17 Days of Being Grateful

Some of my facebook pals have been using November to post Things I Am Grateful For in their status. It’s a good idea. So I’ll try to think of 17 for the first 17 days of this month:

I Am Grateful For:

1. my husband. I’m glad I am not alone in life. I am glad that there are warm legs to warm my cold toes against in our bed. I’m glad that there is someone to raise Jack with.

2. my son. I am so glad that I get to be a mother. Apparently I’m not so good at the gestating a baby so I’m glad that Jack’s time in my belly was relatively normal.

3. Our furry little children Philbin (aka The Little Black Dog) and Hildy Guard Dog. As infuriating as the two of them can be when they do not want to play nicely together… or when Hildy decides that pooing inside the house is preferable to going outside… and as expensive as Hildy’s first shots have been… well. I’m glad that they are part of our lives.

4. our parents– my father, my mother, Rob’s parents, and Eric. They’re all good people who love us and take good care of us.

5.my sister and her girls. Jack loves few people like he loves his cousins.

6. Robby’s job. It leaves him sapped out on some days and some of his coworkers drive him batty… but we’re very grateful that he is gainfully employed.

7. our home. It’s an old house so there is a lot of things about it that frustrate us on a daily basis. But then, to compensate, there are the arched doorways and lovely, lovely dark wood throughout, and the windows that make me happy.

8. books and the ablility to read them. Watching Jack learn to read has made me so grateful that I can read and that I enjoy it so. I can’t imagine life without a book within reach. I like my tall bookshelves full of a mishmash of book genres. I love the glass window doors that protect the two “good shelf” books.

9. our health. We’re so lucky to be in working order.

10. our friends. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I take a cue from Bing and Rosemary and count my blessings. Usually that comes in the form of our friends. Oldest friends and newest friends and far-flung friends and old-school friends and church-family friends and our parents’ friends and work friends and and and and and. We’re lucky. I wish that our best friends lived closer and that we saw the far-flung friends more often… but at least we get to know them and love them.

11. orange juice and chocolate. My favorite comfort foods are fresh-squeezed orange juice and really, really good chocolate. Lumpy mashed potatoes and gravy. Glass-bottled Coke. Good cheese. Cold Calder’s milk. Scones with clotted cream and jam. Jam tarts. My mother’s Texas Sheet Cake. My sister’s Scripture Cookies. My pot roast. Mrs. Nordmeyer’s soup. Horseshoes with Cheese Whiz. Biscuits and gravy and grits. Eggs in the Snow. Brussel Sprouts. Bacon. A proper sponge cake. Mallomars. Mommy’s Smokey Corn Chowder or Bean soup.

12. Tea. Properly made and perfectly hot tea. Or perfectly iced. A day without tea is a sad, sad day.

13. sewing and knitting. I like to make things. I like the quietness that comes about me when I can sew a long seam by hand and the soothing rhythm of knitting.

14. Lush. There are few things more decadent in my life than soaking in a Lush-y tub full of some yummy thing. Add in a Hello magazine, glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, and a box of Mallomars and you’ve made for a darn fine evening.

15. our church. I’m really grateful for our church. We have great pastors and a wonderful music program. The church family is a good mix of old and new members, new people, old and young, and it’s getting more racially diverse with each generation. I like it there. We feel well-fed when we leave.

16. Jack’s school. After all the agony of the past year trying to choose just the right place for Jack to learn– we lucked into a great school. We’re so happy with his teacher. We couldn’t have imagined what a good fit that she would be for Jack. We should have– we’ve prayed and prayed about it– but it was beyond our hoping.

17. that it’s almost Christmas. I love Christmas. I love the trees and lights and cookies and music. I like the goodwill among men. And I love wrapping presents. So it’s all good.

Hole

I’ve been out-of-sorts today. Cross, too.

I spent a few days at a Museum conference with some dear, dear friends that I don’t see often enough. I miss some of those friends today. I miss the lively discussions and practical jokes and comraderie.

We’re all flung out across the midwest (mostly) and so it’s only 2 or 3 times a year that we’re at the same table again. I used to placate myself with a theory that, if we lived in the same town, we would take each other for granted and the luster would wear off somewhat. That theory was nice on paper until our pals Chris and Susan lived in our town for a year. Now I realize what I’ve suspected all along– it would be wonderful if we were all in the same zipcode.

The angst made me want to stay home from church and sleep. But I didn’t. And I’m glad I didn’t. The Jr/Sr high sunday school class that I co-lead is a good group of kids. Today we followed up our earlier discussions about Heaven and Hell with a dabble in Purgatory (being Methodists we had to google it to figure out how it works) and then a foray into Sin.

Not as satisfying as a walk in the sunshine with Susan and her baby but better than nothing.

The Annual Reading of The Long Winter

I just finished my annual reading of The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I think it’s probably my favorite book. Not just in the Little House series– but of all the books I’ve ever read. It’s the one I’ve re-read the most often.

Not to spoil it if you haven’t read it– it’s not a very cheerful story. Laura and her Ma and Pa and sisters (blind, good Mary; thin, fragile Carrie; and small Grace) endure a long, hard winter of seven months of blizzards. Their little town of DeSmet in the Dakota territory is only a year old and the townspeople run out of supplies when the trains stop running due to the weather. Laura’s family goes from eating simple but hearty meals of beans and salt pork and bread to eating just potatoes and bread to eating a coarse bread made from Almanzo Wilder’s seed wheat ground in the coffee mill. They run out of things to burn and end up making sticks out of twisted hunks of hay to keep from freezing. It gets bad. They are starving and cold. They’re cut off from the rest of the town– each family unable to make much contact with the others so that they might as well not be in town at all– the blizzards are that bad.

It’s the darkest of the books (until Laura gets married and they have a series of misfortunes). Laura describes the monotony of surviving the winter as an unending cycle of grinding wheat, twisting hay, eating the coarse bread (without butter or preserves or gravy– just coarse, brown bread), sleeping– all in a semi-darkness brought on by the blizzards and lack of kerosene.

At the lowest point Pa can’t play the fiddle– his hands are too chapped from the cold. They exhaust the only other entertainment– reciting from memory the things they can remember like poems from their schoolbooks or verses from Sunday School. Laura feels “dull” and “tired.”

And then– in the last few chapters it all comes out well. Almanzo Wilder and Cap Garland make a desperate run for some rumored wheat, find it, bring it back, and save the town from starving. The Christmas barrel that was sent out from the Minnesota church on the last train arrives with the turkey still frozen and they Ingalls have a Christmas feast in May to celebrate the return of Spring and their survival.

Mixed in are a few observations about human nature. The storekeeper that tries to make an unfair profit from the wheat brought in to save the town. The inexperienced Easterner that ruins a (literal) shot at some meat when the men see a rare herd of antelope. The patient Ma who snaps.

I’m not sure why I love it so. But I do. And I’ve reread it every year since I first read it when I was about 9. I usually read it in the summer. Her descriptions of the howling winds and thick snows of the blizzards chase off the humid Michigan summer heat. This year I read it late. I had it with me at church this week. We had a conference after church and I used the half-hour between to read a bit. I was interrupted by several people asking what I was reading. Our pastor’s eyes lit up when I showed him the cover. He knows it well, too.

Several years ago I was doing a research project for work. I spent a day at the Detroit Public Library’s special collections pulling images for an exhibit. The staff there was pretty patient– they filled my many requests with trips to the archives. I finished earlier than I’d expected to and I sought out the librarian that had been the nicest and asked politely if it was true that the original manuscript for The Long Winter was in their collection. She sighed and laid aside her work and led me to a locked case where she handed me a pair of white cotton gloves. We sat together at a long table where she carefully pulled a Red Chief notebook from an archival box and opened it to reveal Laura’s long-hand writing. Page after page in long hand was the story I’ve loved complete with corrections and crossed out phrases. I soaked it in. Took in the way she shaped her letters and the height of her letters. And then I thanked the librarian for letting me see it. She was startled. Didn’t I want to see the rest? She was willing to sit and turn it page by page while I read it. The entire thing. I was just as startled. “Oh no. I’ve read it before. I just wanted to see it in her handwriting.” I don’t remember a single image we pulled that day for the project at work– and I was there pulling images for at least 6 hours. But I remember the way my throat filled up with my 9 year old heart when I saw that first page of Laura’s familiar words.

If you haven’t read the Little House books you shouldn’t necessarily start with The Long Winter but keep reading till you get to it. Little House in the Big Woods will seem simple and childlike. Little House on the Prairie might be too earnest. Farmer Boy (my second favorite) will make you obsess over donuts and ham and baked beans. By the Banks of Plum Creek is where the payoff starts in your investment with the Ingalls Family. By the Shores of Silver Lake is the hardest one for me to slog through. Partially because in the first 50 pages or so Jack the dog will die and Mary will be blind. And then there are all the passages about building the railroad (Robby loved this book because of that). My beloved The Long Winter makes its appearance here. And then it’s a happy coasting through Little Town on the Prairie and These Happy Golden Years before Laura’s writing tone changes with her memories of The First Four Years of her marriage to Almanzo Wilder.

Let me know what you think.

Faith and Habit

Yesterday my Friend Wallis (this Blog’s Godfather) was ordained as a pastor in his church. Robby and I went to the ordination service after I’d gone out to hear Wally preach at an earlier service. Sandwiched in between was Sunday School with the teenagers of my church.

Somehow I’m teaching sunday school again. My co-teacher is the father of my oldest friend. We’re winging it a little bit– we couldn’t find a curriculumn that seemed to fit our group well that we could afford or access easily… so we’re looking at the mechanics of the church for several weeks. These are mostly kids that have grown up in the church. Their parents have seen to it that each Sunday they are in church and choir and youth group, etc. Most of them have been baptized and confirmed. We thought maybe examining some of the elements of Christian practice would be beneficial and interesting– the things they’ve learned along the way and now have become habit (albeit good) or rote and are at risk of losing meaning in the familiarity.

We started with the Apostles’ Creed. Looked at the 12 statements of faith in there and tried to get some discussions going about it. I’m having a ball with this– I didn’t grow up knowing the Apostles’ Creed and didn’t learn it until college. These kids have known it from their littlest days. We’re slowly trying to challenge them to really look at their faith and see what it is that’s there– what they believe vs. what they accept.

Wally’s ordination was largely focused, too, on belief. The process at his church involved a council and full day examination of his life and faith. Wally wrote (and subsequently published) a series of essays called The Ordination Papers. Robby and I read them on a long car trip. They prompted good discussions. Wally’s theology is closer to what I grew up surrounded by and what Robby has come nearer to as he gets older.

But what a contrast between the sunday school with complacent teenagers munching frosted cookies and shrugging at the statement for the forgiveness of sins and Wally, kneeling, while the (male) leadership of his church laid hands on him as he earned the role of pastor. My teenagers haven’t really tested their faith yet. Having been there– one of the good kids who had good Christian parents and a good church and a good adults– I know I can only try to give them the tools that they will need when they are tested down the road.

Blue.

It’s cold and rainy here this morning. It makes me miss Jack. On mornings like this we’d stay in our jammies and do puzzles or look at his “learning books” trying to make sense of the dinosaur names.

It might have to be a good apple crisp night.

At least there is a good lunch to look forward to– I’m meeting a partner-in-crime to go over the lesson for this week’s Sunday School.

From the mighty OK

Robby was tending the crops of his facebook farm. It’s a silly little diversion… we both have little farms. Jack loves them. He likes to help us “plant” crops and “harvest” them, etc.

So tonight Robby was getting some help from Farmer Jack. One of the on-screen prompts gave an option of  “OK” which our Nearly Reading Jack read as “Oak.”

A few years ago I remarked occasionally on the little explosions in his vocabulary– how, suddenly, he would add dozens of words or phrases to his repetoire. Now it’s sight words. He’s delighted in “Exit” signs and ramps. He takes glee in the word “Jackson” because it has his name in it, too. He studies road signs: “stop” and “Do Not Enter” and “No Turn on Red”…

And, like his earlier additions to his spoken vocabulary, I sit with my breath caught near the lump in my throat that is my heart– awed and excited.

Tonight, at church, my 12-year-old friend Anthony was thisclose to finishing Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons and I delighted that my Jack might also tote a book around some day eager to tell others what his story is about.

Bad news.

Here’s a full sentence: We were pregnant but now we’re not.

There were better ways to end that sentence. Unfortunately, for us, it was in a miscarriage. Another miscarriage. My mother-in-law was very eloquent in her reaction of ”Well that sucks.” (Which, if you know Lady, is saying an awful lot. Robby thinks it’s the first time she’s ever uttered that. I know better but I know what he means.)

We hadn’t announced that we were expecting because we both felt very strongly (feel very strongly) that it wouldn’t do for Jack to hear about an impending sibling from anyone but us. Our plan had been to get to the first trimester mark (and some false sense of safety because we know there aren’t any guarantees) and then let Jack in on the fun– then let him announce it in his own way to our family and friends.

It was a good plan. For 10 weeks we’ve kept to it… And then plans changed. And now we’re trying to keep Jack from our grief. It’s not fair to burden Jack with our sadness when he didn’t get to enjoy the happiness.

So, if you’re reading this, and you know our Jack, we’re asking you to respect that, too. Watch what you say in front of him.

Which brings about the logics of why I’m typing this at all then– why not keep it to ourselves? Because we both believe pretty fervently that things happen for a reason. Even when we aren’t sure of what that reason is. Especially when we aren’t sure. And maybe the reason is for someone else’s comfort? or someone else’s education? or for some big lesson we haven’t learned yet.

I do know this– miscarriages are crappy secrets.

Once you’ve had a miscarriage you realize that nearly everyone around you has had one, too. It’s a twisted logic. Just when you’re feeling completely alone and abandoned by your own body and thinking that hope is the cruelest minx– you are surrounded by people saying, “I know. It’s happened to me.” The miscarriers close ranks around you in a strangely humbling and kindly way. And you don’t get let in this Thing In Common until then. There are mothers, aunts, cousins, sisters, girlfriends, coworkers that keep silent until it’s happened to you, too.

What’s with all the mystery? We didn’t drink or smoke or experiment with heroin– we were good and took our vitamins and walks and carefully chose our produce and monitored our every move and bite and thought. So why all the secrecy and pseudo shame?

We loved, we hoped, we lost. So why don’t we acknowledge?

At the hospital the other night two interesting things happened. The first was that nearly every single person we encountered– from the triage nurse to the CNAs and the anestheologists had a cross somewhere on them in the form of a necklace or tattoo. In hindsight I realized in some weird way I’d been passed from one set of Christian hands to another. I’m sure the ACLU would freak out about that– but oh. my. Even in hindsight I’m grateful.

The second was that nearly every woman I encountered along the way from ER to transport to observation and surgery had also had a miscarriage. When they’d ask what I was in for they’d make that gutteral sound of shared grief and pause to pat my arm or tuck a blanket in more closely.

I guess if you’d don’t believe in God than this is all just coincidence– but for us it was a gentle reminder of the bigger picture.

Here’s more: We’d told exactly three people. Our friend Katie who cares deeply about our physical health (and our spiritual and emotional health, too). She keeps me plied in vitamins and information. And our friends Susan and Chris.

When I got the call that I should go to the ER– can you guess who was there for dinner? Not in their five-hours-away house– but our living room? Susan went with me to the ER and managed to smooth my ponytail even while she juggled a very wiggly 6 month Adrian. Robby had Chris to ply him with distractions and (not entirely) surprisingly gentle man sympathy. (And a little Scotch.)  Jack had his AunT to watch over him in the night and the amazing Maddie to feed him, dress him, and play with him all day. (And today– when I wanted to sleep– there was “Keegy!” who came and chased Jack around the backyard so I could crawl off to bed.)

Years from now we’ll fill Jack in on these days– how everyone took it in turns to keep him from feeling our sadness. And tell him how he’s checked our grief somewhat with his very existence. In the meantime we’ll hope that for better endings to full sentences.

Christy the Sparrow

A friend of mine, Christy, has been a really good example lately.

I think there is a reason for all the people in our lives. I think there are things that we learn from each other. Tiny worms that work their way into our brains or hearts and set up camp. We take it for granted from the people closest to us– or can’t see the forest for the trees.

My pal Christy’s husband is an engineer at GM. They’re good people. They live carefully. Raise their children responsibly. Their kids are the kind of kids you want to know. They’re funny and kind and creative. Christy has homeschooled them– a fact that shocks her only slightly less than the rest of us.

I see Christy maybe three times each year– at parties or gatherings at our mutual Friends Wally & Katie’s… and we have barely enough time then to catch up on the pleasantries. In the meantimes we read each other’s blogs and occasionally comment on them or our facebook pages. (Ah! Modern friendship.)

Today GM declared bankruptcy. The news stories aren’t specific enough to include the GM family I care most about– Christy, her husband, and their brood– but if they did interview her the reporter would have to note that while she is angry and anxious she is also assured. Assured that her faith is not built on stock or the financial stablility of an automotive giant. Her faith is in God. Her faith is in an unwavering belief that their lives are in His hands and that His eye is on the sparrow and the engineers and the mothers and the children.

I can’t say I’m as steadfast as she– but her example has been a strong one. So even while we hold our breath to see what the trickle down effects of GM’s bankruptcy is on Robby’s office, we’ll say a prayer of thanksgiving (and good things) for Christy.

Swarming words

I get emails from some of you that ask, “Why no blogging lately?” 

My hands get tied up. Sometimes there is too much going on to nail down any of the thoughts– and really, the best thoughts are the ones I can’t put in print. It’s frustrating. And it’s what kept me from journalism school. Afraid of hurting this person or that with words. (Particularly when it’s so easy to do.)

I can hear the words buzzing sometimes. If I sit still too long they are there, humming as they gather themselves and hover just out of my reach. If I pick one out then there is a flood of others that follow. I have to shake my head clear of them all and reach for something to distract– Word Challenge on Facebook, a book (The Madonnas of Leningrad), or a silly thing on television (hello new season of Deadliest Catch! Ahoy Cap’ts Sig, Phil, et al.)

I clean out closets, sort the plastic containers in the kitchen, search for new recipes. And all the while the words are still sounding their buzzing in my ears.

Which sounds crazy, I know. Virginia-with-her-pockets-full-of-rocks crazy. Or Sylvia-with-her-head-in-the-oven crazy. (Did Virginia think she could escape the words as though they were bees? Slip under the cold water and be free of them? Did Sylvia try to scorch them? or, like Lorelai said on Gilmore Girls, was she just cold?)

At church I’m partnered with one of the kids in the confirmation class. I lucked out and got a great kid. She and I are supposed to read the Gospel of Luke. Reading it straight through is not exactly a comfort. We’re about a third of the way in and in the middle of all the “leave your stuff/family/life as you know it and follow me…” directives. And Jesus, in Luke, only seems to speak in Parables… which, forgive me for saying, must have been incredibly annoying to the disciples.
“Hey, Jesus– we’re running into town to pick up pita sandwiches– what sounds good to you?”
“My brothers, if a man at a wedding feast is sowing seeds in a field…”
“Uh, yeah. So… did you want turkey or cheese?”

Still. It keeps the buzzing at bay. Makes me a little calmer for an hour or two while I marvel at the ability of my confirmation kid to pull out the meaning dead on nearly every time.

I make pots of good tea– or splurge for large Iced Chai at the little coffee place downtown. I savor the chocolate covered almonds we bought last week. I take great delight in Jack’s silly songs that he makes up on the way to school. Snuggle the small baby of our dear friends. Slip into a good book or imagine myself in London with the latest issue of Hello magazine. Stretch out the last of my Christmas Lush box. Take long walks with my pal around our lovely, finally greening park. Curl up with Robby at the end of the day when the baby monitor is only static and the little black dog is softly snoring on Rob’s outstretched legs.

Eventually I’ll wrangle the words back into sentences. Get them to line up into paragraphs even… for now it’s enough to hope that maybe they’ll make something akin to honey if I leave them alone.

Good Friday Passover

Last night we drove past our town’s only Jewish temple. The parking lot was unusually full with cars and people carrying in casserole dishes. We remembered it was the first night of Passover– so figured there must be a big Seder dinner.

Me: Let’s crash the Seder dinner.
Robby: Sure. Yeah. We’ll fit right in with our United Methodist Camp sweatshirts on.
Me (looking down): Oh.

Last week we went to one of the Catholic fish frys. There are about a dozen different ones within a 10 mile radius to choose from… our pals, Chris and Susan, were headed to the fry at St. Mary’s so we met them there. I’ve been to several of the local frys– hit this parish’s version and that’s… I was excited to see the basement of St. Mary’s. It felt illicite. Sneaky Protestants.

Susan, our only true Catholic, ignored our suggestions for dinner conversation. (Topics included “I think it’s just a representation of the body and blood of Christ” and birth control.) Chris and I were sure if we could just throw in a few references to the Pope we’d fit right in and not be detected for our Protestant stance. Bring on the papists! We were speaking their language.

Me: I really admire your framed 11 by 14 inch photograph of the Pope in your dining room. It’s really nice.
Chris: Thank you. We love the Pope.

The fry was a good one– we took over a big, round table with our four adult selves and the littler bodies of our Jack and their baby. The boys were a little disappointed that the beverage selection did not include beer while Susan and I were delighted at the big pieces of three layered cake (pink frosting flowers!). The servers put steamed broccoli on Jack’s plate and I figured, well, more vegetables for me– when the little man surprised us all and ate the spears with relish. Wow. Years from now there will be pilgrimages to St. Mary’s basement made by mothers and fathers of toddlers who observe the Miracle of the Broccoli. (He also enjoyed his fried “chicken”… you know the old saying, Trust the Gorton’s Chicken Man…SHHHHHH.)

I would have made a great Catholic. And a pretty good Jew, too. I’m not a great Methodist– but I’ll work on it. In the meantime maybe I can crash a Rammadan midnight feast or a pilgrimage to Mecca.