Marching into May
April, come she will, and there she went. Here we are, marching into May, preparing to move again this summer.
The “again” in the previous sentence is beguiling even to me. Generally, I presume that with repetition, things will get progressively easier. Doing it all again suggests a milieu of ordered regularity because of familiarity, habit, even skillful custom. Now that the runway is shortening rapidly again, I’ll mark down for my own record-keeping that “doing it again” does not mean “so it’s easier than last time,” as if habit alone might remove the sting of certain difficulties or exertions. Sometimes, the familiarities are old and hard ones, and there’s no way ‘round but through.
Our home is becoming less singularly ours as we prepare to pack up and get it ready for others to move in. This is a right and good separation, and it prompts me to practice relinquishing my illusions of permanence and personal control. We are always only ever “in residence” for a finite amount of time.
There is hard work to it, but there is also wonder. I’m also taking time to drink in the fox sightings, the grazing deer, to appreciate the trees all leafed out again, the irises as they bloom their bright bearded faces again. It is easy to take all of this quiet beauty for granted. Spring’s engine of events are reliably breath-taking, even if they are utterly predictable and familiar.
Relatedly, on the edges of my day, I’m reading George Eliot’s Middlemarch again, which means “another attempt at reading.” My Middlemarch “again” has a brighter, sunnier, even repaired quality to it unlike some aspects of moving again. On this current reading attempt, the reading hook is holding in the fish of me! I’m finding the reading less effortful and labored as it’s been in previous attempts. My mind and heart are settling into the story in a way I have never experienced before, which is immensely satisfying. Sometimes, even on hard, familiar, “failed” ground, good seeds make their way in! Joy!
Two writing-related bits from my life this spring:
1) Podcast interview with Grace Hamman, PhD: I join Grace on her “Old Books with Grace” podcast to talk about my Keys to Bonhoeffer’s Haus. A few readers have written recently to tell me they are reading KBH again and finding its familiar ground recognizable (especially on the tired tenor and tone of our civic and political life) and reinvigorating for this moment in history. Grace and I talk about that dynamic as well, since it’s been four years since KBH came into the world. I hope you’ll give it a listen and a share.
Moreover, if you are interested in forming a book gathering with people in your life around the book, I’d be delighted to join a virtual meet-up at your gathering’s end. I won’t be able to organize those groups myself given my life and its manifest limits, but I’d love to honor your creative initiative if you do so. (Just reach out in reply to this email and we’ll figure it out!)
2) A new Comment essay coming out in June. I take up an old “failed” essay from many years ago, and try my mind and hand at it again. I wouldn’t have attempted it without Comment’s sheer existence or editorial support and wisdom. Too flimsy to call it a magazine, and yet too heavy to call it a journal, Comment is unique ground, real soil for old seeds, where words can risk afresh in the ardent hope of possible repair.
If you are not already subscribed, do! You’ll get a chance to see my essay long before others. I’m especially excited about the artwork paired with it, like fine wine. Comment magazines are beautifully designed, a publication that merits a gathering, a shared meal for the mind, heart, and body.
Peace to you, courage, and hope, in all your own many “agains” of May.