new--and surely better--week, I hit the wrong key and lost the whole thing. Not for the first time in several days I think, “What this week needs is a control-alt-delete.”
When not much is happening in the garden that surrounds the confined space of my home, I am aware of the bigger garden cultivated by the universe. My creative notice (and yes, I believe that the mere act of noticing is creative) the past days has been on the sky. As I have made my way to work earlier than usual, I note that the days are indeed getting longer, and even at 7:00 the sky is light. I miss the peak of the sunrises--too early--but my camera and I see what is there. The sky's unique ordinary is spectacular, even without the extraordinary sunrise color. I love digital cameras. I discovered a couple of years ago, as I started using mine more indiscriminately on hikes in the mountains, that I notice more detail when I look for things to examine through the lens. Without the nagging awareness of the cost of film and processing, I snap away. And more often than not, when I put the results on my computer screen, I realize that what I might have overlooked as merely ordinary, and in the past would not have bothered taking a photo of, is really quite extraordinary.
Ordinary: uninteresting or commonplace, with no special or distinctive features. Extraordinary: very unusual or remarkable. Epiphany: sudden revelation or insight.
My epiphany on this Epiphany Sunday: it isn’t above, or beyond, or better than ordinary. The word is extra ordinary. Ordinary in the extreme. What if we were all just willing to be ordinary; our ordinary; our uniquely ordinary? And we can rejoice that some days are ordinary in the extreme; and sometimes we are ordinary in the extreme. But every unique day, our unique ordinary is just right. Some days an odd snow falls from nearly completely blue skies, like it did yesterday; and some days it is just ordinary snow, or sun, or fog, or rain. And it is all worthy of our attention.
I am at Cafe Carolina before the doors open this morning. I need to get my favorite table before James, who has the same table preference, gets here. Most Sundays I don’t mind (too much) when he gets here before I do, but this week--in its
less than ordinariness--I
need my table. When James arrives two minutes behind me, we joke about it. And as I am turning on my computer before going to the counter for my usual order, Brian approaches with my coffee and water cups, as usual calling me by name, and telling me it is on the house today. It is a hopeful beginning to a new--please God ordinary--week. That is before I lose my post, of course, but I have shaken that off and re-written. It is not the same, and I will spend the day remembering things I left out and no doubt editing it. Or maybe I won't; maybe I will just let it be. I am ordinary. And shit happens in our uniquely ordinary lives. And it's all good.
“It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad [week]. My mom says some days are like that. Even in Australia.”
If you could see
The weather this winter is completely wacky. On Tuesday it is 19 degrees; yesterday it is 72. I build a fire on Friday, in spite of the warm weather, and have a burning of the greens. The cold snap finally completes the cycle in the garden. I pull the Persian shield and the purple heart, and cut off the limp elephant ear caladium stalks and leaves and the out-of-season new growth on the banana tree. The main stalks of the banana tree are still sturdy, however, so I leave them standing. Each of the three winters since I planted the wee banana tree plant, I have treated it differently. I love my experimental garden philosophy. I could read and do what the "experts" say to do, but I prefer to learn as I go. It's my garden, and my life. Besides, the experts don't agree with one another. I am happy that the cold does not affect the single black-eyed Susan bloom, the lorapetalum, or the Lenten rose.
