Of the Moment: Traveling Mercies

A collection of things I’m experiencing, reading, and reflecting on. (Weekly cadence was wishful thinking—let’s try monthly!)

Happenings

We are in East Sussex, England, for the summer at the Bruderhof’s Darvell community.

This past week I got my first taste of the English seaside, with trips to Rye and Hastings. I didn’t take any pictures in Hastings, because with three kids under 5 in tow, my hands and attention were elsewhere. Trust that gelato and fish and chips were enjoyed by all. Here’s a few from Rye, where my friend Irene and I had coffee and ice cream.

Rye, England

I’ve recently taken an open-ended pause on drinking alcohol, and it’s been interesting to notice what ignites a craving for a drink. The weather has been gorgeous lately (70s-80s), and even just that simple fact can be a trigger. What sounds better than a cold beer in the summer sunshine? I would normally be absolutely thrilled by the prospect of drinking in a variety of English pubs. I’m trying to retrain myself to realize I can still have the same experiences, and likely better ones, without having to drink. My husband and I are doing this together, which helps tremendously. We’re one month in and we’ll see where it takes us! If you’ve been on a similar journey with alcohol, I’d love to hear what you’ve learned.

Reading

Anne Lamott is someone whose writing has been on my radar for years, but I’d never actually read her until this past week. My husband was loaned one of her books from a new friend at the same time that I received a personal recommendation from one of my new friends. So I started on her 1999 essay collection Traveling Mercies, and am absolutely loving it so far. It’s a special writer who can have you laughing or crying depending on the page. I have Operating Instructions lined up next. If you’re a fan, let me know where I should go from here.

“I do not at all understand the mystery of grace—only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.” —Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies

And since poetry makes everything better, here’s a poem I came across recently that I really like:

The World in the Evening
By Rachel Sherwood

As this suburban summer wanders toward dark
cats watch from their driveways — they are bored
and await miracles. The houses show, through windows
flashes of knife and fork, the blue light
of televisions, inconsequential fights
between wife and husband in the guest bathroom

voices sound like echoes in these streets
the chattering of awful boys as they plot
behind the juniper and ivy, miniature guerillas
that mimic the ancient news of the world
and shout threats, piped high across mock fences
to girls riding by in the last pieces of light

the color of the sky makes brilliant reflection
in the water and oil along the curb
deepened aqua and the sharp pure rose of the clouds
there is no sun or moon, few stars wheel
above the domestic scene — this half-lit world
still, quiet calming the dogs worried by distant alarms

there — a woman in a window washes a glass
a man across the street laughs through an open door
utterly alien, alone. There is a time, seconds between
the last light and the dark stretch ahead, when color
is lost — the girl on her swing becomes a swift
apparition, black and white flowing suddenly into night.

Re-Surfacing

This third section is clearly still evolving. I’m not sure I can sustain reflecting on old journal entries, nor that I really want to. But it’s fun to share some old pieces of writing that have never seen the light of day, so I’ll continue in that vein for now.

Here’s a little vignette I wrote based on a real experience of having a date at a bar while a movie was being filmed in the same location (this was obviously in my pre-Christian, pre-marriage life).

It explores the space between living and watching, and absence framed as presence. Maybe you can tell me what other themes you find, since I often write things I don’t fully understand until someone else teases things out.

Take Two

“Action!”
The chatter of the back patio softened to an occasional whisper. The bartender making us a drink slowed her swirling of ice.
I trailed off mid-sentence, my gaze sliding to the right where the actress approached the actor sitting at a table.
I felt Adam’s eyes move from mine to the scene, and then back again. He started speaking, and I tensed, blinking back at him and up at the bartender whose hands were now at her sides.
Admittedly, the situation wasn’t ideal. We didn’t know they’d be filming when we’d arrived, and every few minutes we had to pause the conversation for the low-budget mini-drama to inch forward.
I’d dutifully halt my speech, offering him a whisper here and a raised eyebrow there, but as the hour ticked on, Adam grew obstinate.
I eyed his tequila partially mixed, wanting it for myself.
In truth, I found the stops and starts to be an apt metaphor. Anytime Adam would say something that surprised me, I’d feel the thrill of potential, like an engine getting into gear. Then he’d say something off the mark and the motor sputtered.
I thought that if I were to try to write a movie scene of my own, I could use the whole thing as material and feel quite clever about it. Never a bad date in vain.
But it wasn’t a bad date, really. Adam was fine. He had his merits. It’s just that I continued to be plagued by the feeling that there was always something just beyond my reach.
“Cut!”
The director moved from behind the cameraman to the actress’s side. With an arm, he gestured forward. He wanted her to embody his vision. She listened and looked ahead, projecting an internal image of herself out into the space in front of them.
Adam was telling me about the women he was seeing. He was polyamorous, and I was trying on the idea of being open, whatever that meant.
I wasn’t happy in my relationship. On warm weekend mornings, I’d leave my boyfriend’s apartment, walking down tree-lined sidewalks as the sun filtered through vibrant green leaves, and feel beautiful things: joy and pain that made me want to dance and cry my way home.
Adam was dating a woman called M. I’m sure it was Em, short for Emily or Emma, but I preferred to think of the name as a placeholder. A frame without a picture.
He was in love with M, he said, and I imagined her wearing a soft blue sweater, looking out the window.
It was a June afternoon in Sacramento, and my thighs were sticking to the bar seat. Adam was wearing a ballcap, his dark brown hair sweaty across his forehead below the brim. He had a confidence about him, and I agreed to a second date because I liked the way he challenged me.
“Is he actually challenging you, though?” my best friend Sarah had asked. “Or is he just being annoying?”
“Can I get another pale ale?” I asked the bartender.
Adam grinned at me, and I grinned back.
“Take two!”
The actress walked toward the actor sitting at a table. We watched. The bartender handed me my beer, and I mouthed back a thank you.
Adam put a hand on my leg, and leaned over.
“Ever want to be an actress?” he asked.
I raised my eyebrows, and gave him a half-hearted nod of assent. When I was young, I starred in some school plays. Somehow all memory of standing on stage, saying words to an audience, had evaporated. Or perhaps those moments were never committed to memory in the first place. Beyond the knowledge of my history was a blank space, where I liked to assume I was really living.
“Better writer,” I whispered to Adam, and his eyes sparkled.
In my mind I searched for the words I would use to capture him just then, looking back at me as the scene played out behind him. I knew whichever I chose would never do him justice. The actress said her lines, tilted her head. For a moment, both scenes held their shape, real and unreachable all at once.