Honor

I feel happy, and I realize it’s because I’m breathing in the scent of fresh earth. I’m walking up to a landscaper, busy digging out weeds. I smile at him. I’m going to pass him again when I double back on my walk. I wonder what he thinks. Is it fair that he’s bent over the ground while I am free to go for a walk in the warm afternoon sun? As I near him the second time, I want to speak with him. If I tell him his artwork is looking nice, will it be patronizing? (Only patronizing because of the assumptions I’ve made of how he might feel about his work?)

I see him. I tell him, “It’s looking good!”

I think of my own grandfather. He wore the same clothes – lightweight blue cotton and a straw hat. He had dirt under his fingernails, too.

In my mind, I drop to my knees in front of the gardener. With hands at my heart, I say:
“I honor you. I honor your work. May you be blessed, and your children, and your children’s children.”

Amen.

The making of a party

We've been getting ready for E's third birthday party this week. I'm so excited about it, heehee! It's a garden theme. For some reason, blogspot isn't letting me caption my photos right, so I'll just have to tell you about them, and then you can scroll down below.

We're making dirt pie with gummy worms. (See green pots with flowers. Flowers 50% off at Michael's, yeah! Walking in that store, btw, totally took me back to childhood, where I spent ages in party and craft shops with my teacher mother. I could have spent all night there.)

My very favorite part of this party: we're going to make caterpillars on clothespins. This was my fav craft as a kid. Isn't it funny the things we remember from being a kid?

Finally, I included some photos of the favor boxes, which I thought were so cute. I had a hard time deciding what to put in them. I chafe at the usual array of cheap plastic toys that end up just being *waste* - played with for 5 minutes, then into the trash. I ended up including a ball - these never go to waste! - stickers, and tying up a few choc chip cookies. It's not extravagant, but enough for 2 & 3 year olds!

Enough

In this blog, I’ve mentioned my fight with sadness, made worse by an acute awareness of the pain and injustice present in this world and by the contrast of that with the omnipotent God of my childhood.

I’ve also mentioned that, as I was becoming a mother, a refrain of my soul was ‘I will lay down my weapons; I will fight no more’.

Something happened around the time that I turned 30, last November. My spirit whispered “done” in many different ways.

I don’t feel as sad as often. I’m better able to let the moments of happiness and contentment get bigger and last longer.

Nothing magical happened, I don’t think. Rather, it’s more like I’ve learned to dance. I’ve been practicing for a few years now. I’ve been learning steps, making them over and over, sometimes with tears, sometimes with laughter. I have made the dance steps so often now that I am beginning to know them by heart, and they replace my heart’s charge to war.

Mike gets nervous when I say something laudatory about him/us online. He says, and I think he’s largely right, that he often doubts what’s really going on when people gush about their amazing lives on Facebook. So, let me preface the following paragraphs with this confession: at 6am this morning, I sat up in the middle of our bed, frustrated that Emma had once again not slept well and woken up early, and half-yelled: “I can’t do this! I’m overwhelmed! I have too much to do!” All was not peaches-and-cream. But Mike told me he would take Emma (despite it being “my” morning) so that I could get some more sleep. His help reassured me, in the middle of a very important time with my work, that he takes me and what I want/need to accomplish seriously.

Being in a family has been incredibly healing. I thought it would be when Mike and I took that huge leap almost four years ago. But then there were times that it was really hard. I was still looking for perfection, of my self, of him, of us. How I released that is a topic for another post; the bottom line here is that I did/am doing so.

And in doing so, I feel like what I’ve experienced today makes everything ok. Maybe I won’t feel this way tomorrow, or even in an hour. But I do now, and for now, that’s enough. What I’ve experienced is this: I am a woman, loved and respected, with agency (the authority and ability to act) securely possessed in my self.

This is it. This is what I’ve been working towards all my teenage/adult life. In my striving to find help and answers for people who need it (read: myself), in all the hours I’ve spent with a Bible on my lap, I was seeking this place.

And here I am. For this, I bow deeply and say thank you thank you thank you thank you.

The “it” will not be the same for everyone. For me, this loving – but even more importantly, respectful - relationship was something I needed, not least because, amidst the hell women around the world face every day, I needed to know it was possible.

So, Emma, as your third birthday nears, this is the gift I give you, and it will be one of the most important I ever do: your mother was a woman beloved on this earth.

All the rest from here on out will be gravy.

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Confession #2: After I wrote this yesterday afternoon, we had a stressful evening at home, as we worked to juggle major work deadlines with planning a party and getting ready to leave for a two week trip.

Mike and I argued. I’m not sure who is more wrong, he or I, or whether it matters. I felt mad as hell at him, and he wasn’t too happy with me, either.

And yet, I still ride a wave of grace. This is the exact lesson that is freeing me: that things can be both imperfect and ok. A little scary. But my chance at happiness, if ever there was one. I’ll take it.

Mmmm, yummy oatmeal

I just bought some software that will convert my videos to a format I can use on my Mac, so now maybe I'll be posting some on the blog again!

These videos are from way back in the spring. They're of E's BFF Abbi. I'm posting them here a) b/c they're too big to send to her parents on email, and b) b/c Abbi's just too stinkin' cute.

A few weeks ago, I posted an entry about my struggles, both practically and abstractly, with what it means to have gained a few pounds recently. Concern over weight can be a very insidious thing, seemingly not a big deal – something over which we joke or lament with off-hand comments – yet consuming so much creative feminine energy.

I said what I needed to say, I said it in a vehement way, and I’m glad I did. And then I no longer needed it to be said, and I took the post down. Because it isn’t how I want someone to view me all of the time. The post was just one snapshot of how I feel. Mostly I feel so amazed and grateful because my views on food and eating exist in a space that is wider and free-er than that of many of my peers.

I should be content, though, to let the more painful moments simply be what they are, and I’m getting there. I’m still making my own peace with how I think about bodies and weight and women and their value.

This I know: making peace with our bodies is a big deal and has been for all of human history, from zealots self-flagellating to white middle- & upper-class girls starving themselves. A couple months ago, I realized that I had happened to post two weight-related articles to Twitter in one day, one about Americans’ desperate struggles against obesity, and the other about Mauritanians force-feeding their daughters to make them obese (and thus more attractive to potential suitors). The comparison of the extremes, and all the pain that accompanies them both, was striking.

So I carry a sense of empathetic grief, borne from my own historical grief, in my heart.

But I have to remind myself to be here, in the present chapter of my story. Here, now, there is no one in my life whose love and approval I need who will withhold it, much less withhold it based on what I weigh. And I am no longer a teenager whose disordered eating was a raging symptom of a family about to fall apart, the cracks in a wall whose foundation was crumbling. I have found my voice, and I know how to use it if something in my life hurts and needs to change.

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And now, onto something entirely more fun: Emma videos! Maybe I'll get back into uploading these regularly!

E goes to preschool, June 21, 2010, 2 yrs, 2 mos old


E sings a song, July 16, 2010, 2 yrs, 3 mos old

This week, I was copying files to an external hard drive and came across videos Sara, my sister, and I had taken when we went to Rome for New Year's 2006. Sara also came over to London the following Christmas.

I'm so glad we had a chance to do fun traveling together while we were both young and single, but my best memories aren't of seeing the pope in Rome (though we did, and that makes TWO popes I have seen in real-life. I saw Pope John Paul II when I was in Rome in 2003) or of our sight-seeing in the UK. I remember our goofing off and watching TV together, and going shopping for Christmas dinner (salmon and potatoes) at Marks & Spencer's, and Sara subsequently spilling dinner on the street on the way home. Ok, rather a baguette fell out of her shopping bag, but for some reason, it was really funny at the time.

We have shows that defined the trips, as well. The first trip, it was the Office, watched on my brand new iPod. The second trip, it was the sixth season of the West Wing at my bosses' house in Notting Hill, which they had graciously lent us while they were out of town. Everything, and I mean everything, shuts down in London at Christmastime, so we literally spent days watching the WW. AND we watched Thelma and Louise, and may I quote my little sister's response when Thelma and Louise drive off the cliff at the end: ""They'll never make it to Mexico!""

My innocent baby sister, I love you and I'm so glad we're friends!!

Welcome, 2010!!

Since moving to San Diego, I've had a great time getting to know Sharsti, a woman that was in the same grad program as Mike, and her husband Caleb and daughter Abbi. Abbi's 14 months old and as tall as Emma (sorry, E, your 5'2" mom held you back. You still have awesome legs). We always have a great time with their family, not least because they're easy, laid-back parents in the sense that they will not unduly freak out if your child is still in the process of learning to share or likes to kiss full-mouth with lots of germs, etc.

Abbi and fam came over for New Year's Eve, and the girls had a blast together. I think they are becoming BFF, for sure. They were up way past their normal bedtimes, and that combined with the general excitement and bellies full of pizza propelled them to run laps around our house. For the record, yes, the loud squeal you will hear is indeed my child. Where does she get that high-pitched voice........