Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday
through the eyes of a fallen-away-Catholic-now-atheist
I have not received ashes for probably two decades now. When I left for college, I was holding onto Catholicism by a mere thread that was quickly cut by higher education.
But before then, I had received ashes for almost two decades. Half of my life doing this one thing on this one day.
So even though it’s not a part of my spiritual practice anymore, it still lives in me. My body knows. It won’t let me deny it.
Lent always started with arriving to school late on a Wednesday morning, a smudge of dirt on my forehead, which I would regularly forget about and scratch off, the tiny rubble catching under my fingernails.
I loved the line the priest said as he pressed his dirty thumb onto my face, the grains of ash etching my skin, the excess bouncing off my nose: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” It reminded me of The Lion King when Mufasa told Simba that when we die, our bodies become the grass, and the antelopes eat the grass, and the lions eat the antelopes, and we are all connected in the circle of life. “Don’t get too cocky” was the message I took away; I may be at the top of the food chain now, but one day I’ll be nothing but dirt.
It’s a message for believers and non-believers. A message my body won’t let me forget, at least for one day a year.
The best part of this season: the paczki on Fat Tuesday. Look at this beauty.
If you caught my essay about woolly bear caterpillars last week on Belt, perhaps you’ll remember that I mentioned how my local botanical gardens brings in butterflies every spring. The official start date for this year is March 1, but we went a little early to avoid the crowds. Not many butterflies had hatched yet but we did get to meet a glasswing butterfly. Not something we’ll see in the wilds of Michigan—they only come as far north as Texas—so it was quite a treat.
The glasswing butterfly has clear wings so it blends in with whatever surrounds it.
What I’m Reading
Lauren Miralle’s beautiful ode to her uterus, called “Untethered” on Literary Mama.
My uterus did her job, overzealously, like a war general at times. But she held the lightning bolts of my life and set them free into the world.
- Lauren Miralle
I’m also more than halfway done with Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese, and as a woman who enjoys Nathaniel Hawthorne and loves witch fiction, it’s right up my alley.
What I’m Watching
My coworkers made fun of me for admitting that it took three days to watch Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” but I have a 6-year-old to put to bed, and we usually only get 40 minutes of watching in before we’re ready for bed ourselves. So a 2.5 hour movie takes three days. I know there are parents out there who can relate. It’s not just us. Right?
ANYHOW, it was a mesmerizing film of epic beauty, and now I am entirely obsessed with Austin Butler.
This review captures the magic of it for me.
Butler conjures the guilelessness of Elvis’ face, his soft yet chiseled cheekbones, the look in his eyes that says, “I’m up for anything—are you?”
- Stephanie Zacharek
On Mondays, I work the evening shift at the library, so my daughter is in bed before I get home, and sometimes she leaves me little notes. This week, she left me her first book. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, apparently.
Her daddy said the only thing he helped her with was the stapler.
In what appears to be a fit of self-preservation, she invaded my office when I wasn’t there to steal sticky notes to remind herself not to go into my office when I wasn’t there.
It says “If you come in, you will stop.”
Michigan is experiencing intermittent ice storms lately: we had one last Thursday and are scheduled for another one today. Apparently, the best way to tell Michiganders what to expect is to compare the weather to pans of brownies.
That’s it for this week!
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