283. International Festival

The view from the inside. Well, from the just outside the inside.

Sunday afternoon, after Melinda left with new knowledge about canning, I walked over to Zelda's house. She keeps sitting on her front porch reading a book and I keep interrupting her to chat. And chat we did. One question I need to ponder more: what makes converts tick? I mean, why do people convert, how do they make the switch in their brains? In their hearts? We weren't talking about subtle interdenominational conversions like Methodist to Catholic to Lutheran to non-denominational Christian. We were talking about major moves. Shifting without the clutch engaged.

But that's for later because I don't have it formulated in my head yet even.

We sat on her porch and watched the sightseers. Our park has several festivals throughout the summer. I call it the park of outcasts--the pagans have a festival, the gay pride fest is there, and then the international festival. Religious fringe, gays, immigrants. And I love that I live here and these things happen. I love that people come to our park and celebrate. People from all around come into the city and spend time (and money) enjoying themselves. It is lovely.

But we wish they would learn how to parallel park.

The international festival is, I would guess based on the parking situation, the biggest of the three summer gatherings. Of course Pridefest is skewed for me because my street gets blocked off for the parade and therefore no one can park on it until after the parade (and frankly, everyone is already here by then). But this weekend made parking tricky.

To begin with, a neighbor who lives near the corner is dying. The family has never been a part of the social life of our block. They've lived here a long time and know Henry and Liv, and Len, but unlike those folks, they never really responded to overtures to join us at barbecues and block parties. That's fine. People have lives centered where they need them to be. But anyway, she's dying and relatives have come in to be there. Be here.

Secondly, Henry and Liv, who are probably in their mid-70s, have eleventy-billion descendants. I think half of them spend the night any given weekend, and then there's a son or a grandson who is living there full-time. He has at least two cars. So we already were a bit crowded.

And then you take folks looking for the absolutely closest space to the park festivities and have them troll up and down our block (we have a one-way street, so this involves illegal wrong way driving, or sometimes just reversing all the way up to the top again) and it's really quite entertaining. People double park. Someone tries to figure out where Big Ed lives because obviously they know him from something, hoping they can park in his garage (where he is parked, of course, because there's nowhere to park on the street).

A woman in an SUV trying to park in a spot that maybe Jake's little Saturn could fit in--and having her teenaged daughter get out to try to guide her in. She eventually gave up. My thought? You're going to walk all over the park. What's three more blocks? Henry and his grandson/son agreed with that and spent the day orchestrating the parking situation, spreading cars out so no one could park, somehow parking a motorcycle so inconveniently that it took up 2 spaces.

I parked in back. Zelda later moved her car to the garage and I took her spot so Jake could park in back post-camping.

We never actually made it over to the festival this year. Fiona wasn't dancing (she was camping) and it was nice to simply stay home. Plus there was the show right outside.

282. My Church

We sat talking on Travis and Zelda's porch. They even went in for a while and said good night to their kids before joining me and Gretchen again outside on the concrete steps. They even offered us wine, but neither of us was interested tonight.

Gretchen was going through a plot of a movie she'd seen and why it was important to her, but kept making me laugh because she referred to the characters by their actors' names and all I could imagine were those people having conversations and doing things, but not in character.

We were talking about schools and churches. Besides our families and our places of work, we all have these two major influences in our lives. Bree just started at St. Fidelis, which seems to be going well. Eliza is still at the same place, and Fiona and Daisy, of course, are at Oak Grove, one in a new classroom and one in the same (they are multi-aged rooms). Gretchen and I asked how Bree was doing, and Zelda described her reaction to their first mass. Fidelis is Catholic; the family is not. But Fidelis is probably the best Catholic school in the city to attend if you aren't Catholic, frankly. No matter what that one nutty girl scout mom said to me. But that wasn't tonight. And Zelda already knows all about her from our talk in person.

Churches is always a topic I like to discuss with these two families because we really are the most alike philosophically but we are not the same denominations. The other Catholics on the block, while definitely my friends, are not as close as these two families. As my pastor has said to me in the past, Catholic is a big tent. Gretchen's friend says it's like being American. You move to Canada, you're still American. You get annoyed at the president, you're still American. You hate the politics or the opinions of the senators, but you're still American. Yes, people leave the Catholic church all the time. But when non-Catholics ask me why I stay, this comes closest to explaining it for me. I'm Catholic. It's what fits me best. It's what I am. Here I am.

Gretchen started talking a bit about her church. Zelda had a couple of things to say about theirs. Mine is an episcopal hierarchy. Zelda's is completely congregational. Gretchen's seems to have the worst of both those worlds, frankly. We talked about youth groups. We talked about service/mass times. We just chatted.

And Gretchen said that she was talking with Nick about church in general, and that the conversation ended thus: "Our church, Nick? Our church is this block."

Gretchen's been saying a lot of true things of late. And this was one of them. We all belong to different parishes and different denominations but if St. Paul were still writing letters, there might be one addressed to between the sycamores. We do what churches do. We take care of older people and youngest people. We make meals when you're sick or just had a baby or somebody died. We have discussions about faith and our place in the world and how we live it out. Nobody puts the bible down on the table and opens to chapter and verse, but Zelda sent me two proverbs in an email this week after we'd talked in her living room. "These were the two I was thinking of," she starts. And she was right to be thinking of them.

I'm not leaving the Utah Vestibule behind. My church fulfills needs in my soul that can't be met in a neighborhood--mostly the need for ritual and order to my faith. But when it comes to my daily living of faith, this is where it happens. I am a far better Christian, a far better community member, now that I live here, than ever before, and it's not just that I'm older. I am better here. It is my monastery, frankly. Stability starts at home. So does conversion of heart, and don't get me started on obedience. And no murmuring allowed.

281. New Baby

Baby #29 arrived last week. Not that they're all babies, nor were they all born here, but there are 29 kids between the sycamores now. #30 is due in the fall. I'm fuzzy on the stats, though. There might be a #31 as well.

#29 was big, about a week post-due, 10 pounds. She beats Billy's 9 lb 1 oz record. Judd, her dad, told me that she sleeps like a 2 month old already, at only a week. He's not claiming victory yet. Valerie and I sigh when we see Dawn come down the steps this morning. "She'll be jogging in a week." She probably will.

Her older brother is Jay on this blog, and I'm going to name her Kestrel.

It's one of the perks of blogging. I get to name the characters.