Accompaniment/6 [by Mark]

I am sharing the following chapter from The Book of Mev, which deals with the Catholic Worker, which is a thread in this week's class agenda..

The week Mev died, my brother-in-law Ken arranged to get me tickets to hear Bruce Springsteen, then on tour following the release of The Ghost of Tom Joad CD.  I asked Jennifer, one of Mev’s students, to accompany me.  They were good seats, and I cried much of the concert

.  

Later on, I had a musical diet to complement the visual wailing wall.  In my apartment, there were certain songs I’d listen to, and they would inevitably make me  agonize, but I didn’t care.  It’s almost as if I wanted to hurt.  And the effects of the music often exceeded that of the photographs that I had so often meditated upon.  I must have listened to Mahler’s sixth symphony 50 times that year.  

Only gradually did I let go of mourning as a full-time job and resume work on my dissertation on Elie Wiesel.  I realized how weirdly lucky I was:  I had the time and resources to be able to grieve, ache, commiserate; I didn’t have to return to a job two days after my spouse’s funeral.  So I made good use of those early months, but at some point, I realized I need to get out of my own stuffy  apartment.

I thought of Rebekah. A former Sister of Mercy, a Karen House community member, a nurse on the way to becoming a nurse practitioner, she had so often offered a steady hand to me, a gentle smile, a silent encouragement to hang in there, as she moved into our lives of affliction.  She walked with us, had seen me raw, angry, broken and had cared for Mev with true mindfulness, from administering enemas to massaging her body so she wouldn’t get bed sores.  

“I want to help Becky at Karen House”   — That was my aspiration!  It wasn’t so much to be of assistance to the women and children who took temporary relief and shelter there.  It wasn’t to be so deliberate as Mev had once been, that of “tithing time.”  I just wanted to tithe time with Becky, not the homeless.  Becky accompanied me/us, so I wanted, in a small way, to accompany Becky back.

Acceptance posted by Chris

 I came across this while reading Marsha Linehan.  She was quoting Thich Nhat Hanh from Miracles of Mindfulness.

To be beautiful means to be yourself.  You don't need to be accepted by others.  You need to accept yourself.

Breathing in I calm body and mind.  Breathing out I smile.  Dwelling in the present moment, I know this is the only moment.

Right now I think this might be relevant to The Brothers Karamazov.  

On Joseph Frank [by Mark]

I first read about Joseph Frank's Lectures on Dostoevsky at Cynthia Haven's blog at Stanford University.  You can read her tribute to Frank here.

An excerpt: What intrigued Frank about the Russian author? “The problems he writes about are really eternal in Western civilization,” he said. “He makes the fundamental issues of belief and the religious problems exciting – and contemporary. He poses questions in such a way that, whether you agree or not, it makes you think about them. That’s why I was so much taken with him. He writes exciting novels, with detective techniques – and raises it to such a level! The mystery of it is the mystery of the meaning of life.”‘

Exit-Interview [by Mark]

 I wrote the following for one of our class participants  almost 10 years ago...

She’s spent four years at SLU

And is moving on

I’ve spent fourteen years at SLU

And am moving on

We had class together fall 2008

Her tender sophomore year

We’ve met ten or twelve times since that class

Invariably in cafes and restaurants

(I never once used the “adjunct office”

For “office hours”)

And there was that spending binge downtown

At Left Bank Books right before Xmas break

Introduction - Featherless Biped

I spent some time thinking of how I might describe myself and couldn't come up with anything that did not feel contrived. 

Posting this felt more genuine. 

This one might interest those of you who have been in Mark's classes before. 

This was recorded following the murder of Michael Brown. 

Random.

Over the years I have plugged in my little guitar into a Tascam DP-004 and recorded. Since my equipment is not very good, I would encourage you to use headphones if you choose to listen. They are probably all unlistenable with or without them though. 

Anyway, I have heaps of this stuff and it felt more sincere to share this. These are all rough drafts in a final sort of way. 

Introduction [by Cami]

 From our first agenda...

Locales: 

Milwaukee, WI

St. Louis, MO

Clinton, TN

Birchleaf, VA

Cape Town, SA

San Jose, CA

Seattle, WA

Loves:

Creating, photography, writing, coffee, the outdoors, hiking, being in the mountains and forest, sitting on the porch with friends, my community, reading, learning, caring for plants, sending letters in the mail, summer in St. Louis, the moon, costume parties, & dancing

Labors:

I am currently a second year MSW student at WASHU finishing coursework in May and practicum hours in August. I have worked in the nonprofit sector in the past and am still figuring out what I want to be when I grow up. In my creative life I am working on a project about grief that combines interviews, writing, and photography. My roommates and I are working our way through a winter bucket list we created in November and have great plans for an extensive garden this summer.

The ladies of Pershing Palace, NYE 2020

From Left: Cami, Hopey, Julia & Hannah