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.

Looking Down Is Only One Way to Look

Winter is not my thing.

In fact, I'm sure I have been heard to say that I hate winter.

And, what I hate about winter is snow.

Snow is cold.  It's a nuisance to scrape, shovel, and drive over.  It makes simple things like walking to the car dangerous.  It makes getting to work sometimes as hard as the entire work day.  It brings letting your teenager borrow your car to new heights of terror.

And yet, looking down is only one way to look.

The other night, I had a bit of a duty to perform in my community.  That's how I was looking at it, anyway.

So, I pulled myself up off the couch and out of the comfortable scene of my immediate family watching a movie while enjoying popcorn and hot chocolate in my cozy living room, pulled my boots back on, and headed out.

I could so easily have just stayed there, enjoying the movie, enjoying my family, enjoying not moving a muscle, enjoying the delicious, rich, cinnamony cocoa my husband had concocted.  It would not have occurred to me that I was missing out on a single thing.

But as I walked up the sidewalk toward my church building, I saw that, inside my little nest of a house, I would have been missing a lot.

Two feet of snow had fallen, recently enough to be fresh on trees, lawns, and bushes, but long enough ago that it had been shoveled out of my way.  Twilight was falling.  Pinks, blues, and lavenders played on the air like fairies skating.

The beauty of my surroundings hit me full-on.  It was like being transported into heaven.  The mountain ahead of and above me reflected the sunset behind me.  The trees planted twenty feet apart along the avenue stood like sentinels in a cotton candy world. 

My heart soared upward, expanded outward.  My eyes tried to take in the glory of my surroundings.  But there was so much beauty all around me that I knew I could never--even if I had an hour to gaze at each spot--see it all.  I had to walk swiftly through it, get to my destination.

I took in as much as I could, my soul in a state of joy, my thoughts prayers of gratitude.

I thought about God having stirred up that wonderful scene for me and few others to see.  I thought about Him having done that whether or not I came out of my house and saw it.  I thought about all the marvelous things He must do, just because of the kind parent, masterful artist, and creative being He is, that His children may or may not notice, and certainly cannot fully appreciate.

I thought about the many things parents do for their children, just to create a lovely environment for them--like smocking a blessing gown, decorating a nursery, writing or singing a lullaby, fussing over a birthday cakes and menues--that the children cannot even begin to comprehend.

Just out of love.  Just because of who they are and what they want to create out of their love.

I thought about the hot chocolate my husband had lovingly created, enhanced, and enriched for us, when something lesser would have done just fine.

And I felt uplifted, enraptured, thrilled to be a small part of it all, a part of this world, where so many things are lovely, where so many evidences of beauty, grace, and love abound.

My living room where my family huddled together in warmth was a good place to be, too, but I felt shock at what I would altogether have missed, and even more shock to think that I would never know or sense I had missed a thing.  The enormity and complexity of the earth and our lives and God's love and plans for us filled me with something that, in that moment, made me a better person and transported me outside of my usual small circle into something great and vast and spectacular.  So much is here for me.  So much more than I could ever see, or do, or witness, or take part in, or be.

And, even in my thrall, I mourned that I can only be in one place at a time, and only enjoy each moment once, and that they pass by swiftly, and are gone, whether I am looking or not.

And I thought, what sense does it make for such greatness to be shown to so few, last so few moments?  There must be a way that such moments are captured.  There must be a place for everything to go as it passes by.  There must be a place for such moments to be relived, a place where time is endless and so can our enjoyment of its wonders be.

That God would create all that beauty, even if I were the only one looking, or even if I didn't look, told a story of such love, such greatness, such devotion to His work, that I was changed.

And I think, after this, it would be a sin to use the word "hate" when I speak of winter, or snow, or any other part of the breathtaking and few moments that are my life.

When the Exception Should Be the Rule

So, picture this.  We are all sitting in the living room on a weekend morning, watching the old classic, "Singing in the Rain."

We get to the part where Gene Kelly kisses his new sweetie goodnight, and heads off into a rainstorm with only an umbrella and his wool suit to protect him.

But it's been a great night for him.  Not only does he have a new sweetie, but she and his best bud have hit upon an idea to save his career from what seemed like an imminent crash.

So, he starts to sing.  And dance.  And twirl the umbrella around.  And jump in puddles.

The rainstorm is nothing to him.  The joy inside of him is impenetrable to anything outside of him.  You can just see--in his face, and in his movements--that he feels completely invincible.

Clearly, it is a moment in which the exception is the rule. 

But, somewhere near me, a little voice says, "He's getting all wet."

Another says, "His suit might get ruined."

I smile slightly and keep watching, but another child pipes up, "He might get strep throat."

And another says, "He is going to be soooooo sick!"

"He's not using his umbrella," another one observes.

"His suit is going to be ruined!" a daughter calls out.

"Will it shrink?" another one asks.

"He's splashing!" the baby points out.

I turn to look at my husband, who looks back, reflecting my amusement.

"I've been too present in their lives," I ruefully observe.

He chuckles.

Maybe my children are saying these things for my benefit--to assure me they know the rules.  Or maybe they would say them even in my absence.  Part of me is glad they care about rules, possessions, and health enough to be alarmed.

But, I feel alarmed, too.

Not at Gene Kelly's behavior, but at that of my children.  And my own.

Have I repeated such rules so much that they cannot see beyond them?  Have I squashed out of them the ability to know when there should be an exception?  Can they not see beyond his rule-breaking to the joy in his face?

I think about finding my baby outside this morning as I pulled into the driveway coming back from the gym.  He had his nice warm, red coat on, with the hood up, but it was unzipped.  He was clutching his toy broom with red, mittenless hands, and I had promptly sent him inside.

"What are the kids doing outside?" I'd asked my husband as I'd hurriedly changed laundry loads before taking my shower.

"Whacking the snow off the bushes and then shoveling it up."

"He's still on an antibiotic," I had said.  "I sent him back in."

"Good point," he'd said, a little abashedly.

But, sometimes, in our effort to make a good point, we can miss the point.

What if I'd not seen his tummy hanging out of his coat and his cold hands, but his glee at whacking snow off of bushes with his little broom?

What if I'd imagined not another round of ear infections, but his pride in "helping" like a big boy?

What if I'd stopped thinking for a minute about getting all the clothes clean, and thought about more ways the kids could get them dirty?

I've spent their lives drilling my children on keeping my rules.  And my efforts have apparently sunk in.  That's not all bad--saves me time and effort and teaches them good skills.

But maybe that's only one half of the skills they will need for a smooth life. They also need skills in flexibility, seeing the big picture, understanding both sides of a story, when a rule should be bent, and how to find and express joy.

I think we're going to have an interesting dinner conversation tonight.

What Do You Want for Your Birthday?

I recently had a big birthday.

Big enough that it had me hyperventilating that morning. 

In spite of that, I decided to be brave and own it.  But every time I heard my voice announce my new age, it felt like I was telling a lie.  Or like I was saying, "I molest kids."  It just seemed so wrong. 

I guess I half expected people to recoil in horror.

This, even though I realized almost half my life ago that people my age aren't old.  And even though if you were this age, I wouldn't think you were old.  I would, in fact, reassure you that you weren't.

And it's not like I didn't know it was coming.  In fact, what this post is most about is the fact that I did know it was coming--and what I did about it.

You see, I have known myself for. . .quite a while now, and I knew I would do better with this change if I were doing better with my life in general.  I didn't want to hit that morning of hyperventilation (although that reaction was honestly a complete surprise to me) without feeling good about myself.

Good enough to say, "Hey, I"m [whatever], and I'm happy to be at this place in my life."   

Have I reached all my goals?  No.  I suppose if I had, I wouldn't need the future part of my life.  Which I do need.

But I have reached some milestones and I have made some progress toward others.

Two of my most important goals depend partly on other people, who aren't ready.  So, I did what I could, and, when the time is right, I'll do the rest of my part.

One thing I did was to make a plan and significant progress toward making my home environment what I would like it to be.  Physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  I'm not all the way there, yet, but good progress has been achieved, and I have a plan that is working.

Another thing I have done is work hard to reclaim a healthy body.  It was nice to hear people tell me that I didn't look (whatever) age and know they probably meant it.  It's nice to be able to put on some of the clothes I haven't worn for years, and to see muscles in my legs that I never, and I mean NEVER had before, even though my legs have never been my problem spot.  I got within three pounds of my weight goal.  Three pounds!

In fact, when I went back to the gym on my birthday for the second time that day (I weight-lift on some of my lunch hours), one of the two young guys behind the counter asked me how I was doing that day.  Armed with my new bravery, I told him it was my (whatever) birthday, and he said, "I've going to high-five you!" with some sincerity that told me that this goal must be worthwhile.  I took it as a congratulations for being where I was, literally and figuratively, when I was.

And, I finally freed myself from the invisible chains in my mind that kept me from taking my licensing test and took it two weeks ago.  And passed it.  Like, why on earth didn't I do this before? I was afraid of failing it--as though I'd ever failed a test.  I was afraid of wasting money my family needed--like, I didn't waste it getting a degree I wasn't using?  Things at work were changing and getting painful enough that I finally thought, "I have a golden ticket out of here," and looked up what I would have to do to get my license, and then made myself take those steps.

Why do we hold ourselves back?  Why do we waste time, focus on what doesn't matter, fail to identify and pursue what we really want?

Well, I'm old enough now to tell you that it is worth it to stop all that nonsense.

What place do you want to be in your life by your next birthday?  What present(s) will you give yourself that no one else can give you?

Here's a challenge: identify, map them out, and pursue them--in baby steps if necessary.

As long as we have life, we should pursue our happiness in it.  Then age becomes an ornament that swells in preciousness and worth for the benefit of ourselves and others.