everyday life

Drudgery and divinity

Sunday was one of those rare days I’ve come to treasure almost above all others: a day with absolutely no plans.  We puttered as a family, each of us doing his or her own thing, coming together in various combinations at different moments.  Grace and I went to the grocery store and to drop some things off at Goodwill, and she sighed from the backseat, “Mummy, I love days like this with you.”  My eyes filled immediately and I nodded, not speaking for fear she’d hear the tears in my voice.  Whit and I curled up on the couch and he read The Velveteen Rabbit to me, proud of his newly-fluent reading.  The kids and I made cookies for their school’s teacher appreciation lunch, and then worked at the dining room table on a puzzle while they baked, the house filling with sugar cookie smell and the sound of Christmas carols.

I made homemade tomato sauce and apple sauce, hardboiled some eggs, baked two potatoes for lunch.  I did two loads of laundry.  As I was folding Whit’s pajamas and stacking Grace’s jeans in a careful pile, I felt a swell of gratitude and of well-being.  I realized, not for the first time, that there is something I find deeply comforting and satisfying in the most quotidian domestic tasks.  It has to do with the mundane and the magnificent that I have written about before, with the way that life is a collage of the prosaic and the transcendent.  I wrote then, and I still believe, that the divinity and the drudgery are both essential for me, and that somehow they sharpen each other’s vividness.

This belief is joined now by a new one: in some way that I don’t quite understand yet, the drudgery actually allows me to access the divine.  Over the last few years we’ve cut way back on our childcare, and I have all of the household responsibilities now.  And I am startled, I admit, by the deep sense of satisfaction these tasks give me.  I feel actual happiness when I fold laundry, or when I unpack half-eaten lunch sandwiches, or when I wake my children up every single morning, brushing their sleep-tangled hair back from their faces.  Or perhaps what I feel is contentment.  But I’m not sure there’s a big difference between happiness and contentment anyway; are you?

I suspect that this is a manifestation of a larger settling into my own life, a sinking into what is, in all its dishwasher-emptying, lunch-packing, homework-checking reality.  The everyday details and endless work of taking care of a house, and children, and a marriage sometimes daunt and frustrate me, sure.  But more often than not, these days, they also fill me with something warm and steady that feels awfully good.  I am certain it’s no accident that this sinking in comes just as I realize how truly numbered these days are.  This time, with small (and medium) children at home, of lost teeth and found pennies, of delight at a bird on the porch and despair at a missing teddy bear, will not furl out indefinitely.  For some reason lately I sense the preciousness of these days; the awareness that they will end floats constantly around the corners of my experience.  For so many years I assumed that life would be this way forever, one combative naptime spilled into another, the rocking before bedtime felt endless, and so forth.  I took these days – with their bathtimes and melanine plates and kissed bruises, their exhaustion and their wide-eyed wonder – for granted.

But no, they aren’t forever.  In fact they only last a minute.  And I am so immensely grateful that I realized that before they were gone, and that I found, in my daily chores and responsibilities, a door through which I can glimpse the holiness of this season in my life.

The tenuous physicality of motherhood

This is my every morning.  I park the car, we walk into school, first to Whit’s building, and then to Grace’s.  I always trail them up these steps, for some reason, watching their bodies skipping towards the door.  Lately I’ve had the physicality of motherhood (and childhood) on my mind, and it is never more apparent than those moments when I watch their ever-lengthening bodies walking away from me.

We’ve been listening to Love Came Down at Christmas in the car, which Whit loves because it’s “the song he was the drum for.”  Last week, one morning, we had a very detailed conversation about my pregnancies with each of them.  Whit knows he kicked every time that carol came on and Grace, with her razor-sharp focus on fairness, wanted to know what song made her kick.  I don’t know, I told her honestly.  I went on to tell her about a day I’ll never forget, at my friend Schuyler’s wedding, in the summer of 2002, when I hadn’t felt Grace (then known as Finbar, gender unknown) for a while and sat on a couch prodding my stomach, my entire world narrowing for the first time to a beam of frantic concern about my child.  Okay, she said, satisfied that there was also a story about her inside my belly.

I watch them walk away and I think about all those days when I felt their little feet in my ribcage, when I watched an arm, a knee, an elbow, turn over inside me, a knobby piece of a yet-unknown person bulging against my domed skin as it did so.  Just as everyone cautioned, it’s hard to remember exactly what that felt, having a new life swimming inside of me.  While I know it was both miraculous and uncomfortable, I wish I remembered more precise details.

The intense physical union of pregnancy gives way, in a moment as brilliant and searing as lightning, to a time of continued bodily intertwined-ness.  I miss those days, too, in an odd, grateful, relieved kind of way.  And then, as the years of childhood unfurl, gradual but indeniable physical separation occurs.  I know there will be a day when my children don’t want me to curl up in bed with them.  A day when they will close the doors of their rooms and retreat to a world where I am not welcome.  A day when Whit’s first request, upon stubbing a toe, is no longer “will you kiss it, Mummy?”

I fear and dread that day, but I ought not let that keep me from imagining what is right now.  Isn’t this one of the central themes of my life?  The way I sometimes let fear of what is coming occlude the brightness of the moment?  Instead of falling into this familiar groove, allowing myself to be engulfed by an anticipated loss, may I instead lean into what is true right now.  Last night I tucked Grace in and discovered that she was clutching a tank top of mine; I hadn’t put her to bed, and in my absence she had gone into my closet and pulled out a piece of my clothing to hold close.  Whit still lets me wash his hair and soap his back in the bathtub, and each time I admit I wonder if this is the last time.  How long will the simple fact of my physical presence be enough to soothe whatever it is that upsets my children?

I want to stop that wondering and abandon myself to what is.  It’s so hard for me to do this.  But as I watch Grace’s feet grow and grow, edging into territory where our flip-flops could be confused for each other’s, and as Whit’s teeth fall out, I feel a vague panic about the future encroaching on the present.  I suspect part of this is my own deep longing for a day when concerns and anxieties could be so easily solved, in the body of a parent, in a kiss, in a sweet-dreams-head-rub.  The solution to this panic, I know, is the most counter-intuitive thing for me: I ought to turn away from it and curl into right now.  All I can do is try.

Turning our brokenness into something beautiful

This is the darkest season; we wake in darkness and we watch the sun wane again before the clock has hit 5:00.  The light in the middle of the day is often pitched, somehow, at a high, wavering note; it is full and thin at the same time, endings tangible within it.  Somehow, the dark bothers me less than it used to.  There is an internal light that helps keep the thick, sometimes-threatening darkness slightly at bay.

The optimist in me feels a wild surge of hope about this: perhaps I am witnessing the birth of my own faith. This is a holy month, after all, full of imagery of light, regardless of your religion. Perhaps it is the flickering, nascent light of my own belief that illuminates these dark days. The candles in windows and the holiday lights strung on trees and in windows everywhere I look both reflect and contribute to that internal flickering.

We move towards the solstice, every day closer.  The winter solstice may well be the single holiest day of the year for me.  I definitely prefer it to the summer one, which demonstrates as clearly as any detail about me how much the promise of something (good and bad) impacts me.  Even at the height of summer, with the longest days we’ll ever know, there is something gloomy to me about the solstice.  It represents the turning back to dark.  That’s the preemptive regret that I’ve written about, which can completely occlude any present radiance for me.  This solstice, two weeks away, is the opposite.  It promises a turning back towards the light.

A year ago I read some of Meg Casey’s thoughts on the holiness that exists in darkness.  Once in a great while I read a piece of writing that makes me want to kneel and press my head to the ground, saluting its gorgeousness and ability to evoke emotion. This is one such piece. Please read it.

December is a holy month. Maybe it is the dark silky silence that descends so early, that speaks to me of reverence. Maybe it is the promise that December holds–that no matter how dark, how cold, how empty it can get, the light is coming back. Something always shifts in me when December arrives–I embrace the darkness and am eager for the coming solstice when the whole world is still and holds its breath, waiting to be reborn again. December whispers to me of midnight mass, of ancient choirs, of stained glass windows turned into gems by candle light.

Meg then goes on to talk about the connection between holiness and wholeness, using the image of a stained glass window: Broken, jagged, sharp pieces of glass held together magically, transformed into one perfect design not by gold or silver but by something as mundane as lead. And, of course, it is the light that animates the beauty.  Meg’s post reminds me of one of my very favorite of Anne Lamott’s lines: “Love is sovereign.” Yes. As Meg says, Love is the transformative power that turns our brokenness into something beautiful.

I love this because I think we often think of light as exposing flaws, unearthing chinks, revealing ugliness.  Yet in Meg’s metaphor it is light that knits disparate pieces into a whole, that reveals the light that exists within them.  Love as light.  Transformative, healing brokenness, uncovering worth.  May we all strive to be this kind of light, even in the dark moments of our lives.

There are some themes in my writing of which I’m very conscious.  Others emerge organically, and I’m not aware of them until I reflect for a moment.  Light and darkness has been a message to which I’ve returned this year, over and over.  I am often moved to tears by the quality of light in nature, and the metaphor of dark and light has also been one to which I am consistently drawn. Light and darkness.  Holiness and grace.  Radiance and shadow.  We keep on turning, and the shadows keep dancing, the light flickering.  All I can do is keep watching.

A repost from last December that is still immensely resonant for me.

My life has simultaneously narrowed and widened

People ask me, with some regularity, how I “do it all.”  Of course, I don’t.  There is plenty I don’t do.  And I have been thinking about that a lot lately, of the immensely different ways we each populate our hours and what they say about what we value.

Every hour of our life is a choice, a trade-off between competing priorities and desires.  We are all given the same number of hours in a day.  What do you prioritize?  What do you care about?  Where are you spending your time?

In the last several years my own life has simultaneously narrowed and widened.  It has narrowed because I have substantially cut down on external (non-job and non-family) commitments.   I say no much more often than I say yes.  And even beyond commitments about my physical presence, I’ve withdrawn in a real way: for example, I spend much less time on the phone catching up with friends.

But even in this narrowing my life has startled me with an unforseen richness.  It’s like I stepped into a dense forest but then I looked up to see an enormous expanse of the sky.  Somehow, in my turning inward, I have learned to see the glittering expanse of my own life.  Maybe it is not having the other distractions.  Maybe it is that is training my gaze I have opened my heart.  I am not sure.

I spend my time with my family, I spend my time writing, I spend my time reading, I spend my time with a small number of people I entirely trust and wholly love.  I run at 5:30 in the morning because that’s the only time when the trade-off isn’t too steep for me.  It is very rare for me to have dinner, drinks, or lunch with a friend one-on-one.  The same is true for Matt and me with other couples.  On the other hand there are many evenings where I sit and read to the kids while they are in the tub, when I get into bed at 8:15pm with a book, and there are a great many days full of work.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. – Annie Dillard

Let’s all decide to no longer hide behind the excuse that we “don’t have time.”  The truer response would be “I don’t care enough to really protect the time.”  This may be harsh, but I think it’s also true.  Let’s take ownership of our choices rather than bemoaning their results.  Do you want time to meditate?  Time to go to yoga?  Time to spend reading with your children?  Well, something else has to go.  Unfortunately time, at least in the framework of a day or a week, is a zero sum game.  The ultimate one, perhaps.

Think long and hard about how you spend your precious hours, the only currency in this life that I personally think is actually worth anything.  A lot of these decisions are made instinctively, without deliberate thought or analysis.  But that’s how life is, isn’t it?  We know what we care most deeply about, and we run towards it, chins ducked.  We protect fiercely time for those things and people and events we truly value.  And those things, people, events we never seem to have time for?  Well, that tell us something important too.

I believe that if you look carefully at the map of your hours over a week or a month, you will see a reflection of what it is in this life you prize most highly.  Do you like what you see?

Ordinary thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was full of experiences that carried the mantle of important, moments I could feel turning to memories even as I lived them.  Most of all there was our Friday evening celebration of my in-laws’ 45th wedding anniversary and the 9th anniversary of my father-in-law’s successful heart transplant.  My in-laws had their three sons and five of their six grandchildren together (the sixth, 8 months old, was not able to stay up so late!) for a lovely dinner.  My sister-in-law and I made a book of photographs of the last 9 years for our father-in-law, and the memories contained in its pages brought everyone in the room to tears.  Also of note: my turkey was damn good.  I think my cider-based brine (which I pretty much made up) was a hit.  I think I was proudest, though, that all of my dishes were done before dinner was served.  A big achievement for such an ardent believer in clean as you go as I.

It was two far less weighty moments, however, that stand out for me as the most crystalline.  They were moments with a surprising, surreptitious power, the kinds of mundane experiences that I have learned can turn into the most sustaining and vital memories.  I hope that Grace and Whit remember days like these with the same affection and gratitude that I do.

On Friday morning Matt had to work so Grace, Whit and I took our skates to be sharpened and then stopped by a playground on the way home.  I sat on one of the swings (swinging alone is one of my favorite things to do) while they played together for 15 minutes … 30 … 45.  I swear.  I watched in wonder as they cooperated, laughed, and made up an imaginary world where the ground was lava.

The sky was crystal clear, the branches were all bare, and we didn’t see another human being the whole time we were there.  It was so warm both kids shed their jackets.

The sun shone on that hour.  And in its light I saw something glinting.  My life.

On Saturday afternoon Grace, Whit and I walked to a nearby movie theater to see The Muppets.   They are generally amenable to my walk-whenever-we-can policy, parroting now my points that it is better for both our health and for the environment.  On our way home we detoured past the house Hilary and I were born in.  I pointed out the windows to the living room, where I told Grace I remember walking in circles around the room reciting my times tables.  When I was in third grade.  With the homeroom teacher who is now her Math teacher.  And they are learning their times tables.  Sometimes it all swirls together so blindingly I have to blink and hold onto something so I don’t get dizzy.

The three of us played for a long time on the seesaw, which has three weighted balls that you can slide from side to side to even out the weight.  I wished my physicist father was with us to answer some of the questions I got.

Then they hopped on the swings and went for a while, holding hands.  They made up songs and sang them at the top of their lungs.  I sat over to the side, watching them.  The light turned their faces golden as it sank towards the horizon, and then everything cooled and dimmed when it slipped below it.  I looked at my children, and I looked at the light of the hour.

I am as proud of my children for their imaginative play as I am for any of their more conventional accomplishments.  I feel intensely grateful that they are still overjoyed by a playground, that they can run and jump and swing and invent a world.  That they want to do this together adds immeasurably to my joy.  This pride is linked to my belief about the power of fairy tales, I’m sure of it.  I want my children always to experience wildness (a central reason I love the cemetery so much, another place we went this weekend).  I want them to rejoice in the freedom offered by unstructured situations.  I want them to enjoy moving their bodies, to prize the fresh air, and to laugh together.

And they did.  And I was grateful.  The holiday held a plethora of gorgeous moments, for sure, many of which I’ll never forget.   The two that I felt were the purest expression of thanksgiving, though, were these two hours at the playground.