Cluttered and clean

Our front porch is sacred.  It’s a place where we sneak off to in the mornings for coffee and hope the kids don’t notice.  It’s a place where we drink beer on Friday nights and watch the setting sun.  Our porch is peppered with a red tractor or a plastic fire truck or a plate of chopped up mint leaves and rosemary. My husband wants to screen it in due to all those nasty mosquitoes, but they live on this earth too and I just hate to have any barrier at all between me and the oak branches, or the sound of the cicadas, or the breezes that blow in from the west.

Our porch is where I cry, laugh on the phone with girlfriends, and pray.  It’s where I watch my children haul rocks around in wagons and listen for their sweet voices in the distance.  I wave at neighbors and watch horses and peer up at the sky for rain.  I wonder now how I ever lived in a house with only a door.  Or a portico.  Or a small entry not big enough for our large white rocking chairs.

This porch is becoming a part of my soul, big and open, sometimes cluttered and sometimes clean. Oh, my dear friend, please always be my refuge.

Joining others today for a link-up at:

Ten Things I Shouldn’t Admit

(1) I create very extensive stand-up comedy routines in my car while driving places.  The words “please stop doing that” and “leave funny to the professionals” just might have been uttered by some very tall man-person in my home on multiple occasions.

(2) I love to iron, in the wistful sense that once a year or so I’ll pull out some cloth napkins and slowly press them during the changing of the seasons as the Autumn wind is blowing through the windows and I’m listening to an Adele album while drinking chai tea.  Aside from that one particular set of circumstances, ironing’s just meh.

(3) My two-year-old has decided that he has immunity from all bad deeds as long as he says I’m sorry and offers a hug.  Today he sprinkled baby powder over his entire room, squirted lotion on my wood floors, ate nothing for dinner but demanded bars for an hour, marked on the furniture, and hit his sister.  Sorry, momma?  Hug?  It’s not a magic eraser, kid.  I ain’t fallin for it.

(4) I made homemade play dough this afternoon because I am that cool mom that does fantastic crafty things with her children that they damn well better remember.  My son spilled salt all over the floor, I had to cook the concoction and dirty up several pans, I ended up getting green food coloring on my hand for the rest of the day that doesn’t come off even with sandpaper, only to end up with two tiny lumps that my children rolled into snakes and made into hearts for seven entire minutes.  Then they declared play-dough dull and boring in comparison to afternoon cartoons and ran out of the kitchen muttering about juice boxes.  Save yourself the trouble.  Buy it instead.

(5) I’m going to buy a new Burberry coat and when my husband casually asks how much it costs I’ll just say Sorry? Hug?

(6) I let my dog out to pee this morning before I even had my first cup of coffee and our neighborhood dog walkers stopped in their tracks at the sight of an unbound, leash-free animal.  Like my 14-year-old spaniel is going to attack them in a wild crazy old-dog vengeance.  I don’t even think he saw them given his poor eyesight and general inability to move fast or care much. He sauntered slowly toward the mailbox and began eating some other animal’s poo.  The dog walkers stared in disgust and one said “just keep going, Muffy.  It’s just none of your business.” I just waved.  “Have a great morning, ya’ll!” I called out.

(7) I have a thing for Jennifer Garner because I loved Season One of Alias so much and I secretly believe that if we were placed in a room together we’d become BFFs and would agree on all childrearing techniques and would bond over tea and scones.  But now that I’m putting it out there on paper it sounds weird and stalkerish and perhaps it’s strange that I always click on her picture in celebrity websites as she’s coming out of Starbucks.  I’m all “hey, Jen.  Is that your double frap with no foam? I know you love em. check it.”

(8) I am not ever going to make sandwiches in my kid’s lunch box that look like a tropical beach with coconut and palm trees or make vegetables look like monkey ears.  My knives aren’t that sharp and they won’t eat anything green anyway and I just can’t go around setting the standard that high.  I’ve decided that pinterest is evil and exists to make mothers feel like pond scum.  What happened to the simple lunch note that reads “have a great day in wonderland, sucka”?

(9) I honestly don’t know what Jennifer Garner drinks at Starbucks.  And I don’t say “check it” in real life because I don’t know exactly what that means.  I do, however, periodically watch movie previews in which she stars.  Maybe weird. Not as weird, however, as saying “check-it.”

(10)               I get winded sometimes when climbing stairs, but I’m too embarrassed to admit I’m out of shape so I say things like  (sigh) I’m so bummed that Heidi Klum cheated on Seal or (sigh) I really need to go the grocery store for toothpaste or (sigh) I really hope my daughter likes those new socks I bought.  Basically anything I can sigh about that brings more air into my oxygen-starved and bloated lungs.  Maybe I should just work out instead so I don’t have to sound like such a ninny.

Odd and Curious Thoughts of the Week

(1) I made Indian food this week and my daughter told me it was the best thing she has ever eaten.  She also wondered if we ate it every night of our lives whether we might still be Americans.  Yes, love. We’d still be Americans.  Pass the dal.

(2) The other night my son got up ten thousand times. I scolded him every time and told him to return to bed, and he would go sauntering back with his arms dragging by his sides.  Finally, I just sat in a chair in his room and he fell asleep immediately.  Funny how someone’s presence can be so soothing.

(3) My dog’s presence is full of insanely high-octane gas that reminds me of rotten, salty hay.  I could do without that.

(4) At a stoplight yesterday, I sat behind an Elantra.  Am I the only one who thinks that name sounds like a prescription drug?  Take ten milligrams of Elantra twice daily and come back to see me in three months. At least Trailblazer sounds adventurous.  I then went on an obsessed tirade of reading all the car names around me.  Rav 4? Equinox? Are we traveling to space in that Chevy, for heaven’s sake?

(5) Jesus renamed one of his disciples from the original name, Simon, to a new name, Peter.  I find it fascinating that you can walk around all your life being Amanda and then suddenly you’re Susan.  I get that Peter truly was a new person in Christ, but I secretly wonder if Peter liked the name.  And how did that make his mom feel?  After naming her sweet baby after great uncle Simon?  Did his wife have to keep correcting herself in the bedroom?

(6) I got a babysitter for my toddler this past week to take my daughter to a cooking demonstration at a local restaurant.  She begged to stay home because she was reading and didn’t want to change out of her pajamas, but I forced her to go since I had made reservations.  Since Monday is bread-baking day at my house, I had to hurry and get the dough to rise, and into the pans, and out of the oven before we left.  When we arrived, they announced that today was a special demonstration on bread baking.  My daughter looked at me like honestly, mom? We came for this?

(7) As it turns out, my daughter did have fun baking French bread.  She got home to show the babysitter, set the bread on the table to show her father when he got home, and the loaf was promptly eaten by the dog.  I’m really hating on him right now.

(8) I bought a futon for our upstairs play room.  It’s been described by my husband as “cheap,” “cracked,” and “rickety.”  However, my six-year-old has described it as “super fun,” “comfy,” and “very cool.”  Six-year-old wins.

(9)  Our two-year-old came into our room at 4:30 am this morning with a wet shirt and told me that he “washed his hands.”  That’s never good.

(10)               “Did you throw away that Toys-R-Us catalog?” my daughter asked me after looking all the over the house for it.  What?  You mean that tattered seven-page spread that you’ve been obsessed with for days and is causing you to ignore reality so you can memorize names and prices of various toys and remind me at every opportunity that the Lego Friends is on sale for $39.99?  Huh.  I just have no idea what happened to that thing.

(11)               Please let the school year come because I’m tired of hearing “don’t rush me” and “ it’s only 8:30 and in the summer I can stay up until 9.”  The juice and the popsicles and all that packing up and sunscreen application really wears a mom out.  And then there’s the boredom and “it’s too hot” and driving constantly to grandma’s.  Movie nights and play dates and nights without baths – my life would be much better if we could only get back to routine and consistency.

(12)               Please, Lord, never let this summer end.  My children are adorable,  my son won’t take a squeezable fruit without demanding one for his sister, and my daughter lost her front two teeth.  My sweet girl reads and draws and my son carefully places rocks in buckets and waters flowers.  We take turns hauling vegetables in from the garden and everyone is all giddy to get smoothies at 3 pm on a random Tuesday.  We swim and drink juice and make videos of ourselves dancing on the porch singing songs. It’s the best time of year and I want to cherish it forever.

Rapids

We are all just swimming upstream.  The moment the wind calms and the food is plentiful and the credit cards are paid off, gusts once again sweep you off your feet.  They swell and pull at you and whistle uncomfortably in your ears.  Kids grow louder.  Your temper grows quicker.  The laundry piles and bills and coping skills get all worn and tattered by all that beating.  Life passes by in a streak of runny watercolor because your vision is full of rushing tide and debris.  Some folks can keep up, with their heads to the sky and their heart full of prayer.  You roll your eyes at those people. It’s all you can do to just keep looking forward, wiping the water from your tired, red, tear-stained face.  Funny thing is, you didn’t even realize you were paddling so hard until you look down and see the white caps of the rapids. Oh, for a moment of peace.  For the winds to calm.  Just a tiny second for your arms to rest.

I think now I’m supposed to talk about trusting in God’s everlasting arms.  To let Him do the fighting and you just roll back in a starfish float like my daughter’s swim lesson and allow all your earthly burdens to melt away.   That’s about the time I stop reading, because I’ve got things piling up and I just can’t hear any more about letting go.  I’m not into vague fuzzy lessons on how we are all masters of nothing and should quit fighting.  If I let go, I’ll drown.  I don’t know about you people, but I just don’t have the luxury of letting go.

So I build up endurance and keep on swimming.  I’m getting pretty good at setting my sights on the distance and finding friends to help make the journey palatable.   I’m growing strong, and confident, and feel I have this life thing figured out.  I thank God for strong arms and a fighter’s spirit and think I’m doing my duty.

But then the storm comes.  Not the everyday storm that makes my lungs sting and my thighs ache from paddling so hard, but the black storm that hits me in the chest until I cry out of fear and pulls me into a hole and makes me think this is so unfair.  I’ve worked so hard. I’ve been fighting the current.  I thought I got this, but now I can’t see or breathe and I’m drowning.

It is then you begin the slow descent to the bottom.  It’s a moment when time stands still, and you have the most peaceful conversation with your creator.  You aren’t pushing.  You aren’t moving.  You aren’t wiping water from your eyes or trying to take in side breaths.  You are simply lying there on the bottom of the river, watching all that rushing water above.  The ironic thing is that fear is surprisingly absent and your heart is strangely full.  And it hits you.  God truly is more powerful than the river.  His hands calm the winds and open your eyes and move the boulders, but all this time you were resisting.  He puts you in a place to allow you to see this abounding truth, even when you were fighting with your fists and elbows and words against it.  I will show you my love even when you don’t want to see it.  Even if it takes you to the brink of death.

When you rise up again, gasping for air, you are astounded by the beauty you see.  Your tears are clear, for through them you can see brilliance.  The winds blow, but they don’t suck you down.  There is a purpose to this struggle.  And just like that, you find yourself letting go. You didn’t read it in some devotional or have it handed to you by a priest or hear it in some sappy Christian song.  You let go because you were there at the bottom of the water, and rose up again.  Because you felt such an overwhelming peace.

Let the gusts come.  No bother.  You can take it.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,  because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.”  

James 1:2-8

River Rapids

Let’s find a way to coexist

In an abstract world, controversy is fun.  Everyone picks a side and argues their points, shooting down the other side with logic and theory.  It’s high school debate meets law school meets logic games, stirred together with a nerdy competitive streak and a sense of humor.  Someday soon, I’m going to host a dinner party where people are forced to pick a position out of a hat.  They will be forced to argue that particular side over a chocolate flourless torte and coffee and hear the other side’s arguments.  Maybe it will encourage people to think that every coin has two sides.  That we are all made with different thoughts rattling around inside our brains.  And that’s a good thing.

But then there’s real life.  Whether you’re getting donuts or pumping gas or eating waffle fries – you are constantly being judged.  Judged for your appearance, or haircut, or bumper sticker.  Judged for what you appear to believe.  Judged for what you say to your children or what organization you donate to.  You are tarred, and feathered, and left to die.

In real life, you have to pick a side.  There’s no room to scratch your head and see that two differing opinions have their own independent merit.  There is no ability anymore, with the advent of cable news and talk shows and celebrity obsession and facebook, to think someone who has a strict religious code who can’t wear pants or must never cut their hair has the right to think that way.  They are crazy, or need to keep to themselves, and they are wrong on every social issue that varies from yours.  Don’t give those people money.  Pray they don’t vote.   Make sure they keep to themselves – oppressed and put in the corner where they belong.

Aside from being a carnivore or vegetarian, if someone believes differently than you do on an issue such as same-sex marriage or abortion or any issue touching upon race or worship, that person is deemed to be wrong.  They are so wrong that they are borderline evil.  You don’t want your children playing with their children.  You don’t want to live around them.  You don’t really want them to maintain a successful business or have a long, healthy future or even make it through a string of green lights.  They contribute to hate.  They fuel all that is wrong with the world. You want them to fail.

When did we grow so angry?  When did we stop seeing the value of differences, and embrace our ability to come to our own rational decision?  Come on.  Let’s all put our big girl pants on. Maybe we don’t see eye to eye, but let’s find some common ground.  Let’s search for a middle area where we can all walk around without spitting or seething or giving each other dirty looks.  So I believe in God and you don’t.  So I think one way and you another.  That’s okay.  I still like that purple shirt you’re wearing and I think you deserve to a good night’s sleep.

There is evil in the world that must be stopped.  Hitler murdered Jews.  It was not only acceptable, but mandatory, to do whatever it took to stop him.  The same goes with leaders in today’s world that commit genocide or murder children or encourage rape or sexual trafficking.  If one person says, “let’s all hate Hispanics and do them harm,” obviously our overarching moral compass will react with “hell no.  That’s wrong and I’m not going along with it.”

But for goodness sakes.  The fact that one person believes one way and other differently makes this entire world a more interesting place.  If someone supports Cause A that differs from your personal belief system, donate to Cause B that is in line with what you believe.  Take care of your own family, and your own life. Then go about your business.

If only our world was a fairy tale, we could all eat torte and debate about controversial issues and go home happy and fulfilled at the end of the night.  We would embrace the unique talents and styles and thoughts of those around us without being so hateful.  We could simply agree to disagree.  We would find a way to coexist.

You know that funny little plastic bracelet that kids used to wear?  They handed them out at church camp and Sunday school.  It said “what would Jesus do?”  It’s been overused and vilified, but it’s a legitimate question.  How would Jesus handle all these differences?  How would he deal with all these competing moral dilemmas?

I’ll bet he would love, and forgive, and love some more.  Jesus certainly didn’t apologize for his beliefs, but I’ll venture to guess he didn’t walk around tripping those who thought differently. He might have known in his heart they were wrong.  But I’ll be he didn’t stare them down with hate like they had a disease or paper their houses.  I’ll bet he didn’t call them ugly names or start a Disciple-wide boycott.  He did his best to spread his own message of salvation, love, and forgiveness to the poor, distraught, and sick. If others didn’t like it, that was fine.  Let the chips fall where they may.

Let our lives be more like that of Jesus – filled with peace, and logic, and patience.  Let us not fear that which is different.  Let us coexist, for goodness sakes, so we don’t live like a bunch of savages.

photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/auntiep/407993029/”>Auntie P</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photo pin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/”>cc</a>

Wedging in the practice


Write, write, write, they say.

They meaning writers, and agents who represent writers, and anyone who likes to sound important. Steven King says that writers must be readers, always absorbing words.  At a bus station or waiting for a train, we must all be carrying books and appreciating the written voice.  He’s right, of course.  They are all right.  And yet I spent two hours today fighting with a two-year-old to go down for a nap, and washing dishes, and planning my daughter’s birthday party.  I went to the mall and debated for at least ten solid minutes whether I should spend a hundred bucks on a lamp at Pottery Barn.  I’m ashamed to admit that I dug into my garbage pail of a purse today at the grocery store to find a pair of reading glasses in order to study a full-length essay about exactly why Katie Holmes is leaving Tom Cruise.  I was just standing there reading People Magazine while other normal people whizzed by to stand in the Express Lane, or head on over to the fresh strawberries.  They were all getting their stuff taken care of so they could get home and read Sherlock Holmes, most likely.  All I read these days is Nancy Drew Mysteries to my six-year-old.  And People, apparently.  It’s disgraceful.

I write.  Sure.  At the trail end of the day when I’m supposed to be paying bills.  I write after everyone has gone to sleep.  I write despite my feet going numb and my hair a big greasy mess because it’s the way my brain processes things, and lately I’ve begun to not care how it comes out.  It’s not disciplined.  It’s not crafty.  It’s sloppy and mushy like a Days of Our Lives re-run.

Maybe it’s no surprise that I don’t have an agent, or a publisher, or anything really, aside from a handful of dear friends and online followers who read my blog to laugh about my bad days.  The fact is – I’m so good in person.  Presentable and tall and fun to be with.  When I give speeches, I feel the energy radiate around the room. My pitches to agents in person are always met with yes. A “send it right over to me/I’m running to check your email right now” type of yes.  And then I do.  And it’s forever stuck in a black hole.  Or worse, rejected.  Then I wallow in self-pity for not writing more, or reading more, or not working on my damn craft.

I’ve intentionally avoided looking at my novel for some time now.  It’s saved in multiple places in my documents folder.

            Final Draft for Agent X. 

            First Fifty Pages. 

            Edited.Long.Version.With.New.Intro.

Some for agents, some for myself.  They are all just sitting there, untouched.  Silent.  Forgotten.

I’m moving my focus to a new novel.  A story about a disjointed family with a hidden secret.  But let’s not kid ourselves.  My focus is mental, meaning I think about the plot, characters, and setting while in the shower or driving the kids to the library or buying ground meat.  But I’m not writing.

It took me four years to wedge a book into my then-busy life.  The late nights and sparse weekends.  The early mornings and babysitters.  And now it just sits there in a dusty, online shelf.  I have one more child now than I did then, and the thought of starting over is depressing.

I’m not sure why being published is such a brass ring.  It’s the thought of being heard, I suppose.  That’s what Rachelle Gardner suggested.  She’s a solid literary agent that has never responded to my written query.  I don’t blame her.  I don’t blame any of them.  I don’t fault Jenny Bent or Joe Veltre or Rebecca Oliver for saying no, even thought I wanted so very badly for them to like me.  There are dozens of agents I still highly respect that rejected my novel. There are just so many writers, and books, and voices.  It’s the Tower of Babble out there with all the yelling and begging.  A person can get lost out there.  They can get overrun.

That’s what I tell myself, at least.  How does a girl have time to write, or be heard?  But then I look down and see evidence of Katie Holmes in my hand, like a bloody knife from a crime scene.  I stuff the magazine back in between the metal bars before I’m discovered.

But life is life.  There’s no use piling a heaping scoop of guilt on the top of it.  Amidst lessons on how two-year-olds should not hit or scream and between multiple requests for more Thomas the Train, this type of undisciplined writing is all I have.  My second novel will eventually explode from my brain, and I’ll have no control over its movement onto the page.  Then, once again, I’ll find the stolen moments, or times without children, or late nights, so it can find it’s way into the world.

But for now, this is practice, or something close to it.  It is all I can muster.  And it will just have to do.

Here’s to no-good, boring birthdays

 

Some Mondays aren’t the best.  This particular one was teeth-grindingly bad.  It just so happened that this Monday was also my birthday, which added to my abounding self-pity.  Birthdays really shouldn’t matter so much to grown-ups.   Just because you wake up on your official DOB doesn’t mean you carry a special florescent glow that mandates people give you free coffee and stickers.  I will say, however, that at least in the working world someone buys you a Starbucks, or there’s a cake in the break room.  When you’re a stay-at-home type, who happened to buy yourself a new camera for her own present, it’s just any other day and your main goal is for the kids to eat their carrots.

I felt bad about whining about my no-good, boring birthday to a girlfriend, until she reminded me that she knew.  She knew my life was blessed and full and rich and wonderful, and that it’s okay to have bad days.  I told her this day was ridiculously awful, aside from my family being healthy and us having a comfortable living with clothing and food and love and homemade bread and leftovers and an amazing life. Shoes on our feet and a belly full of organic turkey breast?  Blessings schmessings.

So here was my day. No one was diagnosed with a brain tumor or broke an arm, but still.

  • My husband left for work early.  My son fell out of his crib and I awoke to the sound of his sobbing face, covered in snot, screaming next to my pillow.
  • I tried to wake my daughter, who “needed some time” and didn’t want to be disturbed. Okay, royal highness.
  • I had three hours of child care for the 2-year-old, so I rushed to get a pedicure with my daughter at an upscale boutique.  She didn’t understand why she couldn’t stand around for a million hours looking at nail polish colors and couldn’t have a certain oversized ring that looks like a rose.
  • We headed to the bank. “Oh my gosh, it’s your birthday!” the teller gushed. “Here’s a lollipop!”  I guess the glare in the drive-in-window disguised my birthday glow as that of an anxious three-year old, because it’s been a long time since a lollipop was that thrilling.  But I’ll take it.  Things are looking up.
  • I picked up my son.  He ate said lollipop and his entire mouth turned blue.  What is this stuff – trick candy?
  • We headed to a friend’s house so my daughter could apologize to my friend’s child for saying hurtful words during a play date over the weekend.  We finally get that fun chore out of the way.  Sorry is said/hugs to be had.  Victory!
  • We head home, whereby my mother has called to sing me Happy Birthday.  Only she and my Dad are in Kansas and the phone keeps cutting out.
  • I try for a solid hour to get my son to take a nap.  He giggles and cries and wrangles and twists and I almost use brut force to tie him to the bed. Finally, I gave up and looked forward to a fun afternoon with an exhausted toddler.  What a great birthday present!  Better than dirty diapers!
  • I went to buy a real mattress for my son, who clearly needs something besides the crib since he’s looking like a future linebacker.  It costs more than I planned.  There goes all my spending money.
  • The mattress was being delivered that afternoon, and during the seven minute interval by which I was vacuuming his room in prep for the mattress, my son discovered a truck-load of permanent markers somewhere in his sister’s room (who put those in there?) and colored his entire hand, arm, and part of the carpet green.
  • I was so mad when I saw the green carpet I threw the markers across the room and might have yelled.  I’m fairly certain I yelled.  Oh yeah.  I yelled.
  • I gave myself a time-out on the front porch to calm down.  I sucked down a sparkling water.  Should have made it beer, the more I think about it.
  • I headed back in and decided I need to embrace the craziness.  If you can’t beat em, join em.  Want a popcicle?  Sure!  Want fruit smoothies for dinner?  Why not?  We all sang a rousing version of “Do, Re, Me” while I folded socks and towels.
  • Things are really looking up when I sneak spinach and flax seed in the smoothies when the kids aren’t looking.  Does spinach equal out the marker throwing?  Does the singing void out all the yelling?
  • My daughter spilled the entire smoothie on her white t-shirt.  Panic ensues that the stain will never come out, since this is a tried-and-true favorite tee. My son follows suit with the spillage.  Blueberry pomegranate sludge covers my front porch. Both kids are hosed off.  The porch is hosed off.  I wish I could hose off my bad mood.
  • I decide baths are in order, whereby my expensive organic bath gel somehow ends up in the tub and is half-full of water.  Why do I leave these things at arms-reach?
  • I put my son to bed.  He’s wiped.
  • I read a thousand chapters of Nancy Drew to my daughter, who keeps begging for more.  She finally pleads for a back scratch in the whiniest voice I’ve ever heard.  I tell her it’s my freaking birthday and I’m done with all her incessant demands. She throws a crazy fit by standing up, saying “hmph” really loudly, stomping, and crossing her arms.
  • My daughter loses television privileges as a natural consequence of her bad choice.  I told her one more outburst and the Polly Pocket dolls were headed to Goodwill.
  • I fold more laundry.  I eat a peanut butter sandwich.  I’m no longer singing show tunes, and I haven’t had one single piece of cake.
  • My husband calls and says he’s getting home really late due to a pending work deadline. Super double awesome.
  • I call my mother-in-law and remind her it was my birthday, since she had clearly forgotten.
  • Time for bed!  Here’s to Tuesday!

I recently gave a speech whereby I told a group of ladies that when horrible things happen, take a step back and find the funny.  There is always, for certain, without a doubt, funny things that bubble up from tragedies.  I was thinking of real tragedies, like death or cancer or car accidents.  But bad birthdays count.  The more I think about it, they so count.

So here’s to funny.  To the yelling and spilling.  The singing and cleaning up.  Regretful and glorious moments of motherhood are all wrapped up in a shiny birthday package, with a ribbon that reads “There’s always tomorrow!  Thank God for tomorrow!”

Tonight, I prayed out loud with my daughter.  I asked God to grant me more patience and to still my anger.  For my daughter to be more selfless, and to develop a heart of gratitude.  Mostly I just thanked God for our beautiful life.  For so many rich blessings. They don’t come in packages, tied up with string.  We don’t deserve them.  And yet we are surrounded by so many. As I write this, my two kids are sleeping and my laundry is done. My fingers fly over the keys like an old friend.  I have so many people in my life that I love and cherish.  I have the privilege of being a servant.

Next year on my birthday, I’m making pineapple smoothies.  At least they don’t stain.  That’s my new goal for birthday success. Let’s shoot for small victories. . .

sparkling pink unicorns

I sometimes wonder what religion must sound like to non-believers.  This whole “I live for Jesus” business a big fat excuse so that bonnet-clad women won’t feel so bad about their lot in life, selling rosemary soap and black currant jelly, sitting on rickety wooden seats next to their overbearing husbands.  To those who haven’t been raised in church, or even worse, have been burned by the allegedly faithful, religion a hard pill to swallow. I get it.  It rings false.  It’s just something to make us all feel good in the dark, cold nights. “They are church folk,” we want people to say, like it makes us honest or All-American. It’s what we cling to when we have cancer or when children die in car accidents.  It makes the unfair fair again. It washes the ugly clean.

To many, it’s not real.  Talking of Jesus is as crazy as circus clowns or unicorns.  Which made me think of the following imaginary conversation one might have at a dinner with a girlfriend, right after the talk of Oprah’s future and the importance of shellac pedicures.

“What the heck is that?” The check came and you had pulled out your wallet, which was naturally covered in pink, sparkling unicorns.  “Don’t tell me you’re into that sort of thing,” your friend said.  Her mouth was hanging open like a carp. “Is that a rainbow antler? Good gosh.”

“Back off,” you said.  “It’s complicated.” You stuff the wallet back into your purse, embarrassed.  “I went to a retreat.  I was touched by magical power. Whatever.”

“I can’t believe you fell for that crap,” she said.  Perhaps your friend thinks she’s being helpful. Enlightening you on your errant ways.

“It’s just the way I want to live my life. Geez.  It’s not the end of the world.  Unicorns believe in peace and love and the power of healing.  What’s so wrong with that?”

“Because you are a smart, strong woman,” your friend said, “and although you can believe in whatever you want, I think you’ve gone a little bonkers.”  She waved at the waitress for a to-go box and muttered something about anti-unicorn therapy.   Acupuncture, perhaps.  You reached for your pocket and felt the unicorn sayings, tucked safely inside, out of reach.

“There’s no evidence they ever existed on this planet,” your friend finally says, as if reason might prevail.

“I just have a feeling.  Don’t knock it. We all have our thing.”

I was wondering, as I was shampooing my hair and imagining this conversation, if that’s how it sounds.  Like Jesus and unicorns are in the same category, full of magic and miracles, made up to make life more beautiful.

It might be easy to convince half-starving folks in third-world countries that Jesus Christ was real. The weak and helpless have nothing else to cling to.  They need to know that this world isn’t all there is.   But well-educated Americans who have mortgages and favorite bands and trust funds?  Well, not so much.   I guess they think Christians can’t stomach the thought that dying just means dying, our flesh rotting in the ground for all eternity.  We just can’t handle this life being all there is because we’ve messed it all up so royally, so we made up a place like heaven and God and the angels and prophets to give ourselves something to live for.  To give us hope.  The Bible makes us feel good, like sparkling rainbow unicorns, full of love and happiness and forgiveness and the like.

To these people I just don’t know what to say.  Being a witness and sharing my faith is a weakness of mine, and I admit it.  Before I started blogging, putting my thoughts on paper for the world to see, many folks didn’t even know I was a Christian at all.  I felt it had no place in the world of law, or when I was giving speeches, or in any of my professional circles.  I knew a doctor for five years before she said once to a colleague “This is Amanda.  She’s great.  Very religious, but you’d never know it.”  Like that was a badge of honor.  Like I kept my crazy wallet hidden away so no one would ever see.

In the small, Texas town I grew up, it was so normal to go to church, or say you believe in God, or have a wrist band bearing “what would Jesus do?”  But as I grew up and moved away, I’ve seen the cynicism grow.  I have seen grudges against the faithful turn slowly into valleys of hate, like one side is right and just and intellectual and the other is mind-blowingly stupid and sheep-like in their blind acceptance of the unseen.

I’m not perfect.  I love my children and my husband with a fierce, protective love, and I can’t imagine walking away from them for anything, even if I heard voices telling me to in the name of God.  If I were put in the position of Abraham or Job I’d probably commit myself to a mental institution.  And for heaven’s sake don’t make me sell my home and live in a trailer or give my Whole Foods slush fund away to the poor. Sometimes I just beat my hands against my forehead at so many missed opportunities. For thinking my faith is just something to be shared on Sundays and locked up the rest of the week.  I can be just as disingenuous as the next guy.  I think at times I might even give religion a bad name.  I hate that.

But despite all this, I still believe.  I believe that God has directed my life since the moment I was born.  With every sinewy muscle in my body I throw myself into prayer, my heart exposed and raw, my failures unmasked.  I don’t do this because I feel I need a crutch, or because I need something to cling to, or because the thought of rotting in the dirt seems incredulous.  I do this because I have felt the power of God ripple through my soul.  I heard the words of a nurse in the hospital, after four long weeks of post-partum infection, when I felt so lost and broken, that “you are God’s child.  He will never leave you.”  She came at night.  My husband was asleep and never saw her. It was as if I knew, at that moment, that my life was not my own.

I have no magic words that I use to convince people I’m right.  That Jesus lived on this very earth that we walk upon.  That the era of Jesus wasn’t some made-up time period, squeezed into history books with quotation marks.

I just believe.  I don’t know how to make it sound any more legitimate than that.  I suppose you can reason that one single man in the history of the world has never made more of an impact.  That people of great intellect and credibility and heart that profess to believe in Jesus can’t all be stupid.  But in the end it’s not about these things. It’s not about what others think or feel, or how much you’ve done to earn your wings.   It’s not at all about your ability to evangelize. In the end it’s just you and God.

I suppose it’s not possible to change everyone’s minds.  To some, I’ll forever be talking nonsense.  They shake their head and chuckle under their breath.  I hope these dear friends are not forever lost.  That God cracks the armor of their hardened hearts.  I pray that the love and grace and mercy of God pierces their anger, and all that disbelief comes flowing right out.

Life is not a fairy tale.  It’s gruesome and unfair and messy.  God is not some magical beast that dances around with sparkles, and Jesus is not some knight in shining armor.  I certainly don’t profess to be a Christian so I can win points with neighbors or look good to the book club girls.

God is simply God.  Jesus is simply life.  And that’s about as magical as it gets.

big apple of ambition

Recently, I friended an old high school acquaintance on facebook who turns out to be a creative director in an amazing ad agency in New York City.  Like Don Draper status with Emmy-winning commercials and fancy ties.  I looked down at myself, sloppy and tired, brushing the cookie crumbs off my pants.

Is this really where I wanted to end up?  Is this the woman I thought I’d be?

My mind was consumed with thoughts of the past as I unloaded the dishwasher.  Memories of television and fake eyelashes and In Touch magazine photo shoots.  People doing my make-up and eating at fancy places I could never afford. I thought of poor Martha Stewart, who didn’t like us much, but had such fabulous collections of things and a bubbly, youthful laugh.  I thought of the endless cabs and the fleeting second of fame and what it was like to feel special in this world.

I yearned to live there, then.  The Big. Ol. City. where the lights were always burning and air thickened in the summer – a mixture of urine and exhaust and pure, uncut talent. “What’s a working girl to do?” I’d say to myself as I rounded 24th Ave, my future yet untold.  Maybe I’d meet my husband for drinks, or coffee, or try that new vegan place uptown. My hair would be blond and my legs lean.  It’s not like everyone can run off to the Hamptons when the temperature rises.  I’d gut it out.  Because I’m a southern girl, and I can handle it.  I’d find my place in that rat race, settling down in a nice hole somewhere, munching on crumbs.

I remember being on an interview, sitting down with a bunch of marketing executives on 6th Avenue, my first child belly-flipping around in my abdomen and making me nauseous.  She was just the size of a bean then.  I think she was trying to tell me something.

My son suddenly awoke from his nap crying, ruining my perfectly good daydream about Dean & Deluca chocolates.  His pacifier had fallen to the floor and tears were streaming from his red, tired face.  The moment I picked him up, his arms curled around my neck like I might leave him forever and this was our one last embrace.  His head of thick, blond hair buried into my chest, and he let out the most peaceful coo.  I stopped what I was doing, carried him to my bedroom, and let him lay on my chest for a solid hour and a half.  He turned his head and sighed and flipped a few times.  I think he was as happy as he ever was in his whole two years of life.  As I lay there, rubbing his back, I let my mind rest on what might have been.  Or what I might have missed.

I chose this life.  You can hear the katydids screeching their evening refrain in the oaks and wonder if the tomatoes are getting enough water.  I eat farm eggs and bake bread on Mondays and hang clothes on the line.  Instead of going to court or summarizing deposition transcripts, I ask my husband about his day.  I make sure the toilet bowls are clean.  I find time to write. It’s the life I wanted, and one I fiercely fought to have.  But it’s not cosmopolitan.  No one cares if you wear designer jeans or have red underbellies to your high-heeled shoes.  No one in Austin even wears high-heeled shoes.  Why would you, when flip flops are much more comfortable, and you’re just headed out for Migas anyway?

My son woke up and we played the tickle game.  I did laundry.  I made macaroni and cheese with a breadcrumb topping.  My son wore one of my old hats and tried to dig ice from a Whataburger cup, which made me laugh.  My daughter and I stayed up late eating warm banana pudding.  My husband was out of town, so I let my daughter cuddle up in our down comforter with me, turning over sometimes in the middle of the night just to touch her arm.  Just to make sure she was still there.

Somehow I don’t think I’d get these memories living in the land of great hopes and expectations.  I’m not sure my soul would be rested enough.  I’m not sure my children would find their way.   It’s not home.  It’s not warm and inviting with room to breathe.

This is the place I want to live.   This is the life I choose.   Thank you, God, for leading me here.  For letting me float inside this quiet peace, amidst the wildflowers and artists and fields of expired ambition, gently blowing away with the wind.  Past the inland sea oats, whispering by the Indian blankets.  Far off into the hot, Texas sky.

The Zoo

I apologize in advance for such a long post, but on this one I was a horrid self-editor and just couldn’t bring myself to cut out any details.   Please forgive me!

It all started out so simple.  My husband had a board meeting in Dallas on a Saturday.  We figured it made good sense to drive up together, meet a girlfriend and her children, and we’d all hit the zoo while my husband was trapped in a long, boring meeting. A well-crafted plan!  So we packed our sunscreen and juice boxes and hit the road in high spirits.  In no time flat we’d be feeding the giraffes.  We’d be looking with awe as elephants fanned themselves with muddy water and giggling at those darn flamingos standing precariously on their tall, spindly legs.

I should have seen it coming when we stopped for lunch and a bag of food fell over, tumbling French fries this way and that in random places between my seats.  But this was a fun day with friends and cheetahs.  What could possibly go wrong?

My husband’s meeting was deep in the barrio somewhere, which meant I was weaving about unfamiliar territory amidst unfamiliar people.  My children were singing Wheels on the Bus as I gripped our own steering wheel, my blond hair tied back in a bun and my eyes squinting to find the right turn.  Finally, after delivering my husband safely, I took off for the zoo, which is literally two exits north. This is when things started to go south.  And west.  And east again.  Despite the zoo being a stone’s throw away, I still managed to miss the exit and I went on a fun-filled ride through pawn-shop, bail-bond, check-cashing and cheap-auto-insurance heaven.  I turned around and weaved over and tried to look at the map on my phone while not hurling my children into the taillights of the car in front of us.  We finally made it an hour late, but who cares?  We have all afternoon! And how long does it take to see gorillas anyway?

I drove up to the parking attendant to pay and she informed me that today of all days was their annual special event that required them to close early.  In three hours, specifically.  They’d shut the doors and shoo all the zoo-goers to their SUVs promptly at 4 pm and “we aren’t kidding,” the man says.  What were the odds?

So we all pile out of the car, get the stroller in zoo-read shape, and head inside to meet my dear girlfriend and her family.  To the giraffes we go!  Time’s a wastin! So we all schlep it over to pay $5 for a few lettuce leaves so that the overfed animals can get their daily intake of salad.  My two-year-old is frightened by the whole concept and just pitches the leaves over the fence.  They float to the ground like parachutes.

Next up is the monorail.  The kids are ecstatic about the train ride, so we all sit in a pressure cooker of sweat and trapped air for a good half hour, desperately pouring water down our children’s throats to prevent heatstroke and pointing out various animals down below.  “Deer!” my son says at every single animal. I start to correct him, but what’s the point?  We’ll never see that particular antelope again in real life.  “Yes! Deer!” I say in return.

After the train, we all head to splashdown so the kids could cool off in a manufactured river that’s only a few inches deep and smells very strongly of urine.  I watched my daughter and her friend lay their entire bodies in it, waving their hands around and pretending they’re mermaids.  I’m slightly horrified that there’s a kid in front of me with a sagging poopy diaper laughing and dancing around in the water my son just traipsed through. But it looked quite fun and maybe I need to back off on the germ focus.  After all, what are immune systems for?  What’s a few diluted pints of pee amongst friends?

So we dry off the children, change their clothes, and head to see the monkeys.  But before we get there, we are stopped by a zoo employee and told that the north end of the zoo is actually closed. Only for today, you see, because of the special event going on. So no monkeys.  But back by the entrance, there’s a bird show going on.  “See how things have a way of working out?” I tell my friend as we laugh and do a stroller u-turn in the walkway.  I grab the hands of my daughter and her dear friend, walk down three flights of stairs by the little zoo theatre, sit on the front row right in front of the tuxedo-outfitted penguins, and wait.  But people are leaving.  The penguins are walking off the stage, their little feet waddling out of sight.

“So sorry,” the penguin handler tells me.  “But the show ended about five minutes ago.”  Just our luck.  Yes, yes.  That figures.

We finally just hauled the kids to the carousal and let them ride the pretend horses around and around.  They were thrilled.  My two-year-old clutched his horse as if he might get bucked off and giggled with glee.  It was just in time for the zoo to close, whereby we were being asked to leave through the front gates. “Come again!” the zoo worker said.

The incredible mother that I am, I managed to pack seventeen juice boxes but no real bottles of water, and neglected to bring any hand sanitizer. So my children were covered with animal and train-rail and carousal germs of all sorts as we finally headed back to the car.  We hugged our dear friends, changed my kids’ clothes in the parking lot so they could pass out with sheer exhaustion in something clean on the way home, did my best to wipe them down with generic-brand wet wipes, and called the day a success.  Despite the fact that we were only at the zoo for a short time and had a four-hour drive back home.  And despite the fact that we would all likely die of a strange, urine-transported disease and didn’t see one single monkey.

The kids and I headed back to the barrio to get my husband, who was wrapping up the board meeting that very moment.  On the way, I hear my daughter say something disturbing in the back seat. Something like “what’s that all over you?”  She was speaking to her brother.  I was filled with terror.

I pulled over in a dollar store parking lot, taking up several spaces, and forced myself to turn around.  I had given my son a squeezable fruit, which is great for travel and presumably less messy for young children. Unless it happened to be a blend of apples and spinach, and is the color of grass cuttings.  In this case my son believed it appropriate to simply squirt the crap all over his body and then mash it into the car seat and his clothing like finger paint.

I’m trying not to curse as some man walks up to me to either ask for money or mug me, but I give him dirty looks and shake my head because I have better things to do, like strip my kid down to his diaper and wipe the green goo off every crevice of his body.  It’s crammed into the straps of his car seat like glue.  Great.

“Did we stop for a Frosty?” my daughter says as she notices there’s a Wendy’s nearby.  I look over at her, my hands covered in green mashed ick, after just shooing away a homeless person and glancing around to make sure no one’s going to car-jack us, cursing under my breath when I realize I don’t have any extra clean clothes and wiping my son’s body down with wet wipes while in a parking lot in a rough part of town.  Yes, my love.  We stopped for ice cream. The homeless dude that was asking for money just walked off, like Nu-uh. I don’t want any part of that craziness. 

My kids never did sleep on the way home. They decided to sing seventeen renditions of Happy Birthday and slung barbeque sandwich all over the backseat.  My son had not one, but two large poops that he so happily declared to us as my husband gripped the wheel and just hoped to the dear heavens that there was justice in the world and we’d get home already.  The kids got louder and louder on the way, possibly fueled by a mid-trip ice cream, and it at the end it was like a grand finale at a firework display.  My son wanted a cup of ice in the front seat and kept screaming “LEMME HAVE IT!” at the top of his lungs.  My daughter applied some of my lip gloss, which she said did NOT smell like cocoa or butter and kept saying “It reeks in here!  Open the window!  I can’t take this smell!”  Finally my husband and I just started laughing at how ridiculous it all was.

At nine o’clock when we arrived home, I threw my son in a warm bath and covered him with soapy bubbles.  In deference to the day we had, he stood up in the bath and peed for a long, solid minute. Somehow, I wasn’t at all surprised.

All in all, it was glorious. Any chance to see one of my best friends is worth it, and now we have even more stories to add to our long, thick book of friendship. The fact is that I’d do it all over again in a second.  One day, when the kids are grown and gone, my car will be clean and things will work out the way they’re planned.  But I’ll burn with longing for the loud, messy, insane world that I now wallowing in, green goo and all. These glorious little people make me laugh and smile despite having to get my car detailed on a regular basis. They might fill my car with stale French fries, but they fill my soul with happiness as I pick up their tired, sticky bodies, their mouths covered with the sweet residue of ice cream and their hair matted together with dried sweat.

They fell asleep so happy, and the next morning all we heard about was the carousal and the zebras.  The “geewaffs” and the choo-choo and all those deer.  And that makes it all worth it, monkeys or no monkeys, bacteria and all.