Vise

I am going to tell you a short story that is maybe/probably/mostly true. To be honest, I haven’t fact-checked it, because the story in my mind is quite possibly my favorite tale about childhood, period.

Why? 

Because this story sums up so much in one powerful moment.  And also because, in it’s most perfect way, it foreshadows something that is often our biggest dilemma in adulthood. 

And so…

----

A little girl – a toddler at the time – went on a short trip with her father, and by the end of their wandering, they returned home with a tray of chicks.  It’s likely that among his reasons for purchasing the creatures, the father may have hoped that the family would raise these small golden puffs into hens, so that the little girl and her siblings could experience the lessons held in raising animals (which are many) as well as eat fabulously yummy, orange-yolked eggs, laid in a coop with ample space and food and fresh air, and not in chicken-jail.  At least that is how it plays in my mind.

This was a day of life and hope and anticipation.

But as this little girl held the first chick in her cradled fingers, she became so excited – so swept away by this wonderful small thing, something just her size, and so soft – that before anyone realized it had happened, without her knowledge and certainly without her intent, she had smothered it. 

-----

This is the moment. 

I don’t know if the girl even knew what had happened, though if you are concerned, she is a sweet and happy girl who seems unaffected by the event.  Her father may have simply taken the chick from her tiny hands and laid it elsewhere, possibly distracting her with a phone or snack or, as it would be in our family, mommy’s hairclips.  Regardless, she will probably hear the account told at her wedding, or eighteenth birthday, or her high school graduation, to the giggles of her peers and reflective gaze of her parents.

But I want to tell it now. 

I want to tell it now because I need this story; because I am this story.  I am the little girl who is smothering the things I love most. 

I love my son, Milo, and because I love him so fiercely, I want to control everything that happens to him.  I want it to be good and safe and healthy, and for it to promote learning and development, but only where there are wood chips covering the ground and bumpers on the sharp things and someone there to praise him with a smile bigger than the sun. 

I love my husband, Craig, and because I love him so fiercely, I want his job to be challenging [but not stressfully so] and his hobbies exciting [but not risk his safety] and his friendships deep [but never hurt him].

I love my freedom, and because I love it so fiercely, I want it to be all-encompassing and limitless, but never oblige me to go beyond what is comfortable, and never require me to endure injury or pain or sacrifice for its sake, or in in its enjoyment, ever ask that I

arrive

on

time.

Yet, after these reflections, I take comfort in knowing that I am not alone.  I have heard enough tales of regret from others to be certain of this.  We are each like a child, holding a chick in our small hands for the very first time. And without really meaning to, we can be so overcome by the sheer force of our captivation that we may very well squeeze to death the thing we love so fiercely.

This Christmas season, join me as I make myself aware of the things that I am seeking, because of the brokenness of my love, to control or contain, and then as I, in small and big ways, work to loosen my constricting grip on them, that they may

breathe

and

flourish

and 

live

[and lay fabulous eggs].

Just pretend it's a chicken.

Feeling Flushed

Stay at home moms, dads, grandmas, grandpas, nannies, and child caretakers of any kind, 

How do you do it?  

I have been home, or rather, away from the camp/commune life, for like, five hot minutes (two weeks), and am slowly rapidly turning into a monster.  The frustration creeps in not even one hour into my day and continues careening along the path toward tyrannical madness until – mercifully for all of us – my head hits the pillow at night.  I feel so wound up inside that, if tugged, I might very well unspool the full amount of my pent-up crabbiness all over the floor, and probably wouldn’t have the energy to either explain it away or pick any of it back up.  Not only have I become a miserable body and mind to inhabit on my own, but I have been particularly miserable to live with, should you even dare to try to connect with me or suggest that we, I don’t know, talk about it. 

The last two weeks have been a whirling, spinning toilet bowl full of – you guessed it – misery. 

In the next turn of mental upheaval, I am faced with the reality that I am incredibly fortunate to be able to do what I do, to stay home with Milo.  I know, I know, I know that many parents are not able to be home with their little men and women, and I do, in my saner moments, comprehend that my daily experiences are enviable.  But, to be honest with you, it makes me feel a little bit like one of those six year-olds at the dinner table who won’t eat the asparagus-stuffed Gefilte fish you made them for dinner: 

Oh, there are starving kids somewhere? 

SO SEND IT TO THEM.  

I realize that this is a terrible, horrible analogy, but it’s the best I can come up with in my state, so please be gentle. 

In each day, there is most often the Good: Milo learning to point to the Dalmatian in his Curious George book when I ask him to show me where the doggy is; running into my arms with the full momentum of a tiny rhinoceros; giggles and giggles and more life-giving giggles at sweet, timely intervals.  But there is normally also the Bad:  irate cries when I take away the caps covering the screws that secure the toilet to the floor (a favorite of Milo’s, that on a positive, keeps me cleaning the toilets); kicking my legs/arms/everything everywhere during a diaper change while we are out visiting a friend’s house; throwing peas and spaghetti and milk cups on the floor and then somehow – in a miraculous cloud of impossibility - finding a large, heavy, pointed object to throw down on my head while I’m cleaning up the first three (a half-truth, yes, but then why does it always feel so pointy?). 

But really, he's the craziest cutest angry person. 

I am absolutely, positively sure that there are moms and dads out there who would almost literally kill to be able to partake of these daily rituals.  I know that you work intensely hard, and that you still feel the terrible pressure to be everywhere and everything to everyone, especially your kid(s), and I don't mean to belittle your case, even in the smallest degree.  But friends, in my world (because that's what i'm talking about here), there is also the Ugly.  There are diaper changes with the aforementioned flailing, kicking and throwing things, but also with fecal matter smearing all over your carpet, while you are suddenly battling the intense urge to pin your toddler to the ground and lock him in the cat crate while you take an extraordinarily long walk to the nearest bar and have a really, really, exceptionally strong drink, even if you've never had a drop of alcohol in your whole life.  There are days in which, unless your list is composed of:

“feed child

clean up after child [a little]

change diaper

try [and fail] to get child to sleep

feed child

change [appallingly rank] diaper

cry on the floor

bribe child to get through the yogurt aisle

feed child [donut holes] so he won’t fall asleep on the car ride home

fail to feed child dinner (because he’s eaten twelve donut holes already)

wrangle child into pajamas

put wild animal to bed, twice

eat a pound of chocolate

step on approximately five thousand small toys

go to bed way too late”,

you won’t be able to check anything off.  Laundry?  Nope.  Dishes.  No way.  Exercise?  Bahahaha.  

Wait - did you really think you could do that?

I realize that I am writing this in a state of moderate frenzy, so forgive me when I ask to take it all back in a week and tell you how much I love my life (because I do), but in a world that tells you that your value is bound to how productive you are, and because I have foolishly bought into that mantra, there are days when I want anything but this job.  Anything.  Commercial dishwashing all day?  Yes.  Hospital laundry?  If I don’t need to talk to anyone, sure.  Stuff envelopes in an office??? Ohmygosh, yes.  Some days I would give almost anything to feel productive.  

But for now, in the midst of these good/bad/ugly days, I plan to simply keep changing my list to look like the above, so that I can actually check some things off, thankyouverymuch, and to do my best – my very not-good-enough best – to keep up with my son, and to smother him with an excess of love and hugs so that he would never guess that his mom is justthisclose to completely losing her marbles. 

Scattered-Schmattered, and Other Lessons of Love

Craig and I were reminiscing the other day over an older couple that we know, whose children are grown and each pursuing a different dream or lifestyle somewhere on the globe – those who are still living, that is.  I have to wonder at the resilience of these two, at how they function in a capable and composed manner - how they even so much as form complete sentences - as so many pieces of their hearts are scattered across the country.

In what feels to be a cruel sort of emotional Ironman, we meet people, form deep and meaningful relationships with them, and then, often by necessity, learn to let them go.  These individuals may be children: met en utero or at birth or when brought into your family for the first time.  They may be parents: blood-related or adoptive, actual or surrogate, to your flesh or to your soul.  These people may be friends or mates, who have come into your life – haphazardly / in perfect timing /who you never expected – and have become as deep and connected to you as a foreign tree branch grafted into your trunk. 

Part and parcel.  

One and the same.  

And so your heart swells in size to make room for this new life, this new friendship, this new love.

And without realizing it is happening, as your heart grows, little bits of it become attached to these people, like the bits are coated with tiny Velcro hooks or pine pitch or that really sticky glue that packaging companies use to put the labels on pickle jars.  And just like that, right under your nose, someone has walked away with a piece of your heart.  It could happen whether or not you grant your permission.  It will likely take place completely under your radar.  And you will be left in the wake of what it means to love. 

It both a divine and terrible thing, to love: to feel the swells of joy at knowing and being known, and also the debilitating reality in the risk of loss and fear of separation.  Yet, we cannot have the first without the second.  There is no other way.  As we grow up, we are faced with this reality, and with the subsequent choice: to adopt the terms of risk and wrestle with its fear for the sake of knowing the incredible freedom of love and community, or to forsake the latter so that we will never required be to experience the former. 

For some, this risk is too great.  It includes the risk of rejection, and the possibility of being left behind or worse yet, left alone.  And so, some individuals choose the safety of a tight circle, of close borders and small wagers.  One may prove to be happy enough with these circumstances, but the heart’s call for companionship is as persistent as the suspicion that there may be much more to life beyond those tight confines.

To modify the common saying: little wagered, little gained. 

For others – for many of us, I would guess - we battle daily to see above and beyond the risk and fear toward the beautiful mess of human connection.  The challenges we face are great, but the triumphs of love are even more extraordinary, and as we experience knowing and being known, we learn to see more clearly that truly, any wager we make in the name of friendship is microscopic in comparison with our gain.  Upon this realization, we dare to connect once more; we dare to throw down another bet onto the table in favor of love.

And that’s how you end up, like me, with little bits of your heart in places like Washington state and Illinois and Florida.  How you have a specifically-shaped void from a piece that was plucked from this world, and how the journey to reach others who are far flung can seem as insurmountable as walking to the moon.  As painful as it is to have these people so far away - like the pronounced throbbing from a recent wound – let us be reminded of something downright miraculous.  When we have sent our love to so many scattered places, not only will our heart beat on, but also like the story of those five loaves and two fish, we will continue to have enough of it to go around.  When you meet that someone new - at school, or church, or your favorite microbrewery, or in a hospital room, handed to you by a large grumpy physician wearing purple - you will have enough love for that person, and upon meeting them, one more piece of your heart will quietly slip off to it’s new charge. 

I promise you, it is not a trade.  You do not need to lose an old friend for the sake of a new one.  You are not bound to stop loving your father because you now have a son, or your friend because you have a mate.  In the words of a favorite song of mine, love grows more love, and in fact, one relationship will often enhance another.  Many will benefit.

Milo and Jessa, being spectacular, or rather, themselves.

When I picture Craig, or Milo or my dear friend Jessa, who is three thousand aching miles away, I feel great love for them.   But as the shadow of fear approaches, and I stand facing the risk of impermanence and the length of the journey to reach my friends, I remind myself, as I remind you:  Love is worth it. 

Though fear can have terrible strength, and bear heavy clouds of uncertainty,

 Love is worth it. 

Though the risk of loss can be overwhelming and threaten you with loneliness,

Love is worth it. 

Though the distance can carry profound weight and your longing may need to stretch farther than you think can bear,

Love is worth it.

As we learn to love, you and I are forced to learn the skill of letting go.  If we believe that one is possible without the other, we are wrong, because the resulting product will not be love, but rather possession.   When we love truly, we are, in a sense, handing someone wings.  Love is an investment and an encouragement – an affirmation that you are valued – and as such, will likely propel you or your friend/child/parent/lover into a perpetual state of exploration and positive risk taking.  Of rising to the challenge and living in full.  This is what healthy love and true friendship looks like.  Possession, the destructive charlatan that it is, will do no such things.  It will promise fulfillment for its owner, but leave only a small list of questionable companions and relationships ruled by fear and control and layered in deceit.  This is not the way, friend.  The suspicion of our hearts is correct:  there is so much more for us than a thing that small.

So let us choose wisely – to risk it all for the sake of something that is immeasurable and beautiful and alive.

Learn to let go.  Graft in new branches.  Propel those you love forward.  And as you walk through this, and bits of your heart become far flung, do not be afraid.   Resist the urge to pick up the pieces.

Let your heart be

s

c

a

t

t

e

r

e

d,

and you will somehow find it whole.

Of Spilled Milk and Modern Warfare

Wednesday's lunch was rough.  Broccoli seemed to be flying everywhere and Milo was repeatedly dropping his blue sippy cup of milk off of the ledge of his high chair table, generously spattering bubbles of sticky fluid on the wood floor that comprises his messy, ever-increasing domain.  A domain I had, not two hours earlier, vacuumed and mopped.  Labor made obsolete in seconds by two tiny hands and a healthy lunch.  

POOF.

The mess had nothing to do with what made lunch so tragic.   What had actually sent me careening off course was the presence of that devil-headed bane of humans everywhere: 

failure.  

It set upon me like a guided missile, all of a sudden and seemingly out of nowhere, with a bang.

I rarely cry.  It is something of a point of pride for me, which I’m discovering is 1) prideful, 2) a little barbaric, and 3) more than a little graceless.  Well, while I was attempting to ladle mounds of blueberry yogurt into my son’s yammer, I was completely. losing. it.  

And he thought it was laugh-out-loud hilarious.  Point, Milo.

Backstory: I had booked an appointment at an optometrist.  They had an opening due to a cancellation the next day, and it was -gasp- on the exact day that my hubs was taking off – a miracle!  No need to inconvenience anyone [except my husband, again...]!  Huzzah!  I had been putting off the eye doctor for awhile, which I think was starting to drive Craig nuts, since I was talking about it every other day, and this opening seemed like providence.  

Could I make it?  

YES.  YesYesYes.

It felt like I’d won the lottery.

Until I realized that I didn’t know what day it was.  This took place on Wednesday.  Which I failed to realize.  Or rather, that my appointment was the next day, on Thursday.  Which is not the same as Friday.  Which again, I failed to realize.

Because I stay at home and don’t work and never look at a calendar because I don’t work and stay at home and have no purpose and can’t even keep a floor clean or remember that it’s Wednesday.

Ugh.  That’s when it got ugly.  I won’t go into the depths of it, because no one wants to experience that twice, but the bottom line is that I was feeling like a total and utter flop.   

Something I’m learning as I stay home with Milo is that the voices I have allowed to survive in my head are, in part, incredibly unkind.  We are always cultivating our minds, by what we plant and prune and water, and I have allowed a split crop of self-pity and nasty self talk to take root.  I don’t think I am alone.  You might be a dad or mom at home, like me, or perhaps you are working full time, or are single, or unemployed, or retired, or married, or divorced, or widowed, or like grape soda or run a circus, or run a circus while drinking grape soda – which, I don’t know, sounds sort of great.  Regardless of your circumstance and role, I have a sinking feeling that you also beat yourself up every now and again.  

Or again and again.

Today I remind myself, and perhaps, you, that what I need more than a clean floor or a full schedule is a serious helping of grace, accompanied by a wake-up-you-crazy-person slap across the jaw.  

The world is full of ammunition.  Full of smooth stones named comparison and pride and lies.  

And as we walk among this weaponry, some of us choose to throw these stones at the people around us.  Others carry them in our arms until the burden is so heavy that we can’t walk.  

Good glory, child.  Put. down. the. weapons. *Smack*

Newsflash:  We will never be enough.  Not for this broken world.  

Never busy enough, or put-together enough. 

Not witty enough or perceptive enough.  

Never attentive enough or organized enough. 

Not rich enough or selfless enough.  

Never fit enough or well-read enough or relaxed enough or patient enough or exceptional enough.

So quit playing by the wrong rules.  Cry when you need to cry.  Scream sometimes.  The world does not need another person who is too crippled by fear and self-loathing to function.  It needs you.  It needs me.  It needs the character that you have and your smile, and my hands and my voice.  It needs your love and your listening ears and my laugh and my feet.  It needs us to clean up the rubble so that the next person can walk in the clear.

Handlettering work by the amazing Jessa B..

I will need to wake each and every morning and remind myself that this is still true: today, tomorrow, and the 20,000 days after that.  But it is necessary for me, and it is necessary for you.  

Because that broccoli is coming, baby, and we'd better be ready.

EZ 2 LOVE

If you came here hoping that I would write some sentimental post about how important it is to love the one you're with, then clearly, you need to do some catch-up reading.

So, what kind of Valentine's Day message do I have for you, Faithful Reader?

source

Here's what not to do:

Your most important job today is not to bring clever handmade cards to your friends, though these would be my choice if there's no way you can avoid it.

Your job isn't to make a heart-shaped cake for your sweetie, either.  It might turn out well, but the odds are stacked against you.  Plus, if you're over ten years old, you don't get the cute factor.

Lastly - and please tuck this gem in your back pocket - it's not a wise move to give your secret love interest that "it seemed like a good idea at the time" gift.  You know the sort I'm talking about.  Remember, the Beast gave Belle a library. The Prince brought Cinderella her lost shoe. Aladdin gave the genie his freedom. A good gift is a well-planned gift.

And a well-planned gift involves a little, you know, planning.  So don't give your girlfriend pants that would fit a 12-year old and don't give your man a bottle of Rogaine.

Or vice-versa.

But above all, don't give anyone a pair of these.  That is what we call "stepping on dangerous ground".

But M, you haven't told me anything that I can do!  True.

Well, friends, here are my plans.

My primary responsibility this Valentine's Day is to stock up on red hot candies and conversation hearts.  Red hots are a perfect heart-shaped treat any day of the year, but nothing brings on a flurry of romantic fireworks like three pastel Sweethearts sugar-glued to the bathroom mirror in mid-October:

(u rock)   (hot stuff)
    

(txt me)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning will vomit in her grave, but she's dead anyway, so she can yak all she wants. And it's just one more way that C and I will keep our magic alive all year long.

Just call me Cupid.

And Now I Pronounce You Husband And Cat-Lady

6 years ago yesterday, I walked barefoot down my childhood front lawn and skittered into place alongside the Adonis that I woke up next to this morning. Scratch that – he woke up at 6am, I woke up at 9:45, so I suppose that should read “that guy that I fell asleep next to last night.”

Marriage is a delicate piece of art, I think: beautifully intricate with sharp edges and complex details, hard to balance, and ultimately… wicked easy to break.  I like to think that I’m still pretty young [at 28], but even now, I have peers at seemingly every stage of the marriage game. 

Some friends are experiencing that intoxicating punch-drunk love of a new relationship, hanging on the every chirp of their lover, and sweeping most contradictions or character flaws under the living room carpet, knowing for sure that “they won’t always be like that”.  While sweet, this makes me giggle and snort a little, because the substance of what C had to deal with years ago… well, let’s just say that they don’t make rugs that big.

Other friends have just tied the knot/sealed the deal/bit the bullet/jumped the broom/taken the plunge.  If you are, or have ever been married, you remember the mixed emotions that live here: you are elated to finally have crossed such a thick line intact, but are repeatedly faced with the reality that your spouse is in one day able to slide into a hot getup for a friend’s wedding in the afternoon, then impress you post-event by farting under the covers all night due to the amount of cocktail hour pot-stickers he/she consumed at the expense of Mrs. Newlywed’s parents.  I like to refer to this stage of marriage as the “shock and awe” segment of the game.  The jury is still out back deliberating punishment for crimes like this.

I have friends and mentors that are nearing (or have reached) the 30 and 40-year marks of their journey, and they have somehow (my parents included) managed not to kill each other, if only by a small margin of error.  Still, these are my heroes.  In that instance when I find every drawer open and the toilet unflushed (again), I wonder how these individuals restrained from putting a few drops of laxative in the next morning’s French roast.  Though when I realize that I’ve begged him to scratch my back/rub my feet/massage my scalp every night for the last 5+ years (and he has obliged, more than 1,800 times), I’m surprised that C hasn’t suffocated me in my sleep and rolled me out the back door, if only because his hands just can’t take it anymore. 

There are others in my life that are going through, or have already endured the indescribable pain and confusion of dissolving their marriages.  When I’ve watched this process or heard their stories, I think of how an amputee must feel after surgery.  Regardless of the disease, the gangrene, the pain of the limb in question, the loss is felt at almost an atomic level.  Something that was, is no longer.  I know that my tears don’t change or mend any part of the wound, but most of the time I can’t help but offer them anyway.  I can only be thankful for what I, at this moment, do have. 

So C, thanks a bunch.  You’ve made this 6-year road trip a good one.  Thanks for hitting all the rest stops (and some of the wooded areas) so that I can pee every half-hour, and for letting us get ice cream to break up the long stretches.  When you’ve felt like leaving me at the Auntie Anne’s Pretzel shop because I’ve asked you to slow down again, or I’ve brought the cat in the car with us, which is always a bad idea, thank you for instead parking us at a scenic overlook so we can each take a short walk in opposite directions and start the next leg of the trip fresh. 

Thank you, I love you.  You make my life a better journey. 

With more snacks.