April Enquirer: It Can't Be Done: Embracing limits
Last Call for painting workshop! Plus: poetry workshop, creative retreat, and radish sandwich recipe
The Blessing of “It Can’t Be Done
“If I had another life, I would want to spend it all on some unstinting happiness.” — Mary Oliver
The kind of unstinting happiness Mary Oliver speaks of is the happiness of a cat or a dog. The cat—and sometimes the dog—sits in your lap, content in a pool of warm sunshine and love. There is this, and that is all.
In a little while, there will be dinner. After that, maybe a walk.
She also writes of the unstinting happiness “of a rose in a field of roses.” This morning, I wandered into the garden to pick a bouquet of scilla and snowdrops. But the snowdrops were melting—wilting and weathered.
Not to worry. Mary Oliver reminds us, “They are always there in the blossom of light that stands up every morning...The last roses have opened their factories of sweetness and are giving it back to the world.”
We—perhaps alone among all God’s creatures—remember, and we forget.
This past month, as I twice traipsed by car across half a continent and back, I forgot that my feet were made for walking.
I forgot that the movement of walking in the fresh morning air—no matter the weather—makes me feel good. Better than good.
Walking reminds me I am a creature, with creaturely needs.
I need sleep, and food. Shelter, and love. And being a creature—a created being—I know that existence is fleeting. Or at least fleeting in this form. I, like the snowdrop, am melting. Wilting. Weathered.
This knowledge of transience pains me. Why, oh why, couldn't all the pleasures of life be magnified and unstinting, and all the sorrows diminished and fleeting? A mystery.
Remembering and forgetting: it’s the rhythm of acceptance. Especially acceptance of our limitations.
I resist so many areas of life—to no avail. Resistance only leads to heartbreak and frustration.
I resist the physical limits of time, attention, and energy. I resist the limits of closets and bookshelves.
For longer than I’d like to admit, I’ve felt offended—almost wronged—by the constraints of life, by other people’s limits, and by my own.
I regret, more than a little, the waste of time and energy—The self-centered hubris, the selfishness—of my resistance to limits. And yet I admire the divine, unstinting nature of consequences. Reality always delivers what’s real.
I often feel pressured—unable to tell the difference between what needs to be done, what I want to do, and what can be done.
Sometimes, angels deliver lessons by drive-by. Sitting in a coffee shop, I overheard two women talking about the grind of modern workplaces. A grind which, even in retirement, I’ve clung to.
The woman who was venting—about never having time to eat lunch or use the bathroom—said: “My supervisor says, ‘If it can’t be done, it can’t be done.’”
Her friend and I both needed to hear that blessing:
“What cannot get done, will not get done.”
Squeezing all my more-ness into an acceptance of limitations feels like a homecoming. In accepting my limits, I find myself purring contentedly in life’s lap—
Just a happy kitten among kittens.
A rose in a field of roses,
Releasing its ephemeral sweetness
Back to the world.
xo
Felicia
Last Call: Workshops
Watercolor 2 at Hawkeye
Starts next week. There’s Still Room!
Watercolor 2: Preregistration required
Take your watercolor painting skills to the next level! In this class, you will become better acquainted with watercolors, explore fun tools and techniques, and create finished paintings. Discover advanced texture techniques, expanded brush techniques, and how to get a good edge with your brush. Tuition includes materials to be used in class.
Classes run on Wednesdays, April 16-30, from 6 to 8:30. Note the change of location: the class will be at the Cedar Falls Center.
Preregistration required. Click here, or call 319-296-4290
FREE Author Seedbed Workshops Launch
The Author Seedbed 2025 Series kicks off with an Abecedarian Invitation: A Poetry Writers' Workshop, Tuesday, April 15th from 2-3:30 at the Waterloo Public Library.
This unique poetic form organizes each line to begin with a successive letter of the alphabet.
Join Dr. Hannah Carr-Murphy, the James Hearst Writer in Residence at the Hearst Center, to explore classic and contemporary abecedarian poetry! Dr. Carr-Murphy will guide you through a hands-on workshop, where you can craft your own abecedarian poem.
Hope to see you there!
NEW, NEW, NEW: Sat., April 26th, 1-4
Creating Deep Time
Celebrate Earth Day with the EarthWhispers Abbey at The Hearst Center for the Arts.
In an age of bewilderment when we're encouraged to be "in the moment," this workshop helps us stretch our moments, making them thicker with meaning and purpose.
Calling all wild minds for a three-hour workshop to honor our connections to each other and this patch of earth using journal and photography prompts.
If you enjoy journaling and using your cell phone camera to create resonating moments, this workshop is for you. Together, we improve your creativity with more spontaneity.
Join the EarthWhispers Abbey sisters, Sue Schuerman and Felecia Babb, for this three-hour retreat. The pair will provide prompts to help you see the world differently. Using The Hearst Center garden and galleries as sources to nourish and refresh your creative spirit in the company of other wild minds.
This class involves:
Photography and writing prompt
Sharing your creative work
Commenting and inspiring each other
Creating an online gallery that will be published as part of The Enquirer, FeliciBabb-Cass's weekly newsletter, distributed to over 300 subscribers.
Join us on Saturday, April 26, from 1 to 4 pm. in the Hearst Center Gardens. Call The Hearst at 319.273.8641 to pre-register.
April Recipe: Radish Sandwich
Friday is a big day at our table! Hoffman Produce Farms opens for the 2025 season with fresh radishes, lettuce, and spinach. Time for my annual radish sandwich—an easy way to add some spring to my step (and my taste buds).
Hoffman’s is open Friday from 3-6.
Grandma Babb’s Spring Radish Sandwich
Ingredients
Bread
Butter
Thinly sliced radishes
Salt and pepper to taste
Season with any combination of dill, chives, tarragon, or parsley. Use fresh herbs to match the radish's freshness.
Butter bread, slice radishes paper thin, salt and taste. Enjoy.
Some alternatives:
Substitute cream cheese for butter. Add salmon, egg salad, ham and cheese, or chutney for variety.
Enquirer: Notes of Interest
This month, I collected these little gems about art, literature, and nature, many of which came from your ideas and suggestions. Please let me know if you find or notice something that amazes or delights you. This month, I'm exploring walking.
Assisted Backpacking, Anyone?
I’ve long dreamed of walking across the UK or hiking the Superior Hiking Trail for days on end. I’ve done plenty of day hikes—but what holds me back from a multi-day trip (besides convincing Prince Charming to join) is the heavy pack.
That’s why I bookmarked a recent tip from Recommendo about MacsAdventure. They plan hiking trips and handle the luggage transport. I’ve had great luck with Recommendo picks before—this one might just get me on the trail.
Wanderlust: A History of Walking
Rebecca Solnit's Wanderlust is the best book about walking, its history, and the soul-filling exquisiteness of the endeavor. You can find it at your public library or Amazon.
Walk for Peace
Join Shalom Spirituality Center’s walking meditation for the 17th annual World Labyrinth Day, on Saturday, May 3, from 11:30-2. This global celebration of peace through movement hosted by The Labyrinth Society and echoed worldwide.
Shalom’s World Labyrinth Day Festival invites you to walk, reflect, and move in rhythm with thousands worldwide—preregistration required.
If you regularly read the Enquirer and want to support me in creating and posting each week, click the subscribe link below.
Spark Your Creativity Newsletter
March Recipe: Marijo’s Irish Soda Bread with Currants
One of the highlights of March for us is eating Marijo’s Irish Soda Bread. So, in an annual tradition, here is the recipe.
Until I moved next door to Marijo, I didn’t think much of interest food-wise happens in March. It’s gray and cold. We either have muddy snow or snowy mud. And aside from snowdrops, there’s not much cheer to March. Marijo has other ideas about March. She introduced me to corned beef, cabbage, roasted potatoes, and my favorite, Irish soda bread.
Marijo’s Irish Soda Bread: One loaf
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Baking time: 1 hour
4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 teaspoon each: baking powder and salt
1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups raisins or currants
2 eggs, well-beaten
1 1/3 cups buttermilk
1 tsp baking soda
Preheat the oven to 375°F
Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a medium mixing bowl.
Cut butter into the flour mixture using a pastry blender or food processor until the pieces are no larger than a pea.
Add raisins and currants to the flour and butter mixture
Mix together buttermilk, eggs, and baking soda. Cut into flour mixture. Do not overmix
Turn into a greased 2-quart round casserole dish
Bake at 375 for about 50 minutes
Enquirer: Notes of Interest
This month, I collected these little gems about art, literature, and nature, many of which came from your ideas and suggestions. Please let me know if you find or notice something that amazes or delights you. This month, I'm exploring uncertainty.
Finding Hope in Uncertainty
A panel of young advocates, including climate activists, will share their experiences, challenges, and how we sustain hope while advocating for change. Together, we’ll reflect on transforming despair into meaningful action and hope for the future—preregistration required. Click here to register.
Try the Wrong Sense
I’m a huge fan of Rob Walker’s newsletter, The Art of Noticing. In it, he constantly introduces me to new ways to savor life. His prompts play on our expectations of certainty and how we expect things to unfold. His discussion with Bianca Bosker had me running to my library to reserve this book.
Bianca says, “We might like to think we see the world objectively and accurately, like video cameras, but really, vision is a hallucination. We all have "filters of expectation" that preemptively dismiss, ignore, and prioritize the raw data coming into our brains, even before we get the full picture.” Read the full exchange here.
The Only Thing that Makes Life Possible
Oooh, thank you for introducing me to Hoffman Farms! We never make it to the farmers market, but I think we could swing getting to the farm on Wednesdays!!