Everything is Stew

For the first time in a long time, I visited my own blog.  I sat here and let myself look over the post titles, remembering some, and others not so much.  Of the recent (not that any of them are recent, but you know - more recent) posts, I most often found myself thinking "oh wait, what?  I actually posted that?"  Oh well.  I guess what's out there is out there.  I've started to think of a lot of things in my life as a stew.  You add something into it, say turmeric, and for a few moments, it's bright and bold and at the forefront of everything, but then you give it a little stir and let it sit and simmer awhile, and soon, it's all just a conglomeration of what you might call the past.  Obviously, it's the sum total of what you've put into it and every addition matters, but no one thing holds the spotlight for long. 

I used to obsess over the things I posted on this blog, which never had more than twenty readers and usually had more like three.  Now, I see it as turmeric in a stew - no, scratch that.  Turmeric, even in the company of a myriad other ingredients, still leaves a pretty distinctive mark.  This is more like...onion powder?  I'm giving myself away, here.  If anyone out there thought (or cared to think) that I used only the finest ingredients when cooking, well, I don't.  The point is that I used to have all kinds of anxiety about the things I wrote on this obscure page, but I am beginning to see my posts as grains of salt or garlic or onion in the great ocean of content that is the internet.  Hopefully, in some indirect way, I'm elevating the flavor of it, but one way or the other, I have the luxury of obscurity.  It's nice to know that I can fumble and totter along without making much of a splash.

My mom is the only person who still mentions my blogging, and asks for it, and probably the only person who will still read it when (if) I post, and the nice thing is that I can write whatever silly, tedious things I want.  The world wide web is big and often cruel and I am terribly good at feeling intimidated, but if I think of it being just my mom reading, I can be free to write whatever I need to.  Maybe it's because I connect with most blogs through Pinterest these days, but I feel like this sort of blog - literally an online (or web) log, a diary of sorts, is no longer a thing - which will make me feel self-conscious about writing it, which will probably give me anxiety about having posted it ---  But it's only a little onion powder.  It's not even turmeric.  It won't ruin the stew, and most people probably won't even notice.

For the record, though, I'd rather not be onion powder.  It depends on the kind of stew, but I'd rather be basil or thyme.  Or rosemary.  Or ginger.  But it depends on the kind of stew.

Meditations on Halloween (of all things)

This one's for you, Mom.  And, less directly, for me too.

We got the girls home late tonight, and they wanted me to cuddle with them.  We moved the trundle right up against the daybed and I positioned myself diagonally between them.  That way, both girls feel like mom is cuddling with them.  In our case, cuddling means being horizontal in close proximity to them.  The bar that marks the end of one bed and the beginning of another crosses between my shoulder blades.  It's cold, but not too uncomfortable.  I've figured out how to position myself across it so that my spine isn't resting there.  At the same time, it probably keeps me from falling asleep between them, which I might otherwise.  Motherhood is a tired, tired feeling.  It's a fact of life on which I've got to choose, constantly, not to linger.

The silence takes shape between the three of us.  In my mind, it arches again and again, riding on the steady, warm sounds of breaths as the little ones drift sleep-ward.  Distantly, I can discern the sound of sirens: a lower tone, then a much higher one, which is almost how I might imagine a howling wolf to sound.  Sirens are loud, meant to be heard.  Meant to be noticed.  Yet, from where I am, I have to concentrate to hear them.  That's part of being in a city, though, isn't it?  The sounds of trouble - crime, disaster, pain, and panic - the sounds that, of necessity, demand attention, somehow blend into the backdrop.  They are, in a sense, a part of the silence.  Isn't that a little bit macabre, in itself?

It's an appropriate thought for Halloween.  And maybe, without realizing it, that's the point of the whole Halloween celebration.  We are celebrating the fact that we live in a fallen world.  We celebrate death, in a way, though I rather prefer the way Mexico does that, or at least the way it's portrayed in Coco (and yes, it seems that I get all my cultural awareness from Disney movies.  What of it?), which is more a celebration of ancestry and of remembering.  Why, coming back to America, since I can't speak for anywhere else in the world, all the blood and chainsaws and spiderwebs?  Why all the laud for decay?  I think it is simply that: we are celebrating the fallen world, the prevalence of mortality.

I'd best not linger on that thought either, because left just like that, I can't say I approve of it, but I rather like Halloween.  Not the horror and shrieking and haunted-house Halloween, but the Halloween for kids.  The pumpkins and the smell of fallen leaves, the chill breezes and costumes and the warm soup before heading out onto the lamp-lit streets.  For me, Halloween is more a celebration of the turning of seasons.  I never liked the zombie-bride costumes or the horror films.  I'm a simple soul, I guess, and I'm more sensitive now than I ever was before, to sorrow and loss and death.  I don't need a tryst with darkness, do I?  I quite like the light.

Perhaps we could rather celebrate humanity, and how happiness thrives and love abounds, somehow weaving themselves around the through mortality.  Perhaps, that's what we already do.  In very much the same way that Christmas has different meanings for different people, from honoring vestigial pagan tradition to honoring the God who made them, the significance of Halloween, to a lesser degree might also be a  matter of choice.  But if it's going to be a celebration of human resilience and of the eternal and immortal bits that run through and string together fallible humanity, it's got to become so through deliberate, individual effort.  How to make that happen, I don't know.  Probably because it's getting late and I was tired to begin with, and I'm overthinking everything.

You're such a prude sometimes.

Yeah, I know.

A little slice of my morning for you:

Through the open door, we can hear the girls waking up.  The baby, in her insistent little voice, chanting, "Mama!  Mama!  Mama!"  Her big sister, in her talking-to-baby voice, responding, "Nooo, not 'Mama.'  'Addie.'"  This repeats for awhile and then, to our surprise, Ben and I hear the baby repeat, "Ad-die!  Ad-die!"  Ben and I lay side by side, just listening, laughing to ourselves, and waiting for them to get out of hand.  Their shrieks will eventually sound less like fun and more like frustration, and that will pull us out of bed at last.
A breeze floats through our open window, just cool enough, scented with last night's rain.  I've been noticing something strange and wonderful since we've been here.  For the past few years, I've struggled, not only to write, but to want to write, to choose, in a rare moment of free time, to make the effort to open myself to words.  Time and time again, I've discovered that the writing will leave me happier and more carefree than I was before, but even knowing that, I've struggled even to want to do it.
I think now, that it's because I hadn't been taking the time to enjoy much of anything.  I don't know why that part is easier here - maybe because this is where I lived before I was married, before we had children, when my time was all my own?  But I love these morning breezes.  I love the trees, some of them enormous, that shadow us on our little walks through the neighborhood.
Last night, at a mutual - youth - activity, I found myself gazing at the sky.  I probably should have been taking greater pains to socialize, but it was just such a pretty sky, and such a peaceful moment, to watch the clouds going about their business, catching and releasing the sunlight.  After the activity ended and everyone went home, I drove around for a bit, just because I hadn't had enough of seeing and smelling.
That's how it's been, living in Utah again.  And when I get to that quiet time in the evenings, after the kids are in bed and before I'm ready to turn in myself, I can't seem to settle down until I've taken a few minutes to splay my thoughts on a page or screen.  I'm grabbing as many of those moments as I can, because I know that this might all come as a result of the novelty of once again living somewhere new.  New, but not new.  The energy to write is very much in danger of succumbing to old, bad habits, or just to the mundane rhythm of passive living.
It's funny because this is the most urban place we've lived - and Ben and I often said that we wanted to be somewhere rural.  Small towns and seclusion have always attracted us, but here something is awake in me that has been dormant for years.  Here, I feel that, for the moment, I am just where I need to be, notwithstanding the scents of cigarette smoke and dog food that sometimes ride the breeze.

Me Again

Hi friends.  This time, I've got my hair up in a towel.  Baby is taking an exceptionally long morning nap, and I really ought to seize this opportunity to do my hair, brush on some make-up and clean up the breakfast dishes before lunchtime - all things that happen too seldom.

But I happened to have my computer on my lap and my kids are distracted doing something other than climbing on mom - but not making trouble quite yet.  The window there is about three to five minutes.  So while my hair is drying itself into a frizzy mop, I'm here instead.  Because I'm beginning to think that writing is something that has to be stolen, and that makes me feel more like a thief - the cool, ninja kind, not the kind in a ski mask who holds up a convenience store - than a mom in a messy house with a lopsided towel turban.

Then again, when I've gotten the kids to bed tonight and wonder what I should do with that hour of freedom, the thought will cross my mind, I should write something.  That thought will be promptly trampled by a stampede of easier, less worthwhile activities, which I will not disclose here...though really bad netflix movies or sappy kindle freebies might be involved....

Wasting Time

It's a chilly morning, mid-February.  I'm on my couch in my silky pajama pants and a fraying hoodie while my kids, dressed about the same, but with shoes, are running around in the yard.  Snow was enough to keep them inside for a few weeks, but frozen mud?  They're undaunted.  If you can see the dirt, you can eat it.  That satisfies their requirements for a play-outside day.

I'm kidding!  Only one of them eats dirt.......and gets caught.

The baby just went down for her morning nap, which usually isn't a long one.  That means that I am now in my window of opportunity.  If I hurry, I can work out now.  If I really hurry, I can even shower before 2:00 this afternoon.  So, obviously, I'm here, instead, typing up a semi-coherent, irregular blog post.

?????????????

I should mention that, athletic ineptitude aside, I really do like to work out, when I can manage it.  The question marks make more sense if you know that.  And me sitting on the couch, typing this makes less.  But here I am.

Over the days of stay-at-home-parenting, I'm learning a lot about myself.  One of those things is that I'm either rather lazy, or not very good at managing time.  I prefer to believe the latter.  Something I miss from my former life - the one without children - is having clear tasks and expectations before me, and having someone to make sure that I do them, and to evaluate how I did.

Yes!  I miss having a boss!

Because with external criteria and external critics to define them, and to define me, I could take the very objective list of things I had done on a given day, and easily decide: I did well today.  I am efficient, productive, competent -- other days, not so much.  A big 'A' on my paper or a 'C+' on my exam allowed me to bypass the need for all this introspective evaluation.  This is how I did.  This is what kind of a student/employee/person I am.  See?  It says so right there in red sharpie.

Child-rearing is a different creature.  I have three small people to nurture, a house to maintain, and any number of tasks, defined and otherwise to accomplish with various, rarely established due dates - if any at all.  I'm learning some tricks to it, of course.  Some things can be sorted into check-lists and charts.  Some things can be scheduled and regulated, if I will take the time to mastermind that scheduling, regulating, sorting, listing and charting.

Time is something that I want desperately to catch and tame.  If I could just grapple that wily whatever-it-is to the ground, get onto its back and establish a good, white-knuckle grip, then maybe things would be different.  Maybe then I could dance to the zany music that has become my life, rather than always stumbling a step behind it.

I've begun to ask myself, when I have a free evening, 'what do you want?  All you need to do is decide what will make you happy.  You have the ability, the resources, even, yes, the time to make it happen, if only you will.  So what do you want?'  And my answer if always the same - I don't know.

*****

I should add a disclaimer here: this post is acting like kind of a downer.  I know that I come off as pessimistic more often than I actually am, and usually, I try to end with some redeeming perspective in my posts to counter that.  Today I'm not going to.  I'm just going to say that in the biggest, most important things, I am happy.  I know that.  Not for an instant do I regret the life I have chosen.  My little people are delightful and so much more, and you should see the things they're teaching me!  I have everything I need and everything I want, really.  The only thing I lack is me.  I want vibrancy, color in my life, and I know it's there.  It's all around me.  The only deficiency is my will, my ability to look up or reach out at just the right moment - there's that time thing again - to seize it.

Carpe diem - how cliche am I?  But many, even most cliches have their foundations rooted in more truth than we comprehend.  That's how they got to be so annoyingly well known.   That's how it is according to Caitlin, anyway.

Ahem.  My point is that I'm not sad right now.  I'm not wallowing in all the things and experiences I don't have.  I'm just sitting thoughtfully, even bemusedly on my couch, observing my life for a few moments, and gauging whether or not I still have time for that workout.

Dear America,

I'm usually pretty silent on social media, especially when it comes to political issues.  Emotions run high and the feeling of confrontation leaves me wound up and jittery.  But in light of the election and subsequent events, I feel compelled to come out of my shell just enough to share a few thoughts.

A lot of people are upset, angry, afraid, or disappointed.  Others are elated.  And then there are many who just feel uncertain.  What I want to say is this: that we all either voted for the candidate we thought best suited for the job, or, maybe more likely, voted against the candidate we thought least suited for it.  There's a heavy us-and-them mentality when it comes to politics.  The good guys vs. bad guys; or the informed vs. the willfully ignorant; or the truly needy vs. the entitled.  I'm not saying that everyone thinks this way or that those who do do it consciously, but that's the sentiment I pick up on most of the time and especially in recent days.

The comforting truth is that that's not the way it is.  I don't think it's naive to say that almost everyone in this country wants the same things: we want to live happy, productive lives, and we want that for each other too.  Red or blue, left or right, we all face a lot of the same issues and we all want to find harmony for ourselves and our neighbors.  The major difference is that we have very different opinions about how to go about getting everything to work.

I'm echoing the plea that Secretary Clinton, Mr. Trump, and President Obama have all made so eloquently this week, and I'm pleading with myself most of all.  I can spew cynicism with the best of 'em, but let's try for unity now.  I keep coming back to a scene from The Help, the film based on Kathryn Stockett's novel.  Abilene, a black maid, confronts Hilly Holbrook, a leader in much of the racism on which the story is based.  For a moment, Abilene's fury gives her courage, but then anger drains from her eyes as though she suddenly sees something more than an adversary.  "Aint you tired, Miss Hilly?" She asks, "Aint you tired?"

Are we tired yet, friends?  I am.  I'm weary of the leaden-browed contention that so many of us carry.  I'm tired of feeling intimidated and vilified for disagreeing with someone.  And I'm through with believing ill of half of my country because they see things differently than I do.  If you feel that way too, in any degree, let's rest.

I'm not suggesting that we roll over and just let things happen.  By all means, keep fighting for what you believe to be right, but while you do, let's offer one another the benefit of the doubt.  Let us assume that, as incomprehensible as it may seem, each of us is doing the best we can do with the choices we have.  Let's choose to believe, until proven otherwise, that beneath our anger or frustration, unkind words or stony silence, we're all stumbling toward the same glorious goal.

Ten Minutes Ago

Last Spring, a local high school put on Rodger & Hammerstein's Cinderella.  I couldn't resist taking Addie.  My three-year-old was delighted and wanted nothing more than to meet the elegantly dressed high school actresses who played Cinderella and her fairy godmother.  After that, the soundtrack was introduced into our daily repertoire.  My husband is always singing something and the girls are always putting in requests, or demands, as the case may be.  We found that toddler-approved music goes a long way to keep the peace, especially in the car.

So it happened that, as we were starting off on a road trip, a few weeks after the play, Ben and I were belting out lyrics at the top of our lungs:

"...In the arms of my love, I'm flying, 

"over mountain and meadow and glen, 

"and I like it so well, that for all I can tell, 

"I may never come down again!  

"I may never come down to earth again!"

But every time we reached those last two lines, we were interrupted by an adamant little voice, who insisted, "No, 'I may yes come down again!'"  There was no other way to pacify her and to restore harmony to the atmosphere within the car than to alter the lyrics to her liking.

I suddenly felt that Ben and I were riding a red balloon, buoyant with helium.  The hiss of the gas that had filled it - those dumb jokes that had first drawn us to one another, the pitter-pattering excitement of courtship, the silliness of those newly married, figuring-things-out days - was all fairly fresh.  We were still riding, somewhat, on the rush of new love.  And looking down from this imaginary reverie, I saw this determined little person, clinging for all she was worth to the balloon's ribbed ribbon.

She wasn't thinking about her mom and dad floating away, of course.  I'm pretty sure that her main concern was the idea of Cinderella and her prince floating permanently out of reach.  Then the show would be over and who would wear the tiara?  But to me, she was holding, white-knuckled, to that balloon's string, giving it a little yank, even.  She was making sure that her parents would not float beyond her reach, that, to the fullest of her abilities, she would be mirrored on every facet of our lives.

Being a mom, for me, has been all about re-realizing things.  Each time an idea re-enters my head through a new door or an open window, it stains the walls with greater tenacity, settles deeper into the cracks between the floorboards, or leaves a more lingering scent than it did before.  That morning in the car, revising the lyrics of "Ten Minutes Ago" to fit my three-year-old's criteria, was one of those moments for me.  Not for the first time, but more deeply than ever before, I realized that much of what was between Ben and me, and where we would take those things, was not only ours - not anymore.

We would - and will - continue to renew the helium that lifts us, little sips at a time, through stolen moments together; a thoughtful note here and a little act of kindness there; endless discussions about the things that make us tick; quiet dinner dates, though not without the occasional glance at our phones to check the time or for any news from the babysitter.  And maybe someday, years yonder, I'll realize that we were never riding a balloon at all, but a kite; that we have been riding on a breath of wind, and that those little hands on the line, those little heels digging divots into the ground have carried us higher, further, and more steadily than all the freedom of our unshackled wanderings could have done.

Just a thought.

"You always pick the most inconvenient times to obey."  My mom's voice was a hiss of a whisper as she opened the door to my walk-in closet only to find me sitting on the floor there, journal open and pen poised between words.  My parents had always encouraged us to keep a journal, and, a chronic procrastinator, I always intended to, but never did.  At least, when she didn't find me in bed at nearly midnight, she didn't have to worry that I had sneaked out to find some mischief of a more dangerous sort.  I wasn't that kind of teenager.  But it seems that some things don't change much, even with a decade of willpower to their credit.  My tendency to procrastinate and heightened vulnerability to good intentions at inopportune moments are among them.

My grandma told me this evening, over the phone, that she wishes I still blogged.  Me too, Grandma.  Me too.  I tell myself that all of the time.  Writing is a muscle that I've allowed to atrophy down to a pathetic raisin in the last few years.  I wasn't a diligent writer before, but I kept a decent journal, a commonplace book (A vestige of my Romantic and Neoclassic British Literature class - I'm sure there's a more modern word for it...?), and made time to write other miscellaneous thoughts, ideas, essays, etc. when the inclination struck.  But now?  With three kids under the age of four, I find that those pinball ideas still enter my mind, bounce around for awhile, and then fade away.  I never have the means or the time or, more often than not, either, to give them a home in ink.

I panic sometimes, as I wander the emptiness of my creative faculties, once blooming with ideas.  When I finally get back to all this, I think, there will be nothing left.  That may be true.  More than likely, it's not.  Life is long, my mom reminds me, on an almost daily basis over the phone.  The seeming eternity of diaper changes, nursing, and disputes over legos will be over before I know it, and I'll find myself with - dare I imagine it? - time.  There will be time to explore myself as an adult, time to pursue the interests I didn't know I had before I began the journey that is motherhood.

Nevertheless, from the depths of these little years, I cannot live solely on the promise that they will someday be gone.  That thought might be my guiding light some days, but it cannot be my bread and water.  And that brings me to this moment, almost eleven o'clock on a Sunday night, doing what I really have no time or business doing - finally obeying my inner voice, which promises that a little writing, here and there, will add color to days that sometimes seem drab.  A bit of organized thought will better preserve the bright moments that I'll want someday to relive, in quiet, sun-dappled reveries.  And a little time dedicated to pursuing the woman I have always wanted to be, the woman I so often give up for lost, will keep these years from feeling like a coma.  The words will steal me away from my babies for a few minutes at a time, but will return me to them, more able, more awake, and more alive.

So, hello again, internet.  I'm going to be that bad penny that keeps coming back, the bullhead plant that grows tenaciously from wherever life has been otherwise eradicated.  If you have found yourself here, welcome to my all-but-abandoned warehouse of thoughts.  I am writing this for myself, but should you pass by, may something here give you a fleeting pleasure or a moment of calm.

Part of This World

*To the tune of “Part of Your World” from the Little Mermaid* Pretend the meter is right on. ;)

Look at this fam,

Isn’t it sweet?

Wouldn’t you think

My collection’s complete?

Wouldn’t you think I’m the mom -

The mom who has everything?

Look at these girls,

So cute in curls -

Look at them dancing

And see how they twirl?

Lookin’ around here, you’d think:

Sure.  She’s got everything.

I’ve got Ellie who can get

Into anything.

I’ve got Addie who’s sweet

To the core.

You wanna man who does the dishes?

I’ve got one of those too - and he sings.

But who cares?

No big deal.

I want more....

I want to be

Where the nurses are.

I want to get -

Get that ep-i-dur-al.

I wanna hear ‘em saying --

What’s that word again?

Oh yeah.  ‘Push.’

When you’re in someone’s womb,

you can’t get too far.

Birth is required for jumpin’, dancin’,

Not to mention, you’ll get to --  

What’s that word again?  Eat!

Out here you can breathe,

Out here you can play,

And no one’s bladder gets in the way!

Wigglin’ free,

Don’tcha want to be

Part of this world?

What would I give

If I could break

My water?

What would I pay

To spend today

In L&D?

It seems to me,

When I’ve got three,

I’ll have less

Energy than daughters.

But right this minute,

I’m just in it

To end pregnancy.

And I’m ready to breathe

Like a normal person.

Ready for ankles

Around which nothing orbits.

Eat my dinner and not have it--

What’s the word?  Burn!

When’s it my turn?

Wouldn’t I love -

Love a few contractions to speak of?

Come out of me,

It’s time to be

Part of this world!

The Peace of Thy Children

I'm a chronic worrier.  What's worse, I'm a chronic worrier with an imagination.  Now, in the middle trimester of my third pregnancy, those fanciful worries creep ever more deeply into my dreams.  I find myself wakened from sleep with unsettling dreams and notions.  I sometimes drift into a doze only to be startled from it by some worry, however unlikely, and while I'm aware that nothing bad is actually happening, I'm also aware that I'm not awake enough and not capable enough to stop it from happening.  Strangely enough, the latter realization unsettles me more than the former calms me.  And of course, at the center of each of these not-quite-nightmares, are my children.

I shake myself from these half-awake-mares, usually to the early light of the morning, or sometimes to the late evening darkness and the realization that I have fallen asleep on the couch again.  I rouse myself just enough to ramble a perhaps nonsensical prayer, either from my knees or as I stumble to the kitchen to make breakfast.  What does one say when taking these sorts of things to God?  'Please don't let my toddler escape into the street at any point today'?  'Please keep my kids from falling into the river that we never go near'?  Not all of my worries are quite that irrational, but the point is that there are plenty of them, some ridiculously specific and others impossibly vague.  Usually, my entreaty ends up being something along the lines of 'protect them, please, because I know I cannot.  Not on my own.'  And with that, I push most of those worries to the back of my mind and move on with my day.  Other, more mundane worries quickly replace them, and I spend the next twelve hours mostly forgetting to be grateful that the heaviest thing on my mind is how on earth to get potty training behind us once and for all.

A couple weeks ago, I started a day that way, with the heavy realization of our mortality, a plea for protection, and then transitioned to what to have for breakfast.  The hours passed and I mostly forgot the haunted dreams that had welcomed me to my morning.  After the girls were in bed and Ben and I were ready to settle in for the night, an alarm began to sound in our back hallway, where the girls slept.

A week earlier, I had detected a funny smell in the back bedroom after bathing and dressing my girls - like nail polish, but accompanied by a vague scent of burning.  I'd called the fire department but by the time they arrived to scan for gas and carbon monoxide, the smell had diminished and the air was free of  any worrisome particles.  "Do you have a carbon monoxide monitor?" the fireman had asked me.  I said I did, indicating the one mounted in the hallway.  "No, no," he said, "that's just a smoke detector."  So, feeling like a complete idiot, I had added one to my grocery cart the next day.

When I heard the high pitched alarm, days later, I assumed it was just Ben installing the new one.  I came out of the bedroom, to find it still in its packaging, though, untouched.  The back door was open and Ben, perplexed, reported the same smell I'd noticed the previous week.  It was stronger this time, but there wasn't any smoke and the alarm sounded differently than it did when something on the stove top or in the oven went badly awry.

With the back door open, the alarms grew farther and farther between, but we decided to call the fire department just the same.  They showed up and began to scan again.  Two to three parts per million in the hallway - noteworthy, but not quite dangerous yet.  The fireman opened the door behind which our girls were sleeping and leaned in, only to back out again a moment later.  "About fifty in there," he reported, and asked us to bring the kids out.

In our living room, two lady firefighters examined our girls with a pulse-oximeter, specially designed to pick up carbon monoxide levels in the blood.  Addie's read 12%, hanging at the low end of dangerous, and Ellie's was up to 17%.

After a trip to the local emergency room for further examination and monitoring, and the challenge of settling two now-rambunctious children into a hotel room, hours later, my buzzing mind slowed into sleepy reflection, just before drifting off altogether.  My kids had been in danger that night.  They had been threatened by something I could not see, hear, or smell.  The only sign had been an accompanying scent that I had, days before, been given reason to disregard as harmless, if not imagined.  The only alert to its presence had come from an alarm which I had been told by a professional was not designed to detect it.

And I had woken that morning with a rambling prayer that my children would not fall victim to some danger from which I was powerless to save them.

I have little doubt that God has a sense of humor.  Without the bawdiness or coarse irony that we often use to induce laughter, I felt that I could sense a bit of a heavenly chuckle in the whole event.  A patient whisper of  'Yes, calm down, silly girl.  These are my babies too, and I forget not my own.'

Since then, a verse of scripture that I used to love has reappeared in my mind and though I don't completely understand it in the context of this experience, I haven't been able to shake the feeling that the two are profoundly connected.  "And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord," it reads, "and great shall be the peace of thy children."  Yes, life is uncertain.  The world is dangerous - but it is not spinning out of control, simply because it is out of my control.

My mother-in-law asked me, a few days ago, whether I have had moments of panic since this incident.  I ran over the last couple of weeks in my mind, probably with a perplexed frown across my face, and to my surprise, answered, "No."  But it's true.  Even with all the day-to-day stresses, the mom-fail moments and endless tiredness that seems to plague all of us, I feel like I've regained a quiet peace that I had once and lost along the way - lost about that time I began to have people in my life, under my care, whom I could neither perfectly protect, nor stand to lose.

Reawakened is my sense that a Heavenly Father sent these children to me knowing that I might, from time to time, fasten the car seats improperly or cut the hot dogs into dangerously large pieces, or even, while taking an evening shower, cause the water heater to spew poison gas into their bedroom.  He sent them to me knowing that the world is bigger, cleverer, and more powerful than I am.  I am neither condemned by these human weaknesses and neither are my children abandoned to my care.  They are His still.  He watches over them still.

Where Happy Comes From

Hi guys, I know it's been awhile.  I always feel a sense of hesitancy to post when I've been absent for so long, like I can't write about what's on my mind at this moment without first recapping where I've been and what I've been about for the last few months.  But I feel such a warm glow this evening.  I feel such a serene happiness that it would seem a shame and a loss to keep it to myself - because these things pass.

There are a small multitude of perfect-seeming things around me just now, and it's my habit to stop, when this little flutter of light, of peace, of...something sublime for which our language has no name - and analyze my surroundings.  Somehow, it will be all the better and what's more, more tenacious, if I can pin it to its source.

But as I rattled off to myself things that I certainly am happy about - and there were many - none of them quite resonated with the buoyancy I feel.  Each was a contributor, but none was at the core.  The bubbling, vibrant, almost-walking baby wandering the house at shin-height; the little girl who clung to my shirt at bedtime and said, "I wan' to cuddle wis you.  Mother, I wan' to cuddle wis you"; the blue-gray cloud cover and dappled tawny foliage, at long last acknowledging autumn; hope breathed into a long-cherished dream; the sigh of a Friday after a particularly hectic week and the impending arrival of my husband, after a week-long absense --

And the thing upon which I finally settled, the thing which, when my mind caught hold of it, brought the unmistakable feeling of yes was the soft, measured voice of Truman G. Madsen, as he delivered lectures on the life of Joseph Smith.  The CD recording carried me down the canyon and back today, through my errands and home again.  One cannot, I believe, learn about a devoted servant of God, one who taught the Gospel so vigorously and so joyfully, and who exemplified the things which he taught, without feeling nearer to God Himself.  It made me want to pray more fervently, to serve my neighbors more cheerfully, and to search the scriptures with greater energy and curiosity.  In short, I took the opportunity to saturate my thoughts, today, in the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and every aspect of my day was improved.

The Gospel adds vibrancy to our lives.  It liberates us to take joy in those things that we know to be most important, but in which we sometimes struggle to rejoice.  Every bright thing becomes brighter under its influence, and all true happiness is amplified.

All good things come from Jesus Christ, and He has not left us alone, to stumble in this world.  We have prophets - living prophets - to whom the Savior speaks and they speak His will.  Tomorrow and on Sunday, they will speak and we can listen.  Our lives can be saturated with this buoyant light, this abundant happiness.  This is real.

Burying Dreams

The grave digger carries a shovel.  In my mind, she walks with hunched shoulders against a grey sky.  In my mind, she has a heavy heart, so much so, perhaps, that her burdens have worn through its apex and fallen to the grave digger’s feet.  That grey-blue heart is perforated and ragged, with gaping holes.  I hear her heartbeats like gusts of defeat – weak, loud, empty, and really only suggesting a course to the air that wanders over graves, rather than compelling blood.  It’s a November sort of scene that I see when I visualize one who routinely buries stiffened and mottled flesh, pushing aside ghostly, withered leaves, and making a place to lay to rest long-loved dreams.

But another figure carries a shovel, too.  Another person, less weary, but with just as much reason to be, also  carries a dry and shriveled promise to be placed in the cold ground.  She prepares a place as the grave digger has done, presses and coaxes the earth to yield a resting place for it.  The placement is quick and the burial site marked, too, but she afterward looks up.  The sun is an April thing and leaves at her feet have been so long dead that they’ve forgotten to look forlorn.  Like the other earth-mover, she turns away and leaves the receptacle of her hopes in the cold and the dark of the ground, but she will return.  She will guard this place.  She will wait.  She will not forget, because she is a gardener.

I’m learning this about adulthood: the dreams that I cherished through my childhood, the vibrant ones to which I clung, and the visions to which I promised my heart, have, of necessity, began to gather dust.  As I change diapers, scrape dinners out of messy pantry shelves, and hurry between activities and obligations, those hopes have begun to wither.  Last October, I stole away a time or two, seizing a sunny hour at nap-time to harvest the beans that we had left out to dry for this year’s seed.  The pods crackled delicately and the beans had become white and hard.  My hands feel that way now, when I take up a pencil to sketch or open a blank word document to write.  My imagination and creativity stiffen with disuse and sometimes it makes me feel a little disillusioned, deadened. 

I wonder, but speculate that I would feel much the same way, even if these two precious girls hadn’t yet come into my life.  This disillusionment, this period of wandering is, I think, something most of us go through as we shed our childhoods.  If I wasn’t a mother, I might be realizing that the career I had chosen was not as fulfilling as I had hoped, that neither friends nor spouse nor busyness could completely stave off loneliness all of the time – that time could not be stretched or compressed enough to cradle my needs.  It’s a period when we all begin, probably never to cease, to realize that choosing the best things often means choosing the hard things and sacrificing other desires along the way.  And we do it.

When people ask me how I’m liking life, I usually answer wholeheartedly that I love it, that I’m working my dream job.  It’s true.  I am probably one of the luckiest people I know, to have all of every day to devote to two beautiful, healthy children who have more than enough energy to drain me of mine.  But there are moments, now and then, when I feel the weight of where I am and of those unanswered devotions to my teenaged ambitions.  There are times when, in spite of the work I do and the happiness it generates, I feel like a shell, and I miss the pleasures that I knowingly traded in for this hard-earned and mercifully granted joy.  I miss the exercise – the physical, mental, social stimuli and sculpting that I once thought comprised the path to becoming who I’m meant to be.  Sometimes, I feel lonely.  Sometimes I feel empty.  

The despondency rested a little heavily over me this week.  That’s a part of life, I know, so I pressed myself to move proactively through my routine.  It’s planting season and my neighbor and I have spent hours every morning in our garden plot, furiously digging trenches, tilling in fertilizer, and laying down drip lines.  Kneeling beside the row we’d designated for corn, I pressed holes into the soil with my middle finger, dropped two gnarled kernels into each, and pinched the loose dirt back over them.  Burying dreams, I thought. 

It wasn’t exactly an epiphany for me, really.  I’ve long thought of my extra-parental aspirations as gathering dust.  Atrophied, maybe, dormant, but not dead.  Still, as I thought about those buried corns, in the damp, cold darkness, it added a new color to my hope.  Yes, I will take up those dreams again someday.  I will have another chance to develop the God-given talents in my hands and body and mind, and when I pick them up again, they will be slightly wasted and wan, but perhaps they too will be changed from the last time I held them.  Maybe something will have sprouted, developed, that was not there before.  Something will be waiting to spring out of them that could not have come from my inexperienced, youthful vigor.

Right now, motherhood, and the effort to do things right and responsibly, has all but consumed me, like a hole in the earth; but I am not a shell.  I am a seed.  The life and light inside of me and the dark dampness around me, together, will do what pure sunshine and unbroken ease could not have done.  Even now, I am germinating. 

My Christmas Thought

In this, the season of giving, I’ve thought a lot about the concept of selflessness.  We give our time, our means, our energy.  We give to our children, our families, our friends and neighbors, and to complete strangers.  Sometimes, we give knowing that we’ll never see the faces of, or hear the gratitude of the recipients.  Yet, the critics will say that there is no thing as true ’selflessness.’  You give, because there is always, on some level, some personal gain.

And I must admit that I agree with them.

Giving is always receiving.  Though the primary purpose of the action may not be to receive the consequent personal benefit, it always follows.  I do not, however think that this diminishes the worth of the gift or the value of the giving.

The universe is governed by natural laws.  Some of those laws are physical, and we are likely more familiar with those.  The spiritual or moral laws operate much the same way: actions is followed by reaction.  There is always a consequence.

It is only natural that an act of love or of kindness will be followed by a sense of accomplishment, of meaning, of happiness.  There have likely been times in our lives when we have failed to find this satisfaction, because we have been too busy or distracted or self-conscious to recognize it, but it has been there nonetheless.

And there is nothing wrong with seeking the joy that accompanies service.  It’s not the same thing as seeking recognition.  I would argue that selflessness, far from being the opposite of selfishness, is overrated.  No, I’ll go even further than that.  Selflessness is impossible.  The fact is that each one of us has a self.  Each of us is an individual and is aware of the world only through our own experiences and understanding.  We cannot cut ourselves out of the equation.

In fact, what more selfish thing could we do, than to withhold our service from others and to deny ourselves of happiness because we are too concerned that we are giving only for our own benefit?  Yes, I serve my daughters and my husband because I love them, but also because it makes me happy.  When I give to neighbors, friends, and strangers, it’s because I know it’s the right thing to do, but also because I enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that I did the right thing, that by my actions, the ocean is one drop more.

We best maintain ourselves by maintaining others.  I am not ashamed to be seeking my own happiness.  If wrapping presents or working at a soup kitchen gives me a rush, that effect is only enhanced by the fact that I am afterward better able to care for myself and for others.

So this is the gift that I will give myself this Christmas.  I will allow myself to be motivated to do what is right by the hope of a deep and abiding gladness.  I will seek to give and to serve, and will strive to be awake to the resulting happiness that will find me. 

Thoughts from My Rocking Chair

We were out late the other night, which almost invariably means that a tantrum will follow in the wee hours of the morning.  As I sat in the rocking chair, cuddling my girl, finally calmed, it struck me just how big she has grown.  Her feet hung over the side of my lap and through the arm of the chair.  Her head rested on my chest and her little eyes blinked slowly and quietly in the darkness.

A year ago, she was a baby.  I nursed her and rocked her to sleep many a time in that chair.  Now she is, in every sense, a toddler.  A little girl.  It made me ache to realize how swiftly and surely time is already taking my babies from my arms.  This girl who scarcely sits still, who can climb almost anything, and who repeats everything I say, is becoming every day less mine and more her own.  It's such a sweet little ache.

When silence had reigned for a several minutes, I found myself hesitating, not only because the transition from Mom's arms to bed is always a delicate one, but because my desire to hold on to that quiet moment, that peaceful embrace, rivaled the desire to return to bed at 2:30 AM.

It was just another one of those moments that convinced me all the more, that there must be more to what we are and why we are here, than the life that ends when we stop breathing.  Too many mothers have snuggled their little ones only to see them grow up and walk away, too many of these perfect moments have happened and ended - not to mention myriad worse things - to have this earth, this life be anything but a tragedy, were it not so.

This moment need never be reduced to only a memory.  This child is and will always be more than a complex structure of molecules, forming cells and tissues and organs, governed by external stimuli and external chemical reactions.  This life extends beyond the confines of time.

And it is no tragedy.

Dex

A few months ago, this eight-legged guy appeared beside my front porch.  I don't have a photo, but picture this: black, white and yellow stripes, each leg at least an inch long, angular body - majestic in a terrifying sort of way...

Despite my strong aversion to spiders, I decided to let him stay with an unspoken understanding that, so long as he kept his distance, he wouldn't see the bottom side of my tennis shoes.

I decided to call him Dex.

Yes, I even gave him a name, maybe because it made me feel like I had a little control over him or something.  Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right?  Metaphorically speaking, of course.  If he had built his web in China, I would have felt much more comfortable with the situation.

About a month ago, he moved right up behind the front door.  OK, Dex, I thought, but come no closer.  You're on thin ice.  I don't think I've passed once through that doorway without glancing his way.  And shuddering.

I mentioned him in a conversation with my spider-loving friend the other day, along with the mysterious disappearance of mini-Dex.  Her response (it was over text, but I just know she was elated): "Then it's a she and she'll have babies soon :)"

Oh.

She has plumped up in the last few days, huh?

Eew.  It makes my skin crawl, and not in a good way.  I don't think that phrase has ever been used with a positive connotation, but just in case it has, I want to clarify - in a bad way.  I hate spiders.

My conscience: Are you sure?  Hate is a strong word.

Yes.  I hate spiders.  And one big one living in plain sight and close proximity is more than enough.  How did Charlotte's Web make an arachnid invasion seem so not-creepy?

Be afraid, Dex.  Be very afraid.

Dear Stay-At-Home-Moms: My Response

I stumbled across this article today and while the title gave me the feeling that I was about to be attacked, my curiosity won out.  After reading it, along with a few recent comments, I began to write a response.  When I saw that my comment was becoming unwieldy, I decided to just make a post about it, rather than attempt to be concise.  

While I agree with the message of this article - that motherhood is a privilege and should be treasured - it proved to be every bit as volatile as the title promised.  I don't think any human being has the right to speak to another in the way that this author did, much less to a large population of people - such as 'stay-at-home-moms'.  Everyone faces unique challenges.  We have no idea what the mom who complains to us in the grocery store is going through or has gone through, although we may convince ourselves that we can make an accurate guess.  

Raising children is extremely difficult, but it's also a learning experience.  Children are very good at teaching us things like patience and perspective, both qualities that the article advocates.  We are all at different places on the path to acquiring them, moving at different rates, and facing different obstacles.  No one enters parenthood knowing fully what he or she is about to take on, but you will be hard pressed to find a mom, stay-at-home or otherwise, who is doing what she does for the wrong reasons.  We are all trying, we are all working hard, and we are all learning along the way.  

As a stay-at-home-mom, I try very hard to keep things in perspective and to express gratitude often for the experiences I have.  When I blog or use social media, I try to conclude with a statement or thought that illustrates the situation in a new, and hopefully clearer light.  I try very hard not to flat-out whine, and usually I'm not inclined to do so.  I don't claim that my life is harder than anyone else's, but I do write and talk about the hardships I face and I don't apologize for that.  

I think it's wonderful that we have blogs, social media, and other outlets that let us connect with other moms and support one another.  If you don't like somebody's posts on facebook or twitter, you don't have to follow her.  If you don't like someone's blog or website, you don't have to read it.  If you can't handle letting someone unload to you, don't answer the phone or invite her in to sit at your kitchen table.

I write the things I do because I recognize that I am in the midst of what is likely to be the most difficult and most fulfilling time of my life.  Writing is an outlet for me, a way of channeling my thoughts and troubles into something redemptive, a way of understanding.  I also realize that a lot of my friends are going through the same things that I am and it's a way for me to try to lift and relate to them.  I write for other friends whose lives are very different than mine, but who are genuinely interested in what my life is like.  If the things that appear on this blog come off as whiny, moping, or judgmental, please - and I mean this sincerely - please don't read them.  If I am dragging you down by what I post, please steer clear of it.

And I won't deny that I have my down moments.  Like most difficult things, motherhood isn't only daunting.  It's surprising.  I feel most inclined to complain when I find myself faced with an obstacle that was completely unforeseen.  I try to save my complaints for my mom, my husband, and close friends who are willing to hear me vent because they love me, respect how I've chosen to spend my life, and want to help me along.  Nevertheless, if I do happen to let slip, on a hard day, that I think my life is difficult and momentarily can't see beyond that, please consider that I am on a long journey that includes continual self-improvement.  I ask you to give me the benefit of the doubt and know that I will endeavor to do the same.

I am grateful for the opportunity that this article afforded me, not only to reflect on the blessings of motherhood, but also to step back and consider how I look at other people.  Both those who are and aren't mothers deserve my compassion if I am going to listen to them, and, if I am not able to be a nonjudgmental listener, my candor, in explaining quickly that I will not be able to provide the support that they seek.

Happy Thought - Extension

At the risk of sounding like a broken record - yes.  This post is also going to be about motherhood.  That's where my mind is these days.

As we have settled into our new routine, I can't seem to get a handle on all of the additional clutter that is appearing in every corner and on my counter tops.  Junk mail, toys, lonely socks and even vegetables from the garden (one of Addie's latest obsessions) accumulate more quickly than I can find homes for them.  I never was one for tasteful decorating, much less perfect order and cleanliness.  I can confidently say that my home is appropriately sanitary.  Beyond that, it's never been anything impressive.  Even my nesting instinct, in the last days of pregnancy, translated into massive amounts of canning rather than decorations for the nursery or deep cleaning.

I'm coming to accept that, despite my best intentions and daily efforts to get on top of my household chores, I'll always be a little bit behind.  Always, or at least, for the next decade or so.  Still, there's something special about the things I see around me lately, from the pictures on the walls to the homeless boxes that live, stacked, in corners, alphabet magnets on an around the refrigerator door.  My earliest memories are of similar things - cracked sidewalks, a screen door that I struggled to open, a blue rocking chair, a wicker laundry basket...  None of them were remarkable, but in my mind, they are accompanied by a soft, pleasant glow.

And this little house, even with my poor decorating and organizational skills, suddenly seems so much more significant as I look around it with those memories in mind.   I begin to see how the little trappings in and around our home now will remain with my children, pixels of the images that they will one day call their childhood.  

Sandcastles

Before...

I don't think I need to explain that things have been a little bit hectic around here.  We're all a little disheveled, more often than not.  But once in awhile, we're not.  Once in awhile, there are a few, lustrous hours of order - clean clothes, clean faces, de-tangled hair...

...and after. 

But of course, those hours are always numbered.  By the end of the day, we're usually a step behind our pajama'd beginning.  The now dirty clothes end up in a little heap somewhere.  The hairdo has disintegrated into chaos, and happiness is now a matter of pasting a sticker to our bare skin, using the best adhesive available: sooty rainwater.

At this point, I'm often tempted to ask myself why I ever bother in the first place.  It's not as though there is ever a day that doesn't end looking like a disaster.  But I just have to laugh instead, because this is life - mortality in a nutshell.

What do we do, if not build things to be decayed?  We wake up each morning and create each day like a sandcastle on the beach.  We build, often carefully, pouring our creativity and energy into the cast of our priorities, packing and shaping, and hope for the best result.  Nevertheless, whether by waves or wind, we will find that, by its end, the day has dilapidated considerably.

Especially as a mom, I've come face to face with this reality: that all of my efforts, all of my accomplishments will, at least seemingly, fade away.  Nothing but my (more and more sporadic) journal entries and occasional photographs will remain in years to come, to prove that today ever happened.  And yet, today matters.  The exertions with which I attempt to bring order or beauty into my life and the lives of my little ones are not insignificant.

When the evening has come and finds all that I have built or done in a limp state of disrepair, what will remain, but the patience that I have worked into my fingers?  The ability to endure, that has seeped into my reddened knuckles?  The new understanding in my tired eyes, of the redemption of every new morning?  What will remain of my creations in the sand are the memories that my daughters will someday carry away with them, that their mama loved them.

Surely, there is something that we are meant to learn by the cycle of creation and destruction.  Doubtless, there is wisdom behind the mortality and fallibility of our bodies and of all that we do here, calculated to allow us to grow.

My Happy Thought

In the few short weeks that have followed the appearance of our Ellie, I have found myself daydreaming from time to time.  I have caught myself thinking, half-consciously, now we're a real family...

I know that that's ridiculous.  We were a real family before Ellie was born, before she was even thought of.  Ben and I were a real family even before Addie came to us.  We were a real family from the day we were married, when we committed to be a forever unit, to build one another up and to grow together for the rest of our lives and long after.

But life is a long time - not to mention eternity - and I can't help thinking about it, envisioning family photos taken someday in a studio or on a carpet of fallen leaves.  When I was a new bride, my husband was one of the only real certainties of my future.  There would be him, me...and whatever other family members might happen along.

Almost a year and a half later, Addie came into our lives, and they were, of course, changed forever.  My imaginary family portraits began to feature her little face as well.  Alongside the baby pictures that began to appear on our walls, I saw, in my mind, other pictures - the first day of kindergarten, Christmases and family reunions to come.  And yet, in addition to Addie, the pictures included a number - no one can say how many - of nameless, faceless little strangers.

Ellie is yet another piece to that puzzle.  Now that she is here, I feel that I know something more about both of my daughters than I did before.  Each one adds a new backdrop to the other's life.  Each adds a clarifying line to the vague contour of our future as I see it before us.  All of those yet-untaken photographs are one less part imagination and on more part reality.

So, in those moments of sunshiny contentment, this is what I see - lots of murky, undefined years, but each one is filled with my girls, my husband and with abundant promise.

Venturing

I thought I had this parenting thing figured out.  Surely, being able to go about my business with a rambunctious toddler in tow, and being able to keep her happy entails some sort of motherly prowess, right?

Well, this week, with my mom gone back home and my husband gone back to work, I'm getting to really get my feet wet, on my own with both girls for the first time.  As if being at home with both of them weren't sort of a trial by fire, our 2-week well-child check-up fell on the first day of mommy's lonely reign.

I spent all morning preparing, trying to get myself and both girls in a state of being fed, clean and ready to go.  We still got out the door barely on time.  As I pulled onto the interstate, anxieties began to rise.  I felt a profound weight of responsibility hanging on my shoulders.  I had forgotten something, I was sure of it.  Reaching behind me, I found Ellie's little head with my fingertips, just to reassure myself.  It wasn't enough.  I pulled off again at the first exit and found a place to pull over, just so that I could turn around completely to see that my baby was, indeed, asleep in her car seat.  Sufficiently calmed, I took courage and we continued along the freeway toward town.

Despite its inauspicious start, the outing went quite smoothly.  We got back home all in one piece, but exhausted, and I found that I suddenly had a new respect for my sisters-in-law, mother-in-law, mother and the other women in my life who raised or are raising their children cheerfully and accomplishing and learning other things besides.

If anyone would have asked a month or two ago, whether I knew what I was getting into, I would have had to answer honestly that I didn't.  While I understood conceptually that a second child would add substantially to my stress and busyness, I knew even then that I hadn't really internalized it.  Then again, I wonder if anyone is ever really ready to have a child.  I'm convinced that it is always, to some degree or another, an act of faith.

As I walked from the clinic, I was shepherding Addie along beside me and had Ellie's unwieldy car seat slung over my opposite forearm.  A passerby observed, with a smile, "You have your hands full!"  My mind went back to words from a blog I had read years before, and I almost repeated them aloud: "Yes they are - full of good things!"

I am so grateful for my life and what it has become.  It is not what I envisioned.  I am grateful for these little years and for the opportunity to choose to embrace them.

I was blessed to come across this video a couple of months ago.  The address on which it is based is one of the things that really gave me the courage to unashamedly pursue motherhood...but that's a topic for another post.