A difference of daughters

One of the reasons I like having more than one kid is that even the same experience is never the same.  Take, for example, the 8th grade formal.  Last year, eldest daughter wanted a long, strapless gown and shopped endlessly (or so it seems to her shopping-phobic mother) and ended up with a second-hand dress at a very reasonable price.

This year, middle daughter went online, found a short, spaghetti-strapped, polka-dotted dress she could wear more than to the dance–for about the same price as the other one spent once you include shipping.  Dress arrived yesterday and fits like it should, daughter is happy, mother did nothing more than enter a few numbers on a computer screen.

Two down, one to go.

But next year, there may be prom.  Yikes!

I love this day

“I love this day,” I said to my husband as we worked together to rid a space of weeds in the early evening. He gave me his ‘what the …’ look and I kept on. “I was going to say I love this time of year, but I realized that it’s really only one day, when the tulips are all out, a few daffodils are still open, that tree is budding purple, the grass is green and it really only lasts like a day–and I love it.”

Sure enough, the tulips that have survived a feasting squirrel have dropped their petals so they look they are about to step out of a many-colored skirt. The leaves on the trees that surround me are still bursting out in purples, pinks, reds and green.  It is a glorious day, a celebration of renewal as well as a reminder of the transitory nature of it all.

We are blessed with this day, regardless of the color that surrounds us. Blessed with this day, with the song of the cardinal, and the site of a silly squirrel–batting down a tulip and scampering off with its head. This is the day and it is glorious and I love it.

Public Prayer: a Surprise in a small midwest town

One last quick note for the day and then I’m off to work for real:

Wednesday night I attended my daughter’s speech and debate awards banquet and was pleasantly surprised when it was time for the invocation. Fully expecting the “in Jesus’s name …” I was stunned to hear her say “tonight I’d like to share with you something from  Buddhism.”  So stunned was I, I thought she said “Foodism.”  I was also pleased to see that in this one small gathering in a town that is 90+% of european descent, the room held people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and some obvious representations of religious difference (head scarves, for example).

I was very touched by the display of interest in presenting prayer from a different angle.  Though I’m still curious what a “Foodist” prayer might sound like.

Cardinal song

Yesterday, it was gray and rained a lot and I wanted to take the time to say “hallelujah” at the sight of the leaves that seemingly appeared overnight on the trees both front and back of the house.  And the glorious colors that stood up underneath the big tree in front, the many-colored tulips that push up and up and open when the sun shines but stay closed yet still beautiful on a gray morning full of water.  Yesterday I wanted to take note of all this, the grayness and the newness and the freshness of color against that gray.  But the morning got a way from me and all I could do was stand at the window and whisper “thank you.”

And, after a long day with worrisome issues, I stepped out of my van and onto the deck and was greeted by a full and lusty cardinal song. Laden down with computer bag, coffee mug and an armful of files I determine to wade through today, I stood on the deck in a still-gray day and saw the flash of red stop on a limb and give voice to my morning joy–nature’s way, I divined, of saying “you’re welcome.”

While I was away …

… from the blog, there has been a lot of activity on posts where there are elephants.  Elephants.  Not just any elephants, but “funny elephants” seems to be the search phrase that is pulling people to me site while I let it sit dormant. Elephants.  Not children, not parenting, not church, not even Survivor–in essence, not the things I think I’m talking about when I’m actually writing. Elephants.  It’s a bit of a wake up call, but I’m not sure to what.  So, as I ponder, enjoy!

Better … Part 2

Thanks to all who commented on my post a couple back, for your gentleness, your kindness, your presence.

I’ve been reading and “reading” a lot lately.  All fiction.  Just finished listening to Almost Moon (”reading”) by the woman who wrote Lovely Bones but I don’t have it in front of me and it is easier to keep typing than to google–how sad is that!  Contemporary story about a woman who kills her mother.  Perhaps not the best story to read shortly after returning from a week-long vacation with her mother, but I really had no idea what it was about before I popped it in, the first line, however should have been a giveaway “killing my mother was easier than I thought it would be” or some such.

Now I’ve started “reading” Tess of the D’urbervilles on my one hour each way commute which takes me in to the office every day this week.  I believe I’ve already read it, but like watching Mrs. Dalloway last week, I think this is a book one should read every decade of ones life.  The experience is so different from when I read it as a young co-ed, with very little life experience within me.

But I am also reading (with my eyes and not my ears) Howard’s  End, and came across this line that rather struck me, but that I can’t quite locate right now. It reminded me of Anne Lamott’s words about when it seems as though everything is going wrong or starts breaking it, something beautiful is about to be born.  It was like that, but not, something about quiet before things change.

I suppose that was more what I was trying to point toward the other day, in my longing to not use words to decipher my own pain. The words had failed me, pitifully, and so I searched about for ways to live without them without really doing so.  Oh I do love words, truly I do. The way they sound one upon another is one of my most favorite things.  And yet, they are only fun when they are ambiguous or flexible.  When they mean only one thing, and rigidly so, they lose their flavor, their resilience, their interest.  A table, it seems, is just a table …

or is it?  I hope you had a chance to hear this bit about language and gender on NPR this morning.  I only got part of it as I was changing to the next disc of Tess as I hurtled over the SkyWay Bridge.  In “Shakespeare Had Roses all Wrong” a look at Spanish and German nouns (gender specific nouns, such as ‘bridge’) influences the way people respond to benign words.  The story gave me great pause about many things, and about the power with which we are subtley influence–and don’t even know it.

I don’t know, I guess I just wanted to say I’m out here, I’m taking care of myself, my family is fine and we are all “using our words” these days.  And I continue to wonder what will be the new beautiful thing that will be born.  It may just be a new relationship to words.

Better …

Hard work and a few good times have put me back in a place that makes laughter a little easier.  Last night at dinner we started talking about the biscuits middle daughter made sort-of from scratch (not the can, but the box).  Somehow, it got around to the point where my husband and I looked at each other and said “Rubububer Biscuit.”  Husband started singing it, I started giggling, girls thought we were out of our minds.  So, after dinner, I did what all good mothers do: a YouTube search.  For your enjoyment:

I should be sleeping.  It is quite late.  I’ve just watched “Mrs Dalloway” with Vanessa Redgrave and am more sad than I ought to be. 

But that is not what I want to write tonight. What I want to write and what I will write may not work themselves out.  I am home now, back from a trip to South Carolina for spring break.  It was, as vacations go, a very good, albeit quiet one.  My sister had just booked a cruise for that week when I called to see if we could come see her. But she said it would be great if we could stay at her house then, anyway, and take care of her dogs.  My mom heard what we were doing and decided to join us.

The weather was not perfect, but it was very good.  The dogs were not perfect, but they were very good.  The children were not perfect, but they were–and I do not say this lightly–very good.  (I will say that portable DVD players and I-Pods make for wonderful travelling companions–and all five of us survived, mostly genially, the more than 30 hours round-trip in the car.)

That said, I spent today in a bit of a stupor. I’m weary in a way I can’t pin down. I’m anxious to do something, but I’m not sure what, and I’m anxious to not talk to another soul for the rest of my days.  Until next week, at least.

I’m word weary.  Again.  I want to write and yet the words don’t match up easily with the sharp dullness that pierces me these days. ”How are you, where are you in this?” my mother asked when she and I had a few minutes just the two of us.  And I didn’t want to answer because if I ascribe words to it, then that’s what I have to be.  I’d much rather just sit here in this place than pin it down.  If I were a color right now, I’d be gray–not even a dark gray that hints at being solid, but a light gray that hints at mist.  This is what I am these days; this is where I live–in a mist that has not feet, no settled spot, but hovers, closely and intentionally, knowing that if I become solid again, all will be well.

The worst of this is that I can see my daughters looking at me as if I am fragile to the point of scattering, like mildewed cloth dried to a dust that stubbornly clings to its previous shape because that is what it remembers.  This is what I was, I tell myself, so this is what I must be.  And those two older girls watch me like hawks and I feel like I’m stealing something from them — stealing an assurance of who I am, who I was, who I will be tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.  And I see them growing into me–full of emotion and words and ideas — as if they are filling the space I’ve left open.

You see?  I didn’t really want to write this. But I also had to write this. It feels so incredibly self-indulgent to feel this crappy after what was a very lovely week of being able to be away from home and of having the money to do so.  And this is what I’m running away from right now–that pull toward self-indulgence.  Because it feels weak, because it feels sick, because it feels … redundant. 

One step in front of the other.  That’s what I told Jacqueline at MoxieLife earlier today, like I know a thing or two. One step in front of the other.  And today, the step I was stepping around was this—writing my way through and around it.  Now, though, it seems like a worthless fight to have had with myself all day. But I guess that’s the thing: I just needed to struggle and avoid until I couldn’t anymore.

Dear God,

Give me sight so I may see the gray
and look deeply into it until I see
the other colors that live there, too.

Let my heart lead when that sight fails
or when my eyes refuse to focus beyond the gray

Guide me to the peace of the moment;
remind me it does not need to last in order to
do the work my heart needs

Bring me out of the mist, dear God,
and make this heavy body feel solid once again
rooted to the now and not the then or the not yet

And, God, help me to find my own words again
so that I may lead my daughters to find theirs
instead of allowing them to fill the space left empty by me

I am weary, God, but not yet broken
I am lonely, God, but not yet alone.

What saves me

Last night was a weird night all around, and even with that said, what I’m about to say is not the weirdest thing that happened last night.

Eldest and youngest daughter and I attended a concert that was part of a “girls night out” party at a Bible church.  The singer/songwriter/musician really was quite talented. And while her theology was not mine, I left with a quiet hope that a young generation of children raised to be fundamentalist may still find room in their hearts for those who are not “saved.”

I say rather glibly that her theology is not mine, but I think the truth is that it is much closer to mine than I was comfortable with.  One of her songs started with something along the lines of I may be straight but that doesn’t save me/I may think true love waits but that doesn’t save me. (in my head, I extrapolated that she was also singing but not saying explicityly to this crowd is “you may be gay but that doens’t damn you).  

Her song reflected what I like to think is true: it isn’t the words you say or who you are that offers salvation in this life (and the next), but what you do and how you do it.

I was surrounded by women last night, women who love the Lord and are not afraid to say so.  And I was glad that my daughters were with me for this experience.

We talked as we left early (before the dessert and “truth walk”–which scared me a little–the walk not the pudding) to get youngest to a sleepover. Eldest offered her opinion that, while it didn’t speak to her about God the Father and all that Jesus-ing, that she liked that one song and the idea that it isn’t what you are that saves you. But none of us were able to overcome that “He knows what he’s doing” theme that overtook us all.  While I am a great submitter to the idea that what will happen will happen, I will never, ever allow myself to think that there is someone/something somewhere manipulating all around me to make me learn a lesson about submitting my will.

I like my will.  I also like my trust in something more than me.  But I also like the trust I have in my own instincts.

Must go and pick middle child up from her sleepover.  I’ll be mulling this experience for a while, combining it with a conversation I listened to by one of the UUA presidential candidates and my own life discernment process.  There will be more on all this.  I’m just not sure when or where.

Daylight Savings Time, part 2

So … maybe DST isn’t as sucky as I think.  It’s 5:30 pm, I’m getting ready to get in my car and it is NOT dark.  This I like.

21 degrees … not so much.  But light?  Light, I like.