Clean Slate

Liber Usualis, Tournai: Desclee, 1959; forged iron crescent by Cody Dickerson

It is coming on the hollow of the year here in the Northern hemisphere. New resolutions, a clean slate. For some, the chance to experience pure snow (however fleeting the unbroken white blanket once it touches down). A good time to clean out, clean up inside and out. To reboot the mind and the spirit. To wash oneself.

There are many traditions of cleansing.

I can’t say that I, as a small Catholic girl, felt new and clean after our weekly confession ritual. More like guilty, since I did not really understand the process of sinning and reporting on same. After all, this was long before habit-tracking and bullet journaling, and who knows exactly how many times I disobeyed my parents in a given week? I made up a number that seemed reasonable, without the recursive self-awareness to report that I’d just lied, having no idea of how many times I did anything, good or bad. Well, the bad anyway. (There was no place to report on being good, so no need to keep track.)

In paradisum

Convoi funèbre au Boulevard de Clichy, Felix Buhot, 1887

It’s the time of year when the veil is thin. I think of my parents. I don’t pretend to know where they are now. I don’t pretend to know what I still need from my parents, much less what they need from me.

Although sometimes for an instant or two, I have a feeling.

Let’s Go Home

Song of Jerusalem, one of the 16th century Kilmore Carols sung in the town of Kilmore, Ireland, during the twelve days of Christmas

This post is about the state of the world, and a song.

I’m the daughter of a singer. I used to sing rather well, I’m told, even earned money for doing so. I don’t sing much anymore. (It’s complicated.) But that’s not actually what I want to write about. I want to write about being struck dumb by Pandora’s ever-emptying box, and about how to express what’s basically inexpressible in any honest way.