Thursday, January 17, 2008

what the?

some guy made a horror movie ...
about vagina dentata ...
and called it Teeth!!!!!

i just watched the preview and i may never stop laughing.

it reminds me of my favorite margaret atwood poem:
you fit into me

you fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye

Friday, January 11, 2008

no nunsense

i read in a book about nuns (sorry, can't remember the title or i'd reference it here) that in the oldie moldie days, when the catholics had 10 or more children, they would "tithe" one or two of their children to the church so you'd grow up your whole life hearing, "bobby, you're going to be a priest when you grow up." and "mary jane, you're going to be a nun." and it didn't matter if you had a vocation or not. living the religious life with no vocation makes one the meanest 5th grade math teacher ever. when i read that, a lot fell into place and made sense for me - i think many of my elementary school teachers might not have been called to the religious life.
nowadays, it's no longer the pride of a family to have clergy or monastics among your children. people ask me, "why would you want to be a nun and give everything up?" i am less intrigued with the "everything" that people are talking about. i am not called to marriage. i may have family life, but in an alternative way. there is no nuclear family in america anymore anyway.
in the west, nuns, monks, and priests are fewer but they have sure vocations. they make the choice, rather than having it thrust on them as in the past. this makes for a different kind of nun. also, people are called later in life, after living independently and alone. used to be you'd go from your father's house to the convent. from following your mother's rules to your reverend mother's rules. now the transition to obedience is not so easy (ok, i don't know that it was "easy" back then).
what's a 30 something (rapidly approaching 40 something) woman to do? guess i'll find out when the time is right.

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

taking care

my boyfriend and i broke up last week. we'd been together over three years - the longest i've been with anyone by a very long stretch. we're working out how to be friends - he's so important to me and i want to be friends.
i spent my entire life taking care of my mother's feelings, because she couldn't. then i took care of john's feelings, because he couldn't. now i have no one to take care of other than myself and i believe that it is time for me to take care of me and only me as i become more and more ready for my new life.
i've cut my hair into what i dub my "nun haircut." i've stopped coloring my hair for the first time since i was 19 years old. i've stopped wearing make up. and now i've left my romantic relationship.
in my past, i used to try to fill up the god-sized hole in my life with a man. i used to look to men to make everything better for me, everything from my past. i stopped doing that several years ago. now i have a man-sized hole instead of a god-sized hole. that is more manageable.
i truly believe that when something leaves our lives, there is that much more room for the universe to fill up that space with something better. i think that space is more room for me. more room for god.
i want to go to bulembu as early as possible. maybe by my next vacation, which is during lent. i would love to be in africa for lent.