Dispatch from the Ocean Floor

In praise of the depths

When I was a kid, my favorite Magic Schoolhouse book was undoubtedly The Ocean Floor. The colors! The shapes! The wild mystery beneath the waves! I would stare at the pictures for hours.

When I was a kid, my favorite Disney movie was undoubtedly The Little Mermaid. The colors! The shapes! The underwater treasure trove! I would dream of being a mermaid too.

These past few months, I feel like I’ve been deep, deep underwater. Am I a mermaid, at last? Or maybe a deep-sea explorer with unlimited oxygen? Have I grown gills?

I’ve loved every minute of the treasure-hunting I’ve been doing for my book. The silence and the wonder down here in the cold depths is profound and beautiful. (Thank you for so warmly celebrating with me!)

But I also recognize I haven’t been around here much and haven’t been writing elsewhere much either. I realized the other day that it feels like maybe once a month or so, I come up for air, my hair slicked back like a seal’s slippery skin.

Consider this my hello for this month.

I had the most magnificent research trip to LA a few weeks ago. In one day I did all of the following: was greeted by the most delicious coffee made by dear friends in the morning, caught the train to Homeboy Industries and arrived just in time for morning meeting and a hug from G, popped over to the Corita Art Center and spent several ecstatic hours in white gloves poring through treasures, hopped the train to have lunch with another dear friend, and then dinner with my chosen family. I texted Eric from the train, “Thank you. This is easily one of the top ten best days of my life.”

My best friend and I also did the Corita walking tour on Saturday and narrowly escaped getting locked in the parking lot of Watts Towers. Good times! The best times.

Back on the home front, decidedly less fun has been this situation.

I would definitely stress that this whole ordeal could have been SO MUCH WORSE. There’s always a worse when it comes to sewers, isn’t there? Nonetheless, it has been expensive and disruptive while still making me extremely grateful that we have sewers in the first place. Whew!

In general, I feel very behind on everything and sort of underwater. I can think of at least six other things I should be doing at every moment. But I also feel like I’m exactly where I should be, doing exactly what I should be doing? Perhaps I have grown gills after all.

---

A Few Hopeful Things:

—I chaperoned a field trip of 80+ kindergarteners to the Seattle Art Museum on public transit (bus and train!), and it was HILARIOUS. Kindergarten teachers should be paid millions of dollars. (This is Kehinde Wiley’s Anthony of Padua. STUNNING.)

—I devoured Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and am number 77 on the library hold list for Parable of the Talents, which feels like a very untenable situation. (I also learned that Octavia Butler lived right around the corner from my kids’ swim lessons later in her life. Will I be making a pilgrimage? Absolutely.)

—I got to speak at the world’s most delightful tea about some of my favorite holy women (Catherine Doherty! Julian of Norwich! Hildegard von Bingen!), and the Dolly Parton table utterly charmed me. I was trying to explain to my friend why this day was so meaningful, and this is where I landed: 90% of my work is solitary (me on the couch with a book, me at the dining room table tapping away at my keyboard), and I love it, but that 10% of it in which I get to share the things I am passionate about with others is just really, really special.

—In the not hopeful category are Pope Francis’ recent comments about women’s ordination; they felt particularly jarring and egregious during the synod. But I’ve been so encouraged by the response, by the reminder that the movement of the Holy Spirit is not confined to the upper echelons of the Church, but lives and breathes among the people. I wrote this prayer for Pentecost.

Until next time, treasure-hunting in the depths with you,
Cameron