Quotidian

No ordinary night

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 6 Comments

Between the covers

Tom Petty lies beside me

Rolling Stone issue

It was a wretchedly extraordinary night. I wonder if I wounded Quotidian when I said I couldn’t see her in her name. Did she slink off like an animal? Did Extraordinary smell blood? She seems to be circling.

In the early morning moment when I was jolted awake by my screeching security alarm, it was no ordinary thing. Even in my son’s voice, which I have known from newborn cry to maturing man. His absent-minded distraction is not unusual these day – a girl is in the picture – but that sacred ray escaped my notice under the circumstances. The screeching was picking up speed, even as my fingers froze.

Then the phone. The calm voice wanted my Password. I’ve never used this password. My brain is packed with passwords.

Before long an urgent rapping on my front door brought me face-to-face with a badge on a blue uniform. Extraordinary is unabashedly mocking me.

 But then Quotidian appeared. At my feet. A tender tan-ish blade-shaped leaf unswept from my porch. She is a fragile and dusty wind-blown traveler. Her ancient heirs are innumerable, but the maiden voyage which landed her beneath my distraught gaze, ended with no fanfare.  She lay there. I spied her.

When the badge was gone, I swept her up with the friends who followed her, and with that simple rite, I obtained my bearings. My faith was restored. We are friends again.

Some things never change…

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 11 Comments

Some things never change, but then again, sometimes (almost) everything changes. Since my last post over 16 months ago, my life has been touched by nearly every major life-impacting event known to womankind. I thought about listing here all these tragedies, conundrums, and milestones, tempted by the shock value of their individual and accumulated status. But ultimately, that’s not really my style. Or is it? Maybe it should be. Maybe the newly transparent, vibrantly vulnerable woman that is emerging from the wreckage needs to boldly acknowledge my journey. Maybe I need to acknowledge my membership in the various tribes of which I now belong.

No. I just spent half an hour chronicling that tribes list here. At Number 17, it stopped feeling right. So I deleted all of them. But that doesn’t change my desire to put my stories out there – out HERE on my blog – not just in a shocking list, but in meaningful, redeeming ways. Because, despite all that is new, altered, damaged or rejuvenated in my life, my soul is still intact, with many of the same longings, loves and aspirations and convictions. It is truly a near miraculous reality and an evidence of grace beyond my mortal comprehension.

I’m still me, the “woman that never sleeps,” the lover of the quotidian life and the stories that reveal its sacred beauty. I hope you’ll stop by occasionally and join me in my marveling.

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Vacating

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 3 Comments

I sit in a squatty, stunted lawn chair, its bar legs gagging the mouth of sand it sits upon.  I look out towards the grey horizon and watch fingers of foam crawling up the shore’s spine, massaging it rhythmically. It is mesmerizing, this sandy, foamy ocean massage table.

This is vacation, but I am pulled by an inner ocean of current that flows towards the known, the routine.  I seek out the condo’s laundry room, following the fresh linen and detergent scent until I find the balmy humming haven.  There is water here unclaimed by nature’s tide, and it will rid my towels of the sneaky sand that hitchhiked from the shore.

Vacating the quotidian is easier said than done.

Sons of Nuns

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 6 Comments

“God bless you, Sister, may all your sons be archbishops.”

Those words, according to The Quotidian Mysteries author, Kathleen Norris, came from the mouth of the poet Dylan Thomas as he lay on his deathbed.  Nuns with sons?  Was this a dying poet’s last stab at cynicism or humor?  Or was it, as Norris proffers, the aesthetic sensibility being “attuned to the sacramental possibility in all things?”

This supposition came to mind this morning on our morning school commute.  For weeks now the kids and I have driven past a mocha colored double-wide trailer home planted amid an estate of dirt.  There have been signs – tumbleweed removal, an unwound garden hose – that something is astir here.  Yet it has remained a largely barren plot, devoid of possibilities to me.  Until today.  Today I notice on the property nearly invisible trees, staked and bound by twine, in slender black buckets.  I think of the optimistic Dylan and wonder, “Trees?  With long, leaf-laden branches freely stretching up to tickle a smile from the austere azure?”

On this thought alone my heart could suckle the milk of possibility for the rest of the day.  But there is more.  Not far down the road a commercial pick-up truck pulls out from another neighborhood.  Almost immediately I recognize it as a testimony of the diversity found here on the fringes of the West Valley, where the White Tank Mountains keep the next haboob from blowing us all into East L.A.  The truck has emerged from a neighborhood of mission-style homes nestled on resort-like estates.  The tall palms here are not bound or staked.  They nod like Arabian sheikhs appraising the water-fetching maidens at the local oasis.

The painted lettering on the truck’s rear window advertises the worker’s trade – Steve’s Wood Creations.  Following and reading, I learn that  Steve specializes in custom furniture and commissioned art.  I wonder to myself how people these days afford “custom furniture and commissioned art.” The soft spot in my heart for craftsmen and artists pulses with thankfulness for Steve’s good fortune.  But there is something else about this mystery craftsman, something that earns my admiration and adds to my hope quota.  According to the window, he also offers woodworking classes.   I wonder who takes his classes.

Maybe the people from the Dirt Estate.

Quite predictably QUOTIDIAN

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 10 Comments

My friend, Laura, who is almost solely responsible for my participating in this blog challenge, reminded me early this morning that TODAY is my day.  By that, she  is referring to my near obsession with the word QUOTIDIAN.  I told her that I was tempted to be unpredictable and find a different word, but ultimately I’m just too, well…QUOTIDIAN for that.  So, yes, I will take this opportunity to wax once again on the glories of all things QUOTIDIAN, especially the word itself.

I love that the word QUOTIDIAN is itself not QUOTIDIAN.  It’s a “Q” word for crying out loud!  I can only imagine the things my husband could do with this word in a precisely played Scrabble move.  I’m trying to do my part to make it more QUOTIDIAN, as far as common vernacular goes, but that may take some time, as evidenced by the fact that I almost hyperventilate whenever I happen upon it in my QUOTIDIAN reading.

I love that my first (remembered) encounter with the word was when I read an article about a special exhibition here at the Phoenix Art Museum: Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch Art.  Considering the exquisite details in this era of art, it is particularly striking that a writer would choose the word QUOTIDIAN in discussing it.  But it is precisely because of what is depicted by these artists that makes the word so apropos.   (I have previously blogged about Rembrandt’s associations with “common man.”)  Besides Rembrandt, one of my favorite Dutch artists is Vermeer.  Vermeer excelled at depicting QUOTIDIAN life; e.g., a milkmaid going about her daily tasks.

These type of depictions are especially poignant to me.  I remembered transitioning from the hectic and exhilarating life of a successful career woman to the life of a full-time homemaker and stay-at-home mom.  Learning to embrace the beauty, the excellence, and the blessedness in the ordinary was key to my contentment and my exceeding thankfulness in this role.

Another friend, upon learning of my extraordinary affinity for the QUOTIDIAN, gave me a little book which I carry around with me in my purse., The Quotidian Mysteries – Laundry, Liturgy and “Women’s Work” by Kathleen Norris.  Norris is the kind of woman with whom I could have a cup of coffee while folding a basket of laundry.  She “gets” life, and I am reminded of this every time I take her book from my purse and start reading where I left off.  Just yesterday I was re-reading her thoughts on “human love,” which she says, “is sanctified not in the height of attraction and enthusiasm but in the everyday struggles of living with another person.  It is not in romance but in routine that the possibilities of transformation are made manifest.”

Isn’t this true for other areas of life as well?  Several years ago I had a situation with laundry.  My washing machine broke, and with a husband and six kids you can only go about two minutes without a washer.  My friend, Diane, rescued me by offering to do a few loads for me, and in accepting this offer of help, I experienced one of those “sanctified routines.”  It is humbling to have even the best of friends handle your dirty clothes.  I remember thinking, “Well, I really don’t want her to have to wash our underwear…” But we needed underwear!  What is more QUOTIDIAN than underwear?

In another place in her book, Norris says, ” …the aesthetic sensibility is attuned to the sacramental possibility in all things.”  Even underwear?  Yes, and milk and bread, and…

QUOTIDIAN – occurring every day;

belonging to every day; common place, ordinary