I'm trying to write more, of late.
Well, actually, not so much "more of a thing" but "anything."
I'm trying, lately, to write anything.
It's like relearning some athletic feat, long dormant and last practiced with a much more agile body.
But anyway, I'm posting again. Sort-of. And I can't say I'm fully pleased with my fledgling efforts, but hey, ya gotta start somewhere, right?
I think this about sums up the self-critique of my current journaling: It's not great. It doesn't totally suck. It's just somewhere in between.
And that seems apropos, somehow, because "in between" is where I really live these days.
It works on almost every level of my life I want to examine. And I do want to examine it all! I do. But I'm a little overwhelmed at the effort just now, so I'm gonna sign off without courting any more pithy observations. ...Expect maybe to note there's probably a darn good reason I feel stuck in an in-between stage. And once I get past it/ through it/ over it/ into it, I bet I have a lot to say.
Just a girl, asking for grace, to survive her happily-ever-after.
8.23.2010
8.20.2010
Just Listening...
Now here's something interesting.
(And, well, depressing if you happen to be me.)
So I'm cleaning up the "dashboard" of this blog (while also working, of course) on a Friday afternoon, and I find I have ALL these random past posts -- mostly written but never shared for want of a little editing.
This post, for instance, is coming off the shelf right now, because it's a funny one. I vividly remember the first exchange below, and it makes me laugh still today.
...But it's also depressing as it was written 2 calendar years ago, and WHY have I not posted it before?! WHERE are the other amusing memories I've never committed to written space, anywhere, over the past 18 months? (I didn't even remember the 2nd exchange at first... and even after the "oh, yeah!" moment, the edges are a little hazy.) So what am I losing, all the time, every day, in not journaling/ scribbling/ filing away everyday bits of our lives with young kids?
I HAVE to get back into this.
Because observation is what I'll have to offer my boys later. And it will probably matter more than most of the other things I try so hard to offer up now and can't always achieve. (Adventure! Quality family time! Real meals with hot food and side dishes!)
My gut tells me I gotta shift into "trained writer" gear, for real, because only I to give my children what's genuinely me -- all the little things that strike me as significant enough to chronicle.
Whether their truths or only mine, these moments are building the story of our lives. And, like all stories, they help make us. One day, I hope they help make us feel loved and whole.
So, Owen, babe: You're not in this one only 'cause you didn't yet have the words in 2008. Plus, you had just started going to Growing Stick, so Daddy picked you up after school while Miles was the only boy in my car each afternoon. Now, you possess A LOT of language. You fill our backseats with it. And you bend it to you amazing, upbeat, zealous little will. :) I'm posting this now -- and maybe lots more of Miles talk soon --but I promise I will keep remembering your early days until I write down a skyfull of Backseat Stories, all your own. xoxo...
Nov. 2008 -- Backseat conversation is one of my all-time favorite parts of motherhood. I love the things Miles throws at me as we ride around, him strapped securely in his quadrant of the car, me in mine. Maybe it's because we're just voices in these moments -- thoughts in the other's head more than a physical presence in each other's space -- that we have such good "talks."
Well, that and the fact that he's such a deep thinker.
First grade Miles is prone to some very SERIOUS pronouncements. He just says amusing, insightful, kooky things in the most solemn way.
A recent example...
M: "Have you ever noticed that we have a castle in Tyler? Welllll... it's kind of a castle, or maybe a museum.
Me: "Hmm... Not really...."
M: "It's that building right over there with the gate shut. Was it a castle before they closed it up?
(Let the record show the boy pointing to the old Brass Lion on South Broadway.)
Me: "Well, actually, it was a jewelry store."
M: "Then I'm not surprised it's closed, because it looks pretty scary. What kinda women would buy jewelry from a scary castle? (Then, under his breath), they should have made it like a museum. Women like museums!"
Oh, and here's another gem from the backseat...
M: "Mom! Mommie! Did you know.... (irritatingly long pause) ... that sometimes, when I drink a lot of a certain drink -- well, actually, it has to be a soda drink... (a-n-o-t-h-e-r t-e-d-i-o-u-s p-a-u-s-e) so, when I drink a lot of one soda at a time, and then if sometimes if I have to burp afterwards, then my burp will almost always taste like soda. Isn't that weird? Have you ever heard of that?"
Yes, son, it's called the human condition. You are rife with it. And it makes you beautiful.
love,
the mama
(And, well, depressing if you happen to be me.)
So I'm cleaning up the "dashboard" of this blog (while also working, of course) on a Friday afternoon, and I find I have ALL these random past posts -- mostly written but never shared for want of a little editing.
This post, for instance, is coming off the shelf right now, because it's a funny one. I vividly remember the first exchange below, and it makes me laugh still today.
...But it's also depressing as it was written 2 calendar years ago, and WHY have I not posted it before?! WHERE are the other amusing memories I've never committed to written space, anywhere, over the past 18 months? (I didn't even remember the 2nd exchange at first... and even after the "oh, yeah!" moment, the edges are a little hazy.) So what am I losing, all the time, every day, in not journaling/ scribbling/ filing away everyday bits of our lives with young kids?
I HAVE to get back into this.
Because observation is what I'll have to offer my boys later. And it will probably matter more than most of the other things I try so hard to offer up now and can't always achieve. (Adventure! Quality family time! Real meals with hot food and side dishes!)
My gut tells me I gotta shift into "trained writer" gear, for real, because only I to give my children what's genuinely me -- all the little things that strike me as significant enough to chronicle.
Whether their truths or only mine, these moments are building the story of our lives. And, like all stories, they help make us. One day, I hope they help make us feel loved and whole.
So, Owen, babe: You're not in this one only 'cause you didn't yet have the words in 2008. Plus, you had just started going to Growing Stick, so Daddy picked you up after school while Miles was the only boy in my car each afternoon. Now, you possess A LOT of language. You fill our backseats with it. And you bend it to you amazing, upbeat, zealous little will. :) I'm posting this now -- and maybe lots more of Miles talk soon --but I promise I will keep remembering your early days until I write down a skyfull of Backseat Stories, all your own. xoxo...
Nov. 2008 -- Backseat conversation is one of my all-time favorite parts of motherhood. I love the things Miles throws at me as we ride around, him strapped securely in his quadrant of the car, me in mine. Maybe it's because we're just voices in these moments -- thoughts in the other's head more than a physical presence in each other's space -- that we have such good "talks."
Well, that and the fact that he's such a deep thinker.
First grade Miles is prone to some very SERIOUS pronouncements. He just says amusing, insightful, kooky things in the most solemn way.
A recent example...
M: "Have you ever noticed that we have a castle in Tyler? Welllll... it's kind of a castle, or maybe a museum.
Me: "Hmm... Not really...."
M: "It's that building right over there with the gate shut. Was it a castle before they closed it up?
(Let the record show the boy pointing to the old Brass Lion on South Broadway.)
Me: "Well, actually, it was a jewelry store."
M: "Then I'm not surprised it's closed, because it looks pretty scary. What kinda women would buy jewelry from a scary castle? (Then, under his breath), they should have made it like a museum. Women like museums!"
Oh, and here's another gem from the backseat...
M: "Mom! Mommie! Did you know.... (irritatingly long pause) ... that sometimes, when I drink a lot of a certain drink -- well, actually, it has to be a soda drink... (a-n-o-t-h-e-r t-e-d-i-o-u-s p-a-u-s-e) so, when I drink a lot of one soda at a time, and then if sometimes if I have to burp afterwards, then my burp will almost always taste like soda. Isn't that weird? Have you ever heard of that?"
Yes, son, it's called the human condition. You are rife with it. And it makes you beautiful.
love,
the mama
8.19.2010
When We Became Ordinary
Once upon a time two very smart, and very dumb, young people met and fell in love. The love happened slowly and yet all-at-once, over clandestine witticisms sent in lieu of taking notes. In the same class. Three screens apart. It grew over later-night ice cream, dished out after dates, as they "pursued other interests" while a perfect fit sat across the futon.
Like most young and smart/dumb people, they hardly ever thought of themselves as ordinary.
Quirky? Yes. Flippant? Definitely. Blessed? Sure thing! ...And, hey, don't forget lucky!
Eventually, the very smart/ dumb young people saw just enough to know they should be married and always together. For years of email and lots of bowls of ice cream.
And so things went as things will go, while the smart/ dumb young people aged (only slightly), and gained (a few worldly things plus a bit around the middle), secured interesting jobs and bought their first home.
They acknowledged to each other that they had a very fun life. They planned overseas vacations in their emails. And they bought very expensive ice cream.
They also dreamed daydreams and grew discontent and sought new jobs and tried new things -- and then they became parents.
And, still, they were not ordinary.
Two very smart/slightly less dumb young people + 1 first-born child = nothing so very commonplace (to one another, anyway).
Everything, in fact, was original. All new. Premiering, every night.
Even the horrible parts were washed in glory, and the silky-fine, orange-gold hairs that graced that perfect first baby head seemed like God's special sign, a blazing torch that shed light on how very special and unique they must all be... this never-before-made family of three.
But something shifted along the way, as things went how things are wont to go.
The fairly smart/less dumb young people grew in the ways of their new tribe, called Parents. They gave up the "no TV" rule but held firm on "no McDonald's." (Mostly.) They learned about "good enough" and "getting through the day." They occasionally startled upon sight of the small and petty and lazy in themselves, and sometimes they wanted to shoo these lesser things away. Other times, they greeted the things with a wordless handshake.
Soon enough, they moved to Texas. Where a lot of good and sacred and a lot of hard and heartbreaking things happened. Sometimes all at once.
And so for years the family grew and laughed and cried and wondered about its place and, ultimately, sought for itself one last missing piece.
Eventually, they got it. Another baby -- the boy who lived -- arrived and he also bore the torch of special in his fiery fine locks. This time, with curls.
But no story ends at a beginning, and the family of three-who-became-four were far from over once their forth arrived. They had years of figuring-it-out ahead. And more than a few stops at McDonald's.
Flirty emails got scarce and ice cream went generic. Just like the shampoo, the cleaning products, and the diapers that used to be Huggies. Grocery lists got longer, time got shorter, and someone started shorting bedtime stories.
All those little changes, amassing in one very big wave, surged the story forward until one day, the not-so-young/ often absent-minded/ never-really-dumb Mom came to email the slightly-more-aged/ definitely-more-subdued/ and-clearly-never-dumb Dad to say, "I must clean this office! When did I become such a pig?"
And, typing, she suddenly knew.
An answer appeared to her fleeting, silly question. It was, in fact, quite real, and her mind reeled with its own reply. It happened when she became ordinary.
Before, she was a girl with passions. Abilities. Focus. Full of Light and Effervescence and Boundless Energy. While her messes and her projects could pile high, she could never survive disorder for very long. Nope. Because her Type could not allow it.
Special people, you may know, set special expectations for themselves. They aim high.
And that is how they come to have so far to fall.
This particular mom and this particular dad were forced to face that their unvarnished life looked a lot like anyone else's -- full of messes and always listing to one side. With detours and sidetracks and no straight climb to the pinnacle of anything. Unable to deny the exits they had taken on the way to SPECIAL and SUCCESSFUL and BEST SELVES EVER, they reached the only, inevitable conclusion. You can't be important to a lot of people at once, not when something important is happening at home. You can't even *always* be important yourself. No human can have it all or do it all. Just not possible. But, to a very few people, for a short while, you can be an entire world.
Dear Miles and Owen: I am humbled and privileged to have become ordinary for you. To give you an ordinary, good life. You are worthy young men, worth any sacrifice we have so far made or will ever be called to make, to keep our family woven tightly together. You have been worth facing the worst in myself; worth digging deep for the best. You are valuable and precious and so, so loved. You are my messy middle. You make me special. --Mom
Like most young and smart/dumb people, they hardly ever thought of themselves as ordinary.
Quirky? Yes. Flippant? Definitely. Blessed? Sure thing! ...And, hey, don't forget lucky!
Eventually, the very smart/ dumb young people saw just enough to know they should be married and always together. For years of email and lots of bowls of ice cream.
And so things went as things will go, while the smart/ dumb young people aged (only slightly), and gained (a few worldly things plus a bit around the middle), secured interesting jobs and bought their first home.
They acknowledged to each other that they had a very fun life. They planned overseas vacations in their emails. And they bought very expensive ice cream.
They also dreamed daydreams and grew discontent and sought new jobs and tried new things -- and then they became parents.
And, still, they were not ordinary.
Two very smart/slightly less dumb young people + 1 first-born child = nothing so very commonplace (to one another, anyway).
Everything, in fact, was original. All new. Premiering, every night.
Even the horrible parts were washed in glory, and the silky-fine, orange-gold hairs that graced that perfect first baby head seemed like God's special sign, a blazing torch that shed light on how very special and unique they must all be... this never-before-made family of three.
But something shifted along the way, as things went how things are wont to go.
The fairly smart/less dumb young people grew in the ways of their new tribe, called Parents. They gave up the "no TV" rule but held firm on "no McDonald's." (Mostly.) They learned about "good enough" and "getting through the day." They occasionally startled upon sight of the small and petty and lazy in themselves, and sometimes they wanted to shoo these lesser things away. Other times, they greeted the things with a wordless handshake.
Soon enough, they moved to Texas. Where a lot of good and sacred and a lot of hard and heartbreaking things happened. Sometimes all at once.
And so for years the family grew and laughed and cried and wondered about its place and, ultimately, sought for itself one last missing piece.
Eventually, they got it. Another baby -- the boy who lived -- arrived and he also bore the torch of special in his fiery fine locks. This time, with curls.
But no story ends at a beginning, and the family of three-who-became-four were far from over once their forth arrived. They had years of figuring-it-out ahead. And more than a few stops at McDonald's.
Flirty emails got scarce and ice cream went generic. Just like the shampoo, the cleaning products, and the diapers that used to be Huggies. Grocery lists got longer, time got shorter, and someone started shorting bedtime stories.
All those little changes, amassing in one very big wave, surged the story forward until one day, the not-so-young/ often absent-minded/ never-really-dumb Mom came to email the slightly-more-aged/ definitely-more-subdued/ and-clearly-never-dumb Dad to say, "I must clean this office! When did I become such a pig?"
And, typing, she suddenly knew.
An answer appeared to her fleeting, silly question. It was, in fact, quite real, and her mind reeled with its own reply. It happened when she became ordinary.
Before, she was a girl with passions. Abilities. Focus. Full of Light and Effervescence and Boundless Energy. While her messes and her projects could pile high, she could never survive disorder for very long. Nope. Because her Type could not allow it.
Special people, you may know, set special expectations for themselves. They aim high.
And that is how they come to have so far to fall.
This particular mom and this particular dad were forced to face that their unvarnished life looked a lot like anyone else's -- full of messes and always listing to one side. With detours and sidetracks and no straight climb to the pinnacle of anything. Unable to deny the exits they had taken on the way to SPECIAL and SUCCESSFUL and BEST SELVES EVER, they reached the only, inevitable conclusion. You can't be important to a lot of people at once, not when something important is happening at home. You can't even *always* be important yourself. No human can have it all or do it all. Just not possible. But, to a very few people, for a short while, you can be an entire world.
Dear Miles and Owen: I am humbled and privileged to have become ordinary for you. To give you an ordinary, good life. You are worthy young men, worth any sacrifice we have so far made or will ever be called to make, to keep our family woven tightly together. You have been worth facing the worst in myself; worth digging deep for the best. You are valuable and precious and so, so loved. You are my messy middle. You make me special. --Mom
8.11.2010
In the Time of the Owie
Owen got his first burn over the weekend -- a perfectly oval blister marring his otherwise perfect right pointer finger. He's just two months shy of 3 years old, so it's pretty impressive no bigger hurt has already befallen him.
He came rushing into my room saying, "Owie, owie, owie. Mommy! Look! Mommy, what is it? Owie, owie, owie..." I think my actual answer was something inane like, "I don't know. That wasn't there before."
I asked him to show me what hurt him. (Because endless bad possibilities will wrack a mother's brain. Was it a wasp and he's allergic? A chemical burn?) He led me to his room, where I had taken the shade off a lamp in order to exchange it for a smaller size. He couldn't resist the glowing 40-watt bulb, of course.
As soon as I registered what was wrong, I calmed down went for ice. As soon as he registered what was wrong, he freaked out.
I think the initial shock protected him from some of the pain. As the finger began to throb in earnest, with a hurt he had never quite felt before, Owen lost all control. He wailed. He bawled big hot tears that left tracks down his cheeks. He shook his hand as vigorously as he could and tried to slam it against anything he could find. He stamped his feet. And then he screamed. That pain simply would not go away.
Both parents got involved, pulling out all the distraction/ first aid tricks we know and managing to calm him in just a few minutes. He still tried to rub the blister off with the towel surrounding his ice pack. He still heaved every few seconds, with suppressed sobs. He snotted all over two towels. But he listened to us when we told him it's OK to feel hurt but don't feel scared, because we're sure it will get better soon.
No more than 10 minutes later, Owen and I were settled on a couch, me rubbing his feet while he licked a sour Bomb Pop.
...And then the stillness shifted. He became euphoric. I mean, literally, bouncing off the furniture happy. He giggled. He cracked jokes. He sang songs. He was the sudden court jester of Sherry Lane. Juggling was not out of the question.
This swift uptick in mood first made me downplay the whole drama that came before it. "Was that really necessary?" I thought. But then I thought about Owen's accident in terms of my adult emotions, and it all made perfect sense.
Isn't this the same way we adults react to pain? I mean real, psychic pain? As soon as we realize we hurt -- hurt in that deep, gut-punching, breath-stealing way that, once confronted, will command our complete attention -- pain is all we can feel. Perspective is out. Pain is in. Our throbbing souls get in the way of better decision making.
Flailing, shaking, aching in the middle of it, we have no idea where our pain will end.
Owen was completely overcome by an experience that he could not predict. That he could not control. That did not feel good to him. And I totally relate.
It's a compelling reason why we need a God. Because grown-ups can't exactly ask for popsicles to ease our hurts. Most of us can't live our lives with hovering mommies and daddies, ready to pull out all the stops to stop the burn.
But we do have a source of comfort. A promise that the pain will not always be all we see. In the the midst of the very worst of it, we have a Holy, sacred presence that can keep us from feeling the fire alone.
Stuck within ourselves, we can't know when and where a painful period of life will end. But we can pray. We can plead and cry, in fact. And we can listen for a reply. Because, sometimes, just hearing it will end makes all the difference.
And, amazingly, we don't have to feel "all better" to feel bracingly better. Just as Owen's pain lessened enough to let his naturally chipper self show through, we grown-up sufferers can, suddenly and floodingly, feel better. Long before all is healed, the return of a simple horizon ahead can make us a little giddy. This is a super-helpful thought for me to dwell on. Because we can all use a little more peace and perspective during our Times of Great Owie.
...Well, that and a Bomb Pop. ;)
He came rushing into my room saying, "Owie, owie, owie. Mommy! Look! Mommy, what is it? Owie, owie, owie..." I think my actual answer was something inane like, "I don't know. That wasn't there before."
I asked him to show me what hurt him. (Because endless bad possibilities will wrack a mother's brain. Was it a wasp and he's allergic? A chemical burn?) He led me to his room, where I had taken the shade off a lamp in order to exchange it for a smaller size. He couldn't resist the glowing 40-watt bulb, of course.
As soon as I registered what was wrong, I calmed down went for ice. As soon as he registered what was wrong, he freaked out.
I think the initial shock protected him from some of the pain. As the finger began to throb in earnest, with a hurt he had never quite felt before, Owen lost all control. He wailed. He bawled big hot tears that left tracks down his cheeks. He shook his hand as vigorously as he could and tried to slam it against anything he could find. He stamped his feet. And then he screamed. That pain simply would not go away.
Both parents got involved, pulling out all the distraction/ first aid tricks we know and managing to calm him in just a few minutes. He still tried to rub the blister off with the towel surrounding his ice pack. He still heaved every few seconds, with suppressed sobs. He snotted all over two towels. But he listened to us when we told him it's OK to feel hurt but don't feel scared, because we're sure it will get better soon.
No more than 10 minutes later, Owen and I were settled on a couch, me rubbing his feet while he licked a sour Bomb Pop.
...And then the stillness shifted. He became euphoric. I mean, literally, bouncing off the furniture happy. He giggled. He cracked jokes. He sang songs. He was the sudden court jester of Sherry Lane. Juggling was not out of the question.
This swift uptick in mood first made me downplay the whole drama that came before it. "Was that really necessary?" I thought. But then I thought about Owen's accident in terms of my adult emotions, and it all made perfect sense.
Isn't this the same way we adults react to pain? I mean real, psychic pain? As soon as we realize we hurt -- hurt in that deep, gut-punching, breath-stealing way that, once confronted, will command our complete attention -- pain is all we can feel. Perspective is out. Pain is in. Our throbbing souls get in the way of better decision making.
Flailing, shaking, aching in the middle of it, we have no idea where our pain will end.
Owen was completely overcome by an experience that he could not predict. That he could not control. That did not feel good to him. And I totally relate.
It's a compelling reason why we need a God. Because grown-ups can't exactly ask for popsicles to ease our hurts. Most of us can't live our lives with hovering mommies and daddies, ready to pull out all the stops to stop the burn.
But we do have a source of comfort. A promise that the pain will not always be all we see. In the the midst of the very worst of it, we have a Holy, sacred presence that can keep us from feeling the fire alone.
Stuck within ourselves, we can't know when and where a painful period of life will end. But we can pray. We can plead and cry, in fact. And we can listen for a reply. Because, sometimes, just hearing it will end makes all the difference.
And, amazingly, we don't have to feel "all better" to feel bracingly better. Just as Owen's pain lessened enough to let his naturally chipper self show through, we grown-up sufferers can, suddenly and floodingly, feel better. Long before all is healed, the return of a simple horizon ahead can make us a little giddy. This is a super-helpful thought for me to dwell on. Because we can all use a little more peace and perspective during our Times of Great Owie.
...Well, that and a Bomb Pop. ;)
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