Silence and Peace

We are going to the monastery this weekend. It is a much-needed retreat. I am hoping for silence and peace. However, in the past, I have not found what I was hoping for, but what I actually needed. Only God knows what I truly need right now. I hope it is peace. But the last time I hoped for that, a group of a dozen or so people were visiting who treated the place like a hotel - one that they owned. When I went hoping for solitude, there was a family with seven children who were very very friendly. (Incidentally, I am now married to their second oldest.)

I think that it's good that we can't dictate what we find or experience at a place like that. The monastery is not a retreat center, or a resort. If we go, we open ourselves to God and his plan. The schedule and rhythm of the place does not conform to what we think it should be. We get up early, we go to services, we eat sparse meals, we work. Not what most Americans would call a vacation. I think that even at many "spiritual retreat" centers - whether specifically affiliated with a religion or not - the experience is more tailored to the individual. But visiting the monastery inevitably gives me so much more than a traditional vacation or stereotypical "spiritual retreat" does.

There are good things in both. And certainly you can grow in the latter, or close yourself to growth in the former. But I am looking forward to this weekend, and learning what it is that I need right now.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily

"The Lazy Bloggers Post Generator"

Goodness Gracious I just had a cup of tea and realized I haven't updated this since Paris Hilton was in jail... You wouldn't believe that my hands were chopped off and I was waiting for bionic ones. I prostrate myself in sorrow and beg thy forgiveness..

I'm flat out with sleeping my way to the top, learning to speak Japanese, just generally being a terrible burden to my local police, my day starts with the dawn patrol from sun-up to dusk. I'm beyond drunk most of the time. I need some perspective.

I hope you're having a good life if one more person emails me to ask why I haven't posted today I'll start posting pictures of toe fungus, or fecal murals. You have my word! Unless of course the pool with the cocktail bar is heated!.

All right, hopefully the absurdity of that, combined with the atrocious grammar and rampant punctuation errors, as well as the flagrant use of contractions, made you realize that I did not actually write that. And...none of it is true, except for the "I just had a cup of tea" part. In fact, I also had two delicious chocolate-chocolate-chip cookies. The bit above was courtesy of The Lazy Bloggers Post Generator, which actually takes longer than some of my posts do to write. But it was amusing, and that is what is important to me. Take a look, be amused.

Working at the deli continues to be better than answering phones for Sprint. I hope that I can get out of there soon, though. I keep checking back at Barnes and Noble - they tell me they are going to have some openings soon. Working in a bookstore is pretty much my dream part-time-while-in-school job. In fact, I was thinking about this earlier, and I think that if I were not on a career path that I am very excited about and know I will love, I would not mind working in a bookstore long-term. I love bookstores. I love books. I love people who love books. So hopefully that will work out.

My parents are going over to Seattle this weekend, for my cousin's wedding on Saturday. It will be nice to have a good stretch of alone time. I was worried that my dad would decide to not go, but everything is moving forward as planned, and they are leaving at six or seven tomorrow morning. I am tired of living with my parents, but it really is the best option for me right now, financially. It is allowing me to save some money, and I hope that that will result in my being able to pay of my student loans more quickly after I am out of school. Of course, that all depends on my not going insane from living with them. My sanity is ever up in the air, so we shall see how that goes. Time alone will be very good.

There is more, but not for tonight.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily

Itsy-Bitsy Pieces of My Life

Esmeralda is shedding, which always frightens me a bit. I have a rough spot on my neck from scratching it while I had a cold last week, and wondered this morning if I were due to shed, as well. When I was at the optometrist's office today, there was a girl in the waiting room named Esmeralda, and it startled me when they called her. I jerked my head up, and ended up making very awkward eye-contact with her for a few seconds. This was the first time in my life, in all my many years of eye exams, that the assistant was able to perform the glaucoma test on the first try. I hate that test. The blue light coming toward my eye and pressing against it, even though the drops numb the nerve endings so I can not feel it, terrifies me. I was quite pleased with myself for making it through this time. Being there made me keep thinking about Blindness, which I finished reading last week. An excellent book, perhaps the best I have read in a long time. I was fascinated by the author's use of punctuation, which did as much for the pace of the book as the plot itself did. I miss reading a lot. I used to read several books per week, and now it takes me a week to read one. But I am trying to continue reading new books, rather than becoming one who only reads books she has read before. My other new book that I finished recently was If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, which I liked decidedly less. But it seemed to me that part of the author's intent was that the reader should feel the unease I felt at it, so that was somewhat consoling. Next is The Master and Margarita, which my sister has wanted me to read for several years. I had no time or energy to do so during school, but I plan to pick it up starting tomorrow. The trouble I find with reading a lot is, of course, that which so many discover they have. That is, I do not lack time, but I do not feel like reading during that time which I have. I am working eight hours a day, and while I am not working I would like to be mindless. Television is more attractive for that reason, although I dislike television in general. I do not want to lose that mind which was cultivated so carefully over the past four years. My job is horrid at times. We are still in training, having just entered the second week. The hours are awful, and it is a noxious environment to be in. But I have hope that things will improve after training is through, when I am actually in a small, colorless box answering and selling phones. Hard to imagine that that would be a step up, is it not? My soul aches, here. I had thought that I was doing so well, finally getting used to being here again, but tonight after work, my soul started hurting for California again. For my friends, for the places and people I love so much. Oh, how I dislike change, when it is change away from what is good. But I can see ahead. This is not the end. This horrid position is a means to an end, and I will not be there forever. All my applications to graduate school are in, and now I have only to wait. Some say that is the hardest part, but I think it is much easier than agonizing over essays. It is out of my hands; there is a certain ease that comes from that, a sigh of relief. I hope to get into Fullerton. I hope to move back, to finally live with Adria, to study and relax with friends once more. I have few friends here. I hope when I return I will still have many friends there. I am so awful at staying in touch, I fear I may be losing people. My main problem is that I never know what to say. So I say nothing, and they do the same, and we fall away in our respective silences. The underlying issue here is that it is not the conversation that I miss, but the silent presence. I miss most those with whom I can sit quietly, or walk quietly. I miss those with whom there is that quiet understanding that silence is okay, and the silence of not being in contact is so very different than the silence of two people sitting and reading, knowing that the other is there if something does need to be said. I miss that so very much. That is all I can write for now, not because there are no other small pieces of my life I can think of about which to write, but rather because that last bit can not very well lead into any of them.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily

Post-Script Edit: In re-reading this, I realized the ambiguity of one of my sentences. In the sentence I miss reading a lot, a lot should not be taken as the amount that I miss, (eg, reading. I miss it a lot) but the amount of reading I miss (eg, reading lots of books. I miss that).