Closing The Book

It is an impulse decision to turn right instead of left. Left would have taken me to Whole Foods, but right took me to Little Portion, now Hope Academy, I correct myself, but I don’t care. It will always be Little Portion to me. I had dropped my charge off at school, and decided that I would go to Whole Foods. Normally, I go straight from one job to the next, but I had received an early morning text message informing me that my second “shift”, as it were, was now free. I needed eggs, and Whole Foods sells the cashew drink I like at a fraction of the price that Wild By Nature does. From school, Whole Foods was also not substantially out of the way.

It has been well over a year since I’d driven out to what used to be Little Portion Friary. I could never forget the way. It is the location for so many important events in my life, and its closure and new identity as Hope Academy is something that I don’t know I’ll ever resolve. I was on a good stretch of Nicholl’s Road, and traffic was moving. I’d gotten the email about this weeks’ bread offerings a few days before, and though a person with celiac receiving emails about glutenous bread is either ironic or masochistic, I can’t bring myself to unsubscribe. Friday is bread day. In my pre-celiac life, when I spent semesters and summer camp sessions subsisting solely on Friary Bread, I made many pilgrimages to the bakery at Little Portion, depositing my money in the box and picking whichever loaves I thought had the most raisins, and breathing deeply. The whole downstairs of the Friary always smelled like bread, and it was as comforting to me as the scent of my mother’s old Chiropractic books. I don’t have cash, but I remember that there is a bank on the way, and the details with which I recollect this surprise me. I stop, get cash, get back on 347, and once again, drown in my thoughts of Little Portion.

I first went to Little Portion as a child with my mother, and when I came back to the church in college, Little Portion became a second home. I attended Daily Offices and Eucharist there because I didn’t want to be in my dorm room alone after the Southampton students were sent back to West Campus, twenty minutes from Little Portion. I spent my days off from Camp DeWolfe during the summer there. I found out that I had been accepted to grad school late one night in the library after the Brothers had gone to bed. I lost and found so many callings there, and it was there that Mom and I went after we found out that I didn’t have leukemia, when we wondered what my future would look like with lupus and not going back to Hawai’i. I pictured my wedding being held there, on the labyrinth, and when Little Portion ceased to exist as I had always known it, and when my Godmother died, I had no idea how to contemplate marriage. I didn’t, and don’t, want too much in terms of a wedding. I’d rather have a good party than something formal that everyone leaves from still hungry. But I wanted it at Little Portion. That can’t happen now.

I am wearing my sunglasses, but it is a bright, hot day, and I have a headache forming and re-forming behind my eyes. Proof that I am stressed, run down, and trying not to cry, no matter what I may tell myself. There are many cars in the parking lot, and workmen at the foot of the driveway laying down asphalt patches. I am surprised, though it is 10 AM, a few hours after bread has gone on sale, by how many cars there are. Anxiety radiates off me in waves, and I am glad that I am here alone as much as I hate that I am alone. I will only have to deal with my emotions, but I am not sure that I can handle them alone. I wish, not for the first time, that my ESC boss lived closer to New York. His gift for always getting me to cry–despite my disdain for crying and my insistence that I will be fine–might help me to handle the internal war being waged between my brain, my heart, and my stomach. I go into the bakery, breathe deeply out of habit, but the door has been open, and the smell of the bread has dissipated into the open air. Cinnamon Raisin, Olive Oil Rosemary, and Cranberry Sunflower. I debate getting a loaf of Cranberry, but who am I kidding? To come and not stock up on Cinnamon Raisin is akin to blasphemy, or heresy. Maybe both. I answer an older woman’s questions about the loaves, and what to do with her money, and prepare to bag my loaf when a young man, a resident of the house, comes in to say, “I was coming to bag those for you. We bag them after lunch; they’re really fresh.” I don’t mind bagging my own loaves. “Fresh is good!” I tell him.

I bag my loaves, taking pictures of the racks of fresh bread, with only a few empty spaces where loaves used to be. The labels are different. A former Brother, a friend of mine then, had written the labels when the Brothers still lived there. I had wondered about that on the way. There are men everywhere, and when I am rearranging the contents of my front seat to make room for the loaves, a few of them are debating whether the gas container that says ‘Mixed’ is really mixed. They are preparing to do yard work, and I remember all of the debates that ensued about that very subject in Hawai’i.

I don’t understand it, but everything is different. I don’t explore the grounds, but I see dumpsters in the back where I used to park, honestly that was the only visual difference. The house doesn’t look different. It might even look better. There seem to be more flowers than there had been in some time. I had gone expecting that it would hurt to see and feel “my” Little Portion so different. But when I got there, I didn’t feel like I belonged anymore. This wasn’t the place that was my home away from home for so long. It was something new, something different. We have both changed, Little Portion and I. We have found new lives and new meanings, and though I will likely mourn what I lost forever, I must also rejoice to see Little Portion so alive.

This is a book that I can close. Going felt like a release, though not one easily made or accepted, it was a necessary one.

I drive to Whole Foods, and remember Sunday afternoon lunches there after Church in Little Portion’s chapel. I buy juices, a salad, and sit lost in thought as I eat. When I go to my car to drive home, I open the door and expect the scent of the sun-warmed bread to fill my senses, but it doesn’t. I drive home. I don’t know what I was looking for from this impromptu pilgrimage, and I don’t know if I found it, but with what I did find… I don’t know that I need to make another.

Taking Stock

My doctor was afraid to ask if “that’s all” when I described the roller coaster the last four years have been. It’s enough to make me feel that my head and my heart might explode when I list it: I went to Kenya, I dated someone I expected I’d marry; we broke up. I finished grad school, I went to Hawai’i, came home with lupus and a very near miss on cancer. I spent 6 months in treatment; the second 6 months I would have spent in Hawaii had it all gone according to plan. I got out of treatment, our house flooded and we lost so much. My sister sustained a devastating injury and went on home school, our mom got hurt. I adopted my dog and we got 2 kittens. My spiritual home and safe place—Little Portion—announced they were closing, my beloved godmother died entirely unexpectedly. I spent all day trying to figure out how to tell my mother that her best friend and the godmother to her daughters was dead. I did most of the notifications for our church.  Little Portion did close.  The first Christmas after the closure and the death of my godmother, the only person I wanted to talk to was gone and the only place I wanted to be no longer existed.  I don’t have words to express two such unfathomable losses occurring in less than 6 months’ time.  I was in shock for months, and when I finally cried, I nearly drowned in the shower.

I didn’t know what I’d do when I came back from Hawai’i and went into treatment. I didn’t know how I’d get through treatment.  My body remembers every trauma my mind wants to forget, and even now, I am not allowed to forget.  I don’t know how to navigate a world in which I will get married and have children who will not know my father and my godmother.  Who will not learn to ask, “Are you being goofy?” to determine whether or not an adult is being serious, and who will not then collapse into laughter with my godmother, and who will learn complex math and teach it to their grandfather, wondering if he is pretending that they are smarter than he is as I did when I was a child.  I always anticipated that my father would not live to see me grown–the odds were astronomical–but there was always a hope I might be proven wrong.  My father wasn’t the sort of person one expected to die.  But I could not see a world in which my Aunt Mary would not see my wedding, and meet my children. The weekend after she died, I kept thinking about sitting in the diner with her when I was 16, her telling me that when I got married, I could wear her ring, which was her mother’s ring before her, and that it would be my something old. I kept imagining that day, whenever it may come, and trying to picture my mom and my friends helping me to get ready, but all I saw was the empty space she wouldn’t occupy.

It has never moved beyond surreal that I will marry someone who has never met my father. It is unfathomable that I will marry someone who has not received my godmother’s seal of approval. I didn’t have the kind of relationship with my father that the other girls had with theirs, but for the good, the bad, the indifferent, he is my father. Nothing changes that.  And I desperately want his approval.

I never saw most of what has come to pass coming, and I’m not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse.  I am learning how to live in a world that I could not picture before I found myself inhabiting it.  I do not want to live in this particular world, with no Little Portion, with no Aunt Mary, with lupus complicating things and constantly wondering in the back of my mind if what I’ve found now with my body is too good to be true.  In the meantime, I am contemplating the universe and redecorating my room, un-boxing books and wall decorations with knives in my heart along the way.  The gifts she bought me when I was confirmed in one box, a photo collage from my first trip to see her in Utah in another; cards from two years working at summer camp, along with my dreams of being a missionary in a third.  This life isn’t the one I’d envisioned for myself, but it’s the one I have.  And I am trying to make peace with that.

 

 

The Return

• I posted an essay on summer camp (with a bit of an announcement contained therein) over on tumblr this morning. Have a read if you wish!

Adventures with the Magnificat! (Sermon, Dec. 20, 2015)

On December 20th, I had the privilege of vesting up and preaching at the Church I work part time at. It was a lot of fun, and I was so pleased that my sermon about Mary made an impact on the parishioners. Reading the Magnificat so many times in the few days before, during, and after when I was preaching filled my soul with such joy and gladness!

The Magnificat has always been one of my favorite pieces of Scripture, but I have a few other very special reasons for loving Mary and appreciating Marion devotion in the Episcopal tradition. Take a listen, and you’ll learn why!

The Adventures of Mo. Lauren and Fr. Kenny

Hello Friends!

We have a bit of a treat this week, we had a guest preacher at church, Ms. Anjelica Whitehorne!  For various reasons, I had a swamped week, so Anjelica offered to preach, and the text happened to be one of her all time favorites, Mary’s Magnificat from Luke (1:39-55).  She did a great job, take a listen as we learn about Mary:

Anjelica’s Sermon, Luke 1:39-55, Advent 4, Year C, Dec. 20, 2015

Next week, you will have more from me, until then, Merry Christmas!

-Mo. Lauren

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Role Reboot

It occurred to me that I linked my essay “The Year I Was Diagnosed With Lupus” to here, but that I never actually told you the circumstances of how I started reading Role Reboot and why I was so interested in publishing with them (and have been interested in doing so for the last year).

I first discovered Role Reboot after I started reading Emily Rapp’s Little Seal Blog. I believe I found Little Seal after Taylor Swift released her song “Ronan” about a different Ronan. I loved Rapp’s writing, and so I googled her and found her first book, and then the essays that she has published with Role Reboot and other places, as well. I liked that Role Reboot didn’t shy away from the nitty gritty of life, because that is what life is for many people: situations that you wish were different but are powerless to change.

I like reading about people who have atypical experiences. In Star Trek, the Vulcans say, “Infinite diversity in infinite combination,” and I believe that to be true of people, though there are experiences that are universal, each person experiences things differently. Sometimes, media can be so monotonous that it feels as though the same things happen over and over and over. To find a place where people were writing about things I’d never experienced was an incredible joy.

My experiences of life have also been quite different. Most 24 year olds don’t undergo treatment for their third autoimmune disease. Most 24 year olds aren’t incapacitated by their symptoms. So a year ago, when I first wrote things that didn’t quite fit with my memoir on chronic illness, my first thought was that maybe they were things that could be adapted for publication by Role Reboot. Almost a year later, I had an essay, not one of the pieces I’d written a year earlier, but an essay that worked on the same themes as the pieces of a year ago, published by Role Reboot, and I was ecstatic. Chronic illness isn’t a subject that many journals will broach. It is depressing. It is difficult. It is fraught. And it is scary. But I didn’t think that that would be a problem in this case. I submitted to Role Reboot first, and told myself that they would reject it. But if they had rejected it, I had no idea where else to submit it with any hope of publication.

When I heard that Role Reboot had accepted my essay, then entitled ‘The Lupus Year’, I was ecstatic.

I am so happy to be back to feeling like a writer, and I am hopeful that this coming academic year will bring more essays published, and perhaps… Perhaps it will even bring a book deal (I HOPE).

Elephant Journal

I find a lot of literary magazines and online journals I never new existed because my friends are being published by them.

In the spring, a friend of mine from grad school posted a link to a piece she wrote that was published by Elephant Journal. I thought the name was cool, but didn’t know anything about them. She’s published more pieces with Elephant Journal since then, and about a month ago I became a member so that I could read as many of their pieces each day as I wanted. I also got stickers, which were quite a draw towards membership.

One thing that I really like about Elephant Journal is that it is a very open journal, writing about eco-friendly, green, wellness, and practices such as yoga. From their About Page: “The mindful life is about yoga, organics, sustainability, conscious consumerism, enlightened education, the contemplative arts, adventure, bicycling, family…everything. But mostly it’s about this present moment, right here, right now, and how we can best be of benefit, and have a good time doing so.” What a beautiful notion upon which to found a journal!

I don’t do yoga–I am way too clumsy, but enough of my friends do that I am not entirely lost in that world. I do eat organically as much as possible. I try to be conscious about my purchases, and to educate others. I grew up in a separate culture from my peers, even though we lived in the same communities at the same time. I think what I love about Elephant Journal is that it feels like home to so many different varieties of outsiders, and for writers, it seems to say, You are different, and we welcome you.

If you are able to support Elephant Journal (a readers’ membership is just $13 a year), I urge you to consider doing so. If you are not, I encourage you to give their articles a read from time to time. You never know when you will find an article that impacts your life!

My Dear Readers

  

Thank you so much for coming along on this journey with me! Seeing this this morning made me so, so happy. I am so grateful for you. 

Outback Steakhouse

Whenever we go to see my grandparents, we go out to eat. My family is highly motivated by food, and also seeing them while we’re all eating eliminates some of the awkward silences known to most families as we clumsily move from topic to topic.

Because of my celiac, I am incredibly limited in where I can eat safely, because a lot of restaurants have gluten free or allergen menus and allergen statements, but a lot of places have food that is rife with cross contamination. Because I am so sensitive to gluten, even the smallest amount of cross contamination can be a big problem for me, so this means that we generally go to the same few places over and over. But the issue with us going out isn’t only my celiac: my mom and sister are vegetarian, and my sister is a very picky eater.

One time when we were going to see my grandparents, we decided to go to Outback Steakhouse after discovering that they have a gluten free menu. We’ve been a few times since, and recently, we discovered that their dessert, Thunder From Down Under is gluten free. My sister ordered one and our waiter asked if we wanted 3 spoons, and I said no, and he said that it’s all gluten free, and that there are no regular flour brownies. We got three spoons. I had about 3 spoonfuls before I had to stop so the richness and wonderfulness of it didn’t make me sick. Any restaurant where I can get a steak and a lobster tail or a steak and shrimp is good with me, especially if I can also get a loaded baked potato or garlic mashed potatoes. And throwing the dessert into consideration means that Outback is basically my new favorite place.

And I have never gotten sick there. This is a huge win. My sister’s favorite restaurant for a long time was Applebee’s (it might still be). We go there from time to time, and I am not opposed to eating there, but it’s entirely hit or miss in terms of cross contamination, and my getting sick. We always tell them that I have a severe gluten problem, and please to make sure that nothing else touches my food, but flour is something that goes airborne remarkably well, plus if a chief puts a burger on a bun using his spatula and that spatula touches the bun and then touches my steak, it could be a problem for me.

When I was a kid, the Fosters beer commercial was my favorite. I like Australian accents, and some of the idioms that come out of the mouths of Aussies. I think they’re funny. While Applebee’s is more of a hometown bar and grill, Outback feels like more of a restaurant somehow, and the one closest to me is now serving Dr. Pepper, which has always been my favorite soda. (I am perpetually trying to remove soda from my diet, but sometimes it is the only thing that works, and I don’t believe in the complete depravation of something that you really like, because that isn’t healthy.) So that’s something else that Outback has going for it.

I can’t wait to go back to Outback (and also to eat my leftovers). If you have food restrictions, how do you cope with them when you go out to eat? What are your favorite places to eat?

I Fall In Love With Shows That End Too Soon, and Other Confessions.

It’s easier for me to re-watch shows I’ve seen many times before than it is for me to watch a new show. I’m terrible at watching a show straight through, though I used to have a far better attention span and wonder where it went. I fall in love with shows that end too soon, and spend an inordinate amount of time re-watching those shows in mourning, and wondering what would have happened had they not been cancelled?

Make it or Break it was cancelled after 3 seasons. Body of Proof after 3. Breaking Pointe after 2. Bunheads after 1.

Then there are shows that I love that I am so far behind on that I have to remind myself they still exist. I absolutely adore Reign, but I have missed almost this entire season. I love The Royals, the first season of which has ended (Season 2 starts in the fall). Orphan Black is the one show that I keep up with religiously because it’s a fandom that I am very active in. I used to be all about Rizzoli & Isles, but loving that show hurt my heart a lot, and so I have all but stopped watching it (I still see a lot on tumblr, in terms of gifs and summaries and commentaries, so I still know what’s going on, which has not given me incentive to watch it again).

It takes a lot for me to invest in a show that may or may not be good, and that may or may not be allowed to live up to its full potential. Re-watching old shows are a sure thing. Even if you know that they aren’t good or that they are problematic, you know the body of work as a whole, which is enough to get you through the (hopefully occasionally) wonky episode or 2. Because fiction is such a real world to me, I don’t want to love it unless it’s going to be great.

So, what shows have you had high hopes for and been disappointed by? What shows defied your expectations, either positively or negatively?

Affirmations

A few weeks ago, I bought a Chiropractic Affirmations Calendar App. I’d found it maybe 2 months ago in the App Store, but didn’t have the money to buy it or the space on my iPhone for it. I’ve since bought it! And, though I’ve been having a problem with it posting to my Facebook, I love it.

Here is today’s:

Each day has a different picture and a different affirmation for the day, and there is a calendar where you can jump to a specific date. The months and days on this portion of the calendar are all vertebrae! I am a happy Chiropractic geek!

I’ve also been posting a lot of affirmations and Chiropractic things on my Instagram and Twitter recently, because I am hoping that moving forward, Chiropractic will be a big portion of my writing life.

If you’d like to check this calendar out for yourself, here is the link! If you want to learn more about Chiropractic or just talk about a Chiropractic experience you’ve had, leave me a comment!