Managing Miracles

When I was a little girl, my father bought a device with which to play music in our home.  It was about three-and-a-half feet tall and six feet long.  It had two heavy lids that you had to lift up in order to access the equipment, and then hope that the hinge caught and the wooden lid wouldn't crash back down on your head.  It held.a turntable for records, a stereo radio, and an eight-track player. 

This was a major piece of furniture.

On my last birthday, my son sent me a package.  I opened it to find a little clear box.  Inside the small box was a device the size of a postage stamp.  

I stared at it, not believing my eyes.  It looked like an absolute miracle.

I opened the box and turned the device over in my hands.  There was a little card with instructions for a beetle to read.  

I put everything back in the box and placed the box on my dresser.  I knew my son would be in town in a couple of weeks and could help me with this new bit of technology.

The other day, I brought it to him so he could help me with my new device for playing music.  He got it out of the box and explained things to me.  With a bit of a laugh on his face, he showed me there was an instruction booklet.  On one side, it said, "Start here."  I looked from that back up to his face.  His face, I can read.  His voice, I get. His statements, I trust.

He took me over to my computer to help me set things up.  I listened to him talk about iTune accounts and other things I had no experience in until I felt like I was in the middle of a dark sea without a paddle--that I knew how to use, anyway.

"I've gotten too old for this world," I mumbled.

"No, you haven't," he said.  "Just don't be afraid of it."  He continued, "There are people your age who don't even know how to open an icon on the computer, and there are people your age who know more about computers than I do."  I was glad he placed me somewhere in the middle.

It was still a little hard to believe that this postage stamp could play two days' worth of music, or that I would ever feel I needed it.

I see people at the gym--and at work, for that matter--with ear buds glued in, and I respect that.  I know there must be some allure, but I'd never felt the need to have music running through my head constantly. When I work out, I make up games in my mind or calculate how long the workout will take or how many calories I can burn in the time I have.  I listen to classical music in the car, because traffic is boring.  More boring that life.  But, the rest of the time, I actually prefer being tuned in to the world around me, aware of other people, or enjoying silence.

But I appreciated the gift, and the time my son spent helping me set it up.  I fastened my iPod to my gym shirt and turned it on.  The glorious voice of Susan Boyle filled my ears.  Instantly, I was transported to a world where a middle-aged, frumpy nobody could come out of obscurity in a triumph of polished greatness.  I listened to her all through my workout and switched the iPod to my business jacket after my shower, then listened to her for a good part of the day at work.

Not only did I feel pretty darn with-it, I enjoyed it.  I may be hooked.

And I noticed some things.  It did make exercising less boring.  It engaged my emotional system into my workout along with my respiratory and circulatory systems so that I believe I worked a little harder and my workout was more effective.  It was fun to find that turning off the car and standing up from my desk didn't turn off the music.

And I can see how it could come in handy to be in my own head when someone is in a bad mood or I'm trying to concentrate amid noise.  I could also be more serene but less helpful during piano practicing.

I also noticed that turning my hearing of the world off by diverting it into my own private world of music was both freeing and isolating.  As an introvert, it was a bit of a relief to be more caught up in my own head than usual and excused from tracking other people's doings, needs, assertions, and attitudes.  It was easier for me to ignore people.  I realized then that going around with an iPod could become very comfortable for me, in a way that would make me uncomfortable with myself.  I could see how much effort I have been making in the last few years to be aware of and involved with the people around me.  I could easily lose that ground I've gained.

I also noticed that, at home, I am more cued in by sound than I would have thought.  Wearing my iPod, I couldn't as easily track when the dryer stopped, whether the washing machine sounded right, who was fighting with whom and how to judge that, who was being waaaaay too quiet.

But I love it!  So, as it should be for all owned technology, I'll enjoy and manage my use of this miraculous metal postage stamp at my discretion.

The "Love Thy Neighbor" Test

In a crisis, we often feel most alone.

I remember once going to a women's conference at my church and feeling utterly alone in a congregation of a thousand women.  I was miserably engulfed in a fiery personal trial.  I thought to myself, "If I told this woman next to me what I am dealing with, she would fall over in a dead faint."

I was new there and didn't know anyone.  I have since come to know this woman as a lovely person who would probably have listened compassionately, and maybe even been helpful and not judged me like I thought she would.

But that's not the only time I have ever felt I was completely alone in a problem no one else seemed to ever have.

Honestly, I think it's beautiful that, while life's problems are many and varied--and, thank goodness, we don't all have to have them all--our own trials can give us empathy for someone else's.

I remember reading a news article years ago about a mother whose twelve-year-old son drove off in the family car with her leaning in the window trying unsuccessfully to stop him.  After he was hauled off into the bowels of the juvenile court system, her doorbell rang.  The police were looking for her husband, who was wanted for rape.

I have honestly, and thankfully, never had either of these problems.  But I knew enough to realize that this must have been for her a really bad day.

The trick is knowing what to do about it.

Because, we know how it feels to have a crisis.  We may not have had the same kind of problems, but we've been in that place of isolation.  We would take that away for our friend in trial, if we only knew how.

"Let me know if there is anything I can do," we say.  And, we almost always really mean it. 

We've all heard and said that line so many times, though, that it has almost become an idiom, like "How are you?"  To which the polite answer has become--true or not--"Fine."

We know that only bores go on and on about their health when asked a passing pleasantry.  And we know that our neighbors really don't want to clean the cat box or whatever it is that would really help us.  On the other side, we know that we really would want to help the person out if they would just tell us something specific to do so that we don't guess, and guess wrong.

We don't want to guess wrong.  We don't want to get into people's personal space.  We don't want to pry, intrude, offend.  Especially when they are already having a hard time.  So, we often just say that and wait and see.

And, usually, nothing comes of it.

But what if that lady in your ward who had just had a baby called you back after you offered to help in "any way" and said, "Could you please buy me a nursing bra and some breast pads?"

This actually happened--not to me, but to a friend, and it got us talking.

I think there are saints in the world (some of my nieces and nieces-in-law come to mind) who would actually not miss a beat but ask, "What size?" and go and do it without another thought.

I think some of us would think it was a little weird.

And I think the majority of us would think it was a little weird, bounce it off of someone else to see what they think, and then go and do it, anyway, because, deep down, we really did mean our offer and really do want to help.

I, an amateur student of human nature, wanted to understand this thoroughly.  Was there a special relationship there?  I could possibly see asking a mother, sister, or very close friend for a favor such as this.  No, no special relationship--just a neighbor, someone else attending the same church.

Next, I thought, maybe she's very young?  Does she not have a mother?  She was a new mother in her late teens, but did live with her own mother.  So, puzzling again.

Maybe she's from another culture, where things are done and understood differently? 

Or, maybe they are poor?  Maybe she didn't want to burden her mother with another expense related to the baby?  Maybe her mother doesn't see these as necessities?

My mind was already spinning out a scenario, something I could possibly write into a story later.  But, that's just me.

And, then there's the darker side of my imagination.  Is she "off" in other ways?  Does her family usually have trouble with boundaries?  And, the judgment.  (She should have at least offered you her bra size and not made you ask.)

I tried to imagine myself doing such a thing, and why I would.  I could imagine feeling isolated in a crisis and thinking in a desperate moment, "People always say they will help, but they never do," and wanting to put it to the test, although I doubted I would go that far with a mere acquaintance, no matter how warmly toward her I felt.

"Maybe there's no one else she feels close to?" I asked.  "Maybe because you are so warm and friendly, she feels you are a role model, or someone who would help?  Clearly, she took your offer to help seriously."

"When I offer my help, I am sincere," my friend said.  "But it just took me aback."

"Yes," I agreed.  "I can see that."  I wanted to understand it from her point of view, too.  How did she see this?  Did she think the girl was out of line, or that the situation was hilarious, or that we really should be more willing to help without judging, so what's wrong with our society?  We both could see it as a little of all of the above.

Which is probably both good and bad.

And left both of us wondering: how should it be in a perfect world?  In a Zion society, wouldn't we consider everyone our sister?  Wouldn't we see all of our goods and means as being in common for the common good?  Wouldn't we refrain completely from judging?  We would go and get ourselves these things if we needed them and had the means, so why should it be any different to go and get them for someone else in need?

In a perfect world, wouldn't we love our neighbor as ourselves?

Life Going on Without Me

I woke from a dream that my mother was in.  My mother is in most of my dreams.  She is not usually the main character, and often isn't really doing or saying much of anything.  She is just there, in my life, in my dreams.  I find this comforting.

Anyway, in this dream, I was taking instruction from someone on a project, and being judged for it, too.  I was listening to what the person was telling me about my effort, so I could get it right.

As happens so often with dreams, very little of it remained in my mind once I woke up.  The details melted away almost immediately like frost under the spell of a strong defroster.  I don't remember what the project was, nor the object(s) I had made, nor who was talking to me, nor what they said.

I remember that as I woke, it dawned on me slowly that I had had this dream during an unscheduled nap, and that it really wasn't a time that I was usually in bed.  The dim light behind my bedroom windows wasn't the hint of dawn (which would be bad, actually, since dawn comes after seven at this time of year), but the lingering rays of twilight.

And, with that thought, came an urgency, a longing deep in me, to right what seemed upside down.

I wasn't supposed to be in bed, asleep.

As I came back to life from my dream, my senses returned like thunder.  Music was playing and someone was singing along to it.  I had gone to bed with my velvet dress and some pajama bottoms and thick socks I'd put on while typing in the unheated library on.  Down in the cores of my legs, I was hot as a yule log.  My thirst was almost unbearable.

I felt frozen, removed from my life, but, as it came rushing back, I knew I had to unthaw, uncover, get up, take it on.

I knew.  While I am in here sleeping, my life is going on out there--without me.

My children and husband were busy mixing, baking, and decorating a multitude of Christmas cookies.  My baby was alone in his room, singing up a storm of all his favorite carols.  There was the short calling out of a son who I knew was creating the most intricate snowflakes I've ever seen.

I had the loneliest sense of being missing.

Yes, they could actually get along without me, while I slept through this evening.  Yes, I could "sleep" through their lives, focusing on my own projects and ideas and not be there for theirs.

But I knew that that was missing the whole point.

The stress of this Christmas has given me a few times a hope that it would all soon be over.  But that is so much the wrong way to feel.

I threw back the covers and staggered into the kitchen.  Noise, light, work, creativity, and love were bursting out all around me.  I took a glass and drank deeply, first from a glass, then from life.

Thanks, Mom, for hinting a judgment on my efforts and projects, and getting me up to make sure I don't miss the boat on the most important one.  Just being there, especially at Christmas time, for my own.

The Hardest Work of Marriage

Last week, when we were buying our Christmas tree, I said some very wise words to an amazed Christmas tree salesman: "Sometimes," I reminded him, "the hardest work of marriage is keeping your mouth shut."

I say I had "reminded" him, not "told" him, because he readily agreed.  So he must have discovered this, somewhere along the way, as we all do, for himself.

I frequently need the reminder too.

My husband, Paul, had brought the inside part of our Christmas tree stand with him to the tree shopping, and the salesman and I had waited more or less patiently while Paul had screwed the three screws in tighter and tighter onto the skinny tree trunk.

I knew why Paul had brought it.  Last year, when we had brought home the tree we had picked out, the trunk had been too thick to fit into our tree stand, and Paul had had to whittle it down all around.  He didn't want to get stuck doing that again, and I couldn't blame him.

This year, having given everything we owned to a nice used car salesman the week before, we opted for a bargain tree with a skinny trunk.  There was no problem of it fitting into the stand.  The question was whether the long screws would reach the tree in order to help it stand up.

They finally did, and Paul set the tree aside while we went in to pay for it. 

"Well, it won't be hard to tell which tree is yours!" the salesman had quipped.

Twice.

Then, we'd waited in the snow while Paul went back to the new used van and figured out how he wanted to put the tree in and how the seats of the strange-to-us vehicle folded down.

That's when the stroke of wisdom had struck, and I had shared.

So, a couple of hours ago, I was cozily asleep in bed.  My warm bedclothes were in the washer, so I was lying on a heating pad, which had made the bed so toasty that I was really quite sound asleep when Paul got home from work.  That was good, I thought, because I really had planned to do a full ten miles tomorrow morning.  I am no fast runner, so, for me, that takes time.  Over two hours.

And, I'm not at my studly best, having skipped last week's run altogether because I'd been sick.  So, I'd planned to run even slower.  And the full ten miles seemed completely necessary, given the amount of sugar I have been wading through all this week.

But!  I'd gotten to bed nice and early, so everything was humming along magnificently for my plans.

Until, that is, Paul ran out of gas.

It seems that our new used van has an unreliable gas meter.  Two vans ago, we'd had a similar problem, and we'd learned to use our trip odometer to tell us when to gas up.

This is the second time this week that Paul has run out of gas in our "new" van.  The first time, the bad luck had struck right as he was pulling into the driveway.

Which seems lucky, actually.  Except that the vehicle couldn't get up over the dip at the far end of the driveway and was hanging out into the street.  And that it was snowing hard.

A friend came to help us push the van to safety, and also gave Paul a ride to fill his gas can.  But that only gave the van enough gas to turn on and not to move, because of the slope.  So Paul had had to go fill up two more gas cans that night.

He'd calculated that gave us 7.5 gallons to use this week until pay day.  Which would have been fine, except that the nifty "gas used" calculator in the new van is apparently not in such nifty shape.  At five point four gallons used, he ran out again.  On the freeway.

So, tonight when Paul came into the bedroom, an apology already on his lips for waking me, I dreamily thought he was just saying goodnight.  But it was more than that.  He wanted me to get up.  He wanted me to go with him on a ride.  He wanted me to re-ride a significant portion of the freeway with him, then drive the car home.  Getting dressed, he said, was optional.

As I was sure that one of us could lose life out there on that dark freeway shoulder, it wasn't optional to me.  I got dressed.

And I worked very, very hard to keep my mouth shut.

All my groggy, not-at-my-best self could think about was how I had NOT wakened him two days ago when my car door had been frozen and would not shut after I had managed to yank it open.  It had been too dark in the driveway to see what to do.  I had had mercy on his sleep and had driven to the gym, holding the door shut with my left arm while driving with my right.  Which made signaling for turns--and even more so for actually turning--very interesting.  But I had not wakened Paul, and had gotten a nice man at the gym named Luis to help me.

In my stupor as I fumbled to get dressed when certain important items of my wardrobe were sitting in the washer, I wondered--where was Luis now?

I knew I was not at my best.  I knew that it wasn't really Paul's fault that this had happened.  I knew that somewhere deep, deep inside me, past the overwhelming fatigue I battled, I like that he considers me the friend to turn to.  So, I decided I would NOT mention that I had not wakened him when it had been my turn to battle a car.  It seemed no good would come of it.

And I remembered my words to the tree salesman.  And I wondered how they could have been so simple to say then and so hard to live by now.

So, when Paul came back in and said something to me, I struggled.  But I did not tell him that I had not wakened HIM.  What I said was, "You do realize that I'm under the influence of a sleeping pill."

Which was really not quite as bad, I think.

He said he did, but, clearly, he still expected me to drive.

On the freeway.

In the dark.

From the shoulder into traffic.

Things that trigger my anxiety.

I zipped up my jeans.

I knew that he would fill all three gas cans again.  I knew he would do that to make sure the new van would work and that he knew he probably needed to do it from experience.  I knew that I should not be annoyed by that.  But, sitting there in the car with my ankles freezing between my jeans and loafers, waiting for him to fill three cans, I did feel annoyed.

But I knew that I was not at my best and that no good would come of being childish, so I kept my mouth shut.

I was annoyed that, while I had felt fine when I was going to bed, I had woken up with a raging sore throat.

I was annoyed when he pulled out of the gas station in front of someone and we heard a gas can turn over.  I said, "It might leak.  Pull over."

"I'm in front of a car," he said.

"When you can," I said patiently.

I was annoyed when he got out to right the can and sighed heavily getting back in, as though my request had been completely ridiculous and incredibly bothersome.  I thought of asking if I had put him to more work hopping out of the car and checking the can in the trunk than he had put me to getting me out of my slumber to rescue the van on the freeway.

But I kept quiet.

That was good.

Because a moment later, I asked, "Did it leak?"

And he said, "A little."

And I realized that my interpretation of his sighing had been wrong.

"How will we clean that up?" I asked, trying not to picture my car going up in flames any time in the, say, next ten years.

"I'm thinking about that," he said.

That's when I realized that he was working at doing his best, too, and doing pretty well.

Neither of us wanted this to be happening.  In the stress of the moment, I could easily imagine petty words igniting a horrible fight. In the dark, in speeding traffic, on the freeway.

So I kept quiet.  And so did he.

He parked on the shoulder behind the blinking van.  I waited, fastened into the passenger seat, as though being on that side of the car would keep me a lot safer in the event of a crash than being on the other side of the car.

I waited while he screwed the funnel onto one, two, then three gas cans and poured them into the gas tank of the van in front of me.  I counted six semi-trucks that barreled past us during those minutes, along with a lot of other traffic.  I told myself not to have bad thoughts, because we were in trouble and might possibly need divine intervention.  But bad thoughts come more naturally to me than does divine intervention, so I struggled.

That's when my car made a beep.  I looked at the display.  "Low fuel," it read.  On my car.  I started to imagine that I would run out of gas while we were still on the freeway.  Paul had left my car running.  I thought of turning it off, but then I imagined it bursting into flame from the gas leak in the trunk when I started the ignition again.

I reached over and removed the van key from his set of keys dangling in the ignition.  I unbuckled and slid over into the driver's seat.  I quickly buckled back up again, and slid the seat forward into its rightful position.  (My legs are shorter than his are.)  I waited until he passed me, taking all the cans back to the trunk, then handed him the key.  I told him why, but the roar of traffic made me have to say, then scream it, repeatedly.

I prayed that we could get out of there safely. I was sure that the traffic would come on too quickly, that there wouldn't be enough room to safely see what all was coming around the bend.  But, very soon, the traffic cleared completely, and Paul moved out onto the road.  I did, too.

And then, everything suddenly seemed so much easier.  We drove home and I thought about how often we know the right answers--can even articulate them to other people, but don't trust them enough to use them in our own lives.

And I was glad that, in my compromised state, I had been able to use them, this time.

What to Wear?

When my children go to get dressed in the morning, it takes them one second to decide what to wear.

I am not exaggerating.

All the child does is pull out her/his designated "outfit drawer" and choose the top left outfit.

On the weekend, I folded the shirt and underwear for that day inside the pants or skirt, and I stacked them up--Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, then Thursday, Friday, Saturday next to that.

I do this for a few reasons.  One, I like choosing what my children wear.  It helps me feel involved in their lives.  I am often not there in the mornings when they are getting dressed, so it is a major way that I can help ahead of time, or afar, depending on how you want to look at it. It's part of how I take care of them.

I've been doing this for years.  I am glad my husband has not been stuck with the job of trying to appropriately dress five small children on a hectic school morning.  I am glad my children's clothes match, and that they are appropriate to the season.  I am glad they they don't have to scrounge for missing jeans on a chaotic morning or panic over clean socks.

No laundry issues here.

I have their Sunday clothes on rotation, too, in their closets.  This separates their Sunday, go-to-church clothes from their everyday play and school clothes. For the most part, my children have completely different items of clothing for Sunday.

I like this, not only because I get to dress them up and they look sharp, but because it teaches them how to dress appropriately for different occasions.  My baby used to talk about his "Sunday shoes" and his "Monday shoes."  (Monday shoes served for all the other days of the week, too.)  Even at two, he knew there was a difference.

I admit, I do smile to myself when my daughters talk in scandalized tones about how they cannot wear their white shoes after Labor Day, or that Hermione wore RED to a wedding.

Some clothing rules that I adhere to may be a little outdated, but, honestly, I think there are good reasons for maintaining them.

There's an old German saying, "Clothes make the man."  It's true that we make judgments and assumptions about people based on what they are wearing.  And that people make them about us.  We can't escape this.  When we need help in a store, we look for a person with the red uniform shirt on.  To a large extent, we expect someone in charge to be dressed up.  We know two young, clean-cut men in white shirts walking together are likely missionaries.  We hope that the person in the clown suit is a clown.

I believe that we show respect or disrespect in what we wear.  When I have had to go to court, I have received letters telling me not to wear trashy clothes.  This is not necessary in my case.  I am dismayed to think that anyone would need to be told that.  I know the judge is there to judge, to the best of her or his ability, by the evidence and information s/he receives.  If you want to make a good impression, you wear nice clothes.

My children know that they have to take off their ties and tights when they get home from church so that they don't ruin them playing. They learn this symbolically from their infancy.  It's respectful to wear "Sunday best" to church. It's not a social gathering, or a political forum.  It's the house of the Lord, and we should show our utmost respect by wearing our nicest, most respectful shoes and clothes.  We are there to worship, after all.  I would be sad to see this decline into jeans and tee shirts.  I really would.

Of course, it's different if jeans and a tee shirt is the best thing someone has to wear or if someone cannot afford a different pair of shoes.  Everyone should be welcomed to worship and never made to feel bad about their clothes.  I am not suggesting we judge each other on how well we keep rules of attire, only that we strive to say with our dress what we actually mean to be saying, to the best of our ability.

When we dress up, we show that we know that other occasions--and the people involved in them--are important, such as weddings, funerals, recitals, and dinner parties.  Conversely, we show disrespect when we attend important events wearing dumpy clothes.

My dad used to put on a shirt and tie just to give us a priesthood blessing in the middle of the night.

I have heard that even spirits wear suits when they come on an official visit to someone's dreams.

I know that some parents would be aghast that I control my children's clothing to that extent.  I can see their point.  However, my children do participate in this.  If there is something they don't want to wear, we talk about it.  If they truly don't like the item, I remove it from the rotation and donate it or save it for the next child.  If they do like it, then I get them to agree to wear it in its turn.  This helps them develop some critical thinking skills, have a say, and also learn how to dress appropriately and use their things wisely.  We talk about feelings and reasons and tastes and rules and styles and practicalities.

I also know that some parents let their children choose what to wear to the point of not interfering at all.  If she chooses a swimsuit and flip-flops to wear into the snow, that's her prerogative.  If she wants to wear a red striped shirt with floral leggings, so be it.  I understand the point of letting children have some autonomy and respecting their authority over their own persons, but I also think it is important to teach them how to dress in order to show respect and be taken seriously.

Would these same parents let their children eat whatever they feel like eating?  Sugar pixie sticks, Coke, and potato chips all day long?  I wonder if they would say with a shrug, "She fed herself," or "That's what she wants to eat."  Maybe they would, but I think most parents try to teach their children how they should eat in order to be healthy.  Why not teach appropriate dress, too?

I worked with a woman a couple of years ago who insisted on dressing dumpy and wearing lots of jewelry in her face.  The only problem was, she was trying to get a job.  I offered her money for interview clothing.  She took the money, but continued to dress down while job searching.  It's not easy to have conversations like this, but I had to help her see how the two metal rods coming out of her nostrils made her look to potential employers.

"I saw a singer wearing these in 1988," she said, "and I've worn them ever since."

"Does he know that you've been doing this for him for 23 years?"

That only slowed her down for a second.  "All my friends dress like this," she said.  "This is how I'm comfortable."

I told her that I'm comfortable in my nightgown, but she might think I was kind of weird if I wore it to work.

Differences

I have a child involved in the girls' program in my church, and a child involved in the boys' program in my church.

The girls' program is headed by women; the boys' program is headed by men.

And that's all I'm saying.

Whenever the girls have an activity, I get an email about a week ahead of time.  It has a special format.  It outlines exactly what the activity is going to be, where, and when.  Even how long it should take and whether the girls should bring anything with them.

And the email announcement is pink.

When the boys have an activity. . .not so much.

The other day, my son told me that he had to go over to the church at 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday.

"What for?" I asked.  As if it were, you know, my business.

There was an activity.

"What?"

He didn't know, but he was supposed to meet there to go somewhere else.  All he knew was it was going to involve building farm animal pens or something.

I assumed that might be kind of far away, seeing as we live right smack dab in the biggest city in the state.

"Where are you going for that?"

He didn't know.  "It's to help someone with a special project."

"Who?"

He didn't know that, either.  "I think you'll get an email," he offered.

Saturday morning came. When I breezed in from my run, some twins had been sent to collect my son for this activity.

I still had not had an email.

I hurried through my shower and went over to the church with my son.  Walking into the building, I saw a lot of kids and some adults standing around.  Choir practice was happening, and I couldn't tell for sure who was who.  Besides, some of the men's identities were not so apparent to me from under their baseball caps and unshaven faces.

"Who's in charge of this activity?" I asked, somewhat brightly, I hoped.

They all kind of looked at each other.  I did not take that as a good sign.

"I'm sorry," I said.  "I just need a little more information than he's going I-don't-know-where to help I-don't-know-who with I-don't-know-what and I don't know what time I'll be home."

I was half-joking, but I sensed immediately that I had crossed a line.  It was very clear that I was not a cool, unshaven, capped man hanging out not being uptight about details.

"You got an email," one of the men said.

I had to differ with him.

He insisted that a man who wasn't there had texted everyone.

Except, apparently, me.

I was fast becoming less and less cool.

Even though I asked the question, I still left without much more detail.  I got the name of the kid they were helping, but everything else remained vague.  However, one of the men did say that he would be with my son at the activity from beginning to end.  And I was told that, yeah, he would probably be home before 2:00 when I needed him.

I decided that was enough BECAUSE--I knew that man's wife.  And I knew that if I called her if there were a problem, she would be helpful.

After my son was back home, I was amused to hear my daughter ask him about this new kid.  "We have a new boy in church?  How did I not know that?"

"I don't know."

"Well, what does he look like?"

"He's sort of taller than me and blond."  I could hear the shrug in his voice.

"How tall?"  She asked several questions about how tall and what his face looked like that my poor son was completely stymied about.

"I just can't believe there's a boy that I didn't see!" she mused.  She actually went on and on.  Her brother seemed completely taken aback to have a conversation with her about another of the boys, and to have no clue about why she would care what he looked like, and why his particular brand of blond or tallness would be any different from anyone else's.

Ah, boys and girls; girls and boys.  The differences never end.

It's not Pretty

Once before, I felt like I had walked into someone else's life.

I had left my apartment to go to a doctor's appointment, ended up in the hospital having a baby before going home, and by the time I went home, "home" was no longer that apartment, but a house we'd bought and had had a nightmare of a time trying to wrench from the prior owners.

Suddenly, I was living in a strange place where I could barely remember where the bedroom was and had (at first) no use for this extra room called a dining room.  On top of that, I was the full-time, no-one-to-hand-him-back-to mother of a real, live baby.

Which is exactly what I'd always wanted, but that didn't prevent it from feeling a little weird at first.

Now that I've said all that, my current situation does not seem all that life-altering.  Which is a relief.

But everything seems to have changed.

I've worked hard in the past few years to get everything in my life to fit into a tidy schedule where the laundry gets done, the gym gets gotten to, and bedtime is early.  I have so many responsibilities (several of them humans) that it really helps to have everything run like clockwork.

A couple of weeks ago, my assignment at work changed.  At the same time, my best friend--with whom I have worked side-by-side for over thirteen years--also changed jobs.  (I'm coping by pretending she's just on another maternity leave.)  And, on the same date, my husband's duties at work AND his schedule changed.

I miss my friend, but I think my husband's schedule change threw things off the most, because it also changed things at home.

By the end of that week, more had changed.

We were driving over the river and through the woods to my brother's house when my husband pointed out that the family van was making a bad sound.  You need to understand that with a family the size of mine, the van is as necessary as any other family member.

The sound got worse.

Before we got home, I convinced him to pull off of the freeway early and drive the rest of the way on side streets.  Yes!  He listened to and followed my driving instructions!  That's how bad the sound was!

That night, I woke up at 2:00 a.m. for what I thought would be a very brief trip out of dreamland.  The house felt cold.  I checked the thermostat.  My husband had turned it down.  That figured, because he had gotten really hot cooking and cooking and cooking and cooking.

When I nudged it back up, I really truly believed that would take care of the problem.

I really did.

A cold hour later, I realized the furnace had never turned on.  I spent the rest of the night shivering, curled up on a heating pad, worrying, and praying.  At one point, I whispered my husband's name into the air just to see if he was already awake.  He wasn't.  I didn't wake him.  No sense both of us not sleeping.

We had already borrowed from every resource we had to cover Christmas and some expenses.  More things than I could count were hanging on the next paycheck.  More things, I was sure, than there would be money to cover.

My mind reeled at what it would take to fix a furnace and a van.

I finally dozed off just long enough to have a nightmare.

Before dawn, I headed out to the gym.  When I got home, I informed my husband we had more problems than he thought.  Fortunately, he got the furnace going.  Relief blew through the house like a warm breeze, and I went back to worrying just about the van.

We drove it to our trusted family mechanic, who pronounced the terminal illness it was harboring.  Just as it would for a real family member, my mind immediately leaped to denial.  "Isn't there a CURE?" I asked desperately.

A few days later, he told us what the "cure" would cost.  It was almost as much as we paid for the van in the first place.

So, now my schedule has changed, too, to match my husband's. We have been learning how to be a one-car family.  This is working out okay for the most part, other than the time we all wanted to go somewhere.

When I was a child, we had some neighbors for a short time who had more children than sense, and whenever the family went to a movie, the kids who got to the car first were the only ones who could go.  Many times, we witnessed the tantrums of children on the sidewalk in front of the house while their little family car pulled away from the curb.

Those are the depths to which we have sunk.

Now, I'm worried about the toll this will take on the "good" car.  We're trying to coordinate things as best we can, but, some days, the car goes to the gym and back, to the schools and back, to both of our places of employment--at least once--then back the other way.  I simply cannot think now about what life would be like if something happened to it.

I usually find a way out of bad situations quickly.  Obtaining this van, in fact, was somewhat of a miracle.

For a long time, we had warnings that both of our vehicles at the time were on their last legs.  I had been driving my husband's car so he could have the van to take the kids to school in.  I remember the day I came home on my lunch hour to deliver the bad news personally.  I'd taken his car to an emissions and inspection place, and they'd handed me a list of ten things that would need to be fixed before that car would pass inspection.

Paul had bought this car brand new, before we met.  "I have good news and bad news," I told him.  "The good news is that you're about to become the owner of a better car."  Fortunately, we were about to receive our tax refund.  We cashed the whole thing and spent one Saturday going around to various dealerships to find a new used car.  We put all our cash down on it, then crossed our fingers that our old van would make it another year.

It made it only a few more months, and then one day, it couldn't make it up the ramp from the kids' school.  The transmission went out.  It literally would not go backward nor forward. We had to leave it there until a tow truck came.

We had not been able to save up much yet, certainly not enough for a van.  And it was, then, too, Christmas time.

"We're paying our tithing first," I told my husband, and he agreed.  We finished paying our tithing for the year in full, then took what we had left--about twenty percent of what we would usually need to buy a used van, to a state auction place.  One of our options there was a somewhat beat up van, two years newer than our old van.  The battery was completely dead, so the staff had to put a new battery in it so we could "test drive" it around the yard.

It wasn't pretty.  But, as we talked about it, we realized that the things that were trashed on this newer van were not the same things that were trashed on the old van.  Perhaps we would own both vans in a few minutes.  We could probably interchange the parts.  We went back inside and told the staff what we could offer for the van.  "Would you let us keep the battery?" I asked.

"For twenty dollars."

It was a deal.  We built a much better van out of the best parts of the two vans, and felt as lucky as we were that that model had been available, that the things that were wrong with it were replaceable with parts from a van we already had, and that they were willing to take our measly funds as payment in full.

But it didn't last as long as we'd hoped it would.

By coincidence, I've been reading stories about pioneer women who had to suffer much greater trials than being limited to one vehicle.  I'm trying to keep my chin up, like I'm sure they would.  It might be spring before we have the funds we need to get out of this pickle. So far, the winter here has been mild.  I'm not looking forward to standing outside waiting for my husband when it's not.

No longer can my life fit into the tidy schedule I'd made for it.  There is no leaving the house for the day hours before dawn and coming back in the very early afternoon to spend time with my children.  The children have rallied marvelously.  But it seems so much time is wasted running back and forth, back and forth.  I'm having trouble getting the things done--like blogging--that I used to be able to do.

I don't mind telling stories on myself that have a humorous side.  I don't mind telling stories of difficulties overcome.  But I've been stuck on this one because I can't yet find my way out of it.