Sunday Snippets, and Gratitude

Normally I wouldn’t combine posts like this, but I’m planning several days on the topic of infertility starting Monday, and I don’t want to neglect my newfound commitment to searching for the gratitude moments in life. So I’m going to combine that into my Sunday Snippets post today.

Welcome to all those coming from Ruth’s Catholic roundup. Posts for this week include:

The aforementioned re-commitment to searching for thankfulness in every moment, and another post, in which I can’t decide whether I have a stand-up-comic or a saint in training. Why don’t you check it out and give me your opinion? :)

Gratitudes for this week:

Homemade pizza, in preparation as I type on a Saturday afternoon

Hope, even if it did turn out to be misplaced

14 1/2 months without a hospital stay…and counting

A quiet retreat to my room to work, and the Heavenly artwork displayed on the wall via an open window, a sunny afternoon, and a shiny book cover lying on the bed:


Twentyish pages of a manuscript churned out despite snow days

Honey bears and play dates and homemade soup

Nicholas’s exploding vocabulary: “baby” and “mama” and “dada” and “wa-wa” and “peeeeeee” (please) and a couple others that are escaping my brain right now

Oh yes, sledding…as in this:

And this:

(that's Alex right in the foreground)

And this:

(J's glasses left at home to avoid loss of property)

And this:

(Not so thrilled, but awfully cute in his pink and black boots, which his big sister never wore...)

Not to mention the fact that we live in such luxury that cold and snow gives us an opportunity for recreation, instead of threatening our continued existence…

Did I mention thank you for homemade pizza?

Published in: on January 22, 2011 at 3:42 pm  Comments (6)  
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Here And Now

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately…and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
-Henry David Thoreau

There are times in life when every word I read seems to be a message from Heaven hammering home a single point. The last two weeks or so have been one of those times. At first, it was just a hint here or there, whispering “joy in the moment.” But although I recognized the squirm in my belly, indicating that this message was looking for a home, I was too busy focused on my family, which looked more or less like this, to pay attention:

Since Christmas, it’s been nothing but sickness and interrupted nights and snow days, and the associated hits to my productivity. I have been gripey and complaining in increasing negativity, in defiance of Heavenly messages. So God upped the ante, until every blog post and news story and every word out of my husband’s mouth pounded at the message of celebrating the moment and the need to stop worshiping at the altar of productivity. And then, I went through the last six months’ pictures, sending $40 of developing to Target in preparation for a new round of scrapbooking, and I realized: Holy cow. Look at those moments! I had forgotten. My life is made of joy.

Living in the moment. Celebration, a blogger said, is how we live in the present. Me, I live in a world of multitasking, the antithesis of living in the moment. My brain is always skipping ahead, wrestling with writing issues, or wallowing in past experiences, comforting myself through the painful slowness of my goals with the thought that someday, the kids’ll all be in school and I’ll be able, like Thoreau, to go to the woods. I can hear Yoda saying, “This one, long have I watched. All her life has she looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never her mind on where she was.”

Here and now. This moment is all I have; the future, as the green guy said, is always in motion. (Wise little alien that he was.) It’s foolish to pin my hopes on an ideal world that in all likelihood will never materialize. I will always have sick kids and snow days, doctor appointments and IEP meetings, school pickup and dinner to make, that will prevent me from retreating for weeks to a woodland paradise. But then, without them, life would be empty. Where would I learn about suffering and joy, beauty and pain, and the way they are all inextricably linked together?

So today I recommit to the count of a thousand gifts: sparkling moments sprinkled in among the gray winter of discontent. Today I commit to learning that elusive skill of living here, living now, of sucking the marrow out of life and celebrating the present.

-Perfect Snowflakes: One drifting down to rest on spidery crystal legs on the rubber strip below the window of the truck. One on the head of one perfect little girl (sorry the focus isn’t terrific–you try getting this girl to stand still long enough to have her picture taken!)

-The way the energy level of the house changes when Alex comes home from school, an immediate electrification of the air, an instantaneous alchemy of completion.

-The warbling giggle of my almost-22-month-old as said big brother chases him around the house roaring, and Julianna sits off to the side giggling uncontrollably at the rank silliness of the menfolk.

-A DQ Chocolate Extreme blizzard, shared with my girl

-Wonderful teachers for my children

-Choir members who build a community around us

-A few stolen moments by the river, watching the ice grind itself into perfect circles as it spins around the bends on its way to warmer weather:

-Gratitudes that are not meant for public consumption

-The chance to submit a manuscript

-The chance to make a difference by working at the diocesan level, and by teaching NFP

-The privilege of the writing gift, which I must remember is just that, a gift, and less important than my ordinary, humdrum life

-The structure that limits my writing time, which makes me focus and produce instead of wallowing and wasting time. (At least, not wasting as much time.)

-Grandmothers who have lived long enough to be known and loved by their great-grandchildren

What do you have to be grateful for today?

Published in: on January 17, 2011 at 6:33 am  Comments (6)  
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Confessions of an Advent Zombie

Zombie

Image via Wikipedia

It seems ironic to me that in this season of Advent—the Advent I’ve spent two years preparing for, the one in which I’m doing four radio interviews, four periodical interviews, countless blog entries, and five book signings to help families move toward a less crazed, more relaxing, and holy Advent season—that in this season, it is me who is feeling stressed, crazed, and utterly unable to find the peace and holy hush I have been so relentlessly advocating.

I made a mistake in Advent calendar scheduling this year.  It goes like this:

  • At the end of Week 1, I sandwiched our day trip between two cookie baking days.
  • The second cookie baking day was compacted into the afternoon, because we had choir in the morning, meaning 3 hours at church on the heels of a long (napless) day and a short night.
  • We followed it up with three days in a row of more late nights and virtually no naps.
  • In the meantime, I spent the days tearing through a really big writing assignment while simultaneously preparing for a really important presentation to the priests of the diocese. (When the Bishop invites you, you don’t say, “I’m sorry, this is a busy week, can we try a different one”?)

The net result is that by the time we got the house clean, ten short minutes before the first guest arrived for the choir party on Friday night, we were all spent. Physically, emotionally, spiritually. And apparently one recovery day is not enough, after a week like this. Sunday morning overflowed with bullying and threats and privileges revoked and all manner of disciplinary action. Church was a five-way wrestling match, and we all know wrestling matches at church do not foster spiritual growth. In fact, as I wrestled kids into coats and stumbled toward the church doors, everything seemed a little hazy. Somehow, in the past few weeks, I’ve become a spiritual zombie.

My inner critic is having a heyday. If you can’t even keep yourself from short-circuiting during Advent, then everything you’ve written is a big sham. Of course, it’s been coming on longer than Advent; I’ve been living and breathing Advent—the business end—for six months. And I know that’s a big part of the problem.

But it’s also the 20-month-old who doesn’t understand that he can’t eat his dinner till we pray, whose howls of outrage can unhinge me quicker than any other sound in the world (including all those Christmas songs I hate). It’s feeling rushed to get dinner on the table in time to eat before music students arrive…life, in other words.

Yet I believe in the project, because in other years, in other times, it has done for me what I tout on a daily basis. And this year, even amid my own spiritual desolation, I see it on Alex’s face.

Lessons are done now until January. And the crazy week is past. So perhaps by the time we light the last purple candle, I will have regained my equilibrium. I can hope, at least. And in the meantime, I can turn my mind toward the blessings I’ve been overlooking:

 …chubby hands, more munchable than the cookies they cut…

How can you resist the cute factor?

My little one, who takes the cheese factor to a whole new level when he sees a camera…

 Having lots of help to decorate the cookies (I really loathe this job. Yes, I’m weird. But I like my gingerbread plain, thank you very much. Icing=blech!)

…For hayrides through remote, beautiful winter woods…

…for rows of trees marching over the rolling hills…

…for tranquil hills wreathed in mist and cloaked in silence…

….for running children…

…for the magic of watching children transfixed by beauty…

…and of an Advent wreath in the darkness.

The beauty is there. I just have to figure out how to slow down and live in the present.

*

Counting to a thousand with Ann.

Published in: on December 13, 2010 at 7:26 am  Comments (6)  
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Confessions of a High School Misfit

RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER

Misfits

I have a dirty little secret to share. Brace yourself. Are you ready?

I was not popular in high school.

Yes, it’s shocking, I know.

Often when I’m out and about, this little fantasy plays out in my mind. Kind of an embarrassing one to admit, for someone who likes to think of herself as an independent-minded woman with her priorities in order. In this fantasy, I’m walking through the Mall when someone from my past—someone who spent high school ignoring, looking down on, or (in the case of the guys I liked) choosing someone else—suddenly appears in my path, and I dazzle said person with my wittiness, my accomplishments, or my general put-together-ness.

Right.

I would imagine that everyone, regardless of their place in the teenage pecking order, felt the same way I did about high school—insecure, full of angst, and always a step behind. Those people from my past with whom I have connected (however distantly) on Facebook appear to have lives that look a lot like mine: kids, mortgages, deadlines, hobbies, events to look forward to…why should I be stuck on the need to prove my worth? Isn’t that a little juvenile? Why should I expect that if I came face to face with my past, it would involve anything but a friendly “how-are-you-do-you-remember” moment?

Maybe it’s ego. Maybe it’s an innate lack of self-confidence. Or maybe, as usual, I’m overanalyzing. I’ll bet everyone has these fantasies.

No, your eyes do not deceive: that's one ski glove and one teal leather-palmed glove from Target. And if I knew where the mates are, I would happily wear a matched pair.

Maybe the fantasies even come true, once in a while. But I’m pretty sure that would not be the case for me. I may be eighteen years older but I’m no more a put-together woman than I was a put-together teenage girl. As evidenced by the fashionable gloves I wear these days:

But at least these days, I’m comfortable enough to share it with the entire universe via blog post. ;)

Ahem.

(Maybe I need to be less of a cheapskate. Then again, they do the job.)

In high school, grownups used to say, “These are the best years of your life.” Even at the time, I thought, Are you people freaking crazy? If this is the best time of my life, I might as well shoot myself now and get it over with.

In college, I was surrounded by people whose musical geek factor rivaled my own. I loved studying music, and classmates whose talents I respected also respected mine. But even then I didn’t quite fit in; I was a morning person and not the drinking type. So although I had one very good friend, and a small circle of close acquaintances, I still felt like a misfit.

How can you resist the cute factor?

In fact, it wasn’t until I met Christian in the choir at Newman that I found my home and my purpose in life. Nine years after that, when I felt life stirring within my body for the first time, it raised the bar for perfect moments. Parenthood and married life raises the bar again and again—and life keeps meeting it.

Those grownups who said these were the best years of my life—they were wrong. When I talk to my middle school and junior high and high school students, I parrot a different message: This isn’t it. Life keeps getting better.

For little boys in Easter hats
   and chubby hands pressing down on cookie cutters
      and a little girl who has decided she loves Mommy after all

For hugs and kisses from small ones
   and choir members who lift me up
      and blog friends
and the chance to make a difference through the written word

For stories that keep me up at night
   and brand new baby nieces with cheeks I could chew on all day
      and too much to do and so much to see and not knowing how it’s all going to end

For Christmas lights and childish excitement
   and Alex belting “On That Holy Mountain,” fighting with me for the octavo while I sing a duet with the man who taught me a new meaning for the word “home”

For frosty mornings spend inside
   and brisk walks with my little one, who is no longer a baby

For progress in toilet training, if not in speech

I am thankful today.

Published in: on December 6, 2010 at 8:30 am  Comments (7)  
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A Peek at the Landscape

Cycling, sheltered by the Giants

Image by Vainsang via Flickr

It was that sound that put me on alert: the pushed, monotone vocalization of a person with limited verbal skills. I used to tense up with discomfort at those sounds. Now, I tense up for a different reason: I know that these encounters offer me a glimpse of my future, and the knowledge makes my heart pound. Still, I don’t want to stare, so it took until about the Gloria before I saw him—nine or ten years old, directly across the aisle, sitting beside his father playing with a floppy little stuffed dog.

It was a book signing day, a day destined to provide great distraction—and yet the presence of that boy and his father quieted my mind, and without children to demand my attention, stillness settled deep within my soul. And then, midway through the homily, I glanced over again. They sat face to face, the boy on his dad’s lap, hands on his lean cheeks, and they were nuzzling noses.

I started crying. These moments of beauty, these stolen glimpses, mean something so much more to me than they once did. In the middle of infertility, the tears would have been full of a victim’s grief, of frustrated dreams and an empty, raw wasteland of pain. In the first months of Julianna’s life, my tears were filled with fear, with a terror of the crags and precipices of the mountain looming ahead, crowded with monsters

Bu now…now, they are tears of joy, an acknowledgment that the landscape of my life, far from the wasteland or insurmountable peak I once feared, is lush and fertile, brimming over with all that is good and beautiful and holy.

And for that, this Thanksgiving week, I am profoundly grateful.

tuesdays unwrapped at cats
Published in: on November 23, 2010 at 6:35 am  Comments (2)  

Little Graces

It’s been a weekend (and a week) of little graces, none of which lend themselves to lengthy prose, so I’ll just list them here today.

…a 4-year-old friend, whose display of bicycle prowess led Alex to ask us if he could drop the training wheels…

…and ask Daddy to let go

…a Friday night date with my firstborn: ice cream and the percussion ensemble, where one of the performers showed such enthusiasm and obvious joy in his playing that it carried me along for the ride

…a busy weekend selling books at church

…singing the psalm

…followed by an evening of horseplay and pajama hugs, unnaturally extended by that stupid temporal tradition called “falling back.”

…a beautiful, shirt-sleeves Sunday afternoon, rounded out by play time in the cul de sac with Grandma and Grandpa

…and, wrapping up the weekend, the chance to go to a concert with my husband on Sunday night.

Small things, all, but they fill the heart on a Monday morning of what promises to be yet another crazy week.

Published in: on November 8, 2010 at 7:28 am  Leave a Comment  
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Fair Bounty

Text from sources: "A famous image publis...

Image via Wikipedia

“It’s not fair!” It’s Alex’s new favorite phrase. It’s not fair that he can’t have a new toy every time we go to Target. It’s not fair that he can’t have a bedtime book when he’s piddled away the hour before 8p.m. doing nothing except singing absently, staring off into space. It’s not fair that I won’t let him have a snack ten minutes before dinner. “But Mommy, I’m staaaaaaarving!” (You know you said it that way, too. So did I.)

That was the last straw. “That’s it,” I said, losing my temper. “The next time you tell me it’s not fair, you’re going to start losing things, so you’ll learn what it’s really like not to have anything. You are not starving. Starving means you don’t get breakfast, lunch, or dinner. You have nothing to eat for a whole day. That’s starving. You are not starving.”

The thought of a whole day without food was so startling to him that he actually shut up for a minute. Then he started asking questions about being poor. I could see the gears spinning in his head, a mental count of all the toys he has downstairs, the ones he couldn’t live without and has now scorned, the desserts and the pastas and the steaks he eats.

As the next few days passed, I realized he wasn’t hurling that “f” word around quite so freely. Perhaps the lesson about materialism was sinking in, I thought with satisfaction.

Sunday morning I went into the closet to dress for church, and scowled at the selection. I need some new clothes! I hate wearing these old things. Yeah, I’ve got the new outfit, but that’s a winter outfit, and besides, I wore it last week. These clothes are so boring. I need to go shopping.

And I stopped, horrified. I stood there staring at the 6-foot-long bar nicely crowded with hanging clothes, as if seeing it for the first time. Yes, I have much less than many women—not even enough to require putting away one season’s clothes to make room for the next. Yes, I’ve had some of these clothes since before we were married. Yes, I’m hopelessly bored with most of them. But good Lord, the riches in my closet! How many women in the world would sigh with envy over my paltry, staid, boring wardrobe?

Sheepishly, I picked out the camel-colored suit we bought for $12.99 a dozen years ago and got dressed. I still didn’t like it, but like Alex, the reality of my blessed life had smacked me in the head, reminding me how very privileged I am to have the luxury of griping about such things.

My brother-in-law quoted an interesting tidbit recently: America is the only prosperous nation in the world whose people claim that religion is important to them. In the rest of the world, prosperity equals complacency; it is poverty that brings out a sense of what’s really important.

But before we set out in a flurry of self-congratulation, it seems to me that we have some soul-searching to do. Because if novelty and materialism is as deeply ingrained in our collective consciousness as Alex and I just demonstrated, then our faith is really a farce. Even now, as I type, I’m looking for some justification to get rid of my wardrobe and replace it—not because it’s worn out, not because it’s even out of fashion, but simply because *I want*.

Bounty is not a bad thing, nor is enjoying it.

“There is nothing better for man than to eat and drink and provide himself with good things by his labors. Even this, I realized, is from the hand of God. For who can eat or drink apart from him?” (Ecclesiastes 2: 24-25)

But it must be enjoyed with a healthy perspective of gratitude, or too quickly, bounty turns to “chasing after the wind.” And so today I go looking for the blessings I spend more time griping about than being thankful for:

a closet full of clothes I’m bored with, more than I could possibly need
a lawn full of mole hills and weeds, that never slowed down, this wet summer
the richness of children who never let up, who always need a piece of me
a kitchen full of dishes that need cleaning
the milk that my kids are so good at spilling
the pile of DVDs that kids are always throwing on the floor
the pile of books that kids are always throwing on the floor
the seemingly endless babyhood of my littles
the boundless energy of my oldest, who wears me out
the extra pounds that I can’t seem to get rid of because we eat so well

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Linked to Multitude Mondays at A Holy Experience.

Published in: on October 20, 2010 at 5:14 am  Comments (14)  
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Fall Elements


Fall Elements

Originally uploaded by One-Speed Photography

I didn’t want to come out today. I knew I was not going to find a truly quiet place, and I have so many works in progress that I really begrudged the time. At the very least I ought to be folding clothes so that’s not hanging over my head, too. But I have a sitter, so I take my best guess and head northward, my head a jumble of anxiety about the old novel that got two more rejections this week and the new one I’m too intimidated to start on.

I reach the Pinnacles and find that I was right. It’s not quiet. But I head for the quietest place—where the overhanging cave and rapids mask the sound, and I spread out a blanket and eat an apple.

I’ve never really appreciated the sedimentary rock here—the bulk and the variety of it, from mud-gray to caramel to slate gray and black, layered upon each other. The water tore through here, smacked into this solid wall, and in turning the corner, gouged out this deep overhang. Trees and shrubs cling to its brow, spilling roots and branches over the edge, their branches emerging from patchwork shadow in a rainbow that marches from olive to green to gold against the flawless blue sky. Its underside huddles black above the water, and rich, warm red-brown over the sand where I sit. Behind me, I hear the trickle of an underground stream working its way down the back wall. Before me, the water lies serene, reflecting the world in its depths, but in the distance, rapids sparkle, drawing my vision with motion.

A wind growls progresses along the valley, drowning out the traffic and the rapids as it rushes from tree too tree, sending a cascade of leaves whirling before it. When Alex was little, I would say, “Look at the trees dancing.” But a tree doesn’t dance with an edgy, raucous bump and grind. It follows stately Baroque forms, bowing to its neighbor and circling round. The leaves, though—no inhibitions there. Millions of thrill-seekers hurling themselves from the heights, some plunging in free-fall, others twirling madly, while the rest flicker back and forth, landing daintily feet-first in the water and then settling back on it with the sigh of those finally getting to rest after a long day’s work.

Voices approach; a young father arrives with two tow-headed boys, 5 and 7, I’d guess, and a mutt that looks half Huskie. Being boys, they pound around in the soft sand, closer and closer to the junction of water and rock wall, until one of them shrieks, “Daddy, I’m sinking in the mud!” I’m closer, and so, chuckling, I abandon my NEO and attempt a rescue. I manage it…barely. He wasn’t kidding about sinking in the mud; he loses a shoe in it and has to stretch out across the mud to dig it out. The dad heads off a tantrum by telling him to take his shoes and socks off and wash off in the creek. That wouldn’t work in my house, especially not at the end of September, with the water temperature edging downward toward winter, but it does the trick; soon the boy is running around barefoot on the chilly Missouri “sand.”

They don’t last long. Soon they’re packing up and leaving me alone again, and as their voices fade along the trail, I wonder if my long, creative descriptions of nature really interest anyone, whether I should post this on Monday or not. But I know that I will because I don’t have time to write multiple blog entries. I have too many irons in the fire.

So I twist my neck and look up again, at the monochrome rainbow. And as I turn to face forward again, I realize that despite the imperfect quiet, some of noise in my head has eased.

For monochrome rainbows,
dancing trees,
whirling leaves,
and the chill of Missouri clay seeping upward below my back

For subterranean streams
shady banks
swirling winds
and Jonathan apples

For running water,
clear blue skies,
ancient rock
and the irrepressible energy of childhood

For restful nights
busy days
invigorating work
and a rich life

*

Shared at Multitude Mondays and On, In and Around Mondays

Published in: on October 4, 2010 at 5:10 am  Comments (9)  
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The Endless Project Completed

We began the process sometime in the spring, hopping from one furniture store to the next, discussing paint colors and styles, trying to convert the last room on our main floor from its ugly, monochrome taupe. On Memorial Day, we ordered furniture. Later that week, we settled on colors, moved the junk from around the cluttered walls, and set to work painting.

Two softening coats, a chair rail border, and we were ready for furniture whenever it came in. And from this ridiculous space, for the last eleven weeks, I have done all my writing:

 
(Can you even see the computer in this disaster area? We had to push through a maze to get to our file cabinets, and the keyboard has been disconnected ALL SUMMER LONG, even though I have a song I desperately want to finish!)

Until finally, on Saturday, the furniture arrived.

 

(Sorry for the chair in center shot…we were still working when I took this)

Top of my “thank God” list this week is: a wonderful new work space. How can I concentrate on writing when everything around me is so spacious, so uncluttered, and so pretty? I’ll just sit here and get warm fuzzies all day!

(Not.)

My list, #241-251:

A great big tax deduction
A dedicated shelf for my scrapbooks…out of reach of tiny Julianna hands.

 

An 85-degree day that feels like spring after weeks of blistering 100+.
Sleeping with the windows open, serenaded by crickets
Waking to find the house almost chilly at 72
Completion of a novel, ready to query (again!)
Anticipation:
            Of fun in paddleboats
            Of new clothes
            Of breaking into a new phase of life: school years
My poor, beaten aspen making a valiant attempt at a comeback after its summer baking
The list of thank-you’s I made in my head, which ascended to Heaven sometime in the night and are now gone :)

 What are you thankful for this Monday morning?

holy experience

Published in: on August 16, 2010 at 5:22 am  Comments (9)  
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Because of a Virus

Because of a faceless, anonymous jerk somewhere out in the e-universe, our computer caught a virus this week.

Because of a computer virus, my husband had to take our computer in to work, where the gurus could do their magic.

Because my husband took the computer to work, I had no access to my files.

Because I had no access to my files (but I did have a babysitter), I had to flounder about for a writing project to work on.

Because I was floundering for productivity, I rode out to a park and sat down with paper and pen (gasp!) and began outlining notes for a new novel, built on the foundation of the old—a project I’ve been procrastinating for months under the guise of nonfiction goals.

Because I actually got started on planning the novel, I found myself in the heart-pounding, keep-me-up-at-night excited stage of infatuation with my project.

Which is a thrilling place to be.

228) For the convergence of Hackers, viruses and babysitters.
229) For inSpiration…again.
230) For a terrific query class
231) For great reinforcement from said class
232) For the discovery that the novel I thought had to be completely rewritten is actually quite good…beginning on page 200…
233) For being so excited about rewriting said novel that I can’t sleep
234) For working DSL
235) For lots of blog hits
236) For five days of exercise last week
237) For clouds lined up like celestial trumpets in the west

holy experience

Published in: on July 12, 2010 at 5:04 am  Comments (2)  
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