Running Up a Big Hill

There is a buzz in the back of my head making me feel like I should be chasing my tail. I did this week, as I drove to Chicago, back to Troy, home to Ann Arbor where others joined me and busied myself with the preparation of food. I even dropped a pecan pie and watched the glass base shatter. My three year old stood over me, saying, I want to eat it. To be honest, I considered trying to salvage a section just for myself.

It is Cyber Monday, Nano month is ended. I don't know what to do with myself in my free hour for the week. If you need anything, now is the time to pick up the phone, dial 818.4694 and ask me for a favor. "Yes, please," I will say to avoid the real work of writing goals, partnering with Christ in something bigger then my coffee mug, my feet pounding pavement for another 10 mile run, my long list of Birthday parties, Christmas presents and neighborhood commitments.

What I want to do is draw a bare tree in ink washes. Felt little animal heads I can mount on wood (as they have in this months Anthropology catalogue shown here). Drink latte's all day without feeling caffeine's dizzying effects. I suppose a massage would be nice as well. I have lost connection with myself, with my Chapel sanctuaries, with my words on a page, with myself present in the dialogue with anyone else.

I am at risk of falling into the abyss of regret, just considering the work undone, blank MFA applications, half started NANO. But I don't want to live in the rear, to look backwards, to see my shadow. Rather, I want some brilliant new mind, me living right now.

There is this poem sitting on my coffee-shop table that I love, with the following lines:

I’m tired . . .
of how the old beggar
makes me think that
rowing across the river is
somehow richer, more serious than,
the center of a pomegranate…

then later 

I want life’s ragged way
of getting along, the wasted
afternoon and empty morning, the
sloppy kiss. I want to stagger
along between innings. I want
the burnt toast, the forgotten note,
and the lost pillowcase, the dime
novel, and the Silly Putty of it all.

As I ran up a half mile hill in Barton Hills Saturday morning, trying to keep my eyes on my friend always just ahead, I decided that life is all about hills. It is running up something with no foreseeable top. I taste a bit of iron in my mouth, I see green bushes to my right, and I live within creation during this step. There is an energy in focusing on making my legs push off. I want to be in my penduluming arms and let their momentum propel my chest towards lasting hope. 

I pray that my hill could be a great one, ever reaching higher and a way to experience myself in God's world, with whatever upward grade he provides, trusting that I can enjoy the muscle burn in this step. 

Festival of Faith & Writers

I keep trying to convince anyone I see, know, or meet on the street to go to the Festival of Faith and Writers Conference at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, April 10th to 12th. To avoid the "Writers" part, I tell people they can just be readers, because many people who attend, do so for the authors and discussions and stories of 100's of great voices. I secondly tell them they don't really have to have "Faith," and brag that Anne Lamott is coming, because everyone loves Anne Lamott. I also mention the last conference, which featured people like Marilyn Robinson, Jonathan Saffron For, and Ann Voscamp.

This is the irony of my own story as I purchase "Stitches," Lamott's new book in preparation for the conference, which I still need to sign up for. I flipped through a few pages of that book and also, "Help, Wow, Thanks" and land in the vague acknowledgments of God, when her first pages say things like, I don't know much about God and maybe God has meaning in my life. It makes me pause before buying, which I do eventually do.

I hate the way I choose to skirt and avoid and pretend my faith, to avoid labels and association with rigid or labeled Theologians. I am always writing between the lines about why or how or what makes me believe, in such a way as to understand how one goes from ME as my own god, to believing enough to follow Jesus. I look at people who I admire in the church and think, why do you believe, and in the next moment at others to say, "why don't you believe." This always leads back to what makes me decide on Christ's death and resurrection as the crux of my own identity, my own ability to interpret God in the stars, to creating my arch nemesis in his image, and to pause before stepping on the first floor to ask God for a bigger view of love.

 My three year old came home from church yesterday with colorful paper chain links that said the following, "I'm thankful for's," with blue marker words, "my brother," on one, and "for piggies, kitties and dogs," on the second. The other six were blank. I thought, how nice, this is thanksgiving preparation. He looked at me and said, "God puts people in prison," and stuck his hands on the end chains, to which I said, "What?" My first response was, "God doesn't put people in prison." He then said "they have wood on their feet."  It made me nod as I thought, oh some disciple or follower must have been put in prison in the story they read. But who put them there and why, maybe it was in some way God?

I am in awe of the Bible stories that are all about people wanting to kill Christians. Why hate so extremely? 11 of the 12 disciples are murdered, and the last one John sits as a prisoner on an island writing letters towards the end of the New Testament. What of his belief and response to God? Obedience.

I started reading the Count of Monte Christo two years ago and am about half way at this point. It feels like hell to watch The Count spend hours calculating people's intentions and trying to help them fall into the darkest holes of hate, murder and greed and evil within themselves. I suppose that is the opposite in my mind of The Count living in prison with a man who loves him and believes in him. Where would he be best served? In relationships that are real! Not to spoil the ending, but my husband keeps telling me that it is worth reading, meaning there must be some redemption and better that comes of all the heartache.

I suppose this is where I end this post, both with the question to you of why you believe and what you pit your choices on, not just what you know or others tell you, but the moments that you jump in or out of choosing to trust another with your life.

Oh, and you should definitely go to the Faith and Writers Conference!!!

NanoWriMo- Take Four

Another year has past and today is the start of my fourth attempt to write many words over the month of November. I am already feeling defeated as I consider the new chaos that 1667 words a day creates for everything else. I consider characters, my favorite hobbies, running, guitar, camping and trying to incorporate my life onto the written page. Is that possible?

Over the month of November I read the new Jeannette Walls book, Silver Star, half of When Women Were Birds, finished Dave Eggers, Hologram for the King and Zeitoun, and several essays by David Sedaris. I keep wondering what they have to offer my work, what I love about their work that I can duplicate.

One thing I love is how much these authors seem to experience moments. They see their past and present as a field of wonder to be mined and appreciated. There is wild chance involved, based on each person they encounter, each location. Their experiences are shaped by bumping into others with stories, people with whole worlds inside themselves. For me kids with teachers and classmates, a husband with emotional patients, my neighbors the day after Halloween and the yes's and no's to be said to their dinner invitations (3 + for tonight), events for the weekend and my ability to make good choices. Do I apply for a third year to MFA programs? Do I write this novel? Do I host Thanksgiving, Christmas? Go to Chicago next week, when my husband has time off from clinical duties?

I realized yesterday that Chaos might be my idol. I cling to uncertainty as an excuse for not listening to what is important to me. My therapist asked me if I pray for clarity in my own mission. I don't even know if I can. That would mean believing I had one and then working towards it. But just realizing how foreign the request is, I am beginning to believe in praying it. Trying to trust God to provide me with a mission, pursuit of work and life with open hands and belief that I am worthy and capable of living out a calling.

I pray today that my characters will move me to see what God has provided. May he reveal my identity in him and make clear how I can experience joy in living in his wake.

Buying Time

Our small group looked at Mark 10 this week, where the rich man asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. Here's a link to the passage.  The passage is familiar but so complicated. On first read, we all panic about the idea we might need to sell everything and be homeless.  Then we can quickly move to the doctrine of prosperity gospel, where we interpret this to be if we give up X (in this case all our money), then we will gain so much more, as Job did. One person mentioned the idea that maybe giving up possessions  gains us community and time. A smaller house means less to manage. Commitments to others, means receiving from all they contribute as well.

We also talked about the fact that the rich man's identity was in his wealth, and that each of us creates an identity out of something. Another person talked about identity as what we stick our claws into, like a husband or kids or persona, and needing to actually take our claws out and stick them into Christ. With the rich man, he walks away saddened at the news that he would have to sell all he owns, but in reality he is walking away from being with Christ, because Jesu's final words are, "and follow me."

If we really believe that doing what Jesus says, "leaving everything that distracts us and following him," is the best way, do we leave the thing that we cling to the most and trust both that he will provide and we will be better off? In the passage it says to let go of, farm and family and I hate to think for me of letting go of my boys (all three), my legs to run, my fingers to play, my pen to write, my my. . . , but are they what I cling to for my hope? It is a lot to ask of them, to save me and for me to control? The result of having my claws there is that I worry they won't live up to my plan, and the truth is they cannot, because my vision and plan is not Gods.

This morning my son began making tickets, because he gets them at school and now wants to receive them at home, when he does a good job. I told him the ways he can earn tickets are by practicing reading and memorizing scripture. We started with verse one of Psalm 23. Is there a more prefect declaration of our faith, dependence and ultimate hope, dwelling with the Lord forever.

It also hits me as I constantly try to figure out why I would tell someone about God, why they are missing out without him?  Because with Christ, I can let go of trying to be everything to people, to save them or myself. To be enough. I am not going to survive my own expectations let alone others. God has them and will hold them better then I can.

And so, here is my prayer
What I hope is David's prayer
And ultimately, what God prayers for me and David and . . .

Psalm 23 (real version linked here)

The Lord:
I the Lord, am your shepherd,
You shall not want.
I make you lie down in green pastures.
I leads you beside quiet waters.
I restore your soul;
I guide you in the paths of righteousness
For My name’s sake.

Me:
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Deflectoman = BAD

I came to realize this week that I am amazing at deflecting everything, good or bad. My skill comes through an internal voice, i'll call "Deflectoman" who works as a consultant. This guy is great at hearing things and filtering them. For example if someone says, "Isn't it late to have your kids up," it responds with, "Well, I am trying to get their homework done , or I explain that I am trying to feed them or respond to some important email. (Then the voice says, "now Sonia, rush up and get them to bed, to avoid messing up more.") This voice also tells me: "Clean your garden," "this bathroom is filthy," "your roots are dark and you should dye them now!" and directs me towards avoiding the embarrassment that could come.

As I contemplated this, a friend said that "Deflectoman" is either a helpful coping tool that might just need to be turned down sometimes or not serving a function, and thus needing to be expelled. The idea of expelling something made me think of my friend Melissa's novel where there was an exorcism. I don't have much faith in Christian mysticism, but I like the idea of getting rid of this one.

I have spent a ton of time pleasing people. I anticipate criticisms and work hard to avoid negative attention which I imagine to be all attention, but am ready to live with less exterior ego and seek the light of God loving me without my doing or being or pretending anything. I no longer want to control how God sees me or ask him to come to me when I am "better," but to seek the reality of him being enough and letting him see me as the helpless flailing infant, I am.

After pondering this I ran into Isaiah 51. I keep wanting to find the one verse, but it's too hard, so here's the chapter.
1 “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness,
          Who seek the LORD:
          Look to the rock from which you were hewn
          And to the quarry from which you were dug.

2 “Look to Abraham your father
          And to Sarah who gave birth to you in pain;
          When he was but one I called him,
          Then I blessed him and multiplied him.”

3 Indeed, the LORD will comfort Zion;
          He will comfort all her waste places.
          And her wilderness He will make like Eden,
          And her desert like the garden of the LORD;
          Joy and gladness will be found in her,
          Thanksgiving and sound of a melody.

4 “Pay attention to Me, O My people,
          And give ear to Me, O My nation;
          For a law will go forth from Me,
          And I will set My justice for a light of the peoples.

5 “My righteousness is near, My salvation has gone forth,
          And My arms will judge the peoples;
          The coastlands will wait for Me,
          And for My arm they will wait expectantly.

6 “Lift up your eyes to the sky,
          Then look to the earth beneath;
          For the sky will vanish like smoke,
          And the earth will wear out like a garment
          And its inhabitants will die in like manner;
          But My salvation will be forever,
          And My righteousness will not wane.

7 “Listen to Me, you who know righteousness,
          A people in whose heart is My law;
          Do not fear the reproach of man,
          Nor be dismayed at their revilings.

8 “For the moth will eat them like a garment,
          And the grub will eat them like wool.
          But My righteousness will be forever,
          And My salvation to all generations.”

9 Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD;
          Awake as in the days of old, the generations of long ago.
          Was it not You who cut Rahab in pieces,
          Who pierced the dragon?

10 Was it not You who dried up the sea,
          The waters of the great deep;
          Who made the depths of the sea a pathway
          For the redeemed to cross over?

11 So the ransomed of the LORD will return
          And come with joyful shouting to Zion,
          And everlasting joy will be on their heads.
          They will obtain gladness and joy,
          And sorrow and sighing will flee away.

12 “I, even I, am He who comforts you.
          Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies
          And of the son of man who is made like grass,

13 That you have forgotten the LORD your Maker,
          Who stretched out the heavens
          And laid the foundations of the earth,
          That you fear continually all day long because of the fury of the oppressor,
          As he makes ready to destroy?
          But where is the fury of the oppressor?

14 “The exile will soon be set free, and will not die in the dungeon, nor will his bread be lacking. 15 “For I am the LORD your God, who stirs up the sea and its waves roar (the LORDof hosts is His name). 16 “I have put My words in your mouth and have covered you with the shadow of My hand, to establish the heavens, to found the earth, and to say to Zion, ‘You are My people.’”

17 Rouse yourself! Rouse yourself! Arise, O Jerusalem,
          You who have drunk from the LORD’S hand the cup of His anger;
          The chalice of reeling you have drained to the dregs.

18 There is none to guide her among all the sons she has borne,
          Nor is there one to take her by the hand among all the sons she has reared.

19 These two things have befallen you;
          Who will mourn for you?
          The devastation and destruction, famine and sword;
          How shall I comfort you?

20 Your sons have fainted,
          They lie helpless at the head of every street,
          Like an antelope in a net,
          Full of the wrath of the LORD,
          The rebuke of your God.

21 Therefore, please hear this, you afflicted,
          Who are drunk, but not with wine:

22 Thus says your Lord, the LORD, even your God
          Who contends for His people,
          “Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of reeling,
          The chalice of My anger;
          You will never drink it again.

23 “I will put it into the hand of your tormentors,
          Who have said to you, ‘Lie down that we may walk over you.’
          You have even made your back like the ground
          And like the street for those who walk over it.”

Jumping Off

I have had the sobering realization this week that I am a jumper. I love new groups, new adventure, new hair colors, trying to convince people that I am cool and thinking I am easing others anxiety by being interested and talking with them. Early in the process of two new kids schools I told my husband, "I am finally feeling like myself," in a rhythm and enjoying things.

The hard  moment came when I sat with my therapist and explained my excitement and somehow we landed in a tough hole, because of the pattern presented. I love getting to please new people, offer to be little miss helpful and appear friendly to avoid the longer term work in relationships that seem less glamourous or easy. I hate to admit it, but I am a bailer, because I can't live up to the self I presented to yesterday's acquaintances. I can convince myself of all the reasons being friendly is good and how the people I already know don't need me or are too much effort or might be a little narcissistic, but the reality is I can't keep up appearances with them. I can't help and save and be likable all the time and they may even see me as flakey, since I haven't called them back.

It really made me sad and scared as I walked out of my identity as a person"good to know," because now I am caught. If I go forward in that vision, it will lead to longer term relationships that will get messy or that will lapse and I will be empty with no one to look to for guidance. A robot without a working operator. So my other extreme would be to let all go, run naked through the streets yelling, "I am Sonia.  I hate you anyway."(while whispering, please don't judge me and this has nothing to do with you).

One of the challenges is jumping from a map that feels safe and habitual, being friendly and likable, to a map that doesn't exist. My best friend has a boat and she is literally going to move onto a boat and sail it away (see her posts). I am jealous. I must as the age old question, "Do I really want to change and if so, How do I do it." How can I engaging from a real place, not fun land where I am your concierge.

I am looking for my own life-wide internal revolution. All i can think is that I need a spiky ear piercing or mohawk. Stepping away from my set role is scary, but somehow the crowd of new faces is not the answer I used to think it was. I am struck by the patience and longevity I have with a man, two boys and a church small group that rides along side me through my fear of being myself, whoever that may turn out to be. I hope I can navigate towards a new trail that takes me to beautiful alcoves, new meadows within my dwelling places and yours.

Praying Life

For the last three days, I have prayed constantly that David would be ok. I am not with him and I want to be. I tear up thinking about it. He loves school, is excited to tell me about phrases like, "Zip it, lock it,  Put it in your pocket," can't wait to find the hidden candy in his lunchbox and worries about being early enough to get into the line-up at the door.

I have the low down on the difficult kid, whom the teachers are always scolding, and who gets the red card for taking a "time-out." The second night David mentioned this kid, asked what David could do to help him. David started with, "You could send him to the principle." We have talked a lot about prayer lately and his prayers are things like, "God, make it stop raining and help Isaac to feel better. It is how I often pray, saying, "Help me get past this day or find extra money to pay for my $400 Costco bill." I worry that he will be disappointed or question God if his request aren't answered with the rain stopping (though last time he prayed that, it did stop.). I tell him, "God is not a robot, waiting for us to tell him what to do. Neither did he make us robots, forcing us to do what he would. Rather he wants us to choose relationships and loving, just like he did." As we talked further about the problem kid, he wanted to pray/ He asked God to show him in his dreams how he could be a friend to this kid.

The third morning, he woke said he hated school as we rushed to get there on time. I wondered if the whole conversation was too much for him. He ended up having a great day and saying the boy had a much better day. Then day four (today) as we walked to the car, he mentioned that a kid with an orange shirt and sun glasses punched him in his lower abdomen on the playground yesterday. I told him that it must be hard for that boy to live with hurting people, because of how badly we feel when we hurt others even on accident. I mentioned the incident to the teacher, who wanted to assure me they worked hard to ensure things like this didn't happen and that David should tell her next time.

So how do we pray? I can't help but love King David's way as I look over Psalm 30 & 31. David praises God, then cries for help, then talks about bad guys, then praises God for not getting too angry at him, asks God to go easy on him, mourns at life, looks to keep away from idols, talks about God as a shelter, a rock, a stronghold, prays not to fall into his own strength or neighbors pits and ultimately  prays to "see the glory of the Lord in the land of the living."

A few weeks back David mentioned a good place to pray was at church, saying he just prayed (as we walked in Knox's door). A different day I asked what God promises us and he said, "We get live with him in his house," or something to that affect. All I can think is that God is alive in the midst of this moment and I am so glad that I get to sit with David as we listen for him.

Packing a Lunch

Picture retrieved from www.fabanddeliciousfood.com%25
2F%253Fp%253D11004%3B500%3B375 on 9/1/2013 

As an elementary schooler I remember choking down thick bites of brown dry bread with a thin layers of peanut butter between. Each bite I would turn to look behind me, praying no one would see me gag as the food came up and then I swallowed hard to force it back down. I don't recall having any liquids to help me wash the bitter taste away. I was told I needed the protein and complained saying, "My friends get white bread, can't I just have Wonderbread?" My teachers made us line up with our crumpled bags to show we were not throwing away food, so there was no way around the event of eating.

My siblings tried to spice things up on occasion by toasting the bread, adding marshmallow fluff, putting it in the bag hot (to keep the moisture in), but any chance I could get, I would still throw the sandwiches out. I still wonder how desperate I would need to be to choose those sandwiches over an empty stomach.

Now my kids tell me they don't want to eat, they are already big, or in a last ditch effort to avoid a meal, "let's just eat later." On occasion I give in to my own frustrations around food and say, "Fine, be hungry, if that is what you want." My fear is that they are hungry, but they don't want to eat what I am serving. Brown bread, PB&J's, that I tell them have protein. I went for the cold cuts over the past few weeks and that was its own torture because by day three one said, "Why do we have to eat meat again?" What new option do I have?

This week will be my first in packing lunches, committing to foods, selecting bits to put into the three tupperware containers I bought for David. I don't even think I am allowed to pack peanut products at all. My organized friends would have hummus and veggies, yogurts and maybe homemade granola bars? Things David currently dislikes. But on Tuesday, David is going to open up his containers and see what's inside and eat it (or not) without me standing by. He might want to tell me he hates grapes or salami, but I wown't be there to handle it.

My sisters would have perfect plans, healthy options and creative preparation techniques. Maybe they can tell me what to do, but then I might never learn it for myself? I wonder when the little details will become easy, magically work out, feel natural through the repetition of doing them? The truth is that I managed ok and my boys will too, with or without high protein sandwiches or hidden whole grains. I will send my notes and prayers and trust God to provide.

Vacillation to Education

I am heading towards a new phase in life, that of school aged children. I am going to get them up, pack lunches, drive them to their new schools and kiss them good-bye. Then I will pick up first my three year old and I will spend the afternoon hanging out one on one before collecting the 5 year old, making dinner. The hard part is preparing for a life of rigidity. While I long for routine, it also terrifies me. My mom role requires some type A traits and my time with David is cut shorter and shorter.

The ideal version of me would have the fridge stocked, the house cleaned, the clothes organized and a wake-up song ready to stir the house an hour after I am up. The pessimistic me wants to rebel and be let off the hook, have a legitimate reason to focus elsewhere, to be rid of the pressure of being a great provider. If only I could pile on a few classes, part time gigs and anything that will allow me to be ok to fail at all of it. The pattern will then look like this: me doing it all, me frantic, me surviving through in reactive mode but finishing with some adrenaline rush and crashing without as much guilt.

I am told that I need to pretend my internal life is important and matters. That being aware and speaking up for myself to myself must come first. Then I can be in my life rather then trying to play other roles for other people who have needs I can take on to let me off the hook. So I am afraid of things that feel like hooks, yet I can't manage alone. When I sat at church on Sunday I thought, if I could only just bask in God's glory, all the rest would be less urgent.

So according to HowWeLove.com, I am a "vacillator" and my work is to become a "secure connector," with a list of things to work towards, in becoming balanced, healthy, open to self and others and better able to thrive in real relationships.

In this journey, I pray for clarity of purpose, for a way to fight distraction, to lean into a schedule and to create spaces where I can engage with myself and kids first thing and last thing and in between as we open ourselves to public learning.

Writing My Own Job Description

I found that when I sat down on the laundry room floor midday yesterday, I couldn't convince myself to get up. We were set to hit a local water park in Yspilanti and I couldn't figure out how to tackle the basement stairs. Rewinding to understand how I got there, between Monday and Sunday, I flitted from community meeting, to packing for a friend, to CPR/First Aid training, to Kindergarten registration, to visitors and game nights and a weary husband, just after my last houseguest departed, I crashed.

Contrasting last week with now, I am sitting at the library, listening to trucks drive along the highway overhead and no real plan. I am struck by how calm the world feels here feel. This is the time to get perspective. In my case I am supposed to create a job description for myself that will guide me towards a healthier way of engaging, deciding, etc. I have ideas for what I want to be doing, like knowing and be known by my family, listening to friends and loving and delighting in relationships. I am convinced more and more that loyalty is critical to being free. The other one that is hardest for me, is choosing to believe God can do the work. I habitually hold onto the hard stuff of other's lives, like I did last week and their crisis created my own. Instead I want to be the person who says, "We just have to ask Jesus to do something BIG here."

So how do I change? My friend is reading a book about decision making and one thing she shared was that empathy has to be pared with judgement for a good decision to be made. I think I feel emotions around someone losing a house or having a hard time, and waver between ignoring the situation or doing the work to solve their problem and ignoring my kids, husband and other tasks. These frequent situations (almost daily) trump everything else. Or maybe they distract me from dealing with everything else. Moving someone or having inviting someone in or acting as chauffeur is easier then making a meal plan for my family, or mopping the floor.

A guy named Ian Walker has an amazing article in The Art of Manliness about why we do some things and not others, called, Self Efficacy and the Art of Doing Things . He mentions that the big task are made of a bunch of smaller ones and when each is completed it feels great. The best advice is to do things task by task and that great satisfaction can be found in doing what one sets out to do.

My wise friend mentioned above,  also mentioned that we should be loving our future selves and trying to provide for them now. This means handling today so that I will be equipped for tomorrow, rather then striving to save the world right now only to be laying on the laundry room floor the moment I sit down.

So I have a new job description to post up on my door, my window, my blog.

Job Description for Being Myself:
Available/listening to self and protecting own space for better functioning with others
Direct line to a Powerful Boss who can manage crisis (God)
Strong reliance on a calendar as a filter for booking tasks, connecting with people and ordering schedule for efficiency and balance
Communication of priorities and saying no to taking on other's jobs/priorities as if my own
Interdependence with others to manage all needs (theirs and mine)
Able to stay in each hour I have - delighting in beauty, empathizing with sorrow, laughing when appropriate, etc
Experience the world as a creative space in which to delight
Considering future needs and love the future self through dreams and provisions necessary for her to thrive

Maybe the wife, mom and friend come out of this description. I pray that I can live my roles well and work with loving intention, in the light of a compassionate God, who has a much wider view!

One Day I Will Sing on Stage

Last night at 7:15 pm in front of my very own blue house, Jen Hajj (from CA) and Dave Hawkins (from OH) set up mikes and amplifiers to sing to our neighbors, themselves and the mosquitoes. Jen's soprano notes rose high and sweet on the topics of birds and friendship. Dave has a more surly personality, with stories of drinking and history and the drama of daughters and granddaughters who break your heart in a good way.

We were maybe 25 sprawled over a quarter acre and I wondered if it was worth their time. Maybe they would be twiddling their thumbs or practicing or they just know that singing is about each person, and finding the one that connects with their mission, their gift, their energy. Dave's 50 years shows in his 7 albums, grammy nominations, itune sales and his regular pitch for support.

My sons and I lay in bed, then each kept saying, "I can't see, I can't see," and we had to sit up and look down from the bedroom window until the last song ended. I believe they would have gone all night if we had let them, but it became to dark to see.

When it was quiet, my son said, "You go to lessons, right?" When I nodded he said, "You want to sing like them when you grow up," and I said, "I hope so!" I want to sing out loud to the night, but do I have the skill to bear my soul and ask for attention. They wanted us to know their history, to agree with their choices, for us to know them intimately, and somehow we did, without even knowing their names. I don't know if I can believe people will listen to my stories for as long as the audience did, about raptor bird obsessions and song writing classes and drunk audiences at football games, but I imagine I will try.

My story is. . . I was a lonely child, fighting for food with my six siblings. My school lunches were dry homemade brown bread peanut butter sandwiches with a gushy apple that I almost threw up as I tried to get down. When I met my husband, he appeared as loyal and grounded and he participated with me in my story. As I consider options, write, sing, run a marathon, build a community house, help with my dad's wedding, apply to MFA's, teach, parent, or sit on my hands, I sense myself grabbing onto things to find safety, while also longing for an extreme adventure.

I am challenged in the daily tasks to find meaning in folding laundry or scrubbing the bathtub. I live with people, I am responsible to meet basic needs, but I care most about my family being showered with God's love/knowing. I watch my friends adventure in the city or backcountry and though I pretend they are crazy, I envy their determination to live on some edge, where they must fully focus on the task ahead. In this season, wanting those adventures in nature and urban living become distractions (though later, I hope to lead others their), as my task is that of being where I am and listening to the rain. I am the observer of kids changing heights, their facial expressions, their words, their daily epiphanies about themselves and the world and I want them to experience God within the spaces we dwell, be content within their own skin, not matter what the circumstances are elsewhere.

So we lay down and listen to sounds, laughs, and then run circles up our hill around the raspberries and back down, imagining ourselves to be dinosaurs and lions. We take pauses to ponder the head sized hornet's nest just past our front porch, that we have played under for months, without seeing, knowing that someone has sprayed it for us, and its inhabitants are dead. Maybe I will write a song about the hornets, or the music or the kids, or maybe the Blue Heron that soared just out out of our reach, showcasing it's long slender neck.

I Need You

On a recent camping trip in Sleeping Bear Dunes, I noticed several times that kids close to my 5 year olds age would stop and stare at him and his friends in a tranced or longing way. Then they would move closer or head off, but for a moment, you could tell they wanted to connect.

On Tuesday night as I ran down Park Ave past a fastish looking woman, I did the same thing. I eyed her, almost turned to go along with her and thought of how I might find out who she was so I could ask her to run with me. I eye neighbors, church visitors and want to know their stories. I stroke my boys forearms and cheeks when they lay down to sleep and want to hear their day's stories, what they are thinking about, believing and hoping for and always wish I could engage them better.

My best friend decided to live on a boat again, and she made the comment that we would not have much time to talk after her move. She is in a great place, heading to Haystack, writing amazing stories, getting responses from literary journals and now taking a leap of faith as she literally casts off! She doesn't have many minutes on her cell plan or consistent reception and I panic inwardly knowing I can't spontaneously access her.

I also realize as I sit in the library to write on a Sunday afternoon that I only write when people send me off. An hour ago my husband said, "Why don't you go off and write now?" I said, "ok," and here I am. On Monday the babysitter comes and I write. I rarely work in the early morning or late at night and wonder if I need to focus or accept that this is how it is right now.

I seek external direction for the internal work of studying human change. Now I look at impending Fall, my boys both signed up for their first ever schools, and I turn my gaze to anything that might prod me on (or distract me from losing time with them). I read about the program InsideOut, teaching writing to kids in Detroit and long for the task, I comb through Eastern's Creative Writing Classes and want to be in conversation with students. I notice my neighbors and consider a Community Bible study on relationships, art and Jesus. I pray that God will lead me into the right spaces; that my ears will crane towards what is lasting.

The Process of Becoming Alive

There is something profound in reading stories you have read before but seeing them as a changed person. To read To Kill a Mockingbird or Catcher in the Rye as a child makes me think of possibility and as an adult, I feel a bit more regret, envy, or fear, that I have missed an important moment.

Sitting at my coffee shop table there is a poem that I keep reading, thinking that with each new look, it will give me the answer. Here it is (no author is quoted):

If we wait to foil

A BANK ROBBERY

or rescue someone ties on the railroad tracks
We will never be a hero. We probably won't

even come across a cat stuck in a tree. As
long as we sit at the bus stop waiting for

OUR GREAT MOMENT

we will miss our real chance at the heroic.
the infinite number of tiny, daily acts

inspired by the great. Our actions may seem
insignificant, but their results will grow

and multiply.
They are radical: they are

A SMOLDERING FIRE.

My best friends are off on new adventures. One is taking the long road to Alabama and camping along the way. Another is literally living on a sailboat, without a real plan for how long or whereto, just being there. My sailor talks through wind and water and I feel life is happening inside her and I want to be there.

My family and close friends went camping in Sleeping Bear Dunes, climbing and swimming and sitting around a fire and it was good. One one hike up Pyramid Point, most of our crew decided to climb down a steep slope to touch the water. The way down was easy, but the scaling the dune back took many over an hour. They sat down white faced on top and we all felt the relief of their being ok. As I sat watching and half wishing I had experienced the struggle, the water looked liquid glass agave. Like God was hovering just below the surface. I consider how He met people on mountain tops and wrestled them in the valleys of the Bible and I wait and wonder where he is in with me.

My impulse is to jump into a new class at Eastern, work as a creative writing teacher with InsideOut in Detroit and trying to complete a publishable novel in a week.

Instead I write my three morning pages about my dad's upcoming wedding, my neighborhood, and how I want to be, in my own skin. All the while I know that I'm not going to make it to the mountains of NH, or cruise (sail) the coast of Maine, but I am still me, without doing anything. That in this next two weeks, people are coming to me and that I will write and each day watch for God showing up in my life.

Woman Downstairs

After sitting with the book, The Woman Upstairs for a week, I am struck by how much I don't want to re-write that story in my life. People ask how it ends (spoiler alert), and the reality is that it ends with her flying into a rage, the thing the reader is doing from the beginning. The main character Nora is telling a story in hindsight, I suppose a cautionary tail, but it is hard to know why she would want to even relive it. The hard part is wishing the end would be the beginning of the story about the enlightened Nora. I realize this is the author's point, that I am supposed to feel rage and to do something about it, but what? What does the downstairs girl do with herself?

Now in re-connecting with My Name Is Asher Lev, one of my all-time favorites, it begins with a confession of his own journey to making art. In the first paragraph you hear Asher confess that he defies all understanding in his making art. It is inspiring. I want to want something and fight for it and make it happen. Today that looks like me writing on a Saturday morning. I paid a babysitter to come and managed a lot of internal and external conflict around being selfish with my time. I am back here. I have to do this to feel ok with everything else.

So what next. A story. A word. narcissism? commitment? endurance?  NO, or a bigger YES. Art. Artist. Musician. ME? Them? Us? I imagined myself as a famous artist at my show, putting a box over my head or a mask on my face and watching people watch me, like I am empty, because I can do that. I can choose to engage or not and need to work hardest at just listening and not attempting to play a role.

Where is my joy?
How do I rest?
What matters in this moment?
For me, it is listening to the trees and fighting for my relationships with God.

Strumming on my Day

As I learn to strum and pick at my guitar strings, letters and notes that sound on or off depending on me, not their tension, I am struck by how acquard my arm feels stretched over the fat body. I cut my nails and forget my pick and then half hold it, as I give into my fears of sounding bad. Occassionally it will all feel easy and I sing out a few lines, but mostly it feels like I go slow fast, stop, figure out where I am, begin again. Playing with my teacher, he listens, looks and makes motions, suggests I tap my toe, and even attempts to add in base chords and sing the harmony, "so as give a sense for what is possible," he says.

This week I tried to change my strings and broke the lowest two E and A, snapped the little plastic peg, with the bottom half wedged in the hole. I tried for half a day to dig it out, taking some wood with me before I got my fist in and pushed from within. After all that snapping, I tried to tune the thing and couldn't remember which notes went with which string. After that, I headed to another lesson without practicing, like I used to as a kid for violin (and which I do every Saturday when I show up to run, without having run any days since last Saturday).

The thing is that I can't keep away, despite my shortcomings. I must play on. Last week I went in to Oz Music, all keyed up from leading music at kids camp and running around trying to make myself fit, and after 30 minutes of fumbling with chords and words, I walked out rejuvenated. All my heavy breathing and tensed up shoulders were forgotten. 

This is true of my entire life. I love to play music, and I'm bad at tapping my toe to get a rythme, but I want to try, want to get into a groove, so that I can be where ever I am. It is the drum beat of waking up with an understanding about the day. A sip of Roos coffee, children eating, a playing out of the knowns, so I don't wander through a maze of indecisions.

What do I do every day?
Wonder what to do until it is sprung upon me by some crisis or request?
YES, sigh.

So I am hoping to change this. I  am so glad for moments when I arrive somewhere, like a camp site, a guitar lesson, my writing desk and the plan is clear, the survival items are taken care of, and I can just be in the space.

I suppose for some this means a plan for cleaning and cooking and managing the corners of closets, which sounds defeating to me. I imagine the kids having their clothes set up for them to find. A bowl of fruit they can access, the five meals that we rotate through. Somehow I am not there yet. I do the massive clean my house and then let it go for months, until a wave of guilt or an influx of guests convince me to take action.

I keep thinking all the efforts of living in society are somehow labeled as "adult," and I am still a child waiting to be told my schedule. This is why I tend to be swayed by the people who knock at my door. I need to develop the parental sense to look for what is enduring over my gravitation towards quick reactions.