On Broadway

Confession:  Sometimes I imagine a life for myself as a Broadway singer.  Not the star of the musical, because even my imagined self doesn’t have that good of a voice, but making my living singing and dancing. 

In fact, right now as I’m supposed to be preparing dinner, I’m listening to my spotify playlist of SMASH and Broadway show tunes and checking my favorite performers’ twitter feeds. 

I’m having an early-adult-life-crisis.

It’s not that I don’t love my life, or that I actually want to pack up my family and move to New York.  It’s more that sometimes I feel like there are things that I enjoy, things that I am somewhat good at, that I don’t get to do much anymore.  High schoolers have it pretty good, at least in my thinking.  They get to participate in numerous sports, sing and dance and perform in musicals and choirs, play whatever instruments they choose, join debate teams and language clubs and chess tournaments and everyone bends over backwards to get them to those rehearsals and performances and games and meetings. 

Not so much once you become an adult.  Playtime is over and you better be damn sure that the vocation you’ve chosen will fulfill you all the livelong days. 

We Americans are encouraged to specialize – to become experts and professionals in one narrow field, so that we can beat out the competition, land the prized job, become respected, and pay the bills.  Even within these narrow fields, we are encouraged to focus even narrower, to the point where only three people in the world will have enough knowledge and expertise to recognize how damn good you really are at your job. 

In grad school, it wasn’t enough to declare that I was in the M.A. in English program, in the Literature and Writing track.  The next question would be, “what are you going to specialize in?”  Dude, I dunno.  I thought I was doing pretty good to figure out by the ripe old age of 25 that no, I did not want to be a theologian, or teach elementary school, or teach high school, or be a professional musician, or five other things that I either tried out or had been educated for. 

And then I learned what specializing really means…it means that you choose a small field within the field, and write articles about those works or authors for an obscure academic journal that 25 people read, all in the attempt to get publication credits on your CV so that when you’re one applicant out of 250 vying for that one tenure track position, you stand a chance at getting the job.  

Well, that’s a bit of a cynical take, and I do actually enjoy writing nerdy academic articles.  But the point is, it’s all very pragmatic.  Why specialize?  Why are we encouraging kids to choose one degree, one emphasis, one job as their target, from increasingly younger and younger ages? 

To compete, to land the job, to be successful. 

None of those things are fulfilling, necessarily.  Any one thing is not fulfilling, necessarily. 

I am not fulfilled by motherhood, alone.  I am not fulfilled by my chosen profession of teaching, alone.  I am not fulfilled by having a good marriage, alone. 

And this is not the truth we are told by Disney movies and romantic comedies and our high school and college guidance counselors and a culture that has turned babies into a commodity. 

What fulfills me is the moments in my day when I am connecting with the immaterial within the material.  When I have eyes to see and ears to hear, and my soul is fed by something spiritual in the midst of the very physical world I live in, of potty training and muddy footprints in the dining room and crumbs everywhere.

Fulfillment is soul nourishment, and sometimes it means receiving and sometimes it means giving. 

When my husband and I share a joke that is only funny to us because of our 12 year history of a sometimes difficult and sometimes happy marriage.  When I have a craving to paint something and I sit down with my kids and the watercolors and experiment and make something that looks beautiful to me.  When my body tells me to run and I listen to it and am rewarded with more energy for the rest of the afternoon.  When I see my students’ eyes light up just a little as we discuss an article we read about Mother Teresa serving the poor.  When I just can’t stand how cute my boy is and I curl him up in a ball in my lap and eat his face until he’s laughing “stop, Mama!”.   When I’m inspired by my Broadway longing to sing a song at church and it feels good to contribute to worship.  When I take an extra deep breath and don’t snap at my daughter at bedtime and am grateful for connection instead of conflict in the moments before sleep.  When I sit down and write and write and something finally comes out of me that’s been stuck inside for too long. 

I’m not going to specialize.  I’m going to persist in pursuing a life as a Renaissance woman.  I may not ever make it on Broadway, but I’ll be singing show tunes in my shower for the rest of my life.  

Eden In Her Fifth Year

My sweet pea made me a Mama five years ago today.  We’ve been learning together ever since.  One of the things I learned early on was that being a parent was going to change me.  Eden hadn’t read the same books about parenting that I had, and in her infancy taught me that listening to her and listening to my intuition was more important than what any book said. 

I sometimes regret that Eden gets the rough draft version of my parenting, while Isaac and any future children get a more polished version.  But thankfully she has a sweet heart, and just enough grace and spunk to deal with my imperfections. 

Her fifth year has been big…she has grown to be shockingly independent compared to her toddler self.  I should have seen it coming when she learned to swim on the first day of her fifth year, at her fourth birthday party.  It’s been a year of big firsts.  She entered preschool bravely last fall, a little bit nervous and a little bit excited. 

She walked into her classroom with a heart drawn on her hand and my love in her cells and she thrived.  She had the best preschool teachers on the planet and I’m not biased at all. 

She made fast and strong friends, painted tons of pictures, and learned through playing and singing and reading and touching things and looking and listening and experimenting.  I couldn’t be happier with her first school experience, and neither could she. 

At home, she learned to pump herself on her swing, to pedal strong on her two wheel bike with training wheels, to paint a rainbow, to make herself a bowl of cereal and milk, to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich using a half jar of each, to sing Mumford and Sons, to read simple words, to write her family’s names, to be patient, and to ask for help when she needs it.  She taught herself to whistle after practicing and practicing for the last month.  She is so proud of herself for that and I am so proud of her for not giving up when all she heard was air. 

She loves language.  When she hears a new word she picks it out and asks what it means, and then it becomes part of her vocabulary.  Yesterday she was explaining to Isaac that “quarrel” is another word for “fight.”  She has taught me to be careful what I say because she will be saying it tomorrow. 

She loves her brother and helps take care of him.  She crouches down to be at eye level with him, talks in an excited voice to him, explains things to him in the way she thinks he’ll understand, reassures him, and loves to make him laugh with her silly faces.  She makes up games to play with him and gets upset if he doesn’t want to play with her.  She also sometimes makes him upset because she thinks “it’s funny,” which assures me that she is a normal child.    

She loves her friends.  A far cry from her toddler years when we had to carefully measure out the amount of stimulation and social time she could have before she was overloaded, she now can’t get enough of time with friends and family and activity.  She often asks “how many places are we going today?” and 4 or 5 is her ideal answer.  Every friend is her best friend and she is always sad to leave them. 

She loves to dance.  She took dance lessons for a couple months this year and enjoyed it, but wasn’t begging for more.  She’s more of a freestyler and could not wait for the dance floor to be opened at the several weddings we attended this year.  We have dance parties in our living room to all sorts of music and she has the best moves.  She and Isaac love having dance parties with house music and strobe lights in the basement with Daddy. 

She is growing, changing, learning, and sometimes I see glimpses of her teenage self, her mother self, her working self.  She is a five-year-old who carries the seeds in her of the rest of her life.  She is teaching me to water her well. 

As much as she grows and changes, she will always be my sweet Eden girl, the one who made me a Mama.  We have a rhyme that is just hers and mine, and her eyes still light up when we say it.  Tonight she said “I love you even more” when I said “I love you so, so, so much my sweet Eden girl.” 

Eden,

How much does Mama love you?  Sooooo much. 

More than you can count.

More than you can measure.

Enough to last forever.

Love you sweet pea,

                Mama 

Things I Want To Remember About Isaac At Three

It’s the evening of Isaac’s third birthday and I just can’t believe it.  I want my sweet boy to stay just like he is forever.  Some things I want to remember about his third year of life…

He calls me “fweety mama” when I call him my sweet boy. 

He says his name “Igit.”  He can work very hard and come up with an “Issssssuhc” every once in awhile and he is so proud when he does. 

He loves to organize small things and line them up.  He likes to move his lines of things to other places in the house one thing at a time. 

He vrooooms trucks on the floor to get them where he wants them, and walks/crawls all bent over even if he’s going from one end of the house to the other.

He has a hard time pronouncing the “S” sound, and sometimes it sounds like a Sean Connery slobbery “S”, and sometimes he exhales through his nose instead.  So instead of “snake,” he says “(nose exhale)nake.” 

He says “ever guys” for “everybody.”

He says “I think we better should.” 

He says “you know, like” as if he was a 16 year-old valley girl.  I have no idea where he got this. 

He started his third year sleeping in our bed at night, and he would often fall asleep with his hands on my cheeks, one on either side. 

He then started sleeping in his own bed next to ours, and he would often throw a leg over me in the middle of the night just to make sure I was still there.

He now sleeps in his own bed in Eden’s room and only occasionally needs to hold my finger as he falls asleep.  If he had things his way, he would have ended his third year still sleeping in bed with us, but he has adapted to our changes and done really well with them. 

He likes to give a kiss, then a big strong hug, and then do “noses,” which means rubbing his nose on mine.  He came up with this 3 part routine and especially the noses himself. 

He gets completely absorbed in his play and is content to play by himself for large amounts of time. 

He also LOVES playing with Eden and does not want her to go inside when they are playing outside together. 

He loves to make Eden laugh and will do something repeatedly forever if it makes her laugh. 

His favorite color is orange.  

His favorite TV show is “the one where Curioush George knocks down all the ‘tuff.” 

His most requested books are Everyone Poops and Millions of Cats.  Probably not coincidentally, one of his favorite words this year was “poop”, and “poopy gaga”, and anything else relating to the potty. 

He loves to color and paint.  He chooses one color of paint and covers the entire paper in that color.  He often does the same thing with crayons.  He is a monochromatic artist. 

 He loves bugs.  He will find anything crawling near him and examine it (mostly) gently.  He once carried a small worm in his curled up fist all through a grocery shopping trip.  He dropped it once, told me, and I found it on the floor.  I put it back in his hand and we kept shopping. 

He can count to 11 in perpetuity:  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 8, 9, 10, 11, 8, 9, 10, 11…

He knows bits and pieces of the ABCs, but they’re jumbled and he skips a lot.  He won’t let me help him learn them and says “I can do it, I can do it!” if I try to help. 

He started his third year saying “I can’t sing” and now he sings sometimes, so I let him sing the ABCs wrong as much as he wants. 

He believes in go big or go home.  For Christmas he asked for "a HOOOOOOOGE sucker," and for his 3rd birthday he asked for "all the legos."  

He has to finish his process.  If he is in the middle of a game or activity or job that he’s doing, he. must. finish. before we leave the house or change his diaper or go eat dinner.  He will express very clearly just how upset he is to not be able to finish if I interrupt him through screaming and flailing and limp-bodying.  I’m learning to build in “finishing time” to our transitions. 

He is sensitive to my tone.  He thinks my serious voice is mean and says in his best mean voice, “Mama, you talking MEAN at me.” 

He has a soft heart.  He can be rough and aggressive sometimes, but his heart is tender and he needs connection and gentleness even in the midst of correction.

He lost his toddler belly this year.  I was watching him play in the sand one day and saw him stand up, up, up…no belly.  He’s all stretched out now. 

His favorite snuggle spot is on my left shoulder, head facing out, arms down at his sides or one arm curled around my neck.  He likes me to walk around holding him like this when he needs a snuggle.

His hair is wispy light blond, and before his haircut he looked like a dandelion gone to seed. 

We have a rhyme that is just his and mine, and during his third year he started changing his part of the rhyme to “poopy gaga.”  But tonight he said his words just right, hugged me tight, and said “I love you fweety fwee-year-old Mama” when I said “I love you my sweet three-year-old Isaac.” 

Isaac,

Mama’s love for you is big

                And it’s strong

                And it’s true. 

Mama’s love for you will last

                Your whole life through. 

Love you sweet boy,

                Mama

About That Tightrope Walking Wallenda Guy And Prayer...

So you might have heard of that guy, Nik Wallenda, who traversed the Grand Canyon yesterday on a tightrope wire with no harness or safety net.  He comes from a family that has done outrageous stunts for generations. 

According to this article, he prefaced his stunt with prayer, prayed throughout, and praised God afterwards for his success and safety.  He asked God to “calm these winds in the name of Jesus” as winds gusted up to 48 mph during his crossing. 

  

Meanwhile, I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately.  Usually summer is great for me as far as my general mood goes, what with all the sunshine and time outside and fun things to do with the kids.  But this summer I just feel tired a lot.  I feel like I’m dragging and gravity is targeting me unfairly.  You know how when you’re done taking a bath, you drain all the water out and slowly feel the buoyancy of the water fall away and the force of gravity retake you?  I feel like I’m walking around with the emotional equivalent of not enough water and too much gravity. 

I started taking vitamin b12, trying to go to bed earlier, trying to drink more water, watching comedies (I highly recommend Silver Linings Playbook and Pitch Perfect).  And I thought about praying about it.  I believe in God and I believe that he cares about me, but I have a hard time bringing myself to believe that my gravity problem is significant enough to pray about.  I would find myself starting to pray, and then I would start thinking about so-and-so who has cancer, and about my friend living in another country where girls in her neighborhood are being kidnapped for the sex trade, and about Syrians in the midst of war and refugee camps, and on and on…. 

And I end up saying something like “Um, well, God, if you have any time left after dealing with all of that…I mean, I know you’re not bound by time, but I guess what I mean is, if you wouldn’t mind doing something a little extra and superfluous, could you…oh, I don’t think I really have enough faith for this prayer to make any difference anyway…nevermind.”  And then I feel ridiculous. 

                                                                                                                                                                                     

I feel like my mind chides me to a place of gratitude and glass half-full, even though I feel glass half-empty right now.  And while I know cognitively that God has grace to spare even for my gravity problem, my heart has trouble believing that or being courageous enough to ask for a drop of grace. 

And then Nik Wallenda pulls his stunt, and I can’t help but feel like his prayers are a bit presumptuous.  Really, Nik?  (Doing my own SNL “Really” segment here.)  Really?  You think that God should be concerned about your safety when you voluntarily put yourself in grave danger for what reason, exactly?  Really?  You think that your act of walking the tightrope can be some kind of act of worship that helps people to know God better or believe in him more?  Really, Nik?  Really?  Do you think God might possibly have more important things to deal with than known wind gusts across a 1,500 foot canyon that you subjected yourself to on purpose?  Really? 

But then…I remember my favorite image of Jesus from the Bible, book of Hebrews.  Jesus is described as the curtain.  Not just any window curtain, but the curtain in the Jewish Temple that separated the presence of God from the people.  The presence of God resided in the Most Holy Place, and only one person was allowed to go inside the curtain, and only on one day of the year.  God’s presence was so powerful and so dangerously perfect that we fallen humans couldn’t survive it.  The curtain offered protection to the people and a reminder of who was dwelling among them.

This curtain was still around when Jesus walked the earth.  It still covered the Most Holy Place, protecting the people from the perilous presence of God.  This was the curtain that was torn in two when Jesus died.  In the book of Mark it is noted that the curtain was torn from top to bottom, signifying who it was that did the tearing. 

In Hebrews, the author says, “Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings….”     

Not only did Jesus’ death cause the physical curtain in the temple to be torn, thus allowing free access to anyone who wanted to approach the presence of God, but Jesus’ body is actually the spiritual, metaphorical, immaterial curtain through which anyone who wants to can pass into God’s presence.  It’s like what used to be a force field is now turned into a portal, for any of you sci-fi geeks. 

We have a new and living way opened for us.  And it’s not some scolding, you should be quivering with fear way; it’s a bold, confident way.  We don’t have to wait for the one day of the year that God can be approached, and we don’t have to send our messages in to his presence with someone else.  We can go, ourselves, into his presence, whenever, for whatever reason. 

The way is open.  The invitation has been sent.  All I have to do is grasp the confidence I am allowed to have, and go in.  That’s what prayer is.  Just go in and have a talk.  There are no guarantees as to what the outcomes of my prayer will be.  In fact, the only guarantee is that I can always go in. 

There is no line.  The imaginary line of who should have first access to God’s grace and attention is all in my head.  He’s capable of hearing all of us at once and he’s the one in charge of distributing good things and there is enough to go around.  If he wants to quiet the wind for Nik Wallenda, so be it.  If he wants to lessen the force of gravity on my heart, that’d be freaking awesome.  And I know the suffering and poor and exploited are always, always near the heart of God.  My prayers aren’t going to encroach on that. 

I can pray.  That I can do.  For others, and for myself and my gravity problem.  We can all go in. 

There’s room for Nik and I and you, and the curtain is open.  

Eden made this in Sunday School last Sunday.  Aside from the fact that glitter should be banned from the earth, I thought it was kind of cool that God told her to make this craft specially for me.  (kidding ;) ) 

Today I Felt Like A Substitute Parent

For two very stressful years, I was a substitute teacher.  I taught all grades, all classes, including specials like gym, health, and art, which apparently made me a rarity.  I taught gym, health, and art a lot.  It turns out there’s a reason substitute teachers especially don’t like refereeing dodge ball.  And there was that art class where one tool at the students’ disposal was box cutters.  And the day I arrived at 7^th grade health class to see that the day’s topic was the male reproductive system.  No joke.  There were transparencies to project the male bits on the wall and label the parts and everything.  I don’t think the timing of that health teacher’s absence was an accident, just sayin’. 

It took me awhile to learn classroom management, and before I did, it was a mess.  Did you know that if you ask a classroom of 25 five-year-olds a question, you will then have 25 five-year-olds talking at the same time?  I learned to preface my questions with “Raise your hand if you know…”.  And did you know that if you have to walk 25 five-year-olds up two flights of stairs for library time, they should hold hands or have a buddy or something so you don’t lose a few?  And if you let 25 students free on the playground, you should have some agreed upon plan for getting their attention when it’s time to line up?    

If there is one word to describe how it felt being a sub, it would be behind.  From the moment I walked in the building, I felt behind.  Where was my room, where were the restrooms, where were the specials rooms?  Where were the lesson plans, the attendance sheets, the teacher’s manuals, the worksheets, all the supplies?  The worst was the unplanned absences, where I would be quickly gathering materials, making photocopies, searching the desk for the day’s schedule and seating chart. 

Everyone else knew everything and I knew nothing, and had virtually no time to prepare.  The momentum of the day was coming, and I was going to be carried along no matter what state of readiness I was in. 

Sometimes I sat behind the desk fighting panic before the opening bell and said to myself, “I can do this. I can do this. I can do this” until I sort of believed it. 

Today I felt like a substitute parent.  The day started before I was ready.  Isaac woke up laughing about a funny dream and just had to wake me up to tell me about it, at 5:30am.  It was adorable and something I will always remember, but all the same, I got up feeling sleep deprived, disoriented, and frustrated.  Everything came too fast.  Kids are hungry, kids are fighting, kids are throwing things for fun, kids are screaming at squirrels outside when I’m sure the neighbors are still asleep, kids are back inside.  And now it’s 7:30am.  Repeat. 

It was one of those days where I felt perpetually behind, unable to clean up one meal before it’s time for the next, unable to calm myself down from the last squabble before the next one happens, unable to feed myself or drink my coffee or take a shower before it’s too late and I have a migraine and we’re late to our meeting and I’m just. so. tired. 

When you’re a sub, the worst possible thing you can do is appear flustered.  If your students are young, you will immediately have 25 helpers who will tell you everything you need to know for the next 7 hours.  If your students are older, they will sense weakness and have a field day with you.

I think the same is true for parenting on these days.  If I get flustered and start ranting about how “you are the oldest and should be a good example” and “you are being unkind to mommy when you spit food on the floor because I have to clean it up” and on and on, we all get out of whack.  The kids sense my lack of calm and start to act out more because they feel unsettled. 

On these days I tell myself, “I can do this.  I can do this.  I can do this” until I sort of believe it.  And I tell myself, “Don’t think, do.  Don’t think, do.”  Because my mind becomes a maze of self-judgment, frustration, and wishful thinking on these days.  Better to just put one foot in front of the other and trudge through the day.

And trudge we did.  As with subbing, I’m not sure anyone learned anything today or had a particularly fantastically fun day, but we got through it with no huge crises or damage done.  And that, my friends, is a wildly successful substitute parenting day.  

An Hour At Flurry's Cafe

I had an hour and a half to myself, a book to read, and a café in mind.  I pass little cafés in Cuyahoga Falls and picture myself sitting quietly at a table, enjoying coffee and a pastry.  Until today, it’s just been daydreaming. 

It’s hard to get an hour and a half to myself.  And it’s even harder to convince myself to go to a café during that time if I do get it.  There are always piles of paper to sort and put away, floors to sweep, dirty dishes to do, groceries to shop for…the endless list of daily to-dos.  And then there’s the next level of to-do list: dentist appointments to make, rebates to apply for, wills to finish, invoices for work completed 6 months ago to submit, home budgets to review. 

Cafés don’t make any to-do list in my world. 

But today I went.  To café number one, which was closed.  I headed to café number two, which was also closed.  I sat in my van for a minute and thought about going to Dunkin' Donuts instead, because I was using up all my time driving to closed cafés and at least DD would be open.  I felt my bravery and momentum drifting away. 

But I remembered one more café that I’ve seen and decided that would be my last attempt.  I drove to Flurry’s, thinking about how these little cafés don’t really stand a chance if they aren’t open at 8am.  But then I thought that the shop owners probably like sleep and their families and are trying to keep things in balance by not being open 14 hours a day, and I commend them for that.  And at least I was alone in my van, listening to NPR. 

Flurry’s was open.  The sign said “Breakfast Served All Day” and “Kim – Owner,” and I thought, “This is my kind of place.” 

I went inside and Kim said, “Table for two?  One?” 

“Just me,” I said. 

She sat me at a bar stool in the kitchen.  I felt exposed on the bar stool and thought about requesting a booth, but didn’t.  I ordered the French toast that had “Cinnamon Roll” in the title and she poured me coffee.  A Usual came in and sat at another bar stool.  I looked up at the Garfield clock, his tail swinging the beat of each second.  I heard Mumford and Sons playing on the radio. 

Sandy came by to drop off some bananas, since today’s special was Banana Bread Pancakes.

I listened to the Usual talk about his latest ebay finds – a one-of-a-kind Harley Davidson t-shirt designed by Uhl and a Ralph Lauren polo with a teddy bear insignia.  He asked Kim what the difference was between petite and junior clothing and she and I explained. 

I drafted an outline for a letter to the School Board and drank my coffee.  Every time I picked up my cup it was full, so I couldn’t tell you how many cups of coffee I drank throughout my visit.  I heard my French toast sizzle on the grill.

Kim brought me my food and I ate French toast that tasted like Cinnamon Rolls.  I read the novel I brought with me.  Another man came in and sat at the bar stool next to me.  I didn’t feel exposed anymore.  I felt like I was in a community of coffee drinking, paper reading, alone people who weren’t lonely. 

I read awhile longer.  Kim put my leftovers in a wax paper bag.  I paid my bill and gave an insanely huge tip.  I wanted my tip to say, “I like it here.” And “I’m coming back.”  And “Thank you for making me breakfast.”  And “I like your weird clock and your taste in music.”  And “Thank you for making me feel like a part of a community without pestering me.” 

I went back to my van and felt myself take a deep breath.  I felt my eyes almost tearing up. 

Someone made me breakfast, and I didn’t have to do a thing.  I got to eat a whole meal without getting up from my chair.  I drank as much coffee as I wanted.  I got to read a chapter of a book before 10am. 

I love my kids and I know these intense years are short, but the days are long.  Sometimes the minutes drag out to an eternity. 

Today I got a deep breath.  I feel like I can run a little longer now. 

I’ll be back, Flurry’s.  

The Great Gatsby: The Presence of Absence

This post is going to talk about the theme of absence becoming a presence in The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  It sounds confusing, so let me start by giving a concrete and relevant personal experience. 

We are currently transitioning Isaac to a new sleeping situation, and he thinks this is a bad idea.  As a result, something that is currently absent in my life is sleep, both mine and my children’s.  The absence of sleep has a powerful presence, as I’m sure many of you know.  The lack of zzzs manifests itself in easy tears, strong reactions, much fighting and yelling, crankiness, laziness, and distractedness.  (I am just hoping against all hope to write something coherent here.)  So you see, the absence of something can develop a presence of its own. 

In The Great Gatsby, the title character’s life is built around the absence of a woman he loves, Daisy.  Gatsby wants to make a life with Daisy when he first meets her, but doesn’t have the money or status to care for her and goes to war instead.  His entire life’s goal becomes making himself into “his Platonic conception of himself,” the man that could win Daisy, even as he sees her slipping away (98).  She soon marries another man, Tom, but Gatsby remains single-minded in his devotion to Daisy and his attempts at a life with her.  His life is built around a woman who is absent, and whose absence manifests itself in every decision he makes.  His shady business dealings, his building a house directly opposite hers across the bay, and his extravagant parties and “ineffable gaudiness” are all manifestations of Daisy’s absence in his life (99). 

It reminds me of this pipe. 

The Treachery of Images, by Rene Magritte

The French reads: "This is not a pipe."  

And yet it is.  The painting is one representation of a pipe, but as the artist, Magritte, says, “Could you stuff my pipe?  No, it’s just a representation, is it not?  So if I had written on my picture “This is a pipe,” I’d have been lying!” (Torczyner 71).

These tricky Modernists like to play around with questions of reality and illusion.  Gatsby’s imagined version of Daisy is like this painting.  It seems real to Gatsby, but is just his representation of Daisy.

Gatsby is determined to recreate an elusive past, which remains just out of his reach.  When he finally does meet Daisy again, her real presence comes in conflict with Gatsby’s version of her imagined presence.  The “colossal vitality of his illusion” cannot be fulfilled by her real presence (95).  He asks too much of her, denies the reality of her life in his absence and her love for her husband, and so loses her. 

He also loses himself.  In his attempts to recreate the past with Daisy, he changes his name, erases his past, and does whatever is necessary to gain the status needed to gain Daisy’s attention.  His gaudy mansion is filled with the rich and famous, none of whom know anything about Gatsby.  In fact, the subject of dinner table conversation at his parties is usually the latest rumor about whether or not Gatsby has killed a man or who he allied himself with in the War.  Gatsby creates an illusion of himself worthy of his illusion of Daisy, and neither can last. 

In the end, the only person who really knows Gatsby is his neighbor, Nick.  Nick is unimpressed with Gatsby and the flashy crowd that follows him.  In contrast to the free-flowing, undefined moral code of Gatsby and his playmates and business partners, Nick “want(s) the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever” (2).  It seems that only from Nick’s perspective can the illusions be seen for what they are and any grasp of reality be had. 

In short, it’s a good read.  Through a love story, Fitzgerald explores the ambiguity of modernism and demonstrates the powerful presence of absence.  And his use of language is masterful and beautiful.  One of the first things I thought while reading this novel again was, “Damn, he really knows how to use language.”

And finally, a commentary on reading the recent reprint with my good buddies Leo and Tobey on the front, the “Now a Major Motion Picture!” version.  It was oddly distracting to have their faces staring at me when I picked up the book. 

Usually, some amorphous body with a blurred out face is what I picture when I read a character.  This time, I was picturing Leo and Tobey speaking the lines that I was reading, and it was both distracting to the story and limiting to my understanding of the character.  It was weird.  This is one area where I think the murky ambiguity of absence is better.  I guess this is the same argument for reading a book before seeing the movie version…one person’s visual interpretation of the story can limit later readings of it.  Our imaginations can fill in a lot more gaps and leave the important gaps unfilled when given the opportunity. 

So if you’re interested in reading this book, pick up an older version with a boring cover or the original version with Cugat's artistic cover art.

Next up:  A Good Hard Look by Ann Napolitano.  Can Flannery O’Connor and her love of peacocks be appropriated for a fiction book?  We shall see… 

Fitzgerald, F. Scott.  The Great Gatsby.  New York, New York: Scribner, 1925. 

Torczyner, Harry.  Magritte: Ideas and Images.  Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1979.  

Adult Summer Reading Program

I was excited to hear that my local library is offering an Adult Summer Reading Program.  I remember the children’s programs I participated in… elaborate displays in the kids’ section of the library where I’d move my game piece along a path to show how many books I’d read.  And checking out stacks of books and giving brief oral book reports to the librarian to prove that I’d read the books.  And the rewards of pizza coupons and trinkets and silly little things that seemed huge.

This one’s a little different.  When you become an adult, you don’t even have to READ books to participate in the program!  All you have to do is check them out, and for each book you check out you get to fill out a form that gets entered in a drawing for cool stuff.  So, technically, this is a See Who Can Schlep The Most Books To And From Their Car Program.  Come on, people.  At least make people turn their books back in before you let them fill out the form.  Or, better yet, for this stickler-for-punctual-returns library (50 cent fines, seriously???  $5 owed blocks my account, seriously???), only allow patrons to fill out the form if they return their book ON TIME.  I’d never fill out a single form. 

So.  I like reading and I like a fair contest, so I don’t need no stinkin’ Adult Summer Check-Books-Out Program.  But I do like extra motivation to read instead of spending too much time on the facebook-pinterest-google Bermuda Triangle.  So this summer I’m going to blog about what I’m reading – books, kids books, articles, newspapers, websites, whatever strikes my fancy.  This blog has no focus and comes and goes with my attention span and bursts of creativity, but I think this will be a fun way to get a little focus for the summer and hopefully read more.

First up:  Magic Tree House Books One and Two, by Mary Pope Osborne

I started reading the Magic Tree House series to Eden this week.  She’s ready for some longer stories and loves to be read to, and I’d heard that this was a good series to start with.  We tried The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe awhile back but it was just a little too long and we were just irregular enough with reading it that she got lost in the story.  This series seems to be a good middle ground between the Frog And Toad size story and a full length novel. 

Pros: 
~The characters’ names are Annie and Jack, and it really doesn’t get any cuter than that.  Plus, with these kinds of stories you’ll find yourself reading “said Jack” and “Annie said” about a million times, so you want the names to be cute.   

~These books took about 30 minutes to read out loud, so we were able to finish them the same day we started and Eden could remember the whole story. 

~The basic plot of each story involves the characters looking through books in a tree house library and then time traveling to one of the settings in one of the books.  Jack then uses the book and Annie uses her intuition to help make sense of their surroundings and help them find their way through their adventures.  I’m a big reader and a book nerd, so I love that books are central to the plot and the kids aren’t googling with their iphones to figure out what a Pteranodon eats. 

~The siblings’ approach to life and reality is contrasted interestingly.  Annie is intuitive, imaginative, can communicate with animals (not telepathically, but just reading body language, nonverbals, etc.), believes easily in magic, and is trusting.  Jack is scientific, skeptical, grounded in physical proof, and needs evidence to believe.  The differences are obvious and do pigeonhole the personalities of the characters, but it is interesting to see the contrasting approaches and how it affects their adventures.  I think it’s a good introduction for young kids regarding how your perception of the world affects how you interact with it. 

~In the first book in the series, Dinosaurs Before Dark, Jack forgets his notebook and shouts dramatically with bearded face, “I HAVE TO GO BACK!!”  Or maybe that’s LOST.  It felt like a shout out to all those adults out there reading the book. 

~The author’s middle name is Pope.  How cool is that? 

Cons:

~When Jack is unhappy with something Annie does, he occasionally says, “I’m going to kill her.”  This bothers me.  I realize that Eden might be younger than the intended audience, but it still seems like a bit much to express his mild frustration.  I skipped the line or made up my own. 

~Annie is 7 and Jack is 8 ½.  In the second book in the series, The Knight at Dawn, they sneak out of the house at 5:30am when their parents are sleeping and have an adventure, and then sneak back in without their parents noticing.  Um…

~Sentence fragments.  I’m guessing that the author was trying to use short sentences for the benefit of early readers, but in her attempts, she uses almost more sentence fragments than actual sentences (exaggeration, but there are a lot of them).  I swear I’m not the grammar police, and I firmly believe in breaking grammar rules if you have a good reason and IF YOU KNOW YOU’RE DOING IT.  But I think it’s important for early readers to get a firm handle on the basics. 

So, these books seem to be fun adventure stories that are a good length to read to kids who are ready to transition to chapter books.  They are definitely light reading – you won’t find much meaningful commentary on life or people or Big Ideas, but they capture your imagination and introduce kids to different time periods and ideas that they might not have been exposed to.  Eden was really confused with why the Knight in the second book was nice to the kids and took them back to the tree house, because he looked mean and scary in his armor.  I explained a tiny bit about the code of chivalry and that was fun.  I could see these books being a jumping off point for further exploration of a topic or time period. 

We’ll definitely read more of this series, and I’m also excited to try the Little House series again and the C.S. Lewis series again.  I think with more consistent reading times built into our routine, we’d be able to get through those longer books fast enough that she’d track with the story.  Now that summer’s here, more consistent reading times seems doable! 

Next Up:  How reading a reprint of The Great Gatsby with Leonardo DiCaprio on the cover changes the way the book reads.  

Peace In A Jar: Conversation Questions

Dinnertime conversation has resembled locker room talk around here lately.  Our mealtime rules are pretty clear:  stay in your seat, ask for things politely, no potty talk, and no fighting.  Lately these rules have become regularly ignored, to the point where Kasey and I were breaking rules 2 and 4 in our demands that the kids follow rules 1 and 3.  So, I instituted the “Conversation Question Jar” in an attempt to culture us a little bit. 

I gathered a bunch of random conversation questions from the interwebs, printed them, and stuffed them in a small mason jar.  Voila.  Peace in a jar. 

Almost. 

It definitely helped with rules 1, 2, and 4. 

The first question pulled out was “What is something that you’re really proud of yourself for?” 

Eden:  “I’m proud that I’m a big sister to Isaac.”  (So sweet.  I love that she’s proud of something she IS, not something that she DOES.)

Isaac:  “…(long pause)…I proud dat I pee in my diaper.  Hee hee.”   (Awesome.) 

Question number two was “What is something that you want to learn how to do well?” 

Eden:  “I want to learn how to tie my shoes!” 

Isaac:  “I want to learn how to get da ‘tuff from da roof of da shelter when it raining.”  (Love his imagination.  He sounds like a future Survivor Man or something.) 

And I should have left well enough alone, but for some reason I couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to encourage potty learning by saying, “And Isaac, are you looking forward to learning how to pee in the potty?” 

Isaac:  “Pee on da floor.  Hee hee.” 

That one was totally my fault.  

Worms

I stared at the sidewalk on the way to class this morning, trying to avoid wormicide, to avoid splattering slimy segments up the back of my pants, wishing I hadn’t worn flip flops.  The air smelled ripe and swampy.  Some of them were stretched out long, trying to get to the other side safely.  Some were curled up into themselves, trying to present as small a target as possible for the thumping soles. 

“I wear flip flops on our dairy farm,” said my student.  “I’ve been stepped on a few times and gotten broken toes, but that doesn’t bother me.  I hate worms.  They creep me out.  I think it’s because they slither towards you.  I had to talk on the phone to distract myself on the way to class.” 

Eden made a worm farm in a plastic bucket.  She was so proud, carefully shoveling in dried out mud and adding a bit of water to the bottom.  She dropped her five worm family into the bucket, where they sloshed around and disappeared.  She later cried that she lost them.  We dug around and found half of one and remains of another. 

Isaac collects them in a toy watering can, all piled one on top of the other.  Despite being educated about the optimal conditions for worm survival, he leaves them with only each other.  He later laments that they have “deaded” and aren’t moving. 

“I used to line them up on my grandma’s kitchen table,” said another student.  “I’d give them baths in her sink.  She couldn’t stand it.  I don’t know why I touched them; they’re so gross.  I think I drowned them.” 

I walked back to my car, still staring at the sidewalk.  What worms remained were dried out sticks or slimy shadows, the worms themselves carried across campus on someone’s tread.  A few shiny curlicues slithered still, proving the sticking power of the worm.  

When I'm A Mommy, I'm Going To Use My Nice Words

There’s been an anti-screaming theme in my life lately.  I came across the book Screamfree Parenting on my sister’s bookshelf and was intrigued.  Then one of my favorite bloggers, digthischick, mentioned the book Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting.  Then I forgot about those books because I’m stubborn and don’t like to learn new (hard) things. But then my friend Sierra, another of my favorite bloggers, referred to the digthischick book recommendation on her blog.  And that same day, my friend Emily linked via facebook to this Huff Post article by The OrangeRhino. 

Hmmm…maybe I should pay attention to this theme? 

I gave up my avoidance tactics and got Screamfree Parenting from the library and started reading it.  I read The Orange Rhino’s blog and could relate to so much of what she said. 

And then I had a chance to practice.  It didn’t go well. 

The short version is that we met up with some friends, and all our kids were playing together.  Then there were 3, yes THREE, “accidents” wherein my little innocents injured a little boy (the same little boy all 3 times) to the point of tears.  So we left, and my words and tone in the van on the way home got a little too steamy.  The kids said I was being mean.  I said I was being mad. 

Everyone took a break from each other for awhile when we got home, and then we regrouped to talk it through.  I made sure that my sweet littles knew that we do not hurt our friends, and if we cannot control our bodies enough to prevent “accidents,” then we will have to stay home to protect our friends until we learn how.  We talked about how we would feel if our friends hurt us, or hypothetically, hurt us 3 times in one hour.  We talked about how we might not be too excited to see those friends again if that kept happening. 

We seemed to come to an understanding, we put it behind us, and we moved on. 

Later that day, Eden was playing quietly and said, “When you talked to us in the living room, you didn’t say you were sorry for talking mean at us.  When I’m a mommy, I’m not going to yell.  I’m going to use my nice words.” 

Uh, um, stammer stammer… she was right.  Despite my recent reeducation into the concept that yelling at small people is not acceptable, I hadn’t even thought to apologize.  I was so bent on their behavior that I completely overlooked mine. 

Here’s the thing.  I tell myself that if I’m to the point of yelling, it’s because of my kids’ behavior.  That they have “triggered” me.  That they have made one too many bad decisions and it’s time to rein them in. 

But really, it’s all about me.  Why was I so mad about what happened with our friends?  Well, if I’m honest, I was mostly embarrassed.  Embarrassed that no one else’s kids were beating up on each other and mine were somewhat relentless about it on that occasion.  That it somehow reflected on my parenting and me as a person if my kids made bad choices (or had numerous accidents, by their account).  I was also afraid.  Afraid that these incidents were signs that some insidious bad habits are taking hold, or that my kids lack any shreds of empathy, or that we will never be able to leave our house for fear of injuring others. 

In other words, my “talking mean at them,” i.e., yelling, was about my feelings and my inability to deal with them.  And what I’m learning from the Well-Adjusted People Who Don’t Yell is that I need to deal with my own self, and let my kids deal with their own selves.  They need me to be calm, so they can learn.  When I yell, they are anxious and fearful and will do and say things just to calm my anxiety rather than to learn.  That sounds like some crazy codependence that I want no part of. 

Calm consequences teach.

So the next time I feel a yell coming on, I will step back and ask myself what I am feeling.  And what I need to cope with that feeling.  I will tell myself the truth, such as: I have the most amazing friends in the world who are absolutely not judging me and have my back.  And, if my friends saw insidious habits developing in my kids or had genuine concerns about my parenting, I think they would talk to me about it.  And, my kids are normal and have their moments of violence but also have their moments of sweet caring and nurturing. 

I apologized to Eden and Isaac, and they forgave me, as kids do, quickly and totally.  Kids are awesome at forgiveness.  And when I was tucking Eden in that night, I told her that I was going to try really hard to use my nice words when I was angry and yell less.  She looked at me and said, “Less?  You shouldn’t yell at all!” 

“Um, right, yes, I will make it my goal to not yell at all.”

It’s a high standard.  And my kids are worth it.  

Eden, Restored

We are restored. 

To what? 

Images of heaven in the Bible are hard for me to get excited about.  I’m not all that into jewels and gold and mansions and stuff.  I don’t understand the images of horses and scrolls and angels.  Other images of heaven rendered by humans are equally unexciting or baffling. 

Let’s imagine for a moment the Thomas Kinkade, Hallmark Hall of Fame Movie version of heaven…everything has a cozy, soft glow, and flowers of every color can be found in one yard and even on one bush.  There is a perpetual sunset.  Every house is a cottage with warm glowy lights inside, beckoning you in to get toasty by the fire and drink hot cocoa with marshmallows.  Jesus is your best friend who sits by the fire to ask you attentive and caring questions about your day.  Every relationship is as dewy as the shiny lawns.  Spouses look at each other with G-rated affection and never argue.  People smile a lot.  Everyone is happy.  Children dance in the yard and wave streamers and only laugh.  Neighbors bring each other pot pies and everyone has a satisfying job with a good income.  Everyone gets along because no one disagrees. 

Is that what we were designed for?  Is that what we’re destined to? 

God, I hope not.  I think heaven is Eden 2.0.  I’ll take a few liberties in imagining heaven as Eden restored…

It’s wild.  You give the lions a respectful distance unless they approach you.  You know that there are fungi that will kill you if you eat them but you remember without a guidebook which ones they are and successfully avoid them.  You realize that rainbows have 47 different hues instead of the 7 you saw before.  Your ear can distinguish new octaves that it never heard before.  Instead of being overwhelmed by your new eyes that see and your new ears that hear, all 100% of your brain is used to process and absorb and delight in your world.  You know that your body will go to mush if you just sit around and eat twinkies all day, but you don’t want to sit around and eat twinkies.  Grapes and broccoli have more flavor than you ever noticed before and you don’t want to eat anything else.  You want to move and feel the strength of your body and enjoy it.  Some people train for and run marathons and although it’s exhausting and some are faster than others, everyone wakes up the day after the race refreshed, with no aches or lingering soreness. 

You’re vaguely aware that your Adam sometimes annoys you in the way he leaves his towel on the floor after his bath, but you’re so in love that you don’t care.  You feel wholly connected to him and petty little habits don’t bother you enough to mention.  Your love is passionate and fulfilling and complete.  You have a history together and no fear about the future and you choose every moment to love him fully.  You are blessed with kids and you always choose grace and kindness.  Your kids know no shame because you know no shame.  Your kids always choose grace and kindness because they are complete and loved. 

Jesus is the life of the party.  Literally.  His life fills up all of the empty spaces in peoples’ hearts so there are no empty spaces in peoples’ hearts anymore.  You are in awe that Jesus would ever talk to you and that he even knows your name, but at the same time you have never felt closer to anyone in your life.  You are overwhelmed with love for this God-man and gratitude and most of all, peace.  Jesus comes to your neighborhood for dinner every night and everyone gathers at a neighbor’s house and it’s a big party.  You hear that he also goes to other neighborhoods for dinner every night and you’re not quite sure how that works but it doesn’t matter. 

Nobody is poor or needs anything because everyone shares their stuff, their time, their talents.  Artists get to paint, write, design, sing, all day long and their work feeds the souls of those that work in other ways.  Some peoples’ entire job is to walk around telling other people how good they’re doing at their work.  People work because they enjoy it and it fulfills them and incidentally, it benefits others.  People don’t radiate happiness exactly, but rather contentment and purpose and peace.  Always peace.  You are at peace with yourself at all times, and your soul is at peace with your Creator, and you give peace to all that you connect with.  And Jesus himself is your peace.  People don’t always agree, but there is always peace. 

People say that heaven will be perfect, whether in the Hallmark sense of nauseating niceness or in the sense that we will be superhumans with superpowers and desire nothing other than to sing worship songs all day.  I don’t know if that’s true.  Maybe it is.  But my sense tells me that heaven will be a lot more like earth than we think.  I think there will be struggles in gardens in the night, but we will always choose life and grace.  I think there will be tears, but they will always be wiped away by a loving hand. 

For a time I didn’t believe in God.  I tried not to, at least.  But I realized after awhile that my disillusionment and disappointment with the God-story I had been given revealed a longing for a different God-story.  For God himself.  I couldn’t find a place for things like wonder, longing, and that feeling I got when I finished an amazing novel or was moved to tears by a piece of music, apart from God.  All of that belongs to this earth, yes, but I sensed that it originated somewhere outside this earth in its current state. 

Heaven reinstates the originals.  It restores us to our fullest sense, our fullest expression of humanness.  We get glimpses of heaven now, and these restore our faith in ourselves and our purpose and our God. 

Francis Schaeffer called us humans “glorious ruins.”  I have always loved this description, except I think it is more accurate in reverse.  For we are not ruins.  Not in our truest state.  We are, instead, ruinous glories.  We will be restored one day.  And we see glimpses even now. 

It is finished. 

We are restored!

Violent Communication

I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but I wasn't aware that the Supreme Court was considering the Defense of Marriage Act until I started seeing all of the red equals signs on facebook.  

I think this is a good indication that I need to start getting some sort of newspaper delivered.  I used to get my news from NPR on my morning and afternoon commutes, and for the first few years after having kids I could still stay in the loop that way.  But now that Eden’s old enough to pick out words like “killed” and “bomb” and ask a ton of questions I unfortunately can’t listen to news radio anymore. 

I think it’s interesting how facebook is used during times like these.  No doubt, the Court’s decision is important and momentous and matters.  But it seems that much of the virtual “conversation” surrounding the issue is angry and hurtful and unproductive.  I wonder, how many people are talking about this issue face-to-face?  Have virtual debates taken the place of personal conversations?  My guess is that the virtual argument – because it’s full of polarity, anger, and fear – discourages face-to-face conversation.

I recently was rereading one of my all-time favorite books, Nonviolent Communication.  I have to read it, along with about 4 other books, once every couple of years because it speaks truth and I am so stubborn that I can’t seem to absorb it into my life.  In case you’re not familiar, the basic steps in the process of nonviolent communication (or NVC) are

1. Observe without judgment the actions that are affecting me.
2. Identify my feeling in response to what I observe.
3. Determine my need, value, desire that creates my feelings.

4. Decide what concrete action I can request in order to enrich my life. 

The goal is to use this communication style to both express our own feelings/needs and to receive the feelings/needs of others.  The end result is to meet needs and enrich lives rather than place blame and foster resentment.  Yes, it’s very hippy and psychobabbly, but also productive and helpful.  The author has had amazing results using this process with the most vitriolic and volatile conflicts in the world (think Palestinians and Israelis, for example).  

I suck at this.  My natural style of communication is violent communication (or VC):

1. Observe what someone else did that was wrong.
2. Shame you because you made me feel bad.
3. Lament that you will never change.
4. Reserve my right to complain forever about what you just did or said. 

My guess is that my struggle to incorporate NVC into my life consistently is not because I’m an immature, mean, and spiteful person.  My guess is that it’s because I haven’t learned yet to be okay with who I am enough that I can let other people be radically different from me.  And I haven’t learned yet that it’s okay to have needs and be vulnerable enough to express them.  And I haven’t learned yet to give myself grace when I am hurtful, so I don’t give that grace to others. 

Maybe other people are like me in that.

I am in a politically diverse marriage (you like my politically correct language?).  We are one partially red, one partially blue, and together some shade of purple.  It’s hard to scream obscenities at and stereotype your political counterpart when you are married to them.  You know them too well to stereotype, and you also know you’d better be careful because you’re going to be living under the same roof for the rest of your life. 

Maybe we should all pretend to be married to those political counterparts we engage with on this issue of gay marriage.  Or maybe some nonviolent communication would help.  Either way, I think we would do well to remember that whether we’re looking at an equals sign or a photo, behind it is a real, complex, feeling human being. 

I know, it’s hard.  I know, with what some people are posting, it’s easy to think that there is no feeling human being behind it.  But there is.  “Those people” may be completely disconnected from the effects of their words, and the feelings and needs of others.  If that’s the case, they are likely equally disconnected from their own feelings and needs.  Shame begets shame.  Hurt begets hurt. 

The way forward is nonviolent words and actions.  It’s grace for ourselves and others.  And it’s equal acceptance of all.