Karinakah Day 2: Action

I invented Karinakah in October of 2008.  My birthday from the previous year had been a miserable one.  I had recently moved to Vermont and was feeling quite lonely.  My wonderful friend Molly had invited me to a party at her house that night and said she'd even make me a cake.  Unfortunately when the actual day came I was suffering miserably from allergies and had to stay home.  It was a cold, rainy night and I remember looking out of my window at "downtown" Jeffersonville, VT feeling silly and sad.

The next year I decided that that would never happen again, that in fact I would celebrate my birthday for 11 days total:  the 5 days before, the actual day and the 5 days after.  Then the pressure was lifted from the actual day and I could entertain my extroverted vanity a bit longer.  While sometimes I shy away from being brazen because of how others might judge me, usually I don't mind.  Creating Karinikah is a perfect example and one that exemplifies the word of the day:  Action. 

So in celebration of today's word I marched over to the beautiful catholic church next to one of my south side schools and asked if I could see it.  A maintenance man named Apolinar, with tufts of grey hair peeking out of his CFD hat, let me in and settled himself in one of the pews while I wandered around. It was beautiful and the orbital stained glass windows reminded me instantly of visiting Sainte-Chapelle in Paris when I was fifteen.  The colors were mesmerizing and the marble pillars humbling.  In the middle of the pews was a baptismal tub whirring away like an abandoned honeymoon suite jacuzzi.  But the most beautiful thing was the silence...then the echo of my feet, of Apolinar occasionally shifting in his pew.  Suddenly I wanted to sing.

I haven't sung in a while.  I simply haven't wanted to.  I was even a little shy about it because I knew my voice was rusty but the acoustics...I had to have these acoustics.  After asking permission from Apolinar I sang the Lord's Prayer.  The last time I sang it was in a catholic church in Charleston, South Carolina a long time ago.  But instead of singing under my breath and seated in a pew like I did then, I sang full out and standing in the middle of the church.  My voice bounced off the walls forcefully and a little off key but I didn't mind.  With the swelling of the finale, notes I'd just sung would swing back to me with an insistence, cocooning me for the next note.  And I smiled and I cried and I shook Apolinar's hand with a "muchas gracias" and went home.

There are times of acceptance and surrender.  There are times of action and courage.  I like both very much and am learning more and more to not confuse the two.