Week 5 of 29: Who am I? Where am I?

March 9. I’m grappling more with what it means not to be a minister at First Parish of Arlington anymore. I was glad to be at the [Sunday morning] service … Butch’s memorial service went well. The lights went out in the middle of it. “Butch?” I wondered aloud. It was just the kind of glitch that would happen on a Sunday morning, and he would jump up and find out what was going on.

March 10. I met with a colleague at a downtown nonprofit for an informational interview about employment options as I consider the possibility of not being in a parish this fall.

March 11. Moved some storage from one friend’s home to the basement where all the rest of my boxes are. Rearranged and repacked my bags, and was on the road by late afternoon. Arrived at friends in Connecticut right around dinner time.

March 12. A more or less laid-back day in Connecticut, grazing by the refrigerator. Learned all about the adventures of someone in my extended circle of friends now living in Rio. I would like to visit there someday … Also, I’m getting in touch with appreciation for Michelle Obama. I admire Barack’s intelligence, competence and vision, but I identify more with Michelle as someone born and bred thick in African American community and culture, who as an adult walks between and among a wide variety of communities and cultures.

March 13. I wash clothes, have breakfast and leave for the Bronx around 12:30. A friend helps me get my boxes and luggage from the interior of the car, as to leave it parked on the street with all those things in it might be to invite a break-in. Two and a half flights! I hadn’t though of this implication of traveling across country with a car full of stuff. I’m noticing how I keep folding up my life to fit into new contexts.

March 14. A late breakfast with my gracious host, then, after help lugging all those boxes and suitcases back downstairs, I head to my next stop.

March 15. Mostly a day of touring in New York, and I spend the evening fine-tuning my sermon for the next day. I wanted to shave my head, but I had forgotten to charge my clippers. I was scared the power would give out when I was only half done, so I didn’t do it.

Week 4 of 29: Farewell to the Cape/Back to Beantown

Photo: Sunset at Herring Beach Cove, Provincetown (c) 2008 by C. E. Smith

One of the most immediately useful gifts I received as I was leaving Arlington was a Book of Days featuring quotes and photos of the pottery of Brother Thomas. I’m going to borrow from what I wrote there to “catch up” here, starting from the day after my last blog entry:

March 5: Today I met our neighbor, whom I’ll call Charity, an 80-year-old who lives in a house on the other side of the fence. She’s been there for 71 years. What a fount of wisdom and New England-style pluck. I need to do some writing just on the insight she dropped on me … I had a great bike ride all the way out Bradford, past the West End and into the National Park at Herring Cove Beach. Two of Tony’s friends from the coffee and dessert shop where he writes came over for dinner.

March 6: I got caught up from the past several days of not writing in this book. I went for another long ride, this time via Commercial Street to the wetlands and then to Herring Cove Beach. It was splendid – and cold. I needed gloves and a scarf at least, and was wearing neither … now it’s time for me to pack and move on. “Never harbor or port have I known.” The discovery of the day: Riding down Commercial, I heard this beautiful voice and music coming out of a little music store. I went in and asked the clerk, “Who is that?” It was Stacey Kent, and the cd was Breakfast on the Morning Tram. I bought it immediately. To get a sample, visit www.staceykent.com. Warning: I’m now addicted to this artist, and you may become an addict, too.

March 7: A very laid-back day for the most part. I ate breakfast, trying to help clean out the fridge … Tony and I dined at Ciro & Sal’s for our last meal on our last night. It was almost empty. I wistfully looked into the windows of the museums I hadn’t visited on Commercial Street that I wouldn’t see on this trip.

March 8: The rain poured all day long. I forgot and left my umbrella at the cottage, but I didn’t realize it until I was dropping Tony off at the Amtrak station at Back Bay. The good thing is that now, I can see an umbrella as a recurring metaphor/symbol to carry from the start of the novel until the end.

(c) 2008 by Carlton Elliott Smith. All rights reserved.

Herring Cove Beach, Sunset 6 Mar 08

Week 1 of 29: Endings and Beginnings

It’s 10:00 a.m. on the first Sunday since I completed my five-and-a-half year tenure at First Parish. I am sitting at a table in the upstairs of a cottage in the East End of Provincetown, looking over to the Monument to the Pilgrims, which I can see only because it’s winter and there are no leaves on the two or three elegant trees between it and me. The sun shines bright, and will be beaming through the ceiling windows soon.

I’m jumping up every few minutes to stir the enormous pot of spaghetti sauce that Tony is making so that as we are writing over the next three weeks, we won’t be so distracted by always having to go out to eat. My eyes watered and stung as he cut up the onions this morning. He’s gone to the gym now and to rent a bicycle.

We went grocery shopping shortly after we arrived yesterday afternoon, which was also bright hand chilly. After unpacking and putting the groceries away, we went to Napi’s, a local eatery that specializes in seafood dishes from the town’s Portuguese legacy. I could hardly stay awake I was so weary from the travel. The drive wasn’t a hard one, but so much of what’s happened over the past couple of weeks has been in preparation for this time – purging and paring down to the essentials – has been physically and emotionally demanding.

I’m so grateful for the friends I have who have supported me along the way: Those who helped me break down and vacate my apartment by the end of January, those that have welcomed me into their homes and at their tables, those who have given gifts and other tokens of appreciation, and written cards and notes and made calls, and done the many other things that have brought me to this present moment. Wrapping my mind around the blessedness of this time seems futile, so instead I will just be mindful of it.

I’m glad for this blog as an opportunity to bring mindfulness to this break. The historic bell that sits at the back of the sanctuary at First Parish reads, “Come to the house of prayer/Mark the flight of time.” Mark the flight of time. Time is so fleeting that it is unmarkable, like trying to tie water in a knot or keep the sun from setting. But maybe through little attempts at writing or painting or singing, through some act of creation, we can make an imprint. In time, all our creations and creating may be turned to ashes, dust, ether. Most of it probably will. I hope that even after memory fades, there will be something of the love of life in what we’ve done that remains and will be passed forward.

This past week was my farewell to the Boston area for the time being. I will pass through briefly to reorganize at the end of the sojourn in P’town, then head down South through New York, Philadelphia, DC and other stops, on my way to Gulfport. Last week, I took my car to the shop so it would be ready for the road, paid my last gas and electric bills, said my goodbyes, shed my tears. This week, I continue trying to stitch a cohesive narrative together from the fragments I’ve been collecting over the past 20 years.

At the end of the service last Sunday, I stepped through a beautiful saffron gate, patterned after Cristo’s Gates in Central Park three years ago. Just before that, the First Parish Jazz Ensemble offered it’s beautiful rendition of the song “Bridges,” written by Sergio Mendes and Kevyn Lettau. One of the verses I’ve been returning to over the past several days is

There’s a bridge to tomorrow
There’s a bridge to the past
There’s a bridge made of sorrow
That I pray will not last
There’s a bridge made of colors
In the sky high above
And I know that there must be
Bridges made out of love

I intend that this six-month break be a bridge made out of love, and that I constitute myself and the novel I’m completing to be the same.

Meanwhile, it’s time to stir the sauce again …

(c) 2008 by Carlton Elliott Smith. All rights reserved.