Wesołego Alleluja!

Tasting cake batter before the Vigil - She doesn't have to fast!

 

 

 

 

 

Święconka basket..Holy Saturday

  

The Cake - a lesson in making the best out of failure..

 

 

 

Easter morning!

Wesołego Alleluja!

Holy Week

Poem: Joseph

I'd love some direction on this one..it's another old one, edited, re-edited, and sort of hovering in uncertainty..I'm not sure if I've edited into complete confusion - just a collection of images that go nowhere. So let me know..in sort of a gentle way. Thanks!

Joseph

Mumble your prayers, father;

     I know

those hands call up lilies like songs.

Keep watch. Hold

    your almond-

eyes still. 

I wait on you.

Unsteady tonight -

    again my toes

       trace - awkwardly bright,

whore’s red and swollen

        cold -

along the crack between us

        that grows.

pretty, happy, funny, real..

(Pretty, happy, funny, real)

Pretty

I finally finished covering the down comforter - it was so ugly and old!- in my old and ruined silk skirts..now it’s all ready to be a warm, comfortable friend on these cold March nights!

Happy

 You can just barely see the smile..St. Joseph loving some post-feast attention

Funny

Real

My table today.

(disclaimer: all photos but 'funny' are my own..Seth had nothing to do with them)

Thinking Out Loud..The Trouble with Blogging

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

~Oscar Wilde

About a week ago, a friend shared an article with me on the popularity of Mormon mommy blogs. She mentioned that perhaps a part of their appeal is that, unlike many Catholic blogs, the Mormons rarely refer to their faith, they aren’t out in the open, working through their issues, struggling with the requirements of faith, and openly seeking to form a community of like-minded brothers and sisters in the blogging world. They simply share a part of their lives, a clean, fresh image with only a little bit of struggle. The conversation, and the article itself started me thinking again about the place of information and about living modestly in our written lives.

Catholic women tend to write blogs that are too open in many ways. We over-share sometimes in areas of marital strife, fertility, birth, and our continuing pursuit of sainthood. We gripe about the world’s misrepresentation of our faith, and sometimes, we focus too much on these frustrating areas of life and less on the beauty that permeates everything in life - a beauty sometimes dark and terrible, sometimes light and healing. In other words, we fall on the opposite end of the spectrum from the happy Mormon blogs. We struggle out loud and in the open with private issues and hide the happy and easy parts of life from our readers, or - like I often do, we share our thoughts only after they’ve formed completely - failing to use the community we’ve created to shape and develop our thoughts.

So what is the balance? What balance am I trying to strike here, on Cyganeria? I don’t know. I’m working toward a blog that is less static in it’s ideas and portrayal of my artistic life, a blog that nurtures growth in myself and others, and that encourages thought and discussion. But I know I’ll always want to avoid over-sharing - there will be not instantaneous reactions to a new thought or dream or ideal; those writings are for my journal, to gestate in my own mind until they are ready. I don’t want this site to be merely a sink for my own overflowing mind, and I don’t want any struggles I may experience to bring doubt to my readers, but I would like to avoid giving the impression of perfection - of surety and sainthood already achieved. Reading, briefly, some of the Mormon blogs, I see them doing the same (posting pictures of messy-haired mothers grinding coffee in weekend kitchens) and laughing over mistakes. They walk a balance of their own, I’m sure, in their witness to the beauty of domesticity.

Dreaming

It’s been too warm for March this year. Warm and grey and sort of dismal. The warmth is actually nice, except that we won’t be getting much in the way of maple syrup, and in that it feels off to me to have nights above freezing and days of watching the muddy snow melt away. When the sun is hidden too long, I have trouble rising out of my dreams and greeting the day. Today is brighter than yesterday - we can almost see blue in patches of sky and I’m trying to make use of the bright moments to finish my cleaning, beat out the rugs, and write the letters to friends I’ve been allowing to pile up on the desk.

Jenna wrote on Monday about the cost of writing, being in part, a willingness to share the deep parts of yourself, to really bleed out, instead of merely writing the surface. It’s true, and it is an essential, but sometimes I wonder if, in this over-sharing world of ours, the challenge is less to share deeply, and more to know the way to walk between a overload of all the emotional and personal details and an ability to write reflectively - sharing what communicates and what leads to understanding, avoiding what may be deep and personal, but is also too much information - what ends up clouding the point. Maybe it’s about being ‘all in’ to writing, and not all into yourself.

It’s a balance I’m still learning to walk. In my writing I walk on the reserved side - as yet unprepared to reveal my whole self, and the pursuit of openness is a daily one, like the pursuit of holiness, and the attempt to walk through each day full awake and alive to the beauties in each moment.

Late~Winter Love

My life this week. briefly

1.

Spring is on the way! Mud season has begun, I think..which means I need to get propane for the freezer again. Ugh..why is life so full of .. Life? Our driveway is a mess! And mud-season is the season for intense yard clean-up..it should be interesting.

2.

Yarrow has been nursing more, sleeping more, and being a fussy little mess more these days, which has distracted me from everything! Especially as she really doesn’t want to be sleeping alone. And, getting to the halfway point of Lent is making me crabby and full of unfulfilled longings for things I can’t have ‘til Easter - especially cream in my coffee!

3.

I need to touch up my hair and take a bath..or should I write..or workout..or clean..hmm, maybe I’ll just clean. Again. Cleaning gives me such a sense of peace and order..until Seth comes home and starts living in the clean space.

4.

I recently posted a reflection on handguns on Piekno..There are many such reflections in my mind as I work to simplify, not only my physical life, but my mental and spiritual life. It’s definitely a growing process, and as such, has some pains along with it, do read it and offer your direction - gently- I have high hopes of becoming someone who can be directed by the wisdom of others.

5.

We only have bad coffee left in the house…and the only store I can walk to stock Instant (ewww!!) How exactly do people build productive lives?? Anyone know?? I’m off to make lists of things that must be done, things I should think about a lot before doing, and things that can be given up as hopeless..then I should do them, but I’ll probably just clean again instead.

Blessed busy days to you all! Hopefully I’ll be more coherent tomorrow.