Sabbatical

Yesterday: coffee shop writing with Francisco who was, depressingly, booking our return flights--2 months to go. Worst news ever. (Aside that when we return, we're returning to my childhood home, which is the best place to visit. Plus, there will be nieces and/or nephews! Most anticipated events of the year.) I biked a bit--I'm trying to "train," which is to say get back on a bike, for an ill-advised biking activity next month. I'm not an athlete--I just find it thrilling to be on the road a bit. This means that today my back is aching. 

From our garden. 

Last night we finished The Fantastic Mr. Fox. So good. And the boys told us how it was different from the book. 

I made a chicken dish that was adjacent to chicken tikka. It was pretty good. And, unrelatedly, guacamole.

Then I had a work zoom for a fall class. I'm looking forward to teaching again. (But not to other things like emails and committees and another thing that I am especially dreading, which is a new leadership role for me that has a name of a piece of furniture. It's not sofa.) My goal: To not take things on. I'm failing. 

But back to sabbatical--this morning mass and then a walk to a new coffee shop. 

 

The view from my window. 

This reminds me of Blaze's name, a derivation, which means dove. 

These colors. 

So wonderful to start the day with the food of eternal life. And with the saints. 

I've been thinking about how the bread of life is the apparently unassuming, quiet miracle to which all other miracles point. The problem is when we get obsessed with physical health or financial well-being, when spiritual healing is the most real thing that Christ offers to every single person. And this spiritual healing is both once--baptism--and every single day--a deepening conversion. 

Anyway, the stained glass of Joan reminded me that I've wanted to tell you about my reading. Right now, The End of the Affair. Graham Greene's been meaning so much to me this year. 

And I just finished Fates and Furies. So much sex--I was so embarrassed. And I don't know--I'm kind of tired of this "he said, she said" thing--The tv show, The Affair; the play, Faith Healer; this book. But Groff is a great writer. And her unfolding of the story is interesting, giving us the most relevant piece of information, in light of which everything changes, in the last chapter. I guess we never really know another person--or ourselves. 

I read Saint Joan, the play, with George Bernard Shaw's preface. Francisco and I saw this play some years ago in New York. I didn't realize that she wasn't canonized until the 20's--and he wrote this not too long after, taking a different position, that she was neither saint nor witch, but rather a realist who transforms war and politics and religion--the first protestant. It's his way of canonizing her for his own religion, I guess. 

And I'll have to tell you later about Darling, You Shouldn't Have Gone to So Much Trouble. (Could have gotten that title wrong.) It's at home.