Fetching our pasts, for the sake of the future.
On Oxford, pets at Mass and book writing.
We spent last weekend visiting family in Oxford—lovely, but still sooo cold!
I’d planned to take some photos for you of almost-spring in the city, but I caved and headed straight for the sofa, and endless mugs of tea. I will next time, because, as Audrey Hepburn almost said, Oxford is always a good idea.
A highlight happened midway through Mass on Sunday morning at a small, beautiful church in north Oxford that we visited for the first time.
At one point, I glanced up to see an elderly lady kneeling at the communion rail with a small dog, on a leash. She was beautifully dressed—as was he, in a cute winter coat. So sweet! (To be honest, she had me at small dog in a coat).
Outside, after the service, she explained, matter-of-factly, that he always accompanied her to Mass (and while she received communion). The sweetest! And, also, deeply moving, somehow.
Back home, we hit the ground running sorting a few final things before we let my parents’ home.
I was absolutely fine, until, apparently, I wasn’t.
Even seeing the rooms empty, without my parents’ furniture and belongings, and the memories they evoked (something I wrote about a few weeks back), was more emotional than I’d expected.
Something James K A Smith writes about nostalgia in How To Inhabit Time: Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, Living Faithfully Now is helping me to consider this looking-back-whilst-moving-forward stuff in a fresh, beautifully hopeful way:
God does not want to undo our pasts; neither does he want us to nostalgically dwell in our pasts; God’s grace goes back to fetch our pasts for the sake of the future.
—James K. A Smith
Honestly, I’m highlighting so much of this book that there is basically no point putting the lid back on my highlighter.
Speaking of all things neon, I spent many hours last week on my knees on the kitchen floor, surrounded by a sea of fluorescent Post-Its.
I’m finally seeing the finishing line of the first draft of the memoir I’ve been working on for, well, long enough to wish I’d written my scribbles more legibly. (Emphasis on the first. And oh-so-very-much draft).
Writers, tell me: where do you write and store notes?
I go with a 100% unmethodical mixture of the Notes app on my phone and scraps of paper, which is also, deeply, I-know-I-wrote-that-down-somewhere unhelpful.
Procrastination tactics are in full force (spontaneous spring window cleaning being last week’s most desperate.)
A case of resisting where the work that needs to be done, needs me to go.
My friend Sally, who is knee-deep in researching her own memoir, wrote this recently about the work:
I am using my pen to excavate my life.
This excavation work is not for the faint of heart
— Sally Wessely (Memoir Writing - The Process and The Purpose).
Just a quick note this week, as I need to keep on essay sifting, chapter organising, What’s keeping me at the work is knowing how sharing our stories can help us to connect and heal.
We need them. We need each other.
With love,
Jen, thank you so much for sending your readers to my website and to my just about to be launched Substack!
Note cards are all over the place in my house. They never get properly recorded or filed. I have notebooks, journals, and snippets of stuff that would probably take me the rest of my life to gather up, organize, and make sense of if I wanted to use those once thought of great ideas and insights in a book. In other words, I’m hopeless when it comes to being helpful in helping know how to organize your note cards.
I am using Scrivener to write my memoir. It is a powerful writing tool. The problem for me is: I have to learn it as I go along. That is not the best plan for a writer, but so far I like how I can keep all my attempts at writing in one place.
Best to you as you keep on keeping on with your work in progress. Hugs.
Note cards have been super helpful for me when I was drafting my book proposal. You can move them around, stack them, lay them out, hold them close. Another friend took an entire wall and covered them in post-its. One row for each chapter. XO