Thanks to Shalom and Terri for your comments, and to everyone who called or emailed to see how I was doing this week, and to Breen for ditching her plans Friday night to hang out with me and listen to me blubber on for hours. We had a really beautiful service for Lily this past Sunday, which I hope, I pray, was a beginning of healing for those affected by her death. I know it was healing for me, at least.
So was Monday, when I ended up at Breen and Patrick's for a good chunk of the day, helping them clean up their garden to get it ready for planting in another month or so. I had originally stopped by just to drop off some stuff that I had forgotten to give to Breen on Friday, and they invited me to join them for brunch and to hang out for a while - they were planning to work on the garden, "but you don't have to work to stay, you can just visit while we clean it up." I told them I didn't mind working, and besides, I need to earn my keep in the commune.
[ I decided long ago, and have told them as much, that when the oil runs out, I'm moving in with them, because they've got mad survival skills and are excellent cooks. I am only partially joking. They've decided they'll take me in because I'm a hard worker, a quick learner, I don't mind doing dishes, and I've got mad musical skills. They are also only partially joking. In fact, they might take me in now for the dishwashing factor alone. :) ]
In any case, it felt good to be outside in the sunshine and the fresh air, felt good to use my muscles and be physically tired (instead of mentally and emotionally tired) at the end of the day, felt good to do something that tended to the creation that I knew was ultimately promoting and supporting life (and quality of life), felt good to do something tangible that had a distinct beginning, middle, and end, with measurable results I could see and point to when all was said and done.
As I was raking, I was reminded of something a colleague once said to me the year I worked in DC. I had started working for the ELCA's Washington Office in September and was pretty thoroughly disillusioned with our whole system of government and all the self-serving numbskulls therein (self-righteous much?) by Thanksgiving. I was sharing my frustrations and jadedness with J.D., my older, wiser, more experienced counterpart in the United Methodist Church, and he told me "It's good that you're disillusioned right now, you should be. And it's even ok for you to stay disillusioned as you do your job through the rest of this year. Then when you're done here, you need to go back to Minnesota and spend the entire next year just planting trees. Just go home and plant trees. Then you'll be ready to come back to DC."
I still haven't made it back to DC vocationally, and don't know that I ever will. But clearly, I do still think about that advice, and I find it just as applicable, just as appropriate, to the work I do here.
Sometimes, for the sake of your own soul, you've just got to stop and plant some trees.
Peace,
C.
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