Spiritual Journey Thursday: Hallowed ground

 

Fran Haley has prompted the writing circle with the idea

of "holy" this month.  You can read her post, and the group's

linked posts, here.

I'm not sure when exactly it happened.  After my first child?  My second? 

Whenever it happened...I surprised myself.

The Sign of the Cross is the tell of a Christian raised in the Roman Catholic Church.  We dab our fingers in holy water and cross ourselves as we enter sanctuaries, making the Sign again and again throughout Mass, blessing ourselves as we exit.  Beyond chapel walls, the Sign begins and ends prayer (most often at the dining table).

I wasn't familiar with the tradition of making the Sign in the presence of other spaces until high school.  A friend, fellow Catholic with Latinx roots, urged me to cross myself as we passed churches and graveyards--to ward off evil and solicit blessings, she said.  That habit followed me for many years, despite my gradual departure from the Church of my youth.

I was still a fairly regular attendee of Sunday Mass when it happened--the urge, and follow-through, to make the Sign of the Cross while driving past...a hospital.

Not just any hospital.  The one where my children were born. Even more specifically, the hospital that bore witness to my less-than-ideal deliveries.  The hospital where angels-on-earth saved my twenty-six-week premature firstborn, cared for me through a miscarriage, and safely delivered my son, saving my life in the process.  The hospital that allowed me to ensure that another pregnancy wouldn't endanger my life again, to continue mothering my children.

The memories of giving birth in the presence of such care, compassion, and competence fill me with awe and reverence, not unlike entering a grand cathedral with a golden tabernacle.

Is it any wonder, then, that my hand goes to my forehead, heart, shoulders as I pass that building?  I utter a silent prayer of gratitude for the caregivers within and the blessings they gave me on that hallowed ground.  

Tuesday Slice: Except for the mosquitoes

 

The weather has been pleasantly cool(er) these past few evenings. Looking out our window, we spied our costumed neighbor and her friend setting up chairs in the driveway to pass out treats.  "We could do that, too," said my husband.  "We could," I replied.  We made sure our chocolate and non-chocolate containers were full, gathered our water jugs, and headed to the front porch.

We were visited by several swarms of children, many of whom are my students.  It was fun to hear them tell their parents "That's my librarian!" as they headed down the sidewalk.

We were also visited by several mosquitoes.

I can't imagine what I looked like, brushing at my face and arms at the slightest sensation, standing up suddenly and swatting the air like a windmill as two or three of those flying bloodsuckers passed within my field of vision.

We didn't get as many trick-or-treaters this year.  I wonder why....

Tuesday Slice: Accidental success

 

I can't share an elevator

with Tina Fey

because our dogs don't get along.

She and her husband 

are wonderful people, though.

When I was nine, 

I wanted to write comics.

My classmates told me

my drawing sucked.

So I started typing stories instead.

Here we are, thirty years of the series.

Magic Tree House is thirty, too!

Mary Pope Osborne and I are friends.

I never planned to write for kids.

But I ended up at Scholastic,

writing social studies magazines.

Then a humor magazine.  

Remember "Bananas"?

I was asked to write YA horror.

I hadn't done that before, 

had to read some before I started.

I changed my name 

from Robert to R.L.

just like S.E. Hinton.

The first book was a hit.

And the second.

Remember Fear Street?

I was asked to write scary books for kids.

Here we are, 300 books later!

In the beginning, I was writing a book

every. two. weeks.

Not anymore.

I write ten pages a day.

My editors help keep me straight,

tell me if I've done that bit before.

Writing is easy...

if you write the outline first.

I outline the entire book, 

beginning, middle end.

Then the writing part is easy!

Have fun!  Enjoy it!

Not one word comes from my heart.

I entertain people!

Thanks for thirty years of Goosebumps, Bob.

Image and paraphrased anecdotes from a Zoom visit sponsored by 

Sam Houston Stare University Library Science Department.

Tuesday Slice: Mind-full words

 

To get through this

I need more of this

and, maybe,

an appointment with a

therapist.

Tuesday Slice: Weeding

 

Books only come to life

if they are read, I tell myself,

as I spy old favorites

strewn across the

library tables.

The report ran hundreds

of pages long

Books that were sitting

on the shelves, 

barely touched, if at all.

Five or six dozen at a time,

they are displayed for a week

Every student and teacher 

encouraged to look there first,

rescue them if they need

to be brought to life again.

There are a few I rescue, 

knowing they still fit 

within our curriculum.

After the last class on Friday,

we box up the remainder

and send them on

to the warehouse

for someone else

to breathe life into the stories.

Spiritual Journey Thursday: In memory of

 

I am providing the prompt for our Spiritual Thursday writing group this month:

"In memory of..."

As the ephemera for Dia de los Muertos multiplies in stores and decor it 

occurs to me

I have no family plot

My grandparents interred

in their urns to the north

Relatives buried or burned

from coast to coast

My own mother

five-hundred-eighty-three miles

to the west

(Unlike my husband's side--he

took me to his family's cemetery

as a means of introduction)

And just like that, an ofrenda makes sense.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

As a child, Halloween was all about the costume and the candy, followed by obligatory attendance of Mass for All Saints Day.  When my mother passed just months after my thirtieth birthday, my focus began to shift to the true meaning of these holy days and the ancient need for connecting with our ancestors that precedes Church.  I find myself yearning for signs, dreams, anything that forms even the thinnest of links with loved ones who have left the mortal plane.  

And then a memory popped up in my Facebook feed.  

Maybe those links are there in the crochet chains and stitches, in the afghan on my bed, the pictures on the wall, my mother's hands becoming my own.   

An ofrenda surrounds me in art, recipes, handiwork.  I just need to pause, notice, and give thanks...and light a candle or two.

Tuesday Slice: Let it burn

 

The cough has been coming on for a few days, but the fever didn't hit until Saturday night.  Just a smidge under a hundred; I wasn't feeling too prickly, so I took a Mucinex for the cough and headed to bed.

I woke up at seven-thirty, dizzy as soon as I sat up.  Checking my temperature a few minutes later confirmed my suspicion--I was a smidge over one hundred.  After making my coffee, I settled in for a day on the couch, getting up to rehydrate, check my temp, and take a COVID test, which was negative (whew).

The thermometer kept bouncing between ninety-nine and a hundred all day.  I was hoping it would burn itself out, but the thermometer read one hundred point four after my four-thirty alarm on Monday morning, prompting a text to admin and a sick day entry on the absence portal.

Monday came and went in a haze of PBS shows, some light reading, and feeding a returning appetite.  Temps continued to remain below a hundred...would I get to go to work on Tuesday?  The intermittent coughing decided to become more constant at bedtime. After a midnight trip to the kitchen for more meds, I bunked on the couch, propped up by pillows and hopefully out of earshot of my sleeping husband.

The four-thirty alarm was brutal...but temps are below a hundred, and sub plans are a pain in the rear.  Off to work I go, with cough drops in my pocket.