For Everything, There is a Season...

Dearest Reader,
After much time and contemplation, I feel my life has begun pulling me in a new creative direction. Please visit my new blog tinderheart @ http://mytinderheart.blogspot.com .

Thank you so very much for reading SimonSays through the years.

Most Sincerely,
Brittney S. Holland

My Name is Brittney!

Yesterday I attended the funeral of perhaps the kindest person I have ever known. She was my father’s aunt. And while my life did not afford me the opportunities to know her as well as I might have liked, I can honestly say, “I loved her.” I loved her smile. I loved speaking with her. I loved that she always seemed joyful and genuinely glad to see me.

I love the fact that I never heard her utter an unkind word. Ever!

But what amazes me MOST is that she survived her husband, two of her three children, and one brother. At seventy-eight-years-old, she came to know much sorrow…and STILL she loved…still she found joy and shared it with all she encountered.

I wish I could have known her more intimately.

The catholic in me thinks her worthy of sainthood…my own personal sainthood, that is. I too know sorrow. Perhaps not as great as hers,…but still very great to me. Perhaps she could have offered me sound advice. Perhaps she would have shared her secret. Perhaps her secret was her faith. Perhaps it was Jesus. Perhaps it was just that simple, and perhaps she had had enough practice to finally get it right. Perhaps.

But instead of meditating on these things during yesterday’s service, I found myself angry. Incensed. I wanted to walk out. I wanted NOT to dignify this pastor’s words with my presence. I wanted NOT to allow his foibles, his ill preparation, his lack of attention to detail, his lack of personal investment for so wonderful a woman to go unmet. (I stayed put, however, out of respect for the family.)

My faith teaches me that our heavenly Father calls me by name…knows the number of every single hair on my head. Knew before I was born – the moment of my birth, the moment of my death, and every sin I will commit between those moments. That’s pretty darn personal....and I am NOT that interesting.

So shouldn’t those of us who “officially” serve as the physical hands and lips of our heavenly Father do all we can to take our callings personally? Shouldn’t we strive to “make it personal” with each of our daily ministries? Shouldn’t the pastor presiding over a funeral service at least KNOW the name of the deceased? Shouldn’t he (or she) be able to deliver a eulogy without calling the deceased two or three other names (or parts of names) before resorting to the less personal Mrs. ---------?

I am sure there are times when family and clergy struggle to speak well of the dead, but this certainly was not such an occasion. I heard this pastor “putting words in her mouth.” (i.e., “…and I don’t know, but I bet she would say…” and worse still, “…and she said,…”)

Is this what we have come to? Is this how little the light of life is worth once extinguished…so little that a clergyman can’t take the time to better study his notes? So little that a clergyman can’t tweak and reshape his obviously formulaic eulogy to fit the deceased, rather than tweaking and reshaping the deceased to fit into his formula?

I posted last summer that I have been giving thought to my own end. Ahhh...“When I have fears that I might cease to be….”. Yesterday left me knowing one thing for sure. I want whoever delivers my eulogy to know my name. I want him/her to not put words in my mouth. I sincerely hope that he/she might know me personally and be able to speak from the heart rather than formula. But just in case…

My name is Brittney.

And I hope the following things can be honestly said about me:

• I LOVED more than I caused pain.
• I learned from my mistakes.
• I brought joy to others.
• I helped someone in need.
• I sought beauty.
• I hoped for the best in humanity.
• I encouraged compassion and tolerance.
• I personified (in part) the Sacred Heart of Christ Jesus.
• I am most proud of my children, my education, my conversion to Catholicism, my music, my poetry, and my photographs.

What advice can I offer?

• Love, love, love.
• Be kind.

"When we get to heaven, it really won't matter how smart we were.

What will matter most is how much we loved."

(from a homily by Father Patrick at St. Mary's in Rome, GA)

Cover Weim

February 2012

Well, I can't celebrate Longchamp's weimy-ness without giving a nod to National Geographic. It seems everyone is finally catching on to the beauty and wonder of these blue and silver beauties!

Weims are So Fashionable!

I LOVE the new Longchamp campaign!

Perhaps you've seen the ads in magazines?

So precious!

Delightful Discovery

-

image by izak zenou

I stumbled across this image yesterday, and I can't stop thinking about it. It captures so perfectly what I've been up to lately. The school system where I teach has "encouraged" me to participate in a local, certification initiative. Yes, ANOTHER one. "It's no big deal," they said. "It's mostly on-line," they said.

I spent TWO HOURS on ONE of a six-part assignment last week. I've got a year of this (ugh!)...and the whole time, a little voice in my head said, "You could be working on your doctorate."

Ahhhh, my doctorate. My long-lost dream.

As for Simon? He stands and stares at me, just like this little guy. He grows impatient. He wants my attentnion. He couldn't care less about all this homework.

Roman Holiday Faves

...in no particular order

1. the pastries
2. the espresso
3. the wine
   
4. cobbled stone streets
5. street side cafes
6. the little, old men (so charming)
7. the windows in my hotel room
8. confession at The Vatican
9. mass at The Vatican
10. The Sistine Chapel
11. The Basilica de Santa Maria in Trastevera
12. the piazza in Trastevera on Sunday afternoon

Who Knew?

ISBN: 0-87805-450-2

I promise to continue my posts on Italy, but today I want to write about something else, a jewel of a discovery I made while browsing a vintage bookshop on Friday. Eudora Welty was a photographer. Yes, Eudora Welty. Who knew?

Don't know Eudora Welty? That's quite alright. She's an American author, highly anthologized for her stories set in the American South. You perhaps read her along the same time you read stories by Katherine Anne Porter and Flannery O'Connor. Don't recognizes those names? Perhaps that's because their stories too often pale in the literary lights of William Faulkner, Earnest Hemingway and John Steinbeck. Those were, indeed, "hard acts to follow"...especially for a Southern woman.

Such is life.

But it's Eudora's photographs I want to talk to you about today. They are truly captivating. Vintage...yes. A little rough at times...yes. I think these add to their character. And...perhaps my fascination with the recently discovered Vivian Maier and her soon-to-be-released book of images (November) predisposes me to such excitement, but I am truly enchanted. For those of you who are photography buffs, Eudora's images are not fine art photography; they are street images. Mostly, she captures people living in and around Mississippi, people who resonate with the images I conjure when I read her stories. And...perhaps it is this that captures me.

I , too, love watching people, filing them away in my mind for a future speaker in a poem. I also love the insights I gain about humanity while watching others (especially when they don't know I'm watching).

If only I possessed Eudora's courage. (Alas, I am shy.) Her images, unlike the street shots I posted from my trip to Rome, are intimate. Her subjects clearly know they are being photographed, and many times they look directly into the lens.

love and water

Rome, Italy 2011

I have come to understand that love is like water. Try to resist love, withhold love, contain it…it will forge its way forth. Consider the Grand Canyon. Erosion exists because water must find its way.

savoring the moment

-espresso at a street-side cafe in Rome, Italy, 2011 (iPhone image)

Here in the US, a cup of coffee is often an afterthought, something we order to accompany something else. “I’ll have a blueberry muffin and a large coffee with two creams.” “I’d like a piece of your apple pie and a cup of decaf.” And with the help of Starbucks’ marketing, cups of coffee have even been ushered into the realm of modern accessory (still an accompaniment). “Sunglasses…check. iPhone…check. White, paper cup with cardboard sleeve…check.”

What’s that?

Do you doubt me?

How else can we explain the popularity of “coffee drinks,” many of which are ten percent coffee and ninety percent syrupy, creamy goodness? Those, dear readers, are for the consumer who likes the idea of coffee more than the coffee itself.

In Rome, however, a “cup of coffee” – more specifically espresso or cappuccino – is both an event and the star attraction. Every café I visited had an espresso bar, appointed with stools and brass foot rails. I saw no drive-thru service options, and I saw no paper cups in the hands of passers by. Romans take time for a leisurely cup. They sit, they sip, and they talk.

(I’d also like to add that their servings were mostly very small and very dark. No fluff there, honey!)

Here’s a thought…

How often do we take time out of our day for a cup of anything? Time and out are the operative words in that question. Time spent doing nothing but enjoying a cup of coffee or tea or even ice water? Time spent with our own thoughts, or time spent enjoying someone else’s company? So caught up are we in the fashion of multi-tasking, that I suspect most of us are mindlessly sipping while checking our e-mails or texting or driving or watching television. Some of you, perhaps, are sipping while reading this blog.

That is certainly our way in the Holland house. Regardless of the beverage, multi-tasking supersedes human-to-human interaction. The television is almost always on. There are three people, three laptops, three cell phones. It should go without saying, then, that my favorite times of the day are school mornings, dinnertime, and my son’s bedtime.

Mornings, because my son’s face is the first face I see (well, the second actually, since Simon’s is the first…met about two inches from my nose.) Then while my son showers, Simon and I go outside for some early-morning fetch beneath the stars…and yes, I always sip my morning cup.

Bedtime is when I get to enjoy some surprisingly quality moments with my son. (Sometimes I think he’s more talkative at bedtime to prolong the inevitable, but I’m not complaining.)

Dinnertime, unfortunately, grows increasingly hit-or-miss as his activity schedule becomes more complex, and as our house increasingly becomes the neighborhood hangout for his friends (I’ve finally convinced his father that this is a good thing).

With all this multi-tasking and digital media that’s supposed to help mankind streamline lives, why are we not discovering more time for each other? Why do we seem to grow more and more disconnected from one another?

Here’s my challenge to you.

Pour yourself a cup of coffee, or a cold beer if that’s your preference, and turn off the television. Close your laptop and silence your phone. Then…spend however long it takes you to SIP your beverage enjoying the moment. Enjoying someone’s company? Well that’s an added bonus.

"For us to go to Italy..."

"and to penetrate into Italy is like a most fascinating act of self-discovery –

back, back down the old ways of time....

Strange and wonderful chords awake in us,

and vibrate again after many hundreds of years of complete forgetfulness."

Sea and Sardinia, D.H. Lawrence

Time to Focus on Me

Rome, Italy 2011

If you have been following Simon Says for a while, then you know I contracted Dengue Fever while in Puerto Rico. At the time, it seemed a terribly cruel twist of irony…I finally had an opportunity to travel beyond the continental US, and I came home with an illness that landed me in the hospital.

Dengue Fever isn’t something we see much here; I believe I was one of five reported cases among Georgia residents (since the 90’S?). My blood work was sent to the CDC for an official diagnosis, and it was the CDC who “followed up” with me after my release. So, when my physician admitted me to the hospital, he sent me with the knowledge that there are four strains (one of which can be fatal) and the hope that mine would be one of the other three. I was classified neutropenic and denied visitors, flowers, fresh fruit and fresh vegetables. I was hooked up to IV fluids and told to wait. Wait and see what happens. Wait on the CDC. Wait.

Idly waiting is not something I do well. My patience is only as good as my ability to stay busy. There, in that hospital bed, with no energy and no one to keep me company, all I could do was lie there and think. I thought about my life and of all the things for which I still hoped. I thought about the thin line I walked between nobly accepting circumstances and my own cowardice. I am not unlike Thornton Wilder’s Marquesa in The Bridge of San Luis Rey. I too realized the reality of my life. Thank goodness God has afford me a different fate than Wilder afforded The Marquesa. (She fell with the bridge two days later.) I recovered from Dengue and continually strive to live differently.

When my time comes, no one will care how smart I am or how many degrees I hold or how many scholarly texts I write. What will matter is how I loved. So I have given up my pursuit of a PhD, not because I no longer wish to teach literature at the college level, but because of the sacrifices the coursework demands. I have given up my position as the English Department Chair where I teach. I have given up my Advanced Placement classes. I have given up these things because of their demands on my time, time I want to spend being a fully-present mother while I still have a child young enough to need me. And...I now have time to write for pleasure and garden and cook and run and take pictures and play the piano. I now have time to spend a leisurely, Sunday afternoon cuddling on the couch with a lazy, lovable weim. I now have time to go to museums and to the symphony, time to study a little Italian, time to drop everything and go to Rome.

With all this time on my hands, I am a much happier person than I was before Dengue. I smile more. I laugh more. I love more openly and more fully. I see moments now, moments I might otherwise have missed.

small talk and pastries

Each morning I walked to a different café for breakfast. My order was always the same: one croissant, a cappuccino, and a bottle of water for later.

What amazed me is that croissants in Italy seem to vary quite a bit. Each croissant had a slightly different texture and a distinctly different flavor. One came filled with a lemon curd and was sprinkled with powdered sugar. One was lightly flavored with orange zest and a light glaze. Another was chocolate. They were all fabulous.

My favorite croissant, however, came served by a very chatty waiter who quickly exhausted my Italian and seemed to speak no English. Our “common” language, therefore, became Spanish, where he guided me through all the textbook, conversational phrases I know.

Eventually, he asked me my age. My age? My mind flashed. Is that more “acceptable” in other cultures, or is he just trying to keep our conversation going?

I couldn’t remember how to say the number in Spanish, so I held up my fingers and said it in English. His eyes grew large, and he said. "No, no…cuarenta y uno?"

"Si," I nodded, "cuarenta y uno. Forty-one."

My friendly, croissant-wielding waiter put his hands to his face. "Bonita!" he said. Then he pointed at me and waved his hands in an hourglass shape. "Muy bonita!"

What flavor was that particular croissant? I have no idea.

street shots

(Notice the pup?)

a margin of independence

“…Can’t it help you to see that there is something wrong when all the dreams in this house – good or bad – had to depend on something that might never have happened if a man had not died? We always say at home: Accident was at the first and will be at the last a poor tree from which the fruits of life may bloom.”

-Asagai, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

I have taught this play several times through the years, but these lines have never resonated until this fall. You see, I paid for my trip to Rome with an inheritance from my father.

What he left me was not a grand sum. I am not wealthy. I am, however, rich with opportunities and dreams finally fulfilled through his gift to me…and by the margin of independence his gift has afforded.

So when I noticed this little man, I had to snap this pic.

I miss my father. My father was the only person in my life (other than my little sister) who asked to read my poetry. I don’t think he was particularly interested…but he was interested in me.

Pilgrimage

Have you ever felt that God is allowing you to see what could have been?

Sometimes I do.

You see, I was foolish in my youth. I was foolish and shortsighted

And then I set about trying to “undo” what I had done wrong. I tried to make the best of a bad situation.

Will I spend the rest of my life paying penance for those sins? I honestly do not know what God has in store for me.

There is one thing I do know for sure…there may be no greater love (of which we mortals are capable) than that of a mother. It is this belief that draws me to the Holy Mother.

If there is any human creature who can possibly understand me and the choices I have made (choices I still make)…she can. If there is any mortal to whom I can run for comfort…I can run to her.

Long before I was Catholic, I revered the Virgin Mother. I have never been that good. I have never known such faith. I have never felt such sorrow.

If she can endure, so can I.

When I became Catholic, I came home.

I can’t tell you why I know this, I just know…somewhere in my bones. I look back now, and I see the “pulls” since my childhood ( I would offer you a list, but I fear you would grow bored).

I have known since 2000. Known…beyond any doubt.

I recently told my mother that Catholicism is in my DNA; I was meant to be Catholic. She didn’t laugh.

You see, I was raised Protestant...I was baptized Presbyterian. I graduated from a Church of God university, where I received a minor in Bible Studies. I married a Methodist. I served as a Children’s Choir Director at a Baptist Church. I have taught British Literature, Old Testament Literature and New Testament Literature in public high school, and I have done graduate studies in The Christian Rhetoric of Modern Literature. I have grappled with predestination, damnation, and the tenants of the protestant reformation. I have read Augustine and Dawkins, Warren and Hahn. I am for all practical purposes a mutt. But all of my studies and all of my experiences have led me to this one conclusion: none of us have it all figured out. Man’s interpretation of God is far too primitive.

So what do I do? I listen to my spirit...I follow my heart. I pray.

I chose Catholicism because of this force in my spirit, calling me -- a force so great that I (a wordsmith) cannot name it. I chose Catholicism because that which Christ entrusted to Simon Peter is (quite simply) good enough for me. I chose Catholicism because Catholic worship nurtures every sensory receptor I possess…because there is beauty in every step along the liturgical way.

So why, you might ask, if I have known this since 2000, would I wait so long? Because…I am unequally yoked. And, when I finally found my courage, I waited still… for the right words and the right time. (See, I told you I’m a life-long student of patience.)

It still wasn’t easy. I met resistance…and criticism. I was accused of being disrespectful to the institution of husband.

In the end, however, my faith was met.

Please do not take my words as a testament to the virtues of a “defiant wife.” If anything, accept these as a testament to the virtues of a “praying wife” or to the virtues of prayer and the soulful pursuit of God’s will for the individual.

Going to Rome, then, was a pilgrimage in its purest sense. It was a chance for me to step out in blind faith…traveling entirely alone to a foreign country…away from my native tongue and native customs…to live completely with my own thoughts and my own spirit. It was a ritual of homecoming, a ritual of validation that I am finally going where I was always meant to be.

I traveled to the seat of Simon Peter, the foundation of Christianity. I confessed my sins on that sacred ground and attended mass in full communion with the Catholic church. I entered into the presence of the transfigured body of Christ and was at that moment as holy as I can possibly be in this lifetime.

By the way, have I ever told you how my precious pup got his name?

Good things come

to those who wait…and wait…and wait. Patience. I am a life-long student of this virtue.

one of 140 saint sculptures adorning the top of The Vatican’s colonnade

In 1980, The Vatican announced its plan to restore The Sistine Chapel, and in 1983, National Geographic did a spread on the restoration’s progress. I remember this article and how I poured over its pages of text and image. Since then, visiting the Sistine Chapel has been a dream of mine.

Twenty-eight years later, I finally set foot on that sacred floor. I stood beneath Michelangelo’s magnificent work which gleams from the ceiling above. I found a seat along the stone wall and quietly wept.

I do that sometimes. Weep…in the presence of beauty. Please don’t laugh.

I am one who feels wholly and deeply. If I were a superhero, that would be my power. It’s both a blessing and a curse.

When I planned this trip, there were only three places I planned to visit. This was one of the three. Yes, I hear your collective queries. Why not more? Why not the magnificent piazzas? Why not the Roman ruins? For me, the answer is simple.. Because I didn’t want to be rushed. Because this trip was not really a vacation. Because this journey was very personal and very spiritual.

Did I take any pictures for you? No. Not there. Photographs are not permitted inside the chapel. Even if they were…I still wouldn’t have pulled out my camera. I find it difficult for me to photograph certain things. In this instance, I am not worthy. That is a calling for others far more gifted with a camera than I. I am called simply to witness.

Italian Tail for Simon (who wishes pics were scratch 'n sniff)

Rome, Italy 2011

"The reason a dog has so many friends, is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue."

-Anonymous

On Flying Solo

Traveling alone isn’t something I mind. Perhaps my solitary youth prepared me for such. Perhaps my marriage to one who’s “all about the destination” when I’m “all about the journey” has left me no other choice.

Either way, traveling alone affords me the freedom to linger when something moves me, to recognize God in the smallest details, to pause and listen when He speaks.

My first solo flight was to Puerto Rico, to Santurce and Old San Juan. I stayed two weeks for a writer’s workshop, attending sessions a couple hours per day. I spent the rest of my time mostly alone, wandering and writing.

I have visited New York City and Washington DC sans ami.

Rome, however, is my greatest solo flight. This time I loaded my iPhone with an Italian language app and an interactive GPS. I spent four glorious days by myself. (I would have stayed longer, were it not for my work schedule and my wallet.)

Unless addressed in English, I tried to communicate in Italian. Other than my transports to and from the airport, I walked everywhere I went.

I visited The Vatican, where I went to confession and attended Mass.

I visited The Sistine Chapel and The Basilica of Our Lady in Trastevera.

I ate at street side bistros and drank wine with both lunch and dinner. I attempted small talk with my waiters and met a wonderful trio from England.

At every turn, I tried my best to blend in.

I must have met some degree of success, because one gentleman seemed surprised that I am American and said he had me pegged for a German.

That evening, I ordered my entire meal, chatted with my waiter, and paid my bill entirely in Italian (broken Italian, but still Italian).

When in Rome...

This is me, on my first evening in Rome, after a little nap.

As mentioned in a previous post, I traveled alone.

So yes, this one's a self-portrait.

-----

Before heading out to dinner, I thought I should snap a few quick pics for my son and for you.

Below are a couple of my teeny, tiny room.

Notice the walls on either side of my night stands.

Notice how close my knees are to the bathroom doorway while sitting on the foot of my bed.

Nope. Never did try out that bidet.

Promises to Keep

You thought I’d forgotten, didn’t you. I promised you postings about my trip to Rome, and then I fell silent for five months.

I have a confession to make. I’m not really sure how to tell this story.

Maybe it’s a superstition, but there is this theory among writers that stories have energy. Those who believe this will not discuss a project before its completion, because its inherent energy is lost in the telling, lost before that energy can be translated onto the page.

I’m not sure what I believe. I have, indeed, lost momentum on projects after sharing my ideas with a friend or fellow writer. Some of these projects eventually saw completion. Some fell dead in the water. Lifeless. Spent.

I still feel the energy of Rome. After all this time. What if I tell you…and then it’s gone?

Perhaps that is the real root of my silence.

Perhaps you will think I’m overly sentimental.

Perhaps you will think I’m just nuts.

Perhaps not.

Time will tell, I guess, and you will either continue to visit Simon Says or you will drift quietly away.

I hope you will stay.

-----

P.S. Yes, this is an old-fashioned room key...not a swipe card. And yes, the concierge pulled this key from a wall of cubbies, each cubby for a different room in the hotel. I have to say, I felt a bit like a stand-in for a James Bond film (only without the stillettos and the double D's).