Pain in the Neck

Three weeks ago, I threw out my back.  This morning, I lost my proverbial shit.

I wrote almost five hundred words about how the last three weeks have been awful because I threw out my back, but I cut them because really here’s all you need to know: back pain is similar to early labor, except you don’t get a baby at the end of your efforts.  My mom flew out to help for the first week (better than angels from heaven).  And then, Monday evening, encouraged by some improvement, I decided to wean myself from the massive amounts of horse pills pain medication I had been taking at night to sleep.

Friends, the next time that I am put in charge of making decisions about my personal health, please save me from myself.  Tuesday was awful.  As I suspected, the night time meds were lingering in the morning, allowing me to be comfortable until around 3:00 most days.  I would take my first dose of meds around 6:00 each night when Scott got home from work, so it was only three hours a day that were pretty miserable.

Without that night time cushion, I was bitchy by about 10:00 on Tuesday morning.  I couldn’t lift my arm without wincing.  It hurt to walk.  It hurt to drive.  It hurt to load a plate into the dishwasher.  Don’t even get me started on moving a load of laundry from the washer to the dryer.  By Wednesday evening, I was sure that I had made no improvement--forgetting all the okay days I’d been having--and now, I had pains in other places from my body trying to overcompensate for the original pain.

I slept for one hour last night.  One hour.  I cried off and on for five hours, (spitefully accidentally kicking my husband to wake him with no success).  And then I got out of bed because my kids needed breakfast, and I needed to take Will to school.  Ben started crying when I told him we had cereal but had run out of milk.  Through genuine tears, he sobbed, “I just want pancakes or eggs!”

Over the course of the last three weeks, my kids have had more Ramen and cereal than they’ve had in the rest of their short lives combined.  The thought of flipping eggs in a skillet made me start to cry, too.  And there was no way I was going to be able to stir pancake mix.  I have avoided going to the store because 1) it hurts to drive, 2) the thought of carrying groceries up the twenty-one stairs into our house makes me want to vomit.

So, I cried through making eggs, and I cried in the shower, and I cried while I couldn’t dry my hair all the way, and I cried when Ben started crying because the velcro on the only pair of shoes he has/will wear broke, and I cried as I drove Will to school.  More than the pain, I was so discouraged, and although logically I knew that this wasn’t as bad as it had been in the beginning (when I had zero mobility in my neck, constant muscle spasms, and paralysis in my right arm and hand), I felt so defeated.  How much longer was this going to last?  I had an appointment with the chiropractor at 9:00, so I cried while I drove to the chiropractor.

I have basically given up wearing real pants at this point (except the fattest of my fat jeans because they are the only ones that don’t hurt to pull up), so I rolled into his office in my best yoga pants, smeared make-up, and (made worse by the rain) hair.  I basically looked like this (except with darker circles under the eyes):

This, friends, is where the losing my shit part happened.

“So, how are we doing today?”

We?  How are we doing today?  Well, let’s see.  If you are referring to “we” as the three people in this room--you seem to be quite chipper.  Ben is eating crackers he pilfered from your waiting room because his mother hasn’t fed him anything but Asian noodles and Cinnamon Toast Crunch for the last two weeks, and me--well, look at me.  This is not how people should look in public.  Unless “public” is the bus station--correction, the bus station bathroom.

And then I cried some more, telling him Ijustwanttofeelbetter <heave> thisistakingsolong <heave> IamgoingtoturnintoapilladdictifIkeeptakingallthesepills <heave> Isleptonehourlastnight.  And then he told me it was going to be okay, and maybe I shouldn’t have quit the pain meds cold turkey, and if I could, could I please get on the table?  So, I did.  And he did the adjustment and went back over my treatment plan.

I left feeling a smidge better and drove to my Bible study that meets every other Thursday morning.  Why?  Because there is childcare, and I wanted someone else to listen to Ben cry about his Lightning McQueen shoes for 45 minutes instead of me.

And when I got there, I was welcomed into a room of women, whom I have known for a few months and whom I was now going to lose my shit in front of for the second time in one day.  Our leader, Becky, said, “Hey!  We all just finished sharing our highs and lows.”

This is what we do.  We share our highs and lows, ruminate on some Scriptures, and do other generally life-affirming and friend-making things.  And so, I launched into my low--how my back was not any better than it was the last time we met two weeks ago, and now the only things that have changed are that my house looks like a tornado and a bomb had a baby, my children are malnourished, and my husband is floundering for ways to be helpful and failing.  I also blabbered a lot about how I can’t imagine how people who live with chronic pain do it.

And you know what they said?  They said it sounded like I needed a meal tree started, and it was like a lightning bolt from heaven came down and struck me with this novel idea--oh, you mean, like asking for help?  Huh.

These are God’s people, friends.  Not because I meet with them twice a month in the high school classroom of our church, but because they understood me through my slobbery snot and started a freaking meal tree.

Encouraged and completely out of tears, I left the church and went to Target to find Ben some new shoes.  Scott and I have been on a spending freeze since the beginning of the year (for reasons that belong in an entirely different blog), which has meant staying away from Target unless absolutely necessary. I have been there (count ‘em) two times in the calendar year 2013, and the only unnecessary items I have brought out of the store were bags of half-priced Valentine’s candy.  Other than that, it’s been toothpaste and mouthwash and other equally exciting things.

But, after we grabbed some new light-up Lightning McQueen shoes, we headed to the food section to get milk.  While there, I lost all sense of our self-imposed rules.

Phineas and Ferb mac and cheese?  Yes.

Angry Birds graham crackers?  Yes.

Mario Bros. Fruit snacks?  Yes.

If it came in a box and had a cartoon character on it, we bought it.  And you know what else I bought?  Three new silicone spatulas!  Not the cheap nylon ones.  The ones that cost three dollars more and don’t turn into melted bits that gunk up your eggs and make you cry.

Over the last few years, we’ve really tried to limit the processed food that enters our pantry (another story that deserves a post of its own), but I bought a mountain of  disgusting processed boxed snacks and three damn spatulas.  And it felt good.

I also bought some milk because even though we will probably have some old lady casseroles for dinner in the next few nights, we will still probably need to stick with cereal in the mornings.

As I walked toward the milk, in the frozen food case, I saw a little red tag on the Steamfresh vegetables.  These have been my go-to item in this moment of mom-misery, and we were down to a couple bags of green beans.  And there it was, a red tag from God reading 5/$5.00.  This is a deal, friends!  A really good deal!  I covered all the processed boxed snacks with bags and bags and bags and bags of vegetables that are ready to eat with no preparation and four minutes in the microwave.

After Target, Ben and I stopped by our favorite local market for some fruit, and bolstered by my rebellious trip to Target, I carried him through the muddy parking lot (we were NOT going to get those new shoes dirty!) despite the fact that it felt like my right arm was being electrocuted.  So what, pain!  I have friends who are going to bring me casseroles.  And I have new spatulas.

We grabbed some quick sushi that I didn’t make on plates that I don’t have to wash (in your face, spending freeze) at a restaurant next to Ben’s school, and I headed home for my two uninterrupted hours at home without children.

I lugged the ten bags of groceries up all twenty-one stairs, yelling a string of obscenities all the way.  On my last trip, the bag of Pink Lady apples fell out of my arms and tumbled

down 

down

down 

down

the twenty-one stairs.  Ben had chosen them (since our beloved Honey Crisps are dwindling and out of season now) because they “are just like you, Mom--you’re a Pink Lady!”  And now, his funny little joke was so apropos because the simple act of carrying my groceries to my kitchen left me feeling just like that--like a bag of apples that had been dropped down two flights of stairs.

Once the frozen veggies were put away, I left the boxed stuff on the floor and collapsed on the bed.  I am not one to complain generally (at least not in such a public forum), but friends, the last few weeks have been excruciating hellish one giant clusterfuck challenging.

So, let’s wrap this up with a nice moral to the story: TODAY, I was a nightmare at my worst, and my friends loved me anyway.  I spent time with my children.  I bought new shoes without thinking about where to get the money.  My kids and I will eat tonight.  I live in a house with twenty-one carpeted stairs leading to three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and three TVs.  I spent two hours today writing a story about back pain.  I am typing this on my functioning computer while my kids participate in a free Lego club at the public library ten minutes from our house.  My husband just texted me, saying he’s on his way home--an hour and a half earlier than I normally get that text.  I still have medicine, so I can sleep tonight.

Today was a good day.

Friends of the Library

The last month has held a heaviness I haven’t felt in ages.  It’s been one of those seasons when it feels as if literally everything in my life is broken.  

I’ve struggled with back pain my entire life, but lately it’s been constant and extreme, putting me on edge and making me a pretty miserable person to live with.  (Note to self: do something nice for Scott to make up for the last two weeks.)

My computer died one day--just flat out turned off and wouldn’t come back on.  Not that I was doing a good job of writing much in my current angry/sad state, but now it wasn’t even possible.

Our car needed some routine maintenance, but when we took it in, we found out we needed some other things done that we weren’t expecting.

Will needed some dental surgery that involved multiple trips to the dentist and hundreds of dollars we hadn’t budgeted.

All of this came on the tail end of a trip home for Scott’s grandma’s funeral, followed by two weeks of walking through the death of the father of one of our best friends.

It just hasn’t been a happy month.

On Thursday I had a conversation with a friend about how each of us deals with stress differently.  I have friends who immediately ask everyone they know to pray. Becky shared that she’s a freak-outer who cries.  I am a self-proclaimed shut-downer.

And it was in that meeting that I realized just how much I had shut down over the last two weeks.  I’d felt overwhelmed with the grief and stress and frustration and physical pain, and I just stopped doing life.  I’ve learned in therapy to cope with the triggers of depression by talking about it instead of mulling it over until it becomes an insurmountable mountain in my head--because the initial stress is nothing compared to the feelings of self-resentment and self-disappointment I feel when I spend my time obsessing over the stress.  And I’ve learned that when I shut down, when I feel like doing nothing, which leads to the obsessive thoughts, when I feel like going back to bed, I can’t.  I just can’t.

And so, I do the laundry.

And I wipe the counters.

And when I feel like I’m not actually doing anything important, I remind myself that what I am not doing is doing nothing, and there is light at the end of the tunnel.

So, today, when Ben and I picked up Will from school, I wanted to go home and curl up with a book while the boys played in the other room, but I didn’t.  We went to the gas station and the car wash and the library because washing and putting gas in the car is useful and good.  Going to the library could have been a quick trip to drop stuff off, especially since Ben fell asleep on the way, but something in my gut said to take the boys inside and spend some time there.

And so we went in, and the boys started playing Clifford games on the computer, and I found some new audiobooks for the car.  As stupid as it sounds, going through the motions of doing mundane tasks can sometimes be the difference between happy and sad.

When I returned to the kids area to check on the boys, I found them both still sitting in their chairs, playing word games.  Nearby, I saw an older man of that indistinct age, somewhere between seventy and one hundred three.  He’d sat down on a bench near the boys in that typical waiting husband slouch.  I watched him thumb through the pages of a book and adjust his glasses, heard him clear his throat.  A minute later, a woman with a walker moved toward him, and he looked up and motioned for her to take a seat next to him.

I lingered near the bookshelves pretending to look for a new chapter book series for the boys and listened in on their conversation intently.  Although they rode over on the same shuttle from their retirement community, they had not met previously.  I got the feeling that Floyd had been living at Olympics West much longer than Florence.  He talked about his tablemates at lunch, his regular activities--socials and game nights--and Florence admitted she has never tried any of the scheduled events.  You hear about these stories of octogenarians finding love again--and this must be how it happens.  With a chance meeting during a library outing.  Geriatric serendipity.

Over the course of half an hour, I listened.  Halfway through, I sat down in a chair that backed up against their bench, but they didn’t notice me.  They had launched into full-blown life stories--spouses they’d outlived, children’s careers, grandchildren’s college plans.  

“My son, he has a phone plan.  They added me, but I don’t ever use it,”  Florence said.

“Oh, no--me neither.  I use my phone once in a blue moon,” Floyd said.

“I write on my laptop--I write every day,”  Florence said.

“I do, too.  And I email on my laptop.  I email letters to my kids.  My mother wrote a letter to her mother every day,”  Floyd said.

"That's good.  I don't like to waste time.  That's a good thing to do with your time," Florence said.

At one point, another lady in bright pink pants, (Daisy, I found out later) scooted over with her walker.  She caught my eye and then looked to the seat beside me.  Before I could say anything, Floyd called out to her, “You want to join us?”  As he turned to point to the chairs behind him, he saw me for the first time.  “Oh, there’s someone back there!”

Florence turned, too, then and laughed, “Well, have you been back there this whole time?  Have you been listening to us?”

“For a little while,” I said.  “I can pretend I wasn’t listening if you want.”

Florence, Floyd, and Daisy laughed--too loud for the library.  And kept laughing.  I asked if they had all come together.  Did they live close by?  Floyd answered, “Yes, right up the road.  Just needed to get out today.  Weather’s been so foggy and cold.  Today’s not so bad.”

A woman in her late forties dressed in khaki pants and a polo with a “activities director” name tag walked toward the group.  “You stay here, and I’ll pull the van around in a few minutes.  Or you all can walk to the foyer and wait there.”

As they looked at each other, I said, “Did her name tag say Kathryn Hepburn?”

“Yep!  That’s Kathryn Hepburn--not every day you have a famous lady driving you around town!”  Floyd stood and helped Florence to her feet, then moved toward the front door behind Daisy.

Florence leaned down and held up a book for me to see.  “See what I picked?”

It was an illustrated large print copy of Alice in Wonderland.  She added, “I’ve wanted to read it since I was a little girl.  Never have.  So, now I can read it and die a happy woman.  Good-bye, world!”

She said it like she meant it, smiling like it was the happiest day of her life.

I told the boys it was time to go, anxious to follow my new friends out the front door, to wave good-bye.  In my years of visiting great-grandparents and grandparents, I’ve learned that it is very important to wave good-bye.  I don’t know why, but it’s important.

So, I shuffled the boys toward the door and through the foyer, saying excuse us as we passed Floyd, Florence, and Daisy waiting patiently for their shuttle.  As we walked through, the boys broke free to run down the ramp toward the parking lot, and I heard Daisy say, “Yes, I’m a writer and a singer.”

And then Floyd added, “And a dancer.  Florence, you ought to see her dance!”

I called for the boys to stop and turn around.  As they did, I turned to wave, and Floyd yelled out the door, "Maybe we'll see you around again!"

Will said, "Mom, who is that?"

"That's Floyd," I answered and then took both boys' hands in mine and headed to the car.

He added, "Is he your friend?"

"Something like that."

'Tis the Season, Friends

I’ve been taking a blog sabbatical in order to focus on writing my book, an effort that has been only semi-successful on one hand but at least a step in the right direction. I decided to come out of my self-imposed semi-retirement because each year the holiday season leaves me with an abundance of inspiration for writing.

In 2010, I blogged about my favorite Christmas song and what it feels like when it doesn’t feel like Christmas.  Last year, I blogged about Xmas and the post office--a post that ended up getting the fifth most hits of any posts on my blog and still brings tears to my eyes when I think about its inspiration.

This past year, we accidentally became Lutherans.  Having grown up evangelical, my experience with the Lutheran denomination was limited.  In fact, the only Lutheran services I ever attended were when some of my extended family got married.  I immediately placed the Lutherans in the good category because they had alcohol at their receptions.  We enrolled Ben at the preschool at Gloria Dei, and after sending both boys to VBS this summer to get a feel for the atmosphere, we decided to try a Sunday morning service.  So, here we are--part of a Lutheran congregation, a group of people whose outlook on life is similar to ours and who has warmly embraced our family.

Our associate pastor, Molly, contacted me to write a piece for a congregational Advent devotional.  Clearly, I’m comfortable with writing, but growing up in the evangelical tradition did not provide me with knowledge about the high church tradition and ritual that comes into play during these important moments on the church calendar.  I attended an Episcopal school for eight years as a child, but my take away about Advent was limited to savoring a bite of chocolate each day when I opened a tiny door.  (Likewise, Lent was the time of year when I didn’t eat chocolate at all.)  I married a Presbyterian, so as an adult, I’ve learned a bit more, but I took this invitation to write a piece to dig a little deeper.


My search lead me to pieces from some of my favorite theologians.  Perhaps more helpful were the websites devoted to teaching children why we celebrate Advent, complete with coloring pages and wreath-building instructions.  In all my insomnia-driven internet-searching research, the words that kept popping up were simplicity, reflection, hope, and waiting.


In the end, I wrote too short devotional pieces, one about simplicity and one about hope.  I certainly enjoyed learning about all the symbolism and tradition, and after attending our church’s “Advent Adventure” party, I can say that our family has a very nice hand-made wreath in the middle of our dining room table now.

Advent, as defined by the church, is essentially the time of waiting for the Christ child’s entrance--it is celebrated the four weeks leading up to Christmas, a time when we light candles representing hope, love, joy, and peace.  

I was drawn to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s idea that all of life is Advent--that all we do is in preparation for the tiny, and not so tiny, miracles.  I see these miracles all the time in my life and in the lives of my friends:

The miracle of learning to read for the child who struggles academically.

The miracle of finding a budget-friendly car after bumming rides for a few weeks.

The miracle of reconciling a broken relationship after months of not speaking.

The miracle of finding a job after a year of unemployment.

The miracle of carrying a baby to full-term after months of bed rest.

The miracle of a clean bill of health after rounds of chemotherapy.

And each of those miracles were preceded by a time of reflection, a time of waiting, a time of hope--what beauty there is in living in a space that appreciates the past, present, and future all in the same moment.  I am reminded again and again that I am part of a story with no beginning and no end, a story that existed long before me and will continue to be told when I am gone.

My friend, Marcy Priest, recorded a song "Come Thou Long Expected Jesus" last year as part of her church's Christmas album, and it is quickly becoming a personal favorite.  It's an Advent story in song.  Tommy and Eddie over at The Skit Guys used Marcie's song in the background of one of their new videos, and it spoke to me about my place in this universe in relation to the Christ child's birth.  The miracles on my horizon are but a tiny speck in the miracle that is existence.

Frederick Buechner says this, “For a second you catch a whiff of some fragrance that reminds you of a place you’ve never been and a time you have no words for. You are aware of the beating of your heart…The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment.”  

This year, this season, I am savoring that moment.

The Meaning of Life...or Whatever

On Tuesday, after I dropped Ben off for his first day of school, I had a clearly defined plan for how I was going to spend my two and a half hours--the first two and a half hours that were officially mineallmine with both of my children occupied with schooling.

For whatever reason, burritos are the one thing my children veto every time I suggest them, and they are otherwise spectacular eaters, so I acquiesce.  So, first order of business was to eat my modified burrito (chicken bowl with a tortilla on the side) in the sunshine on the sidewalk in front of the mall Chipotle.

Several days earlier, my friend, Jody, had posted a quotation on Facebook that read “We were made to be the things that he is: forgivers, redeemers, second-chance givers, truth-tellers, hope-bringers. And we were certainly, absolutely made to be creators.” (s. niequist)”

After a quick google, I discovered Shauna Niequist and her book Bittersweet.  After reading a couple of the excerpts from her website, I immediately placed her two books on reserve at the library.  

I had waited to start the book because my evenings had been consumed with filling out beginning of the school year paperwork and watching reality TV (hey, my brain was fried). So, part two of my big I-have-time-to-do-whatever-I-want plan was to leisurely read my new book while enjoying my meal.

Really great plan, right?  Yeah, until I started reading and realized that literally every page was going to make me cry.  I did not apologize to the two gentlemen sitting at the table next to me, who were probably utterly grossed out by the tears and snot dripping down my face.  Okay, it wasn’t that bad, but almost--I kept getting that choking feeling in the back of my throat, and I tucked a napkin on the inside of my glasses to line the rim of my bottom eyelids in an effort to catch the tears before they fell in my bowl.  

There was a time in my life when I laughed at Scott people who cry in movies.  I have been told there is a block of ice where my heart should be.  By multiple people.  But there is something about becoming a mother that opened the flood gates for me, and now these public crying fits seem to be standard operating procedure, which my friend, Erica, has assured me is completely normal.  And I believe her because she wouldn’t lie to me.

So, as I placed check marks in the margins of the book over and over again, I broke one of the rules I made for my alone-but-not-lonely time--I got on my phone to order the books to own (because I didn't want to get arrested by the library police for writing in their book).  I decided when we signed Ben up for this two-days-a-week class, I would have three rules because I am terrible without rules.  Aside from having a high need to have a plan, I need boundaries--like an electric fence with a shock collar to keep me from deviating from the set plan.  So, I made these three rules:

1. No internet.  Especially no Facebook.  I was not going to watch my time disappear while I browsed other people’s baby pictures and “Liked” Ryan Gosling memes.  No.  I have plenty of time to do that at night when I am catching up on SYTYCD and folding laundry.
2. No cleaning/organizing.  My kids are at an age, where I can very easily be productive (moms of wee ones--the day will come, I promise!).  So, the laundry and the vacuuming and the cleaning pee off the toilets--all of that can wait until a time when they are jumping on the trampoline or playing Legos in their rooms.  I will not be productive during my five-whole-hours-a-week.
3. Some writing every day.  And this--THIS is the big one.

I am a writer.  (See how nice that looks in print, right there for all the world to see?)  But for the last seven thirty-two years, I have done very little in the way of writing with a purpose.  Several months ago, I attended the Storyline conference with Donald Miller, and above anything else he said, the thing that stuck with me most was this: if you want to be a blogger, write blogs.  If you want to write books, write books.  (That’s the Leia paraphrase, of course, but I think he would be happy with my version.)

In that moment, my body reacted in the way my mind couldn’t--I got sweaty pits and goosebumps all at the same time.  Because here’s the deal--I want to write books.  I write blog posts because I need an outlet for all the things that spin through my head on a day-to-day basis.  Consequently, the immediate gratification of getting a message from someone that says anything from “That was great!” to “I so needed to hear this today!” is what makes me feel connected to the rest of humanity on those days when I feel like an island (in a bad way).

I don’t begrudge my children or the time I’ve spent being thebestmomintheworld so far.  In fact, I believe being a mom is the greatest gift God has ever given me and the greatest gift I have to give the world.  Mothering--nurturing, caring, training, loving--is the most natural thing I have ever done.  But I really, really believe that the second greatest gift God gave me was my ability to write, and it’s a gift that has been sitting dusty on a shelf for far too long.

I finally feel like I have reached a season when I can focus on writing without feeling like I am shorting my kids or husband in an unfair way.  Because that’s what this season is about for me: 1. Working on my marriage, 2. Raising human beings, and 3. Pursuing writing as a viable career.

I wish you could feel the pit in my stomach right now--the one that is pummeling my gut and screaming, “WHAT IF YOU FAIL?”  Well, then I fail, I guess, but this is the moment in my life when I am saying, I am going to try anyway.

Shauna Niequist outlines beautifully the struggles that ensue when you are trying to write a book in her chapter titled “Knees or Buns.”  She talks about how when she is eating at a restaurant with her three-year-old, she gives him the choice--knees or buns.  Anyone who has ever dined with children will get this reference right away--I, in fact, have said a variation of this thousands of times, something like, “You can’t stand in your chair.  Pick one--on your knees or on your bottom.”

She goes on to compare writing to the situation with her son.  She writes, 

“What I learn, over and over, is that writing isn’t hard, but sitting down in the chair is really, really hard.  So at this point, I’m working at a three-year-old level: knees or buns?  I can sit anywhere I like, but I have to sit down, and then the hardest part is over...Creativity isn’t easy, and it isn’t something you turn on like a light switch.  My inbox will tell you that the world is full of writers who don’t write, painters who don’t paint, dancers who don’t dance.  They want me to tell them something, ostensibly a secret something that will get them up and moving again, creating again.  My reply is always a disappointing one: I don’t know what to tell you.  Sit down, knees or buns.  But then, I tell them something else: do it for the feeling you’ll have when you are done.  Making art doesn’t have the instant payoff that most things in our modern lives do, but like all things that really matter, the big payoff is invisible and comes much later.”

So, here I am.  On my second day without children.  On my buns.  Because she’s right--writing isn’t hard, not when you know with every fiber of your being that this is what you MUST do.  And whatever the payoff is, I am going to just live with this right now--the idea that I have five hours every week when I am going to do EXACTLY what I was made to do.  That, in itself, is payoff enough.  For now.

First and Last

A few weeks ago, I was running errands with the boys in the back seat.  Out of the blue (a phrase synonymous with many things kid-related), my six-year-old, Will, asked, “Mom, when was the first Monday?”

These are the kinds of questions I do not know how to answer.  Why is the sky blue?  Let’s look it up.  What is God?  Got it.  How are babies made?  Sure.  But, when was the first Monday?  I don’t know.  I just don’t.  I mean, technically, I’m sure I could track down the answer by figuring out when the calendar was put in its current form, who made these changes, and when the vernacular became “Monday,” but even then, it wouldn’t start to answer his question.

His question at its root was not about Monday.  It was about marking time, finding a beginning, making sense of the world around him.

We have chickens, two of which have turned out to be roosters--roosters who like to crow every morning sometime between 6:00 and 6:30--roosters who are going to be traded with the farmer for hens before I wring their necks.  This morning, the red numbers on the clock glowed at me--the light screaming 6:23, mocking me, laughing and saying, “Your alarm is set for 7:03!  Nanny-nanny-boo-boo!”  I sat up, not unhappy, on the first morning in a long time that I’ve had to set an alarm.  Why?

Because today was Will’s first day of first grade.

We homeschooled for kindergarten because (long story short) it made sense at the time, and over the last week as we prepared for going to traditional school--gathering school supplies, buying new shoes, picking out fun snacks for lunch--I found myself counting down all the “lasts” we were sharing together.

Our last summer movie night.

Our last day of waking up with no alarm and staying in pajamas.

Our last sushi lunch at our favorite restaurant.

Last night, as we left meet the teacher, I asked Will if he had any questions. He grabbed my hand to cross the street and said, "Can you walk me into first grade tomorrow? And for the rest of the days until I get the hang of it?" Yes. Yes, I can. I wanted to ask him the same question back.

This morning, Will stumbled out of his bedroom at 6:37, far too early, saying, “The rooster woke me up.”  I scooped him up, no easy feat these days as he is quickly approaching my shoulders in height, and carried him back to bed.  I climbed in next to him and pulled the sheet up around our necks.  He pulled my arm around his head to rest on my shoulder and said, “I wish Daddy could be here tomorrow.”

“Me too, buddy.”  Tomorrow is Will’s seventh birthday, and Scott is deployed.  Unfortunately, this is not the first or last important day that we’ve been apart. I snuggled my six-year-old, on the last morning of his being a six-year-old, and asked, “What do you think about turning seven?”

He yawned, his morning breath invading my nostrils, and answered, “I will fun faster and be better at video games, and I’m not sure what else.”

And in that statement, you see why he is my hero: his future is full of possibility, even if he’s not sure what it holds.  

A little over a month ago, one of my dearest friends found out she was pregnant with her first baby.  We stayed up late talking, when she confided in me her anxiety about motherhood, the bittersweetness of closing an era of her life.  I assured her the bitter would fade, leaving only the sweet, after the first time she looks in the mirror and sees her belly starting to swell.  Or perhaps after the first time she feels the fluttering feet or hiccups from the inside of her abdomen.

I had a conversation with a recently divorced friend who confessed over beers that he slept with a woman on his birthday, the first since his divorce--a woman in her forties.  He laughed, thinking about how his ex-wife is still in her twenties, and added, “I’ve never even slept with a woman in her thirties!”

I pray daily for a friend who posted a picture on Facebook of her first visit to her baby’s grave, just days after her baby took her first and last breaths.

I spent time with three different friends while home in OK last month who marked six, seven, and eight months since taking their last drink.

Another friend posted a picture of her daughter’s laundry from her first weekend home from college.  A few of months ago, we didn’t know what that day would look like for them as my friend was starting her first round of chemo for breast cancer.  What a joy it was to celebrate her last treatment and announcement of remission right around the time her daughter moved into her dorm room.

We measure our days, whether we mean to or not, in firsts and lasts.  It is one way we attempt to measure what life is, what it means.  We take pictures, we keep records in baby books and journals, we make every effort to celebrate and mourn the passing of time by creating benchmarks.  These benchmarks are not just plot points  on our timelines--they are memories of joy and sorrow and everything in between.

When we got home this morning from dropping Will off, I asked Ben what he wanted for breakfast.  He replied, “Fried eggs,” and then added, “Can I play Wii?”

I answered, “Sure.  Just while I cook the eggs.  Then, you’ll need to come to the table to sit with me while we eat.”

As I cracked the eggs into the skillet, I heard his tiny voice, speaking aloud to himself, “I’m going to be Mario.”

Ben, the second child, the little brother, is always Luigi.  For the first time, he gets to be Mario.  And that, friends, is when I started to cry.  Every first marks a new beginning, even the tiny firsts.

I sat down at the table with Ben to eat, and he asked, “Can I have some toast?”

Ben likes toast.  Never in my memory do I ever remember making toast for him.

And then he asked, “Can I have some jell-o on it?”

Translating the three-year-old speak, I took the strawberry jam from the refrigerator and grabbed the loaf of bread from the pantry.

Today, I ate eggs and toast with strawberry jam with Ben--just Ben--for the first time.  And it was lovely.

Rock On

A couple of Sundays ago, we played hookie from church.  Strike that--we’d have to go on regular basis to consider it playing hookie, so really, I should just say we woke up on a Sunday morning with a plan to get “stuff” done around the house.

Scott’s plans included mowing and edging, and I headed to the space our neighbors had tilled earlier in the week for our shared garden.  Armed with a shovel and small trowel, I dragged the boys’ wagon full of tomato and pepper plants down the hill.  After checking out what the neighbors had already planted, I got to work.

The garden is far enough from the houses that I felt the joy and solitude that comes from gardening without the bustling sounds of our six busy boys who were playing and working with their dads up the hill--the coolness of the dirt on my hands, the careful planning of rows, the ache from digging holes, the knowledge that I will eventually be rewarded with the fruits (or in this case, vegetables) of my labor.

Growing up in OK, I spent my summers making mud pies out of red clay.  During our six years in Charleston, SC, I learned how to grow oversized crape myrtles and towering tomato plants in dirt that could more accurately be described as sand.  Now, as we are navigating this chapter of life in WA, I am presented with a different kind of ground.  We are situated up in the hills, with a view of the Olympic Mountains, on ground that, as I discovered with my first shovel full of dirt, is filled with rocks.

As I dug out holes for my plants, I had to throw out multiple stones, some smooth and round, some jagged and sharp, most smaller than the palm of my hand.  As I moved down the row, though, I found a few rocks buried deeper that were large--big enough that I had to dig much bigger holes than originally planned to pull them out.

I have always felt God--and I mean that just the way it sounds--in nature.  I can listen to sermons all day long and not feel inspired in anywhere close to the way I am when standing outside.  I see God in the size of the mountains and in the size of a grain of sand, in the movement of hummingbird wings and in the movement of the wind-blown trees, in the sound of crashing thunder and in the sound of sticks snapping under my feet on a walk through the woods.  God is both unreal and real to me in those places, where I am in awe of creation.

As I dug the holes for my plants, hitting rock after rock in the soil, I felt this sudden convicting grace.  At once, the parable of the sower came to mind.  It was one of my favorites when I was little--the story Jesus tells to illustrate how people receive God’s love.  I remember praying to be good ground for God--that whatever God was trying to plant would sprout a hundredfold crop, as the parable reads.  Even as a small child, I knew I was good dirt--that God could plant just about anything in me, that true joy comes in reflecting God’s work in my life.

But as I hit rock after rock, I began to reflect on how the simplicity of that message was somewhat lost in my adult life--this life of responsibility and work and loss and pain.  The garden of my life has not been rich with planting soil for a long time.  Instead, I found myself identifying with a much different piece of ground--the stony place, as Jesus calls it.

There is a surface level of dirt, very much prepared for the blessings and gifts, the dreams and ideas that God wants for me, a level of dirt that I’ve been tilling out of habit because it has to be done, because it’s what I’ve always done, because even with the business of living, I have not lost sight that I need to leave myself open for the seeds that grow into the things that will nourish me.

But.

Under that rich, moist soil is a level of rocks that if left unearthed will strangle the roots of anything reaching deeper to grow, the rocks that will push everything good and right straight back up to be scorched by the sun.

For me, the rocks have these names: pride and envy and selfishness and bitterness and anger and apathy and cruelty.  On the surface level, I believe most people who know me would not describe me as having any of those qualities (or maybe they would, and I am not nearly as self-aware as I think).  But the reality is that some of those rocks are just below the surface--they peek out in my snarky, judgmental comments about the way other people live.  They peek out in the private conversations with my closer confidantes when I expose my prejudices and thoughts of superiority.

With this revelation (as with all personal epiphanies) came a challenge: what am I to do with these rocks now that I’m admitting they are there?  I always have a choice.  In my weakest moments, I tend to pick the rocks up, hold them tightly in my hands, and hurl them at other people.  How often do I hurt others with my rocks, holding on to my pride and selfishness at their expense?

Oddly enough, as a child, I had a rock collection--rocks of every shape and size that I kept in a box under my bed, rocks I’d picked up on different family excursions, everything from trips to the park to family vacations to far-off places.  How funny that I still do that now--sometimes instead of throwing the rocks at people I love, I hoard all my rocks in a box, taking them out to remember the moments I picked up anger and envy, as if keeping them in a box will somehow make them go away.

But there is another choice.  A better choice.  One I will be reminded of every morning when I get up to check on our chickens on the way to water the garden.  

The same day I planted our garden, Scott and I were also working on creating an outdoor space for our chicks who are quickly growing into full-sized chickens.  They are still teenagers, so to speak, so they are not ready to join the laying hens quite yet, but they have certainly outgrown their brooder.  The owners of the house built a goat pen that has fallen into disrepair because it hasn’t been used in a few years.  We spent an hour or so clearing out the weeds and vines that had grown over the tiny house to start converting it into a small coop for our chicks.  In the process of creating this space, I began lining a walkway with rocks that I dug up in the area, some large and some small.  The pathway is meant to create boundaries, a place to walk safely without being scratched by the weeds and blackberry vines that grow rampantly around our property.  The pathway will hopefully make it easier to carry water and food back and forth from the garage to the chicks, as we continue to nurture them to maturity.

Instead of throwing them or hoarding them, I want to build something useful with my rocks.  I want to create boundaries with my apathy, so that I might never forget to care again.  On the other side, I will be guided by my cruelty, so that I will try my best to always be kind.  And each of the stones along the way will remind me that no one else’s feelings should be trumped by my pride, that no one else’s life is worth my envy, that no one else’s opinion is worth ruminating in my anger and bitterness. And so, I want to build this pathway in my life, one lined with all the rocks, large and small, that need to be dug up, lifted out, and exposed for what they are--the things that make me vulnerable and human, the things that must be removed in order for me to be perfect and hallowed ground.