"Maybe We were Just Too Young to Know..."
Jun. 19th, 2005 04:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psalm_onethirtyoneEr, well. H'lo.
I don't think I'm going to try to reconstruct yesterday, in any case. It went to hell in a big way, and I don't precisely mind--I mean, I feel very gentle right now, and it's a good kind of gentle; I feel like Soujin ought to feel, and I don't want to do anything to spoil that. So that's all right, but I won't bring up yesterday.
Daddy and I went walking together for Father's Day. We took my short one-hour walk to the Church and around. There's a nice church far away behind our house that I like a lot--when there's something very important, I go there and sit on the steps and sometimes pray. Sometimes I used to go and read. It's one of my favourite walks, because everything's so beautiful there. The graveyard is the only one I'm not afraid to breathe in. My aunt (the Aunt Who Hates Me, in case anyone's interested) told me that one can't breathe going past a graveyard, so I always hold my breath everywhere else, always, but not this one. All the gravestones have last names just like the names of my people at Stoneybridge, so I don't feel as though I'm intruding, either, because I know the children of the people who are buried there. Because of that I like it, and because of the giant sycamores up there, and because it's all surrounded by forest, and at the top of a very tall hill that's difficult to climb, and once I've gotten to the top I feel as though I've gotten somewhere, though there's no view whatsoever. It was a wonderful walk, and we talked about writing and his family and Grandma (we were remembering things about Grandma) and the new restaurant opening down the street.
Waen's very upset about that. The new restaurant will bring people into our tiny town of one hundred and fifty people. It'll make it bigger, and I don't think Waen wants that change. I never realise things are changing, so I don't notice. I never even noticed the restaurant was coming.
I was thinking about church. I really love Father Julian. He has a beautiful way of reading the gospel, making it sound like a benediction. I always think Jesus would talk just like Father Julian, which is funny--he's from Poland, but he's English, and he moved to Baltimore when he was a boy, so his accent is a magnificent combination of all three.
I have been thinking also about religion, because you know I really am religious in my own way. I ignore God, because I think the Old Testament is just--there are so many cruel, unreasonable things in it, and I disagree with it so much--but I love the New Testament, I believe in Jesus; when I make prayers, I address them to Jesus; and I believe in the saints also. It's a patchworked sort of religion, because it has all its own rules, but it does mean I like going to church.
But church is very much like a play for me, because I acolyte. I get there early, I get into costume--my vestments, the red robe and white other-thingy and my acolyte's cross--and then I sit around backstage and watch the audience coming in with the rest of the cast. To-day the greeters were sitting around talking and I was sitting with them. Then the service starts and I go onstage.
My favourite part is lighting the candles, but I also love the Communion. It's my business to have the gate shut, to take the Wine and Bread from the ushers and bring them to the priest, to attend to everything that takes place on the altar and have the wine and water there when they're needed and then taken away again, and almost all of this must be done at the same time. It's funny because there's a long period of inactivity while the lector does the readings, and the priest does the sermon, and then all of a sudden I'm so busy I don't know what I'm doing, except that I always do. When everything is ready on the altar, I wash the priest's hands with my little bowl and pitcher of water, and he dries his fingers on the little cloth I have over my arm, and then we bow to one another, and I put everything away in a moment so I can kneel for the Lord's prayer, which, incidentally, I say in Latin because I don't know whether or not I mean it so I might as well practise my schoolwork. Then we have Communion, and I stay sitting while the chalice bearer and the priest give the Wine and Bread. To-day we had so many children who couldn't take, so Father Julian got down on his knees and blessed them, drew little crosses on their foreheads. I miss being blessed. Father Bill used to bless me when I was very small. Father Julian did it for my birthday four weeks ago, which was so kind of him. At any rate, the service goes on after Communion (I clean everything up after Communion; I unlatch the gate and I put away the water and the containers), and at the very end I lead the procession down the aisle, and then the service is over. Then I go back into the sacristy and change out of the white part of my robes, and go out to snuff the candles. There's an order to the candles--I never used to know that.
The one on the right is the Lord's candle, and it must be lit before Jesus' candle, on the left, and Jesus' candle must be put out first, because the rule is that the Lord's candle is the only one that can stand alone.
When I've put out the candles, then the service really truly is over and everybody leaves while the actors go backstage and change costume. The parts I help with never feel as real as the parts I watch, although they do feel very serious. I can't ever forget my part. The whole end of the service is hinged on what I do--I went out late to-day, and everything went late.
I love washing the priest's hands. They all have such different hands. We still haven't got a priest of our own yet--it might be Father Harmon, but he hasn't been doing very well lately, and I think the Discernment Committee is feeling less enthusiastic.
Father Julian is the best priest we ever had. As I said, he has a beautiful way of reading; he also writes wonderful sermons. He brings in props (to-day's was a curling iron) and he always starts off with a wonderful bit with his prop before he goes into the deeper, more strongly religious part, and he always makes you think. It's very nice. His whole way of doing things is very nice, although of course he is the priest who was all about how John and Jesus were cousins, cousins, totally cousins, and in conclusion cousins. ^_^ But he's sweet. He's very thoughtful to me, and he asks after everybody. But he'll leave us for another church that may have accepted him, and we'll have to get somebody else; and I'll miss him.
Everybody else is gone just now: friends of Mum and Da' invited us to dinner, but I have so much I need to do that honestly I couldn't go, I truly couldn't go, so I've been allowed to stay home. I've been so tired lately--but I need to finish all the things I need to finish. Someday I really will be able to have some spare time, but I don't know.
And in a week I leave for Sewanee...! Not even a week. On Friday. I have an address there, in case anybody wants to send me letters; I intend to send out letters, for certain, because I don't know what I'll do without all of you so soon again.
I'm thinking of books I ought to read, things I need to do, letters I must write, people I must see again, stories that are trapped in my head that won't come out for me. Daddy says we will have corn in September, and he says the raspberries will come in just as soon as I get back from Sewanee. He says the watermelons are doing beautifully.
I never made my flower garden. I was too ill do to it in time, and now it's too late, and everybody else's is blooming. I'm secretly relieved. I'd never have had time to weed it and tend it. I'm losing my time. Mum thinks I'll be ill again; my cough came back this morning, and two nights ago also when I had to lean against the wall to stay upright. I feel like a child from a long time ago, some fragile little child from a story, and it's a little funny, because I'm not fragile enough to be fragile. But there. I'm a terrible hypochondriac, and it's relieving to think Mum's the one who's concerned about my health and not me, because I've thought so many things were wrong with me.
Perhaps if I can finish all the things that just right now I need to finish, I'll go and read poetry out on the screened porch. I don't know. I don't know that I'll have time.
I want to go out and dance, really. I want to dance because it's beautiful, and I don't have to go anywhere to-day (Mum is very upset; I'll be in trouble when they get home again). Perhaps I'll clean the kitchen, because that's something useful that I can do very easily.
I have a story for next year's NaNoWriMo, and I'm afraid I'll forget it by then--not the story I have, but the feeling I have in my head that I could sit down and write it. I've lost stories that way before. I wonder if that's what happened to Nanni's--sometimes my good ideas just fade off by themselves. If that's what happened, I shall make something better, and it will be good if only to know what's wrong so that I can do something about it instead of wondering why nothing will come. It's always good to know if something's just trailing away, that it's not your fault, just what happened. It can be fixed, then. I could just set it free. But I'll test it for a few more days just to be sure. It was a good idea, or at least I thought so.
But now I've got to do some of the things I stayed home to do, for heaven's sake. Only it was nice to write everything out like this, because it does help. It makes it easier to think. I think perhaps I'll come back officially to DF to-morrow night; I've got to get it cleared up, too, before I leave home.
I want to take my red velvet skirt with me to Sewanee, because it's silk-lined and it love the way it swushes around my ankles, but it needs to be dry-cleaned, and we never have time.
I don't think I'm going to try to reconstruct yesterday, in any case. It went to hell in a big way, and I don't precisely mind--I mean, I feel very gentle right now, and it's a good kind of gentle; I feel like Soujin ought to feel, and I don't want to do anything to spoil that. So that's all right, but I won't bring up yesterday.
Daddy and I went walking together for Father's Day. We took my short one-hour walk to the Church and around. There's a nice church far away behind our house that I like a lot--when there's something very important, I go there and sit on the steps and sometimes pray. Sometimes I used to go and read. It's one of my favourite walks, because everything's so beautiful there. The graveyard is the only one I'm not afraid to breathe in. My aunt (the Aunt Who Hates Me, in case anyone's interested) told me that one can't breathe going past a graveyard, so I always hold my breath everywhere else, always, but not this one. All the gravestones have last names just like the names of my people at Stoneybridge, so I don't feel as though I'm intruding, either, because I know the children of the people who are buried there. Because of that I like it, and because of the giant sycamores up there, and because it's all surrounded by forest, and at the top of a very tall hill that's difficult to climb, and once I've gotten to the top I feel as though I've gotten somewhere, though there's no view whatsoever. It was a wonderful walk, and we talked about writing and his family and Grandma (we were remembering things about Grandma) and the new restaurant opening down the street.
Waen's very upset about that. The new restaurant will bring people into our tiny town of one hundred and fifty people. It'll make it bigger, and I don't think Waen wants that change. I never realise things are changing, so I don't notice. I never even noticed the restaurant was coming.
I was thinking about church. I really love Father Julian. He has a beautiful way of reading the gospel, making it sound like a benediction. I always think Jesus would talk just like Father Julian, which is funny--he's from Poland, but he's English, and he moved to Baltimore when he was a boy, so his accent is a magnificent combination of all three.
I have been thinking also about religion, because you know I really am religious in my own way. I ignore God, because I think the Old Testament is just--there are so many cruel, unreasonable things in it, and I disagree with it so much--but I love the New Testament, I believe in Jesus; when I make prayers, I address them to Jesus; and I believe in the saints also. It's a patchworked sort of religion, because it has all its own rules, but it does mean I like going to church.
But church is very much like a play for me, because I acolyte. I get there early, I get into costume--my vestments, the red robe and white other-thingy and my acolyte's cross--and then I sit around backstage and watch the audience coming in with the rest of the cast. To-day the greeters were sitting around talking and I was sitting with them. Then the service starts and I go onstage.
My favourite part is lighting the candles, but I also love the Communion. It's my business to have the gate shut, to take the Wine and Bread from the ushers and bring them to the priest, to attend to everything that takes place on the altar and have the wine and water there when they're needed and then taken away again, and almost all of this must be done at the same time. It's funny because there's a long period of inactivity while the lector does the readings, and the priest does the sermon, and then all of a sudden I'm so busy I don't know what I'm doing, except that I always do. When everything is ready on the altar, I wash the priest's hands with my little bowl and pitcher of water, and he dries his fingers on the little cloth I have over my arm, and then we bow to one another, and I put everything away in a moment so I can kneel for the Lord's prayer, which, incidentally, I say in Latin because I don't know whether or not I mean it so I might as well practise my schoolwork. Then we have Communion, and I stay sitting while the chalice bearer and the priest give the Wine and Bread. To-day we had so many children who couldn't take, so Father Julian got down on his knees and blessed them, drew little crosses on their foreheads. I miss being blessed. Father Bill used to bless me when I was very small. Father Julian did it for my birthday four weeks ago, which was so kind of him. At any rate, the service goes on after Communion (I clean everything up after Communion; I unlatch the gate and I put away the water and the containers), and at the very end I lead the procession down the aisle, and then the service is over. Then I go back into the sacristy and change out of the white part of my robes, and go out to snuff the candles. There's an order to the candles--I never used to know that.
The one on the right is the Lord's candle, and it must be lit before Jesus' candle, on the left, and Jesus' candle must be put out first, because the rule is that the Lord's candle is the only one that can stand alone.
When I've put out the candles, then the service really truly is over and everybody leaves while the actors go backstage and change costume. The parts I help with never feel as real as the parts I watch, although they do feel very serious. I can't ever forget my part. The whole end of the service is hinged on what I do--I went out late to-day, and everything went late.
I love washing the priest's hands. They all have such different hands. We still haven't got a priest of our own yet--it might be Father Harmon, but he hasn't been doing very well lately, and I think the Discernment Committee is feeling less enthusiastic.
Father Julian is the best priest we ever had. As I said, he has a beautiful way of reading; he also writes wonderful sermons. He brings in props (to-day's was a curling iron) and he always starts off with a wonderful bit with his prop before he goes into the deeper, more strongly religious part, and he always makes you think. It's very nice. His whole way of doing things is very nice, although of course he is the priest who was all about how John and Jesus were cousins, cousins, totally cousins, and in conclusion cousins. ^_^ But he's sweet. He's very thoughtful to me, and he asks after everybody. But he'll leave us for another church that may have accepted him, and we'll have to get somebody else; and I'll miss him.
Everybody else is gone just now: friends of Mum and Da' invited us to dinner, but I have so much I need to do that honestly I couldn't go, I truly couldn't go, so I've been allowed to stay home. I've been so tired lately--but I need to finish all the things I need to finish. Someday I really will be able to have some spare time, but I don't know.
And in a week I leave for Sewanee...! Not even a week. On Friday. I have an address there, in case anybody wants to send me letters; I intend to send out letters, for certain, because I don't know what I'll do without all of you so soon again.
I'm thinking of books I ought to read, things I need to do, letters I must write, people I must see again, stories that are trapped in my head that won't come out for me. Daddy says we will have corn in September, and he says the raspberries will come in just as soon as I get back from Sewanee. He says the watermelons are doing beautifully.
I never made my flower garden. I was too ill do to it in time, and now it's too late, and everybody else's is blooming. I'm secretly relieved. I'd never have had time to weed it and tend it. I'm losing my time. Mum thinks I'll be ill again; my cough came back this morning, and two nights ago also when I had to lean against the wall to stay upright. I feel like a child from a long time ago, some fragile little child from a story, and it's a little funny, because I'm not fragile enough to be fragile. But there. I'm a terrible hypochondriac, and it's relieving to think Mum's the one who's concerned about my health and not me, because I've thought so many things were wrong with me.
Perhaps if I can finish all the things that just right now I need to finish, I'll go and read poetry out on the screened porch. I don't know. I don't know that I'll have time.
I want to go out and dance, really. I want to dance because it's beautiful, and I don't have to go anywhere to-day (Mum is very upset; I'll be in trouble when they get home again). Perhaps I'll clean the kitchen, because that's something useful that I can do very easily.
I have a story for next year's NaNoWriMo, and I'm afraid I'll forget it by then--not the story I have, but the feeling I have in my head that I could sit down and write it. I've lost stories that way before. I wonder if that's what happened to Nanni's--sometimes my good ideas just fade off by themselves. If that's what happened, I shall make something better, and it will be good if only to know what's wrong so that I can do something about it instead of wondering why nothing will come. It's always good to know if something's just trailing away, that it's not your fault, just what happened. It can be fixed, then. I could just set it free. But I'll test it for a few more days just to be sure. It was a good idea, or at least I thought so.
But now I've got to do some of the things I stayed home to do, for heaven's sake. Only it was nice to write everything out like this, because it does help. It makes it easier to think. I think perhaps I'll come back officially to DF to-morrow night; I've got to get it cleared up, too, before I leave home.
I want to take my red velvet skirt with me to Sewanee, because it's silk-lined and it love the way it swushes around my ankles, but it needs to be dry-cleaned, and we never have time.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-19 09:37 pm (UTC)And see? Just a simple little entry like this can make me go on and on this way. I'm sorry for spamming you, but... yeah. Sorry. ^^;
Have you read 'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell'? I've been reccommending it to a lot of people lately, but it's really good. If you need something long to read, that is.
Hailey the irritating, completely finished with babbling, I promise, sir! *salutes*
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-21 03:05 am (UTC)*giggles* Very true.
No, no, no! Don't be sorry! You've touched my soul, and you apologise? No, no, no!
I haven't! I shall mark it down. Can you tell me the author?
Report back to-morrow for another round, soldier, or I'll tell the Major! *monocled glower*
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-19 10:04 pm (UTC)I'm totally going to write you letters. :-D
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-21 03:08 am (UTC)You would love him even more if you met him. He's irresistible. It's the accent. ^_~
YAY!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-19 10:52 pm (UTC)*hugclings* How long will you be gone, darling? I'll be home safely in Philly on the 4th of July.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-21 03:10 am (UTC)Two weeks--I'll be gone until the tenth of July, I believe. ;_; I am going to pine for you.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-19 11:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-21 03:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-20 04:02 am (UTC)You, or your life, you're like something out of some sweet, old-fashioned little book. Maybe Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote it.
My life seems so...burby. >.> (...really though. 150 PEOPLE??? Crikey, girl, the back of beyond. I'm moving there.)
I just asked my parents what the population of our town was - I was estimating 10k or so - and my dad just up and replies "12,854". ...wtf, baba? He's right, but, how on earth...? ...okay. Anyway, 12,854 people in Los Al, which is a small little suburb, and of course it's Orange County suburbs, so it isn't as if one town is at all distinguishable from the next.
....one. hundred. and. fifty?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-20 03:30 pm (UTC)The city where my college is has something like 70,000 people, but it doesn't feel like that to me at all because I only really see Main Street, which feels like a piece of a smaller town because it's so old and wonderful.
There were about 150 people in my residence hall last year, I think. Whoa. (Actually, upon checking, it's 120. Close enough.)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-21 03:15 am (UTC)Yes, I agree. Bethlehem is always so beautiful and antiquish and not nasty-city-ish because of Main Street.
*giggles and is tiny, tiny, tiny!*
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-21 03:14 am (UTC)Do you know what's sad, though, and not like something out of a sweet old-fashioned little book? I only know about ten of these people personally, twenty by name, and fifty or so by sight. The rest are mysteries inside of little houses. *is hugely antisocial and shy in real life*
(Do come. ^_^ We always have at least one house for sale.)
Eep! That's so big! O_O
But there you are. One hundred and fifty. Someday I'll take photographs and show you. We're not on most maps.