Of Shattered Vases that Lead to Light

 "Bad news," my husband tells me upon my return from work.  (Isn't that always a favorite way to be greeted?) " The kids broke the vase that held your mom's marbles."  I wonder if years prior I would have made a funny quip about losing my marbles.  But loss doesn't hold humor anymore, and when it comes to stuff associated with my mom, it's particularly painful.  Why did I imagine I could have a glass vase anywhere in proximity of my kids?

We make the ill-considered decision to go to the thrift store as a family to see if we could replace it.  We also find some things for my newest venture (another day, a different story) and get those in the cart as well.  When I find a couple of vases to replace the broken one, I balance them precariously near the top of our cart, because.....I have no idea why I did that.

It's a half-off day at the store so the line to check out is very long.  I get in line with the kids and like a squirrel, I wander a few feet from the cart to look at something.  There is a terrible crash and clatter and Vivian is screaming.  I look to see that the entire cart toppled on it's side right on top of her. Also, both the vases spilled out, shattered, and left broken glass all around her.  On top of that, she is barefoot because she removed her shoes for mysterious reasons.  It's a horrible moment: the loaded cart, the glass, Vivian crying and pinned down under it.  I swoop to try to fix it.  I feel a dozen eyes on me-none feel friendly.  We have made a spectacle.  Is she ok?  Where are her shoes?! How did this happen?  It feels bad and embarrassing and I so want to be out of this line of strangers frowning at me with a look of scorn and--is that contempt?  Wow.  This does feel bad.

One of the cashiers comes over with a broom and trash and I beg him to let me do it.  Don't give these people any more reason to be annoyed.  Please just go and keep checking them out, I plead.  Bill moves ahead with the kids and our cart.  I keep sweeping up glass.  So. much. glass. But then, this story gets worse.  Just as I'm almost done, I ask Landon to return a white board I don't want anymore. As  he quickly removes it from the cart, the remains of the two vases (that Bill had put there without my noticing) get flung out of the cart again and shatter.  Again!  This is not the 7 pieces of broken pottery you dropped on tile.  This is a hundred thousand glints and bits of glass flung across a wide circle, even flying up on the feet of the woman waiting in line behind us.  She mutters.  I moan.  "This is a nightmare," I say out loud, because I can't believe how this is playing out.

Bill gets the cart and the kids checked out.  And still I'm sweeping. Under the clothes rack. By the jewelry case. This mess is in the way of people trying to come into the store.  Some pass without remark, but others stop to watch and "helpfully" point out specks and sparkles I have missed.  Did I put helpful in quotes? I'm sure they were being helpful, but I think I was too mortified to feel it.  The fright of seeing Vivian under the cart, the shame of my parental neglect, the drama of glass flying through the air and shattering into shards bent on colonizing this entire store....

I am weary.  It was meant to be a simple validation that though my mom is not with us here, our memories remain, intact and cherished, like marbles in a lovely vase.

Instead, the whole thing served to suggest that my life is chaotic and humiliating. That nothing lasts, and loss is permanent.  And all those shards of glass? Just the pieces of my broken heart that I'm sweeping up in front of strangers who don't seem all that kind...

Yes.  Sometimes when I'm sad I jump from sad to full-blown melodrama.  (But even when I'm being melodramatic the pain is still real)

So then we go to church the next day.  And isn't Jesus kind?  THIS is the song that brought me to tears:

Wound? What happens to the light when our heart shatters?  I think sometimes we just have to sit in the light, though it is painfully bright and we feel raw and weary.  He could sweep up all my parts and pieces.  God calls himself a potter.  I can trust that he can fashion me into something stronger, useful and beautiful---these shards now will be the sparkle later.  And that's where His light will shine through me.

When Grief Leaves You Dry

Last night, I ran into a friend I haven't seen in a long time. In our conversation, she mentioned how much she loves to read my blog, and complimented it generously.

Blog? What blog?  I don't write here with any regularity anymore.  It seems all my words have run dry.  I logged into it this morning, just to see how the old gal was holding up, you know, nothing more.  I found an unfinished post among the many unpublished drafts that helps me understand why.  I didn't write it to try to explain why this blog has seemingly withered, but sometimes I think the answer appears even when we didn't know the question.

So here's the draft that got me thinking:

We went to Arizona for Thanksgiving.  It was our first extended road trip with all five of us, and long enough (14 hours one way, by car) for all my kids to think we were headed to a new country.

They asked funny questions like what language would people speak there, and what food would we eat. When we got to Arizona and saw many of the same fast food restaurants and big box stores that they know from Colorado, they were startled and disappointed.  We had driven ALL day, fortified by snacks and audio books and music and, and, and!  I have to admit, I shared their disappointment.  I mean, I knew that Phoenix wouldn't be a moonscape of unfamiliar wonders, but I did want to feel like I had left my backyard.

The cacti saved it.  We don't have cacti growing along the highway in Colorado.  We don't landscape everywhere with it.  Darkness had fallen; the novelty of travel had faded.  We needed something to get us through that last 20 minutes.  When I started pointing out cactus with the enthusiasm I usually reserve for Christmas lights, the kids caught the wonder and started enjoying it, too.  

As we approached the city I felt compelled to give my rowdy bunch some pointers. Please don't rough house near the cactus.  If you fall into one of those, it will hurt. For a long time. The spikes are real. And sharp. These are not friendly plants.

Later we learned that a cactus can go for two years without water.  It's remarkable, don't you think? The forbidding spikes protect its internal source of water from animals.  I also learned that some species will even cut off parts of their own root system if the ground around it becomes too dry.  It will actually absorb all the available water and then shrivel up its roots to avoid losing any water back to the soil.  

You know I'm a big fan of a good metaphor.  I can't help but think that the cactus is a very concrete picture of what happens when we operate in scarcity. When I feel like there is not going to be enough (of anything--time, patience, money, love,) I start trying to protect my own supply.  I get prickly. Self-protective. Downright forbidding.  Maybe I lock myself in my room so that my family can't ask one more thing of me that I don't think I can provide. Maybe I don't put that family-nourishing outing on the calendar because I don't think I'll have the patience to do it.  Maybe I don't reach out to my friend who is struggling because I don't believe I'll have the compassion to listen without feeling sapped. I get sharp and irritable with the people closest to me because my soul is thirsty for living water.

And then this roots thing? Do I ever just cut myself off from who I am, my past, my sources of strength?  Instead of going deeper with God do I pull away and imagine

(that's where it ended and I'm going to pick up now)


 Instead of going deeper with God do I pull away and imagine that it's better to just conserve what I have instead of tapping into a never-ending supply? I forget that there is a never-ending supply.  Or sometimes, I just can't believe there is a never-ending supply.

When my mom died, a beautiful stream dried up in my life.  She was refreshing and nourishing in so many ways.  She was wisdom, and acceptance, and graciousness and kindness.  She was someone who knew me better than anyone (except Bill), and loved me more than many combined. In short, I knew Jesus a little better because I knew her.  

Since she has been gone, I have been in a conservation mode of sorts.  I'm not sure if/when more is coming, so it's risky to share.  More what?  Anything.  Emotional resiliency. Patience.  Joy.  

I miss my mom so, so much. In my grief, I think I have drifted farther from the true stream of living water than I realized.  I've been in a scarcity mode these two years, and as I've attempted to conserve, I've grown more prickly and self-protecting.  (Ask anyone who has been close to me; they'll confirm)

I don't think we're meant to be like the cactus.  Psalm 1 says the person who delights in the law of the Lord is like a tree planted by streams of water, yielding fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither.  I don't think we are meant to be in a constant mentality of conservation, but of abundance.  Generosity.  Flow.  Like my friend who can generously compliment a blog I haven't added to for ages, like my husband who can generously offer me grace for the umpteenth time my spikes are scratching him, like my friends who generously show up with pizza and smiles when I think I don't have the energy to be among people.  People planted closer to God are generous.  People free-wheeling in the desert have to conserve.

And here's the point at which I just have the abandon the metaphor and draw my own conclusion. Cactus can't just replant next to a stream of living water.  But I can.  I can draw closer to God and let his love flow through my life.  I don't have to wait for the rainfall of a Sunday service, the watering cans of love that my friends and family share, or even the stream that was my mom's enduring presence.

I just admit, I've been wandering around in some dry places.  
It's time to settle in closer to the river of life.

I'd like to be more like a fruit-bearing tree and less like a prickly, self-protecting cactus.

I think Spring is the perfect season to make the move, don't you?

No Rescue

 Ever have something small at work shine a spotlight on something much bigger and important to you?

The other day at the library, I found myself talking to a woman sharing new research about a disease she had been beating the odds of for years--even while it exacted its cruel toll daily.  She was passionately intense, hopeful and heartbroken at the same time.  Why did she want to dive into the deep end with me, a stranger, about a difficult topic, possibly an uncomfortable one?

I'm not sure.  But I think when people sit with ongoing grief or suffering, sometimes the broken bits can sit right on the surface like shards of glass--making them prickly and difficult-- or sometimes, blindingly beautiful.  But one thing I've noticed, they don't waste a lot of time on small talk.  And for that, I love them.  People who share pain make me feel part of a larger story of our humanity: the way we all suffer, feel lost, betrayed, broken.  The way we all long for redemption, beauty, belonging.

So there I was, completely engrossed.  There weren't any other patrons in line, or even politely hovering in proximity-- waiting to be noticed but not wanting to commit to queuing up.  There weren't any materials needing to be shelved.  There was just this woman, our shared desk, and her profound wish to be heard.  Oh, and then a phone ringing.  How pesky.  I looked around for my colleague to catch it since I was occupied, but she must have been busy too, because I couldn't see her anywhere.

The persistent ringing demanded my response so I picked up,  preparing to ask the caller to wait a moment so I could properly conclude with the lady in front of me.

Instead, it was my colleague, calling from a back office with the equivalent of a "rescue call."  She might have even used that word.  Something about noticing I had been talking to this lady for awhile (five minutes? eight?!) and did I need to be rescued?

Did I need to be rescued?

From what?

Suddenly, strangely, I simply felt old.  Like I had stepped out of the past and into our present pace and perspective I can no longer match.  In a world where Facebook Likes (and sad faces, hearts and wow faces) is a standard form of connection, did my extended conversation seem like a lavish indulgence to my colleague?  She had good intentions of helping me, but I wondered why she thought I was too meek or passive to wrap up the conversation in a gracious way.

Maybe it goes back to what I've already said about suffering and shards of glass.  Maybe she just didn't want anything too messy at the workplace.  It's a fair wish.

The other night I went to dinner with two friends.  The food was secondary to getting a few hours of uninterrupted conversation.  It was a late night, one that we knew we'd pay for in the morning.  But we were investing in other important things.  We might each have felt a little scratched up from spending so much time with two fellow sufferers, but if we did, I think even that was worth it.  When I sit with true pain, it is hard.  Well, it is painful.  But when I stop trying to spin my life in best-case-scenario glimpses and show what a broken mess I really am, well, that's when the light gets in.  Then that light bounces around all my broken bits and shines back to someone else who needs it, too. And quite remarkably, though nothing is fixed, or even better, three friends feel a little more hope.  A little more love.  A little more sense that God isn't finished with us yet.

I wasn't once hoping for a rescue text or call from all that.

Sometimes, when we shed the small talk in spaces large enough to hold what comes next, the beauty of Real is what we feared and needed all along.

This is not Theology. This is the Mystery.

I have wanted to write for so long.

I have wished I had the bandwidth, the vulnerability, the courage and the energy to write.

But these things are never mine on the same day. So maybe I will have to try while I'm still stretched a little too thin, feeling guarded, scared and weary.  And maybe I will hit publish, and maybe I will just try.


I've never been one to believe in receiving "signs" from people who have passed away.  Neither did my mom. In an odd conversation that left us both wondering if we had seriously just agreed to this, I remember her telling me how she wasn't a big believer in signs from the other side, either. "But if you can send one, will you?" I asked. "If I can, I will, but I don't think I will be able to, so don't spend too much time looking."


When the calendar rolled back around to the day my mom died a year ago, I knew I didn't want the day to be like every other. But I didn't know how I wanted it to look differently.  It wasn't a celebration. It wasn't a memorial. The kids and I ended up meeting my dad at the cemetery. It didn't bring comfort. Seeing the years of her birth and death carved into stone was a visual reminder of the finality of her time with us here.  People use the phrase, "Nothing's carved in stone" to suggest options remain. When you stand before the stone, and it is carved, you are reminded that no options remain.  We remembered her, and missed her, and sat with the heavy absence and the heavier weight of grief. And there wasn't much to say or do, just be.

I planned for us to go across the street afterward to a park to find a geocache. I didn't know how we would do at the cemetery and I suspected we'd want to end on a different note than the one I thought the visit might evoke. I still had my three kids with me, after all.

We found the cache and my dad had the wits and patience to figure out exactly how it had to be shaken to guide a key out of this complex internal maze and out a tube to unlock it.  It was so clever.  So tricky. I really doubt we ever would have gotten it open without his clear thinking. I would have just kept shaking it, hoping for dumb luck, and just as I may have figured it out, don't you know one of my kids would have insisted it was their turn?

Larger geocaches come with all kinds of trinkets-stickers, little balls, happy meal prizes, little plastic toys.  Usually there's nothing of value, or even of interest to my kids.  We've seen all of it before. But on that day, there was a silver key chain with a single silver die, studded with diamond rhinestones.

Now to most of you reading this, a die with fake, but sparkly gems where the numbers should be doesn't lead you to much.  For me, it was a profound moment of recognition.  It was her sign.

My mom was an avid Farkle player. (a game in which you roll six dice for combinations like Yahtzee and Bunco).  She collected all kinds of novelty dice and little containers to put them in.  If a new player rolled a particularly rare combination, or won by a stunning amount, or seemed to enjoy the game even a little, she'd pull out her collection and urge them to pick their own set of dice and the container to store it.  She had little boxes from around the world, vases, handmade pottery jars, leather pouches, miniature suitcases.  She had dice as small as an eraser head, dice as large as walnuts.  She had wooden dice, marble dice, hollow plastic dice with dice inside them...the girl loved her dice.  But it was more than that. When something really pleased my mom, she just couldn't help but share it.

So back to the geocache and the sparkly, silver dice.  To me, it was like my mom's insider way of saying, "Things are good. Oh, and all that stuff about streets lined with gold?  Yeah, that's kind of real. Things are so stellar here, even the Farkle dice are studded with diamonds. Diamonds! Can you believe this? And I'd love to share it, but I can't right now so I'll just arrange with the higher ups to put a mock-up in a container I know you'll love. And you can work together and shake it out and  marvel at the mystery of how it ended up there one year to the day since I've been gone."


We remembered her, and missed her, and sat with the heavy absence and the heavier weight of grief, but it was a good day.

When I Think of the Refugee

She didn't want her family to see her uncovered head.  I doubt she very much wanted me, a foreign stranger, to see it either, but life had flung her far from anyone who would know how to help her with her thick, black hair, and landed her in a suburban bathroom complete with an unfamiliar hair dryer and running water.

We made our best attempts to understand one another, but the bridge between us stretched so far, we couldn't find understanding in the middle.  As she moved her garments around to lean her head into the sink, I saw the scars.  Lines on her back and shoulder that suggested something brutal had happened to her.

She is a refugee.  Her country suffered a civil war and she ended up on the wrong side of the the power. Her gorgeous, regal features were despised for whatever ancestry they suggested to the oppressors.  She fled her country and resettled in a neighboring one--into a camp that was beset with almost as many dangers as the war zone she left behind.  She had more children at the camp.  Her older children died there, too. Family members went permanently "missing."  After seven years of living in limbo, her family finally made it to the United States.  They made it through the long vetting process and passed all the requirements to become refugees here--many hoops to jump through before landing among us.  How she and I ended up in this position of vulnerable need is another story altogether, but when I think of the refugee, I see those scars.

I remember that bereaved mother, her improbably optimistic husband, her five resilient children.  I remember how they had to adjust to a new kind of exile from their homeland, with all the comforts of its language, food, culture and community, and scrabble for a new normal with a new kind of poverty.  Theirs was the poverty of being without wheels in a metro area with highways instead of paths.  Theirs was the poverty of being without style in a culture so overclothed that the distinctions are based on the kind, cut and creator of clothes.  Theirs was the poverty of being without community in a culture that saw their head coverings as a suspicious affront, their language as an obscure hassle to translate, and their intellect as somehow diminished for not having been shaped by exposure to modern technology.

My family was part of their transition team for six months.  Six months of watching our toddlers speak an international language of giggles, our boys, the international language of LEGOS.  Six months of sporadic visits, generous food, few words, lots of smiles.  Six months of memories--the infamous zoo trip, playing Uno and other games, helping them register for school, introducing them to the budget-saving wonders of thrift stores.

I read that our country has halted all refugees entry for four months.  I can't pretend to be an informed citizen into all the reasons behind that decision.  I know it's a big, complex issue.  I haven't felt in danger from refugees, and I don't feel safer now knowing that none are coming for four months.

When I think of refugees, I remember a woman, my age exactly, who has been through more than I can understand or imagine.  I wonder what her back would look like if she had been asked to wait four more months.  I wonder if we would have met even fewer of her kids.  I wonder what enemy intent on our harm would go through such a long, arduous process, of wait lists and medical examinations and years of life in an overcrowded camp to get to the top of a refugee list, when there are faster and more efficient ways to get here.

And I wonder why we are so quick to want to trust that our multi-billion dollar government can create any program at all to ensure our safety, to weed out every threat, to encase us in a bubble of secure comfort.  How many people's suffering is it ok to ignore to raise our own safety by small percents?

Fine, Fine, Found

Micah was flying out of the library happy as only a 3-year-old can really be when, BAM! Full faceplant on the concrete, his forehead smacking hard. Like a lightning storm, I see it first and then, two beats later hear his this-hurts-so-bad-I'm-not-just-seeking-attention wail. I run and scoop him up and he caves into me before I can assess the damage.

Fast forward a few hours when Landon wants to read one of the new library books, and even though it's past his bedtime, I'm willing to consider it because, confession: I want to read it, too.

The only trouble is, our loaded bag of 20+ books is not here. At all. I don't need advanced math skills to figure out that I just left upwards of $400 worth of books in the middle of a sidewalk.

Sigh. You can picture what happened, right? Micah so rarely cries like that that when I heard it I must have dropped everything to get to him. Amid the blood from his mouth and forehead, and the swelling, and determining if we were at DefCon 5 or just a good dose of ice, and getting Vivi secured....well. I forgot all about the books.

The BOOKS! The books I specifically requested and didn't want sent back all over the district. The books that were mostly brand-new because I'm a picture book junkie and order the new ones when insomnia strikes. Books we would have been the first to read. And now, the first (and only) to pay for.

My head hurt just thinking about it. Micah's head hurt just thinking about it. He started crying; I started calling. I think Bill started praying. (probably for some patience for his scatterbrained wife)

And this is the happy ending we've all been hoping for: Iza (the dear, sweet, wonderful librarian who got my call) left her library (down a flight of stairs) and went outside looking all about for this bag of forgotten books-- and found them. Right by the book drop. Placed there, I can only imagine, by Mother Theresa's distant cousin who was visiting Colorado because she had a hankering for homemade honey. You can come back for them whenever you want, Iza graciously assured me. We'll have them waiting for you.

So is it a story about Life with Boys? Or I Love Librarians? Or Practice Random Acts of Kindness?

It's all those things. It's the reminder that even if it feels like we're getting a head smacking, there are still friends and colleagues, and even strangers, who will step alongside with very little fanfare and extend a bit of kindness. A bit of integrity. A bit of ice-no-questions-asked. A bit of help.  

And it all adds up to a great deal, indeed.

Two Clouds

When I lost the phone that held the recording of my firstborn's heartbeat--that very first one we heard while he was still  a dream-come-true in utero--I cried. 

Today, when I mentioned it to the phone guy to explain why maybe a smart phone with "a cloud" to back everything up could be a good idea for me, he agreed.

"I know where you're coming from," he said.
"DO you?" I asked pointedly, surprising myself by sounding incredulous.
"Yes.  For me, it was a voicemail."

Because he was sort of walking into an emotional landmine.  Me with my mom's old phone she had just given me for my birthday. The one that still had her apps and pictures and ringtones on it.  The one that I didn't want to change at all because it was my mom's, but still wanted to use because, well, she had given it to me.

And then this stylish, self-assured, tech-savvy guy half my age looked straight at me and said sincerely,   "It's really rough.  And I really get it."

Suddenly he wasn't just some cool-guy salesperson and I some lady who stepped off the wagon train wanting to join the modern world.

We were also two humans who know part of the story.  The story of love, loss, and things we never get back and people we'll have always.

I cried.  Just a little.  And his eyes glassed up-just a little. (because he was also still the cool-guy).

"Thanks for meeting me right where I was tonight," I told him.  "You're headed great places because you get people even better than phones.  And I really appreciate that."

"Anytime," he said, and I realized he meant it as he locked the door behind me because I had stayed past closing.

I sat in my car and thought about heartbeats gone, and three amazing kids still with us today.  I thought about a virtual cloud full of pictures, and a great cloud of witnesses that surrounds us.

I sat in the story of love and loss and things we never get back and people we'll have always:

Here, there, or in the air.

"Thank you for this phone," I called to tell my mom.  "Of course,"  she said.  "Maybe it will give you a few more tools at your disposal."

Tools and treasures.  In my pocket.  In the cloud.  Here, there and in the air.

So you can keep me
Inside the pocket
Of your ripped jeans
Holdin' me closer 
'Til our eyes meet
You won't ever be alone.
Wait for me to come home.

~ Photograph, by Ed Sheeran

 

A Pineapple for Mother's Day

This is what I read to my family when I gave the moms in it pineapples today for Mother's Day.  Maybe you'd like to read why I would want to give one to you, too.


A pineapple doesn't seem like a typical Mother's Day gift, but then, there are no books to tell you what is just the right thing.

What is just the right thing for my mom whose job has fewer years ahead of her than behind her?
What do I get for the mom whose life intersects mine because the men we each love are father and son?
What gift honors my older sister, the mom who blazes the motherhood trail in this family and leaves a path anyone would be proud to follow?
What's the perfect gift for my younger sister, the mom whose next child doesn't grow inside her womb, but in her heart?
 What would be the perfect gift for you?

Maybe a pineapple is as good as anything else.  I think a pineapple can be a little picture of our lives.

The pineapple has its sharp parts. When the  grocery checker moved it along she exclaimed, "Ouch! That really hurts!"
And so does life.

The pineapple is sweet.  Sometimes, surprisingly so.
And so are our lives.

The pineapple follows a plan written into its very design--the Fibonacci sequence.  Its parts and pieces are arranged in a beautifully designed way.
And so are our lives.   (even if we can't see it right away)

I recently learned that the pineapple has an interesting history as the international symbol of hospitality.  It represents generous welcome.
And isn't that how we want to live our lives? When we are open, honest and vulnerable with others--when we strip away our prickly self-protections, isn't that when the sweetest things happen?

So moms,
this is what I know.

Life is hard.  It really hurts.
Life is sweet.  It's really good.
Life is wild, but it is ordered by a creative God.

May God bless you in this hard, painful, sweet, wild, God-led life as a mom, today and always.

Out the Door in Five

I woke up to find a little boy soundly sleeping next to me.

That's sweet, I thought in my fog, since the phrase "woke up" is rather generous to describe how I start almost every morning.

Maybe half a dozen snooze-button pushes later it finally entered my brain that today is a school day.

Today is a school day!

Don't confuse the exclamation point for happy excitement.  It is meant to express that panicky feeling you get in dreams when something big is crashing down around you.

Finally, reality sinks in and a shot of adrenaline spikes me vertical and I realize we are supposed to be out the door in five minutes.  Landon is still sound asleep and Micah is upstairs telling his crib noisy stories.

We lasted two whole months.  Two months of timely, reasonably calm school mornings where I felt like I was rocking it...in spite of the fact that I took numerous trips through the carpool with bedhead and teeth I hadn't brushed yet.  But overall, no tardies for a girl not known for her punctuality felt like victory.

Well, let's do this thing, Landon.  This won't be great, but I think we can salvage it.
Up.  Out.  Just wear what you have on.

I throw on yoga pants and slip on shoes.  Meet you in the car.  I have breakfast bars.  And the soggy-bottomed baby who needs a diaper change.  (bless his amiable heart)

Landon comes out carrying his shoes and looking a year younger in that sleepy-eyed, soft way he holds onto when he just wakes.

Can you kinda comb your fingers through your hair?  See if you can settle it down in the back.

My foot is growing too heavy and I try to lighten up on the gas as I contemplate how lame it would be to get a speeding ticket on the way to something like kindergarten.  

This is not urgent, remind myself, but I'm convinced that Landon's equilibrium will be totally thrown if he has to come into class late after everyone else has followed the peaceful protocol of lining up with the teacher and marching in as a happy little group.

Suddenly, like rounding the corner and discovering a double rainbow, I realize we are going to make it.  We will be just fine.  Dad will be disappointed that we all ate crumbly breakfast bars in the newly clean van, and Landon will have to fill his water bottle at school, but he will be in line with the group.  Rumpled, sleep in his eyes, with a few crumbs clinging to his mouth, but just fine.

I exhale.  Landon pipes up from the back,

"I'm not as hungry as you think, Mom.  I had breakfast with Daddy.  So it will be ok that all I had was that nola bar."

Breakfast with Daddy?!  Bill eats while it is still dark, long before I get up.

It all clicks.  How he ended up in my bed.  Why he couldn't be woken.  Why he is not fussing about the disruption of our luxurious routine.

I drive home behind a responsible citizen who seems like they are driving painfully slow, following the speed limit.  I need to re-calibrate

I knew this day was coming.  The one where decades of chaotic mornings catch up to me and claim a piece of the order and calm I have been working so hard to create for Landon's school experience.  I knew the leaf would turn back over, accompanied by the well-worn mantras of "Come on!  Let's GO! We're going to be late."

And for a moment, the rut of all that feels smooth and deep and in danger of closing in over my van, becoming the tunnel we'll be destined to live in.  It starts to feel like once you hop on the Frantic-Late-Ones train there is No.Getting.Off. until it pulls into the station.  Late, of course.

Mark Sylvester

Bet we have managed to stay off that train for two and a half months, I tell myself.  And what we can do one day, we can do again.

So I take the soggy-bottomed baby in the house.  And I do the next thing.  As I change his diaper I resolve to get us all in bed a half hour earlier tonight.

We have some track jumping to do tomorrow.

Not My Cookie Cutter Batch of Kids

Picture by Chance Agrella

For our second born, I thought I knew what kind of kid we'd be getting.  As though our DNA could only whip up one batch of great cookie dough, and all our kids would differ in appearance but not essential nature.  And then out pops the second born and he is as different from the first as pizza is from pumpkin soup.  This is not just another cookie with a few decorative differences.  Here is a whole new amazing person to discover and delight in at his own pace.

And so we do.  I try really hard to not compare, though I catch myself doing it all the time.  Not because I think one is better than the other, but mostly because I can't stop marveling that they really are *that* different.  Endlessly.  

I struggle to even think of how to show you how different they are.

If one is an onion we discover in sequential ways, the other is a pomegranate full of  unexpected complexity we aren't aware of right away.

How can you even compare an onion to a pomegranate?  Exactly.  They are that different.

But one thing is the same about these little people who call me mom:

Their ability to surprise me all the time.

Tonight my second born who still calls both Bill and I "mom", whose known word count falls below the average measures some experts have charted for his age, who often seems more prone to injury than insight at this stage of his life, yes, this one,

He goes outside and points up to the lovely half moon and says,  "Moon."

Simplest little syllable of no earth-shattering consequence to anybody but me, but I'm truly left to wonder, how did he know that?

His other accomplishments of the day include getting completely naked in his crib before I came and got him this morning, slamming his thumb in the waffle maker he managed to pull out of the cupboard twice, getting on Landon's bike by himself and precariously balancing on it, naming the letter Y by what seems to be sheer crazy luck, singing rather tunelessly at the top of his lungs in the car without saying a single word, and straddling the toilet fully dressed while saying "poo."  I can only surmise he has ambitions to be an early potty trainer.

So there's my little second born unwilling to go back inside the house until I acknowledge the beautiful moon.  

Keep pointing, my little man.  I kinda suspect there's a lot more out there you'll want us to discover with you.

Even if we're sometimes cringing at the perilous path you take to find it.

Colorado is a Girl in Love

Colorado is a girl in love.  Her boyfriend has been dressing her up in gold accents lately and like every newly infatuated, she gets a little ahead of herself and starts dreaming wedding.

So this morning she giddily traipses off to some celestial bridal shop and can't help herself--she's trying on a bit of white just to dream a bit.  You can almost hear her giggling to herself as she slips on a gorgeous white veil.  "Don't I look pretty in this?!"

She has enough restraint to not go full-on, snow-white gown of glittering extravagance, but you know she wants to.

So we wake up to this dusted veil of snow and have to agree, "You do look pretty, Colorado.  But without wanting to sound like a party pooper, wouldn't you like to slow it down a bit and still enjoy a whole season of all your awesome red party dress dates first?  The gold has been nice, but you still have a whole lot of red, russet, scarlet and even brown before you're ready to wear white, don't you think?

But if you've known Colorado for awhile, you know she's nothing if not fickle.  You may think she's all ready to settle down with Winter, but wait a few days.  I bet she'll be pulling out the floral prints and smashing blue skies with white cloud scarves billowing about again soon.

Because even for a girl in love, I doubt she'll be willing to skip that many fabulous fashion opportunities before she dons white.

Colorado is beginning to dream of white

My Favorite Gift So Far

Of all the gifts my son has given me, a renewed sense of wonder in the world may be my favorite.

Somewhere along the way, my sense of wonder faded.  It was like a glow stick that is rather magical in the beginning and completely nonessential in the end.  Much of the time my wonder was inactive and superfluous.
I didn't really miss it.  I had mostly forgotten how it felt.

Then we met Landon, lighting up our lives with more wonder than a hundred glow sticks could contain.  Each year we got to live life anew through his eyes, and there was so much to see.

There was so much to hear.  To taste. To smell.  The world cracked open again and the exploration of it with someone experiencing it for the first time is one of the best parts of parenthood.

I used to point out everything I could to him.  I didn't want him to miss one butterfly wing or double rainbow or dandelion puff.  I didn't want to miss his discovering these things for the first time.  I wanted to see his expression when the sandpaper tongue of a kitten licked his hand, when he heard the haunting notes of a cello, when he rode a carousal.  All of it brand new, all of it ageless, all of it full of wonder for us both.

I thought I was giving him these gifts, wrapped in my renewed interest and enthusiasm. Look at this!  Did you hear that?!  Have you ever seen anything so lovely?  Have you noticed this?  And maybe a little bit, I was.  I wanted to tag the whole world as his--to explore and cherish.

But in the end, he has given it back to me, more beautiful and mysterious than I ever remember it being before.  He asks his questions and increasingly, they are about things I have never once considered.  He fuels my own curiosity the way I once thought I was nurturing his.

This is what I mean:

We have started learning about the human body, beginning with the circulatory system.  I love, love love this topic, and Landon does, too.

"What will you want to learn about the circulatory system?" I ask him after several overview-giving conversations.

He mentioned some stuff.  A few days later he told me, "Mom, what I'm really wondering about, though, is if
the deox-a-nated (deoxygenated) blood is blue, how come I've never seen any blue blood come out of my body?  Why don't I see blue blood?

I sat there silently pondering this.  I felt dumbstruck.  My mind has never wandered there, but it seems like such a reasonable and interesting question.  I find myself admitting (as I am doing more regularly these days) that I'm as curious as he is, that I don't really know, and I'll need to do some research before I can answer the question.  I pose a guess that maybe when it hits the air it gets oxygen then?

Google mocks me.

As it turns out, we don't have blue blood running through our veins. It is, in fact, all about how light is reflected through the surface of our skin and is kind of a trick of the eye.  Even though I read several articles, I was never really able to get my mind entirely around it.  Except to understand that there is no blue blood, with or without oxygen.

Those circulatory charts sure do stick in your mind, though, don't they?

That's what I mean when I say Landon fuels my curiosity as much as I think I'm nurturing his.  Maybe my brain was like a kite and his is like a submarine, because he takes me places I never once considered.

My favorite part is that everywhere we go, the world is full of wonder.

I'd like to trade in my "wonder-as-a-glow-stick" paradigm for a new one.  As a parent, I'll trade it in for a Wonder Colander, able to collect and share wonder with equal ease and unprecedented joy.

So if you see us spinning and grinning in a field of green under a great big sky of blue and billowy clouds, look closer.  I'll be holding my invisible Wonder Colander--my favorite gift my son has given me so far.

Movie Scene or Real Life?

Ever have a day that fits neatly into a movie?  Or a scene, at least?

I don't often notice these kinds of trends, but Landon did the other day and made me smile.

I was at the airport and momentarily reminded of my formerly more extroverted self by this conversation:

"So, Special Forces then.  Is that you?"  He looked up at me, startled.

"Yes, but how did you know?"

"Well, the watch, for one thing.  Most people don't have their watches set to military time.  And that book you're reading has something about Special Forces on one of the pages."

Which in itself was kind of embarrassing to admit, seeing as the entire cover of the book was hidden by duct tape...duck tape?  Whatever.  It looked obvious that the secret book of military combat procedures was begging for my surreptitious glance to determine its content.

"Well, you're right."

"Thanks, then.  For everything you do for us."

The conversation hovers in that space between awkward and natural and I'm not sure where it will land.

"Thanks for saying something," and he sounds genuinely grateful.  "I don't get a lot of that.  I don't usually advertise what I do."

Yes, the secret handbook sealed with tape...I'm noting that.
Numbers are called and he boards and we board and the moment passes and I spend the first few minutes of the safety speeches constructing all kinds of interesting back stories for him and his tattoos in my head.

I must have been a little proud of my detective work because I even retold the story to my family after I got home.  Landon told me seriously (after I tried to explain what Special Forces meant) that I was really lucky to have him on the flight with us.  "Yeah, that way, if a bad guy was on the plane, the Special Forces guy would know what to do and save everyone."

And just like that, I can picture watching an exciting action movie and thinking, Really?  There just happened to be a Special Forces guy on the plane who could take the bad guy out?

It could happen.
I've already practiced that scene in real life

Blown Fuse

"Please make those damn jingle bells stop."

Do you know that moment of chaos where you don't think anyone but the person you are talking to will hear you, and then suddenly everyone in the room does?  It stretches out long and awkward, doesn't it?

It was Christmas In the Mountains.  Estes Park.  My Aunt's house was filled with family, fun, food and plenty of Christmas cheer.  Little feet running everywhere, with big ears.

And here was Aunt Jodi, bah-humbugging about socks with jingle bells and cussing to boot.

I can still remember the surprised look on my sister's face and the tone with which she said something like, "I'm sorry.  With all this noise in the house, I'm not sure I get why these bells are so aggravating.  Don't be such a Scrooge!"

I felt ridiculous.

And with no words to describe how those adorable little bells were fraying a nerve that left me feeling raw and edgy.  I couldn't explain it to myself.  Somewhere along the way I had reached critical mass and that one little noise seemed to have pushed me there.

Fast forward many, many years later.

My capacity for noise and chaos has certainly grown to contain a career working with kids, children of my own, and better tools to reduce that anxiety before it reaches blown fuses.  But I am still the girl who can get overstimulated by too much.  Noise. People. Clutter. Small Talk. Music. Blinking Lights. Overlapping Conversations. Screaming Baby. Smoke Alarm.  Screaming Baby & Smoke Alarm at the same time.

Sure, I'll admit, I have better tools for coping with this aspect of myself,  but sometimes I forget to use them, or I don't see the need to bring them out until it's too late, or the situation escalates faster than I can unlatch the hinge on my mental toolbox.

Or I get pregnant, hormonal, and fuzzy-brained and my fingers feel fat and clumsy and I can't seem to access the tools at all.

Then I go wildly waving a verbal sledgehammer and coming off as though I'm trying out for a part in a foreign-made soap opera.  Yeah.  It's funny--but not.

Yesterday I found myself in the "stop-the-jingle-bell" mode for the first time in awhile.

There was a pair of Micah's overalls in the dryer.

And that was IT.  I could not STAND the noise of the little metal parts clanking around in there.

So now an adorable pair of Osh Kosh's sit in the Goodwill box in the closet and this mama humbly acknowledges that sometimes, I have to go ahead and blow the fuse.

   

The Wild Side of Library Services

You know how much I love the random and unexpected.  I am often delighting in it and compelled to share it like I did here or here.

So here I am again, sharing what must be told, if only because I love the way it maxes out my random meter and makes me laugh.

I was subbing down at the Monument library and my coworker casually said that there was something alive in the book drop.

I thought that was so cryptic....something alive?  Are the books rustling?  Did she hear a squeaking?

This is what I peered in to see:

What IS that??!!

Can you appreciate how funny we thought it was that this creature was crawling all over the book Wild?  I love that so much.  I started laughing and shrieking and oh-my-goodnessing it in that hand-flappy way like I was 13 all over again.

So we had our coworker John take care of it.  Naturally.  And just as I turned my grinning self away from him he pretended to stick the little pincher on my back and made me scream like the easily startled teenager I always was.  (Who am I kidding?  I still easily startle)

John is probably close to twenty years older than I, but in these few moments of random hilarity, I felt like he was my little brother and I was the melodramatic older sister.

I love working in a job where you just never know what you'll find.  I love working with people who will make the fun stuff fun, and I love that these long-buried bits of our childhood selves come out like a burst of crazy string in the middle of an ordinary day at work.

Self-Taught or Professionally Instructed?

Like many of you who don't grow bored with the nuances of sports or music, I don't mind looking at writing as a craft to be studied from many angles.  When my kids fall asleep in the car or I am driving alone, I listen to a college professor giving a class on writing creative nonfiction.

I am learning there is a technical side to writing that I was barely conscious of.

Certainly, as readers, we can all spot "bad writing" the way you can instantly see the gap for a missing piece in an otherwise completed puzzle.  Even if we don't know what, exactly, is on that piece, it is obvious that it is missing.  As readers, we can't always articulate the exact thing that makes the writing seem "bad" to us, but the feeling is as obvious as that missing piece.

I don't have to be a professional singer to be able to hear when one is singing off-key and I don't have to be a professional writer to be able to sense that something is not working with the story I am reading.

But I DO have to know what is going wrong if I'm the one trying to produce something excellent.

So the instructor describes in painstaking detail what good writers are doing to make the whole thing work.  It's the difference between eating a satisfying, perfectly plated meal and standing in the kitchen and watching the chef juggle a dozen complex tasks in a sort of controlled chaos.

We readers get the very best of it all served up between two lovely covers of our book or Kindle.
The writer was a scrambling slave to the craft of writing shedding blood sweat and tears to get it right.

And this leads me to the thing I am really wondering (and craving conversation about) these days:

Can taking a class that teaches these technical aspects of writing backfire and do more harm than good?

We've probably all met the cook who seems to have a sense about what goes together and cooks with creative experimentation and flair.  Without recipes, she leans on intuition, experience and her own preferences.  She seems confident and unaffected in the kitchen, moving almost effortlessly in her element.  Not everything she ever cooks is a home run, but she consistently produces great food with a happy ease that causes the rest of us to miscalculate its true complexity.

What if that same cook attended a fancy cooking school and was given all kinds of new jargon for her procedures, recipes to follow precisely, and proper techniques and tools for everything she had previously only experimented with or mastered without being entirely conscious of it?  Would this grow her or hinder her?  I truly don't know.

And I compare that to writing.  What if "someone" who has been writing her whole life, and loving it the whole time, goes to a fancy writing class and learns all kinds of new jargon for writing, new rules to follow precisely, new techniques to try to consciously implement....would this grow or hinder her as a writer?

Really, what do you think?  Do writers need to hone their craft one freewheelin', experimental recipe at a time, or should they go to writing school and learn how to take the art and craft of it to the next level?  Do we make up the method, or learn writing techniques and try to use them?

I don't consider myself a professional writer, but like a sports fan or music aficionado, I'd love to hear what other people think or have learned about this question.

Orbiting the Same Sun, From Different Worlds

She was a cute-as-a-button little girl who looked like she could have just stepped out of a Pottery Barn Kids catalog.  Walking and talking, but still enough baby left to have the hints of dimples on her hands and chubby legs.  Seriously, so cute.  "She's your little doll!" I observed to her mom, and she didn't deny it.  "Pretty much.  Making her clothes is my creative outlet."  Wow, then.  That mama has a lot of creativity to let out.  The dress was a piece of art.

And then there was the hat.

This picture may not do it justice, but basically it was a sweet little bonnet that reminded me of Little House on the Prairie.

"Did you make the hat, too?" I ask innocently.

"Oh, no.  That hat was seventy dollars."

I make a concerted effort to keep a straight face.  "Did you just say seven-zero?" I ask, trying to keep the question casual and light.

"Well, yes.  It started out at fifty, but then I had to get the monogram and shipping was 10, so by the time it was done, yes.  But I just had to get it."

Naturally, yes.  I can see that.  

Her cherub's bottom grazes the sand as she squats down for a brief moment.  A minute later, she's distracted by something --though I'm not sure what because she has the most perfectly proportioned pink sunglasses I've ever seen on a child that small (and yes, all that alliteration is intentional because she was a girl who looked like she might have two middle names)

"Well now, that's the dirtiest she's ever gotten!" her mom told me.  "Now that whole outfit will have to be washed."

And we've hit that conversational impasse where I'm at a complete loss for words.

Because two things are flashing through my mind with sirens.  Now that outfit will have to be washed?!  This suggests that her child can actually wear something for more than seven minutes without it requiring a wash and stain-treatment if it is worn for eight.  Second: Your daughter dusts her bright white ruffled diaper cover with a little sand--a charming bit of cinnamon and sugar on an upside down muffin--and it is the dirtiest she has ever gotten?!

And as long as we're using semi-clunky food metaphors to describe kiddos, let me tell you what my own sweetness of a boy was looking like:  He was also playing in the sand.  And the water.  And I'm pretty sure he was thinking of chicken nuggets because he would get as wet as possible and coat his entire body with sand. His Entire. Body. Then, with glee and giggles he would find the muddiest part of the play area and stomp around in it because what else would a human chicken nugget do but find the dipping sauce?  

After the sand escapades he had used my water bottle to pour water over his head and laugh and laugh.  Maybe he was moving on to marinades-I'm not sure.  

By the time my kiddo was in proximity of this little beauty he was a gritty mess.  I was a gritty mess from having carried him.  We could have been extras in a film about homeless orphans and not stood out too much.

The gap between my world and hers stretches a little more in the silence and I don't know what to say to bridge it.

So I close the fashion magazine of her life and she turns the news channel off of mine and we say our polite goodbyes and move along.

She had a princess to attend to and I had sand to get out of my bra.

Does the Princess Ever Get it Wrong?

His employees seem genuinely frightened of him, walking on eggshells to stay on the better side of his moodiness.  His anger is like fireworks-big and loud and explosive.  He has a room in his house that is basically trashed from all the times he's broken stuff in it.

And yet, imagine my dear friend asking me if I think she can change him by her friendship.  She believes that her gentle kindness, general charm, and patient boundary-setting with this guy can change him from an angry, surly person into the man of her dreams.  She's a smart, ambitious girl who loves to read, loves her family, and has dreams of travel.  Her cheerful optimism about all this would be inspiring if it didn't seem so misguided.

And doesn't it seem misguided to you?  I mean, what would your advice be to someone for whom you wanted only good things and the best chances for relationship happiness?  Mine: I tell her to let the man do the hard work of some serious therapy.  Let him deal with those anger issues without slapping a flimsy band-aide of a new relationship on it.  Life will get stormy and band-aides don't stick when they're wet.  You can convince yourself that the anger will never be directed at you, but so did all the battered women out there.  They are brokenhearted to discover they love a man who is too broken to love them back.


Why embrace that kind of misery when you still have the option not to?  Doesn't it seem like a better ride to hitch your wagon to a star not likely to burn you up in its unresolved fury?

Unless, of course, your name is Belle.

In that case, sweet Disney princess of enduring appeal, by all means, stay with a beast of a man because unlike all of us women in real life, your kind charm really does have the power to transform him to someone extraordinary.  Not an encounter with God, work with a qualified therapist or counselor, not a personal journey toward peace and anger resolution.  No, none of that.  You, by your very nature, are absolutely enough to transform a violent angry man into an extraordinary one.  At least, you'll know he's something special because you'll have such great physical chemistry, even your first kiss will seem magical.  Everyone knows you can guarantee yourself a healthy, functional relationship if someone's a great kisser, right?

Well, if your name is Belle.

Beauty and the Beast is a fairy tale. Just like we know that fairies aren't real, maybe we need to acknowledge that neither are most of the conclusions fairy tales ask us to draw about the world.

But if you watched this narrative more times than you can remember from the time you were too young to understand it til the time you had your first crush on a boy, don't you think some of the ideas might just settle into a reassuring place of familiarity that felt like truth?

Do you know any smart, ambitious girls who seem kind of misguided about the way relationships work?  Do you know anybody who believes she can change others?  I know we can influence each other, but genuine, sustainable growth comes from just that: growth.

I'm wondering if when we catch ourselves hoping to be the sun, rain, soil and time to affect all that growth in someone else, we might need to ask ourselves if a little bit of the tale found its way into our truth, too.

So Far, No Cards

I'm not ordinarily a snoopy person.  I don't read his journal, peruse his mail, or flip through his phone texts.  My husband shares enough with me that I'm not usually digging around for more.

So the other day when I was putting his underwear away (yes, as innocently as that) I saw a plastic bag in the drawer and opened it without thinking.  I found an anniversary card that I assumed was purchased for our upcoming sixth.

And then our anniversary came and went.  My oversize card to him got left in the glove box because I rather vainly didn't want to carry it in and out of the fancy restaurant without a purse.  I left the purse at home because we were on a nice date and I didn't want to be lugging around the three pounds of oversize mommish utility that I call my purse.

The card I thought was for me never appeared.

Then I forgot about the card in the glove box. I think he forgot mine, too.

So here we are, a full week after our anniversary, and we haven't exchanged cards.  We're going to a wedding today.  It could be lovely and romantic to celebrate six years in after watching a new pair launch into year one.  If we remember....

Some of you may think, "That is just sad.  How can you not honor your anniversary enough to give each other cards?"

If you were running a marathon with drink stations at every mile would you think it "just sad" if you forgot to stop at one along the way?

Cards and gifts are nice.  I'm always appreciative.  But marriage is a marathon, and what makes me exponentially happier is to still be in it with this man after six years of some of the best and worst times of our lives.  We honor our commitment and cherish each other at all kinds of junctures along the way.

Yaay Anniversary!  Bigger yay for when he got up to care for our crying son in the middle of the night because this pregnant mama was just too weary to do it. And even though the job entailed a stinky diaper, vomit, and relocating the other one who could not get back to sleep, he returned to bed and gently patted my leg like I was his most favorite person in the world.

With or without a card, what I celebrate is that six years in, that's still true.

So here's to the marathon! Six years in, he's still my favorite, too.

picture by Phil Roeder

He Still Surprises Me

He ran as fast as his legs could go, farther than I anticipated, with results I could not have seen coming.

Need you ask?  It's Micah.  My wild man.  Today he was my wild water man.

We went to the park (you really should join us if you're local) and I got him out of the stroller and was just digging in the diaper bag for the sunblock and he was gone.  Running full speed for the cement-lined artificial park creek.

I wasn't too worried since I assumed he'd pause at the water's edge and approach with some caution.  All the other toddlers seemed to have gotten the memo.

He plunged in like a man just rescued from the Sahara, with a reckless gusto that surprised me.  And then he just kept running.  What is he doing?!

So of course, I took off running, too.  Before I reached him he did a face plant in the chilly water.  I was momentarily relieved.  This is where he'll stand up sputtering and crying from the shock and fright of being submerged in the water.  This will slow him down, I foolishly thought.

Not Micah.  He got up and just kept going deeper.  Another face plant in deeper water, this time.

When I removed him from the water, he cried bitterly as though all of his happiness hinged on playing in my personal version of a triple shot espresso.

I think we'll be staying with the splash pads for awhile.  I could do without the adrenaline of watching Micah pretend he is some kind of fish boy on a mission.