The First Post in 2012

Well, it is officially 2012, on the civil, and popular, calendar. We went to church today, had a lovely time, where I sang, met new people, introduced them to friends as I had to run to choir practice, helped serve food on my way there, and wondered about life. Such a propitious sort of day, I think. I came home, mostly in good spirits, though late in the day, read some of A Christmas Carol, while Kat wiggled around and Jay got dinner going. We watched a movie together as a family and sent the girl off to get ready for bed. She emerged from getting her p.j.'s on to scale the countertops finding her handmade mug, boil water, and set her infusion to steeping, all on her own...she's 8, people! Did I mention that she set the timer so she would know when it was ready to drink? She is pretty great, I only hope that I can live up to being her mom, the way she is being a funny, talented, funky, and smart kid.

Oh boy, what a day, but really, what a week! After being sick like I was, I can see why people write of being deliriously outside of themselves when they are ill. I can remember it all, so I can't have been too far gone, but it was fairly miserable, more than I have been in quite some time. I realize that, when I am, or have been recently, sick, I have a different sense of clarity in life, in general. I found myself saying many things, thinking far more, and having randomly interspersed dreams that were bordering reality in a fever-induced slumber. Technically, I am well again, though my physical health is of little importance, and I am sure that my life will squander on, if I continue in this way, but, if I pursue, I will find that which is tangible on the shroud's side of paradise.

Something I was dreaming about today, is how nice it was when we were in California and I was writing regularly, with something of some such import as to compel me to pen a word or two. However, being home, I am at a loss, these recent days, even weeks. We are busy, I am paralyzed through my own inability to make time to say something about the day. Possibly because it is dreary, rather than uplifting, this late in the fast, but I still would like to be more creative with that more often.

One more thing and I will be done for the night: We had the churching of 2 sweet little babies today! I LOVE a baby churching, with bitty little selves all wrapped in white, being presented as new members of the church family, through prayers and love, they enter into the Body of Christ. Lord, have mercy on us all. The second baby slept through the most of it all, but Maria, the first, was awake, alert, and gazing at angels as she was being presented. My mom always said that when babies are looking, but at what, we do not know or see, they are most surely watching the angels as they surround them. As I saw her tiny face so peaceful and content, I could think of nothing else, but of the angels that particularly fill the churches during the liturgy. Beauty at its simplest and finest.