Ceci N'Est Pas Une Ski Pass

I am trying to make friends with the snow this year. The last two years, I have loved the snow from the magical snow falls when the world gets snow quiet and the sky so light at night to the feeling of being snug in my house with a fire or outside playing in the cold medium. But this year, we are not so friendly. It takes a lot of work to get three humans ready to go out on a cold snowy day. My Volvo is audibly protesting to the cold, deciding to make horrible grinding noises when the heater fan is on (thank goodness a mechanic was able to patch up the Volvo’s hole that let so unfriendly cold air run over my feet). My house feels continually cold. Asher can only run so many circles around the house and over all the furniture.

Yesterday, I bundled up the kids and braved the cold to take them sledding. I found a manageable hill at the nearby golf course and, amazingly, our adventure went incredibly smoothly (if you don’t count Harper’s immediate and pitiful full face plant into the snow). I showed Asher how to use the sled and trudge back up the hill. He loved it – ignored all the cold and snow and building wind to go down the hill “my turn one more time” ten times before we left, discovered that he could lie back on the sled and soon found that he could be a Ninja sled rider (that is one who rolls out of the sled half way down the hill). We made snow angels, and Asher soon discovered he could do one of his favorite activities in the snow, roll down hills. Okay, this is worth the snow, watching my active three-year-old exhibit his unabashed and all out zest for life and learning.

For the past week, I have been planning to go skiing – get this – for the first time in Colorado after living here for three years. It was the perfect plan . . . except for the snow. As Amy and I started out this morning for the ski resort, we found to our great dismay that highway I-70 to the ski resort was closed. Unheard of! Refusing to believe the news and road closure signs and with great hopes that just by chance the road would open, we drove up to the closure. C-DOT employees informed us the road might open between noon and two. Unheard of!

So we turned around with much hope in our hearts that we could still have a fun day, sans skiing. Three and a half hours after starting out, wind whipping our faces, snowshoes strapped on, great hopes that it might be a bit warmer in the trees, we hiked away from Eldora’s Nordic center and up the Lakes Loop snowshoe path. How good it felt to be hiking, moving my legs, breathing heavily, among the trees, climbing to a view of the mountains, climbing down to a view of lake, chatting with Amy up and down the hills, feeling like I was “off duty” for a short while and accomplishing the completion of Lakes Loop.

We wrapped up the day with dinner and a pint of Jackman’s at Left Hand brewery, watching the sun set over the cloud veiled mountains and wondering if I-70 would ever opened. I am slightly reconciled to the snow, knowing the joy it brings Asher and the fun sports I have the opportunity to do in it (who can really complain about living somewhere that you can snowshoe if you can’t ski?). I am quite amazed at the power of a friend to make a good sized disappointment into a day of unabashed and all out zest for life.

Feel It to Heal It

Whether it was the message welcoming me at 6:15 a.m. on Sunday that I was the only parent in the house again, or the idea of sitting in church in the same row as Michael, or the struggle of putting two overly heavy carseats back in my Volvo again before church with a three year old who wanted to tromp through the snow even in his church clothes and an eighteen-month-old who wants to be reattached to her mama regardless of the weather, or the impending holidays of the week ahead, or all of these things, or just the right time, the Sunday before Christmas set off four days of wildfire of anger. The kind of anger that is pretty much all consuming, energy sapping, difficult to control and hard to predict – a wildfire. My patience was about two seconds long, and too many times I had to apologize to my kids for losing it, too many times put myself in time out and too many times almost decapitated a cat or two. Interestingly, I can’t remember specifics from this anger craze, except that I bought two new carseats as soon as humanly possible. Lots and lots of red hot anger.

This, I have been reassured, is good for me – this feeling of anger, letting it out. “You have to feel it to heal it,” reassured Megan. My therapist, Rhonda, praised me for feeling the anger. But in the midst of the flames, fleeing cats and stampeding children, it felt quite overwhelming, and I felt out of control. How can I ever end this anger? I wanted to know. The normal mantras of “It won’t always be like this” and “Breath, breath,” attempts at getting sleep, taking breaks from reality in books and movies, and writing tell all letters that I would never send, small pulls on my boot strings, were pretty useless. A small tear in my normal composure had opened into a wild windstorm. And it was exhausting and felt – at the time – quite useless. Feel it my butt, said the anger.

Wednesday night – it had really only been four days, I think, looking back – the kids were in bed, and I stepped into the shower. I was trying to avoid the normal morning screaming accompanying a morning shower after the kids get up (the three year old who wants to tromp the pirates around the pirate ship with me and the baby who wants to reattach to mama regardless of the need for a shower), but I found more than a scream saver. I’m at the end of myself with this, I told God, water sounding lovely on my head. I’m at the end. I can’t carry the anger and the heavy question pinching me, what does healing look like and how will I ever get there? It’s yours. Water from tears and the shower gently put the fire out.

Rhonda said something about the postivie effects of negative ions being washed away by water and reminded me of Anne Lamott’s wisdom that the bathroom is the best place to pray. There is indeed something sacred about water. And something so relieving about God taking things from me.

Thursday, my poltergeist-spinning head and fire-spitting mouth reset to normal. I relaxed inside, water having gently put the fire out. I looked around and found while I had been crazy inside (normal crazy, I’ve been reassured), my kids and cats survived. And so did I . . . perhaps more healed, at least better watered.

Postscript: Thinking about healing on Tuesday night again and that the healing may not be fully realized until years down the road. The deep healing is like physical therapy after major surgery - it helps some in the short term, but long term can be the difference between full use of a limb and limited use. I think about the anger that I dealt with my dad, how it took so many years to heal from the wounds of a distant and alcoholic father, and how I finally let myself feel anger until my senior year of college. My senior prediction from high school was that I would get angry - I was never angry. But as a result of never being angry, of never experiencing appropriate emotions, I was distant from myself, friends and family - distance was necessary so I could maintain not feeling. So it is that by feeling now, down the road I will be in better shape, in all my limbs.

How I love water – let me count the ways (from Quotes of the Day, www.qotd.org):
“The cure for anything is salt water; sweat, tears, or the sea.” Isak Dinesen
“The highest goodness is like water. Water benefits all things and does not compete. It stays in the lowly places which others despise. Therefore it is near The Eternal.” Lao-Tzu
“In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.” Leonardo da Vinci
“If there is Magic on this planet, it is contained in water.” Loren Eiseley

Welcome the Future, Respect the Past

In September of this year, I attended my ten year college reunion in Santa Fe, NM (um . . . where exactly did those ten years go?). About a quarter of my class was there (which percentagewise is a great turnout and in a class of under 100, there were about 25 of us). I was struck by how much everyone was the same, how recognizable everyone was with some new layers and some old layers taken off from the passing ten years. I felt like I was looking at collegemates through rose colored glasses.

I had this same impression at the beginning of December during visits with two dear and old friends. Gillian was in the states from Australia for a conference and to see friends. Gillian and I lived in the same dorm freshman years and shared many good and hard times during college. For five days, we got to hang out together, make small trips around Colorado and enjoy catching up on the six years since we had seen each other in New York. Jen, who had been my best friend fifth grade through about sophomore year of high school and my gymnastics buddy, came over for lunch and some playtime with her daughter, Sydney. I had not seen Jen in over seven years, reconnected through Facebook (can I say again, what a thing Facebook is!), and found out she had moved to Denver this last summer. We were both overcome by surprise and excitement by this discover. We also enjoyed a time of reconnecting and catching up.

In most of my former classmates and close friends, I found a deeper sense of self and a better awareness of who they were and meant to be (not that we all have that big question figured out - heck, we're only in our thirties - just closer to it). I realized in being with Gillian and Jen and discussing our pasts what a poor friend I had been and what I had missed about myself but also that I may have been incapable of being anything other. As George Santayana wrote, "We must welcome the future, remembering that soon it will be the past; and we must respect the past, remembering that it was once all that was humanly possible." As with any close relationships, our histories, our family pasts, our deep wounds - only slightly discovered under the pretty facade - separated us and even while other important parts held us together. With Jen in particular, what an interesting clash our histories had. It feels important to make so many trips down memory lane, to look back with two who were such close friends and think about who I was so many years ago, what decisions I made, without judgement and with caring and listening hearts.

It was restorative to spend time with Gillian and Jen and to know them better now than I could before. It is restorative to see in myself how far I've come, that even (or especially) in darkness, God gives me strength to grow and light to grow in.

Herons and Aspens

On the forty-five minute drive back to Longmont from Westminster on Friday, I realized that I had not written a blog entry in two weeks. In the strange vortex of grief, part of me feels like more time should have passed – time so ballooned with a spectrum of emotions – and part of me wonders how two weeks already passed, three weeks that were in practical ways unproductive, a daily commitment to just one foot in front of the other, following the small increments of the line. What exactly did I do for two weeks?

Nothing came to the surface for a blog entry, and I thought about writing about nothing until near the end of the day. There is a liquor store on the east side of Longmont called Fox Hill Liquors, recently taken over by new owners who are unexpectantly welcoming. On my first visit, the lovely East Indian woman called me by my first name when I made a purchase. I felt like her friend immediately, as if we already knew something intimate about each other. On Friday, I stopped by on my way to pick up the kids, always a funny sequence of events because I feel like I’m picking up contraband, Alissa, our daycare provider, being Mormon.

One of the wine displays was a French winery, Heron, and I thought about this majestic bird, catching glimpses of one on the Chesapeake Bay in the wee hours of the morning as I sat in the seven seat of crew boat, seeing one fly over Golden Ponds in Longmont. If I was a bird, I would be a heron.

In high school, a friend, Chris, was filling out a multiple choice personality/ideal career test. The only question I remember is, “If you were a flower, what would you be?” My mom, Chris and I laughed after he read the question – especially because the friend was male and, though sensitive, still quite male and an adolescent. But I think these days, if I was a flower, I’d be a red poppy.

A few months ago, my pastor, EC, who is also the soon-to-no-longer-be Board President where I work, and I drove to Boulder for a non-profit awards luncheon. On the way back, we were talking about politics (or, he was talking, good preacher that he is) and mentioned in the conversation stream Barbara Walters’ first interview, which she rather flubbed when she asked Nixon, “If you were a tree, what would you be?” EC thought this a ridiculous question to ask. “Oh,” I laughed. “I don’t know. If I was a tree, I’d be an aspen.” It’s a perfectly fine question to ask.

I am reading Richard Rohr’s, “Everything Belongs.” A Franciscan monk, Rohr talks about small mind and big mind, small mind being what we tend to have in the West, analytical, detail oriented, at its worst, clinging mind. Big mind is more Eastern, able to float in mystery, connect with that which is bigger. This helps me realize one thing I miss now in my “religion” and connect to in my faith, something I feared in church, where the mystery, mystical, something bigger, inexplicable and only feelable, fantasy “fits.” I love children’s books, like “Goodnight Moon” and “You Are My I Love You” that take us out of the concrete, sensical on language and words. They are feelable.

So I put it out there – if you were a bird, a flower or a tree, what would you be? Ridiculous questions that I wonder about. Perhaps part of big mind, nonsensical. At the very least, a little humor to round the sharp corners of recent events.

Lists (this one is going to be rough)

Asher loves lists. He can't write yet (although he'll "write" grocery lists), but he loves for us to list things out loud. Lists of silly things ("What happened to this table?" he'll ask. "A giraffe ran into," I respond. "What happened to the door?" "A rhino kicked it down.") cheer him up. We list what kind of animals we are and whether we are nice or bad. We list things we could do - go to the park, fly an airplane, chop down a tree. One of his favorite games is to hide under a blanket (on the bed, on the couch, in the car, place doesn't matter), and he starts, "Talk to Dr. Lyon, Mommy," pronouncing Dr. Lyon, a character from a Richard Scarry book, "Da da Lawny." I follow, "Dr. Lyon, where is my Asher? Did he go to the park? Noooo. Is he taking a bath? Noooooo. Is he playing games with Harper? Noooo. Dr. Lyon, where is my Asher? Oh, there he is." And Asher pops out. Over and over again.

Megan and I joke that liking lists is so first born. Don't I know it. I love lists. I keep a grocery list on my refrigerator door, a list of work things to do (I currently have three of them), and a list of personal things to do. I recently received a list lovers' dream, a notebook with three separate list sections for home, work and play. I like to cross items off, rewrite lists and empty my mind in lists. Lists help to contain information, give all of the many things I want to remember a place to sit, and give a sense of control over my thoughts. So it was on Sunday night, after spending two nights at my friends' house, my brain in a frenzy as I tried to go to bed, that I wrote lists. I wrote:

These were some of the signs (of support, of encouragement, of reminders, of right thinking):
A card from my church Secret Sister on a gift that had been shuffled around for over a week and in different cars to get to me, and happened finally to be delivered on Thursday night, the night I found out. The card read on the front, "Alexa Believe in Yourself."

Michael was out of town on a business trip so I had time and space to figure out what to do.

The Friday newspaper on Alissa's driveway (Alissa is our daycare provider), which has never been in the driveway in the 8 months Asher and Harper have gone to Alissa's, read on the front page, "Christian Band Coming to Niwot." The band wasn't "The Fray," but I was reminded of them immediately.

I had therapy scheduled for Friday morning, an appointment I made three weeks ago.

The Lowe's were home and available (not often the case) so I could stay with them and cry with them over the weekend.

The "Quotes of the Day" for Friday was on "Grandfathers" (my Grandfather Harper is a family rock).

The speech at the Chamber's Friday annual membership luncheon was about the future, about the energy a dysfunctional member of a family or organization takes and the power of making new choices.

Driving home from Fort Collins, anticipating seeing Michael for the first time since Thursday and feeling anxious, alone, my mom called and then Megan called without prompting from me.

When I got home on Sunday, there was a James Avery jewelry catalog in the stack of mail, a reminder of last Christmas when Michael bought a suspicious gift from the company.

This was what I knew by Friday, clearly delineated like a snowflake on a black glove:

• I had to go away for the weekend and be with close friends.
• I had to call friends, my mom and sisters.
• Michael had to move out.
• I had to refile separation paperwork.
• I can not be with Michael (God knows for how long, possibly forever). It hurts to be in the same room with him.
• God can see down the line, and He's showing me a small part of the line part by part (go to the Lowe's, Michael move out, file paperwork).
  

This is what I feel:

• A door closed like I'd been waiting for this to walk through my house, and when it did, I would let it in and then close out its future.
• Anger
• Relief because what I knew to be true was, what I had dreamed was.
• Sadness
• The tree continuing to live, God's hand feeding it with sun and water and emergency gardeners.
• All this is not about me and Michael together but about me and Michael individually, apart.
  
• Disbelief
• A heavily residing pain that feels like it will never get better, though I know His faithfulness.

This is what I did Sunday night, back in my bed, Asher breathing quietly by my side, Michael's king size moved out:
I slept

soundly

peacefully

for the first time in two months.

Connecting

My three-year-old son has decided that he absolutely will not sleep in his own bed - not even one hour at night while Michael and I get settled in. His list of reasons is quite long. His bed is too cold. Harper will wake him up. It's too dark, and he can't see his hands (the measure of darkness in all rooms). He doesn't like his bed. Fortunately, Michael brought back to our house with him a California king (since when is California associated with bigger? It should be a Texas king) sized bed, and we all sleep quite comfortably. I'm even dreaming again.

Monday night, I had a long dream about meeting up with a number of friends from high school, the last of whom I probably saw in 1995. I can't think of any thought or incident that contributed to this dream. A funny thing happened Tuesday. I was at a meeting with a friend, Scott Lowe, and while I was giving some information and dates to another friend, Amy Henson, Scott convinced me to sign up for a Facebook account. I was reluctant. I had ignored an invitation from Gillian to join, and I really don't need another website posting to keep up with. Scott showed me a friend's page who had over 600 friends listed on his page! Such pressure to have lots and lots of friends.

And then I did it, added my high school name and graduation year and BOOM! in five minutes found a page listing about fifteen of my high school classmates and within ten minutes I had made a friends with one of them.

This was a surprisingly exciting experience - to reconnect with and see pictures of long lost friends. It was exhilarating! I was laughing slightly hysterically as Scott drove back to my house. It was also a little scary. What if all the invitations I sent to old friends were rejected? Was my dream a premonition?

And so it is that I think about connections - our drive to connect to others, the fear of connecting, the fear of not connecting, the rejection when someone refuses a connection, the confusion when a connection is garbled - and about how people stayed connected before the Internet, the loss of connections when mail was delivered by horse and written with pen and paper and the importance of a central meeting place. I find my electronic connections and correspondences more interesting (perhaps less exhilarating - Facebook connections are like a quick high) than Facebook for they certainly have more depth. But Facebook provides an interesting international marketplace where we can run into old friends, even if it's just to give them a Facebook "poke," and connect friends from different reaches of the planet with each other.

Denial. Part Deux.

So, all things considered, denial served me quite well last weekend in getting through the ramp up to Megan moving. Of course, as I hugged her good bye at the security line, we both burst into tears. I cried all the way home and throughout the day. I could cry right now if I thought about her absence too much.

With the comments I received on denial, I thought more about denial this week. Like anything, there are definitely abuses of denial (proverbial ostrich with his head buried in the ground), but denial also serves an incredible purpose. Unlike animals, we have the great gift of the knowledge of mortality (our lives, things in our lives) and pain. We can experience pleasure and joy with the golden lens of denial. We also have an ability to split our thinking, an ability to find pleasure and joy even in the midst of pain and death.

I have spent three days at home with sick children - both had colds. Dear Harper got a brief stomach virus, and poor Asher came down with a nasty case of croup. So it has been three days of tending to poorly feeling children and dealing with the special circumstances of illness (whining, incomprehension of not being able to eat when hungry, many tears, refusal of medicine, both children wanting to be held - incidentally, I do not know how a mother of more than two children does it! - all day long, sore arms and sore wrists from carrying children around, little sleep and worry), which combined with all the other life events has brought on a feeling of utter chaos. Yet, as I drove to the office this morning for a much needed break, I thought about the Balinese medicine man in Eat, Pray, Love and his instruction to meditate with a smile, even to smile in your liver. And I could somewhat, smile even in my liver while my shoulders felt tired from carrying around this week.

I have recently been thinking about the divine and how we connect to the divine. Pascal writes about how man is in some way part divine and part human - that some part of us is indeed in the image of God, that close to the divine. I have been ruminating on the Yogic idea of the divine in us. I was impressed while studying Euclid and Plato in college that there is some part of us that knows of divine things - perfect circles, true love, perfect parents, parallel lines - of which we have no physical experience. Only an ideal. Denial, then, seems like knowledge of the divine (and a glimpse of heaven), connection with an ideal that things should not be the way they are - friends and family should not be far away, we should not die, there should be no pain. We should always be smiling in our liver.

Denial.

Tomorrow, Saturday, October 27, at 11:40 a.m. a close friend, Megan, will, barring a freak snow storm (please, please, please!) depart from Denver International Airport for Nashville, TN where she will return home, unpack her belongings and settle back into life in the historic town of Franklin. She will be, even with a cell phone, e-mail, instant messenger and cheap flights, far, far away.

To date, except for a few damn bursts (need more fingers! Damn bursts!), I have done quite well at denying the reality of this event. My mind has been so plogged (v. to struggle to work against a plug or obtrusion like a cog machine struggling against misplaced Play-Doh) that I have raged at Michael for reasons not related to my true mental ailment, lost the use of much English language and gained a propensity to make up words (deny reality and the reality of words fades) and been quite unable to plan anything for about the last week, including a good bye reception for Megan that was amazingly whipped together in an hour and a half from store to set up (including a stop at daycare to pick up two worn out kids and included a well executed curtsy).

I know I am on the verge of climbing a cold, leafless tree in the middle of a golden plain, but until then, I will deny the event and enjoy the last hours with her (party at my house!). Soon, I will not only recognize my denial but let it subside and remember fondly the prayers that started it all, the pits and apexes, the new found places in my heart . . . fade into denial.

Perhaps denial is not all bad, it is after all "an unconscious defense mechanism used to reduce anxiety by denying thoughts, feelings, or facts that are consciously intolerable." (American Heritage Dictionary) And this is, after all, consciously intolerable.

Chalepa ta Kala.

In Hippias Major, Plato claims, "Chalepa ta kala." Beauty is difficult. Of all things Platonic and Socratic, this is a phrase that has stuck with me over the last year or so, turning up in my thoughts here and there. I am at the beginning of Eat, Pray, Love by E. Gilbert, a book passionately recommended to me by my friend Megan. In the Eat section, E. is in Italy, dedicating four months to the pleasure of eating and the Italian language. Her enjoyment, letting in of pleasure as Puritan-ethic raised American living in pleasurable Italy, has me thinking again about pleasure and beauty.

Plato is attempting to define beauty in Hippias Major - whether it is a personal experience or something inherent in an object. Thus, the difficulty. But there is more in this idea of beauty being difficult. I thought at one point that Plato meant beauty is difficult to find (I concluded that it's not, really) and further down the rabbit hole that beauty is difficult to experience. Chalepa can be translated "hard to bear, painful, sore, grievous." There is something threatening, perhaps, in a beautiful man. There is something disconcerting in a beautiful moment because we risk being undone, risk entering something beautiful to not too soon later run across something hideous. Beauty can seem ethereal and fleeting. Some things are so beautiful I cry. Perhaps, as E. discovers in Italy, we do not learn along with everything else in school and life how to experience, to bear, to be in the presence of beauty.

In my Internet search about Plato's quote, I found a book review of "The Uncertainty Principle of Beauty" claiming that for 20 centuries between Plato and Kant, the study of beauty was a signature concern of philosophy. Recently, however, beauty has largely been dropped from the philosophical curriculum." For Plato, unlike Kant who became increasingly mistrustful of passion, beauty was inseparable from eros. Not only did our collective concept of beauty lose passion, but our philosophy has lost a passion for beauty.

This brings me to last Friday. After work, I picked up the kids from Ms. Alisa's and headed up to Fort Collins to meet Michael and to see Amy and Scott Lowe and their kids, Davis and Ella. Taking the Lowe's exit from I-25 and driving along the frontage road in our rattling geriatric Volvo, we were hit by the glorious orange light of a fall evening. Five for Fighting's "Superman (It's Not Easy)" was playing from my newly restored iPod, and I was so easily reminded of a football awards show post-9/11 with this song playing in the background. I cried then for the seeming loss of American innocence. I smiled this last Friday about how many of us feel like inadequate but still flying heroes. I looked in my rearview mirror to see Harper looking out the window, endearing with her newly formed wispy Mohawk and apple pieces all over her face and chest. Not to be upstaged by anything, Asher continued his mono/dialogue with me. "Davis is a boy not a man." Pause. "I'm right!" Pause. "There's the mountains." And there they were - so clear on this evening, the folds and dives distinct even in the distance. God granted me stillness, a pause to feel the beauty of this moment surrounded by light, mountains, my children. In so many ways I felt like I was taking a battered and strengthened woman, a woman with renewed passions and vision for pleasure and beauty to my husband and close friends. It is fall, a time to pause for such things as the trees demand us with their color.

Like many things we learn and perspire for, I am beginning to think that experiencing beauty and pleasure - especially for many of us Americans who grew up with the Puritan work ethic - takes some working out. I have to be aware of this muscle and take moments to flex it. It also takes some redefining. Beauty is not necessarily in those things that cost money, contrary to POPular opinion. Beauty is an equal opportunity commodity (thank God because I just heard this morning that the top 1% of our country's richest people made 21% of the country's income last year). Beauty is an intrinsic part of God and his creation.

Preparing dinner last night for my family, sister and brother-in-law and Megan, I was chopping vegetables for a Greek salad. In my haste and also anticipation of cleaning up (efficiency, efficiency), I thought about putting the salad in an ugly plastic tub that I could easily seal with a lid. Inspired by "Eat, Pray, Love" to think about what would be beautiful and pleasurable, I pulled down a nicely shaped white bowl that Michael purchased when he moved into his apartment. The bowl was cool and fit nicely in my hands. I transferred the cucumbers and red tomatoes. The salad looked beautiful.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Bath

Apparently, my dear children have both reached interesting stages of development, which combined, can make for the most ridiculous situations. Asher has hit the three's, which, in his case, is turning out to be worse that then two's with lots of whining, much upset over being told "no" (about anything, even having a whole banana versus a half) and a great need for mom (no doubt part of the battle between establishing independence and still needing to have many needs met by us parents). Harper will be 16 months old on October 1, and while her stage does not include the adolescent-like moodiness of a three year old, there is much noise and some frustration as she struggles with knowing she can communicate and move around but lacks some of the skill to achieve her self-imagined potential.

So Tuesday night, I made a valiant attempt to get both my children in the bath before bed and their respective stages collided. They were in desperate need of cleaning as I had forgotten the last time they had a bath (a few days) and both had been happily playing in the dirt-filled kiddie pool turned massive mud puddle in our backyard before dinner. I announced happily, as dinner was wrapping up, "After Harper finishes up, it's bath time." There were some protests from Asher because it wasn't his idea, but before I could get Harper out of his chair, Asher had removed his diaper (dinner's clothing included his diaper and socks as I had stripped him after the mud puddle fun). While Asher tromped around the house with the air of a triumphant, naked boy, I corralled Harper into the bathroom with some wipes to clean her poopy bottom before getting in the bath. With much squirming and protesting grunts from her, I finally had her clean but the bath mat was much the worse for wear.

Returning to the bathroom after tossing her diaper and washing my hands, I asked Asher to try to remove his socks. "Dare duck, Mom," he announced after tugging at them lightly while standing up. Urging him to try again, he replied, "Look, Mom, dare's poop on da floor." I peered into the small bathroom to discover a nicely laid, three inch turd on the floor and Asher still in his socks. Oh-so-calmly I replied, "So there is. Do you want to sit on your potty?" Asher, squatting close to his poop and peering at it so inquisitively, replied "What color is it, Mom?" Answering his question nonchalantly, I stuck one arm out to grab Harper as she made a mad toddler dash to join Asher and another arm out to pull his training potty into the bathroom. Harper squealed as I removed her from the site of this intriguing scene and carried her with me to get the child's gate. The children obviously needed to be locked up (or was that me? I would later wonder). Asher proudly sat on his potty, asking for a book and his helicopter. Harper screamed in great protest, grabbing the gate and attempting to keep it from going up as I struggled and finally succeded in getting the gate situtated in the bathroom doorway. I scooped up the poop with a plastic bag and went back to the kitchen for disinfecting wipes.

During my trips back and forth to the kitchen, Harper kept up a constant running, flapping and protest grunting routine, running between the bathroom and the kitchen, between me and Asher. She was, quite clearly, very offended at being locked out. On one of my returns to the bathroom, I found a nice puddle outside the gate where Harper had briefly stood nd attempted to pull Asher's hair. Back to the kitchen for a towel I went, followed quickly by a "phalump. " I turned to find Harper, having run after me with wet feet, sprawled on the floor. I picked her up and mopped the floor as I comforted her. Somewhere, deep inside, I realized that the situation was becoming critical. We weren't just talking messes here, we were talking bodily injury! Yet, I charged on.

Asher was done sitting, having produced nothing more for him to admire. I cleaned up any remnants on the bathroom floor and training potty and started to run the bath water. Back to the beginning of this scene, it was again time for Asher to take his socks off. I urged him to attempt this on his own. He obediently sat on the floor and started lightly tugging on the toe of one sock. Making no progress he complained loudly, "Can't do it, Momma. Help me." He shifted where he was sitting on the floor, and I tried to guide him in hooking his finger on the back of the sock and pulling it over his heel. My gentle instruction was met with, "Look, Mom. More poop. " Pause. "What color is it?" I had one child, one floor and one potty nicely cleaned but had neglected to clean the other child's bottom. "You've got to be kidding me," I said out loud, shut the water off and set Harper in the tub in less than an inch of water. "Don't touch it," I toldAsher and got him to stand up, away from the poop. "Why, Mom?" he answered. "What color is it?" he asked again. "Brown," I replied and headed back to the kitcehn for another disinfecting wipe.

As I come back into the bathroom, my dear girl was standing in the tub and then, quick as an oiled pig, "phalump," on her back, screaming. I dropped the cleaner, grabbed a towel and lifted Harper out to comfort her as I cleaned up the very last remnants on the floor and Asher. With almost hysterical laughter, what a feat this was.

Finally, finally, with all the bottoms cleaned, the usually neglected bathroom floor clean enough to serve a meal on, Asher's stubborn socks off, both kids were happily playing in the bath tub. It's so funny what goes through our head during these moments - questions about what is the best cleaner to use, where the cleaner is, how best to lock up a child, whether the next best step in a series of critical moments is to set my baby girl in a bit of water, lug her around with me or let her indulge her curiosity and why I chose the first option. There is much here about life, but, most importantly to me, how critical it is to be in the moment, to watch my children's developing abilities and figure out - even with the heat of disbelieving frustration and hysteria - how to react when everything starts to fall apart.

September's Caterpillars

I was reading in bed Monday night, finishing the third book in a series about a teenage girl who falls in love with a vampire (a nice vampire, of course. Who knew? A fun read - The Twilight Series by Stephanie Meyer). The end of the third book was sad, and I was somewhat ruffled. And then, all of a sudden, I was really ruffled, sobbing heavily. Ten days into September, this contentious month ambushed me. Tuesday was one of those days where I had to concentrate most of the day on holding myself together because the slightest breeze would blow away my leaves.

As much as I want to chalk it up to the book, to a theme of struggling with love and loving like your life depends on it, to missing Michael (he's out of town, and this is the first time I've missed his presence in some time), to fatigue, I had to admit it was more than that. Ten years ago, I attended a conference, which was in most regards quite useless and scary (scary in the overly conservative, Christian way), the speaker talked about our life cycles. When we experience good or bad things in our lives, those times of the year may echo that experience in later years. Perhaps it's really a mark on our soul and energy. Perhaps our unconscious is triggered by dates or weather or how the light looks at certain times of the year. Perhaps our memories are linked strongly to the calendar. In any case, September is one of those times of year for me.

Six years ago, I was turning on the radio in our apartment after a walk in Riverside Park in Manhattan with Michael on a beautiful early fall day when the events of 9/11 happened. I wasn't at the Trade Center (Michael was the day before). I didn't know anyone who was killed (though, working in Manhattan, it was one degree of separation, and many days I could hear at work, "Did you hear from her/him yet?"). I did see people and cars covered with the dust, have my school and work closed down for security, saw bus stops and walls covered with missing persons flyers and make shift alters under those flyers. I attended a staff meeting of all college staff and listened to one of the maintenance workers talk about his friends who died at the Trade Center, friends he used to work with there. Michael and I went to a peace rally with friends in Union Square, a quiet (in NYC) gathering. We carved messages on a large piece of metal, and, when it was dark, walked as far south as we could go before the street closures. We could see the continuing smoke, lit yellow by the search lights. For many weeks after 9/11, the subway trains were strangely quiet, the riders carefully tucked into their thoughts and grief. There was tangible grief for concrete individuals and for something ethereal, a sense that something in our lives had ended.

Closely following those events, I spiraled into a depression, the first symptom of which was an inability to read (which, if you know me, is unheard of - I HAVE to read). My depression lasted through the end of my graduate work, a move to Alabama, a month of living with in-laws, a move to Mississippi, a temp job at WorldCom (aka corporate hell), a job search and starting a new job until I started medication. For months, I pulled myself up by my boot strings.

Three years ago on September 17, my sister's boyfriend, Tim Griffith, was murdered. I was nine months pregnant, and my mom called our house. There was something funny in her voice, a forced calm, and she asked to talk to Michael. She told him the news, afraid to tell me. Tim had gone to a Giants' baseball game, his first night out after getting off house arrest, a young man sober after struggling with a drug addiction. He and his friends were walking back to their car after the game, and Tim brushed a car parked on the street. A group of young men got out of the car, and attacked Tim and his friends. Tim died at the hospital from a stab wound. My sister was at a horse show in southern California. Less than a week later, my sister returned from Iraq, relieving an enormous weight and a year of jumping when the phone rang at strange hours. It was bittersweet. My dear nephew, who had lived with us, become a surrogate son, rearranged our childless married lives would return to his mother shortly.

One year ago on September 2, my Executive Director's son died in a swimming accident. Things between Michael and me really started to fall apart, and I grieved for my boss alone when I heard the news at church. I took off my wedding ring that month.

There are two huge, bright, anchoring events that occurred on September 23, 2004 - my beautiful son was born - and September 24, 2005 - I found out I was pregnant with Harper the day after finishing a half marathon.

So it is that the date and memory of September 11, 2001 brings up intense memories of Manhattan on that day and an all too public representation of the trials of September and of the beginning of six years when life, a reconstructed life full of adventure and love and discovery, slowly started to be eaten away like a poplar set upon by leaf-eating caterpillars. Infestations usually aren't fatal, but successive years of attack can weaken a tree enough to kill it; and, certainly, ignoring the caterpillars, letting them move in without protest, finding small cracks to hide in from storms is a faster way to go. Somehow, I have to help these caterpillars methamorphose and fly away so the leaves can regrow. So September can be a time for fall, recovery and leaves full of fire.

The Lull of Language

It's Friday afternoon just after lunch. I have spent the first five hours of my work day doing online research, writing grants and trying to avoid a conversation about a co-workers English 101 course. My brain is screaming for some creative activity and my oh-so-favorite song "How to Save a Life" is on the radio (truly, it's time for this song to find a life in the next world. If I could stab it with a sword, I would).

I have been thinking recently about the power of naming something (putting a name to something). Many years ago, in a very different state, I taught an introduction to college class in an adult education program. As a part of the course, we talked about writing and words. We are overwhelmed with words in modern media - written, spoken, sung, lit by fluorescent lights, driven on cars, in cars, personally carried on iPods, cell phones, Blackberries, daily newspapers. So easily we forget the power and mystery of words, and the unprecedented ability of humans to use words.

When Harper was first born, Asher had many words (often in his own language). He used them sparingly as punctuations to his activities. Within two days of Harper's life, Asher jumped to linking two words with the phrase "two babies" (pronounced French-like, "deux bebes" and first put forth as I carried both my children out of their bedroom). Today, he talks nonstop. On my last drive up to Fort Collins, he talked for 45 minutes without pause. Harper, bless her, took a nap. Already, as I wearily answer questions, I am forgetting what a feat it was for Asher to learn a word (and for me to figure out what his word meant. How did "ga ga" come to mean truck?), to link two words together and then to speak in full sentences (now full days!).

There is a mystery to how humans use words, a God-given skill, and a power. Ruling over all the animals, man is given the task of naming the animals at the genesis of the world. "Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name." (Genesis 2:19) Words tame, order, and also call out.

My favorite Greek word is "logos." It's a word with many layers that we translate into English ineptly as "word" and crudely with several words, such as thought, speech, account, meaning, reason, proportion, principle, standard, discourse and logic. Logos is the kind of word that you can only catch the meaning of without the taming and ordering of words (no word for "word"), in a lull of language.

How much logos gained in its language use - established as meaning the fundamental order of the cosmos in Western philosophy by Heraclitus and later, used to mean Christ. My favorite Bible passage, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." (John 1:1-5) Here Word is translated from the Greek, logos. I get goosebumps - the intertwining of Christ, God, words, logos, the mystery of God and the trinity, the power of Christ - so represented by the word "logos," in a place that you might get a glimpse of a place without words.

There are times, like Wednesday night, when I want a break from words, when I want to lie in a hammock and swing silently in the lull of language. It is a desire that arose because I am in a relational place between words, between naming, and my minds wants to rush to naming but also fears naming. Michael and I are making moves towards reconciliation. In this nebulous state - separate homes, hearts feeling out if reunion is possible, worthwhile, safe, hearts wishing to be known by another heart that was the best at eliciting wrenching pain - there is no name beyond "reconciling" (making harmonious, making congruous). Between us, we experienced a softening, a willingness to venture towards each other again. This plot of land remains erected as we toss out different scenarios to each other, toss out different words and recognitions of the roads we traveled to get there. While I look forward to what will be built on the plot, desire a name to be there, I fear a name, fear the power of the word - what the possible words will require of me, what power a possible word will have in my world. No doubt, however our new house appears, it will require logos, my love of logos and logos' love.

Milestones

The day after my sister's wedding, Harper hit two milestones. She decided walking was indeed for her, and she stopped nursing. Watching a baby learn to walk is a reminder of what a difficult task this is, and we soon learn not only how to do it without thinking but how to do it backwards, sideways, on hills, over rocky ground, in the dark. Harper is small for her age (just above knee high to me) and resembles a walking doll. She is so pleased with her accomplishment and quite self entertained trying out this new trick around the house, end to end, holding a variety of toys and attempting drinking while standing. My arms are getting some relief as she would rather walk than be held. Asher enjoys the new sport of ten-ways-to-knock-down-Harper-(aka "Not My Sister" and "Can She Leave the Family?")-without-looking-like-I-knocked-her-down. An addict of movement since I was born, I am so proud of Harper and so pleased that she is walking, able to join us for our outside play, hunt for us around the house and even participate in our walks.

Asher weaned himself quite easily. He gave up feedings progressively without complaint and even a what's-the-big-deal-here-anyway? attitude. Harper was another story. The poor girl had to decrease her feedings down to three times a day quite suddenly in January when I went back to work. When she was down to two feedings, as I thought about dropping her after nap feeding, she would see our couch, the usual location of nursing, and go ballistic (screaming, back arching, head thrown back) until I sat down with her. Somehow, down to one feeding, everything worked out as she was distracted by the activity and family in town for my sister's wedding and, loving milk, took a full cup of milk over nursing. Hallelujah! As much as I love nursing - the sweet time with my baby, the attachment we form to each other, the personality revealed, the soothing that helps us survive starting daycare, traveling and plane rides, the amazing capacity of the female body to solely nourish a baby for six months - I have reached a major milestone I want to celebrate. After 3 1/2 years - 42 months and 11 days - of being pregnant or nursing without pause, I am now neither. My body is mine. I can spend the night away from the house and eat or drink whatever I want.

Quite nicely, as I was coming out of this haze and just realizing my freedom (you'd think it would be immediately evident, but being physically attached to a baby became normal), things conspired so that my friend, Amy, and I went for a hike in the Poudre Canyon. Sadly, having lived in Colorado almost three years and loving hiking, this was only my third hike since moving here. Arranging one was near impossible while pregnant and quite difficult with nursing. We drove up the canyon about 1 1/2 hours and hiked just over an hour along the Cache de Poudre River. The weather had been so wet that it almost felt like a hike in the northwest, damp ground, ferns, brilliant red mushrooms. It was beautiful and relaxing and a reminder of other things I can accomplish.

So many things to ponder from the hike - the joy of conversation with a close friend, the splendor of nature, the smell of dirt and decay and growth, a reminder of how people can do things right (not build, save beautiful land), realization again of how much God values beauty that He would even make mushrooms, in oft unseen places, beautiful.

On our way out of the Canyon, Amy said that she had seen people stop at a certain place near the outlet to swim in the river. She asked if I wanted to go. Absolutely. We found the place, pulled over and walked carefully down the small hill. The river was about the width of the road and varying in depths from toe deep to shoulder deep. The water - good, snow water - was quite cold. A family was swimming up river from us, and we could see a short distance down the river. I took off my shirt and waded in in my sports bra and shorts. So cold at first, my feet, then legs, got used to the cold. Amy waded in up to her neck and swam towards where the water went over a foot high waterfall. I plunged under, hyperventilating, and then faced downstream, submerged up to my neck. The river water flowed strong around me, and I felt like part of the river, my cold body numb, my mind relaxed from the hike. I wanted to stay in that spot, relaxing on a deep couch in the earth, part of of something hugely bigger than me that soothed and cooled, lifted me and whispered water secrets.

Other Waters Are Ever Flowing

Last April, unexpectedly, the Presbytery decided to close our home church, a church my family had moved to Colorado to work with. The news was heartbreaking. I remember watching Michael serve communion at one of the last services and starting to weep because he would soon no longer stand before the church in that capacity. In the last service, our pastor cried during one of the hymns and, chin trembling, voice louder than usual with no amplification, he pronounced the benediction. I huddled with the other women after the service, shared hugs, and cried in grief for the loss and in fear of what Michael would do for work. Outside, the mountains were clearly visible through the floor to ceiling windows.

Within about a month, through a long process and many meetings, the Presbytery changed its decision, and the church was to reopen. I was confused by how to feel and act. I did not know how to turn around in the path I was in and enter that door again. How does one relate to something resurrected after one has grieved its death?

I tend to take my time in making decisions, often quietly weighing the possible paths, then making a decision and standing by it, living it. Staunchly. I have difficulty turning around after a decision. I am not one to pine. After Clare left for Iraq and Jaden had settled into a rhythm in our house, Michael questioned whether we adults had made a wise decision. I was furious that he had not brought up his concerns the the decision making and was unable to entertain the questions. It was made. It was done. We had struggled with it, cried, been exhausted, explained to friends and families, and I was moving into living the decision.

At the end of July, Michael withdrew his petition for divorce. I am wondering how to handle this change. For nine months, I struggled to salvage a relationship with Michael with emotional outpourings, admittance of wrongdoing, frightening confrontations, cries for help from friends to no avail. After a final discussion about a divorce and Michael's filing, I stepped onto a path that I knew would bring healing. And it didn't include a spousal relationship with Michael.

One of my favorite passages in the Bible is when Christ brings Lazarus back to life. Christ performs a divine miracle after having wept over Lazarus' death. The Bible says so simply, "Jesus wept." I wondered as I read this passage recently, if I was supposed to perform some sort of divine miracle on my and Michael's relationship. And wondered how in the hell I was going to do that. Dead is dead. I've grieved. I was done. I was way down the path from the pile of divorce dung, the scent barely carried on the wind.

In the last month or so, I have reconnected with some college friends. I talked to one of them, Gillian, this last Tuesday, her in her university office in Melbourne and me feeding Harper dinner in Colorado. I told Gillian that I didn't know how I was going to bring back a relationship with Michael from the dead. She replied that maybe the relationship had to be something new, not a bringing back.

A sigh of relief. A FedEx from God. I am thinking now not about attempting resurrection but about spring, a time of resurrection. As the snow melts, the perennials burst forth through thawing dirt, new growth sprouting from something left over from the last season, through the winter, some root similarity. Bright new leaves appear on the same tree branches over our house. I have been thinking tonight about Prometheus and Heraclitus. Poor Prometheus punished by Zeus to be chained in the Caucasus forever, his liver eaten by an eagle, only to be regrown and the liver torn out endlessly each day until Heracles rescued him. Life is not the same endless pain, a resurrection of what was torn out, killed and digested. For, as Heraclitus wrote, "You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you."

(Footnote: Interestingly, the liver is the only human organ that can regenerate itself to a significant extent, and the Talmud refers to the liver as the seat of anger. How anger likes to regenerate itself. How we might have to tear out our liver repeatedly until Heracles - great strength - rescues us.)

A Lion and a Lamb

This evening, after a full weekend attending and celebrating my sister Clare's wedding, my mom and step dad left our house with my nephew and son to spend the night in Fort Collins and take a trip up the Poudre Canyon to look for some of the 650 moose living there. My mother loves mooses (meese). Tomorrow this foursome will hop on a plane and fly to California for the week. Asher has been away from home and away from each of his parents but never both of us at the same time. My dear boy heard he was going with his Nanna, Poppa and "my cousin" (as he calls his cousin Jaden) tonight, hugged his Nanna, said goodbye to me, "Bye, Mom" and walked happily to the front door. No fear!

My mom often reminds me that when I was three, I told her that I wanted to go on a plane by myself and talk to people. I would love to meet that little girl that I was, to know her confidence and her extroverted personality. Now I see it in my son, tromping out the door with his dear cousin and grandparents.

I have been amazed recently by my son. I remember remarking when Asher was less than a year what a sweet boy he was, and, more recently, what a tough, strong boy he his. Several times a day he pulls out a sword and asks me to sword fight. "Ving!" he says as he swings at me. Several times since Harper was born, Asher will approach her while she is crying and hug her, tell her everything is okay, and try to soothe his baby sister. Several times a day he asks me to play Army men, lining up the little green figures and shooting at each other, at cars, at a rhinoceros, lion, monkey and tank. Several times a week, Asher will turn to me and give me a hug, say, "I wuv you, Mom," or grab my hand as we are walking together. A couple times he said, "I wuv holding your hand." Several times a day he asks to play bad men, fighting and wrestling with each other. Every nap and bed time, Asher asks me to, "say pays" and sing "his song and Gesus love me" surrounded by all thirty of his Cars movie car toys and a fresh sippy cup of water. Several times a week, he asks to go on walks, to go exploring, to climb random stairs and steep driveways. Several times a week, Asher pulls out a set of small stuffed bears and their beds and tucks them under a blanket to go night night. Every morning, Harper and Asher wake up with the sun and, when I go in to get them, I find them playing peek-a-boo with the curtains. I am amazed by the fierceness and tenderness in my son, by his natural desire to be a warrior and explorer and by his natural desire to be a lover, nurturer and protector.

I grew up with two sisters, my mother and an often mentally absent alcoholic father. I had boys, young men and men who were friends and family. I had close boyfriends. I lived for seven years on the campus of an all boys Catholic school. But I rarely had the opportunity to see a boy or man who I knew well in all his facets, day in and day out. Even in my thirteen year relationship with my husband, I never clearly saw the dueling or twin natures of a man. Watching my son, I am just starting to feel these two natures and to appreciate them. I wonder at how a boy and young man learns to be both of these parts, what a young or grown man does when he feels fierce or feels tender, feels the pressure to be fierce when he wants to be tender or to be tender when he wants to be fierce, how parents can best help a boy sword fight and wrestle, play a fierce tiger and also feel deep, tender emotion.

I desire for my children the opportunity to be and be comfortable in being fully themselves. I desire for Asher that he understand how and when to be fierce, how and when to be tender and how to be himself in those situations where he feels both at the same time. May he be a lion and a lamb and may he learn how to lie down with both.

The Meaning of a Song

I am quite sure that I drive myself a little crazy with a constant search for the meaning of things. I am convinced both that we often miss the meaning of some things but also that some of us might give too much meaning to other things. There is both a lack of appreciation of the mystical in our culture and a misapplication of meaningfulness.

This struggle developed partly out of my intuition, a wonderful gift and a scary gift. I often know what people are going to say before they say it, know that something will happen before it does, know that there will be an opportunity for me to act, know what someone is feeling without a word about it. But such understanding is hard to trust - where does it come from? Is it real? How much of this am I making up? Why didn't I trust my instinct? And my logical part quips, you're crazy! Life is more logical than that. And it is scared when I trust my intuition and watch what I knew to be true unfold.

Some of this comes to me because of my relationship to books. I remember a wonderful revelation about ten years ago, a relief that there is no time limit on how much time I have to read all the books in the world (why this would be anyone's goal, is beyond me, but I felt the need to explore them all as I looked around at the shelves of books at Kepler's Bookstore in Palo Alto when I was in ninth grade) because I will always be able to read books. When I am feeling down and defreated, lost and unfriended, my heart takes me to my bookshelf, where I read the titles, brush the books, take one out and read a few pages. It's like having a summer evening conversation with wine and a close friend. I imagine being able to swim in books, surrounded by words and words and all these friends. Books are trusted friends, and in fictional literature, so much of what is written, so much of what these friends say, is symbolic. There is foreshadowing, meaning beyond what is written, meaning in how an inanimate object appears. And so I try to draw these things in life, seeing may things as dripping with meaning. But is it?

I found two more dead birds in my yard. They looked to have been dead for quite some time - dried out, grey, barely recognizable. I wrote in my last post that if I found more dead animals on my homestead, that I'd be worried. I was worried. When Poe wrote, black birds were a foreshadow of death. What about dead animals? I wondered if I really should be worried. When is a dead animal, just a dead animal? When is a dead bird, just the victory of a quick cat?

The second week of July, I got to spend a week in Panama City Beach, Florida, staying across the street from the Gulf of Mexico with my kids, with a youth friend, Hannah, to help with the kids, and with a slew of old friends we met in seminary. Many of them met Asher when he was first born and were seeing him for the first time in almost three years. It was a reunion and a time to relax and enjoy the sacredness of water and gathering of friends.

I experienced a great healing during the week. It feels a little crude to say, but in some ways, I developed a patronus to cast before dementors. The Fray has a song called, "How to Save a Life." The rumor is that this song was written about a young man who was a resident at Shelterwood, a residential treatment center where Michael used to work. When it first came out, this was a fun connection. At the beginning of this year, the song brought up painful memories of Shelterwood, a home to some of the trials I faced. It was absolutely perverse how many times I heard the song in preceding months - in the radio on the car, in my house on satellite radio, on the radio in my therapists office on my first visit (what are the odds?!), in a store. The song constantly pestered me. And I would cry, either from the reminder of deep pain or from frustration that the horrible song was playing again!

What, I wondered, was the meaning of this? Why did I have to hear this song all the time? What was God telling me? Or was it the devil tempting me?

I was in Panama City Beach to help with a youth conference. At the last worship service, the second of nine that I was able to attend because of my kids' sleep schedules, the conference band played a hilarious spoof on the song called, "How to Say Goodbye," razzing the high schoolers about saying goodbye to a sweet summer love they met at the conference. One of lines was, "I could have prayed with you all night." I was rolling. I was laughing at a song that had caused me pain.

I am sitting in my office today, radio on for company. "How to Save a Life" came on the radio (yet again - gritting teeth), and I laugh remembering the beach, my friends, a room full of 600 high schoolers laughing at a "How to Say Goodbye," giving a standing ovation to the band. I have a patronus to cast, a protection. It is only a song, and it is a mysterious part of this chapter. Life is life, and life is dripping with meaning.

Dead Animals and Magical Things

In last few months, I have not been able to tell whether God is really giving me extra special blessings or whether they seem extra special because life feels intensified by recent events. I have, for instance, in the last three weeks:
found a dead squirrel in my yard (it was the one with only one eye, and it looked quite certain that he had died because he fell out of a tree);
slammed my right thumb in my car door (don't ask me how, I couldn't recreate the action if I tried) hard enough that it's still not working properly;
dealt with a poopy diaper that would not end beginning with poop on Harper, on my leg, on the floor, more on the floor discovered a half hour later and more on Harper's foot discovered several hours later;
explained to two cops who showed up at 11 p.m. at a girlfriend's house that we four thirty-somethings were not being abused nor having a raucous party (don't we wish!);
procured a grant for the organization that I work for that enabled us to hire a twelve-year-old girl for the summer who cuts herself;
soothed Asher to sleep while he itched and said, "Don't want it," to his heat rash;
helped Michael move my friend Megan's furniture out of Megan's storage unit, so placed because she broke up with her fiance and moved the furniture out of his house, and, which, said former fiance later helped Michael move into his apartment;
met a lovely goat farmer who mistook Megan and me for a lesbian couple with "our" two lovely children;
been trying unsuccessfully for over three weeks to cure myself of neck pain (a sure sign, if the thumb slamming incident wasn't enough, that I'm carrying too much);
picked up some of my dad's belongings from the house of my youngest sister's deceased boyfriend's (Tim) mother's home, where I saw the guest house my sister lived in with Tim (the wierdness of stuff and space will not end);
been surprised by how heavy a box of someone's ashes are when I picked up my dad's ashes off the funeral home's coffee table; and
found a dead bird in my bedroom with his heart lying next to him.

With the heaviness of life, the seeming difficulty of doing something basic like reading Asher a book (tonight said activity was accompanied by two spillings of milk all over the floor), the cottonwoods have been a reminder of lighter things. For weeks, the white fluff from the cottonwood trees swirled around town, up and down on slight breezes, making small summer snow drifts and reminding me that there really are magical things. There are lighter things. Cottonwood fluff, bubbles, rain, wild flowers, water.

I do have to say, thought, that if I find a third dead animal in my homestead, I'm going to be greatly concerned.

Space: The Frontier

I have been thinking a lot about space recently. On June 9, Michael officially moved out of the house. I was afraid of the day as it approached and protective of Asher and Harper. Neither is at the age where they will remember details as they get older, but I didn't want them to have the painful memory of their dad driving away from their home with all his stuff.

The move, rather than being terrible and tormenting, was liberating. A weight was lifted with his stuff out of the house, clearing out the clutter of all his little things, of the heavy presence of his empty shirts hanging in the closet, of the dishes I disliked but kept because he liked them. Throughout the house, there was new space, unclogged space, space like under the window in the dining room that stood oddly empty because a piece of furniture was gone.

Not four days later, a shipment of furniture that had been passed down to my aunt from various family members, including my grandparents, arrived in the new space. Because of my crazy work schedule (someone equated this time of year for me to tax season for accountants, which is so right on), my house has been cluttered and chaotic ever since. There are partially finished projects, empty bookcases, rooms crowded will randomly placed furniture. It will be several more weeks before I finally find the time to sort things out. Sometimes - like today when things just feel hard and heavy - the chaos is overwhelming. I crave a space that is simple, arranged, not transitional. But most of the time I am excited by the chaotic space because I made the chaos, I choose to keep the chaos, and, out of it, I will create the space I crave.

In this space, it is surpising to me how much impact space - its aesthetics, meaning of things init, the need to have our own - has on us. Sometimes the impact of our space is so subtle. In this disorganization, I can't locate my copy of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own (oh! there will be a day when my books are organized), but the lecture to book topic stresses the importance of women having their own space in which to write . . . even just a desk. Yes! It is so important to have our own space, to create that space, to cover it with the things and style and books and pens that we love. I have imagined my ideal office (when I am fanciful about becoming a college professor and invisioning my college office where I meet with students and study between classes) as covered with pictures of and work by powerful, strong women - Amy Lowe's grandmother flyfishing in a river, my grandmother in the WAC on the cover of Time magazine, Frieda Kahlo, Georgia O'Keefe, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, and others.

With the change in physical space, there is also a change in psychological space. There is space between Michael and I. Where our relationship was, there is room for new things, new discoveries, new places for me to step in to. In the emptiness and chaos, I am stirred to tears of pain and moments of exhiliration. With what will I cover this new space that God has blessed me with?

In the last few days, with Michael being around the house more than he has been, I have found myself using the phrase, "I need some space." My mind is in an infirmary - wounds, healing, treatment and healers are all present. There is pain even as there is progress, setbacks, emergencies and giant leaps forward. As when I gave birth, there are times that my space is crowded with people and times when I limit access, times when I only allow healers in and times when visitors are welcome. I am covering my space.

Reason #37 to Not Let Your Child Walk on the Dining Room Table

Because, even if he doesn't fall off and severely injure himself, your two and a half year old might get a washcloth and figure out how to throw it into your bowl shaped chandelier (which he can just touch while standing on the table and likes to talk about Curious George swinging from vines as he makes the chandelier swing) repeatedly. So that when the game is over, and you forget to fish out the last washcloth, you turn on the light, and, unless you smell the smoke and figure out where it's coming from (not the dryer), there might be a house fire. Fortunately, I figured out where the smoke was coming from before the nice and toasty washcloth started to flame.

All this on the same day that my son started asking me why his sister doesn't have a penis.

Building a Nest for a Sankofa Bird

For the past several months, I have had a small feeling (perhaps an intuition) quietly bobbing in various places in my mind. This feeling resembled a flightly but persistent mosquito, and it was, specifically, a feeling that death was impending. Not my death, not anyone's death in particular. Perhaps just a feeling that something in my life was going to die.

Though I concentrated on this feeling like I would on a persistant mosquito - swiping it away when it got too close - I remember this feeling playing into a fear that one of my children or Michael might die, or interpreting it as the manifestation of fear and anxiety because my life was so unstable, or thinking that perhaps it was the creeping feeling that the casualty was to be my marriage.

Thinking back, the wierd superstitious part of me wonders that I didn't see that it was going to be someone or some animal that was to die because my mom, sisters and I have an unfounded belief that births in our family are closely preceded or followed by a death. In the generation following mine, for example, my nephew was born 6 months after my grandfather passed. My son was born 1 week after my sister's boyfriend was murdered. My daughter was born shortly after my stepfather's dog had to be euthenized. And so, with the impending birth of my niece-in-law on May 6, some part of me thinks that if I had been on the alert, I would have seen that death indeed was eminent. I am, though, only faintly superstitious, so I missed the signs (and, really, I can take myself off the hook because the belief is that there will be a close birth/death among those on only one my side of the family, not to cross the marriage bond).

Regardless, it was with a thud that I received the news that my dad had passed on May 10. He had been quite sick and was deteriorating from Huntington's Disease, but we expected him to live at least a year, at least another month so he could meet his granddaughter on our June trip to California. I had a dream the night after my dad passed about a four-year-old girl I know, B. In my dream, B's father, who is not and has a never been married to her mother, died in a gang fight. I held grieving B, after she told me the news, and nursed her until I fear that her mother will be displeased to see me nursing her daughter. I know there is some part of me that is grieving like little B over the loss of her father, even as an adult part of me is confused by losing an alcoholic father with whom I had a strained and estranged relationship. Together, these two parts of me need to exchange comforts and the deep intimacy like those that come with nursing.

I do hope for the day when I can really sit in the mud and muck with this loss. In survival mode, as I am, it has been a bits and pieces grieving as I have available mental energy. The week following my dad's death, M decided that our marriage should die. He changed the separation papers to divorce with the court.

In a leadership workshop on Friday, the African-American, female leader, mentioned an American symbol, the sankofa bird. I was intrigued. The sankofa bird is a mythic bird that flies forward while looking backward with an egg (symbolizing the future) in its mouth. In the Akan language of Ghana, "sankofa" is expressed as "se wo were fi na wosan kofa a yenki, " literally meaning "it is not taboo to go back and fetch what you forgot." The teaching is that we must go back to our roots in order to move forward, reaching back and gathering the best of what our past has to teach us, so that we can achieve our full potential as we move forward. Whatever we have lost, forgotten, forgone or been stripped of, can be reclaimed, revived, preserved and perpetuated (from www.duboislc.net/SankofaMeaning.html).

I don't know what this means exactly for me. It does resonate with the little, grieving girl part of me, knowing that it is not taboo to remember my dad - positive as well as negative - and to gather these things in my tree. It does help me to know that the disaster of my present life can in some unforeseen way be reclaimed, revived, preserved and perpetuated in the future. Presently, I am building a nest for a sankofa bird with twigs and other donations from fellow trees, from the tree of life, and observing what it is looking at, where it is flying and what the egg might hold.

Hot Dogs Are Inherently Funny

This post could also be titled, Why Alexa Has 1300 All Beef Hot Dogs in Her Refrigerator.

I'd like to make the case that hot dogs are inherently funny. Of course, I have recently had quite a hilarious episode with hot dogs, so I may be biased. While considering this episode, keep in mind that I am a vegetarian who partakes of fish but has had pretty much zero meat for over 15 years, and, really, hot dogs are a pretty lowly meat product.

So on with the episode . . . one of my co-workers chairs the Longmont Celebrates Cinco de Mayo committee. She has all the good insider knowledge on the celebration and committee gossip. Turns out, the celebration lost their hot dog vendor about two weeks before the event (I know, first question to ask . . . why is someone selling hot dogs at a Cinco de Mayo celebration? Apparantly, quite a few kids and some adults don't like Mexican food and would rather have a hot dog. Huh! Who knew?). Our little informational booth quickly turned into a hot dog booth after a brief conferring with my executive director, acknowledgement that I had absolutely no knowledge about selling hot dogs and handing over of a $100 check for our booth.

Fast forward to Saturday, May 5. After a one and a half hour health department briefing the night before in about 90% Spanish (quite the experience to be the only English speaking person at a meeting!), setting up and passing health inspection, we were ready to sell our hot dogs. The lovely Colorado weather forecasters predicted rain, rain and more rain with a scattering of thunderstorms for the day (point to note here, there is something mysterious about Colorado weather in that weather forecasters seem to be wrong about 75% of the time. Let's not get started on the wopping blizzard that never hit back in March). Turnout at Cinco de Mayo was good but not as good as expected due to iffy weather (but not the terrible weather predicted), clouds, rain just to the west of us and some sprinkles here and there. Sales were pretty good. Our lines were never as long as the Mexican food stands (for which, I was quite happy, disregarding our very slowly moving inventory). At 4:30, the sky started to look really bad. We lowered our prices and had a dollar dog sale. At 5:00, it started to pour and the celebration was closed up in about 30 minutes.

Overall, we sold about 300 hot dogs. You might think, not too bad for a first time out. But, really, it is bad if you bought 1600 hot dogs for the day, had a trail of four cars drive to your house after the event and unloaded 1300 hot dogs into your spare rerigerator in the pouring rain. You might also think, thank God you didn't buy the original amount you'd discussed - 3000 hot dogs (no, I'm not kidding. The weather saved us). I have spent about two weeks trying to think of ways to lucratively get rid of these hot dogs - dollar for dogs donation campaign, gifts to our volunteers and board of directors, a weekend hot dog stand, selling them to the Home Depot hot dog guy, hosting a hot dog eating contest. I have had some takers on buying packages. But, no doubt, if they are like me, they might be a little intimidated about buying a package of 40 hot dogs . . . that's 5 pounds of all beef tube steak.

Try telling people about my hot dog full refrigerator. Before you even get to the background story, people will no doubt laugh because I have to say there is just something inherently funny about hot dogs. Or, maybe, there's something inherently funny about having 1300 hot dogs in your spare refrigerator.

Do Not Fear

I remember one night several months ago when Michael left soon after Asher went to bed. It was dark outside. I locked the front door and heard his truck pull out of the driveway, tires crunching over the gravel. He would be out late. I probably wouldn't be able to reach him if something unexpected happened. It wasn't an unusual night, but something that night tapped into something deeply hurt. There was a wave of fear, a wave of understanding, a wave of recognition as a feeling of abandonment came over and around me. I knew then there was no longer one person for whom I was the most important.

John and Stacy Eldridge write in their book Captivating about the fear of abandonment that women have, an innate, shared experience for most if not all women - the fear of being left helpless and unprotected. It's illogical. As adult women, we are not helpless and unprotected. I am not helpless and protected. Does the fear arise from something in our childhoods? From an unspoken message about women that we grow up with? Or something much more ancient?

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." (Genesis 3:6-12)

The Eldridges point out in their book that Eve's husband was next to her in the beginning of this passage. He was not off in another part of the garden while Eve was speaking with the serpant. He was "with her." Adam, though no doubt under the serpent's influence, abandons Eve to the serpant's deception, watches Eve as she holds the fruit, brings it to her mouth, and bites. Eve eats and then, for a brief but terrible, terrible moment, she is the one and only fallen being in the entire world. Absolutely helpless and unprotected, unaccompanied and forsaken, separated by the utterly world changing choice from all other beings, forlorn and desolate. No doubt Eve felt relief when Adam also ate of the fruit, fear that he wouldn't, and she would be left alone forever. Finally, Eve is abandoned once more, given over by the one she no doubt craved, like an addict for her addiction, to be reunited with when Adam betrays Eve. "She gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." Adam was with Eve, heard the serpant, and denied his responsibility in his bite. What a scene of abandonment!

Studies indicate that in times of stress and crisis, women tend to gather. In times past, this may have meant that women gathered physically in a group, perhaps surrounding children to keep them safe. In modern times, gathering has become not only physically gathering but phone calling and e-mailing, exchanging and extending support in words and "just being there." We are reflecting pools for one another. We are the replies to the echoes in each others' minds. We are reminders to each other, strong shelterwoods, that though we think and feel it, we are not helpless or unprotected.

The dictionary reminds me that the word "abondonment" has a flip side meaning. There is the negative - left helpless and unprotected - and then the possibility of something otherworldly and wonderful, "giving onself over without restraint." In the negative sense, when we are hurt by abondment, it is passive - something someone does to us. Children are abandoned. We feel abandoned by someone. But, actively, even once abandoned, perhaps especially once abandoned, when our fears have been realized, and we survive and climb out of the hole and find we can still dance and sing and play and gather in each others arms, we can live with abandon, we can dance with abandon, we can laugh and sing and praise and utterly be with abandon. "Do not fear" for God never abandons.