Correction

 Last night, while having a sweet talk with Ted and my parents over the phone.  My father brought to my attention a significant, unfortunate, typo in my last post.  Midway through the third paragraph there is a sentence with the phrase, “I am in a state of absolute despair.”  Absent from this phrase is the small but crucial word, “not.”  Please note the following correction: “I am not in a state of absolute despair.”  Which I hope you will see demonstrated in what is yet to come in my words and in my actions.

I have been thinking a great deal and talking to several dear friends and family members since the last post, sharing and clarifying.  I have also written a bit but am faced with reconsidering whether this is an appropriate space for me to continue engaging the process of self, social and spiritual evaluation.

Much love to all.

I write not that I might air the clean laundry, but the dirty...

When asked why I have not updated this blog, I reply, “Oh, I’ve been so busy.”  I am sorry to say, I was lying.  While it is true that many major events and life changes have been underway, those events and changes are all the more reason for writing.  This post is an effort at transparency, though, I do fear at times that explanations themselves tend to muddy the waters. Be that as it may, here is my confession: The primary reason, rising above the usual scattered excuses, that I have not been writing is that I have, for lack of a more appropriate term, been depressed.

As I write, there is a wedding celebration transpiring in the auditorium.  I can hear occasional bursts of applause and jovial voices.  I can imagine the sumptuous African foods that have been in the process of preparation from last night all the way through to this afternoon.  I stayed home after my house shift today, in spite of feeling the urge to escape the city, just so that I could attend this very celebration.  Instead, I am in my room, too ashamed of my eyelids and nose, swollen from hours of weeping, to show my face downstairs. 

I’ve been reluctant to disclose my discouraged state, for a few reasons beyond the usual embarrassment, lack of adequate explanation, etc. One is that I do not want to give the impression that I am sad all the time, I’m not.  I have been able to rest in genuinely happy and peaceful moments, enjoy other peoples company, feel energized by work or ideas.  Another is that I am not in a state of absolute despair, I have not yet reached that point. Finally, because of my recent marriage.  Though it is certainly an upheaval of my former life, it is also an island of stability in the midst of this tumultuous sea of doubt that seems to swell over almost every other aspect of my life. Ted’s loving presence continually returns me to appreciation for life and others and myself.

Other recent life changes we might shift our attention to are a recent move to New York City and to Maryhouse.  Admittedly, I have been sorely tempted to point my finger at these.  I catch myself making exaggerated comparisons between my move to Chicago and my move here.  In Chicago, I felt my life expanding, as though I was taking a deep, enlivening breath; I was eager to involve myself in every opportunity that presented itself, no matter how intimidating.  In New York, I feel crumpled, as though I’ve had the breath knocked out of me in a painful whoosh and I am inclined to opt out of every opportunity that presents itself, no matter how appealing.

 It is little wonder that a person who loves solitude and natural places might feel claustrophobic living in an unruly house of twenty-five people and a city that seems obsessed with hiding the earth beneath concrete and the sky behind buildings.  There is more to this, though, than geography. And I know that the transition has been subtle and varied, experiencing shifts long before my shift in locale and community.

Bearing that in mind, I will go back a bit on what I have said and assert that, in fact, my troubles do have something to do with marriage, and Manhattan, and Maryhouse! Not because they create this interior disturbance, but because they confront me with it.  Manhattan’s rejection of nature, subjection of the poor and projection of the importance of image and success forces me to consider where I really stand in relation to these things. Maryhouse, somehow, acts as a mirror and holds before my face everything I don’t like about myself. Living here I feel weak, indecisive, unassertive, disorganized, wasteful, petty, lacking vision and imagination, lacking in compassion, socially timid, etc, etc, etc.  In addition to that all of my critique for the community, which I will not include here, can be turned on myself. 

In addition to a new city and community, a new relationship requires more new relationships.  It is necessary to meet and connect with new people.  This has never been easy for me and the challenge is intensified by being in a state where I feel that I am struggling to “keep it together,” so to speak. Thus I am inhibited beyond my usual shyness by the contradictory inclinations to always be open and truthful and to put on my best face.  Marriage also complicates my usual coping techniques.  Making decisions with someone else is hard.  Not only is there the possibility of not agreeing, but also the feeling of not wanting to inadvertently coerce the other into doing something they don’t want and that they (and thus you who love them) will regret.  I feel weighed down by this. 

Historically, my response to feeling inadequate or disconnected or disinterested with a job or a group or a place has been to leave it.  To point my ship toward new horizons and sail on.  Now, if not absolutely held back, I am slowed by the presence of another person, whom I will never desert.  Now I am forced to remain while the ugly aspects of myself make their mean presence known.  I cannot turn my back on the difficult questions of how to love the same person(s) over and over again each day.  I cannot avoid the challenge of dwelling within a neighborhood and a culture where I feel I do not belong. I can’t shake off the feeling of confusion and dismay about how to live justly when I am, and the society I live in is, so corrupt. Now that my life is intentionally shared, I cannot simply disengage and start over.  Thus, my husband is not so much a “ball and chain” as an anchor, holding me, teaching me what it is to remain.

Ever since the Avett Brothers came out with the song, “Weight of Lies,” I have felt haunted by the lyrics:

Disappear from your home town,

go and find the people that you know.

Show them all your good parts and

leave town when the bad ones start to show...

The weight of lies will bring you down

follow you to every town

‘cause nothin’ happens here that doesn’t happen there…

I feel an invisible knowing look levied on me every time I hear the song, yet I can’t stop listening.  I have been feeling and thinking and writing about wanting to break this pattern of skimming the surface of questions and work and relationships for years.  I have been praying for something or someone to help me plant roots, stay the course, to sink deeper, not into despair but into revealed, engaged life.  I have considered all manner of escapes to get me there.  Ironically, it seems possible that the way to deeper, abiding, deliverance may be this “trap” I have willfully walked into.

Despite my gratitude for this realization, I feel inadequate to live into it.  Part of my dismay is that someone who has had so much unreservedly given to her (me) can be so stingy and cautious with how she spends her life.  Though I speak and write of it often, I am reluctant to actively seek out and experiment with living out Love and Truth.  Though I am quick to criticize what I don’t like, I am unable to articulate what I want.   Armed with the art of manipulating words, and trained to bring pieces of writing to a conclusion, I often wrap up my musings with a positive resolution.  Sometimes it is accurate, other times it is not.  This time, I want to be frank.  I’m not finished.

Tonight I finally read for the first time an article from the Catholic Worker archives that Ted had sent to me before I moved here.  It is by our friend Pat Jordan, a fellow admirer of the Jewish philosopher and humanitarian, Martin Buber.  Pat sums up his brief biography of Buber using excerpts from his writing to construct an imaginary address from Buber to the readers of the CW.  Little wonder, my ego-centric mind imagines this articled from 1978 was written for me, in this moment.  The following is a quote from Buber:

“Existence will remain meaningless for you if you yourself do not penetrate into it with active love, and if you do not in this way discover its meaning for yourself.  Everything is waiting to be hallowed by you; it is waiting to be disclosed in its meaning, and to be realized in it by you…meet the world with the fullness of your being and you shall meet God…If you wish to believe, love.”

Pat responds to this, writing, “Renew your faith. Yes, your faith, your trust in God.  You must, for your task demands it.  Remember, ‘One who loves God only as the moral ideal is bound soon to reach the point of despair at the conduct of the world.’”

“The power of turning,” again, quoting Buber, “which radically changes the situation, never reveals itself outside the crisis.  This power begins to function when one, gripped by despair, instead of allowing himself to be submerged, calls forth his primal powers and accomplishes with them the turning of his very existence.  It happens this way, both in the life of the person and in that of the race.”

Before Ted went downstairs to the aforementioned wedding, he sat with me in the midst of my wallowing; asking questions, reflecting on his own experiences, holding on to me.  I laid on the bed after he left and tried not to let the fact that I was up here feeling and looking pathetic while others were downstairs celebrating exacerbate my melancholia.  I picked up a pen and wrote a challenge to what I keep feeling:

“I am not a wasted life.  There is still today.”

Anyone who has been depressed knows that it is accompanied by an overload of self-focus and an absence self-confidence.  It is a time in which one feels very little hope in creating or implementing alternatives, very little motivation to act and shamefully selfish.  Writing this is an act of hope, an attempt to encourage myself that I am “keeping my wits about me,” (as my old friend Larry used to continually advise) and that maybe, just maybe, I have something to offer in the simple act of sharing myself. Granted, I am only "saying" this in writing.  If reading this enables others to be more bold, I am grateful. If nothing else, offering this wordy translation of my thoughts reminds me that I am still here, and you are still there, and we still have today to choose who we will be.

A Day

June 7, 2012

One week from today, Ted and I will take a plane to Atlanta for Grace and Ryan’s wedding.  I won’t be returning to New York until July 8, after Ted and I too are married.

Beneath the trees in Tompkins Square Park, the sunny afternoon becomes cool.  The grass long with patches of dark exposed soil dividing it.

This morning I woke to the loud clear voice of a police officer speaking firmly but gently to a woman on the sidewalk beneath my window, which is three floors above the front door.

“Is that Katie?” I wondered.  There are not many other young women with that distinctive mop of matted gray hair that seems loosely set on the scalp.  I heard the officer describing her condition, “lacerations,” I heard, and before long, an ambulance arrived.

By the time I was downstairs, ready to assume my “on house” duties, the woman was packed away in the ambulance while officers continued to linger outside, increasing in rank and numbers.  Then the news cameras came.  All the while, poor Dee (a long-time resident who struggles with hoarding and emotional outbursts and has had 911 called for her before against her will) clung to the door, watching every move, asking me if I was going to do anything about them taking pictures of the house.

I went about my work in the kitchen – occasionally peeking out the window, getting updates from Dee and Eugene – trying to pull out and utilize as much of the abundance of donated food I had strategically packed into the refrigerator the previous night, and prepare it for today’s open lunch.

When the ambulance left, I put a crate of cellophane wrapped sandwich triangles (a gift of leftovers from a middle school after their last day of school) on a folding chair on the stoop with a sign that read, “Good morning! Please help yourself to a sandwich!”  and while doing so noticed a police car still present, hours after the initial incident.  We all speculated as to why this incident was being drawn out through the morning – were the Hell’s Angels, whose clubhouse is only a few buildings down, involved?  Is there an investigation underway? A search for the assailant?

As soon as I’d ducked back into the house a tall, broad young man approached the door.  He spoke in broken English with a thick eastern European (?) accent, asking if he might volunteer for us.  Trying to make sense of what exactly he was offering and explain in brief our houses function, I was interrupted by another woman, with a large dog on a leash and a sweaty red face who quickly approached the door, “I need a plastic bag or paper or something – my dog pooped!”  Excusing myself and returning with the requested bag, I suggested to “Oz” that if he is interested in learning more about volunteering at a house with more of a soup line perhaps he ought to go a few blocks over and give St. Joe’s a try.

A few minutes later, when I’d resumed preparing a salad and re-inventing last night’s dinner into a new soup, someone called out from the dining room, “Amy, someone’s at the door!”  By the time I’d wiped my hand and walked into the dining room (just adjacent to the kitchen) someone was pointing, wide-eyed to the hallway that led from the foyer.  From there a man in a suit entered the dining room, introducing himself as detective so-and-so and proceeding as polite as can be with his questions.  I responded to the best of my knowledge:

“Yes, I know her [it was Katie!] – no, she’s not a resident – she comes for lunch – yes, it’s quite likely she was planning to shower here today…”

“And what is your title, miss?”

“Um…resident?”

Back to making lunch, soon with Jane perched on her stool, asking questions and making comments, “Sounds like a vintage Catholic Worker day!” she said, and I somehow felt gratified.

Angie, a frequent visitor who always comes with a compendium of garbled requests, began banging on the door.  Initially turning her away until lunch at noon I conceded to finding her a sweater and t-shirt when she began unbuttoning her jacket and revealing her stark naked bosom beneath. She came back on hour later for lunch smelling heavily of excrement, which she was covered in from her waist to her toes.

Elizabeth, our new summer volunteer, had kindly stationed herself at the sink and was steadily washing dishes and filling in my gaps in serving as I ushered Angie into the bathroom with a change of clothes, wash rag and soap and responded to the other women’s requests for clothes, toiletries and attention.

As the lunch hours were winding down, women kept trickling in.  I temporarily left the kitchen in Ellen’s capable hands so that I could clean the bathroom after Angie had left the floor and toilet lid smeared with feces, keeping all others who wanted to use the sink or toilet at bay.  A community member began offering suggestions about how to manage the clothing room (which has somehow, unofficially, come under my jurisdiction) while I scurried back and forth from the broken-wheeled mop bucket, down the few stairs to the bathroom.  “What do you think?” she asked.  “I think I can’t respond to that right now,” I said, as politely as possible. 

Someone handed me the phone and I tried to explain to the woman on the other end that no, we do not have 501C3 status, or any other non-profit identification with the IRS but yes, we run on donations and are so non-profit that, in fact, none of us get paid money for working here.  Cathy returned with a report on the recovery of a 74 year old resident (who has lived her for several years and speaks only Mandarin, which no one else in the house understands) who had fallen on the stairs recently and needed hip surgery.  Martha returned from Vermont with a friend of the community who would be staying a few days.  Bev, another frequent and usually intoxicated visitor, returned after lunch and invited herself to more sandwiches because the ones outside were “too hot.”

A quarter after two I hung up my apron, packed a backpack with books and pens and headed outside where I could listen to the wind in the trees and be around people I could comfortably ignore and be ignored by.

The sky is darkening, wind picking up, setting the trees into a mournful sway; the dampness of the earth is seeping through my clothes, all this suggesting to me that perhaps it’s time to return.  After all, the clothing room is in dire need of organizing and there are heaps of overripe bananas yet to be mashed and frozen.

A House Divided?

It occurred to me, on Sunday, that while I had spent my day absorbed in preparing for, hosting and cleaning up after a memorial service at Maryhouse, the White Rose community and many other loved ones and strangers in Chicago were participating in a nonviolent uprising that swelled in response to the NATO summit.  I sat with the thought, neither critical nor condoning, while sitting on the sill of Teddy’s window, legs folded into the frame (his windowsill is wider than mine, and less crowded by plants and picture frames), watching a little window of sky that subtly made the dramatic shift from pale yellow to blazing pink without comment.

Two communities, offshoots from the trunk of one movement, sustained and shaped by the life and writings of the same woman (the venerable Ms. Day), at different times home and church and classroom to the same woman (the ephemeral Ms. Nee), yet to the untrained eye, almost opposite.  The White Rose, a half-dozen, highly educated, fair-skinned youths with the occasional overnight guest – dedicated and devoted to sustainable living and nonviolence not only in every action but in every word and expression as well.  Maryhouse, twenty-five (give or take, I still don’t have a sure count on how many people live here!) folks, a majority over fifty years old, of varying color, creed and acumen – a household that day after day admits dozens of women, offering showers, clothes, a balanced meal and company (not guaranteed to be cheerful, but ever-present nonetheless).

 At the former I would spend three hours in a meeting the results of which would be revisited, rehashed and revised the following week.  At the latter I spend three hours folding clothes that the following day will be stashed in bags, tossed on the floor and probably, eventually abandoned on park benches.  I often find both tasks more maddening than enlightening.  All the same, I consider the time well spent.  At the former, each day, we concerned ourselves with the issues of the world – war, torture, environment, oppression of all kinds – and sought to educate (ourselves and others), to create alternatives and to partake in nonviolent demonstrations, open the door to others that we might eat and talk and play and pray together.  At the latter we concern ourselves with individuals in our community and neighborhood – hungry, sick, lonely, weary in innumerable ways – cook lunches, wash dishes, offer clean clothes and showers, visit hospitals, celebrate and mourn. 

At times the two could not seem more different.  One might be tempted to compare: which is better? which more successful? which meets the greatest need?  These questions, I think, are alluring as forbidden fruit that promises the knowledge of good and evil upon ingestion.  The end result, as our first parents demonstrated, is not an answer that reveals truth, but a blade that cuts apart holy wholeness, introduces shame and accusation and ultimately separates the seeker from the Word of Truth, that is to say, Love.

“ ‘In the end, the only thing that matters is love,’ those are the last words I ever heard from her mouth,” a woman shares at the memorial for Rita Corbin held at Maryhouse on Sunday.  Hers was one of many stories remembering the life of this prolific artist whose woodcuts, since the 1950’s, have oft adorned the pages of the Catholic Worker newspaper and whose life infiltrated and enriched far more than just our readers.  The gathering elicited reflections that evoked both laughter and tears.  Rita’s now adult children played folk music.  We served coffee and punch and huge platters of fried rice and salad with Wasabi-citrus dressing that had been specially prepared at St. Joe’s for the occasion.  I alternately filled and washed plates, introduced the food and myself, listened to reminiscences from Rita’s brother and showed visitors to the bathroom.  All the while members of the White Rose, along with thousands of others, marched and sang and maintained a peaceful presence amidst an anxious crowd of activists and likely more anxious officers in full riot gear ready to make use of their training and tazers.   

A critic of one persuasion might consider Maryhouse mundane and trifling, while one of another might consider the White Rose naive and dramatic.  Neither assessment is accurate, nor is the assessment that their actions are so very different.  Both are engaged in attending to matters of life and of death (which one might argue are themselves part of one whole), both are engaged in practicing, to the best of their ability, the Works of Mercy.  These seemingly separate houses seek the same revolution, a revolution of the heart where “stranger” becomes “neighbor” and we learn to love our neighbor as our self; that self that is a divine vessel, bearing the very image of the God who is Love. 

http://wagingnonviolence.org/2012/05/catholic-workers-just-say-no-to-nato/#more-17160

Engage!

A few weeks into my stay at Maryhouse, a rumor began circulating that Ted and I were engaged.  Though untrue, this was not an unfounded rumor.  During a meeting of the community Ted made sure to let folks know that he would be in and out for the summer, saying, “Amy has two siblings getting married this summer—and, maybe possibly, we would get married this summer.”  The ladies of the house let out a cheer, “he said it out loud!” they cried.  I was not in the room.  Ensuing congratulations took me by surprise.  After a few days, I had an explanation ready on my tongue before someone could get out their full, “I hear you have news…”  Even Ted’s sister asked me if it was true that we were getting married this summer (I will admit, I had begun a half-joking/half-serious campaign over e-mail for a triple wedding of Nee siblings, combining Adam and Grace’s already planned nuptials with my potential).  One afternoon a woman who occasionally volunteers, whom I’d met only once called the house phone,

 “Amy, I hear that you are engaged.”

“[laughing] I am not, actually.”

“Really? Someone told me you are.”

“It’s been going around.”

“[Disappointed] Well, I won these theater tickets and I wanted to give them to you and Ted as an engagement present.”

“Oh, how kind!”

“[Resigned] I guess you can have them anyway.”

“Thanks!”

Gradually, after much laughter, blushing and explanation, people were getting used to the idea that Ted and I were actually not engaged.  But it was in the air now, on our minds, if everybody else was talking about it, shouldn’t we?  Were these blithe mentions of slipping a wedding into the midst of those already set by sibling jokes or plans?  On the last day of March Ted mustered his courage and called Momma Nee, intending to ask whether she and Pop would like more time with him before he considered asking for their blessing on our marriage.  He stood cute and sheepish in the middle of his room, sharing this plan with me, his hair grown out mad-professor style, wearing a faded red War Resisters League t-shirt and blue jeans my mom had originally bought for my dad but found were too small.  I leaned on the door frame silently taking it all in – his plan, him, our life together in this house – until he shooed me out of his room and I went to mine.  At first diverting myself with a novel, I couldn’t shake the nagging thought that this was a significant moment; life altering conversations were underway, epic commitments being considered!  So I took out an old journal and revisited the notes I’d made about Ted and the ever gradually dawning desire for the mingling of our lives including this reflection I’d jotted down during a silent retreat I had just before moving to NY:

... I feel that I do want to live a religious life, but not as “a religious” in the Catholic sense of the word.  I want to live a religious life – angled always toward loving relationship (attentive, appreciative, accepting, affectionate, allowing; with reverence and devotion, curiosity and mystery) with God and recognition of God in all things – as a Catholic Worker and (dare I write it?) married to Ted (who teaches me to see and to feel and to respond)…
…Dear God, what has come over me?  It is the end of the day, 10:52 pm.  I am in bed – ready to pray and sleep.  But I am suddenly burning with an (almost) irresistible urge to call Teddy and tell him that I do know now that yes, I want to marry him.  I don’t want to have to wait until I see him or even until the retreat is over… 

But I did wait, and in fact, had not told him yet, still wrestling with myself, trying to discern what is best and playing my cards close to the vest in the meantime.  I laid down in my room, just adjacent to his, wondering what words were being exchanged next door, and wrote: “ Most of the time I wish we were married already, but every once in a while I begin to think the notion of such a commitment, such a life, is outrageous.”

 An hour later I heard his door open.

“How did it go?”

“It was really nice.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Ehm, the Hunger Games, Georgia—I didn’t say anything about taking a trip there or about us.”

“Seriously?”

“The timing didn’t seem right.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Are you disappointed in me?”

“No, just wondering what’s going to happen with all this.  Can we go?”

We were going to stay the night at his parents, who were out of town, taking advantage of the opportunity to have some time alone and cook a meal for two instead of fifty.  It was a beautiful night, preparing food and sharing a meal together.  Building a fire to cuddle and sip wine beside.  Maybe it was the atmosphere, or the wine, or maybe I was just ready to open the conversation; in any case, I ever so innocently asked,

“Did I ever tell you I almost called and proposed to you?”

“What?!”

“While I was on silent retreat, the night I started sending you text messages.”

“Are you serious?”

“I am.  I hinted about it in a letter, but that’s the letter that got lost on Devon Ave. before it made it to a mailbox.”

“Unbelievable.”

The next morning was Palm Sunday.  As we were preparing for mass, Ted started getting messages from our friend Joanne (who knew we would be using the theater tickets that had been given earlier due to the misinformation that was were engaged) some of which he read aloud to me:

“Doesn’t using an engagement present make you contractually obligated to actually become engaged beforehand?”

“I’m working on it!”

“I call BS! Screw your courage to the sticking post!”

Walking home from mass, I asked Ted what he wanted with regards to all this engagement talk. 

“I hear what other people think, and I know what I think, but what are you thinking?  Do you want to have it be something dramatic, to surprise me?  Do you want it to be collaborative?  Do you want me to surprise you?”

“Well, I think something collaborative would be more in keeping with the relationship we have and want to have.”

“True.”

“So what does the engagement mean then, if it’s something we talk about in advance?  And what is the purpose really of being engaged.  Is it just a time to plan the wedding? An open door to start really asking seriously if we do want to be married?  A time to learn what that even means and prepare ourselves?”

We decided that if, hypothetically, we were engaged, we would want to spend the time between engagement and marriage talking to couples and to each other, and learning what this means, and who we are, and how we want to be in relationship.  By this time we are once again in his parents’ kitchen, between the island and the wide clear windows that face the backyard.

“So,” Ted says, “can I just ask you now?”

“Um—ask me what? What do you mean?  Do you see that black squirrel?”  Suddenly feeling shy, I couldn’t bear to look at his face.

“Amy, you’re going to have to look at me.”

“I can’t.” Is he being serious? Is this really what’s happening?  I felt capacity only for questions.

“Amy, I need eye contact for this,” gently taking my face in his hands, “Amy Elizabeth Martha Nee, will you marry me.”

“Mhm.” I intoned, leaning into him, hiding my face in his shoulder.

“Mhm? Mhm! What does that mean? Is that a maybe? A yes?!”

“Ha, yes, yes!”

“Okay now you ask me with my full name, if you know it.”

“Of course I know it! But is it Vern or Vernon?”

“Vern.”

“Vern Edward Walker, will you marry me?”

“Yes! Enthusiastically! Ecstatically! Clearly!”

And so it was, and so it is.  We are getting married this summer.

The Beginning

Here I Am

“Here I am, sitting in the Maryhouse office – making use of the desk for writing, the CD player for listening – making myself ‘at home.’” This is how I begin a journal entry, March 29, pausing to consider what I’d written reflexively, and the implications of this phrase fill me with wonder and gratitude; “It’s true, I do feel at home.” That was nearly a month ago. Much has happened since both to affirm and challenge this feeling of finding myself at home here amongst this strange cast of characters, in this crumbling old music school, in the East Village of Manhattan.

 These happenings have served to distract me from my ambition of giving an account each week of the events that transpire and my responses to them. Now, as I try to recall these things to the present, I find everything is a jumble. I am sitting at Ted’s desk that I often commandeer since my room is too small for a desk. Ted is stretched out on a mattress on the floor beneath the window copying out a Rilke poem for our wedding. Outside, the sound of one man’s rich melodic Islamic chant competes with the street-cleaner’s truck that rumbles down the south side of our street every Monday and Thursday. Beside me is a notebook in which I sketched highlights from my journal March 24 to April 13 to give me a framework, but now it is April 26 and there is more and more and more.

 Present in my mind and asking for consideration is not the beginning of my burgeoning responsibility in the house – managing the clothing room, preparing and serving meals, answering the door and telephone, welcoming guests, making decisions without consultation – the sweetness and frustration of sharing shifts with Ted and finding how differently we make decisions, the strangeness and beauty of Holy Week, Martha’s fast from words and food, birthday celebrations, becoming engaged to be married (that will have it’s own separate story!) with all the joys and fears that rush in, weeks of prayer and lectures, and strangers and friends forever at the door or in the house, and the multitude of details that shout between the lines and make all of this riotously alive.

 Present in my mind is the memorial mass at St. Joe’s for a fourteen year old girl died by her own hand last week. Her father was a friend of the house. Their story is convoluted and I am confused by the little I know, but his anger and heartache rang clear as he read from his own writing at the end of the mass. And I am thinking too of the tiny woman who, just the night before had shifted from her usually mousey-meek demeanor to a bitter rage when she was asked to leave the house. She threatened that if the police or hospital were called she would kill herself and told Ted, who was trying to reason with her, that her blood would be on his hands. I am thinking too of a woman I call “Sister Job” because she would not tell me her name but kept reading to me from the book of Job, especially the end when Job’s fortune turned and he was blessed with an abundance beyond what had been taken from him. “That’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she would say, “I believe that’s God’s promise to me too. I’m kinda like Job.” And she would speak so beautifully of developing a heart of constant worship, showing how the words of the Magnificat are nearly smudged from her bible because of how frequently she reads and runs her fingers over them. Then she would shift suddenly to God’s judgment, especially how those who stare at her will get theirs in the end, coming back again and again to people who stare, “that’s rude and that’s wrong,” she repeated continually. She would say it and level on me a searching, hunted look with her dark, uneven eyes and all I could think to say is, “you’re right, it is wrong.” Then there is the ever present Angie; her new set of false teeth, her inability to keep a jacket or pair of shoes for more than a day at a time, her constant requests and sweet sociability that’s broken at times with surprising howls when something has gone wrong. I am thinking too of my seemingly bi-monthly descents into emotional tumult when all my attention becomes focused on refraining from tears until I am in a room alone, when I become critical and insecure, when I can barely stand to talk with anyone, question my ability and stability, and feel a desperate desire to flee either to the desert where I can be tried and refined in solitude, unseen, or to “home,” wherever and whatever that might be, where I can be comforted and disappear into familiarity. It was during one of those times that I read the following poem, by Rumi:

Do not ask questions about longing Look in my face. Soul-drunk, body-ruined, these two sit helpless in a wrecked wagon. Neither knows how to fix it. And my heart, I would say it is more like a donkey sunk in a mudhole, struggling and miring deeper. But listen to me. For one moment stop being sad. Hear blessings dropping their blossoms around you. God.

And I looked out the window of my sanctuary bedroom, and sure enough, a soft breathing breeze was freeing the white petals from the limbs of trees and filling the sky with them, and so it is with the blessings that breeze into and fill my sky. I share love and life and work with a brilliant, tender-hearted man who (though I often forget it) is a wonderful mystery that I’m being given the privilege to explore for the rest of my life. I live in a house where, to the best of our ability we provide a space for the hungry to be fed, the naked (or scantily clad) to be dressed, the lonely to have companions, the sick to be cared for. I live in a house where, though we also contend and have conflict with each other, we aim to contend with oppressive forces in ourselves and in our world so that we might better love each other, ourselves, our God. Two dear friends from the Chicago Catholic Worker drove to New York to celebrate life with me the weekend of my birthday adding to the feeling that all of my families, my human homes, were in some way present with me – the White Rose, the Nees, Maryhouse, St. Joe’s, the Walkers – and that I am filled with more love and blessing than one woman’s body can hold. Trying to store it up will only make me burst; may it flow out from me and become life-giving water for those who thirst.

Chasing Tails

As I grow more familiar with Maryhouse, and Maryhouse grows more familiar with me, my participation and responsibilities expand. Along with the endless task of dishwashing, the labeling of the newspaper, I find little things here and there to fill the day and feel useful: help Trey, who lives with his family on the fourth floor, edit a paper for school; talk with Martha about how to compose a letter to the Cardinal and frame the message of her Holy Week fast; cut and paste a record of recently used images for the newspaper; play with the kids so their moms can have a break and I can be refreshed by their energy and enthusiasm; begin “shadowing” house shifts in preparation for me to begin taking shifts on my own.

People ask what kind of “organization” the Catholic Worker is. Living in one quickly dispels the idea that we are anything of the sort – there is nothing organized about this place! Not in a formal way. It runs, rather, with the informal organization of a family; at times maddeningly inefficient, often utterly absurd. While cooking dinner over at St. Joe’s (the other NY CW) I vented my frustration that they “close the house” at 8pm, whereas we stay open until 11pm. What are we doing during those extra hours? Mostly watching TV with Evelyn around whom the night shift is designed. It doesn’t help that I dislike watching most TV and that Evelyn dislikes me, making the shift not only a source of consternation but aggravation and occasionally hurt feelings. I will not even begin to describe the process of writing, editing and publishing a paper in a house that does not have internet, computer or printer!

All this drives me nuts. Yet, somehow I find myself feeling more at home and alive here than I would have dared dream I could within less than two weeks. While giving a talk Fordham University last week, along with Jane and Ted, I told the story of how I came to be a part of this messy movement. I could again feel the glow that grew in me when I first learned about this experiment with truth that Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin brought to life in the 1930’s. I am so grateful for the leaps and little steps that led me here and even for the ramshackle way of being that allows us to be more familial than functional.

I have to remind myself of this and in chaos and calm alike, repeat the mantra that has become so helpful, “observe without judgment,” keep asking questions and always be ready to listen. Before being given more tangible tasks, I found my days were filled with listening. “This has been a day of intense listening,” I wrote at the beginning of a lengthy journal entry. First, to Frank. Intense because his body is so weak, he can barely project his voice and then too because it seems as though a lifetime of memories have been poured out on the floor of his mind. It is confusing and time-consuming to try to make sense of them; “I’m such a mess,” he will say, “I don’t know where I am.” “I don’t want to close my eyes because I’m afraid all this will disappear.” He clasps my hand, “I just want a hand to hold. I’m wonderful as long as you are holding my hand.” And it feels wonderful for me too, as though we are life long friends instead of new acquaintances.

I find myself continually touching his fingers, assessing their temperature. A memory flashes, my aunt with my grandfather during his last days, “your hands are cold, Dad,” she would say to him, “Dad’s hands are cold,” she would say to us in the next room, looking out the window with a gaze that looked beyond it. Frank’s hands are cold, though his eyes at times still sparkle. Especially when he talks about me and Ted, or sings, “I Love a Piano,” in his quavering but still rich voice. I find myself wondering, do I attend to him so eagerly in part because I could not bring myself to sit at the side of my grandfather as he lay dying? And so I listen, at least a little, to my own memories too.

At dinner I met a woman from Hungary, I’ll call her Jean. “I love your hair!” She had shouted as I walked past the table where she was sitting.
“Oh, thank you. It’s kind of like yours.”
“No, it’s not.”
We started chatting, me standing, holding my plate and water glass. She invited me to sit with her. Eventually, she began to offer fragments of her story. “I feel like I’m caught in this cycle…it’s like a dog chasing it’s tail,” she told me, her words thick and heavy in contrast to her withered body and gaunt face. “When I first came here, through immigration, they put me on the street with two dollars a day, later two dollars a week…now tell me, is that reasonable logic? No friends. No family. No language. Two dollars a day. What could I do? This is crazy, two dollars a day.”
“That is crazy,” I confirmed, commiserating about the negligence of the immigration system.

Is it reasonable though? I am quick to judge the amorphous “government,” but have to ask, what is reasonable to expect from the state? Can an organization fix the problem? I suspect it may be another exercise in chasing tails. Yet, it is so crazy – imagine, living with no home, no friends, no common language and trying to get by on two dollars in a strange and often hostile city. How can such a thing be considered acceptable? And that is why we are here, inefficiencies and all, to respond to Jean. To say, “yes, it is crazy,” to sit and listen, share a meal, a shower, special events and holidays. It doesn’t solve the problem; it isn’t an answer, but it keeps the questions alive in our language and experience. More importantly, it gives women like Jean a place to be treated as a valued individual, as part of a family.

Wednesday night was bible study. Those who are interested tackle a book from the bible, one chapter at a time, with the help of many weighty (in every sense of the word) commentaries to help pick apart and flesh out the readings. We have just begun Genesis and I listened to a poetic description in the first chapter of God’s division of the Lights – the greater designated for day, the lesser for night. Somehow, it put me in mind of a passage from East of Eden. A character, Samuel, is responding to the question of why he, a man of knowledge, decided to farm in the desert land of California:

“It’s because I haven’t courage…I could never quite take the responsibility. When the Lord God did not call my name, I might have called His name – but I did not. There you have the difference between greatness and mediocrity…it’s nice for a mediocre man to know that greatness must be the loneliest state in the world…I believe when you come to that responsibility the hugeness and you are left alone to make your choice. On one side you have warmth and companionship and sweet understanding, and on the other—cold, lonely greatness. There you make your choice. I’m glad I chose mediocrity, but how am I to say what reward might have come with the other?”

This passage tugged strongly when I first read it several years ago and continues to haunt me. I was thinking of the choice, the responsibility, to choose greatness or mediocrity. In the Jewish tradition God told the moon, “diminish yourself,” a command indicating that becoming a lesser light was a voluntary act of submission. The moon’s acquiescence to wane made room for an accompanying host of stars. Greater and lesser lights, the utter loneliness of the first contrasted with the sweet companionship of the second. The solitary sun, brilliant and blazing; the soft reflecting moon, surrounded by her family of stars.

What will it be, Amy Nee? Left alone with the hugeness, I find myself feeling the way I imagine Frank does now with every question posed to him.
“Would you take another sip of this Ensure, Frank.”
“Oh, I just don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on. What do you think?”
“I think it’s worth a try.”
“Sure, doesn't hurt to try.”
“That’s right.”
But it's not right, not really. Trying often hurts. The question is, is it worth the pain?
“How about we just take it one sip at a time?”
“Yes, I can do that.”

Little by Little

What I woke to was sun, streaming through a tall, open-mouthed window that breathed in the cool morning air. Serabi, the tabby house cat that normally shadows Ted was curled beside me. She crept in, to my delighted surprise, and crawled into bed with me on my first restless night. How do animals know so well when we need their warm presence?

Sitting up on this mattress that lies frameless, on the floor, I wrapped one arm around my knees and used my free hand to move aside the white curtains, colored with rings of yellow water stains. Across the street is a high rise apartment of faded red brick, white-faced cherubs engraved across the center, fire escapes descending to the street. “So this is it,” I thought, awareness dawning with the day, “I am living in New York City.”

Most of my significant belongings (clothes, shoes and books) arrived with me in two hefty bags and amazingly, this afternoon, I managed to find a place for them in this sweet little square room (olive green!) with no dresser or closet. There is a short metal rod for hanging and a hip-height book case for everything else. I’ve utilized one of the suitcases as a drawer and tucked it, along with the empty one, into a corner.

Maryhouse Catholic Worker. When I was closing the door this morning to change, my hand touched Ted’s, on his way in to say good morning. We were lucky to have a couple undemanding hours to begin our first morning together. The first of many days in which we learn to share this house, work, life.

The first morning I received a riotous welcome from the children in “Joanne’s Room,” an office and play room on the second floor, and a warm greeting from the adults too. Down another flight of stairs is the auditorium and one and a half more takes you to the cafeteria and kitchen. There I met Marit, “one of the Germans” (many come from Germany to volunteer here for anywhere from a month to a year), had a bowl of soup, and listened to a woman rejoice at the find she made in the clothing room – a striped nightgown, a pair of slacks to wear to an interview – “and now this beautiful food! God is good!” Not every woman who comes for lunch is so cheerful, but there is an atmosphere of familiarity and warmth that prevails.

It’s hard to imagine ever coming to feel as though I am at home here; time will tell. I am willing to try. Driving through the city, from the airport, I looked at the glittering towers and endless apartments as a legion, my opponent. Then I thought of my last train ride in Chicago, watching the city that once seemed so foreign. Outside of my neighborhood, for the most part, it remained so. Yet, having that island of association shifted my perspective, the ocean of strange people and streets and clustered buildings lost its menace and was only an expanse. I could venture into it as far as I liked and know where to turn to swim home. “I found a place in you,” I had whispered to Chicago that day. “I will find my place in you,” I silently declared to Manhattan. We will make peace, my enemy.

*****

I made a rule for myself. Day one, you can hide out in your room as long as you like. Ever after, no more than two hours! Though it’s only been two days since, I am happy to say I’ve followed through so far. Most of Thursday afternoon was spent at Bellevue hospital, visiting Frank, a ninety-four year old man (friend of Dorothy and a CW for much of his life), who had been living at Maryhouse under the care of Ted and others until his condition suddenly, drastically worsened and he required emergency medical care. Frank was so moved to see us, he wept. He never let go of my hand the whole visit and kept saying how wonderful it was to “hold the hand of this special person.” Such an emblem of grace, this utterly unearned love I receive from him though we’d only met recently and briefly. Somehow it is so important to him that Ted and I be together, and so dear to him not only that I have come to the city, but that we came to see him. It is very clear that he wants to be finished – that he treasures his memories, loved ones, and life, but he is weary and hurting. When a friend asked if he wants to “come home,” he responded, “I want to go home, to God.” It is sad and also strangely beautiful, no doubt frightening too, for him. “I don’t know how to do this,” he kept saying, “I don’t know where I am.” How those quandaries resonate with me! Are these questions always with us? Even if one has lived, and lived with energy and fullness, for almost a century?

The events of the evening made a peculiar, poignant juxtaposition to our time in the hospital. We experienced grace in another form, through a mass and baptism for little eight month old Bennett who had been brought by his parents from Germany especially to be baptized here at Maryhouse where they experienced their faith come alive. Bennett laughed through the entire ritual, kicking his feet and craning his head to catch the eyes of his captive audience.

I am tremendously grateful for the Germans volunteering here this month. They are so very friendly and welcoming and somehow, the presence of this handful of men and women who don’t quite belong, yet are temporarily part of the community, helps my own presence to feel more fitting. So far I have had many conversations but not done much work besides some dishes here, some newspaper labeling there, a little ladling of the soup. No one is demanding much and I have allowed myself to take these first few days easy. I am hoping soon to push toward a more assertive embodiment of myself and begin taking on more responsibility. I know the help is needed.

Ted has an endless list of things to do and seems so tired yet in the midst of the madness overcomes weariness and grumpiness to be tenderly present to me, to his friends, to guests, to workers and volunteers. A good man is hard to find – how is it that I happened to be found by one so wonderful?