Thursday, December 26, 2013

Tear-Water Tea is Always Good, or Why I Write


This is a Catholic blog. But it's not a Catholic apologetics blog, or a Catholic-mommy blog, or even the kind of blog in which a charmingly self-deprecating, adorably-bumbling Catholic woman candidly reveals her missteps and foibles, only to show how, in the end, they reveal profound lessons of God's wisdom. I was chided once in the combox here (by a non-post-abortive woman, one of more than a few who have taken the opportunity, in the comboxes, to assure me that they would never do what I had done all those years ago) for setting a destructive example, with this blog, for other post-abortive women, presumably by not making it one of the blogs described above. And I've been advised by a respected friend that more people would read here if this blog didn't have its ethos of quietly-pervasive melancholy.

But that's okay with me. Unlike, I presume, most bloggers, I don't like to think that too many people are reading here; it makes me feel exposed. After one of my posts went bizarrely viral a couple of years ago, I canceled my occasional participation in a much more widely-read blog, because the attention was uncomfortable. I'm not interested in things like getting a book contract out of my writing here, which seems to be the logical next step for many of the Catholic bloggers I admire. I already have a book contract in real life, for a work based on my musicological research. But not only will few people who read this blog read that book (most of my readers don't know me by the name under which it will be published), but it's also likely that few people in the real world will read it. Again, that's okay with me. I want to finish writing the book in order to honor my commitment to the publisher, and also because I believe I have something original to say in my field that might be of use to other scholars. But there's more.

While I have neither any authority nor any ability as a theologian or apologist, nor as a mommy- or cute-hapless-chick-blogger, I'm an observer, a witness to the mundane life, a diarist of memory, and a noticer of beauty in unusual places. This blog is where I attempt to chronicle those things. My life has been, and is, very different from those of most of my blogger cohort, including those whom I consider my friends. Because of my background, my temperament, and in some measure my circumstances, I experience psychic pain, both chronic and acute, every day, and I don't really believe in neatly-tied-up endings, which makes this blog not only an anti-blogger-book-contract-getting kind of blog, but even, in some ways, exactly the kind of blog you don't want your search engine to turn up when you're looking for answers in the lonely middle of the night.

In Barbara Kingsolver's compelling novel The Lacuna, Harrison Shepherd, an aspiring writer working as a cook in the household of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera in 1930s Mexico, states his greatest wish: "To make something beautiful, that people would find very moving." I share that wish. I suppose that the reason I continue to write here when I have time is that I want to make sense of things, of my life, and of the world around me, and to pull some beauty out of it in the hope of moving some anonymous reader's heart.

This is why I love the story "Tear-Water Tea" in the easy-reader book Owl at Home, by the legendary Arnold Lobel.  In fact, it may be the perfect work of literature, because it describes what I think must be the true purpose of literature, and indeed of all the arts: to take what is mundane, sad, or even unbearable, and to make something consoling and useful out of it, if not something transcendent.

In the story, the childlike and solitary Owl, in his bathrobe and slippers, decides that it's the right sort of night for making tear-water tea. Aided by sad thoughts ("Spoons that have fallen behind the stove and are never seen again . . . . pencils that are too short to use"), he proceeds to weep into his tea-kettle. When the kettle is full, he boils it for tea, saying, "It tastes a little bit salty . . . but tear-water tea is always good."

There's something reminiscent of a sacrament, I think, in the idea of tear-water tea, which uses the commonest, plainest, most mundane and intimate substance -- a substance whose association with suffering is inescapable -- to make something else, something comforting and curative. All true works of art, I suppose, are reflections, however pale, of that divine confection, the sacrament of God's mercy, made from materials which are worked by human hands. In my own small, particular, faltering, and anonymous way, I would like to reflect God's mercy here, in the hopes that it might be useful to someone else. That's why I write.

Merry Christmas to all of you, dear readers. I wish you a very happy new year.

16 comments:

Sally Thomas said...

Well, I think I've quit blogging altogether, but I'm glad you haven't. And I do still love Tear-Water Tea, though everyone else in my house seems to have outgrown it.

Pentimento said...

I love your blog, Sally, so I would be very sorry if you quit altogether. But blogging is funny, isn't it? A few years ago it seemed like people wanted to make real connections with one another, or to "set down this," as the aged magus says in the T.S. Eliot poem, but even among bloggers I like and respect the atmosphere seems to have gotten much louder. I hope your non-blogging time will be filled with good things.

lissla lissar said...

The connection part is among my favourite parts of blogging- I'm so glad to have met both you and Sally- and I, too, dislike the idea that a lot of people are reading my blog. I always get a frisson of apprehension that borders on fear when someone I know says, "Oh yes, I read it on your blog." It's more of a semi-private journal. Very semi.

Pentimento said...

Same here, Lissla. Most of my real-life friends don't know I write this blog.

Robin E. said...

I discovered your blog a few years ago when I was searching for other Catholics interested in special needs adoption. I still read it today because some of your reflections have been so beautiful.....the melancholic view of life, the daily psychic pain - there has always been room for the making of beauty from this in Catholicism, right? Isn't it, in fact, an integral part? Thank you for continuing to keep this little lighted place for those of us who need that.

Pentimento said...

Thank you for your kind words, Robin. I think in some ways there are gifts to be brought out of melancholy, but you have to work to get them out.

ElizabethK said...

This is why I love your blog. I love the other types of blogs, too--they are often instrumental in lifting me out of my overly ruminative, melancholy bent. But yours is the one I can most relate to; perhaps partly because we're both academics and artists, and I think it's hard to be an academic and a Catholic and a woman and an artist all at the same time. There's something about these things in combination that contributes to a constant sense of exile, regardless of particular circumstance, but that could just be me. Thank you for keeping this blog.

Pentimento said...

Yes. Oh good heavens yes. You say it well, ElizabethK.

former gothamite said...

The combination of my busyness and knowing that your busyness keeps you from blogging often meant that I didn't see your last two or three posts until tonight. I actually visited because I was reflecting on how I truly believe that you played a role in my finally, I don't really know the words, I guess letting go of the kind of things that keep a person habitually out of touch with God's mercy... something like that? Played a role in some not uncomfortably intense way (from my perspective), you know, appropriate for someone I never actually met. This comment reminds me that I need to email you about a U2 song, unless I fall asleep first, which is probably the better outcome. And is feeling like the more likely one.

Pentimento said...

As the coffee cup says, Former Gothamite, we are happy to serve you.

GretchenJoanna said...

Owl's Teardrop Tea has been a very important piece of writing in my life, one of my favorites to read to our children, and it still comes into my memory regularly, but I never thought of the sacramentality of it before...now that you mention it, the message is something like one of our priests often says at the confession stand, when I am mentioning a besetting sin: "Offer it up to God." It's true, I'm afraid, that most of the time my heartaches and errors make up the majority of my offerings -- but I come away healed, or at least on the way to healing.

Your comments on the blogging world are well-taken. I think a lot of people are overwhelmed with the social networking options, or satisfied with Pinterest, and are not reading blogs as much as they used to. That's o.k...I didn't start blogging to be read by more than a couple of close friends, but for the satisfaction of creating a little something. I used to read more blogs, but now I lack the patience for many of them.
I don't read many Catholic blogs, and of those yours would be my favorite, because of your particular voice, which another commenter named melancholic...but it's more than that. There is more universality in your stories and thoughts. I don't need tips on childrearing or housework, but I need to read how other women suffer and offer their pain up to God.

Pentimento said...

Thank you for your comment, GretchenJoanna, which is thoughtful, as always. I know exactly what you mean when you say that you want to know how other women suffer and offer their pain up to God. That's something I also want to know about, to learn from, and to connect with, but it's hard to find writing on this topic that is heartfelt and truthful and not too sordid or dramatic. It's also why I started writing this blog in 2007, after having two miscarriages four months apart. I had a friend from Chicago who used to say that when it gets really bitterly cold, you should open yourself up to the cold rather than hunching over to protect yourself from it. I feel the same way about suffering.

Sheila said...

"I need to read how other women suffer and offer their pain up to God." Oh, friend that I have still not met in real life but feel such a connection, I am so thankful that you write. And I have often been somewhat envious that you do not have your name associated with your blog. I think I would write more often and more deeply if I had done the same thing. When I do write a more angst-ridden piece on my blog, I have a lurking fear that some of my right-here-in-town friends will worry about me, worry for my mental health and sanity. I'm not Catholic and not sure I'm an artist, but I often have the sense in reading your words that someone else experiences life in a way and at a depth that makes me feel less alone. I deeply love my non-"melancholic" friends, too, but it's a gift to know people who do not avoid pain and sorrow, but also do not revel in them cynically or nihilistically. I do use the MBTI in my work with folks, and I come out on it as an INFJ. I often read that I'm in less than 1%, or at most 3% of the population. Whatever one thinks of the MBTI, I have always known I didn't "do" life the same way most do. It took years to become okay with that. And it is always a joy to come to your blog and settle in and feel normal for a while. :-)

Pentimento said...

Thanks for yours, Sheila. And thank God for the internet. :)

MrsDarwin said...

P, I'm so glad for your beautiful writing. And on days when I'm feeling sad, like today (which I know is only postpartum baby blues, but it doesn't make the sadness any less visceral and it doesn't stop my eyes from watering all damn day) I'm very glad to know that I can turn to someone who knows what sadness feels like. Please keep writing.

Pentimento said...

I will, Mrs. D. Hugs to you.