Phoenix Berries

stitch by stitch

2012-01-22T22:06:00.001-05:00

I got back into crochet for the first time since childhood about a year ago. When Pip was small, I made him one small scarf just to try to remember how. Then, after Pemberley was born, I found my hands remembering single and double crochet and almost recalling a granny stitch. I made a couple of hats and I think a scarf last winter. My friend Miranda gave me a cool crochet learning book that inspired me to try new stitches. Then my dad's diagnosis came along, and the travel, and my sister's wedding, and finding a new house we love, and moving, and my baby sister making a couple of attempts on her life, and a great deal of intense sadness, and losing an old friend, and I set it aside for a number of months.

I was sad, y'all. Stupid sad, anxious sad, working my ass off to function and be a happy mother sad. I was balancing on the edge of the seawall while a hurricane storm surge tide of sad and grief and old pain and anger pulled right below me. And I walked hard pressing against all my habits of prayer, leaning into my introversion to let actual quiet try to soothe me. The waves beat in, and I was all, hell. gasp. no. pray. hell. no. I am not falling into that motherfucking water of depression. I prayed, I danced, I read a load of books, I made several new friends, I played, I avoided crowds, I spoke my fears to a few trusted friends, and I practiced being present to my children and husband, knowing that they are my first and closest church. If I couldn't think of something to teach them, I could always play hide and seek or dance with them.

But I might still be standing there if it were not for a few good divine interventions:

Our prayer team leader noticed I was lying my ass off about being okay, and she prayed right into my pain and broke that fight right up. She was all, "surely he has born our griefs and carried our sorrows," and a light came back on in my mind. Oh, yeah, said the anxious part of me. Well, that's better.
My husband started writing an icon over Christmas break. I have snuck into his work area, and I see his secret prayer scrawls. The ones who need it most are being prayed right into the Transfiguration.
I really got into writing longhand.
I started crocheting again. Do you know one of the earliest spiritual gifts is handcrafting? God sent the Holy Spirit on hand crafters to make the beautiful things in the tabernacle back in the day. Christian monks seem to have caught on early, weaving ropes while they prayed or listened or recited psalms. Even when I wasn't praying, I found that I was praying.

First I found my one half skein of unpacked yarn, which fortunately had a crummy plastic crochet hook stuck in it. I made it into a double crocheted scarf for the Pipster. Then I was hooked (ha!). We went to the craft store and bought a few types of yarn to try and a few sizes of hooks. I made a beautiful scarf for Pemberley from merino cashmere superwash. She loves that scarf! She carries it around, adorns herself, primps, puts it on to go on "sidewalk" (her word for outside). What's that? Yes, you may see another cute baby photo:

Then I tried to look up some crochet patterns, but they all required too much exactitude for my current lifestyle with tiny wonderful ones needing my attention. So I found this guy Mikey on youtube, with the best crochet tutorials, and I learned the blackberry stitch. He is seriously great, not going too quickly for you to see where he's pulling the yarn through like some of the teachers online.

So, I started using a wine colored merino cashmere superwash yarn to try out the blackberry stitch. I wound up wanting more stitches/row, so I increased the number over several rows, achieving a cozy warm beautiful (if irregular) scarf.

above: the cute baby's mama, plus a blackberry stitch scarf of awesome.

Then, somehow, I found a week or so ago that I had come out of my hole. I found myself thinking of taking the kids somewhere by myself without abject terror. On Friday, we met some friends at a park, and I realized how bad the anxiety had been (though I kept it to myself fairly well) when Pip goes, "Oh! Pem has never been to a park before!" Which is not true, but it has been like four months.

Now I am a little over a foot and a half of rows into a 7'x7'ish afghan made of double crochet and blackberry stitches in the most exquisite Monet water lily hued acrylic homespun. It is so soft! I hope to finish it in a week or two. I try for at least two rows/day.

Here is how it worked. I would slip the hook in and remember the harsh words of old friends - the suggestions so active on an anxious mind that I did not have nor could I keep real friends (despite math and all other evidence to the contrary). Wrap and pull, wrap and pull, and a few rows later, I would realize that I had somehow remembered my real friends, forgotten the words of false ones. Or I would think of the scariest times with my dad or the horrors faced by my baby sister, and wrap and pull, wrap and pull, I would forgive and pray and ask with every stitch for light to pour upon my sister's mind, for grace to flow into her situation. Oh, friends! If I could stitch your hearts back together in this way, it would be done.

So, I find that I have not only three scarves, a progressing afghan, plans for two gloriously colorful blankets for my tiny shinies, but also a growing dawn in my own soul. One scarf dulled the pain, and two presented real grace, and three made me aware that I had somehow, in the pulling and planning and counting and weaving, stitch by stitch, forgiven and offered all.

P.S. I am praying healing into the works now. I pray that the one who warms herself in this afghan will experience relief from pain, increase of peace and joy, and that she will know when she feels the soft blanket around her, how very much we love her. I will post photos of the afghan when it's done.

who are we today, and what shall we become?

2012-01-14T18:18:00.001-05:00

Yesterday at Pemberley's well baby checkup, I asked the nurse, as usual, to allow me to pray over the vaccine before it was administered. To my surprise, the nurse joined right in! She prayed in Jesus' name, and asked blessings on my baby girl. That was a nice extra lift to the day.

I have long been in the practice of doing what I believe is right, even if it's weird. It was nice to find a kindred spirit amongst our pediatrician's medical staff.

Where this habit comes most visibly to play, though, is in the ways of the Pipster. Pip is an unabashed player of dress up. Often Pip is Princess Fiona. When he is Fiona, I am Shrek, Pemberley is Donkey, and Papa is Gingy. This habit of assigning roles to his family members started this summer when I took him to see Once Upon a Mattress. Pip became Princess Winifred. I was Lady Larkin, his sister was Sir Harry, and Papa was Prince Dauntless.

After taking up watching the non-violent episodes of Hercule Poirot with his Papa over the holidays, Pip began to assign all new roles for us. He likes to be either Vera Rossakoff (Double Clue) or "Princess" Bridgid (Royal Ruby). I am either Captain Hastings or Poirot, alternately with Papa. Pemberley is sometimes Miss Lemon, sometimes Inspector Japp.

You will notice that gender does not signify when it comes to assigning roles. Rather, the story is the primary concern. Well, the story and the wig Pip likes to wear. He is usually a princess because he knows princesses have long hair in stories.

There are some folks who think my son is socially deviant, but they are rarer than they assume. In fact, very few people are uncomfortable with Pip. We get about 5% "Is that his real hair?!" comments, 15% "Awesome hair, dude!" comments (in the 80's hair band theme), 75% "How cute" or equivalent smiles, 3% envying looks from other little kids who want a wig, and 2% middle aged women wondering if our son is gay because they don't know that gender and sexuality are not the same thing, and even if they were, that my son is three and therefore not subject to such questions, being far too young for sex and far too imaginative to give a care. More often than not, the few weirdos who think I'm socially deviant for letting my son be so are the only ones uncomfortable with Pip's dress up. They are so self absorved that they believe everyone else will think and judge as they. Bless their hearts.

In all of these varied reactions to Pip's self expression, there has only been one time when Pip was upset or uncomfortable. Over Christmas break, when all four of us were at the grocery store together, an old woman approached to inquire about Pip's hair. She made the facile assumption that we had two little girls (though Pip's clothes are all boy). When she walked off, Pip expressed his displeasure. "She said we have two wonderful little girls, but she was wrong. There are two wonderful little girls, and two wonderful boys. There's Dauntless and Sir Harry (pointing to Papa and Pem), and me and Lady Larkin." The lady had not taken time to understand the story, which was Pip's primary concern.

I think that Pip's understanding of the primacy of story is the best groundwork for living a Christian life that he could have. Even though I could not have anticipated how he would express this truth, I'm glad he's expressing it. When Pip gets to be a teenager preparing for Confirmation, he will ask me about his faith formation. I'll pull out the photos and say, "Remember the wig?"

more things that don't make you better than everyone else

2012-01-02T17:47:00.001-05:00

1. "I read actual paper books."
If that were the end of the statement, fine. That's cool. I like them, too. But it's usually followed by, "e-readers are tacky, wrong, the bane of civilization, and vulgar." Which? They're not. Some people only get a chance to "read" audiobooks, some people, especially those with disabilities, read much more ably on e-readers. Some persons, such as me, read in the dark. My Kindle iPhone app has been a lifesaver. I've read dozens of books in the dark without waking my family over the past couple of years. I have only managed to read about ten paper books in that time. Read how you want to read. Your method doesn't make you better. Though I would argue that a love of learning, which often accompanies reading of some sort, does make one more alive.

2. Buying bargains.
Whoopdedoo. Glad you saved some cash, but bargain hunting is not the same as frugality, and even frugality can be misplaced sometimes. Share the joy, but don't think bargains make you a better person. If personal growth could be bought, would it really be on sale anyway?

3. Having children whose habits are convenient to your lifestyle.
That's great. Junior and Juniorina sleep/eat/poop on an adult-friendly schedule. That doesn't mean you are a better parent than the sleep deprived mom in playgroup or the mom of the seven year old who wets the bed every night. I am always happy that my friends have children that suit their family. I am grateful my children do stuff that I find adorable. But let's face it: none of us really did anything to deserve how awesome our children are. (I'm glad I have lots of friends who think the same way on this. I'm picking on the silliness that passes for advice online.)

4. Dieting.
For reals, y'all. Not every fat person is fat for the same reason. Not every person seeking to be healthier will diet. (And not every fat person is unhealthy!) In fact, dieting is not a sign of virtue at all. Perhaps it may signify that one is practicing self-control, but if that were the case, wouldn't the people in advertisements be able to reign in the self righteousness a bit? Look, I get it. Health is fun. But getting healthier does not make one better than others.

5. Eating organic.
I buy organic, local, and sustainable food as often as we are able. But spending the extra dollar to support the cause does not make me (or anyone else) better than others.

6. Going green.
Hey, cloth diaperers. That's cool what you're doing, and I admire you. Same to you composters, vinegar and baking soda, cloth only families who darn things rather than tossing them out. You know I'm in total support. I do my best to green around here, too. But making a more sustainable life doesn't give anyone the right to act like a jerk. ~~(You have to have a lot more money to have the right to act like a jerk.)~~

All of the New Years resolutions got me thinking about lots of the little ways we posture to try to act better than our fellow humans. It's a no go, y'all. In the important ways (how much we are loved, how much we need grace), we're none of us better.

adornment

2011-12-24T18:11:00.002-05:00

For a long time, I have imagined intercessory prayer through the lens of that beautiful passage in the Revelation to John about the trees growing along the river of life. "The leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations." Often, as I begin to pray, I imagine holding out my hand and having those leaves fall into my open palm. So, I got a tattoo of flowers and leaves on my left hand. It's only henna, but I may begin stages on an inked one in a few years if it turns out that I still want one then. In the meantime, I plan to have a henna tattoo there most of the time.

Above: The henna was still on. The lady who applied the design at Katie Beth's Learning Garden added beautiful red and gold glitter to enjoy while the henna set. Below: The tattoo after it had cured for a day and a half. It's slightly darker now, though some parts are already wearing off (I wash my hands a LOT as a stay at home mom).

I never really considered tattoos before, but recently I have been craving one on my left hand. Those leaves have become so much a part of the way I think that I expect to see them there with my eyes. I have had the tattoo for six days now, and I was forgetting it was there by Tuesday. That day, I went to mail packages and conversed with the inked UPS store worker about his tattoo symbolism. Apparently my experience is de rigeur. The young man's tattoos all had deep symbolic meaning to him. He told me about his next tattoo: angel wings on his back, one full and glorious, the other withered, to commemorate his grandparents, all of whom passed away right in a row from cancer not long ago. "How beautiful!" I said, seeing right away that his ink was a perfect way to honor them. There is something visceral about adorning one's person, about telling a story on one's body.

Above: I didn't mean to make such an emo portrait there. I just mis-aimed my iPhone.

I recently started wearing jewelry again when I leave the house, and I find that I missed it a great deal. Not in the same way as I would miss seeing the leaves, though. The jewelry is a different sort of reminder, of putting on and taking off duties to oneself and society, of the mitzvah of rejoicing. One wears jewels as much for others as for oneself.

But these little leaves and flowers here on my hand, they are an aid to prayer and blessing. Where is grace? It has already been given. Grace is resting right in your hand.

In a way, I suppose my recent motivation for adorning my skin is related to mourning my father. We are dust, and to dust we shall return. His tattoos and mine will turn to dust. But the grace that infuses these hands, the grace given in the Incarnation, surely that must remain.

to lighten the mood

2011-12-21T09:22:00.003-05:00

I saw a bunch of ads for forced bulbs and found myself saying the above, in regard to their strong smell. But then inspiration struck. You're welcome.

when the internet actually helps

2011-12-16T13:58:00.000-05:00

I have struggled these past months with a lingering hatred for my pedophile uncle. Framing the problem in terms of sin, I thought I must be harboring some sort of mortal malice. Every time I paused for self examination, I would face my own woundedness, not in what he did to me, but in my desire to kill him. I was so frustrated. I thought I had forgiven him, and yet here is all this anger, this malice, this will to kill him. I tried reading the fathers about the passion of anger. I tried reading Bonnhoeffer about how we bless someone when we say, despite all that has happened, I recognize you as one whom God has claimed as his own. No dice, y'all. My reasonable mind was at war with the reptile brain, which was ready to unleash its venom.

Then, in desperation, I googled "How to Stop Hating Someone." Most of the stuff that came up was banal and unhelpful, surface stuff meant for people who wer just jealous of someone or disliked someone for a petty reason. Nothing approaching the visceral hatred that confounded me when I found it festering. But one brief page actually helped. It explained that hatred is the mind's last line of defense against weakness and encouraged the reader to ask why s/he felt weak. In a matter of moments, the dots connected for me. I felt myself safe all these years because of my dad. He was the only one who stood up for me against my uncle. It was his threat, "if you touch her ever again, I will kill you," that stopped the abuse. When did my hatred for my uncle show itself? Last April, around the time I learned that my dad had a year to eighteen months to live, that he is slowly dying of paralysis. I went through a list with my reptile mind: I have put a great deal of physical distance between the uncle and my children, he does not have a way to contact me directly, I can use my words, I can use the law, I can even resort to nonviolent physical barriers to protect my children. I speak out about what he did so that my realtives are on guard. I know that my cousins, very large built men, would be willing to make a human wall between us at my dad's funeral. I know that as a last resort I would harm my uncle to keep him from my children, though I also know that will not be neccesary.

The hatred subsided, and I found myself unburdened by the sin of rage. Is this what Jesus meant when he said to be wary as serpents but innocent as doves? I am wary, but no longer hating.

why I don't mind the mess

2011-12-09T12:24:00.001-05:00

I have given the impression that I am unhappy. But it's more like I'm happy and also sad, and the sadness urges me to ditch everything except what aids in happiness. I have had to take a break from leading children's choir, even though I love leading it (such great kids!) because the stress of uneven attendance at rehearsals caused me too much anxiety. I have not blogged much because, well if I'm honest, because I've been reading a lot. But reading lowers my anxiety level as well. Plus the gym, plus baking for our upcoming British Accent Christmas Tea (so much fun finding the prizes!), plus just playing with these great children. Even though I get a little stressed at the end of the week when I see the piles of o cereals and other kid detritus waiting to be swept up and away, I don't mind the process of creating the mess. How could I, when copious amounts of flour strewn over every surface in the dining room produces so much joy?

I am looking forward to seeing lots of friends at upcoming Christmas gatherings. Funnily enough, they are all tea parties this year! Maybe that's why they are low-stress. Even if I'm dull and dumb from sleep deprivation or grief or whathaveyou, I can always rise to the challenge of tea.

on being a ninja AND a sinner

2011-11-30T21:23:00.001-05:00

I had two things I wanted to write about tonight, so I went the classy route and divided them with asterisks. You're welcome.

The past couple of months have been difficult for me. Once it was too cold and dark for us to go on walks as a family when Andrew gets home in the evening, I found myself basically without regular exercise. We have this double stroller, a very walkable and friendly and safe neighborhood with lots of regular pedestrians all day long. I kept thinking, I should put the children in the stroller and go for a walk. That would be so lovely and nice. Except I couldn't. Even writing about it raises my heartrate. Going on the street with the children by myself seems terrifying right now. I am afraid of cars, dogs, spiders, who knows what. I can't stand the thought of putting the children at risk.* On the few occasions I thought I might try it, I got very scared and had a bout of adrenaline (my flight or fight is fight), which made me a little cranky for about twenty minutes.

Finally, I just decided to drop the subject for awhile. Apparently my body's way of dealing with my Dad's failing health is to become irrationally anxious. Like, I see that this fear does not make sense in any way, but my physical self disagrees. I know I'm just dealing or healing. But for now, I need to find a way to exercise that doesn't involve me having to go into public alone with the children in a situation in which I feel out of control (the grocery store is fine, as is church [where lots of people know the children, so I don't feel alone]). Thus, after discussion with Andrew, I joined our local gym this week.

I plan to go most nights for a good fat burning cardio workout, moving on to interval and strength training once my weight loss has made movement safer. Pemberley has not weaned yet. I have been able to lose ten to twelve pounds, only to have my metabolism adjust to make dietary changes ineffective after that point. My medical providers told me that about half of women cannot seem to keep weight on while nursing, and the other half seem not to be able to lose it. I guess my hormones put me in the latter camp. I am not willing to wean Pem right now, since nursing seems to be very important to her. I stopped taking galactagogues for the most part, which is how I lost the tens pounds. But dieting is not really interesting to me, nor do I particularly need to reduce my average calorie intake. I want to be strong and healthy. Strength requires exercise.

My first workout at the gym was a real eye opener for me. I thought that I might feel frustrated with my body after being out of shape for so long. But I found that I connected to myself instead. That disciplined, strong part of me that gave birth to two children and carries them and a bag or two and excess weight with little effort, the part of me for whom two gallons of milk per hand is a comfortable trip up the stairs, was there on the elliptical. I checked my heart rate and was surprised at how hard I had to work to get it up. I was surprised as the workout went on at how aware I was of changes in my heart rate. (For fat burn, there's a specific 5 bpm range that is optimal for each person.) I would just know that I was getting a little high, and I would check. Then, keeping up the work, I would breathe deeply and think my heartrate down, watching it fall back into the prime range for me. My target was 135 bpm, and the average at the end, according to the machine, was 135bpm.

I am very grateful to have a good gym close by. I'm excited about making progress over time. They have Zumba classes (!) that I want to try soon. Besides my optimism, though, the thing that really strikes me about working out is that I can control my heartrate. Yep, that means I'm kind of a ninja.

*Please under no circumstances try to comfort me by listing statistics of all the other more risky stuff. This anxiety is just a sort of post traumatic thing as my body processes my grief over a person who contributed to a lot of the trauma. I do not need to hear anything bad or scary! I have had enough actual experience of bad and scary things already.

****

I noticed tonight on the way to Target to buy some workout pants (my old ones are all holey) that we usually hear "sinner" in our culture in a judgmental way. People talk about how they came to realize themselves as sinners from the perspective of deserving a punishing judgment of God. In this context, God's mercy is simply not meting out just rewards, and also opening up privileges for the unworthy. But I have come to experience myself as sinner in the context of God's mercy. The fear of the Lord is not a fear of punishment, but of the justice and mercy marked by impartiality. It is because God's mercy is so thorough that I see that I am a sinner. I hate the man who abused me, and I know myself a sinner - not because the abuse marked me as bad or for any fallout sins I committed in my confusion following such a thorough betrayal of boundaries , but - because I hate a creature whom God has called good. How can I not love what God loves and calls lovely? Yet, here I am, a sinner, hating a pedophile. Even when I know God totally agrees that hurting children that way is despicable, one of the vilest of vile sins, I am not justified in hating my pedophile uncle. God loves him, and until I love what God loves, I am a sinner. I am truly sorry and sad that I hate my uncle. I do not want to hate him. I do not like wishing death on another human being. My mistakes are many, and I have several flawed habits. But my sin, as seen through the eyes of mercy, is my failure of mercy. Forgive me, Lord.

One of the reasons I have never warmed to the Western church's style of confession is because the focus is on listing sins forensically. There is a sort of clinical feel to the forgiveness offered, the sins laid out. Like coming in to take vitamins or to get a salve for a rash. Perhaps I have read the wrong things. I don't see confession in this style as worthless. It's just not what my soul craves. I don't think most priests of my acquaintance would take well to, or understand, if I came to confession and asked to be guided and forgiven for hating my pedophile uncle. If I came in and said that the place where I know myself a sinner is where I have failed in mercy to this person, and then did not list other sins, I think they would find it odd. They would also probably go through the routine, the words spoken, as though they were really healing my soul. But I have a sense that if I really forgave, the wounds would heal. The uncle would be changed. Some sort of grace would be unleashed on the world such as I cannot describe.

It is the same with the passion of anger. See, what I would like to confess is the misdirection of passions, not just a check list of when I said a cuss word or when I laughed at a bawdy joke or envied my neighbor's pearls and chrysanthemums. I want to be able to go to a priest and say, look, it has recently occurred to me, I think by God's Spirit, that the horses of thumos should not be hitched to just any wagon. I sense that the anger that sometimes flares up is due to indiscipline of the irascible faculty of the soul, but I do not know its proper direction. I feel my need of guidance and my guilt in letting it run amok for so long. And I want that priest to totally know what I'm talking about, and actually know what to do about it, to give spiritual guidance based on the teachings of the ancient church and the liturgy through the ages. So, maybe what I want is an Orthodox priest.

Maybe I'm totally off in my suspicions. I have actually never talked to an Orthodox priest about confession. I don't know the rite or how it's done. But I suspect I won't be required to list out every time I muttered, "shit!" under my breath when I spilled hot tea on my leg or to follow a format without respect to my soul's desire for healing and direction by the Holy Spirit.

Next week, we're going to visit with the priest of the remaining Orthodox parish in our area, to talk about visiting and to inquire about how we might learn more about Orthodoxy, even though we still feel called to be in our Episcopal parish right now. We have visited an OCA parish and a Greek Orthodox parish, and this last one is Antiochene. I plan to ask about confession.

Oh, and I have suspicions about that saint who was praying for us to come to Holy Orthodoxy. I think he called for backup.

mercy triumphs over judgment

2011-11-24T18:31:00.001-05:00

Above: Incense in a teacup (because Pip decided his censer was only for pretend), about as high church Episcopalian (with an Eastern bent) as you can get.

I have felt fragile the past few weeks. Not like a bag full of eggs fragile, but a giant pillowcase stuffed with ripe pears fragile. It's not that all would be lost if I didn't go carefully with myself, but I also didn't need the bruising, weeping, and spoiled bits. Our life flows in metacycles: monthly supper club, weekly church, bi-weekly museum trips, library every third week, Mondays off please to recover from the social weekends (unless it's art group week), letters on Thursdays if not snuck in before. I find myself watching batches of cloud dough make their way throughout the house, stuck to hair and soles of feet, wondering if there's a pattern to the depletion of the bin. (There isn't. Food fight inspiration strikes three year olds randomly.) Should I plan for when to replenish the supply of pink paint, or just go on the fly?

The good thing about living with small children is that problems might grow loud, insistent even, but are rarely serious. I have time and space to observe, through the cracks in the light them permeates these days of joy with small growing persons, the grief that flows so near. Grief looks like an innocent stream - gray as ages and redolent of leaves. But then I make the mistake of stepping into it. You never step into water if you cannot see the bottom. Everyone who grew up in the country knows this. And I am clinging to my prayer rope, which has snagged on a very important tree, and I take great gulps of air until somehow I am tossed ashore.

We never grieve for just one person or just one thing. I think of all the wasted years taking anything personally. I gather up all my stones, not to throw, but to lay gently in the hands of those I love to anchor them here with me. If I shed all my stones, will I be able to hold onto them? Bargaining is the silliest part of grieving.

I read recently that the usually reported stages of grief are actually better descriptors for the dying, not the survivors. Survivors tend to cope in a different set of ways. My way seems to be the way of the memorialist, with seeking and activism mixed in. I found the new set of descriptions helpful, especially because the old categories seemed too facile.

I started watching that show Lie to Me on Netflix, mostly because it's comforting to see other people who can read body language extremely well. They notice some things that are so seemingly rare that I don't even feel I can talk about them, such as the fact that people like me go around every moment seeing all sorts of stuff communicated that we are not supposed to let on that we know. Social interactions are a discipline of trying not to respond to most of the cues being given. It's exhausting, especially around people who are both extraverts and unaware of their body language. (For instance, the woman who grimaces and fake smiles constantly, when she's not accidentally flashing contempt faces that let you know how much better than you she thinks she is.) I shop for Christmas in the middle of the calendar year so I do not have to face the legions of fake happy but actually largely anxious and depressed crowds in stores.

The show also pointed out that one of the characters has a natural ability to detect the meaning of gestures and facial expressions due to her past with an abusive parent. I really like that that strand was brought up. I know that I would not have had to learn to read body language so well if I had not been so afraid of my dad growing up.

I think that some people probably think that I should just ditch my dad and not be sad that he is growing more and more paralyzed day by day. Those people think that if he did the things he did (the emotional abuse, the beatings, the threats, the beatings of my mother, and especially the insults and rejection), I should be over him and just let him die, good riddance. Those people probably think I should ditch my extended family full stop. But those persons are wrong, living in the fragile state of self-justification that requires them not to delve into the humanity of those they deem inferior. Those persons probably want to be normal, not holy. Because holiness requires mercy. Mercy sees straight through all the crap and grabs the pearl out of the muck. There was love there once, and it sits like a jewel in the compost of the past. Love: the weed that will always grow back and grab onto the edges of broken lives.

What I mean to say is, even the bad things have been turned (or are being turned) to good. (I have not forgotten all of the nights of horror or the mealtimes laden with insults and abuse. The stupids, fats, lazies, uglies, disgustings, arrogants, not good enoughs still ping as loudly as the measuring spoons dropped on the side of the stainless steel bowl. I can hear them whenever I wish, and they sometimes come to tea unbidden, a stranger at my table demanding why I would be so lazy and stupid as to make a 91 when I could have made a 100, and did I know how fat I am and I should not eat dinner to make up for eating lunch? Sometimes I get the shakes a little when those thoughts call, but they are the shakes of adrenaline from confronting them head on, not shakes of fear [usually].) If nothing else, I am not easily intimidated. Having survived my childhood and adolescence, I feel far less vulnerable to most attacks. But then there's the fact that my dad has actually changed in the past several years. He has gone out of his way to show me he loves me, though, as I expected, he has not been able to bring himself to admit the things he did when he was drinking.

Certainly a scale would still weigh the bad heavier than the good, though. Unless someone were tipping the scales. Perhaps there is a woman somewhere with baby stains on her clothes and dirt under her fingernails, an anxious face in the mottled light, rush, rush, rushing to a small prayer station. She digs out from her pockets muddy stones, and by the handful puts them on the side of mercy.

writing it because I don't want to talk about it in front of the kids

2011-11-16T19:44:00.001-05:00

I'm so, so sad today. I feel impotent, and I can't even be there for my dad's probable last Thanksgiving. No energy to leave the house (not that I am really big on leaving the house anyway), but I need to go buy a gift card to help my sister buy the things they need for a big feast. If he's going to have a last go at the holidays when he can chew and swallow, I want him to have the things he likes.

I am trying to distract myself with Pinterest when I'm not hanging with the children. Maybe I can sleep tonight.

probably his last

2011-11-15T18:45:00.001-05:00

This is probably my dad's last Thanksgiving, at least his last when he can still eat. We can't be there, our resources tapped out by two mortgages (please pray/think good thoughts about our townhouse selling soon) and two trips to see him this summer. I think the children and I will make cookies to freeze and then mail to his house this week, so that we can be a part of his probable last big Thanksgiving feast. I want to do something nurturing. Chocolate chip cookies, chocolate peanut butter no bake cookies, and chocolate brownies should go a little way toward brightening his feast, and the children enjoy helping to bake.

He did a lot of wrong things, but he also did a lot right. I grew up knowing what it meant to be hugged like this.

he still loves me

2011-11-13T19:42:00.001-05:00

The first time I watched this movie and heard this song, my dad was in prison for DUI or pulling a gun on my mom, I don't remember which. At the time, even though the film version is way overproduced and digitally remastered sound-wise, I ran out and bought the CD for the soundtrack, hit repeat on this song. That part where the prisoners come forward, about 2:50, did me in. Tears of compassion and mercy and forgiveness and so on poured forth. They still do.

The children have developed a penchant for [good] [black church] gospel music. Something about a gospel choir, everyone singing full out, is just amazing. The messages, simple ones of grace, endurance, and praise, are uplifting to our whole family. I'm a classical music fan in general. I do not claim to have eclectic tastes. I don't like most of the noise I hear on the radio. But gospel music has made its way, along with Celtic hymns, classic jazz, and classical music, into my heart and onto my playlist.

Tonight, instead of dancing to the Beatles, we danced to a few gospel songs. This was one of them. I thought of my dad, slowly turning to stone, and wept again.

kindest letter insert ever

2011-11-12T08:26:00.001-05:00

My friend Kim did something so encouraging recently, that I thought I'd share the joy. She knew I was feeling down from grieving and having negative representations of my character presented to me recently by ex-friends. She had already cheered me up immensely just by assuring me in a letter that any conflicts that might arise between us in future years would be resolved via marshmallow guns at dawn. But then, last week I got this in the mail:

I won't go into the kind things she said, but it was so refreshing to have a remedy on hand after being so worn down of late. With each little note, I smiled and laughed and said, "Really?!" So encouraging. The correspondence begun in passed notes in 9th grade has given me so much joy over the years. Even the monkeys here understand that they need to stop pulling on my right arm when I'm writing Kim. But this little speck of kindness, well, it meant so much. Thanks, Kim!

not a sports fan

2011-11-11T22:33:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I am not very fair to those who dislike organized religion. I have been known to smirk at the heartfelt declaration, "I am spiritual, but not religious," and I have often suspected of naivete those who declare passionately that they dislike organized religion. (I am not unaware of the many pitfalls of organized religion; it's only that I know that the discipline of living in community has value beyond a mere checklist of revelations and morals.) Generally, I exempt the actually thoughtful persons of my acquaintance from any hint of scorn. But the vast majority of proponents of these views, I have inwardly derided for passing up a banquet without so much as reading the menu.

Then sports season rolls around. Which sport? Any, because I am equally indifferent to them all. My facebook feed fills with friends' acclamations about football, basketball, and so on, and I yawn. How could one find organized sports interesting? I like athleticism, of course, and I can see the value in the disciplines of physical fitness. But the hubbub, the idolatry, the money, the silly rules, the physical injuries accrued by the players, not to mention the sexism, all seem so ridiculous that I wonder at so many seemingly intelligent persons putting so much stake on these games. I am not a fan of organized sports. I trust badminton, maybe, and perhaps tennis, but not at higher levels where it gets commercial.

Perhaps I sympathize with the persons who dislike organized religion better than I thought. (Indeed, Chrysostom seemed to see an obvious parallel between church and sports, and warned catechumens against going to the spectacles. Spectator sports were seen as direct competitors with church life, and they were dangerous due to the unholy and immoral lessons taught there instead of the way meant to be conveyed in church.) I suppose I should not find the parallel strange, since the two realms obviously compete for our loyalties in terms of time and money and allegiances.

I wonder if my love of church history and theology ill equips me to help those who dislike organized religion and think of themselves as spiritual but not religious? After all, I would be bored to tears if someone, in an attempt to win me over to fandom, tried to tell me about great football players of yore and explained the nuances of the rules and interactions between players and coaches and so on. Bored. to. tears. I am so not interested, fundamentally. I could muster politeness and even an interest in the person who found such dull things interesting, but I could not be interested in sports.

I find my own unspoken rebukes toward the irreligious staring back at me. I am not comfortable with what I see. "I admire athleticism, but I'm not a sports fan. I do not like/trust organized sports." Perhaps it is good that, unlike team spirit, the Holy Spirit is not limited to the avenues of its associated organizations and manages to make new creatures out of whomever s/he chooses.

Well, at least I think I might understand my fellow humans a very small bit better now. Perhaps I will even grow humbler. Fortunately, at least in the church we are not allowed to keep score.

a different type of romantic

2011-11-07T16:01:00.000-05:00

I remember the first time I wanted to be a writer. I must have been in second grade. I asked my mom what sort of book she would write if she were a writer. Mom waxed moony-eyed and got a goofy grin. She said she would write a book about being stuck alone on a desert island with a handsome man. Like Dad? Yes, like your dad. And there would be romance. Oh, I said, which is about all a seven year old could say to such.

I remember thinking at the time how commonplace my mom's fantasy life was, and how impractical. But Mom, I wanted to say, my knowledge of terrain types bubbling to the fore of my concerns, deserts don't have water. You would die there. I also thought it sounded lonely and boring, which of course it would have been. Even in my child's mind, I knew that the story would be interesting for reasons other than those my mom named. But Mom, there are probably lions there, or sicknesses, or heat. You will have no food. Your partner would seem more competitor, a burden on limited resources. Too thirsty for kissing.

Given my early mistrust for its most facile premise, it's not surprising that I am not very interested in the romance genre. Using other people's genitals as catalysts for one's personal growth may be common, but I find the behavior unappealing. One can set out in a new direction without developing shallow and physically intense attractions to strangers. The rigorous habits of asceticism serve well for accomplishing actual positive change. Discipline matters more to long term happiness than one's ability to form and eventually get burned by unworthy attachments.

Yet there is a prudent impulse even in the desire to sleep with new people in awkward circumstances that so marks the romance genre. An instinct preserved, if you will. Even in the form of the cheapest thrill, we have not lost the understanding that intense physical experiences are opportunities for changing our minds, that the change of body and mind, habits of body and habits of mind, go together. Perhaps this understanding explains the cultural craving for romance, the desire, though so often perverse and unsustainable, for novel flesh meshing.

Trouble is, the craving for fulfillment only grows as cheap thrills become habitual. One might grow to resent spouse, friend, religion, quotidian rituals, as obstacles to the transforming sexual experience that never materializes. I have seen a woman grow bitter toward her husband for not being a well-endowed and somehow extraordinarily skilled and athletic sex partner back when they were both slender and could have done those things in her books (without injury and ice packs). Instead of more intense and satisfying sex, the desire for sex dried up, a casualty of the despair that set in when it became clear that there would be no satisfaction. I have watched women jump right into bed with men with nothing more to recommend them than a decent frame and good manners. I always feel like my seven year old self, then, knowing from the first twinkle in the woman's eye that she will just wind up unhappy, whether in hours, days, or months. He can't give you what you seek. Changing your life has to be your choice. A new partner with mutual goals can certainly help, but romantics of the eye twinkle/desert island/romance novel/sex with strangers variety don't generally inquire into mutuality. There is no long term plan. No one brings water barrels to desert island hook ups.

And no one really changes from such assignations, whether real or imagined. Unless it's for the worse, self hatred pushing its way into the world through unfaithful acts. Each read, each hook up, takes the stream of self down a tributary, dissipates one's life away from the good. To redirect a stream away from its habitual course, one must build strong boundaries. No more going down that path. Some wall - self respect, for instance, or chastity - must stand guard against the misdirected impulse. Even more intense than the fleeting physical pleasure is the moment of temptation resisted. Going round and round in circles through open doors does not get one going in the right direction, but one door closed, one choice - this way, not that - taken repeatedly can bring us round right.

And that's where reality comes in. Because when love constrains a river, it grows deeper, stronger. That a boundary would be the intense physical experience that changes one's mind seems counterintuitive to the romantic. Yet, boundaries open us to the best and deepest of life. To lay down the book, turn off the website, end the affair, leaves one free to dance, to walk, to dig in the earth, to take a look at those around one, at oneself, and really see. Boundaries like the womb allow life to grow and make birth possible. Like the new life of birth, all newness of life takes time to grow and develop. Today a boundary, tomorrow a boundary, today a new habit, tomorrow a new habit, and so on until we find that we have come to the place of truth, casting off what no longer suits, and struggling into joy.

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T08:46:00.000-04:00

This fat cat and Grace from Little House wish you a happy Hallowe'en. [We are joined in this sentiment by Gingy (the Gingerbread man from Shrek) and Princess Fiona, not pictured.]

shoulder baby

2011-10-28T14:56:00.000-04:00

I know we only have a few years when the sweet little ones will crash on us like this. I always try to savor the sweetness when they nap on our shoulders, especially when the arm falls asleep along with them. They are so light and small, really. So cherished.

Accent Vlog

2011-10-23T19:16:00.000-04:00

I read about the Accent Vlog over at Adventures in Babywearing, a blog I discovered recently and immediately loved. The author, Stephanie, invited readers to post their own, so I thought I'd give it a go. Join me if you'd like, on your blog or on facebook. We can hear our fun different ways of speaking. Rules are posted after the video.

The Rules:

Say the following words:
Aunt, route, wash, oil, theatre, iron, salmon, caramel, fire, water, sure, data, ruin, crayon, toilet, New Orleans, pecan, both, again, probably, spitting image, Alabama, lawyer, coupon, mayonnaise, syrup, pajamas, caught.

And answer the following questions:
What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bug that curls into a ball when you touch it?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
What do you call your grandparents?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you use to change the TV channel?

hahaha

2011-10-22T09:05:00.000-04:00

Source: dogscantlookup.com via Alyssa on Pinterest

We have our first date in two years (!!!) in a couple of hours. Levity ensues. Hope you all have a good day.

three happy things

2011-10-21T14:09:00.000-04:00

Yay! We get to see Itzhak Perlman - front row seats! If you don't know who he is, check youtube. Then you'll understand.

I made a simple banana and bread pudding with treacle yesterday for supper. So good + easy.

There was a nice sunset last night on my way to run an errand.

Five Minute Friday: Beyond

2011-10-21T11:17:00.000-04:00

Beyond all the crap that floats to the top, the water is clear and brilliant. Some of the flotsam is lovely: leaves falling from trees tucking in for the winter, small bits of lichen - lovelier than silk ruffles - blown from branches too high to reach. The bottom is layered with sand tossed in by pudgy small hands, right into my tea cup when I turned my head. I try, try to pick out the detritus that pains me: harsh words from a friend still ringing lies, loneliness from a week's isolation while my son reacted to a vaccine, frustration that I will have to pull poison ivy yet again before the season makes it disappear into the pinestraw. There. See that light? See that water flowing? It is a life full of love and grace and baking in cool weather, of kindnesses tucked into the back of a drawer to be pulled out in due season. And just a glimpse, maybe, of my own face in the light, before I jump in.

on writing and parenting and a rainy day

2011-10-19T22:08:00.000-04:00

After having assigned topics for a whole month, I found myself out of words for a few days. Well, out of blog words, anyway. Yesterday I outlined a nonfiction book. I plan to work on it for the next few months to make it into a book proposal, get feedback from a few acquaintances, and hopefully send it off to a publisher in the spring. But I have a lot of research to complete before I can make much progress on the outline. Part of the book is a corrective reading of another book, so I need to go through and delineate arguments in said work and line up my corrections. Blah blah blah, I know. But nonfiction is still my favorite, the place where writing is easiest to me.

I have been tinkering at a fiction story for children for awhile now. I abandoned it several years ago for being too dang sad. But a couple of months ago, I was watching my children play, and I realized I wanted to tell them about the world I'd imagined. Then, inspiration struck, the protagonists changed, the story line began to zoom out of my control, and I was off. I've been enjoying thirty stolen minutes here or there, scribbling away at this alternate world in my head. As much as I like the order and clarity of nonfiction, I find this fiction story exciting. I don't know where the story will take me, and I like being along for the ride.

Pip has been a bit under the weather the past few days. He got the nasal mist flu vaccine late last week, and as far as I can tell, he's reacting to it a bit. On and off fever, loss of appetite, sometimes sore throat and hypersensitive skin. Yesterday Claire played with the children a lot while I outlined, filled margins of the outline with additional notes and asides, and generally thought through the text forming in my mind for the nonfiction proposal. (It's on a theological subject, which I will not go into here. If it sells, I will let you know.)

Today I spent the entire day save maybe twenty minutes of checking facebook, email, and Pinterest, playing with the children, either on the floor or otherwise hands on. I love their presence, their fullness of life in such small persons. I have come to realize that they love my presence as well. If I can love them so easily, just holding and playing, flipping and singing, reading and tying on ribbons, I want to do so as much as possible. I am grateful to have so few other obligations right now.

I remember reading a thread in the Mothering dot com forums asking if the readers thought of themselves as primarily homemakers or primarily stay at home moms. I'm the latter. I cooked a dinner from scratch tonight, and the kids were fed throughout the day, and laundry done and beds made and various articles put away and picked up, but a homemaker would still find my house uncomfortably messy. I like being able to play with my children. I set up a few little structured projects for Pip to do when he's feeling well again, but most of our play is free.

Pemberley and I spent awhile this afternoon playing with playdoh during Pip's nap. I would roll a bit into a ball, smush another bit into a pancake, and Pemb would cut it with the playdoh knife. The day was too rainy for painting the deck or digging in sand, our other recent pastimes.

I have a hard time sometimes beating back the pressure to accomplish something, or to engage my children in activities with demonstrable results. I can't show you most of Pip's recent paintings. They were either watercolors that he washed away by pouring the brush water onto his paper - a sort of ritual climax to the art event, or they were on our deck with homemade sidewalk paint, washed away by the rain. And playdoh creations, some of them hours in the making, just get squished back into the clay. Even if the children weren't into activities that leave no trace, I know that Pip would not engage in an activity for the sake of show. That kid has a bullshit detector such as the world has never seen.

I'll read about a cool art project for preschoolers, get all excited and set it up, and Pip will walk in the room, take a look at it, and say, "No, thanks. I want to do this instead." Never mind that handprint cards would be great presents for the grands, or the fact that glitter projects would be cool holiday decorations. If Pip doesn't want to do it, best to drop it.

So, we meander through our days, trying to balance one another's needs and rejoice in one another's strengths. I have given up on trying to impress anyone with my mothering. I think there is a strong temptation to try to prove that we are not screw ups, that we are somehow deserving of the opportunity to raise our children, in the early days of mothering. If I just do _____ and have a clean house, then everyone will know I'm not lazy/unqualified/neglectful/unwomanly. But that's a misguided direction. Parenting, like any other good thing, is grace all the way down. Of course we don't deserve to parent these amazing little creatures, but what a gift to be able to! Gratitude, not grading ourselves, is the proper response to the grace of living with children.

Besides, all of the noblest parts of parenting leave no marks but smile lines.

What we are doing for fun these days:
Dancing as a family to the Beatles and other fun songs
Taking walks around the neighborhood trails
Free play
Dress up
Pretend
Reading library books (Yes! I learned how to renew and avoid fines.)
Reading our books
Using scissors (Pip)
Using glue (Pip)
Using googly eyes (me)
Getting into everything, and sorting it (Pem)
Putting things away (Pip)
Painting at the table
Painting on the deck
Digging in the sand and making the water turn to blood like Moses (aka pouring sand into the water side of the table)
Playdoh
Markers
Watching Kipper, WordWorld, SuperWhy, and a few movies (including Shrek)
Explaining the complexity of princess identities (me)
ball track
Dancing to little songs we sing
Feeding ducks
Visiting the museum
Having friends over
Getting into the ribbon collection, spreading it around the room (Pip and Pem)

30 Day Photography Challenge: Final Portrait

2011-10-15T15:34:00.001-04:00

A little light shows up our shadows.

A little more reveals the darkness behind us.

But a strong ray of light makes us all beautiful. Would that we would all love like the sun on an autumn day, through trees.

Lisa wraps it up.

30 Day Photography Challenge: Black and White

2011-10-14T17:09:00.001-04:00

The black and white format highlights the extent of the mess. All that toilet paper. Most rolls were only half demolished, quite enough for all of us to become walking gags. Have you seen a one-year-old with toilet tissue stuck to her heel?

There are parenting blogs where parents buy loads of specialized equipment to simulate real life, so that the child might learn through play. My strategy is a little different. I let them play with our actual stuff. It's messier, but it suits. I occasionally nod to the trend of specialized "sensory" play, such as when I put 20 lbs of plain white rice in a plastic bin for the children to pour and play in. That? Was the messiest idea ever.

I was telling a friend who wanted to see our new house, by way of warning, about the rice bin and the resulting veneer of rice across the entire main floor. Her response was like turning a photo to black and white. My own contrast was highlighted. She said, "Oh, well, you'll have to get rid of that." But I only meant to warn her to adjust her expectations. We live in our home here, and the children play in our home. If you visit to see the house, you will have to accept us as we are, toilet paper, rice, and all.

Lisa gives us negative space and turbulence.

30 Day Photography Challenge: Flowers

2011-10-13T21:34:00.000-04:00

I can't remember a time in my life when I had no contact with flowers. College, I suppose, was the dry spell, but then I bought a rose whenever I could and always looked at the crape myrtles. Growing up, we either had a garden, or there were wild flowers, or honeysuckle vines. Contact with flowers and growing green things puts me in my right mind again, pours a solace into my soul.

When we lived in a little white house in Pasadena, during middle school, when my family life was rife with violence, terror, fears and abuses, we had no garden, no flowers. But the neighbor behind us had a lovely yard with a climbing white rose bush on her back fence. Every now and again, I would sneak back there and let the rapture of petals soothe me. Roses were my balm in Gilead.

The first job I had after college, the last non-academic job I held, was as a florist's assistant. The pay was terrible, but the end of day recall was lovely. You know how when you work, your mind flits through the images in a little broken film strip of your day, a sort of prelude to dreaming? Mine was filled with color, fragrance, the feel of chlorophyll under my finger nails.

Andrew and I made a deal during that first, scrabbling year of marriage: that I would always buy flowers for our home as I pleased. They are tacitly from Andrew to me, but I pick them out and purchase them every week or two (except in Lent) because going to the banks of flowers to choose is so much a part of the joy for me. So many colors and scents!

Usually I buy roses. I like the variations in the colors of petals. You can tell a good bunch of roses by the firmness of the head near the stem. If they are already opened all the way, they won't last more than a few days. But if you need them to last a week or more, go for firm. (Orange ones tend to open better and often have a pleasant fruity smell.) These photos are of this week's roses.

Lisa takes the bloom in a whole nother direction.

30 Day Photography Challenge: From a Distance

2011-10-12T21:37:00.000-04:00

It was such a joy this summer to watch Pip run across our college campus toward the chapel where his parents fell in love and married. He loved being there, singing into the lectern, and just playing church. Even though he was tiny on the screen, I felt the urge then to take a snap shot of his joyous gait.

This image is also from a distance in another way, because we are no longer friends with the person who took us to campus that morning for a fun picnic. (At best, the future of the friendship is highly uncertain, but it may never be rekindled. I don't know if I can be friends with someone who thinks so ill of me as that person showed me she does, though I doubt she would want to be friends with me at all, seeing as her opinion of me is so low.) But we used to be friends, and at least for my part, I still have high regard for her and gratitude for her kindness toward us. I am glad her influence brought us to that place, to see our wonderful boy rejoice in a place that played such an important role in the beginnings of our family.

I chose this photo because of its paradox. The distance from my boy reminds me of how happy he was, draws me closer to the joy of memory. A small boy, but so large in gladness.

Go see what the others are doing and read as Lisa laments the state of things.

30 Day Photography Challenge: Close Up

2011-10-11T20:09:00.000-04:00

Okay, the first photo is actually from July, when I was at my sister's house getting ready for her wedding. There's an organization on her Catholic campus that gave out pro-life silly bands. I'm okay with people having deep religious convictions on the subject of abortion. Certainly, I do. But to make "I love fetuses" silly bands? I felt that they needed to be documented so no one suspected they were a thing of legend.

But what I meant to show you were these really cool fruits that grow on the trunk of the tree. We always like autumn in the butterfly house at the local museum, because all of the South American plants bloom and fruit. The smell is lovely, and these fruits make me want to reach out and have a taste.

Okay, I've got to run. It's time for the family dance night. We have started a new tradition of dancing together to the Beatles' "One" compilation in the evenings before bed. It's a great way to end the day with a smile.

Go see what Lisa and them are up to.

30 Day Photography Challenge: Postponed

2011-10-10T19:18:00.000-04:00

I got busy doing our family budget, and by the time I stepped outside to photograph the very first red leaves on the maple, the light had faded. This fuzzy frame does not count as a close up, so I'm going to try again tomorrow.

In the meantime, inexplicably, I am going to tell you about the first time I ate Victoria sponge cake. We were visiting Stirling Castle, and I was plagued with morning sickness. We took a break between looking at the lovely unicorn tapestries and going to watch a tapestry presentation in the workshop to have tea. I was so hungry and sick to my tum from going up and down hills all day for days on end, and tiny Pip was making himself known. When we walked into the cafe, I was taken with a craving for one of the cakes, a fluffy sort of cake with what looked like jam in it. The cake and the tea restored me for more castle touring, though I was still quite green while eating it. I remember chewing the cake deliberately, making myself not be sick, sipping tea, and reading the cafe advertisement for Christmas dinner. I kept down the cake and tea by wondering which sort of people would drive all the way to the castle and trek all the way to the cafe under the battlements, just to have Christmas lunch there. It was really not the best cake in the world. It was rather dry. But it kept me going to enjoy a lovely day.

Okay, not inexplicably. I have had on these teeth aligning plastic trays for a week now, and having one's teeth out of joint makes one long for certain textures. I am craving the texture of Victoria sponge, but I will have to get over it. We don't commonly have Victoria sponge here in North Carolina.

Go check out Lisa and them's posts, and wish Lisa a Happy Birthday while you're at it.

30 Day Photography Challenge: animals and pink

2011-10-09T19:01:00.000-04:00

See what I did in the title there? I am totally calling it in right now, trying to act smooth, as though I meant to not post yesterday. Whereas, in fact, we are very ensconced in the realities of having a sleepy and gifted three year old, which means tantrums lasting 45 minutes to over an hour. The gifted part comes in how clever and focused our sleepy little boy can be while screaming to get his way about some completely irrational objective (not wearing shoes [thus keeping himself from the playground], not going to the potty as part of bedtime routine, wanting to wear wet clothes, wanting not to go to his favorite places [on a whim, apparently], and who knows what all else). That sweet little boy has taken to ruses and lies this weekend to get what he wants. Just a normal part of development, but his extraordinary focus means that Andrew and I have been heavily tasked to remain united and calm and consistent while our little fellow tests the hell out of us. We think we found the source of Pip's sleep disturbances - he was sneaking bites of colored sidewalk chalk, and he's allergic to dyes -, so hopefully the overtiredness will pass soon. Because even with the tantrums, our boy is loving and creative and fun and sweet. It would just be nice to put the kids to bed, or get in the car, or out of the car, without him turning into a riled sleepwalking bobcat.

Pip is not interested in this T Rex costume, but I would totally buy it for him if he were.

I am always partly annoyed by the Christmas decorations that appear in Target in September. Along with a few nerdy friends, I wish we would celebrate Christmas during the season of Christmas instead of as a huge commercial season of greed and decoration for the entire freaking autumn. But also, I really like this penguin. If the house sells soon, we might find some of these in our new yard this year.

I was going to show you a pink photo of Pemberley's Sunday outfit, but then I saw this thing of beauty at the store tonight. I know my neighbors would be so happy with me if I peppered our new yard with these subtle and understated seasonal objects. In case the trees in the backyard part of my photo backgrounds hasn't clued you in, we have a kind of picky (about some things) HOA. I also recently joined the neighborhood women's club, which seems much more pinecone and crocheted snowflakes, much less self lit pink flamingo yard ornament when it comes to holiday decor. Oh! And I get to present at our November meeting on how we celebrate the 12 days of Christmas. So maybe I've talked myself out of Pinky here.

What the hay. Here is a photo of Pemberley in her Sunday outfit. As you can see, she is walking, which is why the photo is blurry. We have so much fun now that Pemb can walk. Family dance parties, watching her jam to background music, getting to play ring around the rosie with both children.

See where Lisa and them take the theme.

30 Day Photography Challenge: Sunflare

2011-10-07T20:18:00.000-04:00

When we were first married, our arguments always boiled down to talking about two different things. I thought he meant this, when he was talking about that. Now that we are "old marrieds," more than twelve years in, our arguments usually boil down to us talking about the same thing and just getting confused due to lack of sleep. (You were just saying x? Oh, I totally agree. I thought you meant y.) Today's photo is a bit how it feels when all comes clear.

When the sun flared through the trees over a little note I chalked for him to see on his way out to work, I knew I had my shot.

Over at That's Why, Lisa refuses to give up.

30 Day Photography Challenge: hands (when a baby tries to eat paint [again])

2011-10-06T20:55:00.001-04:00

Scraping sidewalk paint off our girl's teeth.

I love the gentle way he holds her hand to keep her painty fingers out of her mouth.

If I told you he was a good papa, you might believe me, but I think you can see for yourself all the love in his hands.

Lisa gives us a teen hand shake.

30 Day Photography Challenge: faceless self portrait

2011-10-05T19:35:00.000-04:00

Well, technically this first one has a face :)

The second attempt was my reflection in the living room window, face hidden by my mug of tea during the children's afternoon jaunt on the deck.

Look! It's my hair coming out of a braid. And a baby wrap. Still, these photos did not say a whole lot about my personality, so this evening I tried again.

I like the way that accessories make a stained baby wrap and a shirt with some sort of baby substance rubbed in, look elegant. But yet again, you can still see my face.

Here I am.

Lisa's portrait has a bit more substance.

Not photography for a sec

2011-10-05T18:00:00.000-04:00

So, about ten days ago, I stopped taking Domperidone. I have been off fenugreek for a couple of weeks, since I discovered that it was to blame for the horrible peeling and cracking and blistering on my hands. I now have fingerprints again! Anyway, I had read that Domperidone made one gain weight. Well, I was just not losing it. No matter what I did, all the pregnancy weight except for about ten pounds (7.5 pound baby and support infrastructure) would not drop. But now? I'm losing half a pound a day, doing nothing differently.* This is pretty cool. I'm not trying to lose weight so fast, the rate seeming a bit sketchy to me on paper, but there it is. And even though you won't be able to see it in today's photog challenge (faceless self portrait), I have lost weight in my face first, which is very flattering to me vanity. Anyway, a few people read this blog in part due to interest in my breastfeeding with IGT saga, so I thought I'd let you know. For me, at least, the rumors are true: Domperidone makes you gain or keep weight.

Pemberley still nurses a few times a day, but it's mostly comfort nursing now. I keep thinking she'll wean, but I guess she likes being near me. Nursing a toddler with IGT is super easy, though, so I'm okay with it.

*I got clear tooth straightener trays a couple of days ago, so I cannot snack at all anymore, but the weight drop started before that.

30 Day Photography Challenge: Bokeh

2011-10-04T14:07:00.000-04:00

Today I tried to use bokeh, the blurry bits of the photo and their character within the image as a whole (if I understand the concept correctly), to tell some stories about our life. What follows are little vignettes.

The grape is surrounded by other bits of food and toys and a plate, the sediment of life with a toddler and a preschooler. I focused on this grape to show how it all starts. Pemberley tossed one grape to the ground, and within moments the floor was littered with the other things she jettisoned from the table.

I wanted to say something about Pemberley's favorite game here without using words. Thus the Connect Four board as the bokeh around my little subject.

Claire is often the fourth checker making our outings click into order. Thank God for Claire! Today she has read the children copious stories while my mouth grows less sore from my new clear correct teeth aligner.

I'm sure these items on the ball track are the wrong sort of blurry for bokeh, but I thought I'd photograph them anyway, because they are fun to watch.

The banjo has a big sound from its lithe strings.

You can tell a lot about our way of life from this photo: the laid back attitude, the music, the colors and light.

Love of nature.

I thought it was cool how the sun filtered onto these words I chalked on our porch table yesterday afternoon. "Where there is love there is God" surrounded by dappled shadow. I thought the blur really cooperated to make the message clearer. Well, if you can read my messy handwriting.

"Thanks." I write little verses and bits of songs on our rail so I can see them from above when I open my bedroom window in the morning. This word is a great filter for the world.

Peace in nature.

Read Lisa's use of freezer musings and bokeh to gain new perspective.

30 Day Photography Challenge: Orange

2011-10-03T12:26:00.001-04:00

Orange is the color of family life. I wonder if the association with warmth and hearths and impossible to remove stains on small sleeves is behind the symbolism. When I think about the color orange, I always remember the scene in the book Beloved where the grandmother is starved for color in winter and stares and stares at the one bright orange square in the otherwise dark quilt, and asks her granddaughter to stick out her tongue so she can see the violet. I suppose family sometimes is a bright orange square in a dark world.

When I was a teenager, I hated the color orange. But then, my family was abusive and a degrading place to be at the time. I think I began to love orange in seminary, but I didn't really embrace the color until we had children. Now orange ranks in my top five colors.

Of course, family life is not glamorous. I like orange not only for its vivid boldness, but for its practicality. Without my orange dust mop, home schooling the children would be far more difficult. The rice from the sensory bin is not a contained substance. I love watching the children pour the rice and play in it otherwise, and I love that it is so easy to clean up between play sessions. Of course, our entire kitchen is painted orange as well, but this dust mop is one of the more practical outposts of our affection for the color of family.

I spotted this orange bus outside a local coffee shop on my way back from getting gas this weekend. I like that they chose a color that invites conversation. The coffee shop is one of the only ones in the area with a play area for young children, so it's a popular place for play dates among relative strangers. I remember reading somewhere that it's best to wear orange when you are meeting new people, because the color puts them at ease. I wonder if the coffee folks knew this, or if they just like orange?

Go see Lisa's take on orange.

30 Day Photography Challenge: Shoes

2011-10-02T20:03:00.000-04:00

Young Pemberley decided to walk this week. One of her first prerogatives upon learning to take steps a few weeks ago was to become interested in shoes. Earlier in the week she kept asking me to put shoes on her. Turns out that her brother's old space alien shoes fit perfectly. Just two years ago, Pip wore these shoes when Pem was just a tiny pea sized dream making her mama happy and nauseated. I am very glad I kept these alien shoes for Pem.

Everyone passes on her family values in lots of little ways. Our children are familiar with Jeeves and Wooster, Cold Comfort Farm, Peppa Pig, Kipper, and Angelina Ballerina, because we are Anglophiles. They like hot black tea with cream and sugar. They love and expect the presence of books and musical instruments, art supplies, and dress up clothes. These shoes are a little way we pass along another family love: science fiction.

Love what you will, babies. Love shoes or tattoos or jewelry or drawing or dance. Just make sure there are some aliens in there somewhere.

30 Day Photography Challenge: technology

2011-10-01T16:58:00.000-04:00

We are sort of techno nerds around here. These are my two most-used bits of tech, my trusty laptop and my iPhone. I read books on the iPhone Kindle app. I keep up with family far away and friends nearby. Tech does not take the place of writing longhand, but it sure makes a lot of communication easier. Oh, and also we use my laptop to watch Dr. Who and Netflix films.

30 Day Photography Challenge: long exposure

2011-09-30T16:39:00.001-04:00

The second year of our marriage was busy. Andrew was working an hour away in Raleigh, I was studying full time in Div School, and we were learning to be a family of two. I had to learn to cook for two people instead of six plus (not an easy transition), we had to share a small home office with too many overlarge desks, and our second floor apartment exposed us to sex sounds from the upstairs neighbors some nights, sounds of loud fights others. I was learning biblical Hebrew that year, with one of the world's best study groups ever, including a young pre-law/pre-rabbinical school woman named Rachel. (I'll get back to her in a minute.) In October, about a year after my grandmother who raised me had died, we decided to take a quick jot down to the ocean over my fall break. I happened to see a paperback copy of Harry Potter book one on my way out of a store, and I bought it on a whim. Andrew and I had both been pretty stressed out, but we loved connecting by reading to one another.

That afternoon, on our way down to the shore in Wilmington, I read to us through Raleigh traffic and past roadsigns and that one confusing intersection when you're about to turn to go to Carolina Beach. There was this boy, see? And he lived. We were hooked. We finished reading the book that weekend and stopped at a local store to get the second book to read aloud on the way home. Book three, which had come out not long before, was a necessity soon after. We went back to school and work on Monday refreshed and happy and with sand stuck to our legs, but with very little sleep.

Our friend Rachel, clearly the basis for Hermione, came to celebrate our very first Harry Potter party that Halloween, with little felt wizard hats we made. It was a tea party. When book four came out, we were dressed up, standing in line for our copy at midnight. Same for the other books. We were various characters, but always in character, so as to amuse the children in line with us at the Regulator.

When we bought our first house (which you can now buy, too!), we wanted to include Harry Potter references in the decor. I found this mirror in a thrift store and thought it was perfect for the Mirror of Erised. Our children will grow up with it in our new house, just an ordinary bathroom mirror. I'm looking forward to the day the penny drops, when little Pip or Pem, aged seven or eight, runs to the powder room, eyes wide. Look! It's here. All our hearts desires.

See Lisa's take on tech.

30 Day Photography Challenge: silhouette

2011-09-29T21:53:00.001-04:00

Pip loves playing dressup in our wacky wigs. I have had the wigs for several years. The pink one is from 2006, and the big salt and pepper blond one that he's wearing above is from 2001 or so. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Pip has adopted our funny dressup clothes, but seeing his small person dwarfed by this big wig is always a pleasant surprise. This little fellow is so full of fun and creativity. His silhouette says, "you can't catch me!" in a gleeful tone that makes one smile.

From Scotland trip: first 12 daysish

I also dug up this photo from our Scotland trip as a backup, just in case my attempts to get silhouettes this week didn't work. I'm sharing it because it's such an expression of liminal space. We were coming back from the edge of the world, Iona, one of the most ancient islands on earth. The water there hides standing stones and ships of kings, and in the winter a traveler is truly dependent on hospitality.

The air was cold, but I had such warm thoughts. We had just finished a much longed for visit to the holy island, just met a little girl named Pip, just decided between us to call our little one "Pip" as well. The girl Pip gained her moniker in the womb as a literary allusion to Great Expectations. I learned this from her mother and a friend as I played with the toddler girl Pip, rolling balls back and forth across a long wooden refectory table in the abbey, around obstacles of tea and scones.

We decided to borrow the name, but to make it allude to Pippin from The Lord of the Rings, whose real name means "pilgrim," since we were on a pilgrimage when we confirmed Pip's presence with us. Thus we came back from a boundary place in the worlds with a new name for a new person making his very small way into our world. How glad I was at that moment, and how much happier I am now for each day with my little family.

Go see Lisa's portrait of long exposure - eloquent words!

Thirty Day Photography Challenge: Eyes

2011-09-28T18:17:00.001-04:00

I wanted to photograph some adorable children's eyes for today's challenge, but they were not still long enough for the macro setting to work. Pip and I played a fun game of chase, though, as he ran from his photo being taken. Every time I came near him, even with no camera, he would squeal and take off, hoping for me to chase him with the camera. So at least today's challenge yielded a little cardio.

Instead, here are my eyes. They are hazel. The brows are a bit unruly, and they are entirely make-up free as per usual these days. A few years ago I used to exult in eyeliner and so on every day. Now I only have time for lipstick and maybe some mascara.

I used to play a game when I was a teenager. I would cover the faces in magazines and catalogs, all except the eyes (as above), and try to guess what the person was really feeling. It doesn't work on myself, alas, but it was still a fun game. Feel free to guess what I'm thinking/feeling if you'd like in the comments. I know what my sister will guess. She always comes up with a way to make this sort of game puerile. (Which is one of the characteristics I like about her, actually.)

The only other eyes that would stay still long enough were Jesus' eyes in the Pantocrator icon. The eyes are cool because they are intentionally different. One side of the icon shows Christ blessing all and teaching; the other shows him with the Book of Life at the final judgment, with a fiery eye. Thus the wonky eye on the right (his left eye). I've always thought his left eye was crying.

Lisa's silhouette.

30 Day Photography Challenge: Me and 13 things

2011-09-27T19:51:00.000-04:00

What a day I've had. I'm trying to type this with a sleep deprived three year old literally hanging off my arms and blowing bubbles on me. After the internet was down for most of the day here, and there were far more than the usual number of obnoxious temper tantrums owing to the aforementioned sleep deprivation (due to a growth spurt and no sinister reason). Now he is blowing his nose on me, headbutting me and biting my shirt. That kind of day. Which is why I'm showing you this brilliant piece of photography from my phone camera, truly worthy of those old MySpace slenderizing photos from above, though my purpose was actually just to get stuff in the photo without having to find the tripod.

The point is, see those notebooks and pens? They are my life savers, my sanity, important tools in my salvation. I can write myself away from the edge no matter how close I've ventured. One flowy rollerball inkstroke at a time, smooth pages filling with my scrawl. I have tiny notebooks for my purse or pocket, pens to tuck in diaper bag, purse, over a notebook cover, nestled into my desk.

Several years ago when my sister made an attempt on her life, I went to a counselor. He listened, told me I was perfectly sane, and asked if I ever wrote. He advised that I take up journaling again, which I had largely set aside for grad school, and just like that all my ducks fell into row.

These, dearies, are my ducks. My notebooks, where I write stories and thoughts and complaints and plans, where I scribble and draw terrible stick figure representations of dreams. 9 notebooks and four pens. When I see a tornado watch, besides the children and my phone, I grab these as I head to the basement.

For more excitement, go see Lisa's enigmatic cat.

30 Day Photography Challenge: sunset

2011-09-26T15:04:00.001-04:00

From Scotland trip: first 12 daysish

So, you might have noticed that this photo was taken in the Highlands in Scotland. Which means I did not take it today. We have too many trees to see a sunset here. But when I was pregnant with Pip and we were galavanting around Scotland, we saw so very many glorious sunsets. This castle was out in the middle of nowhere, just some castle someone lives in. We got turned around on our way back from somewhere or another and happened down their private lane just as dusk fell.

From Scotland trip: first 12 daysish

Here are some darker photos taken on All Hallow's Eve at an old stone circle - Tomnaverie Stone Circle, again in Scotland. As we approached the circle up the hill, the sun was sitting directly over the "altar" stone opposite. The place felt absolutely ancient. I have no idea what was done there or by whom, but it was a place that told your bones that it was important.

From Scotland trip: first 12 daysish

Go see Lisa's 13 meaningful books.

Thirty Day Photography Challenge: Blue

2011-09-25T21:22:00.000-04:00

A bluebird must have known today's challenge, because I happened upon this feather this afternoon when we were going to the car for a church dinner.

Of course, I had already photographed the peacock feathers in the living room against the blue walls there, to give some color perspective. I very much like the blue of the living room walls.

And of course I love the gaudy loveliness that is our blue chandelier in our orange kitchen.

Go read Lisa's take on sunsets.

30 Day Photography Challenge: A childhood memory

2011-09-24T15:02:00.001-04:00

I'm hoping that Pip will have fond memories of our Saturday morning market trips. This morning Pip was in full regalia, so the florist wrapped our weekly flowers special for him. I loved playing dress up as a child, and I'm glad that Pip (and Pem) likes it, too. I also like that we live in a cultural center where the common person at the market knows that young children love to explore creatively; we never get stern looks or rude questions about gender bending here. Just lots of compliments to the little prince or princess, and a lot of "I've been there and loved it" smiles to me.

See what Lisa sees today.

Thirty Day Photography Challenge: Someone You Love

2011-09-23T16:47:00.000-04:00

The actual man of my dreams. I could get really sappy here, but I'd rather go spend time with him.

In the meantime, go see what Lisa is doing.

Day Eight Challenge: a bad habit

2011-09-22T18:57:00.000-04:00

My most identifiable habit is tea, but I don't consider that bad.

I'm forgoing the usual self loathsome habits and admitting to a habit that reveals both strengths and weaknesses. I shop online as much as possible. The tea table is currently covered in packages from yesterday and today. I buy high end children's clothing (Hanna Andersson, Mini Boden, for instance) used on eBay for a fraction of what I might pay new. I think that's a good thing. I might be able to get even better deals through those huge consignment sales, but I very much dislike crowds. They make me very anxious, partly because it's hard to keep track of the children in them, partly because I am overwhelmed by all the emotive body language. I can try to close off some part of my sensitivity, but I have a very hard time ignoring other people's anxious or depressed body language. It's as though they are shouting, "I am on the edge!" or "I am so lonely!" or "Oh my, am I ever arsed!" to me. A lot of people are completely unaware of their broadcasting body language. I find it difficult to maintain any level of peace in a crowd, so shopping is especially trying in one. Is this a bad habit? Maybe so, maybe not. Perhaps I should exert myself more to conform. Or perhaps I am doing the right thing by recognizing my introvert need to avoid shopping crowds.

Photography Challenge Day Seven: There isn't enough blue fruit

2011-09-21T15:59:00.000-04:00

30 Day Photography Challenge: From a Low Angle

2011-09-20T21:39:00.000-04:00

Today we had a picnic in Duke Gardens for lunch. As soon as we arrived, Pip eagerly went to the bamboo grove. Pip was Mary Poppins today (thus the wig and the umbrella).

During the picnic by the duck pond, we all enjoyed chocolate covered wheat biscuits that I made with soy-free chocolate. This dress was one of the first outfits I purchased for Pemberley, before we even had confirmation that she was a girl. I knew she was a girl right away. I like that her toes made it into the frame.

We fed the ducks before we ate, but this goose grew fond of us and would not stop creeping up stealthily to sniff out crumbs with his little feathered nose. I admit that I grew fond of him, too. We called him the Socially Awkward Goose because he got a feather stuck through his nose while grooming, which feather stayed there a good ten minutes.

Pip found a stout stick to carry. This was on our way out, after a couple of hours of walking and playing.

We stopped by the fountain for one more shot from below on the way out. I seem to recall another bird in the fountain when last we visited, but I don't know whence he flew. I so liked to hear the water splash his outstretched wings.

Day Five Photography Challenge: As high as I can get

2011-09-19T19:46:00.000-04:00

I usually keep company with Mozart on evenings like this. I have come to see Mozart as the midwife of grief, his music soothing the pains so that one feels one will come through it. Tonight, though, I am listening to the great Act 2 duet in Verdi's La Traviata, with Maria Callas. She reminds me that there are larger things than grief while also making it sound as big as it is. Looking down, what does one see but one's own tears and the silly words we use?

peeve shelter needed

2011-09-19T09:08:00.000-04:00

We interrupt this photography challenge to say that I have located a pet peeve! There are not any no-kill shelters for pet peeves. You either adopt them, or they die. I know I should let this one starve a death in the cold, hard world, but really, it is trying. Here it is: several of my friends - prepare yourself - post photographs of their scrapes and bruises on facebook. This habit is disgusting, y'all. No one wants to see that at all, except maybe your personal physician and maybe your mama.

I have suffered through a spate of having to shout "Ew!" and cover my eyes while peeking just enough to "hide this post" recently. My newsfeed is not a triage center. Please feel free to link to this post to give your grody and clueless friends the psa.

Ew.

[I think my last pet peeve was the opening your eyes really wide for photos one, but for obvious reasons I'm not taking an exemplary photo for this post. Ew.]

Day Four Photography Challenge: Green

2011-09-18T19:09:00.000-04:00

I wore my green button sweater to church today.

The sun shone for awhile between the treetops in the back yard. Green is such a feeding color. I think these trees have already put their roots into the edges of my mind, stretching it into new fields of grace and maybe beauty. Trees are my muses.

This little store in Chapel Hill, right by the local Whole Foods, is my favorite place to shop green (besides Etsy). They are the ones that convinced us to switch to stainless steel water bottles, solar lanterns for the patio, and showed us lots of cool toys that the kids "needed." I don't like shopping in stores very very much. Shopping is where my introversion comes out strongest. But this store is a place where I make an exception.

NB: While I like going green in the sense of being more environmentally conscious, I am not in any way a Slytherin.

Day three: Clouds

2011-09-18T18:58:00.000-04:00

Gray skies are gonna clear up... or not. But we were so busy putting on a happy face that we didn't step away from the house yesterday to look at the clouds apart from the view through the trees. Our house blessing was yesterday evening, and spirits were not dampered by the day of drizzle. This is the cloudiest cloud shot I could get from the porch. We have so much shade that it's difficult to see the bare sky. Or on a cloudy day, the sky in its knickers.

Pip had a ball wearing this cloud of hair all day yesterday and today. Yesterday he was singing "F-R-E-D Fred!" with the broom as a prop. Today he was Mary Poppins. The people at church and the grocery store seemed enthusiastic about his cloud of hair and the apron he popped on top of his church clothes to stand in for Miss Poppins' dress. The wig is the sort of cloud that is opposite of dreary. It has been part of many costumes and hi jinx over the years. I found it when we first moved to NC in a little consignment shop that closed up in 2001. It has been my best thrift purchase ever.

This was my first attempt at getting clouds, looking out my bedroom window between rain showers. I guess you can see why I like the view there.

30 Day Photography Challenge: What I'm Wearing Today

2011-09-16T13:20:00.000-04:00

I hope you aren't expecting glamor. I am a stay at home mom, after all.

I think these items summarize my attire. A trusty clean hankie for the pocket, a beyond red red for the lips.

I decided to try some jewelry today. Every now and then the children manage not to pull it off. I had to make my choice based on sturdiness rather than preference. My two jewelry drawers are filled with dangly and sparkly and hippy earrings that I cannot wear till the youngest outgrows pulling.

I settled on a sturdy and pretty silver butterfly, which the baby set to chewing as soon as she might. I'm wearing my sometimes hipster glasses today to let my eyes recover from the poor nights' sleep when our A/C was out for over a week (tbtG that it's fixed now). My hair was entirely unwilling to submit at 7:35am, but it calmed down a little later. You'll be surprised that I chose to wear a tee shirt and jeans. My clothes are either shades of red, pink, green, brown, or black. Today's is a pastel version of coral.

I'm afraid I'm misleading you by showing you my sturdy black sandals. In fact, I go barefoot as often as possible. But supposing I needed to wear shoes today, these would be my go-to pair.

And of course, you're never fully dressed without a napping baby in a baby wrap/smile.

Go see what Lisa's doing today. (She's a day ahead.)

30 Day Photography Challenge

2011-09-15T11:32:00.001-04:00

Source: whitepeachphoto.com via Lisa on Pinterest

Lisa over at That's Why has taken up the 30 Day Photography challenge and invited us to join in. I have not quite gotten to the stage of moved in where I have an actual camera around, so I used my laptop camera for today's challenge. This is going to be a largely phone camera/laptop camera endeavor for me, actually. Here goes:

The Joan of Arc portrait.

Lifetime Channel commercial portrait.

A very serious and attentive expression.

When the baby inevitably joined me.

With both children. Pip thought it was a video camera, so he kept singing.

this morning's dream

2011-09-11T08:40:00.000-04:00

I was walking through our dream version house and went outside with Andrew and the children. Andrew and I saw a man dressed all in black, with a squarish black hat, dressed the way Orthodox priests or bishops or monks dress (I could tell he was an Orthodox holy man, but I don't know the dress well). We welcomed him and sat down under a bower made of woven ropes and jasmine blossoms. I told the man that we called it our monk's rope. It was like a cross between ropes woven by the desert fathers and wedding crowns. The man laughed, then spoke seriously. He said, "Come to Orthodoxy, and the Holy Spirit will come upon you." I looked at him defiantly and said, "The Holy Spirit blows where it wills." He didn't answer me, as he was already praying. He continued to pray for us, and I woke up.

I knew the man was a saint, but not which one. I thought of how Andrew and I both read St. Seraphim of Sarov's "On the Acquisition of the Holy Spirit" in the past couple of weeks. I thought of other prayer requests and began to speak aloud, "If the saints are praying for us..." I got no further before I heard laughter from a great cloud. If.

autumn autumnally

2011-09-05T13:03:00.000-04:00

The fall approaches autumnally. A wet rain catches on the breezey wind, splashing sideways horizontally into great puddles of water on the dirty ground. Verdant green fades to golden yellows and browns.

I'm just kidding around with the redundancies there. You can stop writing with red wax pencil on your computer screen. At least I hope you used wax pencil instead of sharpie.

Today, the weather reminded me of Cold Comfort Farm, which has some of the most masterful use of hyperbole in writing that I have ever read. We watched the movie first, became fast fans, and I read the book later. I was not very disappointed with the book. It has its own merits and strengths apart from the film. But Kate Beckinsale's Flora is so well-played that book Flora left me pining.

We must have watched Cold Comfort Farm first on video tape, in our small newlywed apartment over by Duke's West Campus. At the time, our big weekend plans usually included wandering around Visart video to find films neither of us had seen that we wanted to try together, and films only one of us had seen that we wanted to share. There were duds of massive proportions, occasionally, but mostly we found fun movies. Cold Comfort Farm was one of them.

I remember the first time we watched it together, sitting on our horrible old $40 "reupholstered" in hideous plaid quilting fabric 1970's college couch, eating microwave popcorn from a bag, since that's how we made it back then. Little parts of the film made us laugh and rewind, the whir of the VCR covered by our hilarity, our hoots and gasps and belly shakes. Our TV, on its last legs, didn't like some videos, but it must have liked Cold Comfort, because I remember the images clearly.

The funniest part of the film by far is the sermon. It's the reason why Andrew and I sometimes still shake our jowls (such as they are) and intone, "There'll be no butter in hell!" But the film is full of moments calling for catchphrasage.

At least a few times a week, twelve years after we watched the show, we still look at each other in mock alarm and mutter, "No, Flora. No."

Our children like the film as well, though it will be awhile till they get its jokes. I'm hoping in a small corner of my mind that at least one of them will say to us someday, as he or she is leaving for college or similar, "I mun go abroad in one of they Ford vans."

One can hope (optimistically).

changes and sameness

2011-09-02T15:23:00.000-04:00

Of course, this has long been painted over now. But this was the first time I glimpsed the old house with no more phoenix berries:

Our house goes on the market today, and I find the permanence of the move is really sinking in. We have so very many happy memories in that little house, and now we get to make happy memories here.

I have made sure to put some things in order right away: the prayer station, the tea cabinet (above), and the stash of children's Christmas gifts, the closets. You'll be glad to know that the new tea cabinet has the top shelf teas on the actual top shelf. I have added a couple of small things to the cabinet since this photo, but you get the gist. Bulk tea leaves, groupings of varietals, a few tins of red bush tea.

I have a bad head cold today, but I hope to get things in order enough in the play room this weekend to give a little tour of that space soon.

what grief should look like

2011-08-29T18:17:00.002-04:00

I caught this rain shower (so much more beautiful in person - full of golden diamond fat drops of sun filled rain). After I made a video of a snippet of storm, I realized that such a shower is much like grief should be for those who believe in a promise.

time to pour it out

2011-08-24T13:03:00.000-04:00

When your heart is full, it's time to pour it out. We have so many joys and sorrows right now. The new house is lovely. The children are wonderful. Moving is very stressful. We hired movers a second time for this Friday (hopefully the hurricane won't hit till Saturday!) to bring over the things we did not have time/space to pack before (or in the case of the attic and store rooms, that we forgot about). There is the everyday sadness of my dad's decline. And now my Aunt Paula has lost her beloved husband J.T. Just ten days ago they found out he had cancer. It was very aggressive, with tumors appearing overnight. He died this morning.

I'm glad to have this place to take my overfullness. It's a little entryway to prayer. Jesus, lay your head in the window, and hear some sinner pray.

One of the main reasons we bought this house was that we knew we would have a prayer station right where this one is now. Pip immediately started referring to this place as the house with the Nave. He calls the back porch the "back Narthex." It's a just right spot for our family, though we pray all over the house, of course. Days like today, I'm especially glad it's there. A silent reminder that God will wash the mud off the pearls of humanity, will pluck us out of sin and death, and that we have not lost our shine even as we go down into the dust.

packing

2011-08-16T22:32:00.000-04:00

berry nice

2011-08-13T12:54:00.000-04:00

The first room is painted! Our dining room is the aptly named "strawberry red."

one hundred things to do

2011-08-11T17:37:00.000-04:00

My babies are being subjected to videos and sparse photos these days, because I have had a hundred things to do. I could exaggerate and say a million, but I truthfully have had a hundred. And they've been tiring. I have a hard time talking on the phone to most people, especially strangers, and I have had to talk on the phone a lot to get contractors lined up. Plus, my eye has been healing from a cornea injury for the past two weeks (I can wear contacts again on Saturday, or maybe tomorrow if it feels okay), so there were several days when I could not drive. Then there's the packing, and the requisite moping due to my dad's rapidly declining health, plus the fretting over whether our current house will sell quickly (I sure hope so!), and general being a mama-ness.

Tomorrow we close on our new home. Saturday begins the whirlwind of carpeting, painting, and organizing so we can move in next Friday. We are grateful that my mother in law is able to come to help us for a week. She and Pemberley are thick as thieves, so her being here will give me more time to sort our household.

I have spent a fair amount of time over the past month worrying that Pip will take the move hard despite our preparations, but I think they are actually paying off. We have been talking up the new house and telling "social stories"- an idea given us by our friend Rebecca - and taking Pip with us whenever we've visited the new place. The social stories have been easy since three of Pip's little friends have all moved in the past year or two. We have also really appreciated the Usborne book "Moving House," which is an informative picture book laying out all the stages of a typical move.

Well, I told you that to tell you this: on our final walk-through today, I showed Pip how there are two pathways for playing chase on the main floor, and oh, did we laugh! Pip and Pem both cracked up as we played one of Pip's favorite games ("chasing") around and around through the kitchen, dining room, living room, and hall. I loved hearing our laughs echo in our soon to be home.

[In fact, I think the house wants us to be its family. From the first time we entered it, I felt as though the house was asking us to come and be a happy family there, to make it a happy home. I could almost hear it laughing with us this morning.]

As we rounded out our walk-through in the yard, Pip discovered the joys of tossing pine straw in the air. The wooded berms in the front yard are a just-right forest for a little boy. I have a feeling that tents will be pitched, picnic blankets lain, forts imagined, adventures waged in those small woods. All my anxiety about snakes faded away as I watched our son play in our perfectly safe yard, my own childhood in trees chuckling at me in his wonder.

We are going to like this new home.

a different type of service

2011-08-10T10:13:00.001-04:00

When Justin Martyr wrote his famous apology, one of the things he listed in favor of Christians was that they would pray for the Empire. Another was that Christians made faithful and fearless soldiers, since they believe in the resurrection.

Christians have always had a variety of views on military service, but the tradition is very strong in seeing the virtue of service. One of the ways that Christianity adopted the language of Homeric virtue - glory being the aim, usually through some sort of physical accomplishment (think of Ajax fighting on with a spear sticking out of his hip as a sort of model of the pagan variety of the virtue), with tales of heroes going forward - was through the pervasive idea of spiritual warfare. Wait, you might say. That's like in a few verses in an epistle and is not that big a deal. But you would be wrong.

Monasticism, in all its forms, and the Christian life of prayer are devoted to this model of life - wrestling with the aid of the armor and army of God against spiritual wickedness (which seeks to corrupt the world around us). The greatest struggle is with one's own passions and failings, but we also seek to heal the world through prayer, to grab hold of the freedom of God and not let it go, even if anchoring the peace of God in this plane means giving up our own lives.

Even in our highest prayer, the Eucharist, with language of peace pervasive, the fight is on. When we praise the thrice holy Lord of Hosts, we are talking about a God with thousands upon thousands of armies of praise. The fierce hosts of God - the sabaoth - singing holy until the universe quakes and changes. That's a fierce way to pray.

A few days ago, in my headachey delusions, I wrote a very confused blog post that gave a very false impression of my beliefs and values, but that also revealed some of my laziness in prayer. I took it down because it was too poorly written to bother editing. [Note to self: don't try to write clearly when you have a freaking migraine. (Which advice I'm breaking right now, so I hope I'm doing a better job today.)] In it I was trying to write about two pervasive and, which I failed to convey, equally admirable, tendencies in how we talk about manly virtue - [Christian] Homeric virtue and [Christian] Platonic virtue. I also forgot to point out that Christian men, most of the ones I know or have read about, anyway, seek both paths, because they are both part of the Way of Christ. I think I was trying to put into words the things old men might pat a young man on the back for in different subcultures, but didn't get that across. Like Myers-Briggs traits, I think we all have been trained to an extent in both Homeric and Platonic streams of virtue, with one or the other being more extroverted than another at different times and in different situations.

So, a guy who makes his living thinking might keep the seeking for truth as a more intimate quest, but talk more about how cool his active hobbies are, and some guys might talk openly about their quest for truth, but keep their physical fitness private, and so on. And usually there is a tendency to one front or another - glory or philosophy - being presented to the public. I say this without judging how one goes about it, just noting some tendencies I've observed in different areas. Most of my Texas friends and relatives tend to talk more about outward things, which is totally legit, because that's more promoted in the culture. Here in our town with four major universities and grad schools, a lot more people extrovert the nerdiness. They still do a lot of the same stuff as my Texas people, but they don't talk about it the same.

Because of my history of living in a very violent household growing up, I have a lot of passions of violence to fight. These are my battlefront. I cannot discipline my children with spankings because I cannot hit without anger and malice. I have so much anger and hatred that will leap out from my past, from what I saw and felt as a child, that my healing is to walk a path of nonviolence. I am perverse and broken and would kill and maim and hurt without meaning to. I would lose my mind. I'm sorry I'm this way, but all I can do is keep healing and keep finding the harder way, the way of teaching and trying to heal with loving touch. I know that warrior hands can be hands of healing, too, but my hands can only touch to love. I have to teach my children as best I can to walk a different way than the one I grew up with. They may be able to shoot guns one day, but I should not. I'm a violence-oholic, I guess. I can't play violent video games because I get too happy killing imaginary creatures. I find this tendency in myself repugnant and can only cling to the hope of the cross, which, as St. Athanasius pointed out, was a violent death to break the cycles of violence in our broken world.

Anyway, getting back to that first point about soldiers. I think war is evil. I think it's a sign of our brokeness. But I think soldiers are amazing. We pray for the war dead and wounded several times a week, but I had not been in the habit of praying for them specifically in my daily prayers. That was lazy of me. Very few people feel a call to pray for the dead these days, and I, who am called to do so, neglected these persons in need of prayer. So I have committed to pray through ten pages of casualties by name every day during Pemberley's morning nap. When I get back to the beginning, I will alter the prayers slightly, to pray for the persons' friends or family or some particular aspect of comfort for their loved ones. Some of the names call out for special prayers, because of the way they died. This is a path of tears, but I am not afraid to walk it. I am very grateful for these soldiers lives and for their families' sacrifices. The loss of virtuous and wonderful humans is why I hate war, after all. I want so much love to pour in and heal the vacuums left, to seep in and brighten both memories and futures.

I hope that those I offended will forgive me for writing something so stupid the other day. I am truly sorry and humbly repent. But besides my issues, which are many, I want to look to what we who do not serve through bearing arms might do to serve those who do, while also serving our various faiths. The takeaway for me, besides not trying to write when my mind is boggled, is to do as old Justin Martyr suggested, and get to praying. I am going to pray more often and more specifically for living soldiers and for those lost. I know I do not understand the pain of their loss, but I hope I can help heal it.

For a list of casualties, if you would like to pray or say a thanks to these persons or the universe, look here. If you want to see how close to home the casualties of war really are, see this graphic.

more cowbell needed

2011-08-09T10:37:00.000-04:00

The children, but especially Pip, have developed a low grade fever over the course of the last day. No other symptoms. Must be a weird summer cold being fought off. Or just a sign that I have neglected my cowbell duties.

Speaking of ding-dongedness, these packing boxes are taking over the place. I feel a bit like the clacker of a bell with running into something every time I turn around. Andrew has been the champion packer. He boxed up at least 90% of our books already, which means we are 30-40% packed right there.

You know what's a pain to pack? Bed linens. You don't want them falling all over, so they have to go in boxes, but they take up so much space that they require lots of boxes. I am resisting the temptation to just pile them in the car and dump them in the middle of our new bedroom.

We have not tackled the Time Lord storage room, which is apparently bigger on the inside. I think, but I'm not certain, that I have actual gardening equipment in there somewhere.

The wineglasses and teacups are all packed. I just took this photo to say goodbye to the phoenix berries mural. In a couple of weeks, it will be primed and painted over in a blank and ready house.

At the new house, we are going to have some really cool spaces. We'll use one end of the big basement for a music area. We'll have a giant school-sized bulletin board covered in cloth on our dining room wall for child and friend art display (except for the framed art of friends who are actual artists). And we're going to do a new take on wall murals.

Andrew has this really cool idea for the wall at the bottom of the basement stairs. We're going to put a Celtic door, probably a reproduction from the Book of Kells, on the wall so that it looks as though you can enter a new world through the painted door. I like the idea. I will probably use that door a lot.

Love and gender and the theatre and virtue

2011-08-07T22:16:00.014-04:00

In the past two days, I have answered my front door with a cup of rice in one hand and a bag of rice in the other (today), and with Pip's "Winifred" crown and flower hair on (yesterday). I was opening the door to strangers coming for things I'd freecycled, but still. I think I may have given off something of the nutty intellectual aura. I don't mean to not have manners, but I routinely forget to do important things such as give my name, take off costumes, or set down the rice first when talking to strangers on the phone or at the door. I still am always a bit surprised to find I forgot to give my name to new acquaintances. I am not used to thinking of myself as important enough to notice, so I forget that someone might want to have a little bookmark on our encounter, a way to call up the thought of me again. Other than, of course, "that lady with the bright skirt/wig of flowers/rice in hand." It doesn't help that I am chiefly addressed as "Mama." I'm just not used to my own name mattering much, I suppose.

But I am mainly writing today to talk about something else entirely. See, Pip and I went to see Once Upon a Mattress, which Pip of course loved. All week, Pip has been coming up with Prince Winifred costumes for himself. I am usually Prince Dauntless, Pemberley is Lady/Princess Larkin, and Papa is the Wizard. (Princesses in Pip's scheme tend to be any persons in especially fancy dress if not otherwise designated with a catchy title. Pip also dressed up in costumes after seeing a Mozart program, for instance. I think Mozart might be a princess in Pip's scheme, too, if he weren't even more coolly a composer.) Yesterday at church, for a noonday service for the Feast of the Transfiguration, we allowed Pip to continue wearing his crown/lei hair ensemble. Today we decided to let him wear his Winifred (flower) hair (a costume he invented, by the way - very clever) to church again, but did not let him wear his pink "dress" over his regular clothes. Andrew was concerned that Pip in full Winifred costume might distract other worshippers. Which, if you'd seen him in his crown and "hair" made of several silk leis streaming around his head, you might think was a rather extraordinary claim. But that was Andrew's logic.

I wondered if Andrew was just feeling the pressure of making Pip conform to societal norms, which Andrew conceded was possible. So the crown stayed, but the pink dress (made of one of my shirts) waited at home for Prince Winifred to return. I figured that even if I'm pretty comfortable with Pip exploring characters regardless of gender, it would not be right for him to feel that his creativity was making his Papa uncomfortable. I thought that there was a chance that some of the old folks might not understand a boy wearing a pink dress as a creative, rather than a defiant, act, so I agreed with Andrew's compromise. Pip wore his headgear but left the dress at home.

Which brings me to the thoughts I'm thinking tonight.

One of the problems with the gender binary is that it codes certain neutral behaviors as mandatory for full humanity for one sex or the other. If anything "makes" people gay, I think it's the overstrict adherence to gender norms as though they were sacrosanct instead of culturally constructed and variable across humanity. Some places, boys wear dresses; others, girls. If you tell a boy or girl that they are not masculine/feminine because they like a certain neutral behavior, you are making that child feel exclusion from one gender class, which in a binary system forces them to identify with the other. I believe that sexual identity is on a spectrum, not a binary. It's perfectly fine to be an "effeminate" straight man or a "masculine" straight woman, just as there are feminine/masculine LGBT folks.

Giving someone feedback which suggests that they might only be accepted/acceptable if they identify with one group/subset or another is certainly damaging, whether such constrictive feedback plays a large or small role in sexual identity or not. I believe we are shaped by our habits, as I've said before, and that sexuality is not predetermined in the way that mythologies of being "born straight" or "born gay" suggest. There are no gay babies; just babies. So, if we give young persons negative feedback just because they step outside a hard and fast gender binary line, we are confronting them with a series of imposed choices: Will I act like a boy or a girl? Will I fight to prove that boys/girls can do ___, too? Will I act this way even though I offend an important person?

I think these are stupid and fruitless questions because they are aimed at supporting ahistoric and unyielding notions of gender norms that have little to do with the Kingdom of God or fullness of humanity that is the glory of God. I don't want my son falling into a series of stupid self-reflections because of narrow mindedness on my part (and neither does Andrew, by the way, in case my summary above gave you the wrong idea - he just considers a little more about what others think/isn't willing to provoke confrontations as much as I - and he was right). Besides which, there are so many different ways of understanding masculinity and virtue, and I would prefer to spend time helping my boy be virtuous rather than fitting a middle class standard of "boyish" identity (guns, cars, pants, etc.).

Which is what I really want to talk about: different standards of male virtue.

When we were in Texas twice this summer, I was able to understand the different standards of male virtue in our usual social circle and that to which our friends and family in Texas are held (by broad cultural and marketing standards) better. I came to see that a lot of our Texas acquaintances pursue (or are told they ought to pursue) a Homeric form of virtue: glory through violence (shooting, cars, video games, killing stuff, sports). To be a real man means guns and glory, with some technological or tool savvy as a good bonus. Football. Shoot stuff. Physical fitness. Competition. In the Homeric model, it can be scary to do nurturing or creative activities such as theatre or parenthood; such departures from the killing/glory model of virtue call into question one's real manhood. It's not that holding a baby is unmanly; it's that Ajax is standing in the background with that spear in his side, going, "Okay, you can do that only because you know how cool I am." The badass mentality requires that the glorious bits be fulfilled in order for a man to have the cuddly parts of life and maintain street cred.

Contrast that scenario with the type of virtue pursued in our family: Platonic virtue, with the highest good being philosophy. (Okay, so we're Christian NeoPlatonists and think theology is higher, but we're talking broadly, here.) Art is a manly pursuit in this frame of virtue. So is study and math and singing. The goal is the pursuit of truth, not glory, with habits of peace and civilized debate and moderation aiding the pursuant. Pip is following this model of virtue. I am doing everything I can to keep him away from violence, which is against my understanding of our faith and against my understanding of good habits. Pip's father is a virtuous man in the Platonic model. He practices virtues in pursuit of knowledge and truth, and humility is one of his hallmarks.

Given these very different views of what it means to be a man, I have no tolerance for those who would cast artistic and creative temperaments as unmanly. There are simply [at least] two very different models of manliness at play. Without even entering the flip side of the gender binary into the question, masculinity itself takes too many forms to discount certain areas of behavior as unmanly.

Well, anyway, that was all a long way of me saying, don't think I'm just one of those "I love them whether they are ___ or ___" moms. I don't believe in the choice between ___ or ___. I believe it's all so much richer and more complicated than that. But I needed to say that so you would know that when I see this boy playing so creatively, being so alive, all I see is the glory of God. All I feel for him is love.

Above: Our beautiful boy Prince Winifred, who is a princess and a prince. He is so bright and creative and funny. He sings most of the songs from Mattress now. I am particularly fond of his "Shy" and "The Swamps of Home." You haven't cooked till you've stood at the stove while being serenaded by a wonderful little boy singing (in tune, mind you), "I come from the land of the foggy, foggy dew." And by the way, he swam the moat! (Something I've heard a lot lately.)

Making the new house breathe

2011-07-28T09:37:00.000-04:00

We are excited about our new house. The final approval on our mortgage came through, so we are set to go forward, provided some necessary repairs are made. I'll admit that as soon as we were under contract, I started choosing colors. As soon as the house was inspected and looked basically sound, I chose the rest of them. We collaborate, of course. Pip picked out the purple for his new room, which is much brighter than the camera thinks it is, much more red and, as Rebecca said, masculine. With a name like "grape juice," I suppose you can imagine how vivid the color is to the eye.

One of the things I really like about the traditional layout of our new home is that we get to paint so many rooms so many colors! (Yes, we have hired painters.) The basement gets light from a wall of floor to ceiling windows in the main room, plus large windows in the small office. We are painting the whole downstairs and all hallways/stairwells a pale peachy white called "Pale Silk." I think the color will really bring the sense of light deep into the 24' long basement room, and it will make the small office down there have a brightness necessary for the purpose of the room - a writing studio for icons and longhand writing.

Now for pictures.

Our bedroom is the garden green, with a bright rosy master bath. I wanted a bright yellow in the children's bath, similar to what we have in their bath now, but even brighter. Pip has bold purple, and Pem's pink is deep and warm. I am grateful for a small laundry room as a separate space, because I needed lime green somewhere in the house. It's going to be fun to walk around upstairs, a real treat for the sense of sight.

Our main floor rooms are quite bright as well. The orange for the kitchen is a bit oranger in person. The cabinets in there are white, and there is some blue detail work on the tile backsplash. We decided to make it pop rather than go a traditional route. Orange is more fun. I like that the orange kitchen and the blue living room (almost teal to the eye, and brighter) are opposites and that the strawberry red dining room complements the kitchen color. The colors will help to create movement between the rooms even though the doorways are not especially large. We are going to eat in the dining room and have the children's play kitchen and tot tower in the eat-in nook in the kitchen.

The living room has floor to ceiling windows on the far wall as well. We plan to put two desks at that end of the room, one a small writing desk for correspondence, one a secretary where we can keep a laptop. At the end nearest the front door, we will place a round tea table, with our nice wooden bookshelves against the wall to the left of the fireplace (which we are converting to a wood burning stove). The center of the room will have two chairs flanking the hearth and our big couch and coffee/play table. We'll actually have a real living room for the first time! We plan to keep only "classic" and communal children's toys in the table bins - tea sets, train sets, block towers, a few large playsilks. Most of the toys will live downstairs in the 12'x24' play/learning/music room or in the children's bedrooms.

About the big basement room: We have dubbed it the Nave based on Pip's description. At the far end by the windows, we will set up our family chapel and iconostasis, with liturgical playthings, worshipful books, and such. The center of the room will be devoted to two play stations, one with a chalkboard paint wall, one with safety mirrors to aid creativity and dress-up. The end nearest the stairs will be the [violin shop] music area with a piano and our string instruments hanging on the wall. Our smaller couch goes down there, too, for a reading nook. The wall next to the stairs will be lined with bookshelves.

I am very excited about our new place, even though I have so.much.packing to do in the next three weeks. I'm hoping to get the chapel set up before we move in so that Pip has a refuge in all the moving rush. Did I say Pip? I meant all of us.

One more thing. I want this icon to hang over our new fireplace:

It says what it needs to say into the silence, without being pushy with visitors.

why we went

2011-07-27T13:51:00.000-04:00

We have had quite the busy summer, with a long trip to Texas in June, contracting for a house, another trip to Texas for my sister's wedding this past week. And now we have to pack and hire contractors to fix up our old place and new place. Plus planning on how to make the move the least stressful for Pip, who will probably take it hard. I think we'll let Pip pack his favorite things, his juggling and liturgical equipment and instruments, then take them and him over after saying "bye-bye" to the old house. He is not going to want to go, I know.

We were a little nervous about the radon levels in the new place, but the radon mitigating people assured us that they are probably even lower than our already safe zone tests indicated. The company actively discouraged us from trying to reduce the level further right now, which I figure is a good sign that we were fretting over nothing.

That stress is out of the way now, as is the stress of travel. Rebecca really helped me out the other day. Andrew and I had a stupid fight that I felt at the time was The Biggest Deal in the World. But then I talked out the real issues with Rebecca, saw that reparations had already been made, and the fight was downgraded to the level of "stupid." It took less than five minutes of talking with Andrew for us to be bff again. I guess that's how travel stress works.

One of the issues Rebecca helped me sort out - I know, she should have charged me a nickel for psychiatric advice, like Lucy in Peanuts - was whether to go to my father's funeral when it happens. There are real barriers to my attendance, such as extreme stress for my family, people in the extended family I would like to avoid, lack of funds, and probable offensive ceremony since my kind of mean grandmother will be in charge of it. What Rebecca pointed out was that we can have a memorial service for my dad here. I was all, "Brilliant." We have had a Eucharist dedicated to the memory of Andrew's grandfather before, so I know it's possible to have a small service here. We can pray the prayers we need to pray without having to run the children through another very stressful bout of travel right after a move (assuming his life expectancy really is a year or less). She also reminded me that I came to Texas in June for the sole purpose of spending time with my dad.

I came to see him while he was alive, I made him a CD to die by, and I have told him I love him. The last time I kissed his bristly cheek at my sister's wedding is probably the last time I kissed my dad until the resurrection.

I want to share some joys with y'all in upcoming posts, but I needed to talk about this. We went to love him. Bye, Dad.

the next stage

2011-07-24T18:26:00.000-04:00

The past few weeks, I have been a bear in the not good way. I have just been angry under the surface. I tried really hard to merely observe the feelings. I knew they came from grief, even though I don't understand why. I would nearly lose it for no reason, and I would take deep breaths, telling myself, "It's just the anger stage of grief. It has nothing to do with anything present." But of course it has everything to do with the present. All this joy, and my dad is dying. Grrrr. I took to counting to ten a lot, taking lots of deep breaths.

Then today I tagged photos on facebook from my sister's wedding. I felt myself slipping right into bargaining. So irrational. If I just tag this photo of my dad and sister, he won't really be gone. I held it together when they danced, just barely. I had to make that video for her, for all of us. To make him still be here somehow. Tag tag tag. Can I have my dad back now?

So few people really change. My dad has worked very hard the past few years to overcome his addiction and bad habits and anger and what all. Becoming a grandparent gave him a sort of grace. He is not perfect, but he started really loving us all better, becoming a doting grandpa and kinder father. And then he started to die. His decline is steep, as we guessed it would be. In June I understood what he said. This weekend I did not understand a single word. He works so hard to smile.

I am starting the sink of grief, the terrible overwhelming of loss. Once, twice, thrice underwater. I'm trying so hard to get through this well. I hope that by ceasing the struggle I can float on the waves of sadness, that by observing my own pain and stupid grief thoughts without judgment, that I can stay afloat. I don't trust it, though. Something in me wants to fight. I just don't want to fight the wrong way, to turn my own struggle into drowning.

When I try to hold on, when I reach out to touch some substance I can hold, my mind goes back to our first garden. I recall my dad tilling and laying rails and reading the books and choosing the plants and telling me about why he planted each seed where. The marigolds bordered to keep out rabbits. At night we would put old apples or slices of good fruit on the top of the clothesline to watch the fruit bats swoop down to grab them. I feel the proximity of green things, almost as though I will open my eyes after blinking and be there.

Is this the same for everyone? Do we all hold onto a garden as a hope? Maybe he'll wake up there and I will be there, too, amongst the squashes. Dad will be by the pepper plants, marveling at their size and bite. He will smile at me when I see him in the garden. "Look at this pepper. It's a miracle." His strong hands will be dwarfed by the bounty. We will laugh with all the fruiting world redeemed.

princess or godmother?

2011-07-15T18:35:00.000-04:00

So, my bridesmaid's dress came in for my sister's wedding. I tried it on tonight. Mind you, it would have been more elegant had I taken off my capris first, but it was still pretty. My one question is, do I look more like a fairy godmother or fairy princess? Vote in the comments if you are so inclined.

A magic wand, of sorts.

Tut-tut. We think it looks like rain.

Smiling at the baby.

Happy birthday, dear children

2011-07-13T21:05:00.001-04:00

The good news about birthday cakes is that Pip really only cares about the candles. My first attempt at a home baked birthday cake tasted great but looked very sad. Pip refused to even taste it, being three and sight sensitive to foods. Pemberley enjoyed her piece of her brother's cake, and she liked her chocolate chip cookie (with one candle) tonight.

The kids are so cool. This morning, as I was waiting to turn onto a busy road, I commented on the presence of several big trucks. Pip piped up from the back seat, "Those trucks are hooooge (huge). [pause] Big trucks are similar to cars. Cars are small, but those trucks are large." I made sure to make a mental note of the conversation, because I'm always at a loss to explain how Pip's advanced logic and vocabulary play out in little, unimportant everyday ways. He is just always bright.

Pem is equally precocious in her way. She has expanded her vocabulary recently. She says "up" to be picked up or to go upstairs. She says "out" when she wants to go or see outside. Some words are still difficult for her, such as "cup," which comes out "aap," and sounds a lot like some other words yet. Pem says, "candle" and several other nouns, too. What's impressive is that she's conversational even though she cannot say more than a few dozen words yet. Pem clearly understands and interacts in conversations. She gives fives upon request and says "Yay" and claps on cue.

I don't know how to convey the fun of being the mother of these two. Sometimes, such as this afternoon, I am completely overwhelmed and have to step aside and cuss a blue streak or otherwise complain to the Lord in order to get it together. It's very difficult with two little empaths when they pitch hissy fits together. Today's was a doozy, with Pip crying till Pem cried, each cycling louder, for no reason whatsoever except that Pip didn't like letting Pem take a turn with a toy. Jesus and I had words. Meaning, I lost my cool to the Lord and asked for help. Then I had perspective again. I knew the volume of the children's cries was just a test, and that it would pass if I waited. We all calmed down, and after institution of a timer, the toy turn issue was resolved.

The empathy spiral can go both ways. When one child is happy, they are both happy. Later in the evening, Pip delighted himself and his sister by playing with a spray bottle. We got to hear baby chuckles and boy giggles. They will grow to find each other's joy to be a great strength in time, and I'm glad to see the beginnings of their shared gift of laughter now.

Pip's sense of humor is developing a lot lately. He tells jokes, some of which are only funny because of how hard he's laughing, but some are pure comedic gold. (A recent Pip joke involved substituting the word "elbow" for "banjo." It was hilarious.) I love watching him and his baby sister in her own way, provoke others to smile.

Tonight, Andrew picked up the ukulele before we took Pem up for night-night. He serenaded his daughter with an impromptu birthday song. Pip, wearing nothing but a dress-up cape, came into the room and danced while his Poppa sang. Pemberley looked up in wonder and smiled. I joined in the sort of chorus that Andrew invented. It was a moment of pure grace, just what one would wish if one blew out the candle.

Sometimes I feel like a

2011-07-13T10:33:00.000-04:00

Week like this, I wish I had a normal mom. I called her on Friday to tell her we are under contract for a house, and she was stoned out of her gourd. She replied by telling me she was giving my sister various impossible amounts of money for her wedding, and she complained about not getting the child support money owed her. From my dying, disabled dad. For three children all over the age of nineteen. It was the overdose of pain meds speaking, obviously. I made an excuse to get off the phone.

Yesterday morning, during Pemberley's nap, my mom called twice in a row. I thought when I saw the first missed call that she was calling to wish her oldest grandchild a happy birthday. With the second missed call, I knew she was really just trying to blind side me with some sort of dramatic news. I hoped she was calling from kindness, but knew better. I called her back, wanting to get it over with. "Hey, can you call your dad's cell? Tina won't tell me anything, and I want to know when your dad is getting out of the hospital. [dramatic pause]." I no longer react to that kind of bullshit. My dad's girlfriend, Tina, is not keeping information from anyone. My dad is just too paralyzed to answer his cell phone unless he knows it's important, and even then it's beyond him most of the time. I replied calmly that, as she already knew, I did not know anything about my dad being in hospital, but I would ask around to see how he was doing. I thanked her for letting me know, refused to engage her bullshit about her perceived rival, and reminded her that it was my son's birthday.

[Turns out that my dad tried riding a bike, but it was beyond him. He crashed, and sustained heavy bruising of his ribs, shoulder, and face. The injuries made it even harder for him to breathe, but my grandma says that he will go back to the VA soon to get a CPAP (sp?) machine to assist him. It really is terribly sad if you dwell on it, a man trying to do what he's done for fifty years, his body failing. No more childhood glee of a bike.]

Today, my mom again called during the baby's nap. She apologized for calling so early, even though our house had been up for nearly four hours by then. She forgot from the previous times (usually) that she calls during morning nap. I thought she was calling to wish her first granddaughter a happy birthday. Nope. She called to see if I could pay for various things for my brother. We like to help out my younger siblings with their schooling and employment when we can, but I like to talk directly to them about it. Today she kept throwing out [random?] amounts of cash my brother allegedly needs for different life advancements. She mumbled some of the list, so I am not even sure with which items she thinks the numbers were meant to correlate. I told her I couldn't talk on the phone about this, that my brother should message me with what he needs, and we would get back to him. I reminded her that we are buying a house, and therefore we are low on funds for a few months.

I woke up this morning with that Peter Pan song about Wendy - we have a mother, at last we have a mother - and I felt the irony. It has been hard as hell not mothering my mother my whole life. She is a leech, but I think I have managed pretty well to coat myself in leech repellent. I don't want my daughter to ever feel the same way about me. I seek her respect, not her pity. I love her. I am glad to be the adult and mother to her. Somewhere along the way, I must have learned how. Or God must have instilled some sort of mothering knowledge into me, through tears and bread and wine.

I plan to be happy with my girl of joy today, to take her outside to play, her current favorite (she points and says, "out! Out!"). I just had to mourn a little first.

off my chest

2011-07-11T19:01:00.000-04:00

This post is about bras, so my five guy readers can stop now if they want.

Pemberley is day weaned now, which means she only nurses at night and until around 9am. I have cut back to taking my gogues only twice a day, afternoon and evening, and feel much better now. The meds sank my blood sugar, so that I always had to have a snack at 11am. But better health is not the best part of this story.

I have real bras again! I know. Happy dance. Nursing bras, bless their hearts, are not lined very well. Their goal is to not squish or in any way alarm breast tissue. They do not promote modesty of the nippular area. I am so glad to have teeshirt bras again (they came in the mail today!). I can wear ordinary tops (not nursing tanks), and the view is headlight-free.

Pip turns three tomorrow. Pemberley turns one the day after. I packed up my breast pump and supplemental nursing systems to give away today. All the stressful bits of nursing are over now (except the very mild stress I face about taking my galactagogues).

I have really healed in this year of nursing Pemberley. I look back at my time with Pip, and the parts that scared or scarred me have healed. All the stressful bits with Pem are past and pulled into perspective by the present joy.

It won't be long before Pem will lay down in a bed for her naps instead of sleeping in my wrap. These days of so many cuddles are flying by. I better get back to them. There is a boy here who is pretending to be a kitty cat that needs to be held.

a non dream house

2011-07-06T10:06:00.000-04:00

Andrew and I have long played with the idea of a dream house. Ours has a walk out basement, lots of light, and is very energy efficient. There is space for icon writing and writing words, space for a homeschool and library and a lovely sitting area for tea. Outside has room for planting a few vegetables and a lot of flowers. There is storage and a place for a skeeball court and exercise equipment. Sometimes the bathroom has solar tubes, sometimes other natural light. We thought for awhile that we would build such a house, then decided that property prices are too high here, that we should be happy with where we are.

We are very happy here, which is why we almost didn't notice that this house was on the market. It's not our dream house, but it is as close a proximation as we are likely to find, especially in the area we prefer. We are going to be house poor for a few or maybe six months, but we can afford it. Our little home is bursting at the seams, so I guess finding the new place is pretty great timing. Our good friends Rwob and Miwranda clued us in to the prospects, so they are largely to thank for the great timing.

Despite being very busy this month with the children's birthdays and my sister's wedding, we are also going to be negotiating the purchase of our not dream but real house this month. Don't expect to hear a lot from me, but do expect photos if we buy the new place.

I think a not dream house is so much better than one only longed for. I look forward to gushing about the new house's virtues if all goes well.

the ones descending carried beeswax candles and strawberries

2011-06-27T13:04:00.000-04:00

I got my teeth cleaned this morning, and grief caught up with me as I sat still. I started thinking of my late friend Dameron, with his little wine stained teeth. I thought of how his teeth incinerated when he was cremated, and of course I thought about how my dad will die soon. My dad's tattoos do me in. When I look at his wasted arms, the tattoos so much larger in proportion to his shrunken muscles, I feel stricken. I keen. I think of how they will be buried, too. No one will see them again. It's easier to think of the tattoos than of his face, already so filled with pain.

I try to observe grief, to say, so, here are some strong feelings. Now cut the berries for the children. My biggest fear is dissociating. I cannot take refuge in the plain and quiet corner of my upper mind. I have to be here and now. A beeswax candle sits by my computer. I smell its drunken gold smell, rub the top to a shine. I think of grief as ascent and descent and remember the angels on Jacob's ladder. These things are good: berries, children, beeswax, pianos. They are part of the upward journey of the soul's ascent to God. I can't help but think that grief is the same, that it meets us on our way up, its downward pull dragging down the worthless things but not the good. If only I did not get the two confused.

I got home from the dentist craving sugar. I chewed a mini cupcake and spit it out. The craving passed, but the feeling of inadequacy did not. I should have been able to overcome the craving without a cheat. I don't like eating a lot of sugar; it makes me feel sick at tum. But I apparently like the feel of cake in the mouth. Chewing and spitting out seems like what one expects from a bulemic teen, not from an overweight and inadequate mother in her thirties. I rub the beeswax again, try to see the shine come up. Can I let myself have grace, too? Can I wait to let the shine come up slowly in my person?

I try the Jesus prayer some more. I was praying it at the dentist. I feel self pitying. My vision is caked. I have to pray with movement to get out of this corner. My hands look as though they have been burned. They are thin skinned and cracking, despite the lotion.

My hands remind me that I am frail. They remind me of the song, "There is a Balm in Gilead." I hear my children laugh. I decide that they are on the right path. I turn and smile back into their glorious faces. Again I am ascending.

Gamesing

2011-06-22T21:50:00.000-04:00

I have been out of pocket this week while leading VCS (Vacation Church School) games each evening. This year's games went very well, and I had a great helper. He was a younger teen whose quiet personality blossomed enough that I got to experience his hilarious sense of humor the last two evenings. One of my favorite parts of leading VCS games is setting up a goofy enough premise each night that the teen leaders feel free to really lead and come out of their shells. I get so happy seeing gifts flourish. These evenings out in the heat and skeeters have been full of joy for me as I watched kids work together and saw them learn by doing (my favorite type of learning/teaching, though I'll admit it's easier to teach than to learn sometimes).

A bonus of the week has been snack times in the air conditioned kitchen, where I have been able to chat amiably with the volunteers in there and others seeking food/coolness. I found myself talking about my dad in good ways, sharing his love of gardening and a little of the garden lore he taught me (such as companion planting corn and beans, a very old practice that we don't always recall these days). One woman sort of ambushed me when I was on my way out to set up tonight, asking how my father was doing. In case you hadn't caught on, y'all, I don't sugarcoat death and dying. When people ask me this question, I answer, "He's still dying." Then I give the current state of his abilities and if I know them and think they would like to know, an update on a good visit and peace/closure therefrom. The particular questioner tonight lost a parent to ALS, so I imagine she really was asking because she needed some space for her own grief. She said she had lost [a parent] to the disease and therefore knew what it was like. That's how I know that she was in need of airing her grief, because she has no idea what it's like for me to lose my father. My father who was Good Dad and Mean Dad, who taught me to garden but also, but also, but also.

I find that I don't think so much about the but alsos these days. I am not mythologizing my dad into a person he was not. He really did beat me and cuss me and do a number of terrible things. But he also was the only one who stood up for me when my uncle molested me. He was there for me when I was a child. He married my mom when she had a bastard, and treated me as best as he could as his own daughter. It's remarkable that I didn't know he was not my biological father till I was fifteen. Sure, he told me in a horrible and cruel way, but he had really claimed me up till then. I had a Daddy growing up because of him, even though he was jacked up. He taught me that telling the truth was important, even if he didn't always follow his own advice. He made me strive for perfection, when my imaginative nature might have led me down wishy washy paths. I resented the hell out of his perfectionistic standards, but who knows if the academic discipline they inspired was not a large part of my salvation?

I don't want the good interred with his bones. It isn't the Christian way. We take the gold from the Egyptians when we go our way. We redeem the times, for they are evil. We tell forth the joy and speak of how God has made a way where there was none.

I don't think I will take the children to his funeral when the time comes. His funeral will be the only occasion where I have to be there and so does my molesting uncle. For my part, I can be around him without touching him, but I do not even want him to look at my children. There is no way I'm exposing them to a known pedophile. My aged grandmother will not understand if I approach her about keeping the uncle from the children. She denied what happened at the time, and the shock to her of a continued assertion of the truth after thirty years would only do her poor health a poor turn. No, I will mourn my father. The children will wear black accessories for a month, but they will not be brought into harm's way to flatter anyone's sense of propriety or faulty history.

I have wandered far from my starting point, but there you have it. We are walking through days of joy and sorrow mixed. It was never the joy that was the problem; it was the mixing. But also our fullness of joy has come to us. But also He has set us free to choose His way. But also joy fruits out of every soil. But also the flaming sword of the cherubim cuts the bonds of anger and fear. But also we dance.

gangsta style game pun

2011-06-19T15:19:00.000-04:00

I'm back to leading VCS games again this year, after a little hiatus to have babies or travel the past three years. This is my seventh year helping with games at vacation church school, my fourth hands-on. I list the games over on the Building Christians blog, if you want to know what we're planning. I find that accessories do more than hollering to get the attention of the munchkin set. For today's Garden of Eden game, I went with subtle.

banjopera

2011-06-17T17:36:00.000-04:00

So, I rented a banjo today. I've wanted to play the banjo for a long time now, and have been mulling over rental for the past couple of years. After holding one in my hands today, I decided the time had come. I am learning basic clawhammer style strumming from youtube videos. I plan to get a teacher soon, but want to get a callous in place first.

I have this idea that I can get to the point of accompanying opera arias on banjo, for what I like to call "banjopera." I think it will be such fun.

Maybe you'll say I'm having a zany sort of crisis since my dad is dying. I won't argue with you. My father's mortality definitely got me thinking about what I want to do before I die. I am also learning to belly dance, very slowly, by instructional video. I plan to belly dance to some awesome Middle Eastern Christian liturgical songs with a good rhythm. I think maybe an idiosyncratic theme is emerging in my new pursuits.

By my 35th birthday, I hope to be able to play, "Happy Birthday" on the banjo and to belly dance to an Eastern hymn. What are your current goals?

To the chapel

2011-06-17T09:21:00.000-04:00

While we were in Georgetown, Rebecca arranged a morning picnic at our Alma Mater, Southwestern University. See her post here. We had fun playing outside, of course, but it was extra special to get to take our children back to the place where their parents grew to love one another and where we married. The chapel is where Andrew and I would meet to sing hymns late into the night at least once a week. Our song is a hymn we often sang together there, "Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown." We used to sing all of the verses to the poem when we were not too tired.

The windows above the altar. Our camera was overwhelmed by the morning light and didn't catch the images well. But you can see the little diagram of the Trinity there. I used to draw that diagram for my Divinity School students, to help them come to terms with thinking of God relationally (Distinctions within the Trinity are by relationship, not division of time or duties.).

I had a little time alone with Pemberley while Rebecca's children were at the fountain and Andrew and Pip were checking out the theaters and chapel. Pem and I played with the wind, which kindly caught the playsilks and ruffled them over Pem's head.

Pip loved looking at the theaters in the arts building, then running across the grass to the chapel.

In lieu of blocks, Pem stacked bottles.

Pem was cutting a molar and enjoyed chewing on the bottles as well. I took advantage of the distraction and put her in a silk crown.

Pip enjoyed going down the long aisle. I remember going down that aisle to meet his Poppa for marriage nearly twelve years ago.

Pip stood in the light from a stained glass window in the spot where his father proposed to me.

Pip liked that there was a lectern for singing, "Alleluia!"

Of course Pip needed Poppa and Pem to go to the other microphone to sing with him.

I like that Pip knows how a church building should be used.

Triple blog warp

2011-06-17T08:11:00.000-04:00

Every now and again, Rebecca and I break science by entering one another's blogs. On our Texas trip, we stepped into the unprecedented vortex of a triple blog warp. That's right. Rebecca welcomed Kara of Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow at the same time as she hosted us for an evening of play. All our children got along swimmingly (some of them even swam).

Proof, but not mathematical.

Fun with stickers

Sydney and Pemberley were fast friends.

Jack and Sydney were excellent hosts, sharing their toys freely.

For more photos, check out Rebecca's post. It was great to meet Kara for the first time in real life. I find that I like her even more in person than in writing!

a lovely book

2011-06-15T09:29:00.000-04:00

A church friend asked if we would like her old children's books, seeing as her grown son was not going to be a father. Of course we accepted, since we love books. We didn't expect there to be so many nice volumes, including first edition Dr. Seuss books, a big storybook from the seventies I recall from my childhood, and this gem of a book from the friend's own childhood. I have put a sampling of the topics and illustrations, but I don't know how I can express what a happy little book this is.

mission accompli

2011-06-09T20:12:00.000-04:00

It took a fair amount of money and an awful lot of not taking things personally, but I got to have lunch with my Dad today. I started a food fight and totally won against my three year old nephew. Dad got really tired after lunch and was not up to anything other than watching the kids - ahem - or if I'm honest, also me, play in the fountain outside the aquarium for a little while. He stayed long enough to wave to us all as we went past on the shark tunnel train, then had to head home. But I got to see my dad and have some conversation with him, and to share a meal with him, to butter a piece of bread for him and pass the bruschetta. Small homely things, to make his living real.

I have loads to think on about our trip, but for now, I am feeling peaceful. Our primary objective was met. I got to tell Dad I love him again.

Cooking class

2011-05-31T09:36:00.001-04:00

We have been enjoying our visit with Andrew's parents thoroughly. We've had lots of good conversation and storytelling, and Pip and Pemberley have enjoyed playing with their grandparents. Pem is especially enamored of her Noni. It's kind of adorable.

One of the things we learned while fighting off Andrew's depression over the past couple of years is that we have both cut off a lot of possibilities by not knowing ourselves well enough. I didn't admit to myself that I am very smart and intuitive, and we never quite acknowledged that Andrew is not just an empath, but a sympath. He actually feels what others feel. Upon reflection, it appeared that the source of a lot of the apparently bad parts of his childhood was him feeling the emotions of the adults around him as his own. They didn't know that he had such a level of sensitivity. How could they?

So, having reevaluated our relationship based on nondepressed feelings and self knowledge, we figured we'd all get along swimmingly. And we have done. Which is awesome.

On Sunday, Noni and I got to be in a cooking class at Vimala's Curryblossom Cafe. We learned a lot of interesting tips about cooking in general as well as how to cook a chicken curry, a bhaji, and a dal. Yes, everything smelled wonderful, and no, we have not had a chance to collect the requisite spices to try it at home yet. What a fun experience, though. Vimala is humble and brilliant, so of course she is a great teacher. I got to stir and chop and ask questions, and I look forward to future classes.

During the class, I took a moment to snap one of those classic "we were here" photos.

At Vimala's just before the class.

ribbon people and the way of life

2011-05-25T12:35:00.001-04:00

The other night I had a terrible nightmare. There were ribbon people all around, and the challenge was to keep them from touching your bare skin and turning you into one of them. The people were normal to look at, even lovely. But from a distance you could see who they were, bent into the shape of black ribbons. I woke up terrified as a glowing faced woman touched my bare arm. When I slept, I entered the same dream and found that the ribbon people had touched Pip as well, my greatest fear. When dawn broke, the meaning was clear. I was dreaming of mourning. I feared to have my sensitive children, especially our deeply empathic Pip, touched by grief.

Andrew and I talked about it, and I knew that what we are really dealing with is an opportunity for grace and courage, not fear. We get to show our children how to love someone who is dying. I hope that I have shown a little of what it means to love the dying by making the CD for my Dad. But like all roads, the path of grief leads to the liturgy.

Pip playing Feast of Peace in one of my tops turned altar robe.

I am grateful that my children know and love the liturgy. Already baby Pemberley acts out the Eucharistic feast ("Alleluia! Cracker!") and offers us bits of her bread after raising it into the air, a tiny thanksgiving. Pip loves to play liturgy at home, with playsilk chasubles, icon gospels, prayer books, crosses, prayer ropes, candles, and of course, his processional cross.

I know that Pip will need to play liturgy during our Texas trips this summer, during which we will say goodbye to my dad and also celebrate the love that persists in our extended family (even if it is broken in many ways). So I made him a travel processional cross. I'm letting the glue dry one more day before he learns of its existence. [Update: Actually, it was dry enough to let him check it out today, for a few minutes. See below.]

I made the five marks of the Paschal candle with glitter glue and let it dry out of his line of sight for a few days. That gave me time to order and receive the necessary folding meter stick. The travel cross is made of balsa wood, much lighter than his pine home play cross. With it, we will pack a few icons, playsilks, an LED pillar candle, a little Methodist Book of Discipline from the forties that he has adopted as a childsized altar prayer book, and his little chalice.

We may not be able to find a Eucharist while we are traveling, but Pip will have the resources to play out what we want him to learn in all of this. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Death has lost its sting.

angels unawares?

2011-05-18T18:06:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend, my sister Kristin was hanging out at our cousin's place, which is just down the road from the uncle's house where she and the babies are staying (where my aunts dote upon the twins and toddler son - yay!). The cousins and some friends were just standing around talking, when a guy no one knew walked up to him and started hanging around. They offered him a beer. He accepted and hung out with the group, though he only spoke Spanish. One of the friends who was bilingual said the guy's accent was Guatemalan.

Anyway, my sister's horrible boyfriend whose terribly abusive and negative comments pushed her over the edge recently (He told her, while her PPD was in full swing, that she was the worst mother he had ever seen. Ack!), was also there. He became aggressive toward my sister, getting in her face and threatening. Out of nowhere, the strange Guatemalan comes up to the jerk boyfriend and tasers him. The police came and escorted the boyfriend home with a warning. No one saw the stranger leave.

?????

Okay, I'll take what I can get. Talk about guerilla prayers answered. Way to go, God.

New prayer request for my baby sister: Keep her from danger, and if she walks back into it, send an angel with a taser.

I'm not mocking

2011-05-17T09:37:00.002-04:00

But last week was Children's Clothing Week, wherein many parents devoted themselves to making new clothes for their children's summer wardrobe. O_o

I bought my son some new teeshirts at Target. I already spent the early part of spring scouring eBay for adorable dresses for Pem. If I were responsible for making my children's clothes, I would frankly have to have some other old style drudgery skill to barter so someone else could make them instead, lest the kids wind up in artfully knotted tea towels. I think I would pick soap making or maybe baking? What is a good trade for some clothes? 12 dozen scones per dress, 2 loaves per tee?

Anyhow, I appreciate the beauty and sentiment of handmade clothing, but it is something I have to purchase, not make.

There's a fun side to the green supermama expectation that one be a seamstress. I get to spread the good news of my favorite Etsy sellers to all the women who ask me every week if I made the snack bags, wet bags, and skirts I bought from women with actual housekeeping skills. In honor of the current buzz (or is it the hum of sewing machines?) about sewing, here are my favorite Etsy stores:

Petunias makes the best snack bags and little snack bags. Easy to wash and use, and the different patterns make it easy for parents to identify which snack is where. For instance, the bunny bag always has cheddar bunnies.
Rosie's Whimsy makes custom circle skirts. I have four comfortable and colorful skirts made to my size from this shop, and I plan to purchase more eventually. Rosie has a fabric store from which you may choose. I love getting skirts that really fit me since I'm pear shaped plus sized. I can get a skirt a few inches longer to fall to a flattering length over my large hips, and there is no problem with the 10 inch difference between my waist and hip measurements.
Victory Garden of Tomorrow makes really cool eco/green living posters, postcards, and teeshirts. They are beautifully printed, and the artist sends informative updates to those who sign up for his newsletter.
Pig and company: Tea cozies!! Really artful and whimsical and lovely ones.
Blooms N Bows makes floral hair clips that hold up to babies and toddlers and my crazy arse hair, too. She is making a custom order for us for my sister's wedding.
Amanda Rose Bridal makes "eco bridal" clothing, which is vintage and feminine and all upcycled. I custom ordered a skirt from her for my sister's wedding. I intend to wear it for years and let the children play with it as well. I like her combinations of beautiful and funky, sky and earth.
Granny Zann makes my favorite baby bloomers. I have a couple of pairs in Pemberley's current size so I can slip them under any dress or top and complete her outfit.
Marie's Stuff makes great cloth diaper inserts. We have several sets of her fleece/flannel Gdiaper inserts.
Artistic Cotton makes lovely pillow covers and other textiles at a much lower price than you can get in stores. I got bright, pretty, washable pillow covers to replace the suede and silk ones ruined by baby life for our couch pillows.
The Anglin Artisan makes the flannel washcloths/hankies without which we could not function. Pemberley is afraid of the tub right now, so she gets a good flannel scrub every day instead. The hankies are bright and soft and fun to use.
Crea8tive Mama makes necessaries for women's monthly needs in bright flannels, at a much lower price than what one might find in a store. Plus, she's a fun person to convo. She makes everything from liners to post partum.

Now you know that maybe I have a little bit of an Etsy obsession. You should also know that I am not recompensed in any way for mentioning these sellers. I just really, really like them, so I though I'd share.

I hate Lou Gehrig's disease

2011-05-16T20:53:00.000-04:00

Let me assure you, dear friends, that at this point in my life I am not in danger of being disappointed beyond what I can bear. Therefore, let me have my little hopes. Encourage them, even. It is ever so much nicer to have a hope fulfilled than to be proven correct in a bad assumption.

I talked to my Dad at last tonight, after learning today that he does not make phone calls anymore due to his already very limited ability to speak. His phone was not commandeered by a malevolent stepmom as I was told before (most of my mom's information is suspect, so I sort of thought perhaps she made that up at the time). In fact, the phone had to be reset, as it was malfunctioning and only beeped incoherently at my dad, not telling him I was calling at all.

My dad can hardly speak. I understood most of what he said, but with Pemberley eagerly trying to join in the conversation, my attention was too divided to make out several sentences. Pemberley, ever the prophet, waved at her grandfather's voice and said, "Bye-bye!"

My father loves me. I knew it was the case, that the old hurts could go ahead and finish healing, that the good memories could float to the top and purify the whole. He liked the CD. I heard him struggling to form the words through a half paralyzed throat, that the music was pretty, and that he thanked me for sending it. I want to send him anything I can to make him well. Chocolates, myrrh, the relics of an important saint. He's dying when we've only just started to be kindly without the interference of alcohol.

When I remember my dad, I think of my sunshine filled childhood, the good days. I recall the bad ones equally well, but they don't matter as much now. I remember my dad tilling the land and hoeing rows for a garden, of the eggplants he grew, and how proud I was when I found a fat yellow squash he and my mom had not seen, since I was lower to the ground. He still remembers that squash, too. If he could talk better, he might have brought it up tonight.

I can feel in my spine the rough denim and soft flannel with the pearlized buttons of my dad's work clothes when I was five, and he was the best and strongest part of my life, the one part of creation I was convinced would keep me safe during a thunderstorm. My parents did a lot of stupid, selfish, broken things in their lives. But there was so much they showed me. I know the smell of yeast from beer brewing in the kitchen, the smell of real French onion soup like my dad had when he was in the army in Germany. I know to cook with salt. I can fry vegetables so that they stick, and I am not afraid of fruit bats. I have yelled "bullshit" during the Cotton Eye Joe, and I appreciate the playing of a good fiddle.

My first operatic training came from my dad, singing in a ridiculously high voice early in the morning to wake me up:"Good morning to you! Good morning to you! We're all in our places with sunshiny faces, so this is the waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to start a new day. Good morning to you!" He would hold the "way" for a very long time, in falsetto. I hear him telling me that Beverly Sills was the best American opera singer, and that I should say so if anyone asked. I earnestly nodded my head yes, wide eyed in my ignorance, but wanting to please my dad. Of course, Dad. Of course I'll say she is the best.

There was fighting and tears and anger and pain. My parents lost babies, so many babies to miscarriage, and I suppose that broke him down. I could not have known why he turned more and more to drink or how he could not get out once he fell down the hole. The beatings were not as bad as the hard words and the hardness of my own heart as I set my eyes on survival and escape. Then the years between us, flowing along with healing as I healed. And for the past few years, a sort of concord. A sort of affection. A sort of blessing. Then this, a cruel disease dragging him down into the depths, talking and moving like a man slowly freezing to death, drowning while on land. That's how they die, you know. They drown in their own bodies, in the dry air, lungs filled up, body frozen, mind alive. So unkind.

That's why I had to send my dad the CD. Because I know what happens. (I believe God in his mercy will take my dad before he is frozen in his immobile person. I think he has a few months, time to make peace and arrangements. Time for his grandchildren to meet him.) I have heard that the ears go last, those tiny muscles resisting the pull of paralysis longest. I want him to hear a word of grace in his last days, a word of hope and love. Mercy, mercy, Lord, have mercy. It may be that those songs are a window to light when other paths fail. Christus victor.

Borage!

2011-05-16T09:18:00.000-04:00

My garden is trying to tell me something.

We planted these seeds last year, and they didn't sprout. Then, this spring, the pot was completely filled with seedlings. I thinned to two when I saw how big they were getting, then waited. I thought maybe we had some primroses? Then there were blooms, which my gardening friend immediately spotted as borage blossoms. Borage is an herb that soothes and gives courage. How timely, especially because we didn't expect it at all.

Pearls before swine -updated

2011-05-15T19:05:00.001-04:00

I sound bitter to myself, but the truth is, that I don't think my dad gives a care that I made him a CD. The whole honor your father and mother beeswax is harder when your parents refuse to be honored and don't care much for you. So far as I know, my dad has not listened to the CD I rush delivered to him yesterday. He has been avoiding my calls, not answering my texts. (If you don't want someone to know you are avoiding their call, put your phone on silent. Don't turn it off after the first two times they call in ten minutes; it goes straight to voice mail and gives you away.) Last night, after he avoided my phone calls, I had a sad thought. I remembered how he discarded me when my siblings were born, his "real" kids. I remembered how he rejected me, told me I was not his daughter. I remembered how he told me he doesn't love me as much as my siblings. It hurt. But then I had a liberating thought. Yes, that happened, and it hurt. But it will not happen again. Not because my dad is planning on deciding to love me all of a sudden, because he probably will go on avoiding me for the most part. No, it will not happen again because somewhere along this path of trying to know what father means, I switched my allegiance. God is my father, and I know I will never be rejected or made to understand myself as inadequate or less than or unlovable. Sounds cheesey, but it's true. Plus, I have learned detachment. Other people's stupidity and hardness will not stop me from doing what I think is honorable and loving or from living up to my own sense of integrity. But they also cannot hurt me by making me think my actions depend on their reactions.

These things happened, and they hurt. But that won't happen again. A pearl in the mud is still a pearl. I hope a light shines forth from the gift I gave my dad. I hope he knows a little of the love he has rejected.

There is so much hope in the liberating thought. Our futures are not determined by the wounds of our pasts. One dad who doesn't care much for me does not keep me from loving my children or from sharing the love with others. One set of painful rejections does not stop me from shining a light. So someone pulled down the blinds against the light. Should it stop shining? No.

So, another painful thing happened. It was sad, but it will not happen again. Thanks be to God.

UPDATE: After all that, I finally got my mom on the phone to see if she knew if my dad had gotten to listen to the CD yet. She said he did and he loved it and called my mom and aunt and said it was beautiful. Turns out the wicked stepmother has been ignoring my calls on my dad's cell phone. He has been laying around resting, and probably doesn't even know I tried to call. So I guess he's being Good Dad and not the old Bad Dad that I feared. (Those of you with troubled families will understand how you have to compartmentalize addicted parents' moods.) I am really glad he likes the CD, as music is one of the only paths I have to connect with my dad these days. He still should have called or noticed or something, but I can forgive a dying man for being too tired to talk. I could forgive him for rejecting my gift as well, but I'm glad I don't have to.

goofy Derby hat, etc

2011-05-14T20:23:00.000-04:00

This is the British look after I foiled it by cracking up over pretending to be British.

This is me in the hat au natural when I first trimmed it. Except for by au natural I just mean I wasn't wearing makeup or an overshirt. Those are real clothes in the photo.

Today I sang at a funeral for a church friend's mother. It was cathartic and also centering. The deceased was by all accounts a fun and lovely and dignified lady who lived a long, accomplished life and died peacefully. Her family are tall. I was around 5'8" today in my short heels, and I was a shorty.

I know there will be a lot of questions through which to sort when my dad dies. I hope I can make some decisions ahead of time, such as hymn choices, the service venue, the preacher, and burial options. Most people in my family are uncomfortable with cremation, but I would want my dad to be cremated. Not sure how that is going to pan out.

I was there today as a singer, so I had a sense of professionalism to distance myself from strong emotions that might otherwise have been evoked. Day to day, I just make myself not dwell on the sadness. I notice it, feel it, but set it aside. Grief is a door that won't stay closed. I'm sure it is a metal thing, the way it squeaks and disturbs my soul. Some broken metal object is lying in the grass, and I will trip on it, again and again. It shouldn't be here in this garden.

There is detachment that is healthy, and there is cynicism. I don't want to fall into the latter. My expectations are low, but I hope they are not jaded. I want only to be at peace as best I can with my father before he dies. I hope I can bless him. I hope he will tell me he loves me without sounding awkward and apologetic, but I don't think it will matter much how he says it. I just want him to know I mean it, that I love him as he is. I am not crazy or drug addicted or unstable or dead or dependent on him like the other witnesses to the worst things he did. I remember vividly what he has denied ever happened. And yet, I have been changed by a God with terrible mercy. I know mercy is what we fear more than judgment, the loss of control, the surrender to another. The terrible fear of the Lord is fear of his great love, not hellfire, not judgment or justice. We reap what we do not sow. I have forgiven my dad and tried, in these last days, to show him some of that mercy. I know it's scary, but I hope he can accept it. God's mercy is the ground for our peace. There will be peace between us somehow, Daddy.

I want my sister mended. When I go to prayer for her, I stand like an apostle in a triptych, pointing. What can I say? Fix her. You are the Potter; mend your clay. Do not let my sister go down to the dust in despair. Heal her. I am a witness, pointing at my sister, at the cross. Lord, have mercy.

And yet

2011-05-12T10:17:00.000-04:00

There is a Balm in Gilead.

After all that was going on, I still slept well last night and woke up with a song of praise filling my mind. I find that I am able to rejoice even in these things.

Geewhiz, was I grumpy

2011-05-11T11:58:00.000-04:00

Last year I was grumpy, though I thought my grumpiness was justified at the time. Now that I am in a different place, I believe even more that acting out like a jerk is never justified. I had not realized while I was going through it what a drain the end of my friendship with Sharon had been. She grew increasingly negative and draining at a time when most of the people at my church were pretty sore and my beloved was deeply depressed and most of my other friends were either down a bit or depressed. Now that so many months have passed since she called off the friendship, I can see how our talks, once encouraging and edifying, had turned poisonous. I don't blame Sharon. I understand a lot more about depression after reading up on it to help my husband come through it and after fighting it so that my children would be relatively unscathed. I know now that depressed people focus on the negatives in life, both as symptom and cause of the depression. Thus the downward spiral. So when I would talk with her about a problem, her advice was not from a sound place anymore. I didn't know my own vulnerabilities either. I was so busy trying to make strong and clear boundaries by which to steer our family that I sometimes enforced them cruelly.

I am grateful to have a clear head again and a clearer heart. The best advice I received during the darker days was from our friend Linda, who, upon hearing how some family members had hurt our feelings, wisely and gently suggested that they were our family, with the implication that working it out was probably a good idea. I wobbled through the end of pregnancy, literally and emotionally, trying to regain the perspective I needed, a long view where God's healing wins. When we all have to be together anyway, eventually. We found the tools to beat back the demon of depression from our family. New habits, new ways of listening and talking. New trust in one another. And then I realized that I had been overly grumpy to my in laws. They make mistakes like everyone else, but outside the cacaphony of depressed condemning voices, it's clear that they are good people. I actually like them a lot. I had forgotten that.

We still have to hold down strong boundaries with all our extended family. I still have to shut down many lines of conversation with my mom to prevent a descent into hateful speech. We still have to enforce a "no pestering Andrew about the piano" rule with Andrew's parents. We still have to tell various relatives that our chidren's personal space is sacred and not to be transgressed. We will have to guard the children against cigarette smoke and lies and unworthy comparisons. We will have to tell truthful stories to help the babies stand strong against the vices of others that may buffet them. We will pray and pray and pray. Those things are positive steps we can take. Now that we're not in crisis management mode here, though, I think those steps are worth it.

How can we suggest that God loves a broken world if we do not model to our children how to love broken people? How can we tell them God restores if we do not seek to restore broken relationships? To rebuild a devastated city, we start with boundaries, then walls where appropriate, and so importantly, doors. I think, even though our visits with family this spring and summer will be hard work, they will be good work. I expect good fruits to come of them. After all, whatever hurtful things we've said over the years, we still love these people.

whining about TV for kids

2011-05-09T15:36:00.001-04:00

On the first Sunday of the month, there was a good sermon distinguishing between mystery in the Christian sense and the pat answer, wonderless world of children's programming. The rector mentioned that his kid sees maybe an hour of cartoons a week as a reward. I like the idea of avoiding a lot of children's programming, though Pip doesn't watch any of the shows mentioned.

Except for Muppet type shows and Richard Scarry's Busytown, Pip only watches shows where the characters have British accents or are actively teaching him to read. (I know. I'm an Anglophile.) But I just can't hang the whole no shows for the kids thing. Pem does not watch shows, though she does swipe iPhones and iPods (and says, "iPhone" already). But Pip gets to watch a couple of hours of shows a day. More like, he watches a couple of hours, and the shows are on for four hours or so, without him watching them, but just on autoplay on the iPad.

I just can't come up with enough tiny quiet activities to keep Pip entertained through two naps for his sister plus times when I need to attend to something else. I am home with the children for 9 hours a day by myself. Even if Pip would go in for an activity for 15 minutes, which is not guaranteed, that makes 36 twenty minute slots for me to fill with education and play for him. All of my friends are all, "my kid watches maybe 30 minutes of ___" a day, and they also seem to be able to cook meals fairly often and have clean houses. Those women are superwomen or something. I am not jealous of them, but I have no idea how they manage. For my part, I don't feel bad if 8 out of 36 slots are filled with Busytown Mysteries and Kipper or WordWorld or SuperWhy or Angelina.

At least one other slot is filled with us dancing with playsilks. At least one slot is filled with singing and rhythm instruments. At least two slots are taken up with liturgical play. A few for meals. A few for books. A couple for cuddles and wrestling. A couple for games. A few for potty time. A few for cooking. Several for water or sand play. By the end of the day, my floor is entirely covered in toys dragged out by both children. I probably did laundry and made a meal or two. (I cook a couple of big meals a week with leftovers, and we usually eat out on Sundays.) I probably did something creative, and so did Pip and Pem. I probably wrote a little. I read at least ten books. I drank a couple of pots of tea. Pip pottied on big potty all day, running naked. Maybe I shopped for needed household items, maybe I chatted with a relative. But at the end of the day, my kids are still really bright and not at all dumb, and very into mystery. How the hell I could cut out TV entirely at this point, I don't know. Maybe when our patio umbrella comes in this week, we'll be able to go back to an hour a day plus more on Fridays (video Fridays, I call them). Once my pale children can cut up outside without burning, I can definitely see us scaling back the shows. But, oy with the hard and fast judgments already. If I'm quiet when the subject arises at playgroups, it's because I don't know if the other moms are lying or if they have a bad sense of time or if maybe they really are one of those people you read about but don't think you'll actually meet. Or maybe they have low maintenance kids who will quietly weave grass into ropes and catalog butterflies or some such at the ripe age of three?

Sometimes I look at my amazing kids and think maybe I'm kind of a shitty mom to them because of the TV. Then I think about how I'm not a shitty mom because I love them and they know it. Then I think about how stupid it is to doubt myself based on the hours in which the iPad is spieling a freaking sheep made out of the letters S-H-E-E-P, when my two year old reads the letters off of every sign he sees. Right now he's building a giant block tower. A minute ago he was making a dot art project. Before that, he was pottying on big potty. He sorts. He plays pretend. He talks like a really smart eight year old. The kid has more synonyms than some adults I know. I think maybe I need to turn off the TV guilt before I turn to cussing. Stopping before I do just that.

Two more songs for Dad

2011-05-08T09:33:00.000-04:00

Here are the links to two more songs I recorded for my Dad yesterday. Give Me Jesus and Senza Mamma

Check them out if you'd like. I still have to record "There is a Balm in Gilead," "Deep River," "The Angel Gabriel From Heaven Came," and a new hymn called "Late Have I Loved You" that I'm adapting from a poem by St. Augustine. I think the order will probably be something like this, though I may end with "Steal Away" instead:

Amazing Grace
Over My Head
Give Me Jesus
There is a Balm
The Angel Gabriel
Senza Mamma
Deep River
Steal Away
Late Have I Loved You

I am aiming to get everything sorted before our Texas trip June 5. I plan to give the CD as an early Father's Day present. I am really grateful to have a little time to show my Dad in a small way that I love him, that my heart is green and not bitter. I will never forget his voice, and I hope that my voice will be a small consolation when he loses his own, too soon.

I realize I'm making you guys feel awkward. Like, oh, she just mentioned her dad is near about dead again. Let's look at the wallpaper and whistle or get really interested in a freckle. I love y'all just the same. It's enough that I can say what I need to say.

A summary of all mommy blogging

2011-05-07T11:18:00.001-04:00

1. If you are a hippie, you can live in a really small house with aplomb and little else. As long as you don't mind bed sharing, making your own products, growing your own food, and sourcing your very few material needs from thrift stores, you can live the magazine life. Be greener than thou. Be cheaper than thou. Be a hippie.

2. We should all get along, but we don't, so my way is better.

3. If science fails to persuade you, I'll play the poor card. Poor people need our help. Either to tell them how to think, behave, or to sustain life. Without money, you cannot possibly know how to do any of those things as well as bored upper middle class white women.

4. My kids are smarter than yours because I make them do flash cards before I let them eat.

5. My kids are dumber than yours because I'm such a cool laid back mama.

6. My kids are smarter than yours despite my abject neglect, which doesn't really exist, but I want to sound kind of cool instead of really, really assertive and awesome, owing to my self esteem issues.

7. Here is how to use paste and scissors.

8. Teenagers!

Did I leave anything out?

Songs for my Dad

2011-05-05T11:36:00.004-04:00

UPDATED: I redid the video with higher sound levels. You should be able to hear the songs now.

I have started my recordings for my dad. Here are the first few. They aren't fancy, just the way I sing around my family. And I'm sorry, but you might have to turn your speakers way up, because I am kind of incompetent yet with recordings and adjusting levels and so on. In order to keep the mic from oversampling, I turned down the levels, but that made the songs really quiet. The "video" is just a pile of flagged photos I pulled from my iPhoto library. You've seen them before if you read this and the Poppets blogs. (Except for a few of our tornado shelter on a potting training day, if you're wondering why the bathroom photos are in there.)

gushing about Pemberley

2011-05-04T15:58:00.000-04:00

Pemberley is so cute and happy and full of joy. I love getting to be her mama. I could not have imagined a daughter as wonderful as she. Every day I am surprised by her brightness, her sense of humor, her increasing skills. I am glad in the richest way that she is our daughter, Pip's sister. What a wonderful little child!

hugging strangers at Whole Foods

2011-05-03T15:00:00.000-04:00

On my birthday, I once again found myself hugging a stranger at Whole Foods. There was a woman there with a pretty labrador, whom I complemented (the dog, that is). I noticed that the dog was wearing an unusual harness, so I asked if the dog was a helper. The woman said the dog had saved her life, keeping her moving after a near fatal car wreck some years prior when the woman was 25. I told the woman she didn't look much over 28, so I was surprised when she said she was near about 40. Honestly, liking people and thinking well of them can get one hugged so. Part of me was all like, "most irregular. I say, what," and so on. But part of me was all, "well, isn't this just the peaceable kingdom?"

One of the lessons I've learned in years of paying attention to people and practicing healing prayer is that one must guard one's boundaries very carefully. Prayer and healing come from God, but they are still work for the healer, for the one who prays. Or for the one who hugs. (On one hand, I think hugs are great and would hug a lot more if we had a more demonstrative culture. On the other, I'm the mama who spawned a child who sometimes hollers, "No! Go over there. I need some personal space.")

On Sunday we talked about boundaries for those who pray in a prayer team meeting at church. I had raised the issue, saying that when near strangers ambush me with prayer requests (on facebook chat, for instance), that I feel the same level of astonishment as if they had come to my house, dropped off a flat pack, and said, "Here, put together my IKEA shelves with me." Maybe I like that sort of thing, and maybe I've set aside some time to do that sort of thing, but it's so rude to demand it. There are some people who ask for prayers in this way because they don't think it's work, because they don't think prayers are powerful. But I think most people who ambush prayer request us are just terribly lonely and could use a hand to hold. Holding hands is good work, but it's still work, too.

I know I'm rambling a little, but my point is coming. I've written here about how shaken we were by some of the ongoings at church a couple of years ago. One of the results was for us to withdraw largely and to be very much less trusting when we re-engaged a little at a time. I don't want to become self-protective in a destructive way, out of fear and anger. But I am very conscious now of how much work I put into church and the social dimensions of Christian practice. Prayer can take enormous discipline and concentration, and I am glad to share the gifts that were freely given me. But I have to start at home.

I have to hug my kids and husband before I hug the stranger. I have to pray at home for bumps and tumps and ways made and wisdom before I can help another see their way through the windings of prayer. And now I face a new level of challenge in walking in the Spirit. Remember how I can sort of read minds, but try not to most of the time? Well, my children have that gift as well, but more than me. This morning, I thought to myself, silently, that I would take Pip and Pem to the bookstore today to let them pick out a book. A friend sent a generous gift card for my birthday, and I decided to share the joy with my children - one book for each of us. No sooner had I thought the thought, than Pip ran up to me where I stood in the kitchen and began begging to have his surprise now. Then, a few minutes later, I was writing the words, "Duck food" on a nearly empty cereal bag in which I intended to collect floor sweepings of cereal for the ducks. Pem, sitting on the other side of the island playing, called out, "Duck! Quack quack!" Life with fellow intuitive empaths is rich, but will take a fair amount of work on my part in self discipline.

I'm pretty sure I will hug another stranger at Whole Foods some day, but I'm not going to sweat it if a lonely soul passes by without a comment from me. There's always the simplest prayer, a good wish, a current of love, a tiny word, "mercy." Lord, have mercy.

My people.

Happy Birthday

2011-04-30T17:57:00.001-04:00

This morning I woke up from a weird but affirming dream in which I was wearing a fun old pearl tiara I used to play dress up with my sibs and cousins as a teen. I found myself groping toward consciousness via the thought that I really needed a pair of cowgirl boots to go with my new skirts. Then I remembered the last time I owned cowgirl boots, when I was five. Suddenly I made a connection I had missed for the past thirty years. When I was four years old, my uncle molested me around Christmas time. My dad threatened to kill him and tried to beat him up, and my uncle kept his perv to himself afterwards, even though I still had to see him and his leering grodiness. For thirty years, I lived with the tension of thinking that was all my parents did about the situation. "Mess with my kid again and I'll kill you" and it was dropped. Why hadn't they done anything to protect me?

Then I remembered the cowgirl boots, and I realized that my parents did care about me, and had tried to protect me the way they knew how. They didn't just buy me boots. They taught me self defense. I was around 4.5 or 5 when they taught me how to take down a full grown man, using my strongest asset at the time - a really strong kick. I remember them teaching me to kick a man where the sun don't shine. I remember how my neighbors let me practice on them (poor men didn't think I would aim well, bless their hearts), until they saw that I didn't need the practice. I remember now. The instructions to kick where the sun don't shine, to scream, to run away, to tell. My parents may not have known what damage had already been done, and they didn't know how to protect me from other perverts who preyed on me as well, but they tried. They thought they had helped me, maybe thought they had mended me. A good pair of boots to stave off snakebite. They gave a care, and that makes all the difference in the world.

Today I turned 34, and I have this gift to show, that my parents taught me how to kick.

Here is how we celebrated in my little family, so different, but not lacking in a familiar spunk.

We went to noonday Eucharist. Pip fell asleep on the way to the church, but he woke up during the prayers of the people, in time for Feast of Peace.

Then we met our good friends Wob and Miwanda at Vimala's for a late lunch. I was a total dingbat at first, because the galactagogues wreak havoc on my blood sugar, and lunch was a little too late for me to feel comfortable. By degrees I regained composure, and then Miranda gave me this beautifully wrapped present! The gorgeous package was filled with pretty note cards, perfectly calculated to my happiness.

After lunch, we cut this beautiful pink cake! It was such a pretty pink cake, just what I wanted.

Pem was adorably dressed. She took turns trying to leap off out of mine and her papa's arms.

Pip liked the roses a great deal. All of the flowers have little finger marks now.

Sneaking the icing.

When we got home, Pemberley started playing with a little plastic wine glass. Soon her actions took on a pattern. She lifted the little cup in the air, holding a plastic bead up next to it. Andrew noticed the pattern. "Is that your cup of wine?" he asked. "Cuh uh wah!" she answered. Then, as we watched her smiling face, my baby daughter held up the cup, held up the bead, called it "Cracker!" and waved them a little, saying, "Alleluia!" At nine months, her first re-enactment of the Eucharistic feast. It's amazing what she already understands, how she already knows what's important. She can already tread unscathed on serpents. What a gift.

That it may please thee to strengthen such as do stand; to
comfort and help the weak-hearted; to raise up those who
fall; and finally to beat down Satan under our feet,
We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord. -From The Great Litany (BCP 152)

Easter candy

2011-04-24T22:38:00.000-04:00

We don't celebrate the Easter Bunny here, but Pip still had a little candy at our friends' place today. I'm going to try to keep the whole "it's about the candy" part of holidays at a minimum for as long as possible. Pip gets candy every day anyway, with a daily allotment of chocolate squares and gummy bears. I figure moderation will teach him better than quantities of low quality sugary treats a few times a year. Of course, this is coming from someone who always buys the Cadbury Cream Eggs for herself. Listen to me blab on. Just go look at the cute photos over on the Poppets blog and have a good day.

ingredients all the metaphors, mix

2011-04-24T22:32:00.000-04:00

I am making a CD of spirituals for my dad, to help him die well. The choir at church agreed to sing There is a Balm in Gilead with me, for which I am very grateful. I am going to hire an accompanist for some songs, and a few I will just sing, alone in the dark church. I will remember it dark, probably. I have been trying to get my voice back in shape as quickly as possible so that I can do a pretty good job singing. There is a lot of water under the bridge, and when my dad crosses over it for the last time, I want him to know I love him, that I forgive him, and I love him. And I believe in the healing of the world.

Those healing wounds seemed so close this Holy Week. Small parts of the story caught on the rough parts of my soul. I heard the story of the crucifixion twice. I have been buying my children's summer wardrobe, thinking of their small persons as I searched for clothes that suit. To hear about the soldiers casting lots was to be there, breath knocked out of me mother, watching someone take my baby's clothes. I had to stop a few times today to straighten my back, to unfeel the cross behind it. To feel the meaning rather than the stark physicality of the cross, just to give myself a space to breathe. I guess that's what these holy days do, give one a space to breathe. I suppose that is how the cross works, so raw and so transcendent and so pervasive that it can touch at once on the failing nerves of an alcoholic father and the voice of a tired daughter and mother. On my hands and in the ground, in the clouds and on paper. Everywhere a call to grace.

Baby girl has the sniffles today. One of the down sides to being at church a lot is exposure to the germs of the devout. I hope Pemberley recovers quickly and that we are all well again soon. I'd best get to sleep now so I can care for her better.

Christ is Risen!