life in a postcard

This picture is a little cloudy because it is from my camera phone and taken through a dirty window...but it was gorgeous to behold.


I'm on the ferry from Orient Point to New London, and the sky is so bright it looks like a backdrop from the musical "Oklahoma". Puffy white clouds that belong on postcard are floating by over the dark blue green water with Long Island slowly fading away in the background and Plum Island in all its glory in my window.

A few sails spring up here and there and the sunshine through the clouds reflects off the gentle waves. The diesel engine on Cape Henelopen is making a lot of noise, as are the dogs being held in the laps of Lexus and Escalade owners. There is a man right outside my open window smoking a cigarette, and he has many earrings and tattoos. I read the NY Post and talked on the phone a bit. Its a little too chilly to ride up top today. And little Timmy is running rampant up there anyway, disturbing an otherwise peaceful experience.

The surface of this picture perfect Sunday is gorgeous, a true postcard image. The reality inside of the picture is less abstract, more subjective. I have ridden this ferry hundreds of times, today is little different bearing in mind the fact that I am writing on a laptop, no doubt the object of someones scorn for being immersed in the world even on a beautiful boat ride, unable to tear myself from technology.

I find my mind drifting to the sailboats on the water, the peace they must afford to those sailing them, then it drifts further to awe at the majesty of the sky, then to judgement of fellow passengers. This last of which is one that I hope to be of short duration as I, in general, attempt not to dwell on these feelings.

This boat, the Cape Henelopen, landed on the beaches of Normandy in 1944. We are just a week past the 65th anniversary. Any feelings of sullenness vanish whenever I think of this fact. My mind drifts to the English Channel so many years ago, to the young men who walked on these same floors I now walk. The fear and courage and anxiety they must have felt boggles my mind. So many of them never came home from the shores of France.

Connecticut is beginning to loom a bit larger in my window and my mind drifts back to reality. I have to be at the church by 4:00 pm in order to set up the band for mass and tune my guitar and practice a bit. My voice is finally back to normal which is a relief.

People sometimes ask if I am ever going to record, or if I have recorded. Like its just that easy to decide. As if you just wake up one day and think, "I'm going to record" As if it doesn't take money and connections and every ounce of free time you could imagine. I doubt I will ever record, or that in reality, I am good enough to do so. I am just about good enough to do exactly what I do, which is play and sing for Sunday Mass and open mic nights.

I think I'm far too retrospective today. I vowed to myself that when I had this time off this week to recuperate, that I would write a chapter a day for my book, but I never did. I wonder now if I have the stamina, originality, command of language, and talent to finish that project.

Everyday life and work in Connecticut often seems much like just the passage of time. Although very often enjoyable, it leaves no lasting mark on me, or I think, on the world. I want to see and do and write of great and wonderful things that provoke thought and excitement, that lack the banality I see all around me, that capture the glory of God in the human experience. I seem to want it just enough to be dissatisfied with anything less, but not enough to seriously do anything about it.

I haven't written anything in over a month because I had been ill again, and also because I could not think of anything of substance in what I was doing that was worthy of being written about. Now I have had too much time with my own thoughts. And inside of my postcard image Sunday, I have found a bit of a voice, albeit a critical and tortured one.

Two weeks ago, Chris spent three extra days of his research time with me to take me to the doctor and get my medicine. I know he would have rather been somewhere else, and perhaps was influenced by unnecessary guilt after a senseless outburst of irrational tears on my part when I asked him what time it was, and he kept saying 8 o'clock. Apparently I didn't think it was 8 o'clock, or didn't like that time, all I do know is that I broke down uncontrolably and told him to leave me alone. Sitting in a waiting room at a walk in clinic in Riverhead, now that is love and dedication. I am thankful for his patience.

I still feel ill, I will get my test results tomorrow, and I feel very alone right now. Alone with my pedantic thoughts and immature musings. I have not prayed nearly enough lately, although I know very well it is the only thing that keeps me sane. I hope that tonight's mass will be a peaceful one, where the music can add to the transcendental and I can find that place of meditation and rest within the miracle of transubstantiation. Today is the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi). That one sacramental miracle brings so much meaning to everything else in my life. Anyone that can love that much, to not only pour out every last drop of love on the cross, but then in turn also deem to be humble enough to stay locked up in lonely tabernacles for all eternity and to be an omnipotent presence at over 500,000 Eucharistic celebrations every day breaks my heart and rebuilds it in love. Any selfish or judgemental thought vanishes in the mere thought of that miraculous event. And when I receive him, I feel as if I am in heaven and nothing can touch me in the moments following, not sarcasm, not triteness, not self-pity or self-loathing, not pride, not judgement of others, or even of society. In that moment, all is completely right with the world. Its what I dream heaven will be like.

I'm sure heaven is going to be far better than a ferry or a sail boat, whose sailors no doubt have problems of a whole other realm and stream of consciousness than my own. I'm sure many of the boys from the shores of France are now present in the glory of heaven. And that eternity awaits us all, if we can manage not to get in our own way along the journey there.

But the jury is still out on the lap dogs, personally I doubt they get to go there.