In my younger years I liked to categorize the different arenas of my life as different "worlds" because of the enormous gap between them.
The best example then was the jump from the annual visit to Miami relatives back to the chilly climes of Chicago and my school friends. One day I was basking in heat, sunshine, and sand. A day or two later, I needed to don a heavy coat and snow boots for any trip outdoors.
And oh, the contrast in the people! My Spanish-speaking family really seemed worlds away from my Midwestern friends. And the gap felt truly un-bridgeable since these people were so unlikely to ever meet. My context changed entirely and I changed with it, and there was little I could do to communicate my school life to my Cuban grandma or describe the scents of Cuban arroz con pollo and the sounds of the beach to my friends stuck in the harsh Chicago winter.
The years have brought many of these different "worlds," isolated pockets of my life where I am one person for some people and totally different for others. I often experienced this at my job in Chicago last year. At the consulting firm where I worked, I was stiff and formal. Totally professional, I was often quiet or aloof with my co-workers. I did not enjoy the work I was doing, by and large, and so I checked out socially and made myself very difficult to know. My behavior was reinforced when I realized that a semi-haughty bearing commanded the respect of my (mostly male) co-workers more than chumminess would have. So that was that.
But in the evenings and on weekends, I'd slip easily into my typically loud, funny self - frequenting bars and making outrageous friendships with the goofy ease that typifies one side of my personality.
And that's another thing - I have known people, and not just at that Chicago firm, who described me as "quiet" or "introverted". And I know others who think I am one of the most wacky, loud, sassy people they have ever encountered.
Of course this entire separation of social spheres is an uncomfortable product of modernity. The sad separation of meaningful work from home life, and the mobility that sunders people from their earlier friendships or social groups, all contribute to the ease with which we can slip in and out of personalities. It is a test and a trial to maintain a unified sense of self in the face of such disparate circumstances.
For me, this weekend really brought that home. On Saturday evening I was fortunate enough to drive down to a beautiful hotel where I ate a nice dinner and then chatted the evening away with a group of polished, highly articulate young adults. They were almost all people who I already knew through my work at the Collegiate Network, and it was gratifying to see their excitement at my surprise arrival. One student declared, "This was all we needed to make the weekend better!"
As for me, I was dolled up in heels, a pretty dress, and styled hair. These students think of me as a person of relative importance (which in their lives I suppose I am to some degree, since I help control the funds distributed annually to their newspapers, I help select them for internships, etc.). At any rate, when I go to conferences like this one I feel like a big fish and a person of some importance. So much for humility.
Well, right before driving down, and again on Sunday afternoon after I drove home that morning, I babysat an 18-month-old girl. I spent 8 hours babysitting her this weekend - 3 on Saturday and 5 on Sunday. At her home, I am not a person of any importance. I change her poopy (cloth) diapers when they stink to high heaven. I try to cajole her into eating pureed vegetables or fruit juice. I walk her around and around the block, pointing out the geese overhead and singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" repeatedly. Out loud. In public.
Today, the grandmother and uncle of my little charge dropped by to visit her briefly. I had never met them before, and I was clearly a person of very little significance to them. The uncle, a young man around my own age, noticed my Notre Dame sweatshirt. "Oh, have you ever been to Indiana?" he asked me. "I went to Notre Dame," I responded. This was clearly surprising to him and his mother, nice people who saw me as "the help" and not in their own class. Oh, what a change from my high heels and fancy meals of the evening before!
The grandmother chatted with me a little bit, politely but with a condescending air which suggested that she saw herself as quite "open-minded" and "egalitarian" for asking me what my name was, again? The uncle ignored me as if I was part of the furniture. I admit that my dignity smarted a bit at their perceived superiority to me, and yet I am grateful for the regular crash course in humility that babysitting provides. It can't always be fine dining and glamour - sometimes, it's a toddler trying to hit you in the face because she is tired, cranky, and yet does not want your help putting on her shoes.
At least the toddler's mom is warming up to the notion that I, too, might be a thinking human being. She works on her thesis while I babysit her daughter, and on Saturday I asked her about her thesis topic. After she explained it to me in very simple terms (for my layman's benefit, I assume), I gave her some tips about research similar to hers. She was quite excited and later told me that she is incorporating my advice into her research. I guess it's nice to know that the babysitter is educated too.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Prayer
Almost always, I am grounded in the physical. One of my favorite internal "games" for years has been a mini-analysis of my physical state and that of everyone around me.
For instance: Jane sat in the back seat, reading Thomas Aquinas's Treatise on Law. Her little brother and sister sat in the middle seat and squabbled over a mini toy computer. Up front, her father and mother were conversing quietly while Willie Nelson's crooning voice softly enveloped the car.
It sounds like the beginning of a story, no? But the story stops there. It never goes any farther. All my energy goes into the setting and then... the story is kaput.
I also often make a mental analysis of myself - This is my name. I am twenty-three years old.
Why? You tell me.
One of my college friends once told me, "You are one of the most self-aware people I know." Not self-conscious, but self-aware. The same friend joked that I provide verbal "status updates" on my well-being at any given time. With the same eye for description, I am quick to announce that I am happy. Hungry. Tired. Grumpy. Cold.
Nowadays, my fiance likes to comment on the way in which joy grips me physically. I wriggle; I jump; I actually do squirm with excitement.
So for whatever reason, it can be hard for me to separate myself from the physical world. Metaphysics and philosophical thought do not come to me as naturally as they do to others. They are an acquired taste, and one that I struggle to expand in myself.
I chafe in helpless envy when I see the ease some of my friends experience as they delve into the rich world of metaphysical thought. To them, books of philosophy are a delight and are preferred. To me they are a task of self-improvement and willful education. They are not "fun" although they are good.
My spiritual life has ebbed lately, and there are many reasons for the change. There is the physical change from a religious campus surrounded by churches and chapels, with ample free time for both, to a demanding work schedule in a smallish town with only one church nearby.
Always, my prayers have arisen with the greatest ease from the situational tasks that confront me. "Pious aspirations," as they are called, would flow swiftly from my lips for help with a stressful co-worker or a demanding project. A prayer request from a friend would elicit the same quick reaction, "God be with so-and-so!". But sustained, demanding prayer? That is becoming more and more rare.
To some degree, my near-constant focus on the physical - what's needed now - may obscure what my soul needs long-term. I am, after all, composed of body and soul. To neglect a really sustained effort in one area will lead to overall dissatisfaction. Worse than dissatisfaction, it will lead to my detriment in ways not yet clear. "And in the lowest deep, a lower deep, still threatening to devour me opens wide - to which the hell I suffer seems a heaven." -- Milton placed these words in Satan's mouth, and I am suffering no hell at the moment, but the lesson remains that our own agency can lead to undreamed-of wrong.
Will increased and better-quality prayer improve my understanding of the metaphysical and non-corporeal world? Will my facility with ideas gain from a cultivated relationship with their divine Author?
It seems plausible. That is, of course, not a reason to practice - note that word, practice - my faith and prayer better than I have thus far. It does, however, present a nice corollary. Like philosophical inquiry, prayer may not be fun but good it certainly is. And without it, how will I ever hope to escape my corporeal bonds? Without it, I dare not hope.
My strong sensibility for the physical may impede my ability to ascend in prayer. But without the growth that prayer provides, I suspect that any dreams I may have of metaphysical success or wisdom are as ethereal and vanishing as this passing world will, too, someday be.
For instance: Jane sat in the back seat, reading Thomas Aquinas's Treatise on Law. Her little brother and sister sat in the middle seat and squabbled over a mini toy computer. Up front, her father and mother were conversing quietly while Willie Nelson's crooning voice softly enveloped the car.
It sounds like the beginning of a story, no? But the story stops there. It never goes any farther. All my energy goes into the setting and then... the story is kaput.
I also often make a mental analysis of myself - This is my name. I am twenty-three years old.
Why? You tell me.
One of my college friends once told me, "You are one of the most self-aware people I know." Not self-conscious, but self-aware. The same friend joked that I provide verbal "status updates" on my well-being at any given time. With the same eye for description, I am quick to announce that I am happy. Hungry. Tired. Grumpy. Cold.
Nowadays, my fiance likes to comment on the way in which joy grips me physically. I wriggle; I jump; I actually do squirm with excitement.
So for whatever reason, it can be hard for me to separate myself from the physical world. Metaphysics and philosophical thought do not come to me as naturally as they do to others. They are an acquired taste, and one that I struggle to expand in myself.
I chafe in helpless envy when I see the ease some of my friends experience as they delve into the rich world of metaphysical thought. To them, books of philosophy are a delight and are preferred. To me they are a task of self-improvement and willful education. They are not "fun" although they are good.
My spiritual life has ebbed lately, and there are many reasons for the change. There is the physical change from a religious campus surrounded by churches and chapels, with ample free time for both, to a demanding work schedule in a smallish town with only one church nearby.
Always, my prayers have arisen with the greatest ease from the situational tasks that confront me. "Pious aspirations," as they are called, would flow swiftly from my lips for help with a stressful co-worker or a demanding project. A prayer request from a friend would elicit the same quick reaction, "God be with so-and-so!". But sustained, demanding prayer? That is becoming more and more rare.
To some degree, my near-constant focus on the physical - what's needed now - may obscure what my soul needs long-term. I am, after all, composed of body and soul. To neglect a really sustained effort in one area will lead to overall dissatisfaction. Worse than dissatisfaction, it will lead to my detriment in ways not yet clear. "And in the lowest deep, a lower deep, still threatening to devour me opens wide - to which the hell I suffer seems a heaven." -- Milton placed these words in Satan's mouth, and I am suffering no hell at the moment, but the lesson remains that our own agency can lead to undreamed-of wrong.
Will increased and better-quality prayer improve my understanding of the metaphysical and non-corporeal world? Will my facility with ideas gain from a cultivated relationship with their divine Author?
It seems plausible. That is, of course, not a reason to practice - note that word, practice - my faith and prayer better than I have thus far. It does, however, present a nice corollary. Like philosophical inquiry, prayer may not be fun but good it certainly is. And without it, how will I ever hope to escape my corporeal bonds? Without it, I dare not hope.
My strong sensibility for the physical may impede my ability to ascend in prayer. But without the growth that prayer provides, I suspect that any dreams I may have of metaphysical success or wisdom are as ethereal and vanishing as this passing world will, too, someday be.
Save the Dates
I am in the process of addressing, oh, about 180 save-the-date cards for my upcoming wedding. My writing hand is cramping so blogging seemed like the perfect cure, no?
Weddings are such a smorgasbord of people who have mattered over the years; a delightful melange of acquaintances. My invites include 4 foreign addresses (two groups of people in England, one in France, and one in Kenya) as well as 3 cloistered nuns. It is nice to reflect on my relationships with all these people, and how they have affected my life at various times.
Weddings are such a smorgasbord of people who have mattered over the years; a delightful melange of acquaintances. My invites include 4 foreign addresses (two groups of people in England, one in France, and one in Kenya) as well as 3 cloistered nuns. It is nice to reflect on my relationships with all these people, and how they have affected my life at various times.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
My Week Fall/Spring 2012
Before I forget, I wanted to record my typical week during that time of happy singleness before my move to Delaware and the far happier commencement of my relationship with Matt. Here 'tis:
Sunday: Mass and brunch with the family (John Barleycorn?) or evening Mass (with Dan Jacobs?) at somewhere like St. Clement, Holy Name, or the 9pm student Mass at St. Vincent de Paul. Sometimes a wine or whiskey tasting at Scott Ferguson's apartment in Hyde Park, with the philosophers.
Monday: English Country Dance in Oak Park, St. Peter's in the Loop YA group in the Fall -- in the Winter and Spring, Mondays were Supercook aka Pantry Party nights at Carlie Miller's apartment! Margo, Emily and Noreen McKernan, Amanda Kutsch, sometimes Cathy, and the adorable Carlie herself (as well as sometimes her roommate Hannah). We watched The Bachelor (to my mockery and protests) while combining items from our pantries into yummy smorgasbords.
Tuesday: Metro with my 6 adorable little 7th grade girls (Judelisa Velazquez, Vanessa, Kassie Munoz, Sailly Rivera, Elena Brambila, Sienna Juarez) and Margo, Mary Morgan, etc. Especially in the fall, Tuesdays were Maggie's evening to come spend the night with me. We cooked dinner, ate out, or had a "Ladies Cinema" night with Maggie's friend Gabby.
Wednesday: "American Writers in Paris" class at the Newberry Library - such good discussions with the women there! The last night we held a little feast with wine, cheese, etc. They had saved a seat for me at the little table and were so glad when I came (late!).
Thursday: Spirit and Truth at St. Stanislus Kostka in Wicker Park. We'd attend a talk in the rectory by Jim Hawk or Fr. Welsh, with pizza, and then pray an hour of Adoration and evening prayer in the church. We'd wind up the evening at Blue Star Wine Bar on the corner.
Friday: Lectures at St. Mary's, trips out of town, going out or hosting a party with Margo, reviewing a bar or restaurant, etc. Endless possibilities.
Saturday: 10am-12 I'd protest at the Division/Lasalle abortion clinic. I was always late from sleeping in. 12:15 Mass at Holy Name or lunch/errands, followed by Philosophy Club at the Bourgeois Pig or Citygrounds from 3pm on. Dinner with the philosophers, or some other event in the evening.
Sunday: Mass and brunch with the family (John Barleycorn?) or evening Mass (with Dan Jacobs?) at somewhere like St. Clement, Holy Name, or the 9pm student Mass at St. Vincent de Paul. Sometimes a wine or whiskey tasting at Scott Ferguson's apartment in Hyde Park, with the philosophers.
Monday: English Country Dance in Oak Park, St. Peter's in the Loop YA group in the Fall -- in the Winter and Spring, Mondays were Supercook aka Pantry Party nights at Carlie Miller's apartment! Margo, Emily and Noreen McKernan, Amanda Kutsch, sometimes Cathy, and the adorable Carlie herself (as well as sometimes her roommate Hannah). We watched The Bachelor (to my mockery and protests) while combining items from our pantries into yummy smorgasbords.
Tuesday: Metro with my 6 adorable little 7th grade girls (Judelisa Velazquez, Vanessa, Kassie Munoz, Sailly Rivera, Elena Brambila, Sienna Juarez) and Margo, Mary Morgan, etc. Especially in the fall, Tuesdays were Maggie's evening to come spend the night with me. We cooked dinner, ate out, or had a "Ladies Cinema" night with Maggie's friend Gabby.
Wednesday: "American Writers in Paris" class at the Newberry Library - such good discussions with the women there! The last night we held a little feast with wine, cheese, etc. They had saved a seat for me at the little table and were so glad when I came (late!).
Thursday: Spirit and Truth at St. Stanislus Kostka in Wicker Park. We'd attend a talk in the rectory by Jim Hawk or Fr. Welsh, with pizza, and then pray an hour of Adoration and evening prayer in the church. We'd wind up the evening at Blue Star Wine Bar on the corner.
Friday: Lectures at St. Mary's, trips out of town, going out or hosting a party with Margo, reviewing a bar or restaurant, etc. Endless possibilities.
Saturday: 10am-12 I'd protest at the Division/Lasalle abortion clinic. I was always late from sleeping in. 12:15 Mass at Holy Name or lunch/errands, followed by Philosophy Club at the Bourgeois Pig or Citygrounds from 3pm on. Dinner with the philosophers, or some other event in the evening.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
"I wish to testify that in my best moments I am not aware of the
existence of the government. Though I respect and feel myself dignified
by the principles of the Declaration and the Constitution,
I do not remember a day when the thought of the government made me
happy, and I never think of it without the wish that it might become
wiser and truer and smaller than it is."
- Wendell Berry (found on his rather excellent Wikipedia page)
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
"The perfections of the one we love are not fictions of love. To love, on
the contrary, is the privilege of noticing a perfection invisible to
other eyes." (#47)
From Don Colacho's Aphorisms
From Don Colacho's Aphorisms
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