Getting ready, August 13, 2022

It was a glorious day for walking just over 8 miles in and around Central Park. I realized something: while part of my goal for this sabbatical/pilgrimage is to unplug, it is also a wonderful opportunity to listen to podcasts and books I haven’t had time for, and I can find a balance. Today I listened to two podcasts for about half the time I walked, and listened to the Park and my own thoughts for the other half.

I started my walk listening to the Pray As You Go daily devotional. I haven’t listened to it in a very long time, but it will be a wonderful way to start each day’s walk on the pilgrimage. The daily practice is based in Ignatian Spirituality and is produced by British Jesuits. I love it, and am glad I rediscovered the app on my phone. Perhaps you could join me in this daily practice? If you go for a walk each day, it’s a great way to fit a devotion into a busy schedule. Just look for “Pray as You Go” in the App Store.

Here’s something else I discovered for New Yorkers (who may already know this) and visitors: avoid the Discovery Center toilets at the northern end of the Park at all costs, but the ones at the Conservatory Gardens are relatively clean. Other Central Park bathroom stops (because, hey, it can be critical information): the tennis court toilets north of the Reservoir are never crowded, the bathrooms by the Delacorte Theater don’t usually have too long of a line, if any; if you stop for lunch at the Le Pain Quotidien by the Sheep Meadow, try not to need the facilities—the line was way too long. Too bad they don’t have their own toilets for customers. Then there’s Hecksher Playground, and the Conservatory Water (also known as the Model Boat Pond), but at that point I’m only a couple blocks from home. There you have it. A guide to Central Park toilets. Oh, there’s one at the Great Hill, but I can never find the Great Hill. I’ve only been there once for a picnic with friends. I know the Park really well from the reservoir south, but have spent very little time above the reservoir. I walked through another part of the north woods today, but ended up on the exact same path past the waterfall and big arch that I ambled along yesterday.

Tomorrow I still plan to get up early and walk with a loaded pack for an hour before church. I feel good about the eight miles today. It’s a really good walk, but I need to be able to do twice that on most days. With my pack.

Getting Ready, August 12, 2022

My original plan was to walk around the Park this morning for at least 6 miles. But alternate side parking intervened, and I sat in the car from 9 to 10:30. Then I thought I’d pack a lunch and quickly get out. Then I took care of a couple of work items. Then decided to get my train ticket from Paris to Le Puy taken care of. By the time I left it was 1:40. This is not a schedule anyone walking the Chemin/Camino keeps! When you are on “The Way” you start walking early in the morning—some people get up before dawn to start—and finish by early to mid-afternoon, avoiding the warmest part of the day. This has been especially important for those who have been walking through the horrible heat in France and Spain this summer. Many have been getting up as early as 4 am to avoid the heat, finishing by late morning to collapse in whatever shade they can find before their Gites or Albergues open (Gites d’etape in France, Albergues in Spain—guest houses especially intended for pilgrims). I am earnestly praying that by the time I begin walking on August 28 the extreme heat will be over.

Walking this afternoon was hot in the sun, but thanks be to God it was only about 80 and not 90 to 100. I think using Central Park for training is actually a good simulation of the walks along the Chemin and Camino—without the strenuous ascents and descents I’ll face on some days. But I can find pavement or gravel/dirt to walk on, there are toilets available along the way, and even places to refill your water or stop for a snack or coffee. That is what most of the days will be like on the pilgrimage—a few will not have many services, but most are a matter of walking from village to village, not hiking as we think of it in this country. Now I just need to find some hills to climb. The first few days out of Le Puy have some significant climbs and descents. But I may have to settle for walking up and down the stairs in the building.

I did manage to walk today without being plugged in, apart from one phone call. However, I have had the hymn “St. Patrick’s Breastplate” in my head for days now. Weeks even. Over and over and over. I hope my brain finds another ear worm soon. Though I should be careful what I wish for. I love that hymn, but enough is enough. I may have to give in and listen to a podcast or book, or other music for part of my walk tomorrow. There is a limit to how many times I can listen to, “I bind unto myself today.”

I plan to get out tomorrow morning and hope to do 8 miles. I managed 6.25 this afternoon. Then Sunday morning I plan to do an hour before church with my fully-loaded pack. And now that I’ve shared those plans, you can hold me accountable! Oh—and I have done this post on my phone with my very light-weight portable keyboard! It’s going to work. Now, a question for those of you who keep blogs and know WordPress better than I do: is it better to create a new post each day, or I should I just be adding to the same original “Learning to Walk” post? Blog help is very welcome!

A couple of weeks ago I had taken my dinner up to the Roof Garden. With the apartment still a sea of boxes after moving into the church, and the dining table unsittable, I have found that the Roof Garden in the evening is the perfect place to enjoy dinner. It is a lovely, covered playground for the Day School by day, and a lovely quiet space in the evening. Well, as quiet as it gets on Madison Avenue in NYC. It is open, with screens, on two sides, so even on the hottest days, there is often a breeze eleven floors up to make it more comfortable. On this particular evening, I looked up to see a big, gold, Mylar, letter “A” balloon that had gotten away, drifting over the tops of the buildings. I imagine some child named Adam or Abigail or Anna was most unhappy to have lost the balloon, but it felt like some sort of omen, sign, to me. Balloons often get away, but I’ve never seen a big gold “A” floating through the sky before. “A” for beginnings. “A” for alpha. “I am the alpha and the omega.”  No omega, no ending drifting above the buildings, only a beginning.

It is a time for new beginnings—for Emily and me, for the church I serve, and for our country. We moved from the West Side, from an apartment and neighborhood we loved, to the East Side, into the church, for various reasons. We were sad to leave, but it is a good, fresh start, and you can’t beat the commute. It will also be an easy commute for Emily in the fall, as she begins high school in East Harlem. Our new apartment is lovely, but smaller, which requires some down-sizing—more than I have already done (which is not an insignificant amount), because I don’t know where to put everything. Downsizing is good. Letting go. Focusing on what you really need and care about, trying to live more simply, whether you use KonMari or Swedish Death Cleaning, or just figure it out with your own method, it’s a good thing to do. Especially when one is within ten years of retirement. Really????  How can that be?  But I’m not going to jump that far ahead just now.  I’ll focus on this particular time of beginnings.

This move feels like more than physical starting over. It’s a time to refocus. A time not just to think about what material belongings really matter, but how am I spending my time, my energy. What do I want to leave behind?  What do I want to focus on? What clutter in my mind and heart can I clean out? What do I need to make space for? What beginning was that big, gold “A” floating through the sky calling me to?

I think a major part of this new beginning is about paying more attention to the inner life, so that I can live a more faithful and fruitful outer life. Because my 14-year-old daughter, the rest of my family, my friends, my congregation and my community deserve a more centered, focused, and less-stressed version of me. Heck, I deserve a more centered, focused, less-stressed version of me!  This week, enjoying my own personal retreat in Vermont, while Emily is away in Spain and Italy (on choir tour, followed by a week with her sister), has proven to be the perfect way to start afresh. I already feel more rested and grounded than I have in months, well, more like a couple of years. The move is behind me, except for the settling in, the interim period at church is over as Jenny, our new senior pastor has arrived, and this week is like a long, deep, restorative breath. I am currently looking out the window of my friend’s art studio at the hills across the way and the Roy farm—the same view I had from my former home, also in view just to my left, when I was a pastor here more than a quarter century ago. It feels like I have come home to be restored before returning to the life that is my current calling.

One of the major sources of stress for me, and so many others, since November 8, 2016, is, of course, our current administration. It is hard to see this time for our country as a new beginning rather than an ending as we see so much being fecklessly and recklessly destroyed and overturned—human rights, global alliances, and the fate of the earth itself. But I keep remembering Valerie Kaur’s Watch Night speech on December 31, 2016, where she asked, “What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb?” And then reminded us that in giving birth, first you have to breathe, then you have to push.* We have to do both—breathe and push in order to bring a new era to birth, and we have to be midwives and coach each other to breathe and push, breathe and push to bring into being an era of compassion, respect and care for the earth, and respect for human beings no matter their race, creed, country, ethnicity, gender or sexuality identity, or economic status. I need to do my part to help make this darkness a time that will bear fruit rather than destruction. And in order to do that, and to see this as a time of beginning, a time when hope and new life can spring up from the ashes, I have to carve out time to breathe. You can’t keep pushing if you have no breath. That’s the powerful reminder of this week. The sleep I am getting, the nature I am enjoying, the friends with whom I am reconnecting, and the reading I am doing, all fuel this new beginning.

When I return to Madison Avenue, I need to hold myself accountable to take time to breathe in the midst of my daily life.  We need to hold each other accountable for breathing and time outs, for whatever restores us:  prayer, meditation, walks in the park, yoga, visits to the museum, knitting, drawing—whatever feeds our soul, loosens the knots in our shoulders, and brings us back to ourselves—or we will be sucked into despair and the constant sense of overwhelm. I haven’t been very good at that lately. But we have a long process of labor ahead of us, maybe even for the rest of our lives, to help birth a world that supports and cherishes life, a world where love wins. And we won’t be able to do that if we are depleted. Feel free to hold me accountable for breathing.  And I’ll do the same.

*If you need to re-watch Kaur’s speech, or if you missed it, you can find it here:

http://valariekaur.com/2017/01/watch-night-speech-breathe-push/

Both of my grandfathers had lengthy military careers with the Army. I never knew my grandfather Bartlett (Charles D.). He was born in 1890 and died when my dad was in college, before my parents met. I know he retired a Brigadier General from the Army Reserves, and that he trained fighter pilots in San Antonio in World War I. During and after World War II he was working around the country helping to establish Selective Service.

I did however know my grandfather Ezzard (Lt. Col. W. T.).  I was fortunate enough to have him in my life until I was almost 40.  He was called “Colonel,” or “Colonel Ezzard” by most people outside the family. His grandchildren knew him as Poppa. Poppa served in WWII where he earned both the Purple Heart and the Silver Star. He was in North Africa, and I believe the Silver Star was given to him for a reconnaissance mission (one of several) he led behind enemy lines. I remember my mother telling the story of how it was weeks before they knew he had been seriously wounded in North Africa, and how each day her older sister would walk to town where the list of casualties and missing was posted to see if his name was on it, because there had been no news of or from him. At one time they even announced on the radio that he had been killed in action. Thankfully, the letter saying he had been wounded (while defusing a landmine), came almost immediately after that. He later said that the jeep transporting him to the field hospital got lost, and it was 24 hours before he got medical attention–with landmine shrapnel piercing one lung.

Poppa served in Korea after the armistice and aided in the reconstruction effort.  He once said that his name would be on the ridge pole of buildings in Korea long after his monument in a cemetery was gone. One story I remember about Korea, which is actually Mom’s story, is that the speed limit everywhere was 15 miles per hour. So when Poppa came home and tried to teach my mom how to drive, he would scream at her every time she went over 15. Hence, she has never been comfortable driving.

Poppa, like many of his generation, didn’t talk much about the war, any of them.  It was only in his later years that he started telling a few stories to his grandchildren. During one visit when I was in my twenties I somehow managed to get this gruff, taciturn man to relate the chronology and story of his life while the two of us were sitting in the living room after lunch. I wish I had written down everything he told me. I’ve forgotten so much.

The stories I know best are from Vietnam. My grandfather was there twice–the first time he was on General Westmoreland’s staff, and the second time was after he had retired, and returned as an agricultural advisor with the state department. What I learned from the stories about my grandfather from Vietnam make me just as, and perhaps more, proud of him than anything he else he accomplished, because they reveal his character. My grandfather was always looking out for the wellbeing and rights of the enlisted men. Once, he went into the officers’ mess, and found a side of beef in the refrigerator that had been intended for the enlisted men’s dinner. He re-confiscated it, and returned it to the right kitchen. Poppa had great integrity and unfortunately was working in an environment where many of his peers did not. Mom said that at one point they had to transfer him to another location to protect him–he had made such enemies of the other officers in his efforts to stand up for those of lower ranks.

One of the stories I treasure the most is one that I did not learn from family at all–in fact, I don’t think anyone in the family even knew this–well, maybe my grandmother, but my mother had not heard it. Back when I worked for the Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church, we were having a special lunch–perhaps it was a farewell party for a staff member–I can’t remember the occasion. One of the dishes that had been brought was Vietnamese.  I was sitting next to an older colleague, Bob, and remarked that I loved Vietnamese food.  He said, “So do I.  I have loved it ever since I served in Vietnam.”  I asked him what he had done, and he told me he had been a chaplain.  As he spoke, I found myself wondering if he had known Poppa. I was hesitant to ask, feeling that it was akin to someone in Italy asking me if I knew their cousin in NewYork City. But something was telling me that he just might have known him, so I said, “My grandfather served in Vietnam as well.  I’m wondering if you knew him. He was Col. Ezzard.”  Bob looked at me and said, “I certainly did know your grandfather.  I knew him very well. He was a man of great integrity and honor.”  And then he told me this story:

“At one point one of the enlisted men came to see me, and he said he wasn’t sleeping. I asked him why, and he said, ‘because the officers have their girlfriends sleeping in our beds, and we have to sleep in the floor.’ I told him I would follow up on it and get it stopped, but he had to promise me he would testify about it.  Often, they would tell me what was going on, but were too afraid to tell anyone higher up.  He promised me he would, and I went to speak to the commanding officer about the situation. His response was, ‘I’m not doing anything about that.’  I told him, ‘yes, you are, or I am going over your head until this gets dealt with.’ At that point he called your grandfather in and assigned him to this case. Your grandfather dealt with it and was responsible for many officers being dishonorably discharged.  I had a great deal of respect for your grandfather.”

That story was such a gift.  I never expected to learn something about my grandfather from a colleague at work. The other story that shows what kind of human being Poppa was happened long after his retirement. As a retired officer, his retirement check, (pension?) was relatively high. When he began hearing news reports about how low the salaries were for the enlisted men, and how they were struggling financially, he sent his retirement check back with a letter saying, “I don’t need this, please use it to supplement the salaries of the enlisted men.”  The Army wrote back and said, “Colonel Ezzard, I’m sorry, but we can’t do that.”

And of course, one of the most lasting endeavors of both my grandfather and grandmother was to bring my foster aunt, Jane, from Vietnam to provide her with an education and a path to a better life.  And over the next decade or more, they helped Jane bring over the rest of her siblings. Jane’s older sister was my grandfather’s housekeeper, and he became good friends with the family during his time in Vietnam. And now there are generations of that family here in this country as a living testimony to Poppa and Grammy’s generosity and concern.

On this Veteran’s Day I am thankful for Poppa’s, and Grandfather Bartlett’s service, but most of all, I am thankful for Col. Ezzard’s integrity, honor, bravery in standing up for the rights of others, and his concern for those of lower rank and income. Under that gruff exterior, hidden behind that bark we all jumped at, was a heart of gold.

W. T. Ezzard in WWII

Poppa waiting for the mail to arrive in Vietnam (during second tour, as an agricultural advisor).

11:15 New Year’s Eve, on the farm in Tiger, Georgia

Emily’s asleep.  Mom and Dad are asleep. The NY Philharmonic is on the TV in the living room.  Outside it is countryside-dark and winter quiet. No cricket and frog symphony this time of year.  I suppose for some this would be considered an incredibly dull and boring New Year’s Eve. Well, truth be told, it might be nice to have someone else awake in the house to see the New Year in with, but a peaceful, reflective New Year’s Eve is not a bad thing. I’m remembering a few quiet New Year’s Eves at the Jersey Shore with friends and last year at Lauren’s with our Italian family visiting–memories that remind me of how grateful I am to have good friends.

I’ve never been good at following through on New Year’s resolutions. But I have been wanting to do more writing for a while now, so I decided I would start the New Year by creating a blog, and aim to have my first post completed by midnight. Making this blog more attractive will have to wait until I’m home and have access to my photos.

What New Year’s resolutions would I like to follow through on, if I can manage to do it?

Write every day.  At least a paragraph.

Eat more healthily, get more sleep, do yoga, walk.  All those things that will make me healthier, give me more energy, make me a more patient mama, and reduce stress.

Embrace/practice Simplicity Parenting (and finish reading the book!), even over Emily’s protests. Ultimately, we would both be happier and healthier.

De-clutter, de-clutter, de-clutter!!

Okay. That’s enough. I better stop before this becomes completely unrealistic.

There’s no champagne in the house, so I’m going to go drink my just-brewed cup of chai tea, eat a cookie, and watch the ball drop on TV–thankful that I am not, and never will be, standing in that Times Square throng, desperately having to pee.  I mean, really, where’s the fun in that??

Happy New Year!  May you seek and find what truly nurtures your soul–body, mind and spirit.