Just Rest

God is Love

2009-03-05T21:34:00.001-10:00

Photo by Amber Iragui

So My friend Amber took this photo a few months back, when we were on our nightly walk to feed the horses down the street. The photo doesn't exactly fit with what I want to say--but it is so lovely that I couldn't resist posting it.

God is love. I am always trying to rearrange my thoughts around this idea, because if God is love, than one can't help but see things differently. If nothing else, the thought helps me back to a place of gratitude, helps me to look for something good again, in the midst of all my struggles.

Sometimes it's harder than others to remember this. Today marked the second week of the flu infestation at our home. Both kids are still sick, my husband is limping along, and I seem to have developed a sinus infection. I've been seeing a naturapathic doctor lately, who has put me on the most vile set of potions--herbal antibiotics and sinus relief. They taste like ear wax, only worse.

Add to this the fact that our disposal has a serious clog--and neither it or nor the dishwasher are working as a result, and last night, a log came crashing through our fireplace door and shattered the glass.

These are just the kinds of problems I was hoping to have, he first week of lent and on auction eve, the day before our house is supposed to pass back into the hands of the bank.

Anyway, I was still in that dark place, trying to figure out how to fix the fireplace door and the dishwasher and disposal, when my neighbor Cory sent a text message, saying, "I still haven't 4got you. Lentil soup in the crock pot." Just this small act of kindness was enough to begin to tug me out of despair.

But before I had a chance to pick up the lentil soup, another neighbor drove up the driveway, with a lovely meal of stirfry and rice and a bag of lemons from her tree. I could not believe that on this day, when I was still so sick, both physically and in my heart, two different neighbors thought to make dinner for us.

So I decided, tentatively, to entertain the possibility that God, might after all, be love. I drove down the hill in the pouring rain to pick up some treats for the girls at the store and it seemed more plausible, although still not entirely convincing in my current mental frame.

In the midst of life that often feels like an endless series of problems to solve, some of the unsolvable, God is Love. He comes to us unexpectedly, through two wonderful meals and some dark chocolate chili covered dried mangoes, through a reassuring phone conversation. Through the hope I feel faintly tonight, that His love, will see me through clogged drains, shattered glass and all the loose ends in our lives that we're still struggling to fit together.

ashes to ashes

2009-02-01T14:58:00.001-10:00

Photo by Amber

Yesterday I did something that I'm probably not supposed to do: I took my friend Ludmilla to a funeral parlor to select an urn for her husband's ashes. Cremation is not generally practiced in the Eastern Orthodox church because we cherish our bodies as images of the divine. We believe that even ever they've been laid in the ground, they still have something good ahead, a soul reunion. Cremation doesn't honor this belief in the same way. Plus, why make things more complicated for God? What an awful lot of work to send him scouting for our precious ashes on the bottom of the Pacific. Not to say He isn't up to the task, but doesn't an earthen burial just keep things simpler?

At any rate, there's the ideal somewhere out there, and there is the reality of parish life, and the choices people have made long before we came to the mission, choices they embrace with all their heart and soul. And all this leads me back to the funeral parlor, with Ludmilla, who didn't have such a hard time picking out the urn after all.

While we were there, the funeral director explained to Ludmilla that she didn't owe a penny for her husband's services. She'd paid into an insurance policy all these years, and now she was in the clear. Ludmilla couldn't believe this gift, after all she'd been through caring for Rolf in his final year.

So we climbed back into the car with Rolph's ashes on Ludmilla's lap. As I backed out of the parking lot, her face was radiant. "The God is merciful" she says, "He takes care of me!" I glance over at her, sitting there, cradling her husband's ashes, and everything falls back into perspective.

It has been an intense few weeks. We have received news that the home we've been living in as caretakers is going to auction on March 6th. The owners have been unable to keep up with the mortgage, and we, like thousands of other Americans, are now living a home that is moving toward an uncertain end. We are just waiting now, not quite sure how concerned we should be about the impending auction in light of how slowly everything is unfolding. We are waiting, I should say, and hoping that it will somehow be possible for us to stay awhile longer. We don't feel done yet.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. In light of all this uncertainty, it helps me to remember how transitory everything is, how every home we've ever inhabited is just a tent after all, this one a little more glorious than the others, still just a temporary dwelling as we ache toward a more permanent home. And it helps to think of Ludmilla, luminous, with Rolf's ashes on her lap, reminding me that everything turns to ash, eventually. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, everything moving toward impossible hope.

how lovely it is to be your guest

2008-11-26T12:11:00.000-10:00

So this is a picture of our current dwelling, although I am always afraid to call it our home, because while we do live here, we're not the owners, we're merely caretakers, biding our time in an uncertain market as we wait to see what happens next. The house has everything we could have hoped for and more. Everything, that is, except for a two-year-lease. Instead, we are on a month-to-month, trying to to be grateful for each day and to not fret about the uncertain future.

One of the most beautiful things about this home is that it has separate guest quarters, or an Ohana. We dream of one day building a church with guest quarters so that folks from the mainland can come here and be refreshed. God is so kind, letting us live here for a time and sending a steady stream of guests so that we can begin to experience some of the realities of our dream before we take the plunge.

But the tenuousness of this home forces me to think about home in a whole new way. This is the place where we lay our heads and read stories to our kids, where we fight and make up, where we sweep and sit quietly before the icons, where I sit now with my laptop and try to make sense of things while a lentil-squash stew simmers in the crock pot. It is the place we have been given for a season, but it is not ours with a period. It is ours, with a comma, for now, as we wait and watch and hope.

Tomorrow, folks from the Mission will gather here for the Akathist of Thanksgiving, a beautiful hymn written by a Russian priest just before he died in a prison camp. One of my favorite lines is:

O Lord, how lovely it is to be Thy guest. Breeze full of scents; mountains reaching to the skies; waters like boundless mirrors, reflecting the sun's golden rays and the scudding clouds. All nature murmurs mysteriously, breathing the depth of tenderness. Birds and beasts of the forest bear the imprint of Thy love. Blessed art thou, mother earth, in thy fleeting loveliness, which wakens our yearning for happiness that will last for ever, in the land where, amid beauty that grows not old, the cry rings out: Alleluia!

We have been in Hawaii for almost a year now, and we're yet to lose the sense of being mysteriously hosted. We have been cared for in all sorts of ways that I could not have anticipated. But the deal with the house is not unlike the deal we've had to make with Hawaii and life generally. We are guests, for a time, and we do not know how long that time will be.

In the mornings, I love to open the front door and watch the sun rise over Hualalai, Hawaii's third most active volcano. There is no lava flowing now, but it is expected to erupt sometime within the next hundred years. I have heard that Hawaii is also the tsunami capital of the world, and we do have hundreds of earthquakes a week, although most are undetectable. We live on the newest land in the world, and it is, in fact, still being formed.

The lack of stability here, the fearful possibilities, and the otherworldly beauty, force a continual awakening in me. One of the newest members of our mission is also one of the oldest, pushing ninety. After his wife died this summer, he packed up and moved out here on his own. When people questioned why he would move to Hawaii so near the end of of his life, he told them that Hawaii is a wonderful place "to practice for paradise."

So as we approach Thanksgiving, I am grateful for this home that isn't really ours, but has been entrusted to us for a time, and for this island where it is so lovely to be a guest, and such a natural place to practice for life in the next.

Glory to Thee, bringing from the depth of the earth an endless variety of colours, tastes and scents
Glory to Thee for the warmth and tenderness of the world of nature
Glory to Thee for the numberless creatures around us
Glory to Thee for the depths of Thy wisdom, the whole world a living sign of it
Glory to Thee; on my knees, I kiss the traces of Thine unseen hand
Glory to Thee, enlightening us with the clearness of eternal life
Glory to Thee for the hope of the unutterable, imperishable beauty of immortality
Glory to Thee, O God, from age to age.

homesick

2008-11-04T23:18:00.001-10:00

Photo borrowed from Amber's flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/ambery/

So I know I need to blog again, but I've been struggling over what to write, especially because this has been a lonely month. I keep resisting the temptation to put "Jenny is lonely" for my facebook status update. I mean, how pathetic is that? But if I'm to revisit this blog, I might as well lay all my cards on the table at the outset.

October was unusual, because in a short span of time I was able to travel back to New York with my two kids and hold my godson Ike as he was baptized, visit with my mentor from seminary, and stay with my children's great-grandfather, Warren. Because we lived in New York for three years and because Anna was born there, It an was emotionally intense time.

I can't describe what it was like to hold Amber's son Ike in my arms, to gaze on the Hudson from Warren's windows, to watch the train rumble in from the City, and to drive through the autumn leaves to visit my seminary mentor with Amber. I hate to say it, but I was even kind of pleased when she got lost on the way home, except for that it was my fault, our gas tank was nearly empty and I was a little worried she wasn't going to like me anymore. Still, in my hearts of hearts, I wished we could stay lost as long as possible, because as soon as we got back to Warren's apartment, we'd have to say goodbye.

Every experience in New York was tinged with sadness. Seven years ago, from that same window overlooking the Hudson, I watched the billowing smoke rise from the Twin Towers and realized that I could never really feel safe again. In that same apartment with the gorgeous view, we began to lose John's spunky grandmother Sally as Alzheimer's took hold. All this to say, I don't want to go back and relive it all, and yet I can't help but ache for the experiences that I will never have again: Sally and Warren holding Anna the morning she was born--four generations piled into that hospital room in White Plains, or later, when Anna was a newborn and I was trying to figure out how to be a mom, the reassuring presence of Amber folding her laundry beside me, so casual, as if the mundane would always be available for us to share.

After I got back to Kona, six house guests arrived: more close friends from seminary Fr. John and Jenny Hainsworth, their three kids and our friend Heather. It is unfortunate Fr. John and Jenny stole our names and then escaped over the Canadian border, and also that they also serve an Orthodox parish on an island, but we have chosen to forgive them. My husband and Fr. John were ordained two days apart. My husband stood up with Fr. John as a deacon, and issued a most tenuous "Axios?" after Fr. Paul poked his head out of the royal doors and cued him, "Axios!"

Anyway, while they were here it was like a continual feast. We had wonderful meals, all ten of us, consumed copious amounts of coffee, and assembled at the fire pit every night after the kids were tucked in to talk story and drink wine. One night we saw a series of shooting stars, although I saw more than the others and called them bimbos, which they all seemed to appreciate.

Of course when they were here, everything seemed oddly hilarious. I'm still chuckling over their final trademark departure when Fr. John said, "Goodbye beautiful house, of course it is only beautiful because of the people who live in it," while Jenny barfed into an imaginary barf bag.

All these October encounters caused this odd emotional response in me. I hope somebody else has experienced this, because maybe they can help me understand it a little. Basically, I long for every place I have lived, every person I have come to love in each place, all at the same time. Does this happen to everyone who moves a lot? Is this some kind of scattered personality disorder?

Tonight, watching Barack Obama's acceptance speech in Grant Park, I missed Hyde Park, the neighborhood where we both lived for all those years. I wish I could have heard all the honking horns as he left his home for the park, I wish I could have watched history unfold there as all of my old neighbors undoubtedly did. Just to express the depth of my wistfulness, I actually felt a little sad for Barack that he will have to leave that unique neighborhood to take up residence at the White House. I say this because I know what it is like to leave, and how you can never have it back, no matter where you live.

I really miss living in a building from 1894, the high ceilings, the yard, the neighbors, especially Joan and Marji, Ser and Dina. I miss the seasons: the crunch of leaves under my feet, waking in the middle of the night to glimpse the first snow of the season. I even missed the steamy summers, because they helped me thaw out from the winters. And of course, I missed a lot of opportunities I didn't seize, such as a chance to trick-or-treat with Obama's family last Halloween.

Hawaii has been better than I could have hoped for in almost every way. I love the community we serve. I love walking on our windy mountain road, smelling the coffee trees and the gauva, waking to the sound of roosters and cattle and birdsong. But all this beauty doesn't make me miss people less. I think, perhaps, the openness required to experience it all only intensifies the ache, and reminds me how far I have to go to make a home here.

Perhaps, on some level, I am grieving. Almost one year into this adventure, I am finally counting the cost, looking up at the lopsided moon (we are so close to the equator here that we don't see a crescent, but a smile) and realizing how far away I am from all that I have known and from many of the people I love most.

In a new place--even a year into it--there is always the sense that you have to prove yourself. People don't know your history yet, so they watch and wait. I'm sure this is especially the case for clergy families. One of the biggest difficulties for me, silly as it sounds, is that I make a lot of jokes that people don't get--they don't even seem to realize that I'm trying to be funny. I really miss the fluidity of old friends who are always ready to receive a joke.

This ache seems to leave me with a few options: I can update my facebook status 12 times a day and check my email at least twice that, or perhaps I can begin to be present in a deeper way to the people right around me, to start to know them and to let them know me.

Anyway, the roosters are crowing, a good clue that I've been up too late already. Tomorrow my new friend Viviana will be here to help me weed. She tells me that weeding is therapeutic, that only the Japanese on this island get it right. Maybe all that weeding will help me as I struggle to put down my own roots, right here, in this volcanic soil.

tears and transfiguration

2008-08-11T12:18:00.000-10:00

Last Wednesday morning, as I woke to the pale sun coming up over the mountains, I realized that more than 3,000 miles away, Caroline Kennedy was being buried by the people at St. Nicholas Parish in Portland. How fitting, it seemed, that Caroline's funeral would fall on the feast of the Transfiguration.

Caroline was a magnificent planner in all regards. She wore elegant hats to the services and did not neglect to coordinate them with her husband's bow ties. When she and Alex had us for tea, everything was artfully arranged--there were the crustless cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches, real tea, pungent and earthy, poured from a fine tea pot into delicate china glasses that jingled on the saucers. She and Alex were gracious and warm and put us at ease. They were also pillars of the community at St. Nicholas and Caroline's death created a gap that no one else could fill.

It grieved me, that morning, to be so far away and to miss her funeral. But during those first moments of the day, when I was lingering at the edge of sleep, as I lifted my head from the pillow and saw the green mountains against the pink sky, I didn't feel so far away. I felt like I was "there" for just a few moments, an experience that is both sweet and odd and seems to occur more often around funerals.

It was also Anna's first day of first grade, which seemed another genius stroke of planning. What better day for her to start "real school"? Because it was the feast of Transfiguration, I didn't just have to remember Anna's medical forms, vaccination records, emergency supply kit--complete with flashlight, non-perishables and a family photo and note--as well as her backpack filled with her sharp new pencils, unused erasers, squeaky clean tennis shoes, socks and lunch and snacks, but, also, just as I was headed out the door with Anna and her heavy backpack, we stopped to gather our fruit into a basket: mangoes, papayas and limes.

As I drove up the winding road to the school, a teacher was waiting for me. She leaned in my window. "How are you this morning?" she said, smiling at me despite the cars behind me. She showed me where to park. Then Anna and Natalie and I walked up the hill, where the assistant principal greeted us, followed by another teacher, with a camera. "Would you like me to take a picture?" she asked.

I was glad that the teacher wanted to take a photo because Anna was not very cooperative with my attempts to capture her on film. In fact, she seemed downright embarrassed by my camera, which caught me off guard. Just a few weeks back, it I was was still pretty much the center of her universe, but that morning, I was a liability. She was ready for this and she wanted to face it on her own, without the cumbersome distractions of the mama paparazzi.

Her school is a small charter with an emphasis on project-based learning. The classrooms, which were designed and built by the teachers and parents are like small houses, dotting a lush field surrounded by Hawaiian gardens that the kids tend. Anna's room as a huge lanai for stories and cubbies, just ten feet from a gate where cows graze and moo. She's also a stone's throw from a "butterfly house" teeming with tropical flowers.

Here is Anna beside her cubby, on that first day:

The moment Anna stepped into the classroom, she was focused on the teacher, eager to see what would happen next. She didn't even glance back as I stood in the doorway with the other moms, which was a good thing, because tears were streaming down my cheeks and I couldn't do a thing about it.

Fortunately my cell phone rang. It was John, who was already at the church but had run out of wine. So I was pulled back to the feast, with all its concrete, earthy details. I rushed home for the wine and corkscrew, and then headed back up the mountain to the church.

Just a few of us were at that service, and Natalie was terribly out of sorts after seeing her sister off to school, so I was a little distracted. But by some grace I did get to hear the sermon and it was a good one. John said that Transfiguration is the day that the Glory of God shone through Christ, but only to the extent that the disciples could bear it. He said that God is so kind that way, just showing us a little bit of himself at a time so we won't fall down dead from his fierce glory. But, he said, this day is also a challenge to open ourselves a bit more, to carve out a more space each day so that we can increase our capacity to bear and reflect this light.

And then, he sprinkled holy water on our little baskets of fruit, the humble offerings of a fledgling community, picked from the imperfect trees on a small island in the middle of a vast ocean, barely visible on most globes. He reminded us that this custom comes from agricultural societies, where the farmers had been nurturing seeds for months, praying and laboring for a good crop. This was the day that the hope bore visible fruit that everyone could see and celebrate. And this year, for us, it was the day that our own first fruit started first grade, and also the day that our old friend, Caroline Kennedy was laid in the ground to await her own transfiguration.

fear of death

2008-07-11T20:14:00.000-10:00

Natalie, at 19 months is determined to swim on her own. She fights my hold on her, kicks, flails her arms, and she imagines that she will swim just like Anna. And yet the moment I let go, she sinks. I watch her body slip just below the surface of the water, and then I grab her, and she comes up sputtering, elated, ready to try again, wriggling out of my hold.

After an hour of this, I was exhausted. I brought the kids up to the house and cooked some alphabet pasta. Then we cut open a mango and munched on some berries and yogurt. Both the kids were water weary and I knew we needed an early bedtime, but then John called from the gallery he was working at and asked if I wanted to go out to eat with some friends.

I told him no, I wasn't hungry and the kids needed an early bedtime. He told me that he was very hungry and I promised to make him some Indian food when he got home. By Indian food, I meant a package of Amy's Natural Palak Paneer. Because I buy these at Costco and he'd already had a few this week, he was none too eager for my offering.

The battery on my phone had died, so our "chat" took place on Gmail, and that last I heard from him, he had said, "I'm coming home soon." If you were to sit him down he would tell another version of the story in which he said he would be home at seven. But I digress.

Our conversation took place at 5:39. He was about 15 minutes up the mountain, so I had no reason to believe he'd be home any later than 6. But 6 came and went and he still wasn't here. I contemplated how windy and perilous those roads are. I loaded the dishwasher, folded laundry, wiped down the table and crawled around on the rug picking up small plastic beads from Anna's most recent project. It was 6:45 and John still wasn't there. I tried to remain calm, but this just didn't make sense.

I called his phone, and got a message. That fit well with my growing theory that he'd been a wreck. Of course he couldn't pick up the phone if he was unconscious. It was now seven. I decided I might as well go out on the lanai and eat his Indian food. I watched the sun set over the ocean, listened to the birds calling to each other from the palm trees and thought of how much more enjoyable the sunset would be if he was with me.

Where was he? I thought perhaps it was time to call the police, but I would have to wait for Anna to fall asleep, as she would surely be alarmed by the questions I would ask. I wondered where I should bury him--Hawaii seemed fitting, as he is blossoming here. And yet, if he were to die, why would I stay? My purpose here is tied to him. I guess I'd be wiser to box him up and ship him back to Minnesota, where we could tend the grave. It occurred to me that I would also have to update my Facebook profile, from "married" to "widow."

And then I thought of how sad it would be to tell the folks at the mission, who have waited so long for a priest, that their priest was no more. In particular I thought of an elderly woman who told me on Sunday that she is relieved that John will be able to do her husband's funeral, when the day comes. What would I tell her?

Now on the bright side of things, we could just put this whole Ph.D. business behind us. What a headache that has been! And yet, I don't want to give up any part of this life of ours, I want to be right where I am living this life, with this man--and where, or where is he?

Finally Anna called out, "Dad's here." John came up the stairs. Relief turned to rage. "Where were you?" He countered that he said he'd be home at seven, that I had said that I wasn't planning on a family meal. "But I said I would cook Indian Food for you," I said. "But I didn't want another meal out of box," he said.

Now I was seething. "The last thing I expected, when you returned from the grave, was that you would insult my cooking!"

"Next time I come back from the dead," he said, "I'll try to accentuate the positive."

And then, I heard a soft knocking at the door. I looked out the window and saw a plumeria lei hung over the rail. I opened the door, and there was our houseguest, a cave dweller from Maui. Our squabble would have to wait.

"What's with the lei?" I said. "Well, I wasn't sure you would want it, so I left it outside," he said.

"I would love a lei," I said, bringing it into our home and placing it before the icons, a fragile circle of flowers around the lampada, catching the light and holding it there.

goodbye Hyde Park

2008-06-03T05:38:00.001-10:00

As I write, I'm surrounded by half-packed boxes of books and the chaos of our dismantled home. Where there were photos, there are only empty nails. Friends come through the house, sizing up our furniture to see what will fit in their home. Freda has been adopted out, half-used medicines left in a plastic bag outside my neighbor's door. Each time a friend comes to take something else off our hands, I am both relieved and grieved--I want all that we have to be used and loved, and yet it feels so strange that it won't be used by us. As friends struggle out the door with our sofa and bookshelves I want to call after them, "We're not dead yet."

And yet this does feel so like dying. But the death now creates a way to the new life to come. It is as inescapable as the meal-less flight and the luggage and the juggling of children and shoes and laptops at the airport security checkpoints. None of this is pleasant, yet all of it is leading toward something good.

Being back in Hyde Park has been more emotional than I expected. When I was in Kona, I could barely feel anything for this place that we'd lived for five years. I could scarcely convince myself that a place so different actually existed. When Chicago friends would send photos of the snow-covered fire escapes I would look out my own window at the blue Pacific and waving palm trees and try to remember what it was like to nest in for the winter, the hum of the radiators, sipping coffee in the glider before my icons as the snow fell outside, the windows rattling against the howling wind.

It is strange being here in all sorts of ways I could not have anticipated. First comes the realization of what we had here, as I walk with my kids and bump into friends at every turn. Dare I generalize and say that most everyone is Hyde Park is interesting? A friend here shows me her husband's office, his photos of Mars and the blue light of a nuclear reaction. She gestures casually at the blue photo, saying, "If you're familiar with Nuclear Physics, you'll know what that is."

And it was, ultimately, the engaging conversations and friendships here that kept us afloat through the challenges of the early part of John's Ph.D. program. It was a gift, also, to mother my children in this context, and coming back I realize that so many of my early memories of Anna only become available as I meander along the sidewalk here.

Yesterday Anna begged to ride her scooter to the botany pond on the University of Chicago campus. There, so many memories surfaced. We came here for a summer when I was pregnant with her, and then moved here when she was less than a year. I can see her tottering down these streets here, stopping to examine every discarded bottle top and candy wrapper, forcing me to see the world in a whole new way.

When my friend Ser was here the other week, she said something that expressed some of what I felt on my bittersweet return to Hyde Park. She said, "It was here that we were birthed into motherhood." Hyde Park was a place of so many beginnings for me, as a mom, as a writer, as the wife of a new priest. Some of it was so painful, so far from what I expected or imagined, and yet now I see clearly--it was all gift, all of it.

And the other day, at Bonjour bakery, while munching on a chocolate-covered strawberry, Anna lost her second tooth. None of this seemed accidental, especially as I contemplate all the pieces of her childhood spent here. How right that she lost her first in Kona, her second in Hyde Park.

There will always be a little bit of the child Anna in both places. So on our last night together in Hyde Park John and I snuck out and buried that second tooth in the back yard. As we buried it we thanked God for all that had come to pass in this place and asked for all good things for our neighbors and for our years ahead in Kona, and we thanked God for this tooth, and for our beginnings as parents which will always be buried here.

that was then . . . this is now

2008-04-18T18:55:00.001-10:00

One of Anna's best friends from Chicago came to visit. Anna and Haru haven't seen each other since they were three, but they've known each other since before they could walk. Although both are intense in their own way, they got on beautifully, as they did when they were tiny.

Haru still talks about the day they went sledding and laughed so hard that he began to cry, and both reminisce about the strange event that marked Haru's departure from Chicago--a huge rainbow over Midway airport, something I had never seen before and have never seen since.

When we met Haru and his parents at the airport, I was shocked by how old and lean he had become, by his changed voice and the way he expressed himself, casually mentioning his ex-girlfriends, for example. Anna and Haru refused to look at each other for the first five minutes at the luggage claim, but then, in the back of our rented minivan, they started to exchange suspicious glances. Anna broke the ice when she showed Haru the Praying Mantus she'd brought in her bug box.

From that point forward, the two were giggling and playing as if three years had not elapsed since their last encounter. They shared a bed in the loft both nights, and the first night, after they'd slipped under the blanket I asked Haru if he sleeps with a stuffed animal. "I collect them, but I don't usually sleep with them." he said, "But, I could use one tonight," he said.

"They still relate like an old married couple," Nobu (Haru's mom) said. And they did, each tolerant of (most) of the other's foibles, each thinking the other person's jokes were hilarious, and also scheming together against the rest of the world, in this case, against us grown-ups.

When we hiked to the lava tube, they even managed to share a hiking stick, at least until Haru was able to convince Anna that there are some things you just can't share. To be fair, there was one blow-up over a cocoa bean pod and Anna's attempt to appropriate it from Haru, but otherwise, they were like two peas in a pod.

We took Haru, Nobu and Alexi to see the flowing lava. When we finally arrived at the viewing area after our perilous walk over the lava fields, Anna glanced into the view finder on her camera, and then I heard a loud sigh. "My batteries are all used up," she said, her voice rising to a teary whine. "I need new batteries. Now." I looked around at the black lava on all sides, the streams of red flowing into the ocean and said, as calmly as I could, "You know, they don't actually sell batteries here."

But there was no stopping Anna's trajectory. She wanted photos and she wanted them badly. I tried to focus on the red rivers flowing into the ocean, the furious waves lapping the lava up, the sparks and shifting light and bright lava ridges. But Anna relentlessly tugged at my leg. "I need batteries," she reminded me. Haru unzipped his camera case, "Anna, you could use my extra ones," he said, handing his to her. And sure enough he had two extras, exactly the right size, which we slipped into Anna's camera, one more disaster averted.

But then Haru started getting agitated as he gazed through his camera. "How do you take a picture of lava?" he said. "All I can see are red dots. Just red dots." I wanted to take the two kids and shake them by the shoulders and say, "Have you ever considered just LOOKING at it? When did you two become the lava paparatizi?" But no matter. As I tried to focus on the site before me, Haru's frustration continued to mount as he rotated the camera for a better view. Finally, he sighed, "I'll just have to take them with my mind."

On the way back to the car, Haru held Anna's hand. And then he turned to me. "Gosh, Anna has changed so much," he said. He studied her in the gathering darkness. "Her hair is much longer, and her voice is different. And she's . . . taller." I glanced over at Anna who shook her head slowly, taking care to swing her long locks, clearly pleased that her old buddy had noticed. "Haru, you've changed much more than I have," she said, smiling shyly back at him.

so it flows

2008-03-18T18:01:00.000-10:00

My mom said it best, "For Natalie," she said, "Life is a bowl of cherries." Natalie continues to explore life with great eagerness and enthusiasm, if not grace. These days, every time I turn around she has climbed onto the kitchen table, and is standing there with a marker in one hand and paper in the other. She can now "draw" for long stretches and I take great comfort in the fact that she relishes at least one quiet activity.

Last week we went to see the lava flowing. Natalie was on my back, and Anna and Hayden and Amy and I had to carefully walk over cool, crusty jagged lava for about 100 yards. It was a harrowing walk, as lava is made of 50% silica and it really, really hurts when you fall. We arrived at dusk, so we had to trust our flashlights and follow a makeshift trail of orange dashes to get to the ocean.

Once there, we watched a river of orange pour into the water, hitting with great force and hissing. The lava was constantly changing and swirling in unexpected ways. It had already consumed a subdivision and forest before we got here, and it was contently munching on the road when we arrived.

As we walked back to the car we looked back and there was a curving trail of white flashlights as others made their perilous way over the lava to get to the viewing area. It struck me that these onlookers looked like they were in a paschal procession, headed toward the lava, toward a glimpse of creation.

On the way home we listened to one of my favorite CDs, a Hawaiian singer named IZ. Before one of his songs he talked about how he doesn't really fear for his own death because "In Hawaii, we live in both worlds, we live on both sides." And watching that river of red flowing into the sea against the inky, smoke filled sky, I think I had a feel for what he meant.

Life here does feel fragile, precious, perilous. The earth is literally shifting and recreating itself beneath our feet. There are small tremors every night, which I never feel, but I accept the reality that nothing is quite as stable as I imagined, that creation and destruction come together sometimes, and that even the dark, gloomy lava breaks down into fertile soil over time, that what appears as death ultimately disintegrates into life, lush and surprising and fragrant. This is not a bad thing to see and feel beneath my feet, not bad at all, as we head into lent, on this perilous journey through death to life.

errands

2008-02-21T22:52:00.001-10:00

Photo by Amber--I'm with Natalie, my fearless traveling companion, on a black sand beach. You can't see it in the photo, but there is huge sea turtle lounging on the sand just behind me.

I keep going back to an article in The Sun Magazine (December, 2007)by Heather Sellers, reflecting on her writing mentor, English professor Jerry Stern, who used to send her out on "errands," such as picking up a visiting writer from the airport or a book at the library. According to Jerry, these mundane tasks were an opportunity for awakening if you pay attention.

"He sent me on errands, and when I returned, he wanted to know, he needed to know: 'What did you notice? What was interesting?' He taught me that all writers are essentially travel writers. The trip hadn't really taken place until you'd found a story in it and told it. Only after shaping the trip into a narrative could you honestly say 'I'm back.'"

I love the idea of "errands" especially here in my new context, where I feel that thousands of stones remain unturned. And how I relish the project of turning them!

Heather Sellers also has some wonderful words about teaching and writing and living, which made me think of my friend Rachel, an amazing teacher in her own right.

"This is what we forget as teachers: how close the poor student often is to doing good work, and how great the distance feels to her between who she is and who she could be. We forget how painful it is to be between selves; how all of us, always, are between selves, and it is in that desolate gap that everything true and useful is happening."

What a hopeful idea. And I think it is hope, ultimately, that Jerry Stern offered his students. He offered them a reason to keep going deeper into the experience, with heart and eyes wide open. And it was this idea, especially, that helped Heather Sellers survive her first major depression:

"Burrow into what's interesting--in you, and in everyone else. Every moment on the planet has juice to yield. Everything is interesting if you truly want to know about it. Staying awake to that was the key to staying alive."

the healing island

2008-02-19T20:22:00.000-10:00

Photo by Amber

I got a Valentine's Day pedicure: my nails are deep red with a rhinestone heart. Perhaps you're cringing at this description, as I certainly would if I was back on the mainland, but celebratory toes seem to make sense in this context, as do those crazy Hawaiian shirts, sea turtle decals, and hair clips adorned with plastic plumeria.

At the nail salon, I saw television coverage of the school shootings outside of Chicago. My heart broke as I heard the students talk about what they saw and experienced, and then, on the bottom of the screen I saw an additional news update. Did you know that there is a bus-sized satellite that has fallen out of orbit and is on a crash course with the earth? The U.S. is planning to shoot it down, apparently, because it also happens to be full of toxic chemicals.

So I was watching this school shooting with horror, and contemplating the likelihood that the satellite will land in the Pacific and cause a tsunami on the Kona coast, as a kind Korean woman gingerly applied rhinestones to my big toe. She said, "Be careful of these rhinestones. Sometimes they fall off."

I just nodded at her at the strangeness of it all, the impossibility of worrying about rhinestones, all things considered. And then on the way home, we saw two whales in the ocean. I have not seen whales since the day Amber and Charles married. So there seemed to me something cosmic in this as well. If nothing else it was a chance to reawaken to wonder despite all the horrors of our world.

We watched the whales with Anna and Natalie, and I thought about the school shootings and I wondered if I'd spent enough time that day kicking around with my kids, playing with them in the way they crave, awake to their fleeting beauty.

That night we dined with Fr. John's close friends who live two hours away on the other side of the island, but just happened to have chosen the same restaurant as we did, Sushi Shino, and planned to dine at the same time. So we sipped warm saki out of tiny ceramic cups and shared large platters of sushi and wondered why, if the U.S. is planning to take this renegade satellite out, they haven't gotten around to it yet?

It seems these kinds of coincidences happen a lot here in Hawaii. I'm always bumping into people I know and being helped by strangers in all sorts of surprising ways. Just the other day I walked a mile on a lava field to the beach, but realized that I couldn't make it all the way back in the blazing sun with Natalie on my back. I started walking and praying for a safe person to stop and offer a ride.

After a few cars passed a big white truck slowed, and the driver called out to me. I turned around and she was waving Natalie's hat, which had fallen off several bends back, but I hadn't noticed. Anyone who would rescue a baby's hat and search for the owner seemed like a safe enough bet.

So I could call these things coincidences or providence or chance, but whatever they are, I find them reassuring, especially as I struggle to get my bearings in this new setting. When I told someone from our church about our Valentine's Day coincidence and how these things seem to happen more often here, He said, "If you asked a Hawaiian priest about that, he would tell you that that is because this island is the newest land in the world, and the spirit of the Creator still hovers close."

Sometimes I think I know just what he means.

another day in paradise

2008-02-01T22:23:00.000-10:00

Photo by Amber--I made her take this one shortly after she arrived because I was so tickled by the drive-through serve-yourself lei stand--perfect for moms on the go!

Most of my blog posts read like propaganda for The Big Island. Forgive me. Lately I've been through a rough patch which could help balance some of the more glowing posts.

Sometimes it seems like one "off" moment leads to several more--like you can almost feel the moment of derailment and you just grip your seat (and grit your teeth) for the rest of the ride, knowing that it can only get worse. So it all began last night when I was walking beside the ocean on Kona's main street with Natalie on my back and Anna beside me and somebody yelled out of their car, "Your babies are ugly!"

I was already in a bit of a funk, so the comment only served to further boost my spirits. And then there was the night--Natalie woke at least every two hours. I was like a zombie trying to tend to her, to quiet her, tiptoeing as to not disturb my downstairs neighbors.

In one of the sweet, brief respites from Natalie's cries, I was asleep in my cozy bed, dreaming of weaned offspring, and my cellphone rang. Because it was three a.m. I was alarmed. But there was no human on the other end, just a message to the effect of: "Call the job line, call the job line, city, state, jobs, call, call, call the job line. Thank you!"

So this morning began, as many others have as of late, with me suffering from a severe case of SMOP. That's Sudden Morning Onset Paralysis, for the uninitiated out there. When my SMOP is acute, I can barely move, I'm so tired, I just sit there sulking into my cup of coffee, wondering what went wrong with everything in the universe.

I somehow got Anna ready for school while Natalie emptied the contents of my wallet onto the floor. As I rushed out the door, I scooped up my credit cards and cash and jammed them back into my purse.

After I dropped Anna off, I decided to stop by the Toyota dealership to inquire about the check engine light, which had been steadily on since yesterday, evoking dread every time I turned on the car. They were able to take my car immediately, and asked me to wait for the shuttle to take me to Enterprise. The courtesy shuttle seemed to have vanished, though (No thank you for that). So I decided to hike to Enterprise which was only a few blocks away, but the blocks were long and hot with Natalie in my arms.

I managed to get lost on the short walk, and when someone finally explained to me where to go, I arrived a the bottom of a cliff and could see Enterprise on the top. There was a handy staircase, but it was gated at both the top and bottom (no walking allowed around here!) so I was forced to climb all the way around and follow the curving road up. When I finally got to Enterprise I discovered that my driver's license was gone, and then had visions of Natalie's morning project.

So there I was at Enterprise, having surrendered my own car and unable to rent one. Fortunately my parents were still here (for just a few hours) so my dad came and got me. I was weepy by that point and had already thrown my cellphone at the ground in a temper.

Shortly after I got home, I discovered my driver's license in my wallet (surprise). So my sweet father drove back to get me. He had several packages to post so I offered to take them into the post office. But the packages were heavy and cumbersome and when I got to the doors they both said "PULL." I stared at the doors and thought to myself "Where is that aloha spirit when you need it?" Suddenly a man inside spotted me and rushed to open the doors for me. He said, "Have a blessed day."

So I posted the packages, rented the car, took my family to the airport, picked up Anna from school and then got word that my car was ready. Just as I pulled into Enterprise, I checked the back seat. I saw something small and shimmering in the crack between the seats, ran my hands along it, and discovered a diamond ring with three stones!

So I took my find into Enterprise and they said they'd call the clients who'd rented the car before me. I called my mom to tell her the news and she said, "You really cleaned up!" I was shocked by her suggestion. "Well I didn't keep it," I said.
"I mean, you were cleaning, it's the cleaning part that impressed me," she said. "By the way, I just wanted to tell you that your dad has lost his driver's license."

So anyway, I guess it's genetic. I'm missing the critical gene that keeps track of things like keys and driver's licenses and cell phones. And then tonight, the grand finally to this most unusual day was that Anna lost her first tooth. I took the garbage out and came back to her and her buddy Reese jumping in the kitchen. Anna showed me the tooth--bloody on one end--with pride. And then she wrapped her arms around my waist and leaned into me.

I couldn't believe how perfect that tooth was, how small and sweet and white. And I can't believe that that tooth, which began to form when she was still in my womb-- that tooth I worried and sweat over and urged her to brush--is now waiting in a gold jewelry box beside her bed, waiting for the tooth fairy to claim it, waiting for me to come back in and linger a little longer over my baby, a little less baby with each passing day.

Refuse to Fall Down

2008-01-31T20:31:00.000-10:00

"Refuse to fall down. If you cannot refuse to fall down, refuse to stay down. Lift your heart toward heaven like a hungry beggar, ask that it be filled and it will be filled. You may be pushed down. You may be kept from rising. But no one can keep you from lifting your heart toward heaven-only you. It is in the middle of misery that so much becomes clear. The one who says nothing good came of this is not yet listening.”

--Clarissa Pinkola Estes

wedding hilights

2008-01-28T13:06:00.000-10:00

A mini-photo essay for far-away friends and family:

Bride-to-be selects most unusual breakfast food.

Last minute details: groom, flower girl and gramps collecting petals.

The Dance of Isaiah.

Bride chokes on common cup. Fr. John says (just in case anyone hadn't noticed) "Are you choking? Do you need more wine?" Evoking still more giggles.

Awesome Cake!

wedded to amazement

2008-01-27T07:56:00.000-10:00

Yesterday I saw my first whale. I've been watching for one since December, because I've heard they come in close to the shore to give birth this time of year. So for weeks I've been standing out on the lanai, scanning the ocean, waiting.

So yesterday I stepped out on the lanai, and saw a small fountain mid-sea. Because I'd just been to the volcano yesterday, I was a little confused about how to read this and I thought to myself, "How strange--a mid-sea steam vent!" Slowly it dawned on me that it was actually a whale. "Amber, Charles," I said, "Get out here!"

Together, we watched the whale spurt and swim. It was remarkable to finally spot a whale, more remarkable to see it first with Amber and Charles, just a few hours after they'd been wed at the mission here in Kona.

There is so much to say about the experience of wedding Amber and Charles, the inexpressible joy of seeing one of the people I love most in this world enter into a fresh season. I could not resist the happy temptation of telling her at least a few times over the course of the last few days, "I told you so," meaning, I knew all along that she was going to find her way into the life she dreamed of, that her courage and honesty and searching love would not fail her.

And there was something so beautiful about coming to know Charles more deeply. We'd only met him once before, but over the past few days, he became family. This wedding was marked by so many casual graces, such a sense of spontaneity and joy. Amber and Charles didn't sweat any of the small things, they didn't plan much, they stayed focused on what was real--beginning their new life together.

When they arrived, Charles pulled a creased piece of paper out of his pocket. He said, "I was thinking perhaps we could go out for a nice meal after the wedding. Here are a few restaurants that could work."

Keep in mind, this was Wednesday, and they were to be married in four days. I took them directly from the airport to check out a few churches and they selected ours on the spot. I took them up to a cafe in Holualoa, an artsy little mountain town, and they checked out the outdoor tables and menu, "Yes," they said, "This is perfect."

On the eve of their wedding, after we'd visited the sea turtles at the black sand beach, hiked a lava tube and relaxed by the fire at Volcano house, we came home tired.

We snacked on the spiky, lovable fruit rambuton, and pulled lime soaked breadfruit from it's humble green shell and Charles suggested I read Anna's story to everyone. So I read a chapter from a Wind in the Door. Charles was on his laptop on the sofa and Amber fell asleep leaning on his shoulder, and Anna fell asleep leaning on Amber.

And for me, it was just about perfect, all of it. What joy it was to witness the God of hope at work in two lives coming together after many years of struggle. I think of a quote from Mary Oliver, and I think of Amber and Charles and how they perfected the art of the aloha wedding. I, too must stay focused on what is real, to not fritter my life away on details.

When it's over, I want to say: All my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

powered by optimism

2008-01-21T16:27:00.001-10:00

The first people you meet in any place can have a dramatic and lasting impression on your overall experience there. Within our first few days, we met a couple, Bruce and Leigh, and their 5-year-old daughter Reese.

Bruce was brought over to the islands by Wal-Mart, as a manager, to help establish new stores. His impression of life here is quite positive, and it was exactly what we needed to hear in our first few days, when we were dazed and confused. I asked him about the things I'd feared for awhile. What about roaches, centipedes, Vog? What about crime, drugs and the public schools?

To each of my fears, he offered some kind of positive antidote. For example, about the roaches, he told me that they do exterminate here, but, should I see one, I could just apply some chemical to my home, leave and voila! No more roaches. About the Vog
(a volcanic smog generated when the lava hits the ocean) we're just too close to the ocean to be bothered by it. Centipedes? You'd have to be out barefoot and careless, or flipping over rocks to get bit. As for crime, he told me, there is almost no gun crime on the island, and his daughter is thriving at the local public school.

Now I believe his impressions are based on real experience, but I also think perceptions help shape experiences. You have to have the eyes to see what is good around you--and an ability to receive every good thing with hands and eyes open wide.

Perhaps you also need a wide view so that you don't fixate (as I sometimes do) on things like roaches, centipedes, or the fact that you currently live amongst ancient Hawaiian burial grounds, in a tsunami evacuation zone and and at the base of a volcano that is expected to erupt at an unknown time. But I digress . . .

Over a year ago, Bruce was hit by a car when he was on his motorcycle. The car smashed him against a stone wall, breaking more than 30 bones and nearly killing him. The doctors were so unsure that he would survive that they didn't set his arm or shoulder. His heart stopped three times.

And Bruce, who was a manager at Wal-Mart and both a father and grandfather, lost most of his memory, his ability to walk and communicate and work. But you should hear him talk about the accident--there's no despair in his voice. In fact, he feels the timing was just about right, if that sort of thing had to happen.

He'd recently sold his home at a profit when the market was good, and he'd put money into savings and moved into a rental. The savings has helped the family to pull through while they await the final settlement.

His wife tells me that they never let him feel sorry for himself--not even for a moment. Now he's walking, talking and swimming. There are gaps in his memory but he accepts that as part of the bargain. He is alive to watch his children and grandchildren grow. It is a fine, fine bargain, considering the alternative.

And he has a job now too, against the wishes of his doctor. He's a cruise ship greeter for the Hard Rock Cafe. When the ships come in, he rises early, goes down to the cafe, cuts up some pineapple and walks down to the docks where he greets the tourists as the come off the ship.

But now Hard Rock Cafe would like to put him into management, which would be way, way, against the wishes of his doctor. And while he does have extensive experience, he's not sure how handy it will be because he keeps drawing a blank about those Wal-Mart years. "But at least," I said, "You can remember that you were a manager. That's something isn't it?"

fear

2008-01-09T22:34:00.001-10:00

I'm usually grappling with fear to some extent and am sometimes nearly paralyzed by it. I'm mostly at peace, however, when engaged with present realities, such as loading the dishwasher, writing or rolling my cart through Safeway. For this reason and a few others, I genuinely enjoy most mundane tasks.

But give me a few idle hours and fear sidles up on the couch next to me, and if I'm not focussed on anything in particular, I'm easily sucked into the conversation. Perhaps I'm especially vulnerable now because we're in a transitional time full of unknowns.

It helps that Anna is addicted to the Chronicles of Narnia and we have been reading through the series for a year now. She's memorized entire paragraphs and corrects my pronunciation on names like "Silenus." Anyway, although I would welcome a new book into our reading routine, Narnia helps me more now than it ever did when I was a kid.

We almost always come across something ticklish, comforting or beautiful during our nightly read. Tonight we read a chapter from Prince Caspian, in which Lucy sees Aslan and he asks her to follow him, but her siblings all deny his presence and refuse.

Later on, Susan is full of guilt about her denial, and she doesn't want to face Aslan:

"Then, after an awful pause, the deep voice said, 'Susan.' Susan made no answer but the others thought she was crying. 'You have listened to fears, child,' Aslan said. 'Come let me breathe on you. Forget them. Are you brave again?'"

Our Diver

2008-01-07T21:19:00.001-10:00

So there was another part to the ocean blessing story, and I wanted to tell it but I think I was having a bit of heat stroke last night after too many hours in the sun. My head was pounding so I had to be brief.

Anna has been really struggling with church. Our community is wonderful, but there are no other kids and no church school. She aches for her Chicago friends.

But this weekend as we were driving to church, Fr. John explained to Anna that Paul (a tropical fisherman who scoped out beaches for the service, made the cross and found the beloved chameleon on the road) had called and asked if he knew of any girls between the ages of 4 and 7 who might be willing to dive into the ocean for the cross.

From the backseat, Anna chimed in, "I could do that!"

When we arrived at Vespers, she wanted me to tell everyone that she would be our diver. It was as if she had finally found her place in the mission community.

The night before the dive, she cried out to me in the middle of the night. I ran to her room and she said. "I had a bad dream. Are we safe here?" I reassured her that we were safe, but brought the holy water into her room and gave her a sprinkle as well. And then she said, "Tomorrow, I'm going to dive for the cross."

I'm realizing that we need find ways to make a role for her at the mission, so that she doesn't feel like we're just dragging her along, but that she is as essential to the community as an any adult--which of course, she is.

So the next day, during the many readings beside the ocean, Anna stood and waited for her turn. Finally, when Fr. John threw the cross into the water, she waded out for it. She brought the cross back to her dad, and for the first time, I think she felt that she is beginning to belong.

ocean blessing

2008-01-06T21:57:00.000-10:00

So today we blessed the ocean, which my husband thought was a wee bit ambitious--but, he said, "It might be a big ocean, but God is still bigger." While we were praying, a few locals were fishing nearby, and frying the fish right behind us. During the blessing, we watched them tug one fish after another out of the sea. At one point, the fisherman hollered, holding up his fish. Pat turned to me and help up five fingers--mouthing, "That's his fifth one!"

After the prayers as we made our way past the family and they asked about our faith and what we were doing. Fr. John explained that we were blessing the ocean and that we enjoyed watching their incredible catch. "That was 'cause you were praying," the man said, turning to flip his Sunday lunch.

coffee hour

2008-01-06T21:22:00.001-10:00

Did I mention yet that coffee hour is a whole lot different out here on the Big Island? First of all, we have a tiny community, so we pot-luck on a few tables in the center of a large room without walls, the breezes washing through, surrounded by banana, papaya and avocado trees, overlooking the ocean.

The Catholic church where we meet is on a windy road through a neighborhood, and many of the locals keep chickens, so all morning long the roosters crow, dogs bark, and cats prowl about the parking lot.

Today's coffee hour featured a special treat--a visit from a very slow moving, dinosaur-like lizard, a Jackson Chameleon. Anna was delighted to hold the creature, which did hiss and open its gigantic mouth, but did not (perhaps could not?) bite. As it became increasingly agitated it began to turn black. Can you imagine being able to change colors when in a temper?

snorkling

2008-01-05T11:14:00.001-10:00

Back when I was a kid, I remember the "end of the school year syndrome," which basically meant that it became almost unbearable to drag myself to school--the end of the year was in sight, but oh how slowly those final days would go.

As a parent I seem to be affected by the opposite syndrome--and it has to do with school vacations, which seem to drag on and on, most especially when they are nearly over. This Christmas break has been delightful and trying in turns, and I know that I am about done with it because in a final act of desperation I've locked myself in the bathroom with my laptop so that I can blog.

Ever since I've been in Kona, this blog has been a lifeline. It allows me to process, to connect, to be part of a network of friends which has helped keep me afloat as each day here is filled with new people and experiences.

Thank you, friends, for your comments, which I treasure--and thank you fellow bloggers for putting your life out there and helping me feel less alone--Oh, no, Anna is on to me. She's at the door. "Mama," she asks, "Where are you? And why are you on your computer?"

So that's it for now. And yes, we did go snorkeling. I'd like to do it everyday. It is wondrous to be underwater, among the oblivious fish and coral. One of the larger effects of being on the Big Island is that so much of my daily reality forces perspective, from the surprisingly vast underwater view, to the infinite starry nights, to the lava fields which go on and on and make the sky open up. I'm caught in the paradoxes of nature--how birth and death, creation and destruction seem so tangled together in this place and in my own body.

I came across this quote on a card at Kona Health foods, and it seems to express something of my experience here:

"Wisdom tells me I am nothing.
Love tells me I am everything.
Between the two my life flows."

--Nisargadatta Maharaj

time gap

2007-12-27T23:17:00.000-10:00

It's 11:19 p.m. here in Hawaii, and these evenings have turned out to be my lonely hour, because everyone back home is asleep. I've always been a bit of a night owl and yet never liked being the last up in my home or at a slumber party. I kind of feel that way now--like I'm the last one to turn in for the night and my buddy fell asleep right there in the sleeping bag while I was trying to tell them something.

This was the part I did not like about Hawaii before, and I can tell you I don't like it much this time either. I'm hoping that I'll eventually learn to love these peaceful hours, to rest with God after my children have gone to bed and all possibility of chatter has ceased.

The other night John said something that irritated me, and I wanted to shun him and yet, what could I do, considering my desperate condition--a night owl and extrovert situated on the most isolated island chain in the world--with nary a friend to dial?

So when he tried to talk nicely to me I gave him a look and said, "Just so you know, I'm just talking to you now because you're my only friend on this time zone."

To my far away friends and family--it seems there is only one way to be close to you while you sleep. When the nightly urge to call comes up I'll try to restrain myself and pray for you instead. I believe that prayer closes the time gap, the distance gap--every gap actually--and that it is an act of holy intimacy and a privilege.

So I am praying for you tonight, and I hope your sleep will be untroubled and expansive and that you will untangle some worry or fear through your dreams, that you will wake refreshed and whole, ready to receive every good thing that comes to you. And I'll be praying for those good things, too, that they will come unexpectedly and steadily, like snowflakes at twilight, covering the green grass and branches and pavement and making everything fresh again.

house, church

2007-12-26T10:21:00.001-10:00

So we had our Christmas services in the home of Darrell and Pat Hill. We drove about four hours total between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, on a long windy road through lava fields--barren and fertile at the same time--ocean on one side and a snow-capped mountain on the other. It helped me, a little, to see some snow for Christmas, even if we didn't get close enough to play in it.

The services were lovely--I was moved by the icons set up in an artist's studio(can you find the paintbrushes and easels?). There was something so good about being together there--a sweet spirit seemed to permeate the air. Christmas Eve, the wind howled against the house, so strong at times that it lifted the roof and dropped it with a thud. We celebrated the liturgy on Christmas Day with sun streaming in the windows, illuminating the falling rain.

Here's a photo of Anna at work on her picture for Santa:

On Christmas Day, back at home, we encountered a large snail and exchanged yuletide greetings:

beginning to look a lot like . . .

2007-12-22T11:24:00.000-10:00

On our second night here there was a huge storm which caused us to loose power, flooded our road, and caused the ocean to swell. I've mentioned before that living near the ocean is lovely, but I don't trust it any further than I can throw it, and during the storm I was begging it to behave properly.

Our condo is built on old Hawaiian burial grounds, which is a fact that I've made peace with, especially because the spots where bones were found are fenced off and protected according to Hawaiian custom. But that second night, in the dark, I was a little uneasy so we headed out to Wal-Mart to buy flashlights and candles.

As I was weaving my way through the snow-flecked blinking Christmas trees, past the beeping toys and blow-up Rudolphs of Wal-Mart in a state of total disorientation--the song, "It's Beginning to Look A lot Like Christmas" came over the loudspeaker and I could only shake my head. As far as I'm concerned it doesn't look anything like Christmas around here.

The fact that Christmas is nearly here is something that I can't really make sense of just yet. Kind of like how I still can't believe that as I write this post most of the people I love are sitting down to dinner but I'm still sipping my coffee, or the fact that at night, when I really want to call a friend, they're all tucked in for the night. My internal clock remains confused, to the point that any local could tell me it was any time of the day and I would believe them.

To that end, the days continue to pass at a marvelously slow rate. It's calming for me to move slowly and to feel that if I'm late nobody will panic because people are expected to take their time, to "talk story" and to be available to whatever experiences present themselves.

I used to think the "Aloha Spirit" concept was made up for tourists. But I've come to believe it is a real thing and that we are being changed and washed by it. It's a hospitality of soul and openness, a willingness to accept, both within the church and outside of it, as my friend Rachel said, "That most everyone is doing the very best they can with what they have."

So this Christmas, I'm doing my best to celebrate in this rather odd context that has no reference point in the childhood of my youth. This best included assembling a ginger bread house on the lanai (no bugs please!) and then storing it in the fridge, attending one Christmas hula pageant (who would have known the hula girls were there in the manger!) and getting my toes ready for the season, a small detail that never would have made it into my holiday plans back home.

I must close because Anna is warning me that Santa will only be at the open air market for one more hour . . . So I'm off to see Santa and hoping against hope that he won't be wearing shorts or toting a surfboard.

vespers

2007-12-16T22:10:00.001-10:00

So we had Vespers on Saturday at a tiny Catholic church nearby. I totally fell in love with the church, sweet as it was against the blue sky, light pouring out from that little door. I just couldn't stop looking at it--and I didn't mind too much when Natalie fussed and I had to take her out, because then I could take it all in.

When we arrived there was a couple waiting to greet Fr. John with a lei and a fruit basket with limes and grapefruit from their yard. They had been responsible for much of the recent repairs to the church, and they beamed as they spoke about how they'd been restoring it over the past six months.

Fr. John wasn't there yet and this wasn't our normal church, so some people were worried he might miss the driveway. One the founding members of the mission went down to the road to wait for him, and I called to make sure Fr. John knew where to turn. Fr. John said, "Oh no--are people waiting for me?" When I repeated this question to the man beside the road he turned and said, "We've been waiting for him for years."

Anna's Christmas Hula

2007-12-16T21:42:00.000-10:00

life in the slow lane

2007-12-13T20:19:00.000-10:00

Yesterday I had to take Anna to the doctor for her TB screening. Unfortunately, Fr. John had the car and was two hours away. Although Anna's school is just a thousand feet from our door, the journey ascends directly up a mountainside and involves a highway crossing. Add this to the the fact that Hawaii suffers from a severe shortage of sidewalks and you have for a pretty unpleasant walk, unless you're the type of person who likes climbing the stair master in the sauna with a baby on your back.

As it happens, I'm not really that type of person, but yesterday I had no choice. Things took a turn for the worse when it started to rain. I looked up at that ominous sky and prayed for a ride. At Anna's school, sweaty and wet from the rain, I asked if there was a back way to get to the doctor, which was just down the highway. "No," her teacher said, "But it will only take you about five minutes."

Now five minutes on the shoulder of a highway stepping over shattered beer bottles in sandals with a baby on your back and a six-year-old who takes micro-steps when protesting can make for a loooooong five minutes. It can be particularly treacherous when it is raining and thorny branches extend into the road so you have to step over the yellow line to avoid them.

But we'd only walked about four paces along the highway when a pick-up slowed to a stop and a Hawaiian lady called out to me, "You're pretty brave, but would you like a ride?"

Gratefully, we climbed in and she drove us to the doctor. We arrived at the doctor about four minutes early. I was thrilled to have made it. But those forms are tricky when you haven't managed to memorize your own address just yet. So I called my dear friend Bethany in Nashville who laughed and laughed when I explained my reason for calling.

She also told me that when her four year old son Rilian mentioned that he had not seen Anna for a million days, she told him that Anna was in Hawaii. "I know where that is!" he said. "In Hawaii everyday is a party, but not with cake, just with fruit."

I sure didn't feel like I was at a party after my hike along the highway followed by my hour long wait for the doctor while Natalie ingested magazines and Anna moaned, "Can we go now?" The office didn't seem particularly crowded, but when nobody rushes, ever, everything does seem to take an awfully long time.

We finally met the doctor, who was a nice enough man. No white jacket for him, of course, just one of those crazy Hawaiian shirts that John has developed an embarrassing soft spot for. We were the last patients of the day, so we left just as the doctor was pulling out of the parking lot in his Jeep. He smiled and waved. The passenger seat was occupied by a gigantic surf board.

And then we had to cross the highway again. We stood beside the road waiting for a gap. Suddenly one car stopped and a woman waved for us to go. I was scared for her, as stopping on the highway seemed almost more dangerous then attempting to cross it. But then the car in the other lane also stopped, so everyone was stopped and nobody honked and everyone waited.

After we'd made it safely across, Anna turned to me and said, "I like Hawaii highways."

"Why?" I said.

"Because here," she said, "People stop so you can cross."

praying mantis

2007-12-11T11:46:00.001-10:00

So we've had a Praying Mantis hanging out on the porch the last few days, and it sure is an impressive--and reverent--bug. I can't decide if it looks more like it is praying or directing the choir (Veronica, if you're out there, please advise!) Anyway, I pointed it out to Anna yesterday.

"Look Anna, It's a Praying Mantus. Do you know why they call it that?"

She shook her head.

"Because it's praying!"

"Bugs don't pray, mom," she said.

"Oh yeah they do," I said, "Just look at it."

"Who is it praying for?" she asked.

sleep on it

2007-12-10T20:15:00.001-10:00

So we're still a little dazed and confused here in Kona, but we're slowly learning the ropes. I feel a little more settled each day as I become accustomed to the slower pace of life--at Lava Java today they actually gave me a pager to hold while they made my mango smoothie. I mean, how long could it take to make a smoothie? As it turns out, it can take a really, really long time, especially when you have to saunter out to the mango tree, pick the mangoes, wash them, peel them, discard the peels, take the garbage out, kneed some bread, feed the dog* and talk some story all the while...

As much as I enjoy the slower pace of life here, part of me sometimes feels like I'm watching a scratched DVD and the movie keeps freezing up on me. This makes me a little anxious while waiting for a smoothie or a latte. Each day is full of so many pauses, really, and nobody is rushing. I mean, why rush when you're on an island? I mean where exactly does one rush to?

And I find that my Chicago intensity does not match the spirit of those around me. The other day Anna made some friends here at the complex--I love how sweetly and quickly little girls can befriend each other! They met just a few days ago, and now they're always around--even today when I brought Anna back from school they were out back. They came running to Anna saying, "We were waiting for you . . ."

So anyway, the girls wanted to come over to play. I found the mother of one of the girls to ask her permission. She was perfectly fine with her daughter playing here, although she did not know my last name or cell phone number, and she never did run a criminal background check on me. The other little girl said that her dad was sleeping. So in a lapse of judgment I let her come along to our apartment, and the girls played for about fifteen minutes before I began to panic about the father, sensing how worried he must be.

So we rushed out, and sure enough, he was out looking for his daughter. I thought, "Oh man, I'm going to get it. How irresponsible it was for me to harbor his daughter without permission." But when I saw his face it was not tense and stern as I'd expected. His expression was all loose and smiley. He extended his hand to me and welcomed me to the complex. I asked if he was worried about Reese. "Well I knew she was around here somewhere," he said.

So now Reese's parents have been filling me in on life in Kona, and I listen with fascination to their stories. Reese's father tells me that one of their daily irritations is that Reese keeps bringing gecko eggs home (they look like white jelly beans and can be found in the small spike holes at the base of palm trees) and letting the babies hatch inside their apartment. This is really no problem for the baby geckos, which don't require any special neonatal care, but Reese's parents do try to explain to Reese that "The mama geckos leave their eggs in certain spots on purpose."

I also asked Reese's parents about places where I could pick fruit off the trees. Reese's dad told me that the best place to look for that is the classified section of the paper. He said that people actually run ads that read something like, "Mango overload, please help!" followed by their address.

So all this to say, I'm not in Chicago anymore, and the learning curve is steep but the climb is thrilling. And the regular daily tasks do help me feel more oriented. I'm oddly comforted by making the beds, loading the dishwasher, ignoring the crinkled laundry in the dryer for as long as possible.

And I was happy, the other day, to have an idea for our bedroom. It's been a little stuffy at night because our bed is tucked into a cozy but windowless corner. So I pushed the bed flush against the windows, and now all night long the ocean breeze washes over us. So I'm sleeping on it, and sleeping in it, and slowly making sense of this place which is so unfamiliar and yet comforting just the same.

*In the interest of not defaming my new favorite coffee shop, please be aware that there was no dog at Lava Java. I was just trying to imagine all the steps that might be involved with said smoothie.

new school

2007-12-08T12:14:00.000-10:00

Here's a photo of Anna at her new school, wearing her Hawaiian print uniform. I couldn't resist buying a tiny uniform for Natalie.

baby gecko

2007-12-08T11:32:00.000-10:00

aloha

2007-12-05T08:17:00.001-10:00

So we arrived in Kona last night, after a mostly lovely (with a few tense moments mixed in) day of travel. I know that sounds strange, considering the fact that we were traveling with two small children and that the flight was nine and a half hours long (just to Honolulu) followed by a half hour flight to Kona, but it's true.

We left at about seven am, after a herculean effort to get our life in order. Even the ride to the airport felt peaceful, because finally we didn't actually have to do anything. After months of packing, preparation and decisions, it was near bliss to just sit there in the car. But there was a worry nagging at the back of our minds: Although the parish had offered to buy a seat for Natalie, it seemed excessive, because she could, technically, ride on my lap.

The idea of Natalie squirming on my lap for nearly ten hours was getting less and less appealing as we approached O'Hare. We had tried to call United's call center to request a baby block, but we'd been routed to a call center in India (sigh). But when we finally got on the flight, we were shocked to discover that Natalie and I had the whole five center seats to ourselves! I spent the duration of the flight rejoicing over that surprising and lovely twist of plot.

When we arrived in Honolulu, we were struck by the friendliness of everyone there, and the fact that our kids could run around and play without me barking warnings every few moments. The adults flirted with our kids and I felt as if some the tension I've been carrying for so long was starting to work its way out. "Perhaps I won't have to wear my mouth guard anymore!" I told John, giddy at the idea that I might be able to stop grinding my poor teeth.

At the airport, I called my neighbor Marji and she reported that there was fresh snow in Chicago--six inches, in fact. How strange it was that we'd left when it was so clear and had no idea that later that day, other planes sat on the tarmack for six miserable hours. What a gift to have escaped the storm.

And then last night, when we arrived in Kona, members of the parish were there with leis to greet us--even little Natalie got a tiny purple one. Mine was so aromatic that this morning I can't stop smelling it--it is not unlike that wonderful paradise smell that some holy relics emit--I imagine heaven must smell something like it.

And then we arrived at our new home, which is lovely. To our astonishment, there was a welcome basket full of tropical fruit complete with Anna's favorite breakfast cereal. On the counter was a Bose radio, playing soft Hawaiian music, which was identical to my beloved Bose at home, and oddly, the dishwasher is exactly the same as ours on Kenwood, as well as the blue booster for Natalie--not to mention the garage door opener which is, oddly, the exact same one we use in Chicago. On Anna's bed was a brand new Strawberry Shortcake doll and a little airplane for Natalie. All this familiarity makes us feel a little more at home--and a whole lot less alone--here on the most isolated island chain in the world.

And last night, as I drifted off to sleep to the sound of the waves crashing on the shore, I remembered my earlier fear of the ocean. We are very close, much closer than I meant to be, as a person who doesn't totally trust the sea. So I said to Jesus, "Dear Lord, you wouldn't have brought us all the way here just to wash out to sea as we slept? That just be so, um, inefficient."

And I said this against the rhythm of those waves, which never did answer me, but in the morning we woke when it was still dark, and we were still here, in the loving presence of God, surrounded by so much evidence of his tender care. We sipped Kona coffee together, John and I, and remembered that first time we were Hawaii, 13 years ago, when we found each other and first decided to take the adventure that came to us.

Just this morning, I picked up Fr. John's Bible and a card fell out. The last time we were in Hawaii, just beginning to know each other, I'd jotted down this passage for him from the Song of Soloman, Chapter 2: My Beloved spake and said onto me, 'Rise up my fair one, and come away, for lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of the birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land; the fig tree putteth forth her green figs. Arise my Love, my fair one, and come away.'"

one baby bee, one black cat

2007-11-01T18:19:00.000-10:00

Baby bee is almost walking.

Anna with Ms. McIvor in the Halloween parade.

home, sweet home

2007-10-27T05:42:00.001-10:00

The beach across the street from our Kona rental.

So we now have an address now in Hawaii, which is great comfort, although the search has already been an adventure. A few nights ago, we nearly settled on a rental home. It was simple, but nice, with a gorgeous view of the verdant cliffs and ocean. It was surrounded by coffee and fruit farms.

But there was a problem--or a few problems--not be overlooked. First, the isolation. The home was so private that there was a bathtub on the back porch, which the owner explained that he was able to use for its intended purpose because of the seclusion.

"Secluded" was the operative word here, a word that filled me with an ominous sense of dread. Isn't living on the most isolated island chain in the world secluded enough? Considering the fact that when I sit on my back porch and hear footsteps from above I think hopefully, "Could it be Marji? Could it be Mary? Perhaps they'll have a moment to chat with me!" I might not be cut out for this sort of existence.

And then there was something else about those lovely cliffs. According to my book The Big Island Revealed, these cliffs were caused 150,000 thousand years ago, when a huge piece of land fell into the ocean, causing a massive tsunami that washed over two other Hawaiian Islands and deposited choral on the mountains. Hmmm. Now that wouldn't be so worrisome if I hadn't gone on to read the next sentence, which read, "This area is, geologically speaking, still unstable. Just didn't want you to run out of things to worry about."

And then there was the bit about the human sacrifices that occurred on the shore just below the property, where, perhaps not coincidentally, the first Christian Missionaries also arrived and had their first service. And then there was poor Captain Cook, who came ashore near there and was much beloved by the locals. But one day, one of his traveling companions died, so he held a burial, which shattered the going illusion that he was a god. When the natives realized their error, they were forced to kill him. They then presented his bloody innards wrapped in a cloth to British sailors, who were--understandably--horrified.

Now all this might be quite interesting to contemplate--unless, of course, I was soaking in the tub on the porch under an expanse of lonely stars with nary a sole to hear me scream as Cook's spirit creaked up the stairs and . . .Enough of that!

Anyway, so I worried about the seclusion all night long, but John found another listing on Craigslist--a condo which looked wonderful--two bedrooms plus loft, nice kitchen, across the street from the ocean, interior tub, a well-run complex with pool and spa, five minute walk from Kona. But when I checked the date of the listing my heart sank--October 10. We've seen how these rentals get snatched up and there was no way that such a lovely and reasonably priced condo would still be on the market.

So I sighed and emailed the owner of the condo, hoping against hope that it had not been rented. In the morning, there was a warm email in my inbox from the owner, with some intriguing questions. He asked, in particular, how our Orthodox faith might shape our expectations of where we might live and how we might inhabit the space.

I wrote back: "One of the famous Orthodox writers, Fyodor Dostoevsky said, 'The world will be saved by beauty.' Orthodox services seek to reflect the beauty of heaven in their worship experience, and homes are, in a sense, an extension of that quest for beauty, order, and harmony. So I don't know if this is by coincidence or by design, but we always try to dwell well in our homes--we work hard to keep the place orderly, to be attentive to each other so that peace is present, and invite beauty into the home whenever possible!"

Within a few hours he wrote back, suggesting that we--he, John and I, speak by phone. It felt like a dating relationship where we had somehow made it to the next phase. Yeah! He also told me that he'd been interviewing possible renters for a month and hadn't yet found a good fit--until now.

I continue to awe at the way all of this has unfolded, and we rejoice in the beginnings of possibilities--known and unknown.

aloha dog rental?

2007-09-25T16:39:00.001-10:00

So we're headed to Hawaii to serve a mission in Kona from December to May. We met in Hawaii 13 years ago, and we are overjoyed at the idea of going back in an Orthodox context, to serve a community that we've heard wonderful things about. We're ready for a new challenge and adventure and we rejoice in this opportunity.

Each time I'm out among strangers, at the Gap or the hair salon or on the train, I have to resist the temptation to share our news with innocent bystanders. And sometimes after I've casually mentioned that I really do need these t-shirts because I'm headed to Hawaii in December, I have to take myself aside and ask myself if it was really necessary for me to volunteer that information.

Anna can't wait to snuggle up with the geckos, and she's elated about wearing flip-flops all winter long. But there is one problem. The other night, as she was settling down to sleep and Freda was curled at her feet she asked me if we could get a puppy.

"Not before Hawaii, because we would have to leave the puppy here," I said. " Even Freda will have to stay here."

"But are there pets stores there?" she asked.

"I don't know--we could look around," I said.

"Can we rent a dog?" she asked.

to moodle or not to moodle?

2007-09-25T15:38:00.000-10:00

I don't know if knitting really counts as moodling, but the image is restful just the same. Photo by Amber.

So you see the imagination needs moodling--long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering. These people who are always briskly doing something and as busy as waltzing mice, they have little, sharp, stacatto ideas, such as: "I see where I can make an annual cut of $3.47 in my meat budget." But they have no slow, big ideas. And the fewer consoling, noble, shining, free, jovial, magnanimous ideas that come, the more nervously and desperately they rush and run from office to office and up and downstairs, thinking by action at last to make life have some warmth and meaning.

--If You Want to Write by Brenda Uelan

a prayer for those whose work is invisible

2007-09-23T07:42:00.000-10:00

Photo by Amber, who teaches me to live with eyes open wide.

For those who paint the undersides of boats, makers of ornamental drains on roofs too high to be seen; for cobblers who labor over inner soles; for seamstresses who stitch the wrong sides of linings; for scholars whose research leads to no obvious discovery; for dentists who polish each gold surface of the fillings of upper molars; for sewer engineers and those who repair water mains; for electricians; for artists who suppress what does injustice to their visions; for surgeons whose sutures are things of beauty. For all those whose work is for Your eye only, who labor for Your entertainment or their own, who sleep in peace or do not sleep in peace, knowing that their efforts are unknown.

Protect them from downheartedness and from diseases of the eye.
Grant them perseverance, for the sake of Your love which is humble and heedless of reward.

-By Mary Gordon, from The Paris Review

an endless listening

2007-09-17T15:47:00.000-10:00

I recently read an astonishing article called "In the Presence of Death" by Christopher Bamford about the process of caring for his wife as she died. I loved the article so much that I wanted to run out to Kinkos and make copies for friends far and near. I can't find a copy online, or I would link to it from here.

I wanted to start a book group (or would that be an article group?) just so I could talk it through, in the same way that Ser and I have chewed over every issue of Brain, Child (Ser, did you read "Holding Baby Birds" yet?), and Amber and Bethany and I have explored poetry and self-help books together.

But truth be told, I haven't even managed to shower for the last few days--we're all sick with colds--so the best I can do is share a few choice quotes. As always I'd LOVE to hear what you think and which quotes resonate with you. And if you are a silent lurker on this blog--you read it, but never comment, come forward--out yourself!

So without further ado, here's Christopher Bamford:

"I have come to understand that life is praise and lamentation, and that the two are very close, perhaps one--and that they are transformative. Despite the almost constant sadness, confusion, setbacks, self-pity, and other burdens of ordinary egotism, I feel the wound, the opening, and sometimes the joy, the certainty of knowing that meaning exists even if I am not yet able to cognize it fully."

"But the liturgy continued, life continued, on both planes. Her body, though it was only her her body, had served nobly in the service of her life and was a sacred, numinous thing, to be handled and regarded with awe and reverence. The children bathed, oiled and washed her with tenderness and love. The house was filled with people. There was an enormous sense of stasis, of in-betweenness, liminality. It was as if, like her, the space we occupied lay between worlds, not yet here, no longer completely there."

"All this meant that not only was heaven a human place but that life, her story, was endless; that all our stories are endless. And that to understand the meaning of an endless story--mine, hers or yours--would require a new way of being in the world. And a new way of listening, an endless listening. For we are not used to stories that have no end. We neither know how to live them nor how to tell them nor how to listen to them."

first steps

2007-09-12T09:25:00.000-10:00

Natalie is walking with her walker!

bells in winter

2007-09-10T08:08:00.001-10:00

Photo by Amber

Ring the Bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
that's how the light gets in.

-Leonard Cohen

little (and big) leavings

2007-09-04T07:22:00.000-10:00

Anna with her buddy Skylar waiting to go into school.

Today is Anna's first day of kindergarten. I was a little teary (actually a lot teary) as I dropped her off. I had to hide in the hallway and brush the tears away so she wouldn't see me. My friend Sasha saw me out there and she said, "Jenny, I know, I know--she's beyond your control now."

I've generally rejoiced as Anna has become increasingly independent--and the way this also liberates me, but there was a certain sobriety about this morning. I'm starting to grasp how fast our children actually grow and how sweet and fleeting our time with them is, despite the sometimes eternal afternoons and relentless nights. But they do grow--Anna has grown--and is growing--quickly.

This morning and last night I wanted to weep and ask her forgiveness for all the ways in which I failed her when she was smaller, when she needed me most. I wanted to sing Willie Nelson's "You Were Always on My Mind" as I headed out the door of her classroom. But that's not, of course, what she needed.

She didn't need my remorse, my tears or my fears. She needed me to convey confidence--to act as if this leaving, like the hundreds of larger and smaller ones to come are just part of the process, a process I (mean to) trust.

Frederick Buechner captures this bittersweet mixture well in a quote about getting his girls off to school:

Creation is underway, breakfast is underway, steam from the tea kettle is fogging up the windows . . . Somebody is crying while somebody else says it is her own fault that she is crying. We break fast together, we break bread together fast. The clock on the wall over my wife's head is ticktocking our time away, time away. Soon it will be time to leave for school, soon it will be time to leave.

optimism

2007-08-31T13:09:00.000-10:00

The first few people you meet in any place can have a dramatic and lasting impression on your overall experience there. Within our first few days, we met a couple, Bruce and Leigh, and their 6-year-old daughter Reese.

Bruce was brought over to the islands by Wal-Mart, as a manager, to help establish new stores. His impression of life here is quite positive, and it was exactly what we needed to hear in our dazed and confused state. I asked him questions about the things I was afraid to ask about before. What about roaches, centipedes, Vog? What about crime, drugs and the public schools?

To each of my fears, he offered some kind of positive antidote. For example, about the roaches, he told me that they do exterminate here, but, should I see one, I could just apply some chemical to my home, leave and voila! No more roaches. About the Vog
(a volcanic smog generated when the lava hits the ocean) we're just too close to the ocean to be bothered by it. Centipedes? You'd have to be out barefoot and careless, or flipping over rocks to get bit. As for crime, he told me, there is almost no gun crime on the island, and his daughter is thriving at the local public school.

Now I believe his impressions are based on real experience here, but I also think his perceptions also help shape the experience. You have to have the eyes to see what is good around you--and an ability to receive every good thing with eyes open wide.

It's not just your eyes that need to be wide open, though, I also think it is your view--you want a wide view so that you don't fixate (as I sometimes do) on things like roaches, centipedes, or the fact that you currently live in a tsunami evacuation zone and and at the base of a volcano that is expected to erupt at an unknown time.

A little over a year ago, Bruce was hit by a car when he was on his motorcycle. The car smashed him against a stone wall, breaking more than 30 bones and nearly killing him. The doctors were so unsure that he would survive that they didn't set his arm or shoulder. His heart stopped three times.

And Bruce, who was a manager at Wal-Mart and both a father and grandfather, lost most of his memory, his ability to walk and communicate and work. But you should hear him talk about the accident--there's no despair. In fact, he feels the timing was just about right, if that sort of thing had to happen.

He'd recently sold his home at a profit when the market was good, and he'd put money into savings and moved into a rental. The savings has helped the family to pull through while they await the final settlement.

His wife tells me that they never let him feel sorry for himself, not even for a moment. Now he's walking, talking and swimming. There are gaps in his memory but he accepts that as part of the bargain. He is alive to watch his children and grandchildren grow. It is a fine, fine bargain, considering the alternative.

And he has a job now too, against the wishes of his doctor. He's a cruise ship greeter for the Hard Rock Cafe. When the ships come in, he rises early, goes down to the cafe, cuts up some watermelon and walks down to the docks where he greets the tourists as the come off the ship.

But now Hard Rock Cafe would like to put him in a management position, which would be way, way, against the wishes of his doctor. And while he does have extensive management experience, he's not sure how handy it will be because he keeps drawing a blank about those Wal-Mart years. "But at least," he said, "I can remember that I was a manager. That's something isn't it?"

darkness and light

2007-08-27T11:31:00.000-10:00

Photo by Amber the Magnificent

The aroma of apple crisp was just beginning to fill our kitchen when the lights flickered, dimmed and went out. Anna and her two friends came running out from her room, saying "The lights are out." Then I heard Fr. John in the hall.

"Note to self," he said, "Don't try to print and run the air conditioner at the same time."

Do you really think you blew a fuse?" I asked. He ignored my question, dug a flashlight out of the utility cabinet and shone it into our fuse box.

I repeated my question as he began to flip switches.

"John, the entire neighborhood is dark," I said.

He finally looked at me and let the words sink in. We'd lost power, once again. The last time this occurred three days passed before the lights came back. As our electric company tactfully explained, "We don't service the South Side at night because it is too dangerous."

Truth be told, I've always been a little (sometimes a lot) afraid of the dark. So the fact that Con Ed considers my neighborhood too dangerous for their macho trucks did nothing for my psyche. But I remembered the verse from Job, The darkness and the light are the same to you, O Lord, and I was a little comforted. I repeated it to myself as I checked the locks, checked the girls and washed the dishes by candlelight.

I headed into the dining room to top off the lampada. As I stood there beside the icons I realized that I was not alone. I shone a flash light into the corner of the room, and there was a small figure standing there beside the window. I almost screamed, until I realized it was Anna, drinking a small bottle of holy water from Lourdes.

After I'd resettled the girls in their beds, John and I headed out back to watch the lightning. It was strangely peaceful without all those city lights glaring down on us. A cop car drive slowly through the alley, shining a search light into each yard as it passed.

Around ten, my neighbor stopped by and offered to cook us some hot dogs on their gas grill. By this time, the girls had reappeared and were hungry, so we requested a few extras. My neighbor also brought down two gallons of ice cream. I decided this was a divine sign that it was time for the apple crisp. So we ate our half-baked crisp ala mode on the back porch with the lightning as our witness. Zoe said, "This is like camping!"

Just before the girls fell asleep the lights came back on. We all hugged each other with relief. As I lay down that night in my cool dark room that verse kept coming back to me--The darkness and the light are the same to you, O Lord.

"What exactly does that mean?" I asked John.

"It means the Lord does not see with physical eyes."

"Boring," I said.

It's got to mean more that that. Perhaps it means that there is no reason for fear even when we feel most powerless, even when we can't see two feet in front of us, and we keep walking into the garbage can--even when we don't know what to do next in the the big and little things. O Heavenly King, the Comforter, The Spirit of truth, everywhere present and filling all things. Darkness, light, confusion, clarity, God is there, to see us through.

phone curse

2007-08-14T10:32:00.000-10:00

For several years we have been afflicted by a "phone curse." Every phone connection we've ever had has been unstable and unpredictable. People call our home and our cells and get a variety of results, anything from the buzz of a fax machine (we don't have one) to a busy signal (we do have call waiting) to a reroute to our cells or our home so that the number called is not actually the phone that rings.

We are nearly as befuddled by our phone situation as the small remnant who still continue to call us. Our problems may be at least partially self-inflicted (today I was explaining to Amber that my "unique genius" is that I never read the manuals for anything but instead glory in the process of figuring things out all by my lonesome).

My hubby, for his part, loves new technology and is always experimenting with new and exciting phone innovations. I can't help but feel a little like the woman who is married to the contractor who always lives in a partially finished home. All technology around our home is a work-in-progress.

I can't resist including a recent message from my inbox to illustrate the point. John has set up all messages to go through our phone and land in our email inboxes. It used to be that they only went to his, and he would only forward my messages on occasionally, when he was feeling especially congenial.

After much pleading on my part, our messages now go to both of our inboxes (although mine sometimes accidentally get deleted when I'm erasing the 149 spam emails that arrive in my inbox each morning). As an added bonus, John pays for each one to be "transcribed" by our computers with varying results. Kind of makes me miss the olden days when a little red light would blink on the answering machine and one could simply press "play," and viola, a message!

Here's a recent ticklish one, from Amber, voicing a complaint about said "phone curse":

"This. Call is my fish a complaint the jenny cellphone rarely work. Returned my call and it says it's wireless customer is not salable. I'm sorry. Frustrating it's not like even and that's it and michigan it's just it's a weird like. Any being. Expired. Is not available. in used you guys right. Church or else you're still on vacation but spots. Comes here since it was dropped hangs because they can't get a hold of jenny whenever i want to Alright i love you both thanks. I love all for it you know hm. Bye."

a starfish for Sally

2007-08-13T06:58:00.000-10:00

John's Aunt Jan, placing a starfish in Sally's grave

A few weeks ago we traveled to New York for John's grandmother Sally's funeral. As John's uncle David said at the funeral, we didn't lose her the day she died, but we lost her in pieces--so many pieces--over the years, as the tide of Alzheimer's washed over her again and again, seizing first her passion for travel and cooking, then her ability to drive and whip me at Scrabble, finally her ability to dress herself and remember the names of her beloved children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Elie Wiesel described the process of Alzheimer's this way--if a person were a book, the disease tears out the pages one by one until only the front and back covers are left. I find this description to be insightful but incomplete, because with Sally at least, as the binding broke, and the pages began to tumble out, in the midst of this heartbreaking chaos--some other part of Sally became available, some part of the Sally essence that infused all her passions but also transcended them.

I understand now that it the essence of a person that captivates us. Warren, Sally's husband, taught me that by his devotion to Sally as she withdrew further and further into herself, by the way he would flirt with her and kiss her on the lips when we went to feed her in the nursing home.

I remember how Warren and Sally used to be--they were madly in love with each other, but they were both gutsy and opinionated, sparks would fly sometimes in the car or the elevator or over the chocolate mousse. But as Sally slipped further and further from us, Warren instinctively reclaimed that first language of love, the one I use with Natalie because she responds so openly to it--tenderness. Warren was all tenderness toward Sally, and she continued to lean in toward him to receive his kisses, even after she'd lost the ability to focus her eyes or say his name.

Sally's funeral was beautiful because it seemed to me to be a reclaiming of the woman we knew and loved, and because it was tangible and true, as we scattered sand and shells over her remains, as we remembered who she was to us, and all that was lost and found as her life drew to a close.

bridges fall; God is love

2007-08-04T07:53:00.001-10:00

(photos taken while driving do leave something to be desired--this is the church sign from my childhood parish, just down the street from my parent's house--it reads, "Pray for the victims of the bridge collapse").

I'm at my favorite Minneapolis cafe, the Turtle Bread Company. I smell fresh baked bread, hear the whir of the espresso machine. It's drizzling outside. Everything seems just about right, save for the fact that at the table beside me a mother is trying to explain to her young daughter what it is to be a first responder. I can't hear all her words but she's saying something about ropes and knots and dangerous debris. Now I hear her saying, "Falling 200 feet . . ."

"The chances of this happening again are very, very slight," I hear the mother say.
Her daughter sips her drink thoughtfully, "Like about 5 percent?" She asks.
"No, honey, more like .00005 percent."
"I don't think is going to happen again at all," the little girl says as the two drop their trash in the garbage and head out into the rain.

I'm sipping my latte and munching a scone, and thinking about bridges that fall the terror of twisted steel, smoke and concrete. Cars slipping into the river and bodies crushed under debris, a school bus tipped on its side with the emergency door swung open. And of course I'm thinking about all those kids who miraculously got off that bridge safely,just after the taste truck burst into flames just a few feet from their bus, killing the driver. And I'm thinking of that bridge which I've traveled thoughtlessly-trustingly--over so many times, which we were planning to take tomorrow.

And then comes this other thought, like a tide that I can't stop from surging up, over and over--"God is Love." I try to hold this idea up to our present reality, and the truth of the statement and the truth of that fractured bridge seem to repel each other like magnets turned backwards.

And yet with each passing day, I become more certain that God is love, even as my life brushes up against so many catastrophes. I was in NY for September 11, awaiting Anna's birth. The day before Katrina struck New Orleans we escaped by steamboat, and this week I arrived in Minnesota the night before the bridge fell.

That night as we flew into the city at midnight, Anna and I marveled over how beautiful the Twin Cities looked from above. I pointed out the bridges connecting Minneapolis to St. Paul and Anna commented on how twinkly they were, how perfect.

But now we're struggling to integrate the knowledge that those perfect bridges weren't so perfect after all, that the 35W bridge was stressed and cracked in all sorts of hidden ways that nobody could see from above. If you've ever been to Minneapolis, you can imagine how strange this feels to everyone here, in our tidy, obsessively organized city. As my friend Amber says, "The bridge collapse has brought down shame on your Scandinavian ancestors."

With that shame and sadness come so many questions, especially for those of faith. I'm struggling to hold together the idea that God is Love despite the many pockets of anguish in my own life and in the world beyond. These past few years, we've lost people we love to cancer, car accidents, a heart attack, and AIDS.

With each passing day, I become more certain that life is fragile--that our bodies can be broken in an instant, that life is a tangle of agony and joy. And I also become more certain that God is love.

I asked my friend Bethany about this, about how it can be possible to hold together so much that seems irreconcilable.

"That's part of aging," she tells me, "learning to live in paradox."

So that is the paradox I find myself in on this rainy day in Minneapolis, with cars still submerged in the river a few miles away, with a cracked expanse of concrete and steel etched into my heart.

Each time I hear of another loss, I take a few moments to let it sink in. I cry a little, strike a match and light my lampada before the icons. I surrender all that is broken to the one who heals, and I accept this awareness that life is fragile, I let it remake me even I wipe down the kitchen counters, rock the baby, sip a latte.

With each passing day, it seems more gift, more grace, that I'm able to clean and cry and love, to grow older and learn to dwell in that rough, waiting place where thoughts don't always need to be reconciled, where bridges keep falling down but God doesn't stop being love.

on slow learning

2007-07-24T08:24:00.000-10:00

If you have ever owned
a tortoise, you already know
how terribly difficult
paper training can be
for some pets.

Even if you get so far
as to instill in your tortoise
the value of achieving the paper,
there remains one obstacle--
your tortoise's intrinsic sloth.

Even a well-intentioned tortoise
may find himself, in his journeys,
to be painfully far from the mark.

Failing, your tortoise may shy away
for weeks within his shell, utterly
ashamed, or looking up with tiny,
wet eyes might offer an honest shrug.
Forgive him.

Reprinted from Compass of Affection: Poems New & Selected by permission of the author, Scott Cairns, and Paraclete Press. To find out more about this beautiful collection visit this page.

manic manicure

2007-07-12T14:35:00.000-10:00

Today I took Anna, Maya and Natalie with me to get my nails done. We waited until Natalie fell asleep in her infant seat and then we seized the moment. I found a parking spot a mere eight blocks from the salon and lugged the sleeping Natalie in her car seat as I limped along, thanks to an unfortunate episode involving my big toe and the stone step into our kitchen.

I was suffering between the toe and the cumbersome infant seat, but of course the five-year-olds had the greater angst. "This is such a long way," Anna said. "I can barely make it." A few times Anna halted conveniently in the middle of intersections to ruminate.

But we finally made it, and the neon lights of the salon were an oasis in the desert. Soon my feet would be lovely and soft again! To my great relief, Natalie slept peacefully during all procedures while Anna and Maya acted extraordinarily grown-up as their fingernails were painted in matching gold hues. Just before I left, Natalie woke, and I looked down and realized that my big toe had been smudged.

I asked Anna to hold Natalie for a few moments while I had the toe fixed. Natalie started to wriggle out of Anna's arms, and the woman who had painted my nails came over to help, because I didn't yet have the use of my fingers.

She held Natalie in her arms and said, "Is it a boy or a girl?"

"A girl," I said.

"She doesn't look like a girl," the woman said.

"Well she is in kind of a boyish outfit," I conceded.

The pacifier then slipped from Natalie's mouth to the floor. I asked Anna to drop it in the infant seat, because I still couldn't pick it up with my wet nails. But the woman said, "No! It must be washed." I said, "Oh yeah, Anna, Maya, will you wash this for me?" The girls were thrilled with the task and headed to the sink at the back of the salon.

And then the woman said, "You really should trim your baby's nails. They shouldn't be long like this. She could scratch herself."

I nodded. What an astute observation and handy bit of advice!

Then, with Natalie still in her arms she bounced her and sang this clever ditty (to be sung to the tune of "Nah-nah-a-boo-boo, stick-your-head-in-dog-do"), "I don't have any babies, but I know how to take care of babies."

But she stopped cold when she noticed my next crime against humanity. "Do you have a dog? She really has an awful lot of hair on her. She shouldn't be . . ."

I stood up. "This is an unpleasant experience for me. I don't think I'll ever be able to visit your salon again. You don't have any babies yet, but when you have them you can take care of them however you please, in the meantime, I'm not interested in your advice."

I swung Natalie onto my hip and told the girls it was time to go.

"Do you carry your baby like that?" the woman asked.

I jerked my head back at her, fire in my eyes. The ladies who were drying their nails looked up at us. Lucky for them, this was grander drama than they could have anticipated. Why go to the theater when you can get a manicure?

"Stop." I said, firmly and loudly. I looked the woman in the eye and pointed at her."I don't want to hear one more word from you." (Apparently I spend way too much time around five-year-olds and not quite enough in the company of adults).

"I was just asking," she said.

sparklers

2007-07-08T18:06:00.001-10:00

I was raised in a wilder time. We didn't bother with car seats or even seat belts much of the time. I remember riding in the back of a neighbor's pick up truck--she did, of course, tell us to duck when we passed the police station. I also "smoked" candy cigarettes, built ramshackle tree houses sans nails, walked to the store by myself by the time I was Anna's age, jumped from the second floor to the sofa and rode my sled off the cabin roof ("Yee-ha" for you Dukes of Hazard fans out there).

My generation is more safety conscious--perhaps out of necessity. We're all about forcing our infants to sleep on their backs in their blanketless/pillowless cribs, car seats, organic eating, bike helmets and knee pads. And I don't even want to get into my paranoid obsession with "the gap" and the lectures I give Anna about it every time we take the train. We live in a dangerous world and our kids know it (at least mine do). Anna even has a whistle to blow should some creepy guy slip in through the back gate.

With all our safety procedures in place, something slipped through the cracks last year when my neighbor offered Anna a sparkler. I was honestly horrified that they let their kids play with these "mini finger incinerators" and I was equally floored that the father actually does "tricks" with fire. That's just what I want Anna to see--a grown-up playing with fire!

I allowed Anna a sparkler last year with much trepidation and many barked commands as she tried to maneuver it. Did I mention that when I was a teen I was hit by a firework and had to "stop, drop and roll?" Anyway, during Anna's first experience with the sparkler I was totally hands-on and sweating. I just read my friend Romani's post about sparklers and I was amazed to read that her parents let her and her sisters RUN with the blasted things!

And yet, I understand a little better this year. Sparklers are beautiful, they're fascinating, and they give our kids a chance to try something a little dangerous on their own. For me, at least, taking risks was an essential part of growing up. I needed to be trusted with a little so that I could gain confidence in my ability to take on more with each passing day.

So here's Anna, holding her sparkler far from her face and body just as I told her to, looking at me with her wide eyes, and beginning to light her own path through this dangerous world.

first words

2007-07-08T17:58:00.000-10:00

Natalie seems to be a lady of many words, although for the most part we have been unable to make sense of them. But the other day she woke John by rolling over and grabbing his beard and saying "hidada." You may call this mere coincidence but I believe that her first word was actually no word at all but WORDS. (Read it and weep Esme!) And then, as if to confirm the matter, today during church she looked up through the royal doors and said, "hidada."

ordinary gifts

2007-07-06T18:35:00.000-10:00

Two weeks ago the husband of my friend Cindy, Andy Wierzba, died of a heart attack. Andy is my third married friend to die young and suddenly, and I haven't had words to write about this for two weeks. I've been tiptoeing around the computer, wanting to say something but at a loss for words.

Cindy and I began seminary together in 1999, and she married Andy in 2001. Seminary was difficult for Cindy--she was a business woman who didn't have a lot of patience with the esoteric elements of theology. She would startle us all during a lecture in dogmatics or Church history when she would raise he hand and say something like, "But what does this have to do with Jesus, anyway?"

As a business woman, she was able to hire out all her writing. She used to tell me that in the business world, "writers are a dime a dozen."(Thanks Cindy!) Anyway, since she didn't have to write in her professional life it was a foreign experience for her to sit down at the computer and build an essay brick by brick, and many of her papers went unfinished for many years.

The last time I spoke to Cindy she told me that Andy was pushing her to get her degree and that when she lost courage he would gently nudge her until finally, one month ago, Cindy graduated. But when she finally got the diploma she fought so hard for, she didn't really want it. She knew it belonged to Andy as much as it belonged to her, so she tucked it into his casket.

When Cindy and Andy were newly married they attended our parish. They were a lovely couple--different but complementary. Cindy was bold and impulsive, articulate and unpredictable. Andy was gentle, consistent, self-educated and steady. He was also handsome and poised. Cindy told me that at their parish in Rye, New York there was a woman who always used to stare at him during the services, and Cindy took pleasure in the fact that she had the best looking guy at the church. But after Andy died the woman came to her with tears and said, "Now I'm going to have to pray during church!"

On Monday Amber called to tell me about the New York funeral. She said she had been crying all day, but it was a good kind of cry. And then she said something beautiful. She said, "We go to funerals not just to mourn the dead but to recommit ourselves to the project of living."

So I continued that project of living for a few days, all that living infused with the knowledge that Andy was gone and no amount of thinking would untangle this. A week ago Thursday I woke to attend the Chicago funeral. As I stumbled out of bed I thought, "I am just going to cry and cry today."

At the Greek funeral, it was sobering to see Andy, laid out in the casket, looking so unlike himself, as he was fit and athletic in this life. And it was sweet to see Cindy, who was her gracious loving self, despite her grief.

There was one moment that expressed so much of who Cindy and Andy are to the world and what they were to each other. At the burial, after the prayers had been said but everyone was still around, Cindy started pulling roses and daisies from the bouquet atop the casket, calling people by name to receive one last gift from Andy.

This photo is from that moment. I was a little nervous snapping photos at a cemetery, so I unfortunately cut off Julia and Esme's heads. But still, the moment is there, Cindy handing Esme a beautiful red flower, and Esme studying it with that academic look of hers. The arm reaching into the bouquet is Andy's mom.

After Cindy's gesture, everyone seemed a little confused because we didn't actually lower the casket into the ground. On the phone today, Cindy told me that she was troubled by this and a few days after the funeral she inquired about it. She was told that they no longer do that because it is "too upsetting."

She said, "But how will I know that you actually buried Andy right here?" She asked if they might dig up the casket for her so she could double check, but was told that she'd already spent $2,500 for the casket to be buried and she was forbidden to disturb the grave.

She eyed the sod covering Andy's freshly-dug grave and was troubled at the careless covering and yellowing grass. "Andy was visual and he liked everything neat," she said. So she got down on her knees and pulled the sod off the grave. She grabbed some fresh, healthy sod and rolled it carefully over the dirt.

"I felt like I was combing his hair," She said.

After the grave was settled to her satisfaction, she took a moment to lay down on that fresh grass, to rest with her husband in that quiet, wordless place.

P.S. To learn more about Andy and Cindy visit Julia's blog-- http://flakedoves.blogspot.com/2007/06/andy-through-cindy-shaped-glasses.html.

new do, no do

2007-07-06T18:04:00.000-10:00

So I got a new haircut, and it is exactly what I wanted, a no-do-do. What I mean by that is that this haircut looks exactly the same when I roll out of bed in the morning as it does after I've showered. I don't dry, curl or agonize any more. No product, no hassle. In fact, I'm going to carry my curling iron right out to the alley as soon as I sign off (yeah)!

I'm a little embarrassed to post this, but I need to hear from my dear girlfriends, because my hubby has been less-than-enthusiastic about the new do. In fact, when I came through the door with it, he simply said, "Oh."

At that point I was feeling a little delicate, as if I'd made some kind of cosmic error by chopping my hair. On the long walk to the train, I kept peeking in every store window on Michigan Ave hoping to catch my reflection. Maya and Anna finally said, "What are you doing?"

When I got home I called my mom for advice. She said, "Just be with it and see what you think in a few days." I must say that it is delightful to have one less to do on on my list each day.

P.S. I took the photo myself. Amber is training me into the fine art of self-portraiture.

the year of the cicada

2007-07-02T03:38:00.001-10:00

So it is the year of the cicada, which was initially a pretty creepy concept to me. Apparently the cicadas go in 17 year cycles, and when they come, they bring all their friends and relatives and they party in every tree in the Chicago suburbs. They're so noisy that you can barely think when you get near one of their hang outs.

Recently, at a birthday party for one of Anna's five year old buddies, Anna managed to catch and cuddle two cicadas. The other girls were pretty frightened of the orange-headed insects, but Anna loved them with a strange passion. So much so that in the car she suggested we open a window because then perhaps more cicadas would join us. What delightful company a gigantic, screaming, orange-headed insect would make on our hour long trip home!

Anyway, as I was watching the cicadas crawl up Anna's arm with a mixture of horror and awe, I realized that the next time the cicadas come our way, Anna will be in college--or possibly have even graduated. I can't think or write these words without aching for my Anna, who is growing faster than I realized.

In light of the circumstances, I've come to think of parenting in a fresh way, one that seems to trim the task down a bit and bring more delight to the process. This summer, I'm not in the business of making perfect, successful, savvy girls. My job is simpler than that--for now, at least, I'm gardening--planting memories in the fertile soil of their hearts. I'm hoping that the lovely memories will outweigh the not-so-lovely ones which will inevitably slip in.

As Dostoevsky wrote in the Karamazov Brothers:

"Remember that nothing is nobler, stronger, more vital, or more useful in future life than some happy memory, especially one from your family home. A lot is said about upbringing, but the very best upbringing, perhaps, is some lovely, holy memory preserved from one's childhood. If a man carries many such memories with him, they will keep him safe throughout his life. And even if only one such memory stays in our hearts, it may prove to be our salvation one day.

Speaking of memories, Anna may have relished the cicadas at that party, but Natalie was all about the frosting . . .

victory

2007-05-25T07:01:00.001-10:00

This just in: John passed the German exam! This past year, our family theme song was "I fought the German exam, and the exam won." Now we'll have to find a new soundtrack.

CHEERS!

awe

2007-05-23T16:58:00.000-10:00

"I've been thinking about existence lately. In fact, I have been so full of admiration for existence that I have hardly been able to enjoy it properly . . . I feel sometimes as if I were a child who opens its eyes on the world once and sees amazing things it will never know any names for and then has to close its eyes again."

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

P.S. I was headed to my computer to post this quote, with my nose in the book. I suddenly heard John shriek. I looked down, and there was Natalie, in the midst of a diaper change, just where my foot was about to land.

P.S.S. Guess who this is and where the photo was taken. To see more stunning photos click here.

now what time was that train?

2007-05-10T12:44:00.001-10:00

While I was getting ready for our trip downtown, Natalie ate the schedule.

teacher for the day

2007-05-10T12:40:00.000-10:00

So Anna was "teacher for the day" which means that she got to wear Mr. Jeff's keys around her neck all day long, she got to sit in the teacher's chair and generally rule the classroom. I believe that she's been aspiring to this type of role for years.

When she woke, she asked me to help her pick something that an adult might wear. She insisted that she look "totally plain" (this might be a slam, I'm not quite sure). Anyway this what we came up with, grown-up as can be.

one good heart

2007-05-10T12:32:00.000-10:00

After a scary episode in the ER, my dad found out that his heart is in great shape. He sent me this photo just to prove it. I wasn't sure how to feel when I pulled my dad's heart out of the envelope, but here it is--after forty years with type one diabetes--pulsing with life.

I just got word that he is headed up to the Gunflint Trail to try to protect our family cabin from the most serious forest fire in Minnesota history. Nearly 350 square miles have burned already from a fire that began as a single unattended campfire. Please pray for rain!

My dad's courage in going up to stave off the fire says more about his heart than any photo ever could.

a prayer for tattered creatures

2007-05-07T12:56:00.000-10:00

Last night as I was tucking Anna in she showed me a butterfly's wing she'd found in the back yard. To her amazement and mine, she was able to identify the butterfly in her animal kingdom book by slipping the wing on top of the butterfly image in the book.

Just before I left I asked her if there was anyone we should pray for.

"For butterflies that have lost their wings, for butterflies with a tear in their wing and for the ones who died," she said, "And also for dogs with only one eye."

check mate

2007-05-05T06:36:00.000-10:00

Tripping Over Joy

What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
And that of a Saint?

The saint knows
that the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God

And that the Beloved
Has just made such a Fantastic Move

That the saint is now continually
Tripping over Joy
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying, "I Surrender!"

Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think

You have a thousand serious moves.

(Poem by Daniel Ladinsky, from his book I heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy, Penguin Books, 2006, used with permission of the author)

the golden ticket

2007-05-05T05:40:00.000-10:00

My train tickets arrived today--from Croton-on-Hudson to New York City to Boston to Portland, Maine. I can barely contain my giddiness as I hold the tickets in hand. I want to tell you--Amber, Rachel, Warren, Sally, Sherry and Emily--I'm coming!

I can hardly wait to see you all, but I expect I'm going to enjoy getting there almost as much as being there. This is part of what the train has given back to me--a chance to relish the journey as much as the destination.

I love the way it hums along the tracks like a wordless poem, the way you step on without being jostled through tense security checkpoints. The way it invites you to watch and wonder and wait.

Two days ago, on the Metra, I watched three passengers fall asleep within moments of boarding. They looked a little like Natalie after she's nursed--satisfied and safe, ready for some respite from the constant shoving of life. They had already navigated Chicago's grimy rush hour on foot, passing the panhandlers, nudging their way through the crowds. It was time to be lulled into another, quieter space.

Yesterday Lauren Winner gave a wonderful lecture at the University of Chicago. One of her most compelling points was that we now define time in purely economical terms. We no longer pass an afternoon, we spend it. We don't cherish moments, we maximize them. We're fixed on efficiency at the expense of grace.

We're expected to perform around the clock, to perpetually check our email and to always keep our cell phones on. Lauren said that she can't quite grasp why we fought so hard for the forty hour work week only to hand it right back to our employers.

I don't want to buy, spend or maximize time. I want to live fully through it--to dwell in the days given to me with gratitude. I want to come to a fresh awareness of the grace-upon-grace of life in this dazzling mud-flecked world of ours. I hope to pass--not spend--more hours on the train.

The Great Blessing of Circus Peanuts

2007-05-03T16:48:00.000-10:00

On Pascha Anna snuck some Circus Peanuts into our basket. I mentioned that I was concerned that Circus Peanuts might be just unblessable.

Derek Bowers took me to task when he devised this blessing for them. This blessing won't make it into The Great Book of Needs (for goodness sake--who could need a Circus Peanut?) but it is certainly worth publishing:

GREAT BLESSING OF THE CIRCUS PEANUTS

I know, O Lord, that I partake unworthily of these, Thy Circus Peanuts, which Thou hast prepared for the nourishment of Thine unworthy servants, for oft-times have I scorned Thine artificially flavored foodstuffs. Verily, from the day that my mother bore me, I have been reared on the choicest flesh of fattened calves and the most costly of spirits, and I have forgotten the vision which Thou didst reveal to Thine all-holy and laudable Apostle Peter who beheld upon the housetop at the sixth hour a great sheet descending from the heavens which was filled with four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air. And then there was the voice: “That which God hath cleansed, thou mayest not call unclean.” But how can I, who have ne’er partaken of even so much as a creeping beast of the earth, dare to bring forth to my defiled lips the Circus Peanut, a substance the nature of which Thou hast not deigned to reveal to the minds of earth-borne men? Thou bringest to my mind, O Lord Who makest all foods clean, the example of the holy king and prophet David, whose company Thou didst once nourish with the Bread of Thy Divine Presence, a thing incomprehensible to the mortal mind. And so, as Thou didst once strengthen the heart of David Thy servant to eat the bread of Thy mystical presence, a thing far stranger to the minds of men than even the Circus Peanut, so now give me the courage to say with boldness: “These Circus Peanuts are blessed in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” May they be neither to the deterioration of the enamel, nor to the fattening of the flesh, nor to the orangification of the tongue, but rather to the nourishment of the body, the reinvigoration of the mind, and the pleasure of the palette. Amen.

foiled (again)

2007-04-30T17:27:00.000-10:00

My husband is a pack rat and I am a purger. While in some areas of our marriage we've found a happy middle ground, this domestic tension has only intensified over the years, especially when it comes to the thousands of books we collaboratively (John 91%, me 9%) own. One time I even shattered a plate in rage when he brought yet another book into our home. Moving has been torture. When my dad helped us move into a third-floor walk-up he suffered a heatstroke from our bulk of books.

Every now and then I get the urge to sneak a few out of the house. I keep my covert operation within respectful limits--I do not carry off books from his office, for example. But I might snatch a few titles from my bookshelves in the back of the house, a few from Anna's room, and perhaps a few from a dusty corner of a closet that haven't seen that light of day since 1931.

One problem with books is that despite John's great passion for them, charities aren't so enthused. Last time I tried to hawk a few titles at the Salvation Army they turned me away. But last week I had an idea--I would drop a few books in the Powell's give-away box.

I loaded up my car with clutter from Anna's room, household items and some of my old maternity clothes. I also had a few books with me, and I was able to carry them off undetected (score!). I was inwardly cheering at my success, when John sweetly offered to help carry a load to the car. "Oh no, really I'm fine," I said as I staggered to the car, both arms overflowing with stuff, one of Natalie's eyes peeking out from the sling.

When I returned to the house for another load John was waiting for me on the back deck. I was nervous but tried to act cool. "Would you like to take my black cords?" he asked, offering me a pair of pants with a most unfortunately located stain. "That's the spirit, Honey!" I said, as I flung the pants over my forearm. I made it safely down the street to Powell's, double parked and chucked the books in the give-away box as fast as I could. Two days of domestic harmony followed, and I thought I was in the clear.

On Sunday morning, however, John was serving in the altar and I smiled sweetly at him through the royal doors. He did not smile back. During coffee hour he cornered me. "Which of my books did you sell at Powell's?" he asked. "Um," I said, stalling. "Who did you talk to?" He would not reveal his sources. "Now I have to go to Powell's, search their entire inventory and buy back my own books--and how could sell Jacob's book?" His hands were trembling.

My face flushed as I realized that I'd accidentally slipped our friend Jacob's book in with the others. But I still couldn't figure out how John knew. "But John, you don't have to buy back our books. I put them in the giveaway box!" He smiled then, satisfied. "Well, good, then I've already picked them all up!"

Postscript:

John went for a walk the same day I attempted my scheme. Free from my ever-watchful gaze, he decided to court the give-away box at Powells. To his amazement, he found one with Jacob's name in it. He tucked it in with an armload of books that he thought would make a great "addition" to our library. He thought it strange that so many impressive titles were in the give-away box, with irresistible titles like A History of Ancient China, and The Many Faces of Iran. Sunday morning, when he was serving with Jacob in the altar, he turned to him and told him that he'd discovered one of Jacob's books in the give-away box at Powell's. Jacob was equally baffled, as he hadn't been there in years . . .

grieving a miscarriage

2007-03-23T18:33:00.000-10:00

I've got a new piece up on Boundless about grieving a miscarriage. To read it, go to www.boundless.org.

a candle for Eric

2007-03-23T08:28:00.000-10:00

It's been a week since Eric Iliff's funeral. I am part of that cloud of witnesses who continue to struggle and reflect over his death and its implications.

Here's the story of how I ended up at the funeral--a stranger among the mourners:

A week ago, I headed out to Burbank to make an "addendum" confession. In the car, I called Amber for my daily dose of her (if you've read her blog, you can imagine why I need her so). She told me that our friend Rachel was headed to Eric's funeral in Normal. This conversation intensified an earlier desire to go to the funeral, although I did not know Eric or his family.

I wanted to be there for reasons I can not articulate completely. I ache for Eric, for his family, and for everyone who is struggling now. And although I don't know the family, we are all family in the Church--even those of us who don't know each other yet.

By the time I arrived in Burbank, I had begun to formulate a plan, and Fr. John had given his blessing for me to make the trip with Natalie while he cared for Anna at home. There were, of course, a few small details I had not yet figured out.

"You see, I'm not exactly dressed for a funeral," I said glancing down at my jeans and red sweatshirt, after I'd arrived at the rectory. "Well," said Miriam, "Perhaps we should go up and look through my closet." I found a red sweater and black skirt that fit nicely. When I was changed and ready, Fr. Luke arrived with directions he'd printed out from mapquest.

On the long drive up, I conversed with myself about what the heck I was doing. If I had to turn in a comment card for myself, I'd surely write, "Seems to be getting a bit crazier each day." And yet I felt magnetically drawn to the funeral, and this feeling, irrational and unexplainable as it was, only intensified as I drove.

I went through a mental checklist: Computer? Check (I was on deadline for an article). Powercord? Check. Extra diapers and clothes for N? Check. Sling? Check. Toothbrush and paste? Mmmm. Wallet? Oh, I hope and hope it is somewhere in this car. The nagging fear about my wallet tugged at me on the long ride through the infinitely flat cornfields.

And then Rachel called to tell me that she was stuck in Pennsylvania because of a blizzard (all flights out of NYC were also canceled). She said that the other two carloads of seminarians would be driving all night to get there. What else can go wrong? I asked myself as I started to lose courage.

When I finally arrived at the funeral home, I began to see the rightness of being there. During the Panakhida a lady glanced at Natalie in the sling. "A baby," she said, "There is hope." Natalie did not seem to understand that one is supposed to be solemn at a funeral, and she cooed and gurgled while everyone wept around her. After the service, Fr. James Ellison checked me into a hotel and I wrote him a check (saving the day for the wallet-less me).

In the church parking lot the next day, I was shocked by the amount of cars in comparison to the shoe-box-sized church. I opened the door and could barely squeeze in with Natalie in the sling. We were body to body, all these people who loved Eric and were shaken by his death. I spotted Deacon Alex right away, with Josiah at his feet, and then I saw Nathan, eyes bloodshot from the all night drive.

Fr. John was in white vestments, and the choir was singing words that didn't always fit perfectly. A little later, Eric's picture tumbled to the ground, and it was swiftly picked up and kissed as if it were an icon. Through tears, Fr. John spoke about the darkness we were in. "But in a few short weeks," he said, "It will be Pascha, we will light our candles off of each other and the light will spread."

At the end of the service I made my way up to the family. I thought about Nate Schroeder's funeral, a little more than a year ago, also in central Illinois. I remembered how most people kissed and touched Nate. I wanted to kiss Eric's casket. I was afraid, though, because I knew he had died violently. And then I remembered about the cross and how our Lord had died violently as well. I stepped forward, then, and kissed the casket. As I made my way toward the family, I saw Julia, with Esme in her arms, bending over Eric, her lips brushing the lid of his casket.

take two

2007-03-05T11:19:00.001-10:00

a word from our sponsor

2007-03-05T10:52:00.000-10:00

sushi from heaven

2007-03-04T09:24:00.000-10:00

A few weeks back, on a frigid day, I was walking in turbo-mode in the interest of preserving my fingertips. I was stopped by a man on the corner, selling his poetry. He told me that he needed $30 for a room. "I'm so cold," he said.

His eyes were bloodshot, his skin red and bruised from the wind, and one side of his nose was running. I decided that if he wasn't going to spend the money honorably, that would be his problem. I handed him a dollar, which he took. I hesitated a moment. I knew he'd be out there peddling poetry for a long time, and what would become of his nose and ears?

I forked over all the cash I had--a whopping eleven dollars. He took the money gratefully and I headed to campus, where I was planning to spend a few hours working on a book proposal and munching on sushi. As soon as I stepped away I realized with horror what I'd done--I didn't have my wallet with me and I'd given away all my money. I quickly did the equations in my head: zero cash + zero cash = no sushi.

As a nursing mother, my hunger tends to be extreme, and I tend to fixate on certain foods. It was a sushi day, all the way, and I'd been banking on it to get me out the door. But here I was, with no wallet and no cash, headed to campus.

As I walked, I thought about the divine economy and the possibility that God might just make a deposit into my tummy account. On campus, I headed over to the Div. School, hoping to find my husband.

I didn't find him, but I ran into one of his peers, who was carrying a bin full of food. I cleared my throat, "Hey Adrian, do you happen to have some leftovers?" He nodded and smiled, digging through the the box. He coaxed out a plastic container. "Would you like some sushi?"

winter to spring

2007-03-04T08:56:00.000-10:00

"That's you and me in the winter."--Anna Pepper

"That's you and me in the Spring."--Anna Pepper

our valentine

2007-02-14T10:12:00.000-10:00

keep going

2007-02-14T07:24:00.000-10:00

Wise words from a teabag.

balloons for Jarrod

2007-02-13T16:59:00.000-10:00

This photo was digitally altered by Jarrod's aunt. Hayden loves the image--and the idea, that his daddy did catch the balloons.

We just passed the birthday of our friend Jarrod, who died a year ago of cancer. His wife Amy asked friends and family to release a balloon for him, to honor a tradition that Amy started with their three-year-old son Hayden.

Jarrod's birthday fell during a brutal cold snap. I had to take Anna to the doctor for an ear infection, so I checked the hospital gift shop for balloons. Lo and behold, there were some, but most were not appropriate. I steered Anna away from the ones that read "Get well soon" as well as the ones that read "It's a boy!" She steared me away from the one featuring a Basset Hound and a single tear dripping down its cheeks that read, "I miss you."

She said, "Did Jarrod even have a dog?" I shook my head. "Well, I think that one is just for dogs anyway," she concluded. She finally settled on the most masculine of the bunch, a huge one, featuring Batman.

All balloons were to be released at 7 pm. At 6:55 we had one of Anna's friends over with his mom. I promptly ended the playdate and sent them packing. We got all bundled up and rushed out the door. We stood in our dark backyard, looking up at the sky for a moment before we released the balloon.

"Do you think we should go up to the top floor to make sure the balloon doesn't get stuck in a tree?" I asked. John just shook his head. He was pretty confident the balloon would make it, but I was a little less sure because there was already one tatttered helium balloon ensnared in a tree that had been there since last summer.

Anna released the balloon and it floated upward, but then dipped and staggered in the cold. We cringed as it headed toward the tree, and then gasped when it got trapped in the branches. I was devestated. This failed launch reminded me of all the other ways we fell short in the last few months of Jarrod's life.

With all the courage she could muster, Anna said, "It's okay, we can send another one to Jarrod tomorrow." I just nodded, holding back tears. John said, "All we need is one good gust of wind." I was doubtful, considering how futile the wind had been with the other balloon.

We went inside and John read stories for Anna while I paced with Natalie in the sling. I said, "Jarrod, we need a little miracle now." I paced some more, cried a little, sighed, and then decided to take matters into my own hands. I grabbed a long pole from the broom clostet and headed out.

I looked up at the tree and blinked. The balloon was gone. I just stood there a few minutes in the cold, with Natalie tucked into the sling under my coat, staring at the gap where the balloon had been, wondering at the terrifying mercy of God.

five years today

2007-01-30T09:17:00.000-10:00

Today is my husband's five year anniversary of his ordination.
He just caught me posting this, "Oh Jenny, don't do that!" he says, horrified to see his own face on my blog. He tells me, "That is just too chatty!" But what is a blog for, anyway, if not to chat?

Natalie Joy

2007-01-29T17:30:00.000-10:00

Always Winter, Never Christmas

2006-11-20T00:31:00.000-10:00

It is bleak and cold outside, the hours of light short and weak. All this seems a good match for my current state of mind. I'm just a few days past due, and yet I suddenly feel as if the pregnancy has been going on forever.

Funny—I have this faint memory of a few weeks ago, back when I was euphoric, and I was telling people that every day felt like Christmas Eve because of the anticipation. And yet every morning that Natalie didn't come I was still happy because I had a little bit more time to work and relax. That was a great feeling. Now, in my own body, I feel as if I'm lugging the weight of the world around. I've been having contractions for days, but they don't seem to be doing much, except for wearing me out. I guess I've entered the "Always Winter, Never Christmas" phase of the pregnancy.

It amazes me how different pregnancy looks from the outside—I remember seeing very pregnant women and how clear it was that they were soon to deliver. And yet, I could never have imagined the chasm of doubt and fear that they could be experiencing. Or how impossible it could feel.

Last Advent, when our friend Jarrod was dying of cancer, he quoted Paul Westerberg in his online journal, who wrote, "Miracles always happen when they have to." Jarrod wrote about how Advent is full of expectations—and demands. The darkening days only seem to add to the intensity of our jumbled felt and real needs. "As it builds up, we realize that we will not be satisfied in a waiting room of sorts," Jarrod wrote, "So we get up and actively long, yearn and crave, pretending that we we're actually doing something to bring the miracle about."

Like Jarrod, I can't will my miracle into existence. I feel the tug of her, though, as she struggles to find her way out. I try to be patient, because I know she has never done this before and it is dark and cramped in there. And I try to remember, as Jarrod did, that miracles happen when they have to.

Image provided by freefoto.com.

Argument #5764398

2006-11-13T10:16:00.000-10:00

From the moment I found out I was pregnant, I felt that our bed situation needed some serious reconsideration. It was my theory that I deserved about 2/3 of the bed, because I was now two in one. John pointed out that the baby was quite small at the time, no larger than a grain of rice, actually, so my calculations might need to be reworked. But, I said, "I'm sleeping for two!"

Well, the bed situation hasn't improved too much, especially because of something I mentioned in my last post--each time I get up during the night, my dear hubby rolls to the center of the bed and falls into a deep sleep. When I return, it takes some serious coaxing to get him back to his proper location.

When we were in Michigan this summer, I managed to get poison Ivy. That first night after my diagnosis I woke in the middle of the night thinking, "Wow, I'm having my best night sleep in ages, poison ivy and all!" I looked over at John and in the moonlight I could see that he was clutching the edge of the bed, trying to stay as far away as possible. Even after I discovered that poison ivy rarely spreads from person to person, I liked to admonish him each night with, "Poison ivy is a HIGHLY contagious disease."

After the rash cleared up, I lost my best weapon. A few weeks ago, I came back to bed and found John in the dead center of the bed. Only this time, as a special bonus, not only was he sleeping in that forbidden region, but he was also talking in his sleep. I couldn't manage to wake him to get him to move over. I kept insisting, he kept hedging. He complained about the cold, I complained about the heat. I asked him, no begged him, to move over. And then he said, "Aw just put it in the archives as argument #5764398."

Freda the Long-Suffering

2006-11-13T09:40:00.000-10:00

This photo was taken when Anna was two and sick with a fever. Freda never left her side. Freda also stays with her every night as she settles into sleep. I can't say Freda exactly enjoys this job (I think she especially loathes listening to Leo the Lightening Bug on repeat ad nauseum) but when she looks up at me and groans I reply, "Do you pay rent?"

We found Freda running alonside the highway two years ago. She was wet, cold, and had no collar. I pulled over and opened the back of my car, and she jumped in. None of the neighbors knew her. I posted a sign with my contact info at the local police station, and she is yet to be claimed. I still marvel at the timing of her arrival into our lives, as I had just told a friend, "I'm not ready for a second child just yet, but I could go for a dog."

Last night was rough. I'm due this week, and I am huge and lumbering and loose-jointed and Natalie can't keep her toes or fingers or something off my jelly-bean-sized bladder. I had to get up and go about 328 times. Anna also woke multiple times, first because she was thirsty, then hot, then cold, then scared, then lonely. To complicate matters, each time I returned to bed, I discovered that my husband had rolled into the dead center of the bed. At night he is like a boulder--immovable and impossible.

In the morning, Freda wakes at my first stir. She parks just outside my door. She does not make a sound, but I can see her furry outline beneath the crack. It is as if she is saying, "I know you have a lot on your plate. Whenever you get around to taking me out, that will be just fine."

Belly Grows, Brain Shrinks

2006-10-17T16:43:00.000-10:00

A week from Friday I'll be full term--although we don't expect Natalie to come until mid-November, based on the tardiness of her big sister.

I'm getting a little clumsier and a lot more forgetful. I'd like to share of few of my recent bumbles. I'm hoping that after the baby comes at least a portion of my brain function will return, but I find it a little disconcerting to contemplate that my brain function was never all that it could be to begin with. I'm not so sure that the impending sleep deprivation will improve my condition, either.

1) John found a housekey in the freezer. He pulled it out with a bemused expression on his face and said, "This wouldn't happen to have anything to do with you?" Of course I have no memory whatsoever related to keys or freezers.

2) This one is pretty tragic (I cried so hard that my dog was shaking)--two weeks ago I overwrote/deleted an entire chapter of my book. I had to rewrite the entire blasted thing. It is of course, a little easier to write a chapter after you've already processed the material. I just keep telling myself, "At least I didn't delete the whole book."

3) Last weekend (the day after I deleted the chapter) I lost my parking ticket at the farmer's market and was forced to pay the maximum fee to exit the lot. Of course I found the ticket (in my purse) a few days later, long after my need for it had expired.

4) Just yesterday I went shopping and purchased three cartons of milk. When I was unpacking the milk, however, I could only find two cartons. So I asked John (who had carried the groceries in) if he had seen that third missing carton. he got a half-amused, almost guilty expression on his face. "Jenny, you closed the garage door on that carton and the milk is no more." And then he laughed and laughed.

Oh well. That's all I can say these days. Oh well.

Urban Adventures

2006-09-21T17:10:00.000-10:00

This photo, by Chicago Photographer Thomas Marlow, was the product of a messy day.

I took Anna downtown hoping to take her to free concerts, which were all supposed to be located in one park, but alas, I couldn't find any of them, and the the said park was GIGANTIC. We had not brought Anna's stroller, either. She had only the stroller for her lucky doll, named, Natalie (respectively).

It was humid. I was waddling and she was whining and when we finally got to the vistors center to ask about the concerts the clerk said, "Oh--those concerts are spread all over the city. And by the way, the summer is almost over. You've basically missed everything."

We truged over to "Silk Road" for a free glass-bead making demonstration. Anna got to hide in a kid-sized mongolian yurt. And I met Thomas Marlow, who is taking portraits of locals to adorn the tiles of a local L station. If you'll sit for him, he'll let you select a portrait and print it for you. So we picked this one, and I love it, although don't I seem a little lumpy? Anna tells me, "You don't look like a lump, you look like a mama!" I'm concerned that the line between the two might be very fine indeed.

The day Thomas took our photo he told me that he has already taken 300. He only has a mere 14,700 left to go. Somehow this made me feel a little bit better about the book I need to complete before Natalie (the breathing one) comes.

Anna and I then ate at a Turkish festival and then spent a lazy hour waiting for the free trolley. I was so tired and, um, lumpy, that I had to sit on the pavement. A kind man even stopped, pulled out his wallet and started to hand us some bills before he realized that I wasn't actually pan handling--just pregnant, and hot, weary from adjusting my expections as they grew and shrank and grew again.

What I'm learning slowly, about the City--and about parenting--is that the only way to enjoy the ride is to let go of preconcieved notions of how things will be (or should be). Only then can I embrace what actually is--which is of course, the only the only thing there is to embrace.

Why Can't You?

2006-08-13T14:09:00.000-10:00

So we've entered a new phase of parenthood--I fear this one will last at least through her teenage years. It is the "Why can't you?" "Why didn't you?" and the "Why won't you?" phase. I get asked questions along these lines all day long. As I sit here now, she's just asked me a particularily ticklish duo. The first one was "Why do you always rub yogurt into my arms?" (I have no recollection of EVER doing this and am completely stumped about how to respond). Before I've had a chance to pull together an answer she says, "And why can't you turn me into Wonder Woman?" Again, I'm stumped. So she prods a little. "It's easy," she says. "All I need is a crown."

Hmmm. So that's how it works. Perhaps I should get MYSELF a crown. If I were Wonder Woman I might be able to find myself some answers.

Ice Cream with Sally

2006-06-28T04:16:00.000-10:00

John's Beloved Grandparents, Sally and Warren (with Anna) in NY

ICE CREAM WITH SALLY

I asked you, Sally, as ice cream dripped from the spoon,
If it tasted good.
“Are you kidding?” you said. “This stuff is the best.”
I lifted the spoon to your mouth.
A vanilla tear fell on your shirt.
But you didn’t see.

A faint spark
As if you’re straining
To remember
As if, for a moment
You do.

I lift the spoon to your mouth,
one more time.
You pucker around a peach.
Chewing, thinking,
or not thinking.

You are empty
And you are full.
I put the spoon down.

With you I am empty.
digesting this new awareness,
And letting it fill me.

When God is Absent

2006-06-04T02:20:00.000-10:00

I can't resist putting up another Bloom quote. This one is nourishing:

"The day when God is absent, when He is silent--that is the beginning of prayer. Not when we have a lot to say, but when we say to God, 'I can't live without you. Why are you so cruel, so silent?' This knowledge that we must find or die--that makes us break through to the place where we are in the Presence. If we listen to what our hearts know of love and longing and are never afraid of despair, we find that victory is is always there on the other side of it."

An Unsaintly Moment

2006-06-04T01:59:00.000-10:00

In Beginning to Pray, Met. Anthony Bloom gave this advice to a young person who had been praying for hours and hours at a time but felt that he couldn't bear to keep it up any longer:

"There are moments when you can tell God 'I simply must have a rest. I have no strength to be with you all of the time,' which is perfectly true. You are still not capible of bearing God's company of all the time. Well, say so. God knows that perfectly well, whatever you do about it. Go apart, say for a moment, 'I'll just have a rest. For the moment I accept to be less saintly.'"

Grocery Store Fantasies

2006-06-04T01:34:00.000-10:00

So, I'm up at 6 on Sunday morning, and have been up for the past two hours because some kindly neighbor decided to set off fireworks at 4. When I heard the explosions I was in a deep sleep and imagined that somebody was trying to break in with dynamite.

So now I'm on the porch swing, listening to dozens of birds calling to each other, feeling oddly grateful for that neighbor. It was sweet (after the initial shock this morning) to wake with the day. And everytime I think of last night's dream, I chuckle.

So here goes: I was at a store which was something like Stanleys (a top-notch low cost North Side produce store) only this wasn't the Stanley's I know and love. Instead, it was a whole new Stanley's which was small but (get this!) featured every single exoctic pregnancy food I crave at unbeatable prices.

So I was walking through the store, chucking things in my cart. I might have been humming, "Yippidi do-dah, yippidi-eh, my oh my what a wonderful day," but the details are fading fast. I know, however, that the Stanley's of my fantasies had every manner of swiss milk chocolate, Elderflower Press, Salt and Vinegar Chips and Sour Patch Kids.

Although I blush to recount this dream, I must say, to my credit (if there is any credit left to be given) the dream had one odd twist: I came home and my neighbor Penny had left three cartons of broccoli on the back porch, with a note that said, "Just back from the Farmer's Market. First broccoli of the season. Help Yourself." So I nibbled a little of the broccoli and it was the sweetest, tastiest, I'd ever encountered. And then I thought to myself, "I can't believe I missed the broccoli at the Farmer's Market, and I already went this week. Is it okay to go twice?"

The Proofs are In

2006-05-22T18:21:00.000-10:00

The proofs for my book have arrived. I've been tiptoeing around them for several days now. I can't seem to muster the courage to look at them closely.

When I signed for the Fed Ex package it was a whole different story. I was giddy. I couldn't stop touching the pages. They looked so much like a book, and I was dangerousy tempted to believe that I'd be publishing one come September. I even invited two neighbors in to see them. But when one of them picked up the pages and started to skim the words I quickly snatched them away, "You don't have to read this now," I said.

And that seems to be the theme these days. I can't seem to bring myself to really look at the words and face their flouderings and flabbiness. I'm dreading this as anyone might dread a trip to the dentist--only in this case, I have to be both the white-knuckled patient gripping the arms of the dental chair and the dentist shining a bright light into the cavern of my own mouth, looking for cavities and expecting the worst.

baby vs. bunkbeds

2006-05-16T08:30:00.000-10:00

Back when we were exploring the idea of baby #2, I asked Anna what she would think of having a baby around the house. I told her that it would be pretty fun, that we could get her bunk beds and everything. She nodded her head, "If we had a baby, I would hold it all the time. When it cried at night, I would get up with it so you could sleep."

So when I began to suspect that I was pregnant, I decided to check in with her again. "Anna, how would you feel if we had a baby?" She looked at me with horror. "I don't want a baby." I just stared at her. "I thought you said you wanted a baby," I said. "Actually, I just wanted the bunk beds," she said.

feeling gooder now

2006-05-16T06:57:00.000-10:00

Meet Anna Pepper, a Force to be Reckoned With. Although she was only two in this photo and she is now four, she remains fairly undomesticated. This photo captures something of her passion and zeal. Anna has never heard of the word apathy, and life with her has caused us to explore a wide range of emotions that we never before knew existed.

Now that she is four, she has learned to moderate many of her most intense emotions. Unfortunately, she has also managed to hone her combate skills, so when she and I lock heads, things can turn pretty ugly.

On Sunday night, she mentioned that something was "gooder." In an attempt not arouse the tempest, I calmly said, "Actually, the word is 'better.'" She glared at me with contempt. "Actually, Mama, the word is gooder. I know it is," she said.

I attempted to appeal to an outside authority. "Anna, how about tomorrow we ask Mr. Jeff?" Anna shook her head. "No Mama. The word is Gooder and I want you to apologize. One, two. ."

I glared back at her. I was nearly tempted to capitulate. I mean, how long could such an inane debate continue? But as a woman of words I felt that something critical was at stake, and I decided to hold my ground, come Hell or high water.

I opted for the snotty approach. "Okay Anna. Let me explain something. Kids, who don't yet know how to read or write might think the word is gooder, but these kids are sorely mistaken. Adults, like myself, who know how to do both, know that the word is better."

"The word, Mama, is gooder," she said, arms across her chest, cayenne pepper in her eyes.

Just Sit There Right Now

2006-05-16T06:21:00.000-10:00

Just
sit there right now.
Don't do a thing. Just rest.

For your
Separation from God
is the hardest work in this world.

Let me bring you trays of food and something
that you like to
drink.

You can use my soft words
as a cushion
for your head.

I can't get this poem out of my mind these days. I think of it in the mornings and evenings when I sit before my icons with coffee or warm milk and wait for the empty spaces in me to fill and the too full spaces in me to empty out. Still waiting for those trays of food and nice drinks . . .

Thank you Daniel Ladinsky, for your luminous book Love Poems from God.