Providence

I write best in the early morning.  NOT the middle of the night.  This is unfortunate as I've had more than enough middle-of-the-night awake hours, and hardly any peaceful early morning hours.  You can imagine all the raucous ruckus a house of four boys brings in early morning hours.  There is an overwhelming bounty of non-sensical noises and an equally impressive utter and complete lack of peaceful quiet.

Perhaps I should've raised them with religion.  Then we could have practiced morning devotionals.  In silence.  

So all the words, well, they just sit inside unrecorded.  Except for these.

The miles have been passing quietly.  I crave intense silence these days.  Gone, for now, are the days of blaring music.  I want to hear the measured pace of my breathing, my footfalls, that chorus of welcoming nature sounds out there in the dirt.  I'm going down my mental checklists as I trot along...where are my arms?  Am I moving at the elbow or the shoulder?  Are my shoulders back?  Head upright?  Am I relaxed?  These questions are such a welcome relief from the questions of life.  They're easily answered.  Corrections can be made.  It's simplicity.  And I'm clear, these small corrections, these details make me able to endure longer hours and more miles with less effort, less energy expended.  It's like an equation for living, not letting this life energy slip out in sloppiness and inattention.

And I signed up to endure -- 25K -- so these miles have been spent training to do just that.  Peacefully, quietly, happily.

I found I grew increasingly introspective, reflective, quiet as race day approached.  All the places I look for inspiration, support, encouragement...well, there was a block there.  My house was quiet.  My boys gone.  All except one.  The day before the race was rainy.  I worked -- typed -- quietly, surprised at the depth of my need for solitude.  At some point, I suffered a crushing paper cut and thought this was sufficient reason for pulling out of the race.  In some minutes of quiet, the head can come up with the most absurd ideas that seem completely logical.  Which is why this girl occasionally needs to break the silence.  Get input from outside.  And before this race, this is what that outside grace sounded like:

If for some weird apocalyptic reason I could only have one song to accompany me on this life journey, especially this running odyssey, I'd want it to be this.  It is my life anthem, I think.  I'm sad I didn't write it.  From its opening, it makes me perk up and pay attention.  I am that person, out the door, going forward, not in a straight line (my life has taken turns), all the while a chorus of voices (perhaps mostly in my head) signing their disapproval.  I am the girl with long hair coming down my shoulders, tired, feeling so much older.  

And my life, it has come down to the women for survival.  Don't get me wrong, boys and men are fabulous.  I love them and think they're great, but in my life, I look around and easily see the profound efforts of women carrying this society along.  How could I not?  I'm a midwife.  I watch women all the time dig deeper than they ever knew existed inside their very own selves and come up with making the impossible possible.  I see them in the midst of the truly singular journey surrounded by their loves, but accomplishing something that only they can accomplish.  It's humbling to bear witness to such strength and perseverance in the face of doubt, exhaustion, fear.  It's more humbling still to see the results of their efforts.  And it's even more humbling to stand in their presence after their transformation...from woman who didn't believe to woman who did.  

Quite logically, you can see how these women are my inspiration and my drive as I pass the miles, take the next step, continue on a path that seems impossible.  I hold them close to me and carry them along the miles.  They are better than any sports drink ever.  They are my aid stations.  

So as I drove to the race -- this 25K race -- I wondered to myself why I run.  The answer seems to evolve as the days pass.  I add new answers as I grow up and grow older.  I run for relief, for solitude, for fitness, for spiritual rearrangement.  But I had to ask myself the other morning, do I run for penance?  It was rainy, cold, muddy.  The run promised to be harsh.  And for what?  Was I running as a form of amends for trespasses against others?  To reconcile trespasses against me?  Was I running from?  Was I running to?  

And I had to admit, I run to leave things behind.  I leave behind those bits of me, the aspects of living, the ideas that hold no more promise.  I leave behind the sadnesses and the heartbreaks.  I leave behind the the seeds that have no hope of sprouting flowers.  Surprising things happen out there as I shed the obsolete.  A new world opens and for everything I leave behind, I replace it with something plucked from along the path, something creative and life-giving, something reliable and sure, something new and steady.  

And so this is what I found on the trail that day, as I hiked up wet, slippery hills, got pelted by rain, and endured the wind:  I'm running WITH these days.  I'm running with me.  I'm running with life as it is.  I'm running with certainty in uncertain conditions.  I'm running with peace.  I'm running with quiet.  I'm running with people -- the ones I carry inside, and, surprisingly, the ones running alongside me.  I am there, a part of a whole and whole being apart.  

The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too.  

All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have 

occurred.  A whole stream of events issues from the decision, which no one

could have dreamed would have come their way.  

                                                                                        -- W. H. Murray

Cultivation

Birthdays.  They're not my favorite.  There are too many in this house.  And spaced poorly to boot.  I should've been Jehovah's Witness when it comes to birthdays...I'd rather skip them.  I crumble under the pressure of providing a sense of celebration or fanfare.  Presents are always difficult.  I hate spending money for the sake of spending money.  I'm not a buyer of wants...I'm more of an as-needed shopper.

So this is what I offer:  Dinner of your choosing.  Cake of your choosing with our neighbors.  Presents: TBD by birthday person.

I love offering birthday meals.  The food I make -- I put love and good feelings into it.  It tastes good. I choose my ingredients with care and consciousness.  I put them together not by measurements, but by feel and by intuition and, most importantly, by taste.  Our time together around the table is another kind of gift in my book.

And cakes -- I love the birthday cakes of our past.  Each one has been a testament to where each boy was in his life at that time.  We were stuck in Batman for many, many years.  Honestly, I'm glad those days are mostly over.  How many times can a person make a Batman cake?  How many different ways?  Batman.  The Batman.  Batman Beyond.  Lego Batman.  You name, I made it.

My personal favorite birthday cake?  Glad you asked.  It's simple.  No brainer.  Carrot.

Which brings us to carrots.  One of our favorite books in this house is The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss.  If you haven't read it, here you go:

We first heard about the book from a song.  It's available here.  Well worth the listen.

So we've been reading this book and I've been thinking about that type of dedication to an eventuality that has yet to reveal itself.  It takes faith.  It takes determination, perseverance, effort.  The cultivation of something from almost nothing; the regular maintenance of a patch of blank, with merely the hope that something develops; the every day exercise of plucking out that which isn't fruitful to make space for that which is -- the task is daunting.  

And so I ask myself:  What am I cultivating?  Daily in this life, I know I'm making strides in a direction.  Most days, I'm not sure where to.  Hourly, I'm course correcting, redirecting -- my energy, my focus, my attention.  Each minute, I'm aware that there's effort involved; trudging along feels like work.  

But I found my carrot -- one of many -- the other day.  It popped up right before my eyes.  And it looked like this...

My morning was busy and full of errands.  Groceries for birthday dinner.  An agreed upon present to be bought.  More groceries for glorious cake.  And in the middle of all those errands, as I was walking to my car, my cart full up of ingredients for a life well-lived topped off by a huge, gift-wrapped, luxurious present, I passed a man.  With a sign.  "Hungry.  Homeless.  Anything helps."  We made eye contact, with a knowing head nod, as I passed by to my car.  

As I started unloading my goods into my car, the conversation in my head sounded like this, and LOUD:  I am the single mother of four boys.  I have three, four jobs.  I work tirelessly to provide for my family.  What is my obligation to him?  Am I only feeding his dependence on hand-outs if I give him something?  Should I give him food instead of money?  What's my responsibility here?  To my kids?  To a stranger?  What's the right thing to do?

I turned from the cart back to my car when I heard a voice.  "Boy or girl?" I looked back.  There he stood.  

"Excuse me?"

"Boy or girl?  The present?  Whose birthday?"

"My son."

He reached for his pocket.  Retrieved a dollar.  

"No," I said.  

"Yes," he replied.

"I can't," I insisted.

"You must," he responded.  "I want to do it."  Stuck the dollar under the ribbon on the huge purple package.  

"No," I repeated.

"It's what I want to do with what I have.  Makes me happy."

I stood in stunned silence as he turned and walked away.

Carrot.  A bigger carrot than I could have ever hoped for.  That day's yield...far greater than expected.  

Revelations

I remember one of my boys, when he was tiny, and not wanting to meet strangers, would say, "I'm shy of you."  I used to think it was cute.  Now I know what he meant.  I'm shy of writing.  She's like a dangerous stranger to me.  Only worse, because it's like we used to know each other and know each other well, and now...well, we're strangers.

I have always heard "write what you know" and that's what I do here -- at least until I realize what I know is merely what I knew, past tense.  Life is like that for me...one day it's true, the next day not so much.  I'm constantly examining and re-examining, chucking the old and fetching the new.  It's trouble for people associated with me -- my ideas and approach constantly shifting.  It's got to be maddening to interact with someone as fickle as I feel.  And I can honestly say, it's no cakewalk being this way either.  When I'm in the middle of whatever it is -- a feeling, an idea, a belief -- I'm all there.  In that minute, I'm clear, committed, a true believer.  And when the winds change -- another perspective is shared, time passes, emotions settle down -- well, I'm all there, too.  Equally committed to exactly the opposite.

So writing.  I was all in.  Until I wasn't.  And it wasn't because I was at a loss for things to share.  More so because this writing, this space felt too revealing and too exposed.  And that's when I retreat.

I'm amazed and thankful there have been people, and continue to be people, who write down their insides, the workings of their minds, the details of their existence.  We, as a people, have benefited greatly from this kind of sharing.  From novels to scientific endeavors (successes and failures) to religious and spiritual texts and beyond -- I'm grateful there was a need and way for people to write down what was going on.

But that's not me.  I'm not revelatory in that sense.  I'm always aware that you're reading this.  I'm haunted by the idea that my mother, my workmates, my kid's teacher may be looking in on my insides from this vantage point.  When all else fails, I revert to what my high school boyfriend's mother used to tell us:  Only do and say what you'd want Jesus to see you doing and saying.  

This is what Jesus can see of me.

I remember 24 years ago like it was yesterday.  Better than yesterday, in fact.  I remember climbing out of a car in a parking garage, being met by my brother there in that dark, exhaust-filled space.  It was a Friday, late afternoon.  I remember him telling me what he had to tell me:  They say she won't make it through the weekend.  They were right.  I remember that brother, that bearer of news, that brother who now has theys of his own, telling him news of his future.  

I remember what I was wearing...black cut-off sweats.  Everyone wore cut-off sweatpants then.  The ultimate in relaxation or sloth or slobbiness?  I'm not sure.  I had a light green shirt with ducks on it.  Said something about being different.  I had my period.  The news felt insulting.  I had my period, in my black cut-off sweats, with my green shirt, and you're telling me she won't make it through the weekend?  As if.  

I remember sitting there that afternoon, by her bedside, as they came in to take blood.  I had come of age in that hospital, among those people.  I had watched small people come into being only to leave just as suddenly.  I had witnessed young people come and stay so long that falling in love and getting married, there in that hospital, seemed logical.  I watched people fight and struggle -- mostly the family members.  The patients seemed at peace.  Nurses -- their names, their lives were -- became like extended family.  

I remember that blood draw.  I'd seen them dozens and dozens of time.  And yet that blood draw was different.  That blood draw made me swoon, lightheaded, dizzy, faint.  I remember my conversation in my 15-year old head debating the meaning of it all.  What was going on?  Why was the world spinning uncontrollably?  Could I make it stop?  

I remember being present when the doctors came in and brought the news to her.  I remember as they told her that they refused to perform surgery on her.  I remember her objecting.   I remember them explaining in horrifying, life-ending detail what would happen if they tried.  I remember the lone tear that slid down her cheek, her eyes too swollen to open.  I remember the doctors' tears, too.

I remember sleeping in a room of strangers, still in my black cut-off sweats and green duck shirt.  We were strangers in cots covered in scratchy blankets linked by the sadness of loss and losing.  I remember waking in the middle of the night, because in times like that the clock doesn't matter.  I remember the sense of panic that I might have overslept, might have missed my last minute with her, might have missed what she had to offer.  

I remember lotion.  Some people crave absolution.  She craved lotion.  I remember the feel of her skin, the softest skin you would ever touch, the result of years of lotion.  Lotion.  More lotion.  I remember our last conversation, the minutes we shared.  I remember apologizing and I remember her asking me not to.  I remember her thanking me for always treating her just as horrible as I treated anyone else.  She was like that.  We laughed.  Cried. 

I remember retreats to the cafeteria where I drowned my loneliness and disbelief in dark purple grape juice and donuts.  I still can't see either, smell either, consume either without spending time back in that cafeteria.  Those days.  All those days.  How many days in that cafeteria?  

I remember golf.  Golf?  Yes, I remember golf.  Golf in the background, lotion on the feet.  I remember her losing consciousness.  I remember the methodical, meditative state of applying lotion to her feet, her legs and back again.  I remember feeling the slightest of movements under my fingers and looking up to see the sweetest of smiles on her face.  

I remember that moment of disbelief when it happened.  When the theys became right.  When she was gone.  Sunday afternoon.  That minute when you want to take it all back and start over again, not wanting the way it is to be the way it is.  The panic at the unchangeable.  Sunday afternoons still inspire that sense.  Sunday, 4:15, sadness.  

I remember riding home with that brother, the bearer of news.  I remember what he said:  She would have helped you pick a college.  I can help you pick a college.  You have to go to college.  I'll help you get to college.  Go to college.  

I remember getting home and taking off those black cut-off sweats and that green duck shirt.  Packing them in a box.  You can't get rid of the clothes you wore the last time you saw her.  Right?  Pack them away, with the grape juice stain, the smell of strange cots, the tears woven into the fabric.  

I remember all of it.  And this year marks the shift...she's been gone longer than she was here.  That's how my life clock has been calibrated.  By that day.  The marking of time in relation to the end of her.  

And yet, these days, she's here more than gone.  I see her in the eyes of my boys.  I see her in their tenacity.  I see her in the way they angle their heads or purse their lips.  They embody her having never met her.  They remind me how close she is even when she's so far.  

I see her in my life's work, as I hover in that space between beyond and living.  Living and beyond.  Those days, that day, she led me here.  Comfortable in the space between.  

Last year, I picked up my cell phone and tried to call her.  A cell phone.  Her.  I remember the conversation in my head that happened at lightning speed.  What was her contact info?  Work?  Home?  Why have I not talked to her in so long?  A cell phone.  How profound the disconnect between heart, head, logic, and reality.  

I remember that day, that 24-years ago day.  I remember that bearing witness to someone going from being to beyond.  I remember.  

How could I forget?

Stepping Stones

I am a believer that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I look at my life experiences and I see their individual worth, but when I put them all together, I wind up with something that is exponentially more than just the mere accumulation and conglomeration of events. I love the looking back on life, welcoming the realization that what seemed like wrong turns down life's lane or what felt like life's greatest injuries were mere course corrections, necessary fine-tunings to bring me to my current perch.

My life is hallmarked by some definitive moments -- most of the ones that stand out are the ones that brought forth the most exquisite kind of pain -- physical, mental, emotional, psychic, spiritual. Perhaps that is the human condition. Perhaps it is unique to me. But the pain of this life is matched always by the joy, such an expansive, bottomless, whole-body goodness that I'm not sure I even possess the words to describe it. I have come to believe that we don't get to experience one without the other -- joy and pain are life's inside-out twins. I have also come to believe that to the degree I experience one, is the degree I am able to experience the other. The deeper the pain, the deeper the joy. Or vice versa.

Last week was one of those divine life moments where the two -- the pain and the joy -- coexisted. Side-by-side. Instead of bickering and misbehaving like usual, the pain and the joy sat quietly. And tearfully.

For years now -- seven to be exact -- we've traveled a few towns over five days a week, 180 days a year -- to a little school nestled in an apple orchard. My boys have blossomed just like the apples in that seemingly always sunny valley.  It would be hard not to thrive in such a location, surrounded by such natural beauty.  But more importantly, nurtured by the most incredible people.

Every graduation, the 6th graders play this song.  This year -- my third time hearing one of my boys play it -- was full of anticipation and a looming dread.  It never sounds great.  They're 6th graders.  New.  But this year, it sounded, to me, magical.  

My graduate chose to sport bright blue skinny shorts and high top Converse to his graduation.  He's spunky and feisty, but soft on the inside.  He's punk to his core.  Although he doesn't know this yet.  It delights me to see him developing in spite of himself...watching his strengths surface, observing his passions, witnessing his struggles.  He's the one I always labeled a firecracker.  He still is.  One hundred percent.  All the time.  Explosive in his activity, his love for friends, his dramatic failures, his crushing defeats, his profound disbelief in his abilities.  He's all-in, whatever he's doing -- even being half-committed.  He's all-in, in a half-committed way, too. 

I'm not sure what kind of thank you note is appropriate to an institution that allowed life to flourish.  That insisted on enjoyment.  That ushered in the birth of beings -- human beings -- rather than human doings.  I'm not sure, on a personal level, how to ever thank the people and a place for providing the framework of family when our family fell apart.  I'm not sure how to thank the men of the school -- the world's best teacher, the most gentle and firm of principals, the dads who showed up in gratitude and enthusiasm in their roles as dads and helpers.  These men have taught my boys lessons words can't capture.  They've lived as good examples, which is more powerful than any book learning ever could be.

It was the time of our lives.  Of this, I am certain. 

And for my punk rocker at heart...his way of coping, the way he chose to usher in the next chapter of his adventure -- well, it sounded like this.  

I've never been so proud.

Letting Go

People have asked me about this blog -- what it's like to write it, why I'm so sporadic, how much I edit.  I can honestly say the most difficult part of writing this blog is the repackaging of my life in a way that protects my (and my boys') privacy while also maintaining the flavor of what our lives are all about.  It's a fine line.  I cherish my anonymity, my space, the safety of a life unknown.  So it takes time for me -- sometimes a few weeks -- to come up with the right words to express something without revealing too much of me.  I'm sure this is what separates really successful expose bloggers from largely unread bloggers like myself.  But when the right words come that express the events, the feelings, the realizations I let them flow.  I'm writing all the time in my head.  Rewriting all the time.  I'm prone to errors and mistakes.  I make typos.  I redo.  I undo.  I do over.  It's not much, but it's me.


So in that spirit, I offer this.  It's difficult at best to speak about the shifting nature of my foundation right now. But I'll try.

Good-byes are not my strong suit.  I hold on.  I'll admit I oftentimes hold on long after I should have let go.  I'm saying good-bye to a phase of my life, and welcoming in a new chapter.  As the seasons change, so too does life.  So it was not surprising to me that the other day, in my life's travels, out in the middle of nowhere, I happened upon a message from the Universe to remind me that some letting go was in order.  It was no penny.  It looked like this:

Oftentimes I feel unprepared for what life is asking of me.  Quite honestly, it seems like the people around me know something I don't.  Perhaps they've read some sort of manual or life's question answer book.  I particularly feel like this when I realize my kids believe that I know something they don't.  They see me as the leader of this pack, the head of this house.  I act as if.  But inside all I can think is that surely there's someone else more qualified for this position.  They have no idea that I know less every day.  They have no idea I'm as uncertain as they are.  Especially in the good-bye department.


But my find the other day reminded me not only that letting go is part of life and necessary, but also that I have the tools to do it, and do it gracefully.


I said good-bye to all my boys this week.  I cried every day until they left.  The thought of being without them seemed overwhelming and distasteful.  It was something I wouldn't really choose for myself.  But I didn't choose it for me.  I chose it for them.  I tried to plan ahead, fill my days down to the minute so I would be busy and accounted for, stay out of trouble and get things done for a change.  


What's interesting to me is what's happened since they've departed.  It's interesting to look at what I've chosen for myself in the absence of others.  Most notably, silence and solitude.  Every day I think, I'll put a movie on.  Every day, I somehow fail to.  I think about listening to music.  I try.  I turn it off.  I think about tackling the to do list.  I sit in silence instead.  The dishes are still in the sink, the laundry's still not put away, the beds still dressed in questionable linens.  


I've loved running this week.  There is such a difference to my stride when I'm not haunted by what I've left behind or frightened of what I might find on my return.  I've added in biking, just because I have the extra time.  I even tackled this hill again with surprising ease.  What seemed an enemy just a few months back, now appears to be a friend.  Where I was weak, I have grown strong.  Where I have surrendered, I have gained.


Much of running for me is the internal conversation -- debate, really -- between my head, my heart, and my body.  My head believes in quitting before I even start.  My heart is anxious to get started.  My body resists the efforts I put forth.  But running that trail, biking those miles, climbing to the top of my favorite hill -- well, it's a commitment and a surrender all in the same second.  I let go of the voice that tells me I'm no good, I look ridiculous, I can't do it.  I grab on to the silence, to the next step, to the sound and feel of my own breath.  


The good-byes these past few weeks have been life-changing good-byes.  The kind of good-byes that are definitive when you look back on your life.  The ones where you say to yourself, "And that is the day my life went this way instead of that.  Right there.  That day.  That minute."  They're profound good-byes.  Good-byes to abilities, capabilities.  Good-byes to homes away from home and people who've become family to us.  Good-byes to a time and way of life that, for years, has felt steadfast and sure, and is now my history, our history, the past.  


All I know is what the song says, I feel it all. 

From the Archives

I wrote this in November of 2009...I remember the day like it was yesterday.  I bet the mom, whose birth I missed by minutes, remembers that day, too.

I am a student midwife apprenticing with a midwife in my community. Recently, she asked me to begin documenting the births I attend in whatever way seemed most appropriate. A few days after she made this request, she called in the middle of the night to let me know one of our moms was in labor.  I knew intuitively that I would miss the birth. My mind wondered why I shouldn’t go back to bed, save the gas, and the energy. But my intuition told me to go forward. In the end, I might have missed the birth, but I think I found the lesson.

How Birth Is Like A Country Road

It occurred to me today that there are a life's lessons in the travel to a birth. We are often misguided in the notion that the birth is the event we are attending to. We fail to realize it's actually the moment that will be our teacher. 

So country roads, damn country roads. Never fails. There they are. They look so different in the dark, dark night.  Even if you've traveled them numerous times in the daylight, their night life is like a long lost identical twin -- the exact same, but totally different. 

I think childbirth classes are like the general driving directions: cross streets, landmarks, things you'll pass along the way, the signs that will point your direction.  Your mother's story, your best friend's birth, the story of the mother of the brother of the sister of your co-worker's neighbor are just the same: merely guideposts along the way.  When you see the stop sign, stop; the yield sign, yield.  Markers, posts, landmarks. 

But here's the thing: in the cold, dark night on a country road, you can't necessarily see the things that people have pointed out to you to guide your way. Your field of vision is limited to the spray of light shed by your car's headlights. Even when they are turned to bright, it's not necessarily any more illuminating. There's more glare and perhaps more peripheral vision, but not really any more sense of what lies further beyond. 

No, on a country road in the dark, at some point you realize that the only information to see you through is the few feet in front of your car as you travel forward.  In a somewhat meditative process, the music that seemed to be your friend on the journey is quieted so you can focus more on the road ahead, the next contraction. Just as much as you need to know, need to see is available -- a gentle hand, a warming word, silence.  That's what we get and that's what we give -- just enough for the now. 

The potholes always catch you by surprise, even when you're ready for them. There is something about the way the light plays on the landscape that makes us incapable of perceiving every pitfall in our path. It's only as we survey our trip in retrospect that we think, "And then I hit that hole right near the sycamore.  Remember it's there on the way back through next time."

Along the road, somewhat lost, not able to rely on our usual senses we find that our sight and hearing have been supplanted by that internal sense of direction.  We may continue to reach out the way we know how -- phone, knock on a door ("Can you help me? I'm looking for a certain house."), perhaps even a co-pilot. Invariably, there is only one person able to put foot on gas pedal, hands on steering wheel, eyes on road. Only one person who will birth that baby. Invariably, the cell phone connection will be lost; the kind neighbor will give inadequate directions; the co-pilot will remain 16 inches away in her own seat. It's a singular journey.

At some point, when all else is exhausted, there comes a time when the only way down the road is...well, down the road. A surrender is made.  "I feel really lost. I'm not sure this is the way. I've done the best I know how. I can only keep going. What other choice do I have? Stop and wait for daylight? A rescue?" 

And in that minute there is no more noise, no more second-guessing, no more wondering if you took a wrong turn. There is only intent mindfulness on the next indicated action, movement, lurch forward. Commitment. What falls away is the belief that there is only one way down the road, to the house. What becomes apparent and entire is that right there -- in that moment, at that time, hands on wheel, foot on pedal, eyes closed -- is that we're moving toward something.  We are going somewhere. 

I believe there is a second time when along the road we submit to the minute. We say to ourselves, "I'll do whatever it takes to keep going forward." We say it to ourselves in a way that doesn't even sound like speaking. It is an intense, full-bodied knowing and display that we will go, we will do, we will be whatever and wherever we need to make progress. Squatting, walking, rocking, crying, silent, rhythmic.

That last effort or instinct on our part, in my experience, is most often met by the surprise find of the exact house you were looking for. It's like in a split second you see the house, think to yourself, "There's a house," then wonder what in the heck a house it doing way out here, and then remember that that's where you were headed in the first place -- exactly like the first time a mother touches her baby's head as it is emerging. That connection is complete.

Opening the door, walking the walkway and crossing the threshold -- you're finally there. You have arrived. In that minute, you have arrived at the destination. The pieces are finally in place and the jigsaw that was the reality of just a minute prior now fuses to make a perfect picture. Baby on belly. 

But here's the thing I love the most about the drive and about the road. The birth will take time, the labor, the welcoming, the checking, the mothering, the cleaning -- and then you'll get back in your car. It will be light; hours will have passed. 

You'll back your car down the road and start for home, but what you'll see is that the entire landscape has changed. Your vision is no longer limited to the destination. Your eyes will no longer be riveted on the few feet in front of the car. What will happen is you'll raise up your head and witness the trees, their colors and their leaves in the wind.  You'll realize you are nestled in a valley or on a hilltop, not just at the end of the road. There will be endless heavens above and fields around, the animals and plants will be coming alive with the heat of the sun. And there is it is: life all around, inside, outside, throughout you and everything, everyone. Motherhood everywhere. 

And that's what happens. You arrive at the place you think is the destination, and once there, you finally see that there is so much more to behold on the journey. 

Self-Defense

I saw you yesterday.  I was thinking about writing you all morning.  I needed to hear your counsel, but then I got quiet enough and heard your voice in my own mind.  And then I realized I didn't need you after all.  You'd already taught me what I needed to know about the situation I found myself in.  

Running couldn't wait yesterday.  For two days in a row, I came upon a minute when I knew I needed to leave the house and be on my way.  The cacophony of ruckus in my own mind was too loud, too continuous, too debilitating.  I needed the quiet and calm that comes from the open road.  The rhythm of the road has a way of knitting me back together in an orderly way, so I can recognize myself again.   

I realized yesterday that in this world there are door-lockers and non-door-lockers.  I'm definitely I'm a non-door-locker by nature.  If I do lock a door, it's a decision.  A conscious decision followed by action.  It's nothing I habitually do.  I don't ever have the sense that I need to protect the things on the other side of the door.  I may protect the people on the other side of the door, but I'm generally not a protector of things.

But here's the thing.  In my life, I'm attracted to the door-lockers.  Like opposite magnetic poles attracted to the door-lockers.  And not just one -- my life is full of door-lockers.  People who take measured steps to ensure their safety and the soundness of the insides of their homes.  I walk around in their lives like an observer at a zoo, seeing how they set up barriers to entry, protect their inner sanctum.  And it's foreign to me.  

I've always thrown my door open, really with reckless abandon.  I welcome in all sorts of people and invite many of them to take up residence inside my very own heart.  For the most part, it's worked out well.  People have come and rearranged my insides, the furniture of my being, with and without my permission, and in the end I was better for having the inner makeover.  People have come in and made my heart their home, and I'm delighted that they've stayed.  Some people, however, do have larcenous souls, and their stays beyond my unlocked doors have proven costly and upsetting, like vandals and thieves.  

I've enjoyed learning from the door-lockers though.  They take steps to care for themselves, offer up the simplest of resistances to unwanted entry.  One of them told me once that safety is no accident.  He was aware of what his end goal was -- safety -- and how to get it -- keep the doors locked.  The simplicity of this idea eludes me.  Just like other simple ideas.  I was in my 20s before I learned that it's easier to keep your room clean than get your room clean.  I was in my last semester of college before I learned the classes were there to be attended, not avoided.  I didn't understand the value of a made bed since it would just be unmade later, until someone told me by that logic, I should never eat again because I'd just be hungry again later, too.  

But the simple ideas of this world are sinking in.  They're growing in their appeal.  It's tough work cleaning up after vandals and thieves.  Door locking might be in order. 

And that's what I heard when I got quiet enough.  I heard you say I shouldn't be surprised at the state of the state because I'd invited it in.  So I went straight home.  And locked my door. 

Triangulation

The transit of Venus this week taught me quite a few lessons.  I learned that in 1716, Sir Edmund Halley tried to measure the distance between Earth and Venus by using the transit.  Captain James Cook was sent to a far off land, Tahiti, which was literally the end of the flat earth at that time.  They surmised that by observing the transit from two separate locations and compiling their data, they would be able to finally put to rest some of the time's greatest questions.  Although in theory their ideas were correct, pesky things like crappy equipment, Venus' shifty outline, and foggy conditions put a damper on their success.  About a hundred years later, after the invention of the still camera, when the transit of Venus happened again, the experiment worked.  


Disclaimer: I am not a historian, mathematician, or astronomer, so if any part of my story is inaccurate, I own it.  Call it literary license.  And please don't rain on my parade by correcting me.  Read on and see why...


There is a phenomenon known as parallax.  It's best demonstrated by extending your hand in front of you with one finger upright, against a definitive backdrop.  Look at your finger against the backdrop with both eyes open.  Then close or cover one eye and see where your finger is in relation to the backdrop.  Then cover the other and see your finger shift positions against the backdrop without your finger moving at all.  You can gain all sorts of information from these measurements -- how far your eyes are from one another, how far to the finger, how far to the backdrop.  At least as I understand it, you can.  In theory.  Although as previously stated, math's not my strong suit, so I'm not sure I could personally figure the true measurements.  


To me these lessons this week were all about the shifting nature of relationships and perspective.  I sat in a room full of people, people I've known for a while, people I've never met, people who have been good friends to me.  I sat there and watched the shifting geometry of souls.  I felt like Halley and his failed experiment.  I could have gauged the distance between bodies, but not the distance of the interior lives of the people in the room.  I knew some married people sat next to each other, but were miles apart.  Other sat apart as strangers although the trappings of their friendship were deep and proven. 


And it was only that second.  Then it shifted.  There were children in the room, growing my the millisecond.  No longer how tall they were yesterday.  We were all growing -- growing older, growing wiser, growing up.  Hopefully, some of us were being reborn -- growing younger, growing more undone, growing in appreciation.


So measurements of bodies can only delineate one aspect of relationship.  It's not an effective means to delve deeper.  


But triangulation can be used in the soft sciences, too.  We can study and learn about many aspects of one subject and see what this holistic approach adds to our knowledge base about a single phenomenon.  It lends to the veracity of theories and outcomes if a subject is double or triple checked this way.  It allows not only greater understanding, but more reliable results. 


And then there's me.  I realized this week, I'm the person who sits with both her eyes open.  And take what I see as being there as it is.  I forget to sit still and close one eye to see the situation from a little different perspective.  I forget to sit still longer and close the other eye to see from even another perspective.  I forget that measuring distances between bodies is only one tool in whole arsenal of life's toolkit.  And I forget the fleeting, almost inconsequential, nature of those measurements.  For today the arrangements of yesterday are a thing of the past.

Doors

Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself.

All. Week. Long.  This lesson.  Over and over again.  Not in a bad way.  Just in a reminding kind of way.  We are constantly walking through new doors, aren't we?  If we keep breathing anyways.  Then we quit breathing.  And we walk through that final door.  Alone.


My son's school is wise enough to schedule a conference at the end of the year, a wrap-up of sorts.  Just to check back in, see what was accomplished, examine the goals, see where they were met, what still needs improving.  It's a really sound, well-organized, mature process.  It teaches the value of reflection and self-assessment.  And allows for both the accolades and the let's-keep-working-on-its.


Among other things, this quotation was discussed.  The reminder that the foundation can be laid, the ingredients can be available, but if there is no effort, no attempt, no walking through the door....well, then there's just an open door.  Flies coming in, cool air going out.


Here I must note that this quotation flies in the face of one of my favorite sayings, which happens to be:  When the student is ready, the teacher appears.  Really, this is not true.  The teacher can be there, and the student can balk.  Trust me.  I've had many teachers.  I've done a lot of balking.  (Which, if you're like me, balking just sounds a lot like, "Yeah, but..." -- fill in the blank.)


The truth is, seeds are planted.  Ideas are introduced.  Doors are opened.  And when we are ready? scared enough? forced? willing? we walk through.  But only we can do the walking.  Or running, as the case may be.


I received a gift this week.  New trail running shoes.  They are very smart.  It's a brave gift to give, running shoes.  It implies their usage.  Kinda presumptuous, right?  Like give a person a present that requires effort to use?  But I think it might be the best gift I've ever received.  Here's why...


Trail running is divine.  It's in the great outdoors and there is a certain type of freedom in the expanse of nature.  It's slower than road running, which suits me just fine.  It uses totally different muscles.  It tests your agility, your responsiveness, your aliveness.  You cannot wander off in your mind.  You have to be watching for terrain changes, obstacles, animals.  You have to be present.  You have to be aware.  You have to be awake.  It's a different skill set than road running.  It challenges me in different ways.  And it rewards me in new ways, too.


You see, I've been running -- road running -- for years now.  Running from something.  Running from confusion, disturbance, heartache, fears, chaos, loneliness, quiet, my home.  On particularly difficult days, it feels as though I'm trying to outrun the Four Horsemen.  It's exhausting, this running from.  You can easily see why.  When my time was up or my legs were tired or the run was over, I was right back where I started.  It just required more running.


However, I've been fortunate.  Running became my backdoor to a type of meditation, and through that, it laid a foundation for an essential kind of faith.  And that was the beginning of my running to.  I might have been running from confusion originally, but then I started running to clear my mind.  I might have been running from the quiet, but I started running to hear the silence.  I might have been running from my home, but I started running to feel at home inside of me.


So the shoes were the door.  And only I could enter.  It was as if I was being invited to run from the me that was (in the past and doing) to the me that is (in the present and being).  It was a welcoming of sorts into the next phase of this running journey, my life odyssey.  It was as if someone said to me, "It's okay.  Run.  Run to.  Run to be.  Run to be free."    

And I did. 

Loose Strife

I remember distinctly riding in my aunt's RV.  It was only a few years back.  She had just come off a stunning blow -- the revelation of a husband's infidelity.  They were embroiled in a contentious divorce.  One of the items at the center of their disagreement?  Said RV.  She'd captured it, taken it hostage.  Perhaps as an effort to take back what was stolen from her -- her life.  I can't blame her.


Riding in that RV felt Thelma and Louise-ish.  The recreational vehicle is such an amalgam of competing interests -- rest and relaxation in a body made for mobility; safety in size, yet revolving front seats with seat belts that seem truly optional; the sense of gypsy life with enough room to bring your entire home life along for the travels.  It's a cluster f*%@ if ever there was one.  


My aunt was giddy being at the helm.  I was delighted at her humor.  As we tooled along, I remarked about the beautiful purple flowers on the side of the road.  "Loose Strife," she responded.  "Invasive, aggressive, a true pest."  Really?  It seems so innocuous, so pleasing.  "It's carried on tires, mostly long haul truckers.  It's spreading all over the country.  Like disease."


How prophetic.


Loose. Strife.  Love these words.  Loose -- not fastened, not contained, unrestrained.  Strife -- discord, violent dissension, rivalry.  Or more randomly, strife -- earnest endeavor.


As far as I knew, at that time, I'd never seen Loose Strife in my own neck of the woods.  But Loose Strife is like that, isn't it?  You can't necessarily see it coming.  One day things are fine, the next, not so much.


Over the course of the last month, I've noticed something.  On one of my favorite loops, just after I cross the fence that prohibits trespassing (it's not a great run unless at least one law is broken), I'm suddenly struck breathless.  My mind takes a few seconds to catch on.  It takes me by surprise each time it happens.  Then I look around, same spot every time, and lo and behold, I'm in a sea of Loose Strife.  Unrestrained Discord can take your breath away.


And I'm transported to that day in the RV, and I'm again witness to a woman coming to terms with the life that was versus the life she wanted.  I understand.  


My life feels like I'm at the top of the roller coaster right now.  I know what's coming next -- that sudden, stomach-jarring drop.  And I know it's unavoidable -- there's only one way down and it's through the fright.  And I know it was my own great ideas that got me to the top of the roller coaster in the first place -- I'm the one that stepped foot on the ride.  


I feel unprepared.  I'd rather not proceed.  But life isn't like that.  Life isn't pick and choose.  It's a go forward type of endeavor -- an Earnest Endeavor, if you will.


Which brings us back to the real topics of conversation:  Loose Strife.  From Unrestrained Discord, life as I want it, to Unrestrained Earnest Endeavor, life as it is.  And more importantly, loose teeth.


My littlest has his first loose tooth.  His baby teeth are making their exit.  And with them, goes this phase of my life.  I'm reluctant.  Recalcitrant.  Resistant.  I long to hold his small sweetness for eternity, and yet he's small no longer.  Bigger everyday.  


I watched him wake the other morning, his finger making its way to his tooth before his eyes even opened.  I'm sure he was feeling to see if it was still there, if it had become looser overnight.  He's like me, frightened and excited all at the same time.  He's on his own roller coaster.  

One of my favorite passages comes from youth fiction.  It's one of those passages that requires you to keep reading, even if up to that point, you hadn't much liked the book.

Six is a bad time too 'cause that's when some real scary things start to happen to your body, it's around then that your teeth start coming a-loose in your mouth.

You wake up one morning and it seems like your tongue is the first one to notice that something strange is going on, 'cause as soon as you get up there it is pushing and rubbing up against one of your front teeth and I'll be doggoned if that tooth isn't the littlest bit wiggly...   

You tell some adult about what's happening but all they do is say it's normal.  You can't be too sure, though, 'cause it shakes you up a whole lot more than grown folks think it does when perfectly good parts of your body commence to loosening up and falling off of you.

Unless you're stupid as a lamppost you've got to wonder what's coming off next, your arm?  Your leg?  Your neck?  Every morning when you wake up it seems a lot of your parts aren't as stuck on as good as they used to be. 

                                                                        Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis 

Loose Strife.  Things not stuck on quite as they should be, not like you thought they were, not as you hoped they'd be.  Bits become untethered, unfastened, unbound.  The parts of your life you thought you could count on become wobbly or maybe even disappear.  And the aftermath is only to be dealt with.  The hole in the mouth, the missing spouse, the absence of babies.  


Loose Strife.  The great divide between how I imagined life to be versus how it actually is...it's as simple as shifting from Unrestrained Discord to Unrestrained Earnest Endeavor.  

Titleless (and proud of it)

Packet pick-up isn't my favorite activity.  It's exciting, but also nerve wracking.  I feel like a fraud.  Surely, one day I'll be found out and some race official will pluck my race bib from my hands, and excuse me from the event.  I'm a wannabe runner in a non-runner body.  Oh, well.  


But this packet pick-up had an extra surprise for me.  In the packet was a lovely book containing the names of all the people who had signed up for the event.  YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME.  I devoured it.  Looked at all the people I knew.  People I know who are good runners.  Fast runners.  Real runners.  


The effect was exactly like when I get those effing magazines from my high school or university, detailing the amazing accomplishments of other alumni.  So-and-so is the head of a multi-national corporation.  So-and-so cured cancer.  So-and-so saved a little girl and a kitten from a burning building.  Or the ones that stab even deeper:  So-and-so got married, has been married for an eon, just celebrated a century of wedded bliss.  


My response to this:  Bed.  Ben and Jerry.  Covers.  Bad movie on the iPad.  I can't cope.  


And such was my response to the stupid magazine with nauseating list of other runners.  Except for I'm a single mom with four boys, so I couldn't retreat to bed; there was too much to do.  I couldn't drown my sorrows with Ben and Jerry; I don't share well and those containers are too tiny for one person let alone five. I couldn't watch some bad movie; they all have to be PG-13 or less around here.  This was no time for Snow Dogs.  It was serious sad movie, feel my pain type of movie time.  


But none of that could happen.  So I contacted my race day partner instead.  Asked about the details...the pick-up, the drop-off, the food, the hydration.  You know...the stuff.


He's single, no kids, dedicated to the art and science of exercise.  An seasoned marathoner, ultramarathoner, trail runner, triathlete, Ironman.  He's serious business.  He's a guy who goes to bed at 7 PM the night before a race.  He's a guy who consumes things like "nutrition" and dextrose.  


I eat bananas.  And go to bed immediately after my little ones are asleep.  And the dinner dishes are done.  And the laundry is folded.  


But I just love him for his down-to-earth approach.  His centeredness.  His curiosity about the events, the sports, the body, the life.  


So he reminded me the night before and the day of, it's just a morning.  A few hours of exercise.  Fun.  Have a good time.  


So we set off at 4 AM.  Started running by 630 AM.  


The half marathon.  My favorite distance by far.  Long enough to be challenging.  Not so long that you're wrecked after.  It's enough time to run, but also enough time to experience the rest of your day.  It's as close to perfection as this life comes, I think.  (That was hyperbolic, but I'm allowed.)


Running teaches me something.  Every time I do it.  And this day was no different.  I had two hours and six minutes of glorious introspection and nothingness.  Just the one foot in front of the other.  Just the keep going.  Just the be here now.  It doesn't get any better than that. 

My Mother's House is Full

I believe my car could find its way home even if I forgot.  If I was blinded, I could see the path clearly laid out before me.  If I was struck memoryless, I'm certain the cells of my body would pull me along, straight back to that door.  


Arriving to see blooming bulbs in the middle of a desert is odd to say the least.  For the most part -- except for the stunning sunrises and sunsets -- the palate of the desert is muted and bland, camouflaged from itself.  But there they were in the front yard greeting me, an entire bed of irises.  Color is not part of my early memories.  


I can walk in that front door all these years later and feel a sense of belonging.  It is still my house even when it's not.  


We wordlessly orbited, a silent ballet -- mother, son, daughters -- artful movements set to the music of life.    It calls to mind instantly the cleaning and packing of years ago, before I set off abroad.  My sister and I singing our way together up to the point of departure. Working together and apart in different rooms, walking towards and past one another, humming the same tune, singing along with the same song.  Ships.  Stars.  Satellites.   

Intuitively, our togetherness migrated immediately to the backyard, the strong sunshine, the garden that survives the harshest environment.


I see another silent ballet in my mind's eye -- tables, chairs, decorations all laid out for big birthday or remarkable retirement.  We work well together.  We speak the language of people who share a common past, one that centers on silence and understanding. 


Lilacs.  Talk of their origin.  Their quick blooming and passing this year.  Their tendency to want to shrivel up as soon as they are separated from their roots.  We are so like them.  "Hammer them as soon as they're cut, otherwise they won't absorb the water," my mother warns.  "Hammer them?" "Yes." 


The irises in the back rival the ones in the front.  Yellows.  Purples.  An almost brown....the deepest of dark purples.  


Roses.  Blooms that go on for days.  Long stems.  Sharp reminders of the pains of life.  Trimmed buds.  Delicate and showy.  


My mother's house is full.  Five bedrooms full of furniture, tools for living, pictures.  My mother's house is full of outdated everything, garbage to some, the onus of years.  My mother's house is full of the accumulation of lives well lived.  And vases.  


The gathered bouquet set inside a sturdy, rectangular, glass vase.  Surely the remnant of some past arrangement -- something I would have donated to a worthy cause.  Something my mother saw fit to keep.


Corals. Yellow.  Pale purple.  Bold purple.  A fragrance unlike any store-bought, florist-delivered bouquet.  


We have done this dance before together.  We know the steps and the tempo of the music.  We are studied in this area, have practiced, keep practicing.  


The ride in the car, my mom as driver, her full grown children as passengers -- just like a childhood trip, except for the lack of complaining, "Are we there yet?"  No jumping over the backseat into the way back.  No mother with her hand flailing in our direction trying to make contact.  


Our togetherness stood out among the others...its vibrant sense of life, that just pickedness of it, the scent.  It took its place with the rest, but I heard people talking about it.  "What is that great smell?"  "Oh, look, lilacs."  "Those roses are gorgeous."  Our togetherness.  There in the midst.  


We've done this before.  


My mother's house is full.  I am so fortunate. 

The Day After, The Day Of

Yesterday I was headed out of town and stopped at the middle school to get one of my sons.  As I was walking to the office, my phone rang.  I stepped off the paved path to take the call.  As I was looking down into the bark chips, I noticed this:

Since I wasn't going home, I put it in a safe little spot in my car, went on about my day, and didn't think of it again.


When I got home late last night, I cleaned out my car, threw some stuff in the trash, threw our spent sunflower seeds in the planter bed.  Didn't think anything of it.  Then all the sudden, I felt sick.  I scrambled back and looked for my found penny, but it wasn't there.  I fumbled for my phone, found my flashlight app, looked in the car.  Nothing.  Looked on the path to the trash.  Nothing.  Looked through the planter bed.  Nothing.


I got up this morning kinda feeling sick.  I have a tradition with my found money.  I keep them all together.  Some of them are so recognizable, they're like old friends.  I can tell you where I was when I found them.  Some of them are so unrecognizable that you have to trust they're actually even money at all.


I went out and retraced my steps in the daytime.  I looked in the car.  Very. Closely.  I retraced my steps to the trash and peered in.  Not very closely.  Ick.  I went over to the planter bed and poked through all the bark chips.  It looked a lot like the picture above, except without the penny.


Now I'm not superstitious, per se.  But I do value tradition.  And I do like to keep tabs on special items.  I was a little sad.  I'll be honest.  My found pennies are worth so much more than one cent to me.  They're priceless.  I'm not fanatical about them.  I understand they are THINGS.


So I turned to get in the car and I rolled the events around in my head.  


Perhaps I'm not supposed to keep the found money?  Turn the car on and put it in reverse.  Perhaps I'm supposed to be giving it away to people who need it?  Put the car in drive and head down the street.  Or perhaps I should be chucking it out my window as I drive so other people can find it?  Head out of my neighborhood.  Perhaps there's a reason why my latest found penny is found no more?  Drive out into the wide world to my littlest one's elementary school.  Perhaps I should just be open to the idea that everything is in perfect order, that all is as it should be, that there hasn't been a mistake here.  Park at the school, get out, walk across the street, and look down.