How Do You Power Down Your Brain?

Spiralstorm

Spiralstorm (Photo credit: Stuck in Customs)

I’ve said before that I’m obsessed with sleep. This is because i don’t get enough of it, though not for lack of trying. I go to bed at 9:30, I take naps during the day when it gets bad…but I don’t sleep well. In these latter days, I can blame it on kids (last night’s count: Nicholas, 4; Michael, 1; total 5), but the truth is I never have slept well. When I was a kid I used to have long discussions with God, my head wedged up against the screen so I could see as much of the sky above the north pond as possible.

I don’t know if it’s a gift of nature or a learned skill, but my brain just won’t shut down. Ever. In many ways this is a benefit to my crazy lifestyle; my mind is always working in the background–not efficiently, of course, while I’m making grocery lists, cooking dinner or waiting for a child to turn a page–but nonetheless, the gears are always spinning. When I have a moment to work, I’m rarely starting from zero.

But the down side is this constant sense of urgency. I seem to have lost the ability to stop thinking. And so I’m not really living in the moment.

It came home to me this weekend when my sister visited. She loves little kids. She’s so good with them, too. Nicholas lights up whenever she arrives. He’d play with her for hours, and she’d oblige–happily. But me? Well, this weekend we were at last pulling clear of the Infinite Intestinal Virus. In other words: there was a LOT of cleaning to do. And I had this conference call for our Down Syndrome group, so I spent the first two hours of the visit closeted in my room, folding laundry and making beds while I listened to the discussion. (In case you’re wondering, my sister did know before she came that I had to do this call, and how long it would take. I’m not that much of a jerk.)

Later, I watched her play with Nicholas, the two of them obviously enjoying each other. And then it was nap time, and I groused about having to take the time to put them to bed. I had kite string to untangle, and I wanted that job instead, because that I could do while chatting with my sister.

It wasn’t until late that night that all the pieces clicked. Michael was lying across the Boppy, playing with me in between nuzzling the breast. You can’t really call it nursing anymore; he just wants to cuddle. He likes the one-on-one time with Mommy, and he doesn’t want me multitasking. Even my neck stretches sometimes raise objections. He wants me to play with his hand, tickle his ribs, and trade silly proto-words with him.

For once, I was doing it. No reading Thomas Merton, no reading Eragon to Alex, no brainstorming or making mental lists. I was simply there.

And it was fun.

This Lent I’ve been Powering Down along with my critique partner and blog friend Amy. It’s been very good for my writing: closing Gmail, closing Facebook, turning off the internet altogether if the temptation grows too strong. My fiction productivity has soared, and I fully expect this week, when I’m on deadlines, that it’ll serve the nonfiction side of things equally well.

The part I haven’t figured out is the personal powering down. The part where I nourish my family and spousal relationships, and my soul. I can’t simply stop doing everything else. I’ve tried cutting back, doing less work-related stuff, passing off volunteer commitments to others in the local organizations, but somehow the monologue inside my head doesn’t seem to diminish. When I’m with my kids I’m always thinking about how much I still have to do. And not just “me” things, either; some of it is about responsibilities to them. Grr! I still haven’t done homework with Julianna! We’ve got to be better about that! She needs our help to excel! Man! I still haven’t helped the kids finish their dream catchers. Oh, crap! I promised I’d listen to Alex play his festival pieces!

But I can’t turn off Michael, either. He’s always clinging to my leg, wailing if I put him down because I need both hands to use the salt grinder or carry plates with food. (Because I know what will happen if I try to carry him AND the food; he’ll simply smack it and the food will be on the floor.)

This is life with four kids close together.  There’s so much to do, I’ve placed my top priority on multitasking to try to get through as much as possible. But what am I giving up, with my brain powering through every day, all day, and every night, all night? I even struggle when I wake up to use the bathroom, to force it not to start up again.

The answer is: I’m giving up Presence. Presence in my own life.

It’s not an acceptable trade. There’s all the platitudes about kids growing up fast and regretting what you didn’t take time for…but there’s also the part where their overarching memory is of a mom who was never really fully present to them. They are so important to me. It’s time to act that way.

So although I don’t yet know how–the busyness isn’t going anywhere–I now at least know what I need to do. I have to learn to Power Down my brain.

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Published in: on February 25, 2013 at 9:50 am  Comments (7)  
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In This Season of Life

There are times when I realize I will never understand my children.

Like Julianna, who can drag a pile of “Your Baby Can Read” cards the thickness of a Tolstoy volume around the house…but when I tell her to put them away, she must do it one at a time. (Whimper, pick up a card, carry it to the other room, come back, whimper, pick up another card, carry it to the other room…)

Or Michael, who apparently feels an irresistible compulsion to climb the stairs, even though the instant he reaches the top, he turns around and starts wailing because no one else is up there, and he wants to be where everyone else is.

Or Nicholas, who must tattle on Michael and Julianna, even though I am standing right next to them both, with my eyes on them, and am perfectly capable of observing Michael’s or Julianna’s mischief for myself.

As I type this morning, the living room is strewn with papers hither and yon; in front of me the trash bags we stuffed into the unused gas fireplace for insulation glare unattractively, no longer hidden by the heavy, sharp brass grates we took down after Michael repeatedly yanked them down on himself. At the foot of the TV stand sits the rubber ducky I take up to the bathroom repeatedly, yet always seems to appear on this level of the house. Behind me, the kitchen is free of dirty dishes but not of clutter; the papers we from school get tossed every night, except the ones that require action, so you can imagine how that goes.

In short, this season of life is chaotic. There are things you expect from life with four kids, and yet there really isn’t any being prepared. This weekend, we had a wedding, children’s theater rehearsal, and a cub scout campout on Saturday, but nothing on Sunday, and the opportunity to do nothing was blissful. Soul food. I wish we (and here I’m speaking collectively, of all of you reading as well as my own family) could find a way to better balance between life-enriching activity and soul-needed rest. Because I know I’m not the only one in this position. It just seems like we, collectively, are so busy pursuing the goodness of life that we don’t have enough brain capacity available at any given moment to revel in the richness. And then twenty years down the line we regret having only skimmed the surface of life instead of drinking deeply.

Hardest of all is making a change. I ought to be able to shift my trajectory, but so far my efforts have not been successful. I suppose it’s another truism of life, that you can’t change others, only yourself. It’s just a lot harder when “yourself” happens to be the one responsible for keeping the schedule for a household of five other people who aren’t feeling the same need for change. Sometimes, you get overruled. And let’s be honest, my husband and my children are a lot better at living in the moment than I am. So maybe I’m really the one who has to change, anyway.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

–Reinhold Niebuhr

*

Nicholas standing in a “wheat”-box (instead of “sand”box). Note the inside-out sweatpants. Nicholas’ self-dressing habits should be a post in themselves. :)

Can you imagine sending a big honkin’ bus like this, so long it needs two stop signs, for a teeny wisp of a girl like mine?

Published in: on October 1, 2012 at 7:31 am  Comments (4)  
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Sacred Spaces

English: Leaves of Utah mountain trees changin...

English: Leaves of Utah mountain trees changing color during autumn. Deutsch: Die Farbe der Blätter ändert während des Herbstes. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have my places–places I go to be quiet and still. Although they are public spaces, one and all, I consider them mine, and I make a concerted effort to preserve them that way by visiting them when everyone else is busy with other things. A bluff overlooking a valley of sycamore and cedar, maple and walnut. Rocky streambeds lined with towering walls laid down like layers of a cake, filled scraggly with vines and roots and rock scraps stuck in to make it all come out even.

I come here in the heat of summer and the cold of winter, early in the morning, on days when everyone else is at work or school or thinks it’s too uncomfortable to be outside. I’ve seen these places gush after a rain and wondered at the power that uproots a sixty-foot tree and runs it into the embankment on a bend. I’ve sat beside playful waters trickling between rains. But today is the first time I’ve been here in a drought.

I used to be dissatisfied if my fall ramblings didn’t yield spectacular color, but along with making peace with my birthday, I’m learning to be happy with the less-than-perfect in other places. Today I’m aware of the life in these trees in a way I never am among the brilliant red maples and prim and proper planted crabapples and stinky pears people are so fond of inside city limits. Here, in the muted colors of nature, I can almost see the tree-spirits of pagan yesteryear–can almost hear them whispering. The trees look sickly yellow and mangy, but I can still sit above them and experience the wind with all my senses, as I watch it dance and twirl from one part of the woods to the next. I can still descend to the creek bed and follow the progress of the dancing breeze up the valley–a whisper, a joyful song falling again into stillness. The trees still respond, the babies waving with uncontrolled freedom, the older, more sedate adults bowing and swaying in the breezes. They’re suffering this year, but they’re still my trees, and I love them.

Rock Tower

Rock Tower (Photo credit: AlyssssylA)

The creek is dry, all its remaining water confined to a single pool at the big bend, and even that murky and stagnant. Above and below, I can sit among wave patterns sculpted into rock, brush away the dried moss on the downstream faces. Scraggly weeds have grown up in every crevasse, and someone–or many someones–have built rock towers every little bit along its length. I debate building one myself, but that’s not why I come. I get here so rarely these days, and what I need most of all is the quiet and stillness, not another task to complete.

Perhaps, after all, it is when people and places are farthest from their best that we see most clearly their importance to us. As the breeze whispers up the valley again and washes over me only to move on, I know I love this place more now than I ever have.

Just Write

Published in: on September 25, 2012 at 2:44 pm  Comments (3)  

The Value of Singletasking

Photo by eamoncurry123, via Flickr

I’m a multitasker. Shocking, I know. But it’s true. I’m a make-lunch-while-feeding-baby, scribble-notes-in-grocery-store-checkout-line, do-spiritual-reading-while-nursing, scrapbook-while-watching-TV kind of girl. A girl after Martha’s own heart.

Not that I don’t appreciate Mary. I want to be Mary. I crave silence and stillness, yet I always begrudge the time. And the logistics of making it happen keep getting harder. (I never realized how much I depended on respite providers for that…now that Julianna’s in school all day, I can’t call them in to watch kids anymore.)

I don’t think I’m alone in this. I think we’re all more Martha than Mary these days. Too many side trips, too many voices yelling “listen to me!” Texting while driving (or sitting at the stoplight), checking the game while out to dinner–connectedness is a hazard of modern life.

But I’m starting to appreciate single-tasking. These days I spread out the scrapbooking paraphernalia on the floor, and instead of turning on a movie, I leave all the electronics silent. Everything else fades away; I’m giving myself the luxury of a completely nonproductive pastime. It feels less crazed, more like soul food.

Every so often, mindful of the speed at which babies become toddlers, and toddlers preschoolers, I set the book aside and simply stare at Michael while he is attached to the breast. I tickle him, watching the progression of his laugh from the corners of his eyes to the angle of his cheeks to the audible guffaw that vibrates, mouth to breast–and sometimes makes him lose his latch, and tip his head back to grin and say, “Sssthhhsthhh!” I ruffle his hair, play handsies with him, stroke the lengthening line of his body, trying to commit the sensation to memory.

The mornings, here in the early fall, are cool and dark at 5:30 these days, the humidity down, the starscape brilliant. This week I spent a couple of mornings sitting wrapped in a throw on my deck, drinking in the  miraculous beauty, and the way it changes every day. One morning, and only one, a star perched atop a spire of the moon like a freckle. By the next morning it was gone, I don’t even know where. If I hadn’t taken the time when I did, I’d have missed the moment altogether.

I will always be a multitasker. With four kids I have to be–with four kids, a house and other commitments, even more so. But I’m looking for the opportunities to press pause and relax into one task,  done well. It’s another way to live mindfully. A way to be present in my own life.

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Published in: on September 12, 2012 at 7:00 am  Comments (3)  
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Parched

Drought on the Hay Plain.

God’s been calling me lately. As the blasted earth bakes and leaves wither on their branches; as they drop ungracefully to the ground, bleached and crunchy  three months before the proper time; as big, billowy clouds form and dissipate listlessly amid gray-brown-blue skies impenetrable with humidity; as priceless, fleeting storms direct their energy southward (mostly) and northward (occasionally); as tempers fray and human interaction shrinks to the confines of air-conditioned walls; as overcommitment saps energy and it’s a struggle to get through every day for weariness. Suddenly, the beauty of the many Scriptural references to lush earth and flowing water seem so profound.

He is like a tree planted near running water, That yields its fruit in due season, and whose leaves never fade. (Ps. 1)

In verdant pastures he gives me repose; Beside restful waters he leads me; he refreshes my soul. (Ps. 23)

God’s been calling me lately, whispering that I’ve neglected the solitude and silence and refreshment my soul needs, but I didn’t recognize it until I began reading Henri Nouwen:

“Without prayer, we become deaf to the voice of love and become confused by the many competing voices asking for our attention. How difficult this is! When we sit down for half an hour–without talking to someone, listening to music, watching television, or reading a book–and try to become very still, we often find ourselves so overwhelmed by our noisy inner voices that we can hardly wait to getbusy and distracted again. Our inner life often looks like a banana tree full of jumping monkeys!”

“Often we are so restless and so unable to find inner quietude that we can’t wait to get busy again, thus avoiding the confrontation with the chaotic state of our minds and hearts. Still, when we remain faithful to our discipline, even if it is only ten minutes a day, we gradually come to see…that there is a space within us where God dwells…”

It’s far too hot to be outside, and there are far too many obligations screaming for attention. But my soul, the core of who I am, feels like a sickly reflection of the earth all around me: oppressed, overwhelmed by forces beyond my control. God is calling me away to rest, if only for an hour. Today, I will answer.

*

(Henri Nouwen quotes from The Essential Henri Nouwen, edited by Robert A. Jonas)

Published in: on July 18, 2012 at 7:27 am  Comments (2)  

When What You Need, You Can’t Have

English: Sierra Nevada

Image via Wikipedia

This weekend, I read the most beautiful description of a place, a description that picked up my heart and plopped it down in the Sierra Nevada, and my whole body ached to hop a plane and follow it there.

There hasn’t been much time for solitude and communing with God through creation in the last…I don’t know, year.  There was a time in my life when I took those opportunities weekly at least. But the proverbial stars hardly ever align anymore: child care, favorable weather, and no pressing errands or deadlines. I think the last time I went out was in September. Five months ago. My insides are crying out for that place of rest.

A few weeks ago at Mass the Gospel was from Mark. The point of the reading was that Jesus healed everyone they brought to him at Simon’s mother-in-law’s house. But that wasn’t the part that clung to my soul. This was:

Rising very early before dawn, he left
and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.
(Mark 1:35)

The mommy pundits are all, to the last one, in complete agreement: You must care for yourself and your own needs. But what do you do when the thing you need, the thing you’re sure God is placing upon your soul, is not possible? Jesus had the self-autonomy to recognize his need and attend to it. He could say, “Whoa! I’m worn out from healing people; my soul needs recharging.” He might have to get up early to avoid getting caught, but he could go.

I can’t.

As long as I have a nursing baby, solitude is not in the cards. But I’ve taken each of my babies out to creek bottoms and clifftops in turn. Last week, when the mercury topped 50 degrees, I had babysitting lined up for the other two, and I had set aside all other vital-feeling commitments in the interest of a trek as far away from the city as I could possibly go in two and a half hours. And that morning the sitter called in sick…and that afternoon, I was in the hospital with Michael.

So when I say it is not possible, I actually mean not possible…not “I’m not prioritizing it.” It’s not possible.

And here, in the bleak midwinter, as snow falls outside my window and all my children, liberated from school, crowd around shouting into my sensitive, still-blocked and painful ear, I realize that I stopped listening to that Scripture passage too soon.

Simon and those who were with him pursued him
and on finding him said, “Everyone is looking for you.”
(Mark 1:36-37)

Jesus didn’t get away, either.

This is the point where another truism becomes clear: motherhood is a ministry. And ministry means you don’t always have the luxury of attending to your own needs. You certainly must do so when it is possible, but those of us who have been gifted with parenthood have inherited a ministry in which we must empty ourselves and give of ourselves, whether we choose to do it willingly or not. It reminds me of something shared on a list serve for pastoral musicians a few years ago, when I felt that the demands of full-time parish work were the most brutal I’d ever face:

Ministry is giving when you feel like keeping,
praying for others when you need to be prayed for,
feeding others when your own soul is hungry,
living truth before people even when you can’t see results,
hurting with other people even when your own hurt can’t be spoken,
keeping your word even when it is not convenient.
It is being faithful when your flesh wants to run away.

 

Published in: on February 13, 2012 at 9:32 am  Comments (16)  
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A Snuggle On a Gray, Gloomy Day

The nights are harder this time around. Maybe it’s being older, with more kids; maybe it’s the cold weather, which renders the space beneath the blankets so cozy and the space outside it so unfriendly. Or maybe I’m just getting lazier. In any case, I actually sleep through the first minute or two of “I’m waking up hungry” noises, and often I have to give myself quite a pep talk to drag myself out of bed and nurse.

Fortunately, setting aside writing (mostly) has allowed me the luxury of long naps in the afternoon. Getting under the covers fully dressed has a wickedly indulgent feel that makes it even more pleasurable than in the middle of the night.

I had carpool duty on Tuesday, and when I woke up at 2:35, I knew there wasn’t time to do anything productive. Michael was stirring, but he wasn’t interested in nursing yet. So I put him in the bed beside me and curled up on my side.

Outside, thick clouds hunkered down, lengthening twilight backward along the clock, dropping a mist of precipitation on a world already saturated, soaking bare sycamore and cottonwood and walnut. Gloomy, silent, stealthy rain, buried beneath the perpetual growl of the interstate, pushing inward on the walls of my room.

But inside, warm purple walls radiated warmth and intimate quiet. My baby opened his eyes, kicked his legs and examined the recessed ceiling and ornate fan, then looked at me, looked through me…looked into me. “Hey there, sweetie,” I whispered, and he calmed his frantic limb flailing and wrapped his tiny hand around my finger. “I love you.”

And those eyes whispered back, I love you.

Truly, “it is no small thing that they, who are so fresh from God, love us.” –Charles Dickens

Published in: on December 22, 2011 at 8:53 am  Comments (6)  
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Seeking Stillness

English: Candle wick burning. Français : Gros ...

Image via Wikipedia

We sat in the front pew at church yesterday, our first Sunday to attend Mass as a family of six. It had been a long night; Michael decided to nurse every two hours, which meant for every just-over-an-hour I slept, I was up for half an hour. I was kind of a zombie. And in my groggy state, one word jumped out at me.

Stillness.

It’s a word that seems to go with Advent: For you, O Lord, my soul in stillness waits. It’s something that so many of us aspire to, strive for, the chance to be “quiet alert” in the presence of God. To set aside the noisy bombardment that overstimulates our brains and deadens the soul, and simply be: be aware of the connection to an invisible dimension, be open to a voice that speaks in the quiet.

And I realized how rarely I attain stillness.

When it comes, it sneaks up on me, a breathless, fleeting moment that I’m usually ill-equipped to appreciate. Last Saturday night when my parents, Michael and I arrived home from the hospital, the house was quiet, its other occupants off at a concert. I caught my breath. “It’s so quiet,” I said. I’ve never thought of my house as quiet, but after living in the hum of a hospital for ten days–fluorescent buzzing, air systems rumbling, monitors beeping, voices everywhere at all times of the day and night–my living room felt like a tabernacle of restful repose. But I didn’t stop to enjoy it. There was too much clutter to be filed and organized, and a family to prepare for.

This, I suppose, is why I crave the solitude of nature, far from the noise of traffic and the sight of manmade things. Stillness equals rest. It reorganizes the mind, untangles the pathways, allows us to see more clearly and approach life with serenity.

But I don’t think we find stillness very often. And I don’t mean physical stillness, although that’s probably true, too. I mean stillness of the soul. I think we all seek it, but don’t find it very often. We can blame modern life–ipods and a sound byte culture, too many technological toys, too many social networks–but you might as well rail against the sun rising; barring an apocalypse, all that stuff is here to stay.

Life in a religious order often sounds very appealing to me: the rhythm of morning and evening prayer, the focus on contemplation and the search for God, the lack of little commitments yelling “Mommy do this” and “Can I have” that. But I imagine it’s a grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side-of-the-fence kind of thing, and motherhood is my vocation in any case. I’m beginning to see that the divine call for all of us is to seek what we may never, or at least rarely, attain.

And maybe, after all, it’s the seeking that’s most important.

Published in: on December 19, 2011 at 6:28 am  Comments (6)  
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If I Wasn’t A Parent…

If I wasn’t a mom, I’d have so much time to for myself.

I’d go sit for hours in remote woods, finding God in the silence, without worrying about the babysitter’s schedule and whether I’m in a place where cell phone coverage will reach.

I’d write all day…I’d have my novel finished and be tearing through revisions on a glorious wave of momentum, instead of limping along a few hundred words at a time between other commitments. Maybe even be published. I’d practice my flute and write more music…because it wouldn’t get shunted aside in trying to get everything else done. (Practicing my flute and writing music, I have learned, are intimately connected. Weird, I know. But that’s the truth of it.)

I’d weigh a lot less and dress better.

I’d go out on more dates with my husband, and we’d have time to attend to our own pursuits and each other without feeling like we’re fraying at the edges to do it.

I’d scrapbook my wedding photos. It would be a gorgeous album, lovingly, painstakingly crafted, a real work of art.

Then again, maybe that whole list is baloney.

If I wasn’t a mom, I’d find some other excuse not to take the time to quiet my soul. I might go out more, but it wouldn’t necessarily accomplish the goal better.

I’d have so much time that I’d treat it flippantly, getting distracted from writing by Facebook and StumbleUpon and Twitter instead of boo-boos and bickering and meal preparation. And probably I’d still lose momentum and limp along a few hundred words at a time. Besides, I’d still be working. So scratch all that vaunted time to myself.

I’d weigh exactly the same, because I have no natural self-discipline where exercise is concerned; I loathe the stuff. Only having kids could force me to get up at 5:30 every morning.

I’d go out on dates with my husband, but it would be a shallow life, and who’s to say we’d actually connect more deeply? Our children connect us.

And I’d scrapbook, but let’s be honest. When I finished my wedding photos, what would I scrapbook?

I mean, face it. If I wasn’t a parent, I’d be lacking the motivation, the self-discipline, the sheer persistence, to write, to scrapbook, to exercise. Because becoming a parent has changed me. It has taught me those qualities. Without my children, most of those things I do, those many flaming torches I struggle so valiantly to keep in the air, wouldn’t ever have crossed my mind. Writing stories about the real life struggles of married couples to stay connected in a world that pulls them apart? Riiiight. I’d still be writing girlish love stories about fantasy princesses. Talking to medical students? Riiiight. I’d still be tiptoeing around people with disabilities, terrified of being asked to make a connection.

No, I am right where I’m supposed to be. Because without children, I wouldn’t be me.

Mama's Losin' It

Published in: on September 27, 2011 at 5:27 am  Comments (10)  
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Starstruck

When I was growing up, my bedroom faced north, toward the pond and the gentle swell of a hayfield. And the chicken yard, which meant that any time a raccoon got into the henhouse, I was the one who raised the alert. No wonder I’m such a light sleeper.

I don’t know at what point it happened, but I discovered the beauty of that view, a beauty ever changing, depending on weather and time of day and season. I shoved my bed up in the corner, and from then on I did everything stretched out across the bed, where I could look outside: homework, Journaling, spinning stories. At night, I shoved my pillow in the window frame and watched the sun set, then rolled over and pressed my head against the screen so that I could see as many of the stars as possible. And that was how I fell asleep: listening to the sound of the crickets amid the clover and foxtails.

I also took to having long philosophical discussions with no one, a narrative of my day, and all the people in it. I learned to analyze my own reactions and feelings, and came to new insights. I’m not sure at what point I realized I was praying, not just spouting opinions at the sky. I was actually seeking, in those seemingly one-way conversations with the stars.

A teenager doesn’t place a lot of value on listening prayer. And yet, as I learned the shapes of the constellations, saw them shift through the year, and sent my words winging toward them, stillness crept over me, a stillness that finally succumbed to sleep. And of all the beautiful memories of my childhood, that sense of stillness, which always came on as I grew close to sleep at last, is preeminent among them. It was a stillness of the earth—of insects chirping and coyotes howling and bullfrogs pulsing their low, laid-back grunts. It was a stillness unbroken by human noise, except when an occasional car rumbled down the road in a thick cloud of dust. There were many times when, in the throes of some adolescent moral quandary, I remember envying the simple placidity of the singers’ existence.

I suppose I am thinking of it today, in this very early morning, because we slept with the windows open last night. In the wake of a cold front, the interstate noise succumbed to distance, and all I heard was that familiar hum and pulse of nature, the soundtrack of my childhood. This morning, of course, the traffic noise is back, but all through the night I woke repeatedly, just long enough to reassure myself that the stillness still pulsed outside my window.

I dream of someday returning to a remote place where I never have to listen to jet braking and tires squealing and the incessant roar of humanity. A place where I can once again shove my pillow into the window frame and stare up at the vastness of the universe.

But today, as the sky begins to lighten on this, my thirty-sixth birthday (see, I’mnot afraid of sharing my age), it’s time to seek ot the holy in a different place. One that involves very little stillness or serenity, but an awful lot of sweetness.

In other words, time to rouse the munchkins for school.

Shared at On, In, and Around Mondays

Published in: on August 25, 2010 at 6:59 am  Comments (15)  
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