Sunday, October 28, 2007

Give me the time.

Strange morning. I am awake, the kitchen clock reads 7, the computer clock reads 6. What time is it? Did my husband think it was daylight savings time already and set the kitchen clock in the wrong direction? Is my computer about to crash and giving me little signals like not getting the time correct and duplicating all of my files in strange, ghostly ways? Should I just go by sounds I hear from the baby monitor? A moan here, a sneeze there...if baby is waking it should be around 7. Definitely. No wait, we have been traveling, and baby's schedule will be messed up.

Panic now. Nothing to tell me the time. HELP!

Hold on. Why do I need to know the time? This blissful timelessness is something we don't let our selves experience. What is next on the schedule? Wait, I will check my calender. What should we do for the holidays? When is that vacation we have planned again? 2009?
We are always looking ahead. Not at NOW. And NOW waits for us, patient and quiet, hoping we will take a passing glance before burying our heads in our PDAs or day planners.

Is this not what we say when we are asked what is the one thing we want? I would like more hours in the day? Here I am, blessed with a timeless Sunday morning, and my first instinct is to panic.

I don't have anywhere to go. I could have another cup of coffee. Or start that book. Laundry? Watch the sky slowly come to light?

My cell phone. The time on my cell phone will definitely be right.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Dear 16-month-old,

Little girl, I don't think I know anyone as hilarious as you. Maybe your father, so I guess that confirms you are his. Not that there was any doubt.
It has been so worth it to share our time, space and paychecks with this little person who runs and squeals and eats markers. Not too long ago, I showed you how a pen worked by drawing a squiggly line on a piece of scrap paper. You looked at it, wide eyed, like I was some kind of magician. Honestly, I felt like one with a reaction like that. We ran out that day to purchase the Crayola color wonder papers and markers. These markers only work on that specific paper (I was keeping our house selling endeavours and our walls in mind), so it takes a while for the ink to appear on the paper, kind of like magic ink. These eighths of a second of waiting were way too long for you to be amused, but you did find the tips of the markers to be mighty tasty. I dug the package out of the garbage can, desperately searched for the words "non toxic," which I found, then walked away to enjoy my moment of peace.
Those markers are old news to you by now, but I do hand you a pen every now and then in search of the same amazed reaction. Then after I put you down for a nap, I walk around with a magic eraser, in awe at the places you were able to creatively mark up...like underneath the toilet bowl.

Tomorrow we travel alone together, just the two of us on an airplane, to visit your grandparents in Florida. I am scared out of my mind to do this for a thousand reasons. Will you make me cry before we get through security, will you poop on the plane, will your long legs kick, kick, kick the person next to us, will your ears hurt, will I hurl us both out of the emergency exit by the time we are over North Carolina?

Believe me, these worries are all born out of experience.

Still, I can't wait to hold you on my lap for and kiss the back of your head for two hours. I am armed with DVDs and books and the emergency safety card that you loved to eat on our last flight. Oh yeah. A piece of paper and a pen.

Love,
Mom

Saturday, October 20, 2007

What will it take? Part 2.

Last night we spent a fun-filled, child-free evening out with our "playgroup." This group is made up by my husband and me, my sister and her husband, and my husband's sister and her husband. I know. We are lucky. We like each other enough to want to go out together.
Anyway, I offered to be designated driver. This allowed me to drive the new mammoth with the blue and white pinwheel logo. It was just a so-so experience until my brother-in-law pushed a button and my butt on the seat and my hands on the steering wheel heated up to a lovely warmth.
Now I get it.
THAT is what we are fighting for.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

When in Rome...find a Roman friend.

This past weekend I pretended I was a New Yorker.
How did I do this? I actually went to New York. The trip was in honor of a friend that I have had for 24 years, who was finally turning 30 like the rest of us. She was having a party. A New York party. As soon as I was invited, I was ransacked with terror. I don't know how to go to a New York party. I don't know how to act around New Yorkers. How will I find something else to talk about other than Elmo?
I was completely psyched out.
This is where I have to describe my friend: She is single. She is a lawyer. She lives in Manhattan. She has fabulous shoes and clothes. Now I will remind you about me: I am comfortably, happily married with 1-year-old daughter. I am a work-at-home consultant. I live in suburban Ohio. I buy my clothes at Target because I know that they will be ruined in less than 3 days by either my slobbish self or my daughter.
This is where I talk about friends. Good friends. The kind that you can nestle right back into the relationship without batting an eye. It does not matter how different your lives have become. It does not matter what your life will become, because you will always have that friend.

Guess what? I had fun.
Okay, I complained to my friend about the late nights (2 whole past 9pm bedtimes in a row. I thought I would die.) Okay, I made fun of the thousands of people I saw that could cross a New York street and blackberry at the same time. But my friend was able to show me a side of New York City that was softer than all of that. We spent a day in Central Park. Did you know that there are actually people who raise babies in New York? I couldn't believe how many babies I saw! It was like stork headquarters!

The weather was beautiful and the people were kind. I smiled the whole 2 days I was there. I quickly became spoiled by having everything available at my finger tips: any type of food or store, and I could get there by simply flagging down a taxi.

No, this was not my first trip to New York. It was probably...my tenth. But it was my first time there after being changed by motherhood into someone who feels frumpy and tired. Someone who just does not want to face, well...New York.

I did it. I loved it, again. I am proud to have a friend that lives there. I loved my friend's party and I loved my friend's friends.
I tried on the New York life and it fit for a whole weekend! While waiting for my flight back to frumpiness and exhaustion, I couldn't help feeling a little melancholy and cloudy. All of that was erased, of course, by seeing my little one again. And my big guy.

I remember always that my friend tells me that she would trade her life for mine in a heartbeat, while I envy her life at times.
This is why we are friends: We try on each other's lives and let them fit for short times before returning to where we belong. We never let the connection between us dissipate.
I hope my friend finds true happiness in her 30s. In fact, I know she will and I can't wait to stand by and watch it.
Until then, I thank her for giving me the opportunity to remember that I could love a city and late nights. I thank her for watching me (again) inhale a diner breakfast of pancakes, eggs and sausage. I know I told her I came to New York for the food, the champagne and the midnight cupcakes at her party.
To my friend who is now a whole decade older, I don't care where you live. I will always come for you.



Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Letter to the Pope

Dear Pope,
Hello from a Catholic in the United States! I like your hat. And your robe. Other than that, I don't think about you much. Except when you say some REALLY ridiculous things that make Catholics seem like the most exclusive people on earth...like only men can be priests...or only heterosexuals can receive communion. I think about you when you say things like that. Then I forgive you. That hat must get heavy and scramble some things around in your brain. It doesn't matter. I am not about to tell you how to run the Catholic Church. It must be hard to run an institution where about 99% of the members are just dying for a change, and the other 1% holds the power and the money and would simply self combust at the thought of any change. Oh wait. That is what it must be like to run the United States. Poor George Bush. I forgive him now too.
Okay, so I don't think about you much, but I think about God a lot. This is better, don't you agree? I barely take a non-God-filled breath anymore, and this has nothing to do with being Catholic or the fact that you exist.

Like I said, the purpose of this letter is not to express my opinion about running the whole shebang. But I am dying to tell you about this dream I had last night:

I was at my church (which is the most fantastic place on this earth), and it was the part of the mass that was the preparation of the Eucharist. I love this part of the mass. Don't change a thing about this part. I am always entranced by the way our priest (who is the MOST fantastic priest on this earth, whom I can barely look in the eye, because he is so spiritually "with it" and I fear that he will see the parts of me that are so spiritually not "with it" that I will burst into flames or tears) handles this part of the mass. He is so meditative and deliberate, that even the simple act of preparing the table lifts my heart to a new level.

Well, in my dream, just before communion was to be given out, a mentally challenged girl got up and took all of the bread. (Now I have to wonder, in the interpretation of dreams, who this mentally challenged girl represents. Me?). Anyway, there was nothing left for the congregation to receive as communion. So the priest and the rest of the parish staff (who are also the MOST fantastic, scary, spiritually "with it" people on this earth) had to scramble. And do you know what they did? They served us brownies. BROWNIES! The most delicious, caramel-filled brownies I have ever tasted.

Now Pope, doesn't this seem like a good idea? I am sure as the ruler of one of the richest religions on the planet, you have never had to hold a bake sale. Well, keep some things up mister, and your bake-sale days are near. As a person who has attended many bake sales, I must say...people come out of the woodwork, out from holes, down from ceilings and out of offices with zeal to purchase goodies without batting an eye.

That is all I have to say. Brownies for communion. A good way to increase numbers.

I know it can't be that way. Someone told me once that when we receive the Eucharist, we are receiving each other. Good people, sick people, mystical people, mean people, handicapped and elderly. WE are the body of God. And it isn't always going to be like a delicious brownie...but we take it, fumble around with it on our tongue, and ask for the ability to forgive those people who can make life so hard for us. For many of us, those people exist in our own spirit.

Anyway, keep up that hat! Please keep talking about Peace. Please stop talking about exclusivity. This freaks people out, and we don't need any more fear from men in odd hats.
I'll get to work on perfecting that brownie recipe. When you are ready for it, you know where to find me.

Monday, October 8, 2007

What will it take?

Pulling up to a family member's house and noticing a mammoth gas-guzzler in the driveway.
"What is THAT?" my husband shouts.
I shrug. "Someone must be here."
"Nooooo...that is their license plate. Remember he got into an accident in his sedan?"
"And he bought THAT?" I am marveling at the tall, sleek and black vehicle. Its logo is a shiny pinwheel of blue and white. We sit entranced until super-toddler makes some annoyed noises from the back seat. We forgot. Our days of sitting quietly to stare at things were over. I break the silence:
"Where do you think your sister went?"
"She's home."
"Nooooo...her car is gone. She is not home."
"Her car is in the garage. You can't see it? The insanely large, blaring red SUV in the garage?"
Now he is just making fun of me.
"No, I DON'T see it! I can't see past the frickin SUV in the driveway!" I am crabby past return now.
(Because this is why I feel like I am going to lose my life every time I get on the road with the other 100,000,000 mammoths out on any given road at all times)

Everyone has a right to drive a car that they enjoy. But there is this war going on half a world away, and man...do I feel small, stupid and vulnerable these days out on the road! During our winters, slip-sliding around in my non-4-wheel drive lifts me to a whole new level of dumb.
I know.
I still cannot bring myself to buy one.
I also do not feel some sort of smug better-than-thou feeling toward large-vehicle owners. Especially toward my family that I speak about above...they live in a particulary snowy part of northeast Ohio, plus they drive around two children, whom I adore.
I understand convenience. I understand the need to feel safe. And those drop down DVD screens are so damn appealing at this stage in my life.

I should put the well-being of my family before I think about the impact I am making on the rest of the world. Right? Right?
It is hard not to think this way when I look in my rear-view mirror and see my tiny girl in the backseat depending on me to get her from point A to point B...alive.
But when I can't see that other humble car has stopped short on the road in any lane because I am surrounded by Hummers and Blazers and Expeditions, oh my!...I want to give in to that thinking, I do. I too want to block your view from the very thing that could take your life to save mine and my daughter's.
Then I stop my cycle of bitterness and think. What does an Iraqi woman have to protect her as she tries to cross the street, clutching her tiny girl to her chest, as bombs fly overhead?
No, for now I will just sleep easy on that whole new level of dumb, and PRAY to the god of petroleum to do whatever it takes to wake us up. $5.00 gallons? Whatever it takes.

Monday, October 1, 2007

We're all falling.

AUTUMN- Rainer Marie Rilke

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning "no."

And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We're all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It's in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.

I was a child when I declared autumn as my least favorite season. This was probably because I knew it was time to start school again, and being a bit introverted, this filled me with dread. One of the best things about being an adult is that I no longer have an autumn obligation to face the teachers, the work, the worry and the social cliques. I now enjoy the appearance of fall, and my mind opens to the perfection of the world.

Do you ever notice how nature puts on a grand final performance before the signs of autumn emerge? The sun shines brilliantly, the trees wear their finest green, and the sky!…the sky is that blue that you picture when you are trying to calm your mind.

Suddenly you see that first red leaf, and you think, Already? But I cannot let go of summer yet!

Then it happens…you surrender, as September fades into October and the days sometimes remain hot and relentless. You find yourself ready. As this is happening you notice that entire tree has surrendered to that one red leaf, and is also ready to become a fiery beauty. And then it is time to let go, to let those fluttery gems of nature fall.

This is how a spiritual life cycles. We go through this once or many times. For a lot of people it is a result of a big change, such as an illness or death. For some it is that small feeling that something is just missing from our lives. We seek and sob and get down on our knees for ALL of the answers, and we come up empty handed. Then we notice that tender part inside of us that has begun to surrender. The part that is a little sore and soft, but has found rest and no longer seeks answers. We breathe, we give ourselves over and no longer want to attempt that false feeling of control.

There is even a time when we are ready for the deafening silence of a winter morning covered in snow. After many months of this, we become ready for the appearance of life, of resurrection. This fills us with so much joy and anticipation for the long days of summer and activity. Of course, before we know it, we are letting go again, falling and surrendering.

Anticipation, rejoicing, surrender. This is it. This is life, and whether you are a spiritual person or not, you are caught in this current of perfection.

My eyes are open now. Autumn is no longer about scheduling, and school and reluctantly dusting off my family’s coats.

It is about the SEEING and the finding of the “Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.”