deja vu

Felix the Soon

2012-01-13T15:09:00.000-05:00

Last night I dreamed I met Felix. Felix was the name we had for the baby, had it been a boy (which we found out it would have been, rather than a girl, some weeks after the miscarriage, but that's another story). The dream woke me up, and I came out and stood in the hall. Sam was still awake, and he held me, pressed my head against his chest very gently, and I said, "I met Felix." And he said, "Felix the former?" And I said, "No, I think Felix the soon."

I dreamed we were in the hospital and it was clear I was ready to have a baby. And that dream delivery was a total a breeze, as they are free to be. One moment I was sitting up in bed and I mentioned to Sam we should maybe find the doctor and the next moment I was holding this baby. And oh, this baby. He had so much hair and he looked like a young Sam and he had these incredible eyes. They reminded me of my dad's eyes in baby pictures and my nephews' eyes but also Sam's eyes. And I held this baby and told him he was a very good kitty, which is just what I would tell Felix. And it was so normal to have him, not even really astonishing and holy like it is in some of those stories I collected--he was so naturally already a part of us, a part of our lives, our friend. And I could tell he was very very smart and I could also tell he was going to be troublesome when he got a little older, and I already fiercely fiercely loved him for that.

I'm not pregnant, and I'm okay with that. I've needed these months. I may need more months; I don't know. I've felt very sure we needed some time and that it would be clear enough when to try again. But today as I got ready for work, as I made Sam oat bran cereal and put on my blue sweater, as I've sat at my desk and tried to think about work-stuff and written emails, I've missed that baby. I wish that baby were already here, or waiting a few more months for his debut. I wish we hadn't lost him.

But in my dream his arrival was so easy, so smooth, so natural and simple, that I'm holding a little bud of hope that soon is what it will be. That he'll come when he knows it's time. That it will all fall into place very beautifully. That a new start at this family-making business will lead to a better ending. That we'll soon hold a familiar someone with lovely eyes.

Part 2, What I Would Have Included

2011-12-19T15:59:00.001-05:00

This year, more than any year, I think Christmas is about families. And not just family parties and matching pajamas, but the creation and maintenance of families, and the way God meets us as we participate in the wild, thrilling, sometimes heart-wrenching events involved in building them. I can't seem to get enough of thinking about this, so, as promised, I'm posting the quotes I would have included, had I but world enough and time. (If you don't know what I'm talking about ... see my last post.) As I mentioned, there were dozens of beautiful, meaningful, deep deep quotes I wanted to include, but just didn't have time or space. And since I want to hold onto them, and since I think they're beautiful and you might too, I'm posting them here. This is a long post, but I've resisted the urge to split it into two. I think the stream of them is important. Thank you, many many thank yous, to those who sent these thoughts to me. I hope they deepen your sense of this season, as they have mine.

***

“When Garret was born, […] I remember looking at [Terry] holding Garret and looking into his eyes, while Garret stared fiercely into his.  Not crying, just staring.  His father was glowing.  I remember looking at them both and feeling how right everything was, in spite of the fact that [the doctors] were trying to repair the damage they inflicted on me at his birth.  I felt at that moment that [Heavenly Father] was in charge, in spite of the injury, and that everything would be all right.”

***

“When we brought Tia home, I was so nervous. It felt like she was so special and important and I was worried I'd mess up or she wouldn't like our home.”  

***

“[Ada] did not settle peacefully into my arms or open her eyes to look lovingly up at her mother. No, she squirmed and grunted, and then the nurse took her away from me (because the grunting indicated respiratory distress). And I [confess I] was relieved to have her gone. All I wanted to do was sleep. For the next several weeks, I barely slept or ate since I had to spend all my spare time attempting to sleep. Often I lied down to bed thinking, "If I spend all my time and energy taking care of that baby, who will take care of me?" Time and again, the answer to my question was that the Lord would take care of me. Each time I found myself at the point where I could not function from exhaustion, Ada would miraculously take an extra-long nap, and I could sleep for two, maybe three hours at a time. I knew the Lord blessed that baby that she would sleep so I could sleep.”

***

[When I had my miscarriage, I wrote in my journal:] “I haven't wanted my husband to leave me. At night I reach out just to touch him, and he reaches for me too.”

***

“Lee and I have been agonizing over if we are done having children or not. […] I went to the Temple Saturday [to pray]. As I was leaving I stepped into the atrium and prayed, waiting for an answer. I heard a voice. It was a women's voice and […] and it was a familiar voice […]. She told me I was done. I cried out that I did not want to be done (which was a surprise to me). She told me that it did not mean there would not be more babies for me to love or lives that I would influence but that my body was done.  […] I felt the partnership with God in planning my family. She told me to love, enjoy, and adore the children I had.”

***

“A few hours later, when the epidural wore off and he was stabilized, I went in to the NICU to meet [Nicholas]. I remember thinking, as I walked into the room and they brought me to his bassinet. "This is surreal. Did I really do this? Is he really mine?" I felt like I was pretending, and any minute the nurse would tell me to hand him over and go home. Nicholas, on the other hand, knew exactly what to do. When they gave him to me, all wrapped up in white blankets, he snuggled into my arms and then he looked deeply into my eyes. I watched his pupils focus and as he held my gaze, I felt a thousand things. I knew he was a gift from God and I had a huge responsibility to protect and nurture him, but I wasn't alone; my heart pounded with a love that I could feel swelling so big, I literally felt my world tilt. I felt I had already known Nicholas for a while, and though he is mine for now, he's on loan from his Father.” 

***

“I am still amazed by the helplessness of a newborn. Wes is over a year old, and refuses most food, insisting on nursing regularly. His entire body exists and subsists because mine provides. And it stuns me that our Savior humbled himself, condescended to come to us, to rely on some of us, to sustain His life so He could save ours. And I also consider it a demonstration of His trust in us. That He loved the world enough to come as a defenseless child to follow through on the plan. I guess it's easier for me to understand this sort of trust and love and sacrifice. The atonement is so vast. I've never seen a perfect man. But I've seen perfect and defenseless little children, [so thinking of Christ as a baby at Christmastime helps me understand him as our Savior]. […] I have to say that I have thought often of Mary. Of the careful, wise woman she must have been to be entrusted with the baby Jesus. And how short I fall with my own children.”  

***

“Even though my struggle to get pregnant was not unique, God met me there anyway—in those moments, once a month, when I curled up under the covers and cried. He never told me when the baby would come. He just sent me the same message over and over: I hear you. Those are the same words I tell my little girl whenever she starts to cry.”

***

“It was crucial to me in both the births of my children that I get to hold them right away.  […] Especially with my first, it seemed hard to believe that a baby was really coming.  It amazed me when the baby did come, that the pain was gone—emotional pain as well as the physical.  I felt that instead of the doctor being there, that it really was Heavenly Father handing those babies to me.  They're really not ours—they're His, but what a privilege He gives us.”

***

“[The nurse] held my hand […] while Adam held the other and she coached me through the pushing. This nurse stayed right by my head and told me when to breathe, when to push, what to do. All my training and Bradley method stuff that had gotten me through the contractions went out the window. But she kept me grounded. Her voice cut through the haze and the fear and the pain. And I listened. After it was over and I was holding Elizabeth and just bursting with love and gratitude, she came to check on me. I'm sure I was high on hormones and maybe she thought as much. But I remember taking her hand and tears falling as I thanked her. I think my exact words were, ‘You were like an angel.’”

***

“Our ward had their Christmas party last Friday. We had a night in Bethlehem; the cultural hall was made to look just like Bethlehem, complete with life-size papier-mâché palm trees and camels. And Joel, Tennyson and I were Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus. And Tennyson just cooed and waved his arms even though he was so hungry. And I couldn't stop looking at my beautiful boy. It didn't matter that there were hundreds of people watching--it was just the three of us. It must have been that way for Mary, though she had strangers coming to adore, it must have been so personal as well. And I can't help but think that dirty as that stable may have been, I would far prefer it to a crowded, bustling inn for giving birth to my baby.”

***

“Looking at [Kershisnik’s painting Nativity] made me think of how alone Mary was. I wonder if Joseph knew anything at all about childbirth. I wonder if anyone came to help Mary. […] I wonder how scared she was, a young woman far from home.  My Mississippi hospital doesn't let you touch the baby right after it is born. […] I was able to hold her for less than two minutes before they took her to the nursery. I'm not smiling in those first pictures. She was wrapped up and I barely got to touch her skin. Kevin went with her to the nursery. The doctor and nurses finished cleaning me up, and they all left. I've never felt so very alone.”

***

“Becoming a new parent is remarkable in so many ways, but what has stood out to me over the last three and half years is that parenthood is an exercise in love and sacrifice. In blessing us with responsibility for some of His beloved spirit children, God gives us the opportunity to be more like Him and to know our Heavenly Father and Savior better. Before Lucy and Elise were born, I was a little concerned. I couldn't imagine loving anybody as much as I loved Annika, and yet I had not one, but two new spirits coming to our family. How would I have enough love to share with three children? Of course I loved them immediately, but in the following two weeks as I trudged back and forth in the snow at all hours of day and night to visit them and feed them in the NICU, my love grew and deepened until I felt that my heart would overflow. I had prayed and prayed that I would be able to show two new, demanding babies enough love and those trips from my hotel to the hospital in the snow were the answer to my prayers. By allowing me the opportunity to sacrifice for my new baby girls, the Lord taught me how to love them.” 

***

“I have been thinking about this a lot, because we found out two weeks ago that I am having a boy.  His name is Jack, my little hero.  It somehow seems like a private, sweet miracle that I am pregnant with a boy during Christmastime.  All the lullabies I want to sing Jack are Christmas lullabies, and I hope Jesus doesn't think it's sacrilegious that I think about my little boy when I am singing Christmas songs that are actually about Him.

I think one of the reasons I love Christmas so much is that it's an entire season where the holy, unearthly, and mystical parts of the Gospel manifest themselves in the most humble and universal stories -- of a baby's birth.  As Jack's parents we are already pouring all of our love and hope into this tiny doll-child that has started nudging my innards.  At night I lie in bed, hoping to feel a reassuring squirm or two from him before I fall asleep, and I think how there's nothing I would not do for him.  I mean, he's not even out of the womb yet.  I will be a crazy mama.

But it humanizes Mary, and Jesus, in a way that is still so sacred.  In recent years I have thought a lot about Mary and Joseph's faith and bravery.  Why should anyone have believed her story?  Since when does a woman actually conceive a baby, if not by a man?  Probably no one did believe her, and probably one of the purest and best of women put up with being ridiculed and cruelly judged by her own people.  I think however, of how much she must have loved the little boy growing inside her, not just because he would be her Savior, but because he would be her baby.  Undoubtedly her bravery came not just from her faith and goodness, but from a mother's love.” 

And Pondered Them in Her Heart

2011-12-15T12:00:00.017-05:00

I was asked (or did I volunteer?) to do the script for a church Christmas activity for the Relief Society (the women's organization). I thought and thought, and couldn't get the idea out of my head that I was to ask women I know about their experiences with birth and family, that the words I would get would illuminate the spirit of Christmas in a way I needed to learn, and ultimately share.

Writing it wasn't exactly as neat and tidy a process as I had hoped/planned. Firstly, every single email I got back on my request made me weep. Seriously. Every.Single.One. And not just because just about everything baby-related tugs on my sad little heart lately. But also, and mostly, because they were all so deeply, astonishingly beautiful to me. I could have never guessed what a flood of beauty and spiritual reality I was opening gates for. I think God wanted that flood for me. But there was nearly a week where I was just sort of swimming in these words, riding them up and down, praying in gratitude, aching for aches and joying for joys.

I couldn't include everything I received, and believe me, I tried. So I'll do another follow-up post to this one with the quotes I would have included had I but world enough and time. But I thought I'd share the script. I've sought permission for everything I've used here, and I even got permission to use the Kershisnik painting on our programs and display it at the front of the church.(He didn't technically give me permission to use it here, but hopefully he won't mind .... I mention it in the script.)

Anyway, enjoy.

And Pondered Them in Her Heart: Wreath Making Program

December 2011

Congregational Hymn: “O Little Town of Bethlehem”

Invocation

Reader 1: Across the world at this time of year, people are unpacking their nativity sets. They pull out boxes from closets and garages and basements, brush off dust from a long year in storage, and unwrap last year’s January newspapers from three little figures: Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus Christ. Other figures follow—angels and camels and shepherds and wisemen and sheep. But tonight we’ll focus on these three figures, this Holy Family, this trio of players in one of the central events in human history.

Reader 2: Luke 2 tells us of this family’s experience: “And so it was, that while they were [in Bethlehem], the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.”

Musical Number: “I Saw Three Ships”

Reader 3: When the angel announced to the shepherds the birth of the Savior, “they came with haste,” and we get our glimpse of the holy family through the eyes of the shepherds: “[they] found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.”

Reader 4: The shepherds went off to tell of the Christ child’s arrival, and we are told that while everyone wondered at the story, “Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”

Reader 1: It’s easy to understand Mary’s impulse to keep her sacred feelings to herself, but what might she have told us? What more might we know of the angelic annunciation, the long days of her pregnancy, the journey to Bethlehem, the search for lodging, her laboring, the delivery, and the quiet moments after when it was just her and the baby and Joseph in the stable, perhaps a few animals, a brightly shining star, and likely some manifestation of a heavenly presence?

Reader 2: Prophet Gordon B Hinckley said, “Christmas is more than trees and twinkling lights, more than toys and gifts and baubles of a hundred varieties. It is love. It is the love of the Son of God for all mankind. It reaches out beyond our power to comprehend. It is magnificent and beautiful. It is peace. It is the peace which comforts, which sustains, which blesses all who accept it.”

Reader 3: We may not have all the details, but we do know that on that night, in the humblest of circumstances, to a family who already loved Him and anticipated his arrival with joy and hope, the Savior Jesus Christ came. It was a silent, holy night.

Musical Number: “Silent Night”

Reader 4: While we don’t have the direct story of Mary’s birth of Jesus, our world is full of stories of births, and what we learn in our own collective experience informs our understanding of the Christmas story: it seems that when a baby arrives—in whatever circumstance—that God meets the family in that arrival. Creating our own families, or even preparing or longing to create our families, changes the Christmas story, deepens it, makes the birth real.

Reader 1: Perhaps we can feel a little of what Mary felt on that sacred night as we listen to these personal accounts, which we’ve collected in hopes that they will help us feel the spirit of Christmas, the spirit of physical service and sacrifice, of new and fierce and earthshaking love.

Reader 2: “It’s difficult to describe the moment of that first breath of life for my babies. They have been the most sacred moments that I have experienced. Nate's entrance was the most vivid. I thought he would come out a girl so when he [arrived] with a little scowl on his face, the emotions were so powerful. I was entranced with him and I wouldn't let him sleep in the bassinet, only next to me in the bed no matter what the nurses said.”

Reader 3: “When Paul was born, only Chuck and I were in the house. The midwife was on the way—[we hadn’t realized how short the labor would be]. So in that moment it was still and quiet. […]This new babe looked at us and we looked at him and the whole experience seemed to transcend any worldly care. We were just family. Two links in an eternal chain that had somehow managed to add another link all by ourselves. We created him. It was amazing.”

Reader 4: “Josh was born one month before Christmas. It was our first Christmas in our first home. We bought a tree and some ornaments and a star for the top which we used [until] last year—44 years from when we bought it—when it no longer would light. Even so I didn't discard it, thinking that I might be able to fix it sometime. […] I think Mary and Joseph came to know that their Son would go out and be sacrificed to save the world. Sometimes I think that parents feel that they are sacrificing their children just so that they can go out into the world and be good and productive human beings. It is never an easy thing to do […].”

Reader 1: “After my daughter was born, I wrote [in my journal]: ‘Joy. Joy. Joy.’”

Special Musical Number: “Christ Child, Christ Child”

Reader 2: “When Ari came, I had the strongest feeling that I knew her [... ] It was like I recognized her. I think I needed that witness for what [the two of us would go through together]. “

Reader 3: “I remember lying in the hospital bed thinking that I now knew how Mary felt when Jesus was born. Relieved , a little frightened of what the future held, and so honored to be the child's mother.”

Reader 4: “After years of visits with doctors and tests, and what I thought was a successful IVF attempt, I had a miscarriage. […] As my body worked to heal from this loss I would wake up in the middle of the night, [feeling] sad and alone. It was in one of these moments that I thought about Mary, and I started to feel better. I am sure Mary felt alone and isolated, even distant from the people that loved her the most. At times she must have been overwhelmed by Heavenly Father’s plan for her. She surely wondered why she had been chosen. My situation could not be more different from hers, and I don’t pretend that I could ever be as good and faithful as she. Yet, in my saddest moment, thinking of her strength and bravery helped me to be strong and brave and helped me to continue following God’s plan for me, even when I didn’t understand it.”

Reader 1: “There is this holy moment when you first hold your child, when the sweat is still on your brow and your hands tremble with adrenaline, and your entire body aches and feels drained of life, and you hold your child and brush your finger over his soft cheek. It is holiness. It's God's gift of meeting.”

Reader 2: “For me, the true difficulty and trauma of childbirth came as a surprise. I've thought about Mary delivering a baby almost alone, in a dank, probably dirty place and I realize that it was such a humble circumstance for the Savior to have been born into. Humble for his parents—maybe scary and traumatic for them, humble for Him as a tiny newborn to have his first little bed be a place where animals eat. So lowly. And yet it was the greatest birth ever to have taken place, presided over by angels.”

Musical Number: “Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella”

Reader 3: In Brian Kershisnik’s painting, which is on display at the front of the chapel, an eager and steady stream of angels flows above the intimate moment just after Christ is born. Mary is recovering, nursing her baby. Joseph seems overwhelmed, holding his hand to his face. A pair of midwives wash out stained rags, their eyes on the baby.

Reader 4: The original painting measures 17 by 7 feet, fills an entire wall, and Brian Kershisnik says that he painted it after his son was born. He says, "In my experience with the birth of my children … those felt like very heavily attended and witnessed events on a spiritual level. The room felt very occupied and full," he said. Those experiences make him wonder at how many spirits must have been present at Christ's birth, at "how many unnumbered people were all depending on this going through."

Musical Number: “What Child is This?”

Reader 1: “What Child is This?” is the question we all ask of our Savior. Do we believe that he was who he said he was, that he came to rescue us from sin and sorrow and death? We ask it of our children—as we get to know them, as we bear and love and long for and lose them. We ask it of ourselves, as we seek to understand our place in the world.

Reader 2: And if we find the answer: that we are children of God, that Christ did indeed come in great love and power to sacrifice his life for us, then we begin to understand Christmas. We understand the meaning of the humble stable, and in part it means this: that God loved us enough to send his son—not to a grand royal court, or a wealthy estate, but right here with us, simply, the way we all came, to enter our hearts, to heal us. Christmas, the spirit of the season, is about God reaching down to us, as we, in turn, reach up to Him, and reach out to each other.

Reader 3: The current prophet of the LDS Church, Thomas S. Monson said, “There would be no Christmas if there had not been Easter. The babe Jesus of Bethlehem would be but another baby without the redeeming Christ of Gethsemane and Calvary, and the triumphant fact of the Resurrection.[The Christmas Spirit] is the spirit each true Christian seeks. This is the spirit I pray each may find. This is the Christ spirit. No quest is so universal, no undertaking so richly rewarding, no effort so ennobling, no purpose so divine. The Christmas season seems to prompt anew that yearning, that seeking to emulate the Savior of the world.”

Reader 4: May we seek to bless one another and remember our Savior this Christmas season. May we keep in our hearts the humility and power of the simple birth in the stable and babe in the manger. May we, like the shepherds, spread the love evidenced by His birth.

Congregational Hymn: “O Come All Ye Faithful”

Benediction

Thrifted Autumn Outfit

2011-11-29T11:13:00.000-05:00

Do I wear a lot of this orange sweater in outfit posts? Possibly yes. I think this might be because I'm not your typical orange wearer, so when I wear orange I think, "Heyyyy, I'm wearing an OUTFIT." Does that make sense?

Anyway, I thrifted this dress sometime back. It went like this: it was a half-off sale, and it was a frenzy in Savers. I mean, people were excited. People were filling cartfulls upon cartfulls. And I filled my cart with shockingly (and I mean shockingly) lovely dress shirts for Sam that came out to $2.50 a piece, and that was filling my heart (and cart--ha!) with joy. And then I thought, hey, shall we check out the dresses? And this was my strategy: if I love the fabric, it goes in the cart. My sewing skillz extend to cutting off the bottom and making a skirt out of it. And this one, oh, isn't that a nice fabric? Look. Up close. See how it looks like a psychedlic wonderland? It does to me anyway.

Someone homemade this dress. And it was barely worn. And I imagine they thought it was a sewing fail. Because without the sweater and belt it is ... not so good. But when I got home and washed it and tried it on again to cut off the bottom for the skirt action, I thought, now wait just a minute. And then I put on the belt and sweater and boots and showed it to Sam and said, "Esta bien?" because that's always what I say when I want Sam to say I am beautiful beyond compare. He usually just says, "Yes, esta bien." But at least we're all learning Spanish, right? I mean, if nothing else, I'm teaching him that.

[[P.S. Isn't my look priceless here? Really, how do people not look like idiots when they pose in outfits? I can only ask Sam to take so many pictures before he's done and I'm done and it's time for breakfast, you know? And at first I cropped this one, and cut my head off, because that's the offensive portion here, but headless wasn't so good either, and I thought, whatever. You get to see my awkward face. Hello, awkward face.]]

[[Obligatory cat picture. Obligatory because he's my cat. And because he was posing like this when I was posing as you see above, and I like his better. I should have tried this perhaps ... I think he looks like Adam in Michaelangelo's The Creation of Adam. This is what we pay him to do.]]

Apple Picking, Yellow Leaves, Little Brown Bear

2011-11-15T20:52:00.000-05:00

When I wear this hat, I somehow feel like a little brown bear. It changes my personality, makes me milder. (I guess I'm thinking teddy bear, not actual bear.) Is it silly? I don't even care if it's silly. It pleases me. I once got a compliment on this hat, shouted out at me by a hipster Harvard student. "Excellent hat!" he said, as I crossed the street, headed for the giant Anthropologie. That was a pretty good moment.

As was apple picking last weekend. Simple little orchard about an hour away from our house. And the day was just right for it--a bit crisp. And the yellow of these trees is just what I love about a New England fall. We came home with two enormous bags full, and we're making steady progress. Apples with every meal! Baked apples! Crisped apples! Apples! Apples! Apples!

Promotional Device

2011-11-10T10:34:00.000-05:00

Sometime earlier this year, I got an email from Tyler Chadwick, who asked if he could include several of my poems in Fire in the Pasture: Twenty-first Century Mormon Poets, to which I said, um, yes yes you may. The book is out now, and I just got my contributor's copy this week, and I have to say that it's beautiful. I don't mean that my poems are beautiful, I mean the book itself, as an object, is gorgeous. If you're so inclined to see what's going on in contemporary Mormon poetry (and how could you not be?! ;), I recommend this book.

On a related note, if you're more interested in seeing what Mormon fiction is up to (and again, how could you not be?! I hope it's clear I'm kidding ...mostly), Dispensation: Latter-day Fiction was a great read.

In all seriousness, I can say that Mormon Literature goes well beyond Jack Weyland. There's some really good stuff out there. If you're interested in recommendations, shoot me an email.

Thank you.

2011-10-12T14:04:00.000-04:00

Thank you, really, to all of you who commented and wrote me emails. They really mean a lot to me. And mostly I'm just checking in to say I'm feeling better. The way I came to feel better seems important, so I thought I'd record it:

*I prayed, and it wasn't pretty. This was flat on my face, weeping aching praying, saying, over and over again, "You have to fix me. You have to heal my heart." (Yes, precisely in those words. I can get a bit sassy and demanding in my praying.) I felt broken and I felt like I spent all day trying to fix it and everyone else was trying to help me fix it, and no one could do it. I wasn't asking to stop grieving, just to be functional and believe in good things again. I felt deeply then, more than perhaps ever in my life, that there was this gaping hole in me that I needed God to fill. And, after many days of praying like that, and a turning point conversation with Sam (up next!), something lifted, shifted, filled, opened, re-blossomed--pick your metaphor--in me. It was a subtle shift, and things haven't been perfect by any means since then, but I felt like my prayer was answered.

*Conversation with Sam. We were back in his office, which is a sort of windowed sun porch and it was night time and we were talking about something (details would be boring, trust me) and I was very upset, and he was very upset, and he said, not in these exact words (much gentler than this, I promise), "I sort of need to you pull yourself together now." And I was more upset, and I was saying, "I'm trying, I'm trying," but there was a sort of something in me that knew he was right, that it was time, that it was okay to put myself back together and proceed. This feels important, I think, because if you would have asked me if this event--someone close to me saying, "Okay, but buck up now."--would ever have a healing effect, I would have thought you were absurd. I don't cheer up on command, and my sadness is very precious and meaningful and personal, and it's on a very particular little internal timer, I would have thought. But Sam's comment must have come at the right time, when my prayers had piled up enough and my heart had grown weary of precious sadness, and was ready for regular old sadness, please.

And somehow, between those two ingredients, I woke up the next morning and felt okay. And slowly since then I've started doing things I love again, which is, for me, the real sign of "better." I've been running, and reading poetry, and writing in my journal, and answering the phone when people call (sometimes ... I'm terrible at that.), and enjoying my meals, and noticing beauty, and listening to podcasts, and making meaningful decisions, and having deep thoughts about my life and the world, and so on.

I'm thinking now about a few days after the miscarriage, when Sam and I walked to a Thai place a few blocks away for lunch. I was wearing a maternity t-shirt I had thrifted earlier in the week (because, let's face it, they're more comfortable and I may never stop wearing them), and Sam was holding my hand, and we passed this little speckley bird, and I said, "Look, it's a speckley bird." And Sam said, "There you are. There's Deja." Meaning that was the real me, the one to notice a speckley bird. And it did feel, for a minute, like I was back, and I would come back more permanently soon. Hopefully, I have.

A Great Hope

2011-09-26T18:26:00.002-04:00

Since I last posted here, we found out I was pregnant, and then, about thirteen weeks later, we lost the baby.

While I was pregnant, I was very very sick. I mean, so sick that the smell of my own hair made me gag. My doctors ultimately gave me an anti-nausea medication which they also give to chemotherapy patients. This made it possible to eat without feeling like I wanted to cut my toes off, but didn't exactly bring back my energy and liveliness. So mostly, while I was briefly pregnant, I didn't do much besides sleep and feel ill, and stare sort of dumbfoundedly at the idea of my being a mother, of all things. We wanted the baby, had planned it, as much as one plans such things, and slowly, slowly, we picked names and I talked with my mother-in-law about what color to paint the nursery, and I bought a moon-shaped lamp from the thrift store. Somehow I was nervous we'd lose the pregnancy from the beginning, in the way I worry everything good will be taken from me, so I was cautious, and didn't tell many people until we saw an ultrasound at about ten weeks.

I think a lot about that ultrasound. We had it in the first place because I was worried I'd miscarried--some symptoms manifesting--and there, in the basement of the hospital, all the lights in the room out except for the glow of the monitor, we saw a very wee baby, kicking its wee legs and pumping its wee arms. Its heartbeat fluttered at us, and I held Sam's ear (which felt like the thing to do) and we giggled, and I felt so much relief that I wept.

And then, a few weeks later, in the matter of a couple hours (which I'll spare you the details of), it was over. This happened a little over two weeks ago, and I confess I'm still not sure how to proceed. I started back at work today, and it was surprisingly good to dig into the fat manuscript on my desk and put earbuds in my ears and pretend, for a little while, that I knew what was what and who was who and how to do what needed to be done. But now I'm home, and my house is quiet before Sam returns home, and I confess I don't know. I confess that when I passed a little girl on my way to the bus stop, I felt like I might could wail.

We found out it was a little girl, and I spend so much of my time thinking about her, about what she might have looked like or been like, and wondering if she even was a someone, a soul, a spirit, a being with a personality. Some people are comfortable thinking of the baby who leaves them as already a son or a daughter, and while I absolutely get that, I can't say I can think of her that way.

This is how I think of what happened, the only two ways, in all of my thinking and thinking and asking wise people, that have resonated with me: A friend said it was a "death of a great hope" and gosh that's accurate. It feels like there was some great hope budding in me, and with the death of it, all of the hope I've pieced together about the universe seems to have vanished. I can intellectualize hope; I can intellectualize trying again; I can intellectualize a belief in beauty and goodness and human connection, but damn if I can feel any of it, these days.

Here's what another wise friend said, over Thai food, which is where I'm sure many wise things are said: I was asking what our good friends thought of this idea of the soul, of when the baby is a someone, and whether a miscarried baby has an identity, and what to make of it all, and one of them said that he thinks of it a bit like blood, that for awhile we share blood with our babies, theirs is comingled with ours, but eventually they develop their own circulatory system, and it's their own blood that circulates their veins. He says he thinks the same is true of a developing soul/spirit/identity. That at first it's comingled, that we sort of share it, and eventually, as the baby grows, it becomes more its own. This isn't official doctrine, mind you, but it makes such sense to me. This explains why it's such deep grief: a piece of me, an extension of myself, was literally lost. And it's taking longer than I might have expected to feel whole again.

People have been so kind. I've had flowers and emails and cards from across the country. But I've been mostly quiet, weathering it solo, as I tend to do when something is quite hard. I think of the first twenty-four hours after it happened, of how carefully Sam held me, of how much the two of us slept, of how we felt sort of suspended above the reality of it, the two of us trying to take it in. Those were difficult hours, but they were ours. And if I have to go through this with anyone, I'm sure glad it's been with Sam.

At the Dentist

2011-07-11T15:32:00.001-04:00

I had a dentist appointment today, which I wasn't exactly dreading but also wasn't excited about. Mostly I wanted to call in sick for the whole universe, so the dentist was no exception. And although it's a nice place and my chair of doom was facing a set of windows looking out on ivy-covered red brick buildings, and although they had cheery music on, I could feel, as soon as sat down, that I wanted nothing to do with the foolishness that would ensue. I suddenly felt like all of this fuss about our teeth must be absurd, since my teeth are working just fine, thank you very much, and what if I just suddenly tore the little bib off and in an instant became one of those people that simply does not do the dentist thing? What then?

But I stayed, dreading and dreading it, as the faces began hovering over me, and a pina colada flavored stick of numbing gel met my gums, and then the sting of a shot, and strange orange glasses they made me wear over mine, I assume to prevent tooth dust (!) from getting in my eyes. And I thought, see, okay, I'm dealing, but when they start to drill I very much might scream and leap from the chair and karate-chop that tray of shiny instruments. I wasn't feeling very calm, is what I'm trying to say.

And then they began to drill, and suction as they went, and instead of feeling like leaping, it became sort of lovely, like there was this storm in my mouth with rain and a high-pitched squealing sort of thunder, and somehow in the middle of that I felt safe, in a way I haven't felt in the last couple of days. This big thing was happening inside of my own head, this physical--even violent--happening, and I tried to breathe very carefully and unflex my feet and unclench my hands and will my quivering chin to cease quivering and find a quiet place. I thought of a beach in Mexico I walked on once with my family where we saw a lot of dolphins, which is my go-to happy place, and there, in snatches, everything was okay.

Do you have a go-to happy place? When do you "get to" practice it?

Simple Meal: Fish Tacos

2011-07-07T14:46:00.001-04:00

Sam and I bring home fresh flounder, a small head of green cabbage, fresh salsa, a perfect avocado, red red tomatoes.

While he sautes the fish, I cut up the veggies on a bamboo cutting board. I like the way they look once I've cut them--little piles of color--the red of the tomato, deep green of the avocado, light green of the shaved cabbage, black of the olives, the whites of a few hearts of palm and of diced, sweet vidalia onions.

I mix a little mayo with the salsa, which sounds disturbing, but is actually the loveliest fish taco sauce. Sam has me squeeze a lime on the fish, since his hands are covered in fish juice. He inadvertently squeezes a paper towel full of fish juice onto the floor and there is some panic about our house smelling like that forever. He adds a bit of chili powder and sea salt. I heat the corn tortillas in a little pan, spraying pam first, and adding salt as it heats.

I fill my tacos so full I can't begin to close them, planning to eat what spills with a fork. We sit in the living room, since it's slightly cooler there, and we exclaim profusely about how good these taste. Or I do at least, though Sam is not unpleased. Fish tacos are a childhood meal for me; I have memories of waiting at a roadside taco stand with all six kids and both my parents, all of us eagerly waiting for our turn to have another.

Sam and I finish the meal with an ear of corn, so rich on its own that we add nothing to it.

Do tell: what simple meals have you enjoyed lately?

Oh, that's self reliance?

2011-07-06T12:00:00.002-04:00

I got an iPad some time back, and I am loving it. But I needed some kind of cover for it. There's a little special cover that they sell with them, but it flops open if it's in your bag, and I can't have that, so I was using a plastic gallon-size ziploc, and thinking I would have to buy another cover and thinking it was going to cost me 40 bucks or something to get a decent one, and then it hit me: I sew! I know how to do that thing. And I have fabric that I fell in love with sometime back and haven't put to use. And 30 minutes later, I had an iPad case. I can't describe how happy this made me. To have a problem, and to have made my own solution and carried it out and had it be pretty to boot. I kept walking around my house saying, "I made a thing! I made a thing!" and Sam kept saying, "Yep, you sure did." It was a happy evening.

I took pictures. And Sprouty insisted on modeling. She is the queen. We must obey her every whim.

(A note on the button closure: I taught myself to make button holes! But that's not what I wanted to say. I wanted to say that at the time it was important for me to make the thing, to be done and have it be free, so I cut a button off an old shirt and sewed it on. I have since purchased a much snazzier button.)

(Also, have you seen these iPad games for kitties? I've tried it, and I don't think my cats are smart enough, but maybe some day they'll get it ... )

On Cleaning

2011-07-05T12:00:00.001-04:00

I'm not good at cleaning. I mean to be. I want to be. In my daydreams I am. I often spend time mentally cleaning my house, imagining putting things away, moving through the rooms like a whirling, order-insisting robot, arranging everything in its pristine position.

But that's not actual what I'm like. At all. Chaos and entropy reign in my house, especially when I'm working full-time. Occasionally I pretend to be that robot and I spend hours upon hours and more hours cleaning everything, and by the end I'm exhausted and cranky.

And here's the problem with not being the robot, with having a messy house: it makes me sad. Not like in a literal sense. I don't look at the messiness and sorrow for it, though a little of that might be involved. I mean that I've noticed that if I come home on Friday and everything is a dadgum disaster, I feel hopeless and overwhelmed, and I won't even realize it has to do with the messiness. I think the world actually IS that hopeless and overwhelming. Does that make sense? Anyway, so I figured this out, this triggering response, and how ugly it was, and how much I'd rather not feel that way, and I thought and thought of what to do about it. I found that one thing, the Flylady or whatever her name is, who gives you a list of tasks to do every single day of the year, and that's super cool, don't get me wrong, but I sort of tried to do it for a week or so and it made me even more depressed. I need my cleaning strategy to be more, well, in and out, get it done, and don't do anything that isn't absolutely necessary. Then I read some cool blog posts (on this blog and this blog) that seem to approach cleaning in a sassy-pants, practical, no-nonsense, this is real life and let's get on with it approach. This was totally what I needed.

I still liked the idea of a cleaning rotation, or certain things that I just do every day and other things I do on a set schedule, and after some more thought and some real time evaluating what I cared about, here's what I came up with. I hope you're not appalled that I'm only doing these things once a week, or judging me because such-and-such doesn't even make the list. I'm still fine-tuning, and I tackle other things as they become pressing, but if I seriously just do this, which doesn't take long at all, I am a much happier camper. I do it in the morning, and then when I come home from work, I feel like things are okay, and I don't spend four hours of my weekend cleaning, either. Friday nights are less depressing. I want to play with Sam on the weekend. I want to spend most of my time writing and reading and sewing pretty skirts. Cleaning doesn't fulfill me, though maybe it does for some people. For me, it's just baseline. I gotta get there or I can't get anywhere else.

Anyway, here it is:

Daily realities: the kitchen (it just has to be done. every day. there's no getting around this. i've tried.). cat litter. General chaos/clutter avoidance.

Monday: Swiffer/sweep the whole universe
Tuesday: Laundry
Wednesday: Take out all of the garbagesssss
Thursday: A real de-cluttering, vaccuum
Friday: Bathroom

What about you? Have you developed a cleaning strategy? Are you still working on it? Do tell.

My Inner Style Appears to be 1950s Housewife

2011-07-01T12:00:00.002-04:00

I've been thrifting lately, too. If you come to visit me (and well you should!) I will take you to some gems. A friend took me once and I am hooked. Absolutely hooked. If I could, I would go every stinking day. I feel my insides get sort of restless and look around and say, isn't it thrift-o-clock yet? Don't we need more vintage skirts? Don't we don't we?

I mean, I found Prada shoes, my friends. Prada. And a long wool bright fushia pink skirt that will be my best friend come winter. And and and. Lots of stuff. When you get rid of your entire wardrobe because of its too-big-ish-ness, you need some new threads. And buying all those new threads, even on the cheap at my usual cheap joints, is pricey. Which is why I'm into four dollar shirts. And seven dollar dresses. (If those prices seem high for thrifted stuff, remember we are in Boston, after all. Those prices are miracles around here.) A bit of dry-cleaning or throwing it in the washer/dryer to get the old lady smell out, and we're good to go, folks. Good to go.

Some days I look down at myself and realize that everything I'm wearing is thrifted. (At least the outside layer ...) Those are fun days. I walk around feeling all sneaky and happy. Here's one of those outfits.

The shoes are Born ($4!), the shirt is Ann Taylor (5$!?) (loving the little ruffles on the ends of the sleeves), the skirt is your mom's (It might be. You never know ...). The necklace is H&M, which always serves me well with cheap cheap accessories.

I threw on a bright orange cardigan (not thrifted), and was ready to roll. There were two mishaps later in the day: I put my hand in the pocket of the skirt (why did we stop putting roomy happy pockets in skirts? why?), and the seam tore. Dang skirt. I held it together with office supplies, namely one of those fierce little binder clips attached to the inside, and I'll have to sew it up before I wear again.

The other mishap came when I passed my company's president in the hall, who is generally super cool and nice and lovely, and she pointed at the flower clip in my hair (can you see even see it?) and laughed. She pointed and laughed at me! She then said, "That's really cute!" but she had already pointed and laughed. Harumph.

Here's one more little peek at a thrifted outfit. Sam was out of town so you'll pardon the mirror picture attempt. I've been hunting and hunting for fancy shoes in a bright color and had no luck finding them, even in "real" stores. I've also been hunting for a bright yellow necklace. And I'm always hunting for a pretty summery dress. I found all three in one trip! The necklace might be hard to see, but it's there. And the shoes are perfect. I couldn't have dreamed them up if I tried. I love this part of it, the hunt of it. And the feeling, when you find the perfect thing, that you've somehow beat the system, like you win more than the clothes themselves, like the universe surely loves you and longs to fulfill your every wish.

Outfit+Adventures in Sewing

2011-06-30T06:06:00.003-04:00

There once was a shirt. It looked like this:

It grew too big for me. Much too big. But I liked the pattern so much--look at those delightful, firework-y bursts of white!--that I saved and saved it, thinking I must someday do something with it.

Yesterday, I did something. Before work I took that gathered bottom of the shirt and turned it into the top of a skirt. This was very exciting. I used the sleeves to give it a bit more length, at which point I had the following:

[I'm shy about the pictures, so I'm posting the awkward ones ...]

Not too bad, eh? I rather liked how it turned out. I may have gone a bit crazy adding color, but I'm having way too much fun to tone things down. The skirt is actually just the top piece. I also made the little lacey petticoat type skirt over the weekend, which is what's underneath here. I've been wearing it under skirts and dresses that are just a bit on the short side. I wish I had one in every color. Might have to make more ...

I also figured out how to take in my own t-shirts that are too big. That was an exciting moment as well.

Here's a close-up of the bursting firework-y coral-y pattern:

And here, if you'll forgive the extreme close-up, is the waistband. See how nicely that shirt bottom turned into a skirt top? Also, the colorssssss. Oh man, I'm in love.

Dear Man Who Stole my iPod

2011-06-11T06:19:00.000-04:00

Dear man who stole my iPod:

I was getting off the train in Central Square, enjoying a podcast on my iPod, trying to slide it into one of the pockets of my bag, and down it went between the train door and the platform, into The Pit, as I learned it was called. There was that abrupt cease of sound and the tug on my ears that meant it was gone.

A girl just outside the train door looked worried but annoyed, since I was standing with one foot on the train and one foot on the platform, flustered. “What was that?” she said. “My iPod,” I said. And I think then you turned around. “Your iPod?” you said. The train doors closed and those inside watched me, their faces framed by the windows. I stepped back for the train to leave, and then found it, just under the overhanging edge, in The Pit.

This is what I was thinking: all of those songs. You don’t get your music back, even if you get a new one. They tell you to back up your music, but who does that? Maybe you do.

The three of us—your girlfriend was there then—stood on the lip of the platform, looking down. I could see it, under the overhanging edge, safe from trains. I had to point it out to you three times before you could see it, too. You were both so nice and concerned. You offered to jump down, but I’ve heard too many stories about how dangerous that is so I said no, no way, don’t do it. You suggested we put gum on a long stick and bring it up that way, which was a really dumb idea, sort of a Winnie the Pooh approach. And the thing is, I don’t remember what you looked like. I know your girlfriend was shorter than you, and that, if I remember right, you were wearing blues and reds. But see, I don’t look at people. I don’t really make eye contact, especially with strangers; I don’t even really see them if I can avoid it. Maybe this is a problem.

I had an appointment I was late for, and, frankly, I had to find a restroom, and I couldn’t find anyone in that station to help me, so I left the iPod there, that little flat pink square, my earbuds playing a Mormon Matters podcast to the sooty surface. On our way up, your girlfriend harassed you: “You could have been a hero,” she said. “You could have, but you were too scared. I’m so disappointed. So so disappointed.”

When I came back after my appointment, when Sam dropped me off while he found a place to park, I met Vivian, who had lipstick the same color as my iPod, as it turned out—a frosty pink—and she wore a tight MBTA uniform. Vivian said it was probably gone. It had been an hour, and if kids see something they want down there, they don’t hesitate, she said, they just jump down and get it. She called an inspector, who was on her way, and in the meantime she told me to look for it, so between trains I knelt down and hung my head over the edge, trying to find it. “It’s not there,” I said. “Be careful,” she said.

I stood on the edge of the platform, in the yellow stripe, and told her, “It’s okay. It doesn’t matter.” Trying to maintain the stiff upper lip, you know. She said: “Yes. It does.”

We left Vivian my number and said to call if it turned up, no reason to wait for the inspector when there seemed nothing to retrieve, and Sam and I took the escalator up to the surface again. It was deceptively cold, the wind wiping around the intersection, people flying by on bikes in coats, in May. When we passed a group of homeless people, I looked for my shiny iPod in their hands. What would I have done if they’d had it?

Once we’d crossed the street, a bald man stopped us, said, “The train lady, she wants to talk to you,” and there Vivian was, with the inspector this time, waiting for us next to a little glass hut that leads down to the trains.

“She got your iPod for you,” said Vivian, when we got back.

“She did? Oh wow, thank you so much.” I went to take it, but realized no one was offering it.

“What color is it?” asked the inspector, a woman who looked a lot like Vivian.

“It’s pink and square, like a frosty pink.”

“That kid had her come and fish it out,” said Vivian, pointing to her.

“Oh! So you really have it? That’s so great.” I didn’t reach out to take it this time.

“No, actually, I don’t have it. He had me fish it out, but he told me it was his, and so I let him take it,” said the inspector.

“You probably shoulda known it wasn’t true. What man would want a pink iPod?” said Vivian. She looked disgusted.

“It sounds like it must have been the same kid though, right? The one who said he’d help you? He knew right where it was,” said the inspector, dropping a clipboard to her side.

“She’s got a lot of religious podcasts on there, so I hope he listens to one for at least a second and feels guilty,” said Sam.

“Oh, it’s wiped clean by now. Wiped clear clean. But I’m a Christian too. I’m so sorry,” said the inspector.

“This is just too sneaky for me. He went to a lot of effort to make sure he got your stuff,” said Vivian. She pointed at me.

Sam and I walked away then, after thanking them, and somehow walking away was so much worse the second time. It was gone then, safe with you, not possibly going to turn up, just gone. And this felt bigger than an accident, it felt like a plot. You watched me leave and spent time, spent energy and a lie, and then took it home, my black earbuds still attached, all of it curled in the pocket of your coat.

“We’ll get another one, Babe. No problem.” Sam held my hand on our way to the car. “We’ll go tomorrow after you get off work. We’ll go now, if you want. Or I’ll clear out space on mine so you can add some of your stuff and use it on your commute. We’ll work it out, and you’ll get a new one, a shiny one, in whatever color you want. No problem. Don’t worry about it. Please don’t cry. Don’t cry.”

An Outfit

2011-05-27T04:42:00.000-04:00

I rather like outfit posts, but I wonder if they make me feel too silly. Should I feel silly, or is it just fun, or maybe silly in a good way? Would you be interested in seeing more outfits? Anyway, here's an outfit.

I've been having a super lot of fun getting dressed lately. Losing, well, 60 pounds, helps in that department. Shocking how much less I fret about what to put on without that extra weight, although I keep having to go through my closets and get rid of stuff. I've given away enough clothes to clothe an army (and wouldn't they be a super cute army?!), and there are still days when I think, Gosh, I'm feeling so frumpy/lousy about myself, and I look down and realize that every item of clothing is too big. That's a weird thing, to not have realized your clothes are too big, but you have these clothes, see, for example, a pair of pants that were always your skinny pants, the ones that fit you for a day or so if you held in your stomach all day, and even though you're in a size smaller than those pants now, you are still sure those won't fit yet because being your skinny pants is a part of their intrinsic identity, you thought, and then you try them on and low and be behold, too big. You've missed the window and now they look lame. I know this all sounds like very exciting stuff, and it is, sure, yes, let me tell you. I've been hoping and wishing and dreaming and frankly working my tail off to get here, but the thing they don't tell you, the thing people don't talk about, is how disorienting it is to lose this much weight, or maybe any weight at all, because your BODY is CHANGING, I mean physically not the same, a change we shouldn't underestimate so, and this is part of why people turn around and go right back up: it's emotional, really intensely emotional, and People, not every one of those emotions is good. This is hard to explain because our culture is so focused on weight loss and obsessed with thinking it solves every problem in the world, and I really just meant to show you my outfit, but now I'm on the subject, so I'll say a bit more. This is why (and I'm about to get really soapbox-y) a solution to a weight problem that doesn't address every piece of it, what you put in your mouth and how you move your body as well as all of the emotional business, is going to be a bummer, it's going to feel terrifying, a different sort of terrifying than gaining a lot of weight, but more exposed, more raw, and less likely to offer lasting success. Okay, now I'm done.

See? An outfit. That's all I meant to say. The skirt came from The Gap in Bath, England about a million years ago; the shirt came from The Gap in Brookline, MA a few months ago; I got the belt at Charlotte Russe and the boots at Marshall's, and the necklace (can you even see the necklace?) was on clearance at Anthropologie for $10. $10?! Yes, 10. I had no idea they would mark down that low, since it was originally like 70 or something, and those people are insane with their gorgeous million dollar items, but there it was looking fabulous with a $10 pricetag, and who had a good day that day? I did. I certainly did.

Easter Walk

2011-04-26T05:17:00.000-04:00

On Sunday we had the best weather of the year. Sure, it rained, but it was also 77 degrees and mostly quite sunny, so we did the only logical thing: we took a walk along the Charles River.

[i didn't get a good pic of sam. he'll thank me for not posting a not-good one.]

[boats. we have big plans to ride one of these boats very soon.]

I love spring here. I wish it would feel more springy and less wintery already, but the trees are blooming, and I'm remembering how obsessed I get with them. When I'm walking downtown, I have to be careful not to run into buildings or cross streets without looking both ways, because all I want to do is look and look at these incredible trees. I love how dark the bark looks, and how green the green looks--like the freshest thing in the whole world. I wish I had a springtime dress that was just that color: that vibrant green.

[this is the green i mean. wouldn't it make a lovely dress? especially if i could capture that feathery texture, too.]

Easter Lights

2011-04-24T22:56:00.000-04:00

Last night Sam and I and a few friends went to Easter Vigil at Sam's church. When we arrived, they had a basket of long thin candles and everyone picked one up. At the beginning of the service, the church dark, the priest stood at the back of the church and lit an enormous candle. From that one candle, several small ones were lit and then, slowly, we passed the flame to everyone in the congregation.

I could tell once mine was lit that it was made from bee's wax, which instantly brought me back to my childhood. My father kept six hives of bees in our backyard, and that smell reminded me of extraction day, a big metal drum spinning with wax frames in our driveway and the bees flying around, intensely curious. I stood there in the church, next to Sam, watching everyone's face lit by their small flames, listening to a man sing about the light of Christ, how it illuminated the world, how we must keep it and tend it and pass it along. I was surrounded by the smell of honey and beeswax and comforted by it, thinking of my family and my father and his beehives, and, most intensely, of Christ. Of the Miracle we celebrate. The power of Christ's light to wrench good out of evil, to light our shadowed faces, to glow for each of us, to know what we need and provide it if we're willing to ask. What beautiful symbols the Catholic Church has.  When I think of Easter, I'm glad I'll now think of that dark church, and of how beautiful each of us looked in a holy glow.

And because I came across this poem this week and have been reading it and reading it, and astonished by it, I'll share that too, for Easter.  Enjoy.

Seven Stanzas At Easter
                  by: John Updike, 1964

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that–pierced–died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

Sam and His Business Associate

2011-04-20T14:10:00.001-04:00

Sam went to school one day and came back with a card for me featuring this image. He says it's a publicity photo. Apparently the guys at the mall photo booth took him completely seriously, which makes me laugh all the more.

Being married to Sam? Not a bad deal at all.

My Spilly Parts

2011-04-12T13:25:00.000-04:00

On Sunday I said two awkward things. Two things that made the people I was talking to raise their eyebrows or laugh nervously. I'm the type of person who is still thinking about those things I said two days later. It's not that I offended anyone, it's just that sometimes my brain works differently, and what I think/say comes out a little weird. Sometimes I love this about myself--that my brain is not like other brains--but most of the time I wish it wouldn't be so. I wish, in some deep part of me, that I could always be the good girl, to think how you think, to please you, World.

I realized today that Sam is sort of the opposite of this. If he says something shocking, something surprising, this is a good day for Sam. He may worry, occasionally, about his students reporting him to someone who might be concerned about the edgy joke he made, but mostly, when he makes his students laugh nervously or raise their eyebrows, he feels like he's done his job well.

{Writerly sidenote: This is why, I think, it's easier for Sam to make art, to write. When you write, you're not meant to say what's easy to hear. You're meant to surprise people, engage them, keep them reading and thinking and then thinking some more. Whenever I write a story/poem/essay that does that, that scares me or that I think might scare someone else, I (without intending to, really) abandon it, or stop writing altogether for weeks.}

Where does this difference come from? My femaleness vs. his maleness? My Mormon-ness? Is that what makes me so eager to please? Those seem easy answers. I wish I would stop being so afraid of what spills out of my subconscious, of my spilly parts. I think I married Sam in part because he seemed to love my spilly parts. When I over edit, he seems to find me rather dull. Being with him has been good practice in another way of thinking/being.

I came across two quotations today that seem relevant:

"the chief end i propose to myself in all of my labors is to vex the world rather than divert it, and if i could compass that design without diverting my own person or fortune i would be the most indefatigable writer you have ever seen." --Jonathan Swift

and also

"loneliness does not come from being alone, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important." --Carl Jung

I like what Swift says about vexing the world, and yet there's a part of me that frets, thinking it doesn't need anymore vexation. But I think this is why I feel lonely, in the sense Jung identifies: I check the things that seem important to communicate before I actually communicate them, and spend too much of my time worrying about what spills over, what gets past the checkpoint. All hail checkpoints, in some regards. But I'm tired of lonely, and I wonder what would happen if I adopted Swift's idea that my efforts should go to vexing the world, or at least walking around in it with my real self spilling out. Maybe the world could use some vexing after all.

What do you think? Do you let spill? Do you think you should? Does Jung's definition of loneliness seem accurate? Maybe these are overly deep thoughts for a Tuesday at lunchtime. But, well, they're in my brain. So here you are.

Deja Ventures Into Quilting

2011-03-14T12:00:00.001-04:00

Remember the friend who made the miraculous quilt? She's teaching me to quilt, too. I thought I was just going to learn to use the sewing machine I got for Christmas, that maybe we'd make a skirt or something equally simple, but when we got to fabric store, E had a plan. "A quilt," she said, "is the best way to learn to sew. All straight lines." And so we picked out fabric, went back to my house, and while the husbands played guitars and talked about music, and sweet potatoes roasted in the oven, we cut out little squares and spread them out according to a chart that E drew up in about ten seconds. This is what it looked like, spread out (with cat).

(This is the thing about cats: they seem to get quilts. When you even suggest you might make one, they know we're dealing with a potential blanket right off, and commence utilizing it.)

I found something fascinating once I got the hang of putting those rows together and pressing my foot on the pedal: I couldn't stop. I turned on a trashy movie (read: romantic comedy) and kept going long after Sam had gone to bed. In the morning, I only wanted to get back to quilt time. And within an easy 24 hours (with its share of distractions) I had finished the top. We went back early in the week to get the border and back, and by week's end, I was done.

I don't know what it is about quilting, and we'll see how future projects go (a quilt for Sam is nigh unto done), but I think I'm in love. I love the purr of the machine, the press of the pedal. I love that I feel like I'm improving something, making something, being homemake-y even, creating beauty, and I don't have to clear space in my brain for it like I do when I'm trying to write. I have something at the end of the day that isn't undone, that lasts, that I can use for heaven's sake.

And another thing I like, maybe what I like most about quilting: my quilt was full of mistakes, full full full of them. My squares weren't perfect squares, my seams weren't perfect seams, there were folds where there shouldn't be folds, my attempt at binding was sort of a joke, and I once sewed an entire row to the wrong side of the next row. I panicked about this at first, fretted and (I think) even apologized out of habit (I'm a chronic apologizer). E stopped me, said, "Deja, listen, this thing, this sewing thing? It's not the sort of activity you have to be perfect at. Fabric is forgiving. Your quilt will be beautiful, you'll see."

[the finished product]

[the soft back]

If you'll forgive me for saying so, I think she was right. It turned out more beautifully than I could have dreamed. I take no real credit for it. Remember, I made all of the mistakes, and E was an insanely good teacher who walked me through every step. But I'm grateful to have something like this exist, something so full of mistakes, and yet beautiful. I'm thinking, I'm thinking that a quilt is a hopeful thing.

Converting a Skeptic

2011-03-13T17:26:00.000-04:00

In the days leading up to Valentine's Day, I had a sense that I wanted to do something nice for Sam, something a bit sentimental, but I wasn't entirely sure how he'd take it. He doesn't seem the sort. And when I asked him casually about it, he confirmed that he indeed was not the sort. "Valentine's Day," said Sam, "is for girls." He claimed he didn't expect anything, indeed didn't want anything, that girls invented the holiday so they could have an extra birthday, etc. And in his defense, he really came through. He sent me a beautiful bromeliad, which arrived at work with a gorgeously-written card, and then came and visited me and we went for a spontaneous dinner out (we'd planned to be wise and eat at home, since we'd eaten out in a V-day way over the weekend).

Somewhere in there, I just decided to do it, to do the romantic thing I'd been considering, which was to find a series of short love poems or excerpts from love poems, print them up pretty, and scatter them around the house. (Some of them (most of them?) are unconvential love poems ...) While he slept on the night of the 14th, I set to work cutting and pasting and deciding where to place the poems: on the microwave? inside his shoes? under the lid of his laptop? I had a lovely time placing them, thinking of him, loving him with every swatch of tape.

And you know? He loved them. He went around the house the next morning counting them, trying to collect them all, and said he was moved by them, more moved than he expected to be. And he's saved them, peeled them from their positions and used them to decorate his office. Sometimes it's good to not worry about how a kind impulse will be received, and just to just do the thing I'm thinking of. Sometimes it's good to be as mushy as I please.

Love you, Sam.

Parting a Sea of Shoulds

2011-02-14T21:03:00.002-05:00

I've always been obsessed with self-improvement. From the time I was small, I've been making these lists that divide my life into categories--health, money, talents, etc--and writing out ambitious and nearly-absurd goals for myself. Examples: I will create five new recipes a week. I will exercise for 2 hours on our rebounder trampoline every day. I will read a book every day. (Mind you, I was 11 years old.)

Maybe this sort of system works for other people, but for me this was a recipe for discouragement.  Fast forward to my life now, and my goals have gotten more elaborate, no less plentiful, and no more doable.  And basically, for all that I hope to change, and for all of the ways I want to change, I had grown to completely mistrust my ability to do so. Sort of like: why bother? I'll just fail anyway. That sort of thing.

Last year, in another effort to change my life completely, I tried this system of inspriring creativity from Julia Cameron called The Artist's Way. I highly recommend it, as it seems to have really helped all sorts of people, but I dropped off when I noticed a familiar pattern.  Part of the program is to handwrite three pages in your journal every morning. Not fancy pages, not artful pages, just a brain dump basically, whatever is in your head. And here's the pattern I noticed: my pages were riddled with shoulds. I should this, I should that.  I should stop doing/thinking/being like this, I should do/think/be that. It was exhausting to be on that page every day with me, perpetually dissatisfied, perpetually imagining some other way. For awhile I tried to forbid myself from using the word "should" altogether, but that didn't stop me from shoulding in some other form, and eventually I just dropped off.

I've missed the pages, in a way, missed the way they centered me and prompted me to observe what was around me. So I've been sort of looking for something else. I've been thinking about a gratitude list, but I've tried that before and it felt false somehow, or generic. I ended up being grateful for the same thing over and over and didn't feel like I was getting the point.

All of this is background for a moment a few weeks ago when I sat in church and something struck me: what if everything is already fine?  I had been thinking about all of these ways I wanted to improve, about how I wanted be different, dig into my life with a shovel and haul out the junk. And then it occurred to me that maybe I was already okay, maybe everything was already, basically, more or less, fine. I got out my journal, and came up with this idea, this list of five things that happened every day that were lovely:

1. Sam makes me laugh.
2. I eat some sort of healthy food that I really enjoy.
3. I feel connected to God in some way or God helps me.
4. I notice something beautiful.
5. I work on my goals.

Since then I've been filling out that list nearly every day. Although Sam makes me laugh, I've expanded the first one to be human interaction that is positive or meaningful. This is important because I'm basically afraid of everyone and everything and have been having a really really hard time feeling connected with anyone. I wanted to celebrate when I managed to get to the other side of that and connect with someone. Anyway, it looks like this when it's filled in:

1. Human. Sam drove me around for five hours (literally) in the snow.  When we were on the way home, we were realizing it had been five hours and I said, "You're pretty good at this though. Driving in the snow, I mean." And he gave me this perfect look that said, "Come on. Of course I am. I'm the Sam." And I laughed and loved him for being so confident. Also, I called a woman from church before she went in for a big surgery to tell her I loved her and would be praying for her.

2. Food. A gorgeous navel orange. Roasted carrots with marinara and parmesan cheese. Orange vanilla rooibos tea with milk and stevia.

3. God. A moment on the train when I was crammed in with about a billion people and I looked down into my little pocket of space and somehow, while feeling very quiet, felt like God was with me on the Red Line.

4. Beauty. Sam in his hat in the snow. The Citgo sign backdropped by a blaze of orange sunset.  My cats perched together on my office chair.

5. Goals. Sent poems to anthology man. Found a poem I wrote years ago and had forgotten about and discovered it fit perfectly in my poetry manuscript. Emailed friend from grad school that I collaborated with on a poem and asked if I could use my revised draft as my own. Read books.

This list centers me, reminds me of what's important, and reminds me that I'm always, because of my nature, making progress on those fronts. I'm more likely to make progress too because I know I'm going to write it down and give myself credit. I know it's going to count for something, not get lost in a sea of shoulds.

I don't know why I've been thinking about sharing this on my blog. It has seemed too personal, and I've been worried I'd jinx it, that by saying it outloud (or writing it online, rather), I'd ruin it's meaning for me. I also worry that what I'm talking about is "the power of positive thinking"--a cliche I've deeply mistrusted ever since I grew out of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. But maybe, after all, that cliche is sort of right. For me, the thinking has to be completely specific and unflinchingly honest, and then, yes, I suppose it is powerful after all. I love it and hate it when that happens, when cliches actually end up being insightful.

About a week after I started I added another item called "Tiny Checkmarks." This is my space, at the beginning of the day, where I decide on something that I actually should do, and get it done that day. It has to be managable, and it's become a way to clear off all of the little tasks that pile up: taking something to the post office, calling for a doctor's appointment, returning a friend's email, etc. If something seems big, I break it down into smaller tasks and do one a day. I usually also add a few items that are "Gravy"--meaning, if I got those extras done, I would seriously rock. I find I usually do get them done, and if I don't, they go on tomorrow's list and I don't freak out about it.

When I feel overwhelmed and like I'm failing at everything important, I have my list to refer to, and I remember my new mantra, Everything is Already Fine. When a pile of things I think I need to do assaults me, I tell them they'll go on the tiny checkmarks slot tomorrow. And to please leave me alone because I'm looking for something beautiful, looking for God, laughing at Sam, eating something healthy, and working on my goals.

A Pretty Lunch

2011-01-21T12:00:00.031-05:00

I thought I'd share how I eat now: a lottttt of veggies and a bit of protein is basically the plan. This is how I lost 50 pounds, and counting. It's also really simple eating: easy on the processed foods, no real fancy recipes, everything as close to it's original state as possible. Oh, I love my food.

I made this on Tuesday, when it was snowing out and I was wanting something that was wintery and yummy. I think the colors are beautiful. And it tasted exactly as I hoped it would. Love it when it that happens.

Here's what went in the big wooden bowl:

*lentils
*cooked beets
*sauted spinach and sweet onions
*avocado
*cucumber
*goat cheese
*drizzled with Temecula Olive Oil Company's Citrus Reserve Olive Oil (sweet mother of pearl, that stuff is good. my sister lives near temecula and introduced me. my bottle is almost gone and i've only had it a week. whoops!)

The Most Beautiful Quilt in the World

2011-01-19T12:00:00.050-05:00

Our friend E makes quilts. (That link will take you to a bunch of her quilts, including ones that have won awards.) She's unbelievable. She dyes (some of) her own fabric and whips these puppies out like nobody's business. Last summer she offered to make us one, and we could hardly believe her generosity. But we came to believe it, and she told us to pick what we wanted. Sam and I spent days discussing this, finally settling on a strange system of discussing color schemes: we each brought each other books with covers we really liked. Except that didn't really work. Because I liked stuff like this:

And stuff like that made Sam feel like he was bleeding internally. He was looking for something a bit simpler. Finally, after stacks of books were on the kitchen table, we agreed that we both LOVED the colors and vibe of a particular region of Brian Kershisnik's "Nativity"--the part with Mary and Jesus:

We showed that to E, and the pattern we liked best, and she took us to the fabric store to pick out fabrics under her careful direction.

A month or so later, she showed us the finished top, which we adored, and then she sent it off to her NEA-Grant-Winning quilting friend in SLC to be quilted. And a few months later, while at E and K's house for dinner, E asked me to grab a chair from her bedroom and there it was, spread out at the foot of their bed. I made a sound like this: "EEEEEhasflyhfalshllhgkkkkkk!" and Sam came running in to see what was the matter. And there we stood, petting it, until we could catch our breath. During dinner I insisted on spreading it out on the couch behind Sam so I could see it whenever I wanted to, Sam in a halo of quilt beauty.

[quilt of gloriousness]

I cannot get enough of it. I wish I could carry it around with me all day. When it's time for sleep, I'm happy because I get to be beneath it.

[quilt, bed. nothing like a pretty quilt to motivate the bed-making.]

E, you are the loveliest. It's the most lovely thing that's ever been mine. Thank you.

[close-ups.]

More Photos of the New Place

2011-01-17T21:15:00.002-05:00

[cats, rug]

Finding rugs was hard. We knew we needed them, that our living room(s) wouldn't be warm and living room-esque without them. But finding ones we both liked proved harder than we thought. Sam and I don't always see eye to eye, but when it comes to how we want things to look, we generally align nicely. Or so I thought ... Until we went to Home Depot and stood outside in a big white Rug Tent, and discovered we completely disagreed. Then we went inside Home Depot, and disagreed some more. Then to Target, disagreeing. And out to Home Goods (a half hour drive), where we nearly bought one, but ultimately, disagreed. And we came home empty-handed.

[the rug + messy coffee table, disheveled couch. i decided not to care, or i'd never take pictures.]

Those were rough days, when we first got in the house. Moving tries a relationship anyway. Add in the messy buying process and the month in a hotel and by the time we got in here, well, yeah, we were arguing about rugs.

[the "library" + my red skirt. i was taking pictures of the cats after church, and decided to just take pictures of the whole house.]

Things have settled now. More or less. (We found rugs we agreed on, thanks to our friends K and E, who accompanied us to a discount place called Building 49, and helped us decide.) We still don't have enough storage space in the bathroom so we have to dig through a cardboard box to find the Q-tips, but we're happy. The cats chase each other through the kitchen, through our offices, under our bed. We cook meals together in our kitchen. We sit on the couch and watch movies. We sit at our desks in our offices and can hear the other person clicking the keys and it's pleasant.

[kitchen, sam with bowl of pasta]

[kitchen, sam washing out pasta bowl]

[kitchen, inglenook.]

[tadzio in the inglenook (he's not, technically, supposed to be there.)]

[the loo. not featured: cardboard box.]

[my office. what would you do with that big white wall? i'm stumped.]

[sam's office.]

A recent scene from our life in this house: On Sunday, driving down our street, coming home from church, I spotted an item of furniture someone had put out to pasture. It looked like it could solve the bathroom cardboard box situation, so I ran in and got Sam and we carried it home, each of us gripping an end, waddling our way in our winter coats across and down the street. It was too big for the bathroom, but we think it will help our pantry storage, which is also lacking, and once I cleaned the snow off its feet, we got it settled.

Sam put on some Albert King blues music and we took down our Christmas decorations and Sam sang along, sometimes changing the words ("If we didn't have no bad catsssss, we wouldn't have no cats at allllll.") and all the while the kitties were there, circling the tree, looking up at us, wondering what on earth we were doing with their tree. We couldn't figure out how to take the (fake) tree apart, so we opted to become of those people who store their tree intact and upright in our basement storage unit. (My grandmother was one of those people, so we're in good company.) Once we had everything downstairs, we sat on the couch, sighing, Sam's arm around me, both of us staring into the renewed empty space, listening to the blues, and feeling anything but blue.

We think we like this place. We think we'll stay.

Christmas + a Tiny Peek at Our New Place

2010-12-25T13:54:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas! This is the first time we've ever decorated our house for Christmas. Sam's mom sent us ornaments that Sam's received every year since he was a baby, and it was cool to see him remember them and be excited. I don't think of him as the type to get terribly excited about things like Christmas, but, well, he was terribly excited.

So were the kitties. As soon as we set up the Chirstmas tree, they assumed positions beneath it, which is precisely where kitties belong. When I was a wee lass, we had a kitty named Smokey who was always beneath the tree at Chirstmas time, swatting at bird ornaments. (If you look closely in the top picture, you can see little Sprout to the right of Meatsock under the tree.)

And here she is up close.

And the tree in its glory.

And my favorite ornament.

Sam's mother also sent us a gorgeous nativity that Sam's great grandmother made. It's so beautiful, so so beautiful, and big, so we couldn't find a surface that would fit it all together. We settled on a tiered approach. Mary, Joseph, Jesus, and animals; shephards and sheep; wise men and camels.

A close up of the Holy Family. (Although, I just realized that animal should be paying attention, maybe. Oh well. Maybe he was overcome by emotion?)

More pictures of the house to come soon ... Hope you have the merriest Christmas. Hope it's as lovely as you dream.

Mexico 4: Because Now It's Cold Out

2010-12-02T16:09:00.000-05:00

this is honestly my idea of a vacation: you go to a beach. you sit on the beach. you read a book. that's it. that's all i need.

in mexico, in addition to that, we had the perks of comfortable chairs and sun umbrellas and people bringing us fresh limondas and "coca lights." we had big plans to go parasailing this day, but once we realized we'd have to actually stand up, we opted to stay put and read some more.

[cool. dude.]

after awhile we ordered lunch: tiritas, followed by garlic shrimp, fresh guacamole, fresh salsa, beans, cheese, lots and lots of lime wedges, and more limonda.

[i'm not generally a sunglass wearer, but i think these ones are okay. are they okay?]

[there's no one i'd rather read books with on the beach. or anywhere for that matter.]

Mexico 3: Sam Gets a Sailfish

2010-11-22T21:56:00.001-05:00

[sunrise.]

Before we left for Mexico, we watched a few of those Planet Earth movies, and happened to see one that had a shot of hundreds of sailfish swimming through the water like kites. Oh, they were pretty. So although we were looking forward to fishing, we were reluctant to find one of those guys on the other end of the line. I needn't have worried. I didn't fish a bit, since about a half hour after I got on the boat I threw up my breakfast over the side, and pretty much stayed horizontal with my eyes closed for the rest of the day. Seasickness was not a good time for me. But I did manage to get some pictures, and Sam did catch a sailfish. It was enormous (you'll see), so I think by the time he got him in the boat, after several near-escapes, Sam didn't care about the scene where they all looked like kites. At least not when it came to this guy. Kite, shmite.

[view from the boat. it was right around here that i tossed my cookies, so to speak. but hey, so pretty, no?]

[sam's dad preps his fishing pole.]

[sam reels in the beast.]

[fernando the fisherman tends to the beast. oh, he was a pretty purple. the fish, not the fisherman.]

[fernando the fisherman ponders whether there's any more fish to be had. sam's dad got a black tuna, which had the most beautiful silver pattern. we took that one to a dock and a beachside restaurant brought it ashore and turned it into tiritas (which is like ceviche in the sense that it's raw) and everyone but me (it wasn't a good time for me to eat raw fish) feasted. by all acounts it was a good fish.]

[sam stands triumphantly with his catch.]

[sam inspects his catch.]

[the purple fin of the sailfish. and this is the toned down version. when he first came out of the water, he looked bejeweled. sam ate fillets of this guy for several days, but most of it we had fernando distribute to people who could use the food. i think he fed a lot of people, which is a good thing. there were plenty who seemed to need it.]

Mexico 2: Dolphin Swim

2010-11-21T21:52:00.002-05:00

[they jump. we grin.]

When we landed in Mexico, a woman on the plane told us about swimming with dolphins and I was instantly obsessed. Granted, it also made me think of this New Yorker cartoon, wherein two dolphins are swimming around and one says to the other, "If I could do only one thing before I died, it would be to swim with a middle-aged couple from Connecticut." I find that endlessly amusing, and thus felt a little silly about wanting to have a swim, but, seriously, look at them. And look at those enormous smiles on our faces. We'll be the couple from New England any day if we get to hang out with these guys.

[we pet a dolphin belly. i think this one's name was habana, since she was cuban. (they spelled it with a b, yes.]

This was one of those things that was exactly as cool and exhilirating as I dreamed it would be. Okay, it was probably cooler. I have to say that at first I was frightened. We weren't in the open ocean, we were in a salt water pool, but I couldn't see all the way down and there were these mysterious creatures swimming around, and I worried that maybe they wouldn't be as nice/smart as we're told they are. We got paired with this baby dolphin named Gallo (rooster) first, and we loved him, but he was very very interested in a girl baby dolphin on the other side of the tank, so basically he kept ditching us, and when he wasn't with the girl baby dolphin, he was circling us and circling us, so much so that I was getting a bit dizzy. So we got new dolphins. And I relaxed and realized they weren't going to eat us. And then we played.

[I was suprised by how much we actually got to play. They let us ride across the pool, holding their flippers tight. I was giggling and giggling.]

[Here's Sam's turn. Was he giggling? He was doing the Sam-equivalent of the giggling.]

[can you see that look on my face? that's about as happy as i get. there's a dolphin pushing each of my feet across the pool. if i would have kept my legs straighter, i could have been even more out of the water. dang, that was a cool feeling.]

[sam looks like he's surfing. he is also being pushed by two dolphin noses.]

[then sam got a kiss.]

[sam calls this one "signing the peace treaty"]

[here i get a kiss.]

[and here i give one.]

[and here she gets a fish for the kiss.]

[one last shot of the four of us. thanks to sam's parents for sponsoring our swim. we had ever so much fun.]

Mexico 1: Creatures

2010-11-20T19:08:00.001-05:00

[the pools and view from the condo. zihuatenejo, mexico.]

Sam and I went to Zihuatanejo, Mexico for a week at the beginning of October, just after we moved. We visited his parents, who rented a condo down there for six months, and are generous souls. They treated us well. It was a whirlwind of swimming in the pool, reading books in lounge chairs, eating fresh-fresh seafood, fishing, eating more fresh-fresh seafood, swimming with dolphins, drinking limonada, nursing sunburns, practicing my (meager) Spanish skills, and taking very long naps. Can strenous relaxation even be considered a whirlwind? Anyway, it was grand.

[i love this one. gosh it was gorgeous there.]

I'll cover other material in a few more posts (swimming with dolphins! fishing (and seasickness)! glamorous book reading by the pool and sea!) but I must first tell you about La-La the porcupine, whom we met at a animal rescue type place called El Refugio de Potosi. We have a niece named Lala (Alana), which is perhaps why I was instantly smitten with this little lady. And Sam was a sucker for her, too. The feeling appeared to be mutual when Lala responded to his attention by immediately commencing her climb up into his arms. He didn't mind.

[they say hello.]

[she decides he's her friend.]

[they bond. they snuggle. i have to say that when sam talks to animals, even to his cat, my heart melts. he has a way of giving them absolute credit as intelligent life forms, and carrying on surprisingly sophistocated conversations wtih them. it's something to behold.]

[she kinda liked me, too.]

[we did a lot of really cool stuff, but darned if La-La wasn't a clear highlight.]

[a few more pictures from potosi. here sam's dad converses with a bird.]

[here the birds converse with each other.]

[and here sam walks with his pretty mama into the wilds of mexico. we left not long after this. turns out the wilds are sticky, very very hot, and full of bugs that were feasting on our legs.]

New Glasses

2010-11-11T09:18:00.007-05:00

One morning I went out into the living room and near the table I stood very still and gasped. There was an enormous bug on the inside bridge of my nose. I reached up before I could think too hard, plucked it off, and threw it violently to the ground.

Then I realized it wasn't a bug. It was the nosepad to my glasses.

I got down on my hands and knees and searched for it, but it wasn't to be found.

Later, standing in the only eyeglass store that was willing to help me that day, I tried on these glasses. By the time I realized the techs in back could fix my previous ones, I was already smitten with these. What could I do? I was in a swank glasses shop in Cambridge, a man with artfully disheveled hair was telling me how cool they looked, and I was simply putty in his salesman hands.

Baby Quilt

2010-11-10T09:06:00.017-05:00

My friend Em and I made this quilt for a girl at church and her wee babe.

Please note: Emily did the ENTIRE quilt in LESS time than it took me to make the meager little flowers. (sigh.)

(It was a strange shower, since she had also received some sort of clothes hamper that looked a lot like a rubbish bin, and every gift she opened went straight into that to keep them all together, I suppose. So our quilt and all the pretty pink outfits? Seemed to go straight in the trash ... Oh well.)

Tadzio in Reds

2010-11-09T20:47:00.002-05:00

I've been playing with my editing software. I'm certain I'm an amateur, but I'm having a lovely time.

So is T. Can't you tell?

A Rare Harmony

2010-11-09T08:36:00.002-05:00

We caught the kitties existing harmoniously on our bed. This was before we moved. Now they can all find separate corners, and they certainly take advantage of the space.

[tadzio the great.]

[meatsock the brave.]

[sprout the queenly.]

Whale Watching, Four Months Late

2010-11-08T19:16:00.006-05:00

Last, ummmm, July, we went whale watching with our friends Kenneth and Emily. We hang out with those folks quite a bit. They’re the kind of couple-friends that, when we drop them off or they drop us off, we sit in the car talking, not quite finished hanging out. We think they’re pretty cool.

(As this is four months late, it's light on words, heavy on pictures.)

[dockyard north of boston]

[the us.]

[a whale. really. i promise.]

[the them.]

[a sailboat. can you even imagine if that was your boat and on saturdays you went out and whale watched in it?]

[sam and i can sort of imagine. we've been doing it ever since. trouble is, we can't agree on a name for the boat. sam suggests vlad dracul.

[handsome fellow.]

[his whale watching eyes.]

Sam Reads to Kitty

2010-11-07T19:14:00.000-05:00

Due to moving, health trouble, and a picky computer, it's been over a month since I posted. Which is a real shame since I have a lot to say, and a lot of pictures.

I finally figured out how to get those pictures onto a computer that doesn't take an hour to upload, so I'm going to try to post some of them. (Incidentally, how do you folks handle your pictures? How do you organize them; what program do you use to edit and keep them, etc? Do tell. I'm sooo annoyed with Picasa and with everything else I've been trying.)

I might as well begin with the most recent pictures, which I took last night. Here's Sam reading a book to Ms. Sprouty the Cat. She had come up for her nightly snuggle, and seemed to be quite interested in his book, so he pulled her up close and read her Coetzee in his best reading voice. His reading voice is pretty good. Is it weird that it made me look forward to him reading to our someday-children?

On the Morning of Our Actual Move, For Real This Time

2010-09-25T06:31:00.000-04:00

Well, we didn't move last week. At the last minute on Friday, I called our realtor and he said it was looking less "100%." And so we decided to stay for another week. Our cats hadn't finished destroying the furniture anyway.

And now, we're finally, really moving in. We have the keys. Some of our stuff is even inside. And I have to say, I've been worried that when we got inside I wouldn't still love it, but oh I do. I walked from room to room, turning on lights, reminding myself, and it was seriously one of the most beautiful experiences to know we were buying it, that it was ours. It felt, well, like home. And thennnnn we bickered. We are moving, after all. Deciding where to put the cat litter will take a good two months of intense negociation.

But the reason why I gathered you all here wasn't really to tell you that. I wanted to record my three part method of emotionally/mentally processing this moving mess.

Stage 1: Acceptance, sort of.

I've been working hard on dealing with whatever comes up on its own terms, praying and asking God to help me. So when we got the news about the hotel, when it became clear this was our only option, I tried hard to keep a stiff upper lip. When people offered sympathy, I'd say, "Oh, well, you know, it's really a first world problem. Poor us, we're buying a house and we have to wait, you know?" I told myself we were okay in this place, that everything was fine, that I was grateful to have a place to go. And all of that was true, in a way. But I was also simply shoving away negative thoughts, pushing them down into some place inside, not acknowledging that first world problem or no, this was really not ideal, and I was sad and stressed and sorry. This became crystal clear about a week after we moved in, when, as I mentioned in the last post, I went to pet Sam's cat, and he hissed at me, at which point I burst into heaving horrible sobs. Commence stage two.

Stage 2: Bright Coins

I think stage two is my default. You saw evidence of it in the last post, although by that point I was less attached to the story. But still, this one is rooted in story, in tragic story: I collect all of the bad things that happen, the stressy stuff, the absurd stuff, and whether or not they were a big deal or not, I keep them as a running tally in my brain; I hold onto them like bright coins; I save them for something special, as proof the world owes me a big treat. I'll admit here that the treat used to be a cupcake. I'd save up my sadness, in a way, and think that meant I really really deserved a cupcake to make myself feel better. But see, I finally decided that cupcakes made me feel terrible, as does every other sweet treat, and they aren't worth it. So now, in a cupcakeless (and much better, for me, I might add (I'm not saying everyone should give up their cupcakes, honest.)) world, I couldn't figure out what to "spend" my bright pity coins on. I just kept adding to them, adding and adding. Until we found out that we couldn't move last week.

Part 3: Hope, Without

When I talked to our realtor, when things became suddenly less 100%, I burst into tears, of course. I lay down on the bed, crying, closing my eyes, and praying, "Okay, not cool. So not cool. I mean, I'll get up and be happy, but first you have to know that I'm not okay with this. This is not okay." And I felt like that honesty garnered an immediate answer: "I know you're disappointed. It'll be fine. Thanks for telling me. Get up and get over it now." So I did. And I threw everything in my car and went to the Exponent retreat (an Mormon women's retreat) and had a really wonderful time. And everything was fine. I don't know how to explain this stage, because it's the only one I didn't try to manufacture myself, the one that came by grace. When I woke up Monday morning, I was detached from the outcome. It's not that I didn't still hope that we'd move in this weekend, I just didn't need that to happen. It was hope without expectation, a brand of hope that didn't demand fulfillment. Does that make sense? Sam called me at work in the early part of the week, giving me updates, and I listened to them with that detachment, like they were about someone I really really loved and wanted the best for, but that they weren't about me. By late in the week, when it looked like we really would move in, I lost that happy detachment, and when Sam talked to the realtor on Thursday I was standing by him saying, "Is he for SURE? Is it REALLY going to happen?" Charming, yes. But at least I had the experience of feeling that other sort of hope, which felt like true acceptance, the real bright coin.

And now it's time to put some furry creatures in my car and take them to their new home.

The Girl Who Cried House

2010-09-17T06:37:00.001-04:00

Today marks three weeks we've been living in a hotel room. While we've been here, the weather has turned to a delicious Autumn theme, which would be so much more charming if we had packed our sweaters and coats and rainboots. Three weeks was not the plan, but it's how it turned out. Tomorrow, hopefully, maybe, possibly, we'll actually move into our new place. Maybe. Possibly.  I feel like the girl who cried house. I'm trying not to get my hopes up about it, but this morning my brain woke me up at four and immediately commenced imagining every room of that house, everything I'm excited to unpack and put somewhere, the shopping trips we'll need to take to get a few rugs and pieces of furniture. Can you blame me for being excited? It's been a long haul with a fair amount of hopelessness and the most absurd collection of absurd happenings I've ever experienced in a three week stretch. Observe the absurdities:

Scenes of a Move

Scene 1: Late Friday night I pull into a storage unit business where Sam and the movers are unloading the last of our junk. I have a Whole Foods bag of apples, string cheese, and cookies for the menfolk, which I remember to take out of the car. I do not, however, remember my car keys, or my phone, or my wallet. Sam and I spend two hours waiting for a locksmith. I spend it rocking back and forth in the moving truck, shivering, shuffling frantically through radio stations and praying not to break down in tears. Sam spends it in the parking lot, playing the blues on his acoustic guitar. We eat dinner at midnight. We get to the hotel at three a.m. and fall into bed.

Scene 2: I get in the car to drive to the train station to get to work. I put on my sunglasses, plug in my ipod, call my mom, feel like this isn't going to be too bad, that we'll be okay out here. Then I hit traffic. I learn there's some sort of problem on the train line. It takes me two hours to get to work. I repeat this scene, going and coming, almost every day I'm here.

Scene 3: I'm pulling out of the train station, waiting in line to pay my million dollars to park for a day, and my car lurches forward. I think it's busted, that it's broken, that it's died a death. Instead, I've been rearended.

Scene 4: Sam and I are getting ready to go out to dinner to escape the hotel room for a few hours. We go in the bedroom to bid farewell to the kitties (yes, we do that) and notice Sam's cat is sort of trembling and weak. We take him to the vet emergency room. He's okay, mostly. Aside from the diarrhea.

Scene 5: The crying begins. I bend down to pet the cat, Sam's cat, who doesn't like me much but had begun to tolerate some love from me. He hisses. Somehow, this is the last straw. I go in the bathroom to brush my teeth and end up sobbing. Heaving, horrible, loud sobs.

Scene 6: I come home from work and Sam's on the phone so I start dinner in our little hotel kitchenette. I'm holding a spatula when he tells me, "It's over. They've denied the loan." Apparently there's some technicality about Sam's teaching contract: he's paid through a grant the English department at Umass has, and as far as the bank is concerned, grants don't count as income. After three months of telling us they're sure it will work, they're sure it's not going to work. I hold the spatula, which smells like onions, and fold my face into a corner of the kitchen. I cry.

Scene 7: There's a bit of hope, a way we can maybe still get the house, so I buck up. I'm walking through the Public Garden on my way to work the next morning when Sam calls.  The hopeful solution won't work.  We really won't get it. I stand by the pond and cry, again. I pray, "Listen, we'll give it up. We'll let the house go. If it's not our house, we'll let it go. Are we supposed to let it go?" I don't feel like we're supposed to let it go.

Scene 8: We're in a snooty French coffee shop in Brookline. I spill peppermint herb tea on my cellphone. The snooty French waiter makes it clear, as he wipes up the tea, that I've been an idiot, that I don't deserve to live. I sort of believe him. My cellphone dies.

Scene 9: Sam's driving on the freeway. Rushing between classes and home and the vet and kinko's, he's put off buying gas. He passes a sign that says the tollbooth is two miles away. Then his car sputters and dies. A cop car pushes him into the shoulder and he walks to the gas station.

Scene 10: We're driving to the bank. It looks, again, like things will work out. New mortgage lenders, a new loan application, a new start to the process. We stop at a tollbooth.  The window, the one the locksmith broke into, has been acting funny. When Sam rolls it down at the tollbooth, it decides not to come back up. It decides to stay buried completely in the door. We drive down the freeway with it down, an Autumn chill shuddering in at us.  We shout into the phone, ask the banker to shout, so we can hear what happens next.

Am I wrong?  Does that not seem like a strange series of events, a march of unfortunate instances? There have been good parts. I honestly haven't minded the long rides on trains, reading. I don't even mind the drive, when I get to listen to music and I pass the temple and the sky seems very very big and blue and delighted to have me under it. (I just don't like that the day is four hours shorter ...) I liked the day that Sam brought me home Toasted Saigon Cinnamon, which I am now officially obsessed with. I like when my cats come sleep on the bed, their earnest faces pleading for a little comfort, a little assurance we belong in this space, which I gladly provide. As much as I miss my things, there's been something sort of cool about living with the bare minimum, living for three weeks on what we planned would only need to take us through one week. I like the hotel's big fancy gas grill, which we've fired up and blanketed with veggies on more than one occasion. I liked the dinner we had on the patio, eating our grilled veggies and steaks, a perfect summer evening, a quiet pocket in this little suburb. I've liked Sam, liked having him with me, liked realizing that all I really need is him and I feel safe.  And tomorrow, tomorrow, I hope tomorrow we'll get in the new house, the one I knew was ours when we walked in six months ago, the one we've been talking about since then, planning every corner, arguing over who gets which office, mapping where to put which bookshelf, imagining our new life. Oh please, oh please, let it be tomorrow.

On Moving and Being Nice

2010-08-26T07:54:00.000-04:00

[present house, fireplace guys]

We move tomorrow afternoon, and this morning I took one last run through our little neighborhood. I saw a family of wild turkeys (?), a mama and two baby turkeys, on the side of the road as if waiting for a bus. We've loved our neighborhood, and not for the wildlife, since that's rare, but because it's just beautiful here. And on my run I was thinking about all that's happened here in the last year. A lot, that's what. So much that it doesn't feel like there's time to go into detail before I go to work, but work is part of it. Sam and I weathered the bad job situation here.

[note from sam on our front door chalkboard in the very depths of the bad job.]

I got the new job, the good job, which is still good. I've dropped nearly forty pounds in the last while, which is really a just a physical sign of bigger changes inside my head, in how I think about myself and interact with other people and attempt to see the world as a nice place. I won't say more about that right now, but it's been huge. And I haven't noticed that more than I have lately, in the last few days/weeks, when the closing on our new house has been pushed back and back and back, and Sam and I have tried to pull all of our stuff together and box it up. This move feels so different from the last. I have more energy, more emotional AND physical energy. And maybe Sam would disagree, but it feels to me like I've been less witchy and whiny. Don't get me wrong, I've had my share of witchy/whiny moments, but I'm finally healthier, and it's so much easier to stay rational when I'm healthier.

Does anyone else have fantasies when they're packing about the days when everything people owned fit into one suitcase or a little bandana tied to a stick and they could just pack the suitcase, palm their hat to their head, kiss whomever goodbye and be on their way? I obsess over that when I'm packing, imagine becoming a minimalist, wonder and wonder why I have so many dang pairs of shoes. Anyway, the only trouble with moving now is that we probably can't move into our house yet. Our stuff can, which is such a relief, but we'll head to a hotel and chill for a week (we hope only a week ...) until closing. This panicked me at first. But this morning, running our neighborhood for the last time, I decided the hotel wil be great: I'll have Sam and my cats (try not to think about three cats in a hotel room), and we'll be done packing and we won't have to UNpack just yet, and we can just chill. Maybe we'll watch movies. Maybe we'll have a dip in the pool.

[present house, tooled leather walls, bird garland from paris]

[one more shot of the fireplace dude. goodbye fireplace dude.]

Bow Tie

2010-08-11T22:01:00.000-04:00

Sam and I spent much of Saturday night and Sunday in the hospital for what turned out to be a pinched nerve in Sam's neck. There was some concern, since his left arm was numb (heart stuff, you know), but it turned out to be just fine. Or relatively fine. He's still in quite a bit of pain, the poor dear.

Anyway, to help with the pinched nerve, the doctor gave Sam a neck brace--the sort you see people wear in movies when they're pretending to be injured. And then he insisted I draw a bowtie on it. He knelt in front of me, wearing the brace, lifting his chin while I sketched it out with a sharpie. He said, "This. Now this is true love."

Snippet

2010-08-02T17:10:00.000-04:00

A snippet of conversation from our anniversary dinner out at Oleana: (Which, if you ever find yourself in Cambridge, MA in need of a meal, holy mother of deliciousness; that place is good. Maybe my favorite meal in Mass, yet. They were not, however, exceptionally speedy.)

Deja: Is this not taking just a wee bit long?

Sam: Yep. My theory is this: they're killing the duck by sleep deprivation.

Somehow, that killed me. Oh, that still kills me. Sleep deprivation. Let us be together for a million more years, and let me always remember that: sleep deprivation.

We have fun, Sam and I. It's been a rocky two years in some categories of our lives, but we have a real good time. And since we had already exchanged gifts the Saturday before (we couldn't wait!), Sam set up a sort of card scavenger hunt for Tuesday morning. He handed me a card, which was sweet and silly and funny, and then it pointed me to a particular spot on the bookshelf where there was another, which pointed me to another spot on the bookshelf, and another, and another. And by the time I got to the last card, I was in tears, full-blown tears, and also in love. Gosh, I love that guy.

Happy Two Years

2010-07-27T08:47:00.000-04:00

Dear Sam;

Thanks for marrying me so I can laugh all of the time.

Love,

Deja

P.S. (Two Whole Years!)

A Brave(r) Outfit

2010-07-25T17:56:00.000-04:00

[I usually forget to smile when I'm taking pictures of myself. Sam had already left for work, and it took concentration...]

It's not the bravest color combination, but I felt pretty. I've recently caught onto this wearing skirts higher on the waist thing, and I dig it (hides the tummy!). I don't know why it takes me so long to see trends. I had to be sitting on the train with a woman standing directly in front of me with her skirt up high and her shirt tucked in to realize ohhhhhhh.

Color Me Clueless

2010-06-22T16:49:00.000-04:00

Someone should explain what it means to match, because I thought it was about matching similar colors or like black/red, blue/white--obvious pairs--but lately I see girls wearing purple shoes with yellow blouses and green patterned headbands and it's so pretty but I never feel brave or smart enough to do it myself. Color stresses me out, in part because I love it so much, and I want to "get it."

Once, in a most wonderful store called Accessorize in London, I was trying to find something to match an outfit I had bought that was all about brown. And I was looking at a brown necklace, thinking I would get it, when I asked the sales lady and she said, in her perfect London accent, "No, no. That's far too obvious." Oh. She helped me pick out something with green--green with reddish-brown flecks, and it was much better.

And I won't even talk about how I used to wear a purple shirt, plus a purple collared shirt, plus a purple sweater, PLUS a purple jacket. I loooooved that outfit. OKAY, so I have a problem with layering, too. And I would never do something like that now (I don't think.), but it seems like the color/matching culture has changed since then. Is anyone else confused? Especially in Boston, I keep showing up to work thinking I'm cute, only to look around and feel like I'm in 7th grade frumpalicious land. 7th grade was not a good era for me, people.

I went to H&M today and spent money on some bright accessories, hoping to, you know, spruce things up, wear green with my purple, or whatever they're doing. But I'm afraid. Can someone explain what they're doing? It's like they all know a rule that I'm not privy to. I want to be privy! And also, pretty!

Oh, Boston

2010-06-15T14:05:00.000-04:00

Walking through the common today on my lunch break, I had a lovely little moment. It was gorgeous out, and everyone was lying on the grass, hands holding up books or sandwiches, other hands resting on the thighs or stomachs of their companions. I couldn't hear their contented sighs, but they must have had them. The entire park was sighing contendedly.

Well, all except a white tent on the far side of the common, which boasted a big banner that said "Old Fashioned Revival." I wanted to see if I could hear the preaching and the wailing from the path I was walking on, so I took out my headphones. The music I was listening to pulsed and buzzed distantly in my hands, and sure enough, I heard the preaching (no wailing, yet). A man in a dark suit was shouting, "The fire downnn below! It never STops BURNNNING and Mark tells us ..." etc. I thought about going and standing in the back, hearing more about this fire, but I pressed on. Another song, aside from the one pulsing in my hands, came from deeper in the park, and I realized it was Michael Jackson's "Thriller," played on saxophone. It turns out it sounds kind of classy like that.

I was nearly bursting with all of this, delighted, in such a lovely mood and so happy with the city. I came upon an elegant Asian woman walking a little gray and white kitty with a pink leash. The cat seemed happy enough, slinking along the ground, smelling whatever cats can smell. Thinking of our own cats on leashes, knowing they would hate their lives, I stopped and asked, "She lets you keep her on a leash?"

"Yes," she said. "She more like dog."

Someday, somehow, I gotta find a place for that cat in a story.

A House!

2010-06-12T10:27:00.000-04:00

Well, we got it. And here it is. This isn't the Queen Anne Victorian. It's a condo we fell in love with when we first started looking, that we went back to look at four times, that we couldn't for the life of us get out of our heads. And so we'll stay in the same town, and live here, among all the wood and windows and sunlight. We couldn't be more thrilled. Come see us. There will be plenty of room.

Repost: Bonjouree, Paree

2010-06-11T07:45:00.000-04:00

Remember how, a year ago, I was posting from Paris/London/Italy. Yeahhhhh, I'm not this year. But I've thinking of it, missing it, so I thought I'd repost a wee post. Happy Friday, etc.

On a brisk walk this morning, in one last attempt to find something special before we trained away from Paris, I saw a little old lady walking her dog. And her dog was holding an umbrella in its mouth. It was scheduled to rain today, so this brilliant lady must have trained her dog to hold her essentials.

I wished for a dog like that as we waddled through the streets with all our stuff, heading for the metro. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but I found myself thinking what I always think when I have to carry my own junk: what IS all this junk? I begin to regret packing specific items, like my stack of ten (!?) books, a skirt I haven't had occasion to wear yet, my pair of black shoes, etc.

But we got here, to London, sigh of contentment. The train was speedy and it felt decadent to sit for so long on our behinds. I tried to read, but promptly fell asleep. Sam dithered about writing, worried he couldn't write, then wrote.

Turns out there's a subway-workers strike right now, so what should have been a quick hop and skip on the tube turned into waiting for a taxi in an enormous line, then sitting in traffic because everyone had to take taxis. Darn strikers.

But then, oh then, we got to our little place in the same neighborhood as the BYU Center, near Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. The place is small and we have to climb 4,000 stairs to get to it, but it's quiet and sweet and we've moved our clothes into a tall cabinet by the bed. Well, the few clothes that don't reek. As I type this, Sam is hauling all the clothes that do reek to a laundry mat, bless his soul.

We had dinner at this Lebanese place I went to hmmm, six years ago? seven? and have dreamed of ever since. It was the first time I had ever had Lebanese food and since we were young and American and didn't know what to order, they brought us out this enormous spread and it was one of the single-most wonderful dining experiences of my life. I had wondered if Sam and I could track that place down while we were here, and today, without trying, we stumbled across it and I wiled my way into going there and then pouted until we got a similar big spread with mostly vegetarian dishes. I tell you, it was nearly as good as I remembered. Love it when that happens.

That's it for now, folks. Wasn't a very eventful day. Tomorrow we'll figure out the bus system (yippee!) to go to the Tate Modern and St. Paul's. I can't think of a lovelier day.

Up. Date.

2010-06-06T15:51:00.000-04:00

[family, draper temple]

I went to Utah last weekend, took hundreds of pictures of the nieces and nephews, went out to eat with friends, took a long walk with my parents and sister and her kids, had a sister/mama sleepover, and just generally soaked up the sweet home feeling. Arriving, when the plane came into the Salt Lake Valley, I could feel my body relax. It's so green now, so lovely and familiar. I could pick out all of the temples and my parents' neighborhood, and I could hardly breathe, I was so glad to be there.

[Ari, jumping]

I don't have a cohesive story about being there aside from that. But here's something I want to remember. My niece, Ari, loves Sam. When Sam comes to visit at Christmas, she shouts "SAM!!" and runs up and hugs him. He's not exactly used to this sort of attention, and he likes her for it. Everyone likes Ari for this: she's spunky, and she's good at making people feel like she's glad they're around.

Sam stayed in Boston since it was such a quick trip, but at one point when I called him and Ari was in the backseat of my parents' car with me, she wanted to talk to him. She wanted to ask him questions, which turned out to be: "How old are you?" (he told her 21); "How much do you weigh?" (i think he was honest, there); and, my favorite, "Did you know the Egyptians took peoples' brains out of their noses?" Sam said he did know, and did she know they also kept their organs in jars in case they'd need them later?

All weekend after that, my father asked if her brains were coming out of her nose. A classic tease-y grandpa question, no?

A few other gratuitous niece/nephew pictures:

[Maggie, who is shy and has pink sunglasses]

[bubby (gavin jr), who is one of those happy, mellow babies]

[ms. savannah. it took me about 100 shots (literally) to get one of her smiling. she doesn't pass them out, but when she has one for you: ohh, boy.]

[the ever-elegant tia, jumping]

[mr kai (a gentle soul) and a silly ari (his sister)]

[and keaton. oh keaton. he keeps the whole world laughing.]

Are they not exquisite creatures, every one of them? I wish, oh I wish, I lived closer.

But speaking of where we live, one last story: Sam and I went looking for condos (yes, stillll looking) and I asked, just before we walked into the first place, if we could maybe pray before we went, just so we'd be directed to the right house. Sam said sure, and surprised me by putting his forehead against mine, right in the middle of the quiet street. He held my head in both of his hands, his fingers tangled in my curls, and said the Our Father slowly and beautifully. I could hear the birds singing as I listened to him pray, and we felt like a team, like the three of us (Sam, me, God) were in a sort of prayer-huddle. That was a lovely moment. Now if we can just get the pretty Queen Anne Victorian place I'm currently obsessed with ... Or something else. I don't HAVE to have that place. I just wannnnnnt it.

[P.S. My guest post is up on Segullah today, on the subject of Sam, so take a look, if you'd like.]

More Vermont

2010-05-14T06:25:00.001-04:00

Sam and I scored a deal on Groupon to stay at a resort in Vermont. It was lovely, like a castle, and we enjoyed just about every second of our stay. We got massages at the spa, which was Sam's idea. I admit to always being a bit skeptical of massages (strangers touching me? eww?), but I was a full convert. After we were done, we walked around like noodles, very happy and relaxed noodles.

We didn't really have set plans for the next day, so we took the scenic slow route home, driving through mountain roads and stopping when we felt like it. I love road-tripping with Sam. We listened to Psapp's album Tiger, My Friend which we both love. (links to two of our favorite songs there.) And then, because he knows this song makes me inexplicably happy, we listened to Hall and Oates "You Make my Dream Comes True" And when the song was over, I didn't have to tell him to restart it. He just did. He knows me so well. I rocked out, dancing in my seat, kissing his hand repeatedly, feeling like it was one of those absolutely perfect moments in my life, one I wouldn't trade for anything. Oh, that was a nice moment. The whole trip was worth those minutes in the car, Sam driving on roads that twisted through trees and ponds and pretty houses, me with my camera in my lap, snapping shots through the windshield.

[road trippin']

Apparently, this area's sort of famous for its covered bridges, so we stopped at a few and took more pictures. Such lovely things, covered bridges.

[pretty red bridges]

We also stopped at a antique shop, mostly because I was in love with an enormous pile of colorful skis that were stacked against a fence outside. (You can see them on the right there.) I'm no good at finding treasures at places like this, but I had a lovely time taking pictures. And Sam found some weird book about teenagers and going to hell for listening to music (?!), which entertained him the whole time I wandered.

Right as we were heading home, I saw a sign announcing that Sharon, VT was 10 miles away. If you're Mormon or you know your Mormon history, you'll know that's Joseph Smith's birthplace. Sam was kind enough to take me on one last detour to catch sight of it. There's not much there. Just a visitor's center, which I confess we avoided (they generally get way too excited about a part-member family, and we wanted to get home), and a monument. It's lovely there though. Surrounded by all sorts of trees and quiet-feeling (except for the hymns they pipe over a loudspeaker) and all in all it felt like a place that Joseph Smith could have come from.

[monument, Sharon]

And that was Vermont. We came home to that Boston water crisis you may have heard about on the news. Luckily, we had heard so we bought tons of water up there so we could brush our teeth and wash tomatoes.

Sam, Collaged

2010-05-12T06:35:00.000-04:00

I made this wee Sam collage out of pictures I took on a quick weekend getaway to Vermont. I'll say more about that trip in a next few days because I have more pictures, but these are the ones I'm in love with. I don't think Sam is crazy about all of these, but somehow they seem to capture what it's like to sit across from him at lunch. We were at lunch here, at some swank glass shop that had a restaurant to showcase their swank glass, and the restaurant was in this room that jutted out over the river. Okay, it was Simon Pearce, that's what it was. And now I have to put in another collage of photos from that place, but then back to Sam. [there's a me, a shot of the pretty room with a Sam, some of the swank glass, and two shots of our view out the windows.]

And here is what I want to say about Sam. Notice, in that bottom left picture of the first collage, that his glasses are on upside down. He's a silly creature, is what I'm trying to say. Often, in lulls during conversation, Sam will say most earnestly and most randomly, "When I was pregnant, I used to get so emotional. The sight of watermelons at the grocery store was enough to make me weep."

"Really?" I always ask, putting on my genuinely curious voice.

On Sunday, whilst eating a rocking good pink lady apple (yummy!), Sam said, "When I had an apple orchard [big crunchy bite], in Russia [crunch crunch], in the 1880s, we used to trade our apples with China for [big crunchy bite] those giant paper dragon things."

I sat on the couch, crunching my own apple, giggling.

And as his teaching semester winds down, I keep remembering a morning last fall, in the dwindling days of my last teaching semester when I was getting nauseous every time I had to go. It was very early in the morning, and we were just rousing, finding ourselves next to each other in the dark faint glow of a winter morning. He leaned over, kissed the inside of my elbow, and said, "Once more unto the breach." Somehow, of all the moments and memories that are cataloged in my brain, that has become one the most precious. My Shakespeare-quoting man in the early morning of a difficult day.

Early Spring Commute in Pictures

2010-05-04T06:43:00.000-04:00

[looking up, right outside the front door]

It's not truly early spring anymore, but bear with me. I took my camera to work one day, and snapped pictures all along the way. Here's what it looks like to walk to the train in early spring. It's a beautiful world, no?

[walking down washington]

[blossoms, up close]

[a house i'm obsessed with + tree i'm obsessed with]

[Cleveland Circle]

[train stop]

[train a-comin']

[emerging]

[arriving]

[once there, i play with very fat books]

Puddles of Blossoms, Revised

2010-04-26T21:51:00.000-04:00

On a whim I submitted a variation of this post to Segullah and they'd like to put it up in the next few weeks(!). I'll let you know when. Thanks for all of your sweet, wise comments.

A Giant Thanks to Fritzi Marie

2010-04-24T19:51:00.000-04:00

When I lived in Mississippi, I wasn't very nice. I mean, I was, but I wasn't all that friendly. I wasn't a good friend, is what I mean. The depression was raging, and I was afraid of everything. We've discussed this. You've heard this story. It's boring.

Anyway, the point this time is that there was this poet in my program, Dan, who was(is) married to a lovely woman named Kat. Kat, my friends, was(is) just brimming with good taste. They invited me over for dinner once, and I couldn't stop squealing over all the delightful, beautiful things she had in their house. I mean, even her salad servers were stunning and unique. Were they carved wood trees? Or carved wood people? I can't remember, but I think about them often when I serve salad.

Anyway, point is, I stumbled on her blog awhile back, and it's now one I check obsessively. She always has something lovely to say and something lovely to look at. Her world is full of treasures and wishes. And that's a world I want to live in. For a long time, I didn't admit I read because I wasn't good at being friends when I knew Kat, and I felt bad. But when I finally fessed up to reading, Kat said we were friends! And she was nice! And I was so very glad.

This week, dear Kat sent me a package. Just because she's nice, and because she believes in sending pretty mail, and because I said I was looking for a tea set. Look how lovely this is:

[teacup, gorgeous card, and a little wish notebook]

[this is precisely what i had in mind when i imagined a pretty teacup.]

[wish book, unwrapped.]

So you see, I had to take pictures and say a giant thanks to Kat. It made my week. Check out Kat's blog, Fritzi Marie. She makes such a lovely world over there. And being friends with Kat makes my world lovelier, too.

Boston Marathon

2010-04-19T20:43:00.001-04:00

[pretty day for running]

Sam and I had today off work/teaching for Patriot's Day, a handy MA holiday that coincides with the Boston marathon. We decided to take the train and see a movie, and when we reached the train stop, low and behold, runners. Runners and runners and more runners, and a crowd lining the streets cheering them on. For some reason, I found this incredibly moving. I thought I would weep, right there. So many people doing this really hard thing, so many other people there to say bravo. It was just beautiful. I took my camara, so you could see:

[church, runners]

[can you see how many there are? crossing the street was like playing frogger.]

[sam + book (he wasn't feeling picture-y)]

[a few blocks from our place, 2 miles from the finish line]

[train coming]

[dapper, no?]

To Be Honest

2010-04-14T16:15:00.000-04:00

On Monday I visited a college campus to meet with a professor. I observed a class he was teaching, and as I watched, I wondered if I missed it. The teaching, I mean.

I did, some. I missed the students coming in and I missed standing in front of the room. I missed seeing the looks on their faces when I made them laugh or when they "got it." Still, I suspected I was glad to sit where I was sitting, watching it happen as a third party. I thought: Maybe I just love teaching and learning; everything about it is fascinating to me, so it's nice that I'm still involved in some capacity. Or maybe I really miss it, I thought.

Then, near the end of the class, the professor asked a student a question about a poem. Her response: "I don't like poetry. I don't really care for poetry, to be honest." This was, of course, a complete non sequitur. She was telling him something about herself, rather than the poem, as he'd asked.

And I thought: Yes, I'm in right seat for me. Oh, how lovely to not have to hear someone I'm invested in say that almost every day. And they did. Say that all the time. I'm glad from my office I can't hear them, bless their hearts.

Tea Time

2010-04-12T20:52:00.000-04:00

I'm still not eating treats, and the world is a better place for it. Treats and I don't get along: I love them; they hate me.

And so, I drink tea. This makes me feel like something special happens, which is all I'm really looking for when I have a treat.

On Saturday we watched "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" (which we LOVED), and I decided to amp up the specialness by cleaning out a decorative teapot and using a pretty cup. One of Sam's students gave him a set of these cups as a gift for writing a letter of recommendation (nice kid, no?). While I like them, I decided I need/want a really fancy teacup. Maybe I'll hit up the thrift store?

[cat, teapot]

[teapot, husband]
[i like this one because he looks like he's pontificating. i think he was telling the cats not to fight.]

[girl, tea, a quiet world]

I Forgot

2010-04-07T11:22:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was my sister Amara's birthday, and all day I remembered and reminded myself to call her, call her, call her. And still ... I forgot. I'm a failure at life.

So happy (late) birthday, Ammie!

In the middle of the night, when I remembered my failure, I was thinking about Amara. She's twelve years older than I (right?), the oldest of the six kids in our family, and it's been really something to watch how those twelve years have seemed to shrink and shrink. When I was 8/9, she was in college, see, and so I didn't really get to know her well until we became grownups (whatever that means), and Amara has really taught me what it means to be a grownup. Or no, that's not it. Teaching me how to be a grownup sounds like she's boring, and she's far from boring. Really what she's taught me, what she continues to teach me, is how to be a woman (can I say that?), a woman who gracefully does what she loves and takes care of those she loves with more energy and imagination and beauty than I can fathom. It's astonishing, really, endlessly astonishing what she accomplishes.

Indulge me for just another few paragraphs. I have two specific memories of growing up as Amara's sister: I was in charge of vacuuming the downstairs, and I remember the carpet was a very dark green, and I remember having this big epiphany (I was young--7? 8? 10?): I didn't have to vacuum. In fact, no one could make me do anything, ever! Everything I did was something I had to, ultimately, choose to do! Wow, this was heady. I'm not quite smart enough to know what world philosophy this nods to (existentialism is my best guess), but for me, next to the vacuum, my toes in that dark green carpet, it was huge. And I decided to test it out then and there by flat-out refusing my task. Eventually, after shouting with my mother (I was a charming child), Amara was sent down to be the enforcer, which, well, she was effective at. I made the mistake, see, of explaining what I had realized. And as philosophically fascinating as it was to me, it wasn't so to Amara. She, dear sister, illustrated the falseness of it by physically holding my hands to the vacuum neck and steering the two of us all around that downstairs. It was an awkward dance, but that floor got clean. And I learned that sometimes, we have to do stuff. And I've long marveled at the gentle yet unmistakably firm way Amara illustrated the fallacy.

Memory two (and I'm afraid these both have the potential to appear unflattering, but they shouldn't be ...): Amara majored in Marine Biology at BYU, and one summer she came home to visit and we all went to the beach. La Jolla Cove. We were all playing in the tidepools, when Amara dared me to lick a sea anemone--you know, those creatures with all the soft pretty arms that attach to corners of pools and tighten up into a pin cushion when you touch them? I, being wise, refused the dare. But then she told me there was a club at BYU, one full of people who had licked sea anemones, and that when she got back to school she would submit my name and I'd be a member of this club. Well, that I couldn't refuse. I was already a royal nerd, and the thought of being part of a club at BYU before I even went was just thrilling. I mean,I think I literally thought this would look good on my application. And so, after a lengthy discussion over logistics and once we had scouted out a handsome anemone for a kiss, I lay down on my belly, little girl swim suit catching on the rock, and did it. And wow, it hurt. And wow, my tongue was numb for hours and hours. And, sadly, there was never any club.

One more, to balance out the potential unflatteringness: A few weeks ago, Amara called me while I was at work. She wanted to read me something out of an Ensign article she had read that morning because it had helped her and she thought it would help me. I closed the door to my office, stood behind my desk, and felt my eyes well up at what she read. It was precisely what I needed. We talked about the quote for awhile, talked about our lives, laughed and groaned and understood precisely. Because we're sisters. And sisters get it.

She was my sister. She is my sister. And one of dearest friends.

I hope you had a lovely day, Am. You deserve it.

Expect More Pictures

2010-04-04T09:50:00.001-04:00

New camera in the house, yo. I'm slightly obsessed.

(The kitties were patient models.)

Ah! Bright Wings.

2010-04-01T07:50:00.000-04:00

(title comes from Hopkins' poem "God's Grandeur")

Morning walk, things I loved:

*elegant New England houses
*remembering what a "pediment" was on said houses
*passing through the smell of fabric softener coming from silver vents
*mossy tree trunks and mossy stone walls (a minor but lovely side effect of the flooding rains)
*few (but gorgeous) blossoms on the trees; millions of tiny green buds that promise blossoms
*sitting on a bench to pray, feeling the world reduce down to my prayer, birdsong, and a breeze that seemed to split at my nose and travel deliberately over both my ears, like a whisper

Another Sort of Daughter

2010-03-30T14:02:00.000-04:00

As I've mentioned, just before Sam and I married, depression really sunk me, made me suspicious of everything good, easily broken, easily frightened, hard to reach. I continue to feel like I’m surfacing, but disappearing from planet earth for several years makes it hard to get to know anyone, to establish connection. I think my in-laws have thought Sam married an alien. He sort of did.

They visited recently, and one night we went out for Italian. On the way home, rounding the glitter of Boston’s night skyline, my mother-in-law and I shared the backseat, our husbands sitting in the front. My seat belt hadn’t been working, and we finally figured out I could plug the silver clasp into the buckle near her, meant for the middle, which made me sort of lean over to her side of the car. In the back while Sam steered us over a bridge, we felt like friends, like I finally wasn’t too submerged in my own skin to have a conversation. Mint tea on my breath, an after- dinner cappuccino on hers, I think I told her about old boyfriends and how I always forget family birthdays. But it doesn't matter what we were talking about just then. It matters that she leaned over and put her hand on my knee, and we giggled. I felt, finally, like a daughter-in-law, like another sort of daughter, like I wasn’t trying to speak lines I didn’t know yet, like I belonged in that car.

Well, Wow.

2010-03-16T14:17:00.000-04:00

After three full days of outrageous, pummeling, constant rain, the sun is out today. It's nearly 60 degrees, which feels nothing short of a miracle.

So after eating my lunch, I decided to walk down to Copley square to drop off some film. I listened to my iPod, watched all of the people taking pictures and eating their lunches and wearing pretty shoes, and felt so happy I thought I'd burst. I was literally just grinning (as in last post) like a fool, giggling occasionally for no reason at all except that life, at the moment, is good.

Reasons to rejoice:

a. Sam's parents are in town, and they're just lovely people. They take us to dinner and tell me stories about Sam as a wee boy.

b. After over a month of searching, I am the swooning owner of a new work bag. See below. I got it on etsy, and probably paid too much, but what else can one do when they see it and gasp and know deep in their heart that they are beholding the bag of their soul? See the pretty insides? Sometimes, as I walk, I slip my hand in the bag and touch the lining, and feel happy knowing it is beautiful.

c. We're looking to buy. Like, a house. Or condo. Or something. I've been sneaking glances at real estate sites all day, dreaming of a new life in rooms with taupe walls.

d. I'm drinking mint tea.

Spilly Heart

2010-03-04T09:22:00.000-05:00

For the last day or so, I've been a little spilly. It's felt like something was sloshing around in my heart. What I mean is: I've been sad. But that silly sort of sad, where nothing is wrong, you just feel like crying at everything. (Not pregnant--honest.)

Example: listening to The Writer's Almanac podcast this morning while walking to the T, Garrison Keillor was describing Ira Glass' career, and this made me feel like weeping. Why? He followed his dream? Many doubted the success of This American Life, and now the world agrees it a was a spot-on, brilliant idea? No good reason, see?

So I was crossing the Whole Foods parking lot, getting choked up every ten seconds, when this suddenly seemed very funny, this weepy self. And then, walking down Washington Street, passing bus stops and dogs out on their walks, stray snowflakes hitting my lips and chin, I couldn't stop laughing. I was just giggling out loud, grinning. Everything seemed funny, especially my own self. It was like someone flipped the funny switch. I wish I knew where that switch was ... I don't mind that sort of mood transition at all.

Fast as Molasses

2010-03-03T09:35:00.000-05:00

(photo source: here)

Last night, at a lecture my friend gave on lesser-known Boston history, I learned about molasses. Apparently, in 1919, there was what is known as The Great Molasses Flood of 1919. Yes, I said flood.

Apparently, over 2.5 million gallons of molasses came rushing through Boston in a tidal wave, which measured at a height of 50 feet (!) and a speed of 35 miles per hour. People died, buildings were pushed off their foundations, a train was pushed off its track.

Can you imagine this? I've been trying to imagine it ever since I heard the story.

Why did they have so much molasses, you ask? Apparently, it was a big trade item for Boston. They would sell it, and people elsewhere would turn it into ethyl alcohol and make explosives out of it. So weird.

Anyway, they had this giant silo-type thing in the North End, and it was pretty terribly made. Instead of fixing it, the company just painted it molasses-color so you wouldn't see it leak. (Brilliant!) But leak it did.

It wasn't like, yummy molasses. But poor kids used to come every day and let some drip drip drip into wee cups. When the silo-thing exploded (remember, explosives?), those little kids were some of the casualties. Poor kids.

Also, poor Bostonians who had to clean up. In some places it was 3 feet deep. It was hard for me to even clean up the few drops that spilled in my pantry. Some people say that on hot days, the city streets still bleed molasses.

Ohhh, Sam

2010-02-28T20:03:00.000-05:00

Tonight we had a visit from our very sincere home teacher (a man from church assigned to visit once a month and make sure we're doing okay, ask if we need anything, etc). He sat and chatted, managed to work in a message on prayer, and then asked: "Is there anything I can do to serve you guys?"

Sam looked at him, looked down at his feet as if deep in thought, and then said, deadpan:

"Well, I could really use a pedicure."

Good Eats, Good Tunes

2010-02-22T13:33:00.000-05:00

Confession: Internet, I am no longer vegan.

Gasp.

I know. You are shocked, dismayed; you care. Or not.

I care, anyway. I've been sheepish about admitting it to my blog, since I was so, all, like, "I'm VEGAN." But whatever. I loved veganing; I feel like some day I'll go back to it, but for now I'm concentrating on other elements of my nutritional life.

I still make a lot of veganish recipes, like the following:

Raw Cinnamon Raisin Toast. I heard about it on one of my favorite foodie blogs, Heather Eats Almond Butter.

Technically, the recipe calls for a dehydrator, but I just put my oven on 170 (lowest setting) and kept the door propped open for a couple hours. I failed to buy raisins, and I couldn't really taste the cinnamon, so it's turned into just regular old bread. Well, to the extent that this can be called bread ... But it's working like bread. Today, for lunch, I brought an enormous salad, and made little open face sandwiches with a few squares of it. So so tasty.

I felt all cook-y (kooky?) over the weekend and made the bread substance, Dreena Burton's Quinoa Chickpea Confetti Casserole (which has converted me to quinoa--a miracle), vegan ice cream with coconut milk and date sweetener, and and something else. I can't recall. But it was GOOD, whatever it was. I haven't felt that interested in cooking in awhile. But I feel, lately, like I'm coming back to life, like I'm comfortable taking up space in my life, doing stuff, talking to people, taking walks, writing, reading, and, as mentioned, making healthy stuff.

Let me know if you try the bread. It's sort of a fun adventure, even if you're not trying to be raw or vegan or anything but your own self.

A Larger Becoming

2010-02-18T06:43:00.000-05:00

Since this new job involves reading all day (I mean, literally, all day. Finding stuff to put in anthologies. It's not a bad life, I tell you.), I've been posting things on the other blog that catch my eye/heart. But somehow, this belongs here. Maybe because of subject matter.

Anyway, my dad loves this book, Eternal Man, by Truman G Madsen, and he got me reading it. It's short, but fathoms deep, and I feel like I'll have to read it seven more times to "get it." But this part, I think I get. On freedom and commitment:

"We talk as if freedom consisted in having the greatest variety of options and that a 'once-and-for-all' decision coerces our initiative. But is freedom increased by every new flavor of ice cream?

"Actually, it is only when we rise above trivial options and ask ourselves in the depths, 'What do I want to be?' that we emerge from the bondage of a flitting and faceless mode of life. The most majestic wonder of our freedom is that we can make all-time binding decisions, eternal covenants. Once made, once 'renewed and confirmed,' they free us from the life-wasting torment of 'bringing it all up' over and over. The decisions, as it were, reverberate through the whole galaxy. And even the lesser roles of life, its distractions and setbacks, take on color and creativity as instruments of the larger 'becoming.'"

A "flitting and faceless mode of life" is pretty much what I'm feeling over here. Want so badly to have a "larger becoming." Working on it. Seriously working on it.

Animals

2010-02-12T09:13:00.000-05:00

Don't know if I can capture this experience, but I feel compelled to try.

A few weeks ago, when I first started taking the train, I told Sam that watching people wasn't that interesting, because in Boston everyone's a student or young professional, and they pretty much all look the same.

I've felt guilty ever since I said that.

I knew it meant a piece of me was buried. It didn't mean they weren't interesting, it meant I couldn't see them, and that made me and my writerly self feel very sad.

So last night, on the train, I was listening to a podcast (RadioLab's latest: Animal Minds), and somehow, since my ears were occupied and not my eyesight, I could see how incredible everyone was. It was a crowded train, and I was up higher than about a dozen people, and there were these three kids, three young men (student ages)--and this is the part where I'll fail to describe what happened--they had eyes. I mean, all three of them had these insanely unique sets of eyes, and I was just stunned.

When I'm depressed, or even sad or run down for a length of time, I don't look up much. I don't make eye contact with anyone but Sam. This makes it shocking when I actually look at people again, actually see them. And I think that's what's happening: I'm slowly, very very slowly, feeling like myself again. It's incredible.

This morning, this seeing thing happened again, only more intense. I was still listening to the podcast, and the last story was about a National Geographic photographer who was trying to get pictures of this enormous female seal in the arctic. He was underwater, and she put his whole head and camera in her mouth, then decided she liked him, and started trying to feed him penguins. She brought the penguin, dropped it in front of him, and when he didn't eat it, she brought him another. This went on for four days. She brought him live penguins, who darted off immediately, and dead penguins, which she placed on top of his camera, and he said he fell in love with this seal. He couldn't sleep at night, he was so in love with her.

And this is another part where I'm going to fail to explain, but I suddenly had this flash of dinner last night, or before dinner, when I brought Sam this big plate of veggies to eat while I finished and while he worked on his computer. I did this even though he was cranky, and even though I was pouty that he was cranky, and at the time I felt like sort of a martyr: Here, Man, I bring you food even if you're not so nice.

But this morning, this morning, listening to this podcast, remembering the plate of veggies, I teared up. I was so humbled, so aware of my role as animal, feeding someone I care about, doing sort of like the seal. And suddenly, again, I could see everyone, and this time, all of us were beautiful, even me, because I was a part of it. A woman with a lip stud tugged on a brown glove with her teeth. A man with a square jaw turned the page of an article. The woman in front of me in a red coat and messy ponytail rested her head on the cold window. And I prayed. Thanks, I said.

In Which I Include An Email I Sent to Sam

2010-02-09T09:25:00.000-05:00

Don't know what to say about my days, now. I get up, get ready, walk to the train. Sometimes I get a seat, and then I read. Sometimes I don't get a seat, and then I despair and listen to my ipod. I'm starting to get aggressive about seat-getting, well, passive aggressive at least.

Then I work. And I like it, but it's work, and I doubt it's interesting to anyone not working there. I come home on the train, reading some more. I walk up the wee hill to our apartment, and discover I've missed Sam so much that I nearly follow him around, telling him how much I like him. (You'd think this would be charming, but my suspicion is that it gets old.)

We eat dinner (We've just developed a clever system that is FINALLY helping us not go out to eat every 35 seconds. The system goes like this: Sam's in charge two days out of the week. It's brilliant.)

I conduct my elaborate routine so I don't have to do much the next morning to get myself out the door: get breakfast ready, pack lunch, get out vitamins and clothes and pack my bag.

And then I sleep. Unless I have insomnia, in which case I read some more, and wake Sam up to ask him how one sleeps because I can't remember how.

And then I do it again. That's it, folks. That's the life. That, and a lot of quick emails to Sam, although I try not to write so many. Here's one, anyway, which I sent this morning:

subject line: am reading wolfy again.

a room of one's own. finally. don't know why it took me 27 years to read this. i think i thought i had. anyway, i hadn't, and it's freaking brilliant.

she even wrote something about meatsock*: "The tailless cat, though some are said to exist in the Isle of Man, is rarer than one thinks. It is a queer animal, quaint rather than beautiful. It is strange what a difference a tail makes ...."

anyway, was stifling giggles of joy all the way down here on the train.

thanks for getting it for me**.

brought a few pictures: our wee engagement photo in a silver frame; the one of you as a lad, typing; the exploded shed, and the frugal card*** you gave me. now i feel like i belong here, like i'm safe.

*meatsock: our kitty
**he brought a used copy back from new york when we were still pretending not to be in love.
***frugal card: sam got me a greeting card with a lady on the front, smirking. it reads: "frugal is such an ugly word." i like it. a lot.

Back in the Public

2010-01-31T21:26:00.000-05:00

Hello, friends. I've unprivatized, which I think will help me feel more like posting. I've been, as you've seen, relatively postless lately. Don't know what the deal is. I haven't really been commenting on ya'll's blogs either, but I'm working on that. Since it's been hovering around 6 degrees (!) lately in Boston, I've been eating my lunch at my desk and bopping around the Internet for an hour. It's pleasant, but I really can't wait until I can bring my lunch over to the Public Garden and watch the swan boats.

Yes, I am already dreaming of spring, longing for it with all my heart, remembering what it feels like to have a sunny, lovely day. I can just barely recall. I can recall just enough to miss it viscerally.

Anyway, pneumonia's mostly left me, although a cough lingers, and this afternoon, when I meant to just read for a moment, a nap took me its clutches and I slept for two hours. Whoops. I'm exhausted still, is what I'm saying.

But other than that, things are good. Sam sold a story for 400 bucks to The Threepenny Review, so that was a highlight of the week. And I'm still just completely smitten with this job. Head over heels for it. Loving it. I'm sure the honeymoon phase will end at some point, but for now, wow. I didn't know I could enjoy work so much. I even like the schedule, as it forces me to make routines and stick to them--something I always struggled with when teaching.

I've even begun to think that what happened to me last semester--all of that ugliness--could have been the best scenario, divine intervention. I would have never thought of trying for a job like this, but it feels like what I've always wanted to do.

And so I keep thinking about faith, how I wish I had more of it, and wondering if I had had more of it, if I would have freaked out less then. I mean, I knew sort of intellectually that God would take care of me, because He's good at it and always has, but I didn't really BELIEVE He could make it better, make me look back on all that horribleness and be grateful for it. How does He do that? And, more importantly, why can't I remember He will? Sigh. I continue to work on it. I long for a faith that I can climb into a like a sailboat.

Annnnndddd ...

2010-01-24T20:48:00.000-05:00

the raging cold turned into pneumonia.

Sigh.

It was a nice two days working, anyway. It was terrifying to call in sick on day three.

Hopefully, one more day and home and I'll be ready to get back in there.

On the Morning of Day Two

2010-01-21T07:12:00.000-05:00

Day one of work was pretty wonderful. I mean, not anything too exciting yet, mostly filling out forms and such. But I was surprised by how much I loved sitting at my desk, writing emails to my editorial assistant, trying out my new lingo, etc.

When I came out of the building to go home, it was dark out, and I had wondered if that would bum me out, but I giggled a little, because the whole city was there in front of me, and it was incredibly beautiful,as Boston tends to be. The trees were lit up with little bright lights and all these young professionals were walking to the train and there was a beautiful window display of trendy home furnishings, and I felt like I was living the dream.

Okay, so then I fell when I was crossing the street. But even that was sort of cool because this kid (read--kid the age of my former students) stopped in front of me so that I wouldn't get hit by a car, and as humiliating as that was, what he did seemed so kind, and made me feel like we were in this thing together--this train taking, this working thing. And we'd all agreed to take care of each other.

Back to job. Overall, it just feels better there. As much as I loved teaching, I have a lot to say about why I suspect this corporate environment has advantages, why I think it might be smarter and certainly less petty, but I'll save that. For now, it just seems like a miracle that they want me to ask questions, even stupid ones, and they want me to be innovative and tell them candidly what I think. This seems unprecedented for my working life thus far.

Only troubles: I have a raging cold which I can't stay home and nurse, and I dreamed I was working all night, so it feels like I've had no time off. At one point during the night, I think I was just barely awake enough to hear myself emit this thin snore, and at that point in my dream, the job had morphed into a waitress/food prep sort of job, and my snores were very thin slices of bread, and someone was telling me I had to fold the slices up very thick so I could make the bread pudding.

And now I must be off. I hope Sam sings that song, "My baby takes the morning train ..." as he's been singing to me lately. I like that song.

P.S. This Just In

2009-12-23T18:34:00.000-05:00

I got the fancy, downtown publishing job.

Thank heavens. Literally.

A Two-Year-Old Deja Wishes You Well

2009-12-23T11:23:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas, all. Sam and I are in Tucson with the sunshine (!) and his sweet family. Last year I was suspicious of cacti with christmas lights on them. This year, I love them.

And this little girl loves you. I'm the cute, small, flirting one.
Merry day!

(sorry for small image. no idea why that's so. click on it?)

Sigh

2009-12-09T19:50:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting in an empty classroom. It was the last session of my evening class and my students' final exams are in a stack in front of me.

Also in front of me is a Christmas card from a sweet student. Inside she said I was a good teacher, a helpful teacher. She thanked me.

And maybe she does this for every teacher. Maybe she's just a nice kid. But it's making me weep. I have three days left of teaching and I'm weeping about it.

I want to leave the school with all my heart. It's the right thing to do. It's a toxic, insane department.

But I'll miss my students. I'll miss teaching. I'll miss.

How to Drink a Cookie

2009-12-08T21:24:00.000-05:00

In regards to my long-standing quest to not eat a cookie, I submit the following successful, harmless substitution:

I'm back to not eating sugar. I stopped eating treats of my own awhile ago, but I'd been having bites of Sam's sweet treats here and there, thinking bite-shmite, but I'm over that. Last night, at Cheesecake Factory, Sam got a slice of, well, cheesecake. And I took not a bite. Not. A. Bite. And you know? I didn't even want to. I could clearly remember the way it coats the mouth, how it churns in my stomach most uncomfortably, how my head hurts instantly from the sugar.

What have I had instead? Herb tea (like the sort above, or mint, which is my handsdown favorite) makes a remarkably excellent substitution for sweets; baked apples with cinammon and a little stevia; chocolate "milkshakes" made from almond milk, cacao powder, a bit of cashew butter, frozen banana, and stevia (Sam loves the milkshakes, too. They're goooood.), etc. No splenda. No sir. I'll do stevia, agave, date sugar, honey and maple syrup on occasion.

Oh! Oh! While we're talking food, my new favorite breakfast is as follows: oatmeal or steel cut oats cooked in the rice cooker with half almond milk/half water, a cut-up apple, a load of cinammon, and a touch of stevia. The apple gets all cooked and lovely. I top it with some almond butter for protein. If there's some left over, I put the rice cooker in the fridge and eat it cold as a snack when I come home from work. And, it's good. Oh it's good.