Saturdays

There are certain themes that show up in my writing and in my life: books, Spirit, tea, loss/death, bees, quilting, church, photography, pens, gardening.

I tend to think of these things as threads that weave in and out of pieces of cloth I'm sewing together. (Excuse me while I get my 2 x 4 to make my point.)

Yesterday I was visiting with one of my coworkers about writing. I told him about a blog I did with a friend. Each week, we selected a theme and wrote about it: she did poetry; I did prose. It was one of my favorite writing projects, despite the fact that I frequently found myself frustrated by my inability to sit still and write. Unfortunately, the blog ended because of my aforementioned writing hiatus. But before its demise, I was able to notice the threads in my writing, the things that popped up unexpectedly.

I didn't realize how important quilting is to me until I started seeing it in my words. I didn't pick up a quilting needle until a year ago, but the experience of seeing my grandmother with needle and fabric in hand has been deeply ingrained in my mind. It has somehow formed me.

So too with gardening. I was never one to rush into the garden to help my mother make things grow. She practically had to force me to pull weeds, water flowers, mow the lawn. It was not something I enjoyed. But when I think of my mother, I think of gardening—of nurturing little things, of being a cocreator with God, of making space that is beautiful. I have lived in dorms and an apartment for the past ten years. One of the things that surprises me is that every spring my fingers itch to dig into dirt. Perhaps it is the joy of seeing dirt after the long Minnesota winters. Perhaps it is one way of embracing the many ways in which I am my mother. One day I will have a little bit of earth where I can plant some flowers and watch them grow. I did not know how badly I wanted that until it started to show up in my writing.

But this post is about the themes that other people see in my life.

A friend of mine has recently made several comments about the ritual-ness of my world. In photographs, I'm attentive to where things are (another influence of The Mother), what's in the frame, and how it all fits together. To have my eye drawn to this ritual quality should not surprise me. I am, after all, a theologian who loves liturgy. And yet, I don't think it occurred to me how prevalent ritual is every day. But my friend is right.

Saturday mornings have become ritual time for me. I can be rather protective of them. But this is nothing new. In high school, my Saturday mornings were walking to a coffee shop across the street, reading and talking about books with T., waiting for other regulars to show up, laughing at B.'s antics, visiting about the days that had passed, looking forward to the days to come—all with the shared cups of coffee and tea, the broken bread of croissants and scones.

In college, I missed those Saturday mornings something fierce. So I was delighted when a little coffee shop opened in my college town. (I know, you think a college town should already have such a shop. I thought so too.) I would pack up a book and a notebook (not school related) and head down to Pumpernickel for a large decaf mocha. I would sit and read, quietly, savoring the time that was my own, not given over to schoolwork. That time restored me. It allowed me to refocus and recenter.

In graduate school Saturday mornings were also sacred. After a while one of my friends and I realized that we were often the only ones up and ready to go on Saturday mornings. We started going over to the Refectory for brunch on those days. Again, we broke bread together and talked about religious life, liturgy, church, dreams, school, people, fashion, sex, books, study. It was a holy time with one of the holiest people I've ever known (though he'd deny that last).

Moving into my apartment after graduation, after most of my close friends, including my brunch buddy, had moved away, I had to establish a new Saturday morning ritual. These four years of Saturdays have not been consistent. After Shaun died and I finally got a television, there were many Saturdays where I rolled out of bed, moved to the couch, and watched whatever show I was into at the time. Some Saturdays I get up and clean, or go see friends, or work on projects. But my favorite Saturday mornings are those on which I can wake up slow, make a pot of tea, make scones, throw in a load of laundry, snuggle with the cat, grab a book, settle into the chair on my porch (or the couch in winter), and do nothing more demanding than read for several hours, occasionally lifting the teapot to refill my cup. Such was my Saturday today.

It is, indeed, a charmed life.

I thank you, MK, for reminding me that these times are holy, that the movements of my days are, in fact, ritual movements.