Heather King's Blog, page 10

FALL FUNDRAISER!

I haven’t done this in a while, like probably six or seven years, but it occurs to me that for all you lovely people who have been following this free-will blog offering, many of you since I started in 2010, maybe you’d like to take this opportunity to make a bit of a donation.

If so, zelle, paypal (all you need is my email: hdking719@gmail.com), or venmo: @Heather-King-252

Two of you–and you know who are are, and believe me, I know who you are–make a monthly donation. One of you makes a beautifully generous yearly donation. Several more of you contribute randomly but regularly–again, I appreciate and treasure each of you. Then there’s the stray one-off donation, sometimes unexpectedly generous–that comes out of the blue, no matter the amount warms my heart, and makes my day. Others help by providing shelter, transportation, and valuabele connections. Thank you, thank you, thank you. This post is NOT FOR YOU.

I’ve always looked upon the blog as a gift–to me, to you. It allows me to write freely of whatever moves me on a particular day. It’s a reflection of my whole approach to art, to life, to faith.

On the other hand, I’ve been posting on the average of 2-3 times a week for 14 years. That is a pretty generous free-will offering.

I’ve considered switching the blog over from here to Substack, which as you may know is a subscription-based blogging platform. But for a variety of reasons, I’d rather not do that, at the moment, anyway.

I am, however, going to work with someone who will update the website so as to better highlight my paying services: manuscript editing, writing workshops, retreat-giving.

For the first time since I started writing, I’m going to seriously get together a mailing list.

PROPOSING MORE OF AN “EXCHANGE” MAKES ME FEEL WEIRDLY VULNERABLE: INTERESTING!

I come from blue-collar people who considered “blowing your own horn” a more or less unpardonable offense. Leading with a “sales pitch” is unseemly, I’ve always thought.

I could always stand to increase my earnings. But more to the point, my old anti-marketing ideas are not serving me, nor–who knew?–are they especially serving the people who follow me.

What do I really have to offer? My writing, of course. My enthusiasm, my passion for art and the vocation of art, my love for getting people together and talking about the writing life, the art of memoir, the power of story. My ability to evaluate, help shape, and edit other people’s book manuscripts. My desire to shepherd people who may want to write a book–who may have wanted to for a long time…

Who knows what might grow out of those basic passions and skills, if I offered them a little more clearly and openly?

So I’m kind of saying out loud–“stating my intention” (what have I come to?)–that I would welcome more clients, more connection, more one-on-one interaction.

Those offerings are already explained on various pages of this site. If they’re a teeny bit scattered, soon they won’t be.

Fyi, I’m also working up a flyer for an 8-week Writing Workshop, 8 Saturdays in January and February, 2025. Stay tuned, and let me know if you want to pre-register.

And again, if you’d like to MAKE A DONATION, zelle, paypal (all you need is my email: hdking719@gmail.com), or venmo: @Heather-King-252.

Thank you for your readership, and for your support.

THE CRY OF THE EARTH

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins:

From the Pope’s monthly intentions for 2024:

“September: For the cry of the Earth. We pray that each one of us will hear and take to heart the cry of the Earth and of victims of natural disasters and climate change, and that all will undertake to personally care for the world in which we live.”

Earlier this month, I made a silent retreat at a Franciscan friary in Ireland’s County Donegal.

The natural beauty is stunning almost beyond belief. Photos can’t begin to do the area justice, partly because the beauty in large part consists in the panorama of sea, coves, shore, and sky. To walk, to smell the rich, sweet, damp, ferny bog and salt air, and to hear the cows lowing and the sheep bleating in the pastures above were rare treats.

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

BACK TO BASICS

I’ve been a bit on the down-low lately–massive jet lag from Europe but more to the point–my psyche and spirit were jarred during the month I spent there, in a good way.

Consequently, I’m rethinking my living in Tucson, my approach to earning, my relationship with and level of trust toward God, other people, and the universe…FUN!

I am even contemplating hiring a web redesigner/marketing plan person! Seriously, I never thought I’d see the day…

This is all to the absolute good. If a bit unsettling.

Today’s Gospel reading is Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42).

I comfort myself with this: When all is said and done, and no matter what, I have chosen the better part, and it shall not be taken from me.

SERVANT OF GOD ÉLISABETH LESEUR

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins:

Élisabeth Leseur (1866-1914) was a married laywoman. Her husband, Félix, a doctor, lost his Catholic faith shortly before their 1889 wedding and became a publicly vocal atheist.

Ironically, the suffering she endured as a result invited her to a deeper exploration of her own, until that point rather conventional, faith. She came to see that enduring the anti-Catholic jibes of her husband, whom she loved deeply, and his friends could be a hidden form of mortification. “Silence is sometimes an act of energy, and smiling, too.”

But Leseur was no retiring faux-martyr. A lively hostess, she carried out her social duties with grace and good humor. A loyal friend, she carried on a wide-ranging spiritual correspondence– mostly unbeknownst to her husband—for the duration of her marriage.

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

BOOK SALE!

I am back from the trenches of Europe!

Hit the ground running…will be processing for a while and will write at least a column or two on Venice.

For now—I have a bunch of my books on hand that I bought pre-pandemic thinking I’d sell them at talks.

Instead I’m thinking to offer signed copies at 10 bucks apiece plus shipping, 10-book minimum. Shipping media mail for 10 books looks like it’d be less than $10.

Early Christmas shopping! Also this would be a lovely way to support my efforts here.

Fyi, here’s the LIST PRICE for the available titles:

Holy Desperation: 13.95

Shirt of Flame: 17.99

Loaded: 16.99

Stumble: 16.99

Ravished: 11.99

You can get some of these for less than 10 bucks on amazon, but not signed, and for whatever it’s worth, outside sales don’t benefit me. You can find a description of each under the BOOKS tab above.

If you want to put in an order, email me at hdking719@gmail.com.

A GOOD NEIGHBOR AND THE ROAD HOME

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins:

During the COVID-19 pandemic, some people hunkered down, barricaded themselves indoors, and developed a new suspicion of their neighbors.

Mary Lea Carroll, a native Angelena and inveterate pilgrim sidelined by travel restrictions, seized the opportunity to reflect upon the riches of community, to reconnect with next-door friends from long ago, and to foster a new spirit of warmth and fun in the Pasadena neighborhood in which she’s lived for 37 years.

“Across the Street Around the Corner … A Road Home” (Clyde Custom Publishing, $21.95) is the result.

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

MARY LEA CARROLL

QUEEN OF THE ADRIATIC

Oy.

It’s my last day in Venice (have been here a week). Tomorrow I fly back to Dublin, spend a couple of nights, visit the Botanical Garden (which has become a Favorite Place), and then, God willing, fly back to Tucson Monday.

Three-and-a-half INTENSE weeks. The memoir-writing workshop at Kylemore Abbey; a silent retreat which though wonderful in its way was not “relaxing” or “calming” (for a variety of reasons; one of which was the uncovering during spiritual direction of a possible major area of discernment); and then Venice: a medieval city that exists entirely on water, whose streets and alleys, nooks and crannies have hardly changed in centuries, and that is navigated either on foot or by little boats that zip along the canals called vaporettos.

I bought a week-long pass and kind of got the hang of the latter, and other than that, I have spent my days walking, peering, visiting museums, churches, and the Venice Biennale (upon which more later).

The weather has been perfect for my taste, very much like Southern California. Life is lived, this time of year anyway, and this is especially or maybe only true for the tourist, outdoors. Around every corner is a cafe, trattoria, pizzeria, or counter selling bread, pastries, dried meats, cheese, and cold limonatas. Additionally, you can just park yourself and sit virtually anywhere: on the edge of the smaller canals, on the base of a statue, on steps and ledges. This was ideal for a grazing picnic-girl type such as myself.

Also–people watching!

Everything is stylish to within an inch of its life: haircuts, the gaily striped poles marking your private gondola stop, the streamlined heavy brass locks on bathroom doors, museum tickets. The collection receptacles at the Mass at San Marco Cathedral were of deep red velvet, a kind of rectangular purse with a slit on top, like something a letter to the Pope might be delivered in. Clothes, including for children, are of softly draped linen, gabardine, twill, cashmere. The guy in front of me at Mass had on bespoke oxfords of a rich supple chestnut leather, very slightly flared linen trousers in a tobacco shade, ending perhaps 4 3/8 inches above the instep (you could just see the tailor, tape in hand, measuring), no socks and ankles perfectly tanned the color of cappucino. Topped with a long deep-blue duster in a kind of matte silk, lortoise-shell eyeglasses, and a Salvador Dali moustache.

My Italian is confined to three words: Grazie, scusi, and prego. To my horror, I found myself lapsing into a kind of pidgin Spanish—another language I can’t speak. A vaudevillian exchange took place, for example, in a corner market where I stopped in search of dish detergent with which to rinse out my socks in the sink of the ex-convent hotel room where I was staying.  

I spotted some plastic bottles of greenish-yellow liquid that vaguely resembled detergent but the labels were perplexing. One featured a picture of a large green plant; another of a plant with an insect on it: was the product Italian-style Miracle Gro, or maybe Raid?

Finally I waylaid the clerk. “Do you speak English?” I cowered. “No,” he snapped. I didn’t believe him for a minute as the campo was thronged with Americans, but—

“Okay,” I said placatingly. “Unh…sopa?” Sopa de…cucina?” Too late I remembered sopa means soap, not soap, and was it cucina or cochino? One means kitchen, or maybe food (I was pretty sure), but the other means pig. Pig food…kitchen soup…what could the guy (assuming he spoke Spanish, which why would he?) be thinking?

In desperation, I switched to charades mode and pantomimed shoving food into my mouth, then moving my hand in a circular motion as if swiping an imaginary dishcloth across a plate. “Sopa…sopa”…maybe he’d make the connection from soup to “bowl” and then telepathically to my desire to wash it.

On it went. “Dos, por favor!” I cried helpfully to the fruit stand guy, who yelled at me for touching his figs. “I’m. Going. To. Buy. Them,” I enunciated clearly and slowly, adopting a beseeching Mary Magdalene expression.

“Two?” he rolled his eyes, and placed them, along with three perfect small yellow pears, in a bag.

Venetians clearly despise tourists, as you wouldn’t? One myself, obviously, I despised them, clogging up the alleys as they slurped gelato and ogled knockoff Murano.  

But not really. For the most part, I avoided the super congested squares and streets (though if you’re visiting the justifiably famous top Venetian museuems, or the Biennale, crowds are inevitable). And over the course of the week I developed a great sympathy for my fellow citizens of the world who, after all, had suited up and showed up and were doing the best we could.

One place I asolutely loved the was the Museo Fortuny, Mariano Fortuny (1871-1949) being an eccentric artist type given to wearing rich silks and turbans, who as you may know designed a ton of truly fabulous textiles.

I am spent, and must set out for San Sebastiano. Pray for me. And I’ll light a candle for you.

THE MISUNDERSTOOD HERON: A CONNEMARA FOOD TRUCK

Here’s how this week’s arts and culture column begins:

“Best Weekly Column on Arts, Culture, Food, and Leisure,” said the Catholic Media Association this year of my humble Angelus offering.

Food! Who knew? Not only had I been derelict in my duty, I realized, but my horizon had considerably widened.

To that end let me bring you to the Irish village of Leenane, and a food truck with a global following: Misunderstood Heron.

“Fresh, Local, Never Conventional” are its watchwords.

A café with wild Atlantic produce and views, the wood-paneled truck sits on a bluff overlooking the Killary Fjord in County Galway’s Connemara coast.

READ THE WHOLE PIECE HERE.

WE SHALL BE RELEASED

Ha ha I ACCIDENTALLY (on purpose?) posted the draft of a post yesterday with the definition of “immurement” (walling someone, or more to the point yourself, up in a tiny enclosure till you die of starvation or thirst, undertaken I believe by certain anchorite types in the way olden days, though they would have a little window through which people could pass food and water, and seek spiritual advice), then added, That’s how I feel in Tucson!

I unpublished it right away (I’d meant to make it into something funny down the line), promptly forgot about the whole thing , then received a couple of beautiful messages from friends that made me think, How strange, they are reading my mind about some of the things upon which I’m reflecting here on retreat, and mulling with my director. Then I realized…And now I’ve received a few more emails from commiserating readers, wondering if they missed part of the post…

Anyway, not to worry.

I did take note, however, of today’s First Reading from the Office of Readings: Ezekiel 12:1-6:

“Now, son of man, during the day while they are looking on, prepeare your baggage as if for exile, and again while they are looking on, migrate from where you live to another place…”

“I did as I was told. During the day I brought out my baggage as though t were that of an exile, and at evening I dug a hole through the wall with my hand and, while they looked on, set out in the darkness, shouldering my burden.”

How I love to cast myselt as hero of my own story! Hail, Don Quixote!

We’ve been in silence all week (some of us obviously more than others). Yesterday Sr. Kathleen passed me the brown bread in the tenderest way and then whispered Did I want butter?

This morning Fr. Michael, another retreatant, crept over to our breakfast table, held a tiny packet of preserves aloft, and whispered: “I found an orange marmalade! Does anyone want it?”

In silence, such seemingly small gestures are like benedictions.

ON RETREAT

Between travel and leading a writing workshop at Kylemore Abbey, the Lord and I spent 11 straight days surrounded by people, talking to people, serving (and being served by) people, listening to people. In many ways I enjoyed the experience. Still, I can’t “think” (by think I kind of mean consciously pray without ceasing) when I’m with people, nor can I express what I’m really feeling and pondering…anyway, consummatum est.

Kylemore above all is beautiful. Very satisfied with the job I did, gave my all, learned much, would add and change a few things re content next time (if for no other reason than not to repeat and thus bore myself). The Holy Trinity accompanied me at all times and I barely had jet lag nor was seriously, dangerously tired, all to be hugely grateful for. The workshop participants were a huge gift.

Now I’m on a five-day silent retreat. The overall effect of the sleeping and bathing quarters is of a ’40s mental institution that was suddenly abandoned, like Pompeii.  

No matter, for if my room smells of insecticide, it also overlooks the lower crowns of several splendid trees and the ocean.

Today is the Feast of the Stigmata of St. Francis and morning Mass was lovely. As is my spiritual director. As is my traveling companion. As is our evening Adoration, from 7:30 to 8:30. In other words–The Pilgrimage Continues!

Last night, after my evening walk and before Adoration, I sat on a bench overlooking the ocean for a while, As the midges feasted on my flesh, I realized that in some ways I’m kind of mad at God. He so seldom gives “answers” with the clarity I long for. I assume He’s there. I know He’s there. He sends a thousand tiny and large love letters daily.

Still, sometimes I think, Could you just TELL ME WHAT YOUR WILL IS? I will do it, or I think I would do it, if I knew! Or am I just to muddle along floundering, flailing, bewildered, rejected and scorned, feeling that my gifts, small and such as they are, are so often not wanted, not welcomed, not useful…

This of course, one way or the other, is our universal lot.

Suddenly, gazing out to sea and scratching away at my ankles, I remembered sitting in silence at the bedside of a friend who was dying. I’ve written before of how sitting vigil at such times embodies peace. There is nothing more to be done, nothing more to be said. No illusion of fixing, rescuing, comforting, coming up with a plan. Nothing to do but sit with, to be there, to bring your own body and blood, in silence.

And that is just what the Holy Trinity does with us! To speak would be to patronize in a way, to pretend that answers exist. There are no answers. There is the Cross. There is the Resurrection.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was made flesh, and pitched his tent among us.

He died so I could live.