photo by mac(3), via Flickr

I’m dancing with the prince when the text message comes in, but I don’t realize it till he’s bent over my hand and helped me into my seat at the table in the corner. “Back in a bit,” he says, his brain clearly already on his next task as the world’s most famous Best Man.

Still, as he saunters toward the head table, one hand in his pocket, I suppress a very unprofessional head shake; he does cut quite a figure in his tux. Let’s be honest, this is the sweetest gig I’ve ever landed, playing the public face of Prince Charming’s shy fiancee–to whom, I must admit, I do bear a striking resemblance, though not so much it would hold up if the paparazzi outside ever got a closeup of the girl herself.

Charming and the groom put their heads together, no doubt rehashing some male rite of passage known only to college roommates. The bride flashes me a grin, and it’s at that moment that the cell phone in my clutch, the special phone given me at the start of this gig, rattles the ice in my glass, announcing a missed call. I shouldn’t check it–the stored texts would be fodder for every gossip rag on both sides of the Atlantic–but nobody has this number except…

I glance around the table at my companions, but they are more or less ignoring me as they have all night. Under orders from His Highness, no doubt. He hasn’t decided for sure that he trusts me, yet. I slide the phone just far enough out to read the text message:

U have to come home RIGHT NOW. ***EMERGENCY.***

Kurt would never use this number unless it was really important. I keep my game face on, but inwardly, I wince. Charming will not like this, not one little bit.

He’s looking at me. I fasten the clutch and stand, enjoying even now the swish of silk around my legs. A worried look crosses Charming’s face. He excuses himself and meets me halfway. “What’s going on?” he says.

“I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

I have to give him credit; his face remains serene. “What are you talking about?” He smiles through his teeth. “You’re on the job.” Liberating the clutch and laying it on the table, he draws me back onto the dance floor.

“I got a text. Kurt says it’s an emergency.”

“Kurt?” His control slips, but only for a moment. Oh, come on. Not jealousy–not from the world’s most eligible bachelor. “You can’t leave. The limos aren’t here.”

“Yes, well, I think I can survive in a cab.”

“You might, but those blood-suckers outside…”

I hadn’t thought about the paparazzi, who doubtless have every exit from the building covered, all of them desperate to be the one who snags The Shot of Prince Charming’s elusive fiancee.

I look at the clock. Five minutes to midnight. I give him my wickedest smile. “I have a plan,” I say.

*

And that’s the word count…so I’ll just have to leave you hanging.

I know, probably most of you are sending die, evil woman, die! looks at your computer screen right now. I’m ahead of the game, but I have a good reason. I think Lent is the great misunderstood season, and it is possible to approach it with joy–as perhaps you can tell from the image to the right. Today I’d like to share a short excerpt from my new book, Bring Lent to Life, and…I’m hosting my very first giveaway! So let me begin by asking: have you thought about “what you want to give up for Lent”? Read on!

The problem with simply giving something up is what I call the Mardi Gras syndrome: You’re sacrificing sweets for Lent, so the day before Ash Wednesday you have four bowls of ice cream. (There’s a reason it’s called “fat Tuesday.”) And on Easter Sunday you celebrate the end of the fast with two chocolate bunnies, a couple dozen handfuls of jelly beans, three slices of pie, and a cinnamon roll.

Kind of misses the point of the fast, don’t you think?

Fasting should change us in some way–move us to a place of greater holiness. It shouldn’t be something we do to torment ourselves for a while, only to revert to our former selves when it’s all over.

I believe it’s time to think beyond the ordinary Lenten penance. Why not give up a  specific sin instead?  In many ways, sin is a habit, a pattern of behavior. Selfishness, irritability, unkind words, gossip, gluttony–each of us struggles with the same sins again and again. Instead of choosing a specific item to forgo, why not choose one sin particularly troublesome to you and spend Lent focused on breaking its power over you?

This can be a great exercise for kids too, although they may need help, and that help must be given carefully. It’s important that we, the parents, not tell children what sins we think they need to address. True conversion happens from the inside out; it cannot be imposed by authority, however loving.

Penance, when heartfelt, is frequently a very private action and very difficult for people to share, even with those closest to them. Respect this. If a child is unwilling to share what he or she is giving up, that’s OK. As a parent, it’s tempting to feel that we must know everything our children are up to. But it’s also possible that a child (especially in the teen years) may want to be free of a habitual sin but is too afraid to admit it to his or her parents for fear of punishment. If your children are sincere enough to choose to work on something for Lent, rejoice, and allow them the freedom to make good choices of their own volition.

(Excerpted from Bring Lent to Life, with permission of Liguori Publications. Click here for more excerpts.)

Okay, folks, it’s time for a book giveaway! If you like what you see, leave a comment here between now and Feb. 5th and be entered to win a signed copy of Bring Lent to Life!

For extra entries, help me spread the word! Mention Bring Lent to Life on Twitter or Facebook (and mention me so I know about it!–Facebook: Kathleen M. Basi, Twitter: @kathleenmbasi). Better yet, refer people to this post. For each one you’ll get an additional entry. For every day you tweet or FB it, you get additional entries. On Feb. 6th my lovely little ones and I will do an old-fashioned, low-tech drawing and announce a winner.

Any questions? If not–go!

Photo by *hiro008, via Flickr

It’s 1:15 when the last door upstairs closes. I hear her patter down the stairs, one to fourteen, landing lightly on Pergo. Afternoon sunlight glows on dirty dishes; the floor at my feet is a mine field of plastic bags, the spoils of the morning’s Target run. She surveys the mess, then looks longingly at the office…and the couch.

Come on, girl. You know you need this. I heard how many times you were up last night.

She picks her way among the bags, and I cheer. Reaching across the glass surface, she presses a button, and I obligingly begin counting upward. At twenty, her finger lifts.

No way. That’s not nearly enough.

She makes a face; she knows that as well as I do. But there’s so much to do–the assignments that tap out from beneath her fingers, the music that’s due in a week, the mess in the kitchen… I watch her waffle; at last, she punches in another thirteen minutes. Thirty-three minutes. Three to fall asleep, thirty to nap.

I start the count: twenty-nine. Go on. Get over there and lie down. You don’t know when that baby’s gonna wake up again.

She takes a drink from a big hospital mug, grabs a few sheets of paper and tosses them in the recycling–halfhearted attempts to split the difference between rest and housecleaning. Then she flings herself across the couch, burying her eyes beneath a pillow.

Twenty-eight minutes. She’s having trouble getting to sleep; the breathing is all wrong.  She’s thinking about what she’s going to do when she gets up.

Twenty-six minutes. The phone rings. She punches it on and back off without answering–must have been one of those 800 number calls. Twenty-five.

At twenty-four minutes, her breathing slows; the house settles into a quiet it rarely sees during daylight hours: the soft ticking of the wall clock, the refrigerator’s hum, the low rumble and tumble of the dryer upstairs. I wish I could slow the relentless countdown, but I can’t; my reliability is the only reason she trusts me. Twenty minutes. Fifteen. Ten. Upstairs, a child rolls over, its feet thumping the walls. I tense, but the slow, even breaths don’t change. She must be tired. Five minutes. Three. One. Now we’re counting seconds…three…two…one..

Beeep. Beeep. Beeep.

She takes a deep breath, stirs, and groans. Nap time is over.

**

To my regular (non-Write-On-Edge) readers, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do this prompt; it seemed pretty far outside of what I would normally write. But Christian encouraged me to try, and since the heavyweight stuff yesterday didn’t seem as interesting, I figured, What the hey? Hope you don’t mind.

Image via Wikipedia

People are better once they’re dead.

The sun beats down, melting the sweat out of the man. He pauses, shoves the blade into the dirt at the base of the hole, and stretches. His back hurts more these days, but it’s worse today than any time he can remember. He perches on the manicured emerald at the edge of the hole, takes a swig from his water bottle, tepid now in the midafternoon heat. Doesn’t help much. He leans on the grip of his shovel, calloused brown hands big as dinner plates supporting a face grizzled gray with wear, and peruses the words etched into the granite stone one plot to the west.

Our loss — Heaven’s gain.

He chuffs, shakes his head against the dizziness of sweltering July, and goes back to work. The inhabitants of this quiet corner of the universe, they were just like everybody else. They hit their wives, drank on the sly, slept around–or maybe they were more ordinary sinners, gossiping, talking behind their best friends’ backs. But one and all, they became saints soon as they drew their last breath.

Sure, he’s a cynic. He’s seen too much of life in the years he’s spent here, digging holes, filling them in, trimming, mowing, to be fooled by the prettiness of a whited sepulchre.

Whited sepulchre. What a great phrase.

He thinks of the notes he’s pulled off stones, anchored by rocks, wreaths or roses, confessing betrayals decades old. Better yet, laying out the laundry list of the poor stiff’s sins. That very stone he just read, in fact–hoo-ee, the malice contained on that little slip left there last Memorial Day! What do people think, when they leave things out on gravestones–that nobody’ll ever give into the temptation to look?

Then again, seeing as how they can’t accuse the poor bastard to his face, maybe it’s just how it goes. Either way, he, the inheritor of all this dirty laundry, has learned to view dignified etchings with skepticism.

Man, but it’s hot. Heat presses in on all sides. Breathing feels like sucking in Jello. And his back hurts. He tosses another shovelful out of the deepening hole, ignoring the way the world seems to be undulating around him…until he can’t anymore. Belatedly he realizes it isn’t just the heat squeezing his chest till it hurts. He drops the shovel and tries to pull himself out of the hole. He manages to swing one leg onto the jewel-green grass before the pain cripples him and he tumbles, prone, to the floor of the rectangular pit. He looks at the soft brown walls rising above him and can’t escape the irony: he’s dug his own grave. Ah, well, at least it’s cool and shady, he thinks as the world retreats. What will they etch on his grave? Perhaps:

He died lived as he lived.

They find him hours later, lying in the hole he dug with an ironic smile upon his face.

**

The gurus at Write On Edge asked us to come up with new characters this week, so I obliged. I wanted to try my hand at writing somebody curmudgeonly and bitter, but I feel it necessary to add that I read an article by a guy who used to dig graves, and his perspective on a man’s thoughts as you do so is much more praiseworthy than his fictional counterpart.

Before I begin, let me share my success of the week: my short story, “The Third Day,” placed in the top ten for the Glass Woman Prize. The link only lists the story, because I’m still hoping to publish it elsewhere, but I’m pretty proud of this honor–there were well over 900 entries, and I helped with the first-round reading, so I know how good the quality of the entries was.

___2___

My mom tells this story about me when I was about Julianna’s age. Apparently I went into the bedroom while my parents were at breakfast and dragged my baby sister out of the crib and carried her out to the kitchen shoved up against my chest.

Can you guess why I’m sharing this story? 

___3___

Last night I was folding laundry in the upstairs hallway, with Michael lying on the floor beside me, while Christian gave baths. He sent the middle two to me for dressing for bed. I got Julianna ready, and Nicholas came down the hall. I turned around to pick up a diaper–I mean, literally turned around to pick up a diaper–and when I turned back around, Julianna was standing in the hallway with Michael crushed against her chest, hanging down like a flopping baby doll. She looked incredibly pleased with herself. “Julianna, no!” I shrieked, and rescused him before she gave him brain damage, dropping him on the floor.

___4___

This experience taught me that there is no safe place in the house for Michael if my eyes are not on him, except the crib. So this morning, when I needed to use the bathroom, I went out of my way to put him out of her reach, in the crib. Except apparently even that isn’t safe, because I started hearing bloodcurdling screams. I rushed back to the scene to find that she had grabbed him by the arm through the crib rail and dragged him over to the edge. Where she was presently engaged in trying to pull him by the arm through the rail. His arm was at a horrible angle. I was actually afraid she’d dislocated it.

__5___

I suppose this means that for the forseeable future, I have to have a WAY better idea of where my daughter is and what she is doing at all times of the day. Nice, Julianna. Like I needed anything else to worry about. (Note to Dottie: are you sure it’s too late to run away?????)

___6___

All kidding aside, I know these stories are funny, but I am a little freaked out. I already stop to make sure he’s breathing far more often than I ever did with the first three. I suppose that’s a NICU gift that keeps on giving, but I would never have thought I would become one of those moms. It’s not like me.

___7___

On a different subject: Here’s an article I wrote for Liguorian magazine’s December issue. They asked me to write a reflection on generosity as it relates to the Advent/Christmas season. I focused on Christmas as the gift of a person, Jesus, and how that might shape the way we look at giving–in other words, giving of ourselves more than giving Stuff.

***

“That,” David said, “was a great meal.”

Alison smiled, her fingers rubbing the container of pasta she’d been too tense to swallow. The bus boy cleared the table with practiced efficiency, then retreated.

…I’m dreaming of a white Christmas…

“Allie, I’ve really enjoyed working with you. You know that?” David’s voice interrupted Bing’s crooning, his hand creeping across the table toward hers.

Hastily, Alison picked up her water goblet and tipped it into her mouth, buying time, but she couldn’t think properly with his eyes gleaming beyond the glass, reflecting the flickering light of the oil lamp in the center of the table. “It’s nice to catch up,” she said at last. “Sometimes I miss home. It’s nice to hear the stories. To know that things haven’t changed.”

He reached for a straw and casually punched it through its wrapper. “Everything changes. You, me.” A hesitation. “Us.”

…and may all your Christmases be white…

She stared at his hands as they played with the paper. Her skin tingled, wondering what melodies those fingers might play on her skin, if only… “David,” she said softly, “I’m married.”

He looked up then. “So am I,” he said, and a shoulder twitched. “Technically speaking. But we’re both on the way out.”

Hearing it stated so baldly tore her insides open. She threaded her fingers together and squeezed tight.

“Hey.” David reached across the table and gripped her wrist. “I’m sorry. The last thing I wanted was to hurt you.”

Oh, the sympathy, like rain on the arid ground of her starved soul. She closed her eyes. Surely God couldn’t grudge her a little happiness, could He? “I’m not ready yet, David.”

He held her gaze for a long moment, then nodded. “I get it,” he said. “I was raised the same way. I’ll wait.”

*

(Photo credit: KennethMoyle, via Flickr)

Eight o’clock has always been the magic hour. Well…always, in that nebulous way that something done once becomes “the way we’ve always done it.” In those years when Jeremy was young enough to go to bed early, but old enough to stay there for the night, eight was the hour when the night became theirs.

Carlo excavates his memory for the contours of those evenings. Candles, blankets on the floor, and the soft strains of Liszt are what he unearths, but somehow he’s sure that’s not the right tableau for this evening, an evening of new beginnings. No, he has to start simpler. Popcorn, with butter. Hot cocoa, with cinnamon sticks. A lighthearted romantic comedy. And blankets to snuggle beneath on the couch.

As the popcorn snaps in the otherwise silent house, he expects Alison to come see what’s stirring. But the bedroom door remains closed, the scene beyond hidden and still.

At last, all is ready. He hesitates, his stomach curling. After twenty-five years, the idea of wooing his wife feels disconcertingly risky. He picks up the mugs and treads the hallway, pausing before his bedroom door. He breathes a wordless prayer, takes a deep breath, and knocks.

Dad says he can’t imagine having one of those office jobs where the work is the same every day. What he likes about farming is the constant variety. Building terraces has to get done when you can work in the field, which sometimes is the same time you need to be cultivating or planting. In the hog-farming years, the feed had to be ground, the animals fed, eyeballed for market-readiness, and hauled to the buying station, without neglecting the field work. It’s all on a deadline; miss the window and the yield suffers.

I didn’t really “get” all of this as a child. I just knew he worked all the time, and breakdowns were a source of helpless, choking frustration. Sometimes, my sisters and I wondered why he did it. Mostly, we just took it for granted.

Six years into my writing endeavors, I realize that my life has come to echo his. And I understand the passion that drives him. There’s a truism that says “if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” Baloney. Trust me. It’s work. But when what you do wraps around who you are, it reaches into your soul, grabs tight, and puts down roots until the two are one and the same. And then, work feels different. It feels like a privilege.

My dad doesn’t farm for a living; he is a farmer. I juggle kids and writing and household and Down syndrome concerns and multiple volunteer duties at church…and although I can’t boil my self-identity down to a single word, I know that my passions are symbiotic; without any one of them, I would not be me. I thrive on the juggling act, the mental challenge that requires me to

(Yes, it's an unflattering picture. So sue me. Or the 6yo photographer, who didn't warn me he was taking it.)

organize my mind: these two tasks are most important today; must plan everything else to facilitate them. Even today, after a late night, my body wakes itself as usual at 5:30 and says: Time to go downstairs and do some work…while the house is quiet.

“Work.” What a beautiful word. In fact, I have to guard against it becoming an idol. Long blocks of unstructured time terrify me. They sound like a recipe for nonproductivity…and thus, stress.

When I came home last Tuesday afternoon to a virus-paralyzed computer, I had to fight off anxiety. I knew it would be good for me, a chance to reset and break bad habits (can you say “checking email every ten minutes even though it’s unlikely there’s anything there”?). But I have so many projects awaiting completion, and Baby Day looms 6 ½ short weeks away. At some point in every project, I need the computer: to research, to network, to send, to input notes on staves and format scores. Yes, parts of it can be done via NEO or paper and pen(cil). But I can’t finish anything without the computer.

That first night, I went to bed with a dull sense of anxiety pressing me down. Again and again I listed what work I could do without the computer, but it didn’t really help. Wednesday I spent the whole day taking deep breaths and working around the house with my husband…which was nice. I enjoyed hanging around him without distractions. But still, I felt anxious, unsettled.

But at 5:35a.m. on Thursday, I woke with a plan: composing at the piano; short story revision on my NEO. More work than I could realistically do on a day when we needed to clean the house before a lunch date.

Ah…purpose. Direction. Structure. Back in business. Bring it on, baby.

Pregnancy update: At 30 weeks, I’m still running. Although it hardly qualifies anymore. I’m also (finally) having Braxton-Hicks. I’ve been wondering when they were going to show up; seems like it came on a lot earlier last time. Not that it matters, as I’m a surgery girl.

___2___

It’s also officially impossible to find a comfortable position to sleep in. Perhaps getting up 5-6x a night is why I’m getting another cold, after only ten days’ health. Maybe I’ll get all my sickness out of the way BEFORE baby. Anyone want to place bets?

___3___

I dreamed about the baby for the first time this week. Mostly good, with a side of seriously weird at the end.

___4___

Alex told Christian this week that “mostly they have good food at school. Not like at home.” Christian thought he was pooh-poohing our lunches, which are admittedly uninspiring, but Alex said, “No, the hot stuff too.” “This,” I said, “from the child who goes to other people’s houses and asks for creme brulee and crab quiche. I think we’re raising a food snob.”

___5___

I’ve hit the final ascent to the climax of my novel, and I’m having way too much fun writing it. Not looking forward to having to knuckle under and do some, you know, paid assignments next week.

___6___

Can’t stay off the pregnancy. We’re back to Ye Olde Name Game. It gets harder with every baby. I can’t begin to imagine how people who have for-real big families manage to name all their kids!

___7___

Sleeping through the night is a myth, and last night was proof. 10:15 and 10:45: Julianna. 12 and 1: Nicholas. 4: Alex. That’s on top of the four round ligament pains, three of which were so excruciating that I had to actually stand up and walk around to ease them. And being awakened at 4a.m.? That’s the end of the night for me. It’s 5:30 a.m. and I’ve already done my morning run.

It has to get better, right?

**

 Outside, the morning hummed with energy. Nicole tucked her hands into her armpits to guard against the morning chill. She stepped onto the flagstone path that wound westward through the rose garden toward the front of the house, the wide lawn where JAZZ vineyards held its private parties sloping away to her right, down to the dusty green mane of forested hills.

She rounded the corner and caught her breath. Here on the western façade of the house, she stood in shadow, looking down over a heavy blanket of fog. Somewhere beneath the undulating whiteness lay endless rows of vines, their leaves unfolding into the coming summer. She leaned on the stone retaining wall and exhaled softly. She knew foggy days in the valley, but it had never occurred to her how beautiful sunrise on the ridges might be. She sat upon an island of emerald amid a sea of fluffy white. The silence, surpassing anything she had ever experienced, hummed around her, a silence so complete that it seemed sentient. She was sure if she closed her eyes and reached out, she would touch the hand of God.

(Photo credit: ah zut, via Flickr)