dual personalities

“This is the day which the Lord has made,” says the 118th Psalm. “Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Or weep and be sad in it for that matter. The point is to see it for what it is because it will be gone before you know it. If you waste it, it is your life that you’re wasting. If you look the other way, it may be the moment you’ve been waiting for always that you’re missing. 

All other days have either disappeared into darkness and oblivion or not yet emerged from them. Today is the only day there is.

–Frederick Buechner, “Whistling in the Dark”

And while we’re thinking along those lines, let’s go back to one of our favorites by Walt Whitman:

O Me! O life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

Well, I thought I would finish my elephant needlepoint by the end of August, but as you can see, I did not. But I am getting close! Little victories. You just have to keep plugging away…

We did have some good news this week. Pastor John MacArthur and Grace Community Church won their legal battle with the state of California and Los Angeles County after the governments agreed to pay $400,000 each as part of a settlement for violating the church’s religious liberty during the COVID-19 pandemic. California has already paid over $2 million in legal fees to other churches. Yes, it’s a drop in the bucket for California, but it is important.

Yahooooo.

In other news, I watched the first three episodes of Only Murders in the Building, the new “series” starring Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez on Hulu. I really liked it!

It is funny without being silly and the characters develop along with the story. Considering the stars, we were not surprised that the cool kids show up in cameos–so far, Tina Fey, Nathan Lane and Sting–but it has something serious to say about loneliness and how little we know our neighbors. I recommend it.

Count it all joy.

Happy first day of September. It’s a fast downhill to the new year now! I know you enjoyed last week’s post, but Daughter #1 is back with some witty banter and odd ramblings today. Because I was off blog duty last week, I didn’t get to post about the State Fair. It was a great day, full of bacon, golf cart rides, and ice cream. It never ceases to amaze me the number of embroidered polo shirts one sees on Legislative Day at the Fair. Thankfully, I was not required to wear mine. You can watch a quick recap video here.

In other news, I took last week off, because I was taking annual leave from work for several days just to not work. I spent four days in St. Louis and did some toodlin’ around with my mother. We had success at an estate sale–and ventured to IKEA. I was looking for a new table for my sewing room–and my eagle-eyed mother found the perfect one!

After asking a co-worker to help haul it in from my car (one of the perks of living across the street from the office), I set to work using my power drill and assembling the new table.

As you can tell, there is still some work to do on the room, but the new table is just amazing. There’s enough surface area to make cutting out patterns a dream, and I can have the sewing machine out and still have basically another table space for pinning fabric etc. The next step is finding somewhere to store the fabric in the corner.

I made a pair of (elastic waist) pants this weekend which I am pretty pumped about. And also a little jacket that definitely has an air of “green linen seemed like a good idea at the time.” Nevertheless, I persist.

In still other news, yesterday, I received this text from my father:

Funnily, I did know that. Because it was legitimately big news.

I didn’t go check it out because a) it was hot and very humid and threatening to rain and b) my co-worker tipped me off that the entire town was camped out to see Big Boy. Front page news, right there.

It all had a very sweet It Happened to Jane vibe.

Anyway, I’m just over here trying to find joy in little things. I’ve been “reading” The Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder since my mother recommended it several months ago. I use quotation marks because my brain is such mush that “reading” is difficult and it feels like I’ll read a page and before I know it, I’ve stopped and am back on my phone. Anyway again, this struck me as apropos.

“If the spectacle of one defeat, or a hundred defeats, discouraged a man, civilization wouldn’t have gone anywhere. There’d be no justice on earth, no hospitals, no homes, no friendships, like yours and mine. There’d just be moaning people, creeping about.”

The Eighth Day, Thornton Wilder

Something to think about.