I spent a large part of my day today

on a wild-goose chase. I have been making a lot of art recently, mostly collage. Right now I am working on a shadowbox based on a few lines of an Elizabeth Barrett Browning poem that have always haunted me:

"I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints..."

In the box already are a picture of myself at one with my teddy bear and a bottle hanging out of my mouth, a picture of myself at six with my pony, a pile of tiny rocks from the Canadian maritimes, two tiny naked dolls, some lavender, some gold stars, a candy necklace, curtains made of the silk gauze from my wedding veil, and a blue enameled pendant I bought one day dreaming of a possible wedding some other day in the future. But I need some of those old-fashioned gold-bordered "holy cards" -- little trading-card type devotionals with pictures of different saints. I have some coming from ebay but I was caught up in the inspiration of the moment and wanted them NOW so went on a mission to find a Catholic gift store. It was hard! I traveled all over Boston from the North End to the South End, from the Italians to the Irish, and for all the billions of Catholics around I couldn't find a single store! Several trails went cold when I arrived at a site only to find yet another benchfull of old men or old women who would tell me that the nuns had packed up and gone to the suburbs, but they thought maybe there was a "saint store" over in...

With the help of a savvy friend I finally tracked down the mildly startling SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE FAITH store, and from the window it looks promising, but it is closed on the weekend, so my quest will have to slumber till Monday.

Working on this project and meditating on the lines of the poem remind me of when I was first learning about God. I was shown the tabernacle behind the altar and told that Jesus lived there. My six-year-old mind imagines a tiny dollhouse holy palace with a four inch Jesus waiting for someone to open the door, and I am crazy with desire to see it. But it was only opened at the end of mass, and the priest's wide vestments always obscured the view as he put the host away, much to my pained frustration. I don't remember how long it took me to realize that there was no golden doll furniture, and no little walking talking Jesus to be found behind the little locked door, but I'm afraid it was a disappointment.

I reach back and try to remember what it felt like to so easily believe that you could just open a door and find God sitting on a little golden chair, waiting for a chat, if only somebody would unlock it for you.

PS: I think I am going to start linking to a few ancient "greatest hits" posts from the past when they feel relevant to my condition. I've been doing some re-reading, and damn if that bright, energetic, verbose little girlio wasn't fairly awesome. She certainly had no idea. I want to find her again someday. So:
December 21, 2004 (I'd just turned 22. Gawd that feels like ancient history somehow.)