'Because' just isn't sufficient

Guest post from PH:

This morning I had a conversation with our son that went something like this: 

"Buddy, you can't touch the stove." 
   "Why?" 
"Because it's hot and you'll burn yourself." 
   "Why?" 
"Why is it hot or why will it burn you?"
   "Yeah." 
"I don't know how to answer that."
   "Why?"
"Because."
   "Why?" 
"Just don't touch the oven, okay buddy ?"
   "Why?"
 ...

"Why" is the question. Buddy asks it in response to just about everything? It starts as a curiosity but continues as a matter of repetition. I think that underneath these "whys" is a desire to understand the world around him and how he fits. During this transition, this word has come to be his favorite, and I wonder if it's driven by the disruption watching a house get packed up, saying lots of goodbyes, and cross-country move and all that that it entails. 

I see it and hear it from Kiddo as well. Her whys are much harder and sometimes more subtle, and most often unsaid. 

"Why did we move across the country anyways?" 
"Why would someone break into our home and bust my piggy bank?"
"Why do I have to leave a friend?"
"Why did we leave in the first place?"
"Why are there mean people in the world?"  

The frustrating part is that I don't have answers, either ample ones for Buddy or adequate ones for Kiddo, much less a desire to engage their curiosity. But I get it. As our bodies, minds, souls, our family make this move from West to East, we are hungry for understanding. I crave answers and affirmations. There are so many unknowns, questions left unanswered, new ones that we can't even begin to process. And I don't want silence or 'because' for an answer either. So I'm going to engage. I'm going to listen to their questions and enter the dialogue, and I'm also going to start asking them again. I think dreaming is important and dreaming starts with questions. 

SO

Loss

I woke up and felt 80 years old. Between the hard bed and grey skies I wasn't sure I could move. My bladder changed the game so I was up, and soon without much though,t putting on my running clothes and pressing the coffee machine. I keep anything that can feel remotely the same. Gratefully, our airbnb is really spectacular and likely I'll do a picture series one of these nights but it has been a very warm welcome. This is one of the first mornings I couldn't really make out the view of the city with the heavy clouds and fog. I took the elevator down 7 floors and walked outside and raindrops hit my face. I loved it. It was much warmer rain and seemed like everything was sticking to me but my legs took off. And unlike rainy mornings in Seattle, I had the whole light rail trail to myself. I loved that too, it reminded me I gained something.

One of the hardest things about trying to write about daily life and set a rhythm of remembering is also telling the truth of the day. And words aren't coming as easily the last few days. One of my dearest friends lost her dad this week. I felt almost a panic to wish away what I can imagine with far more vividness than I wish of the finality of letting someone go. When every single moment is seared in a surreal reality of a place you could never fully take your mind until it is fully there because the sting is so great, the gravity of loss quite unimaginable. No matter the perfectness of the relationship with the person or not, when they are gone there is a shift in the earth. And I am learning that once you have felt that shift with your own feet that small tremors return when the details of someone you love's loss is described to you. I want to be careful what I say here because I am still processing - for my friend - for my self  - for all my close friends who have lost a parent too soon. I want to be careful I speak less and hear her more. Each of our experience so different that part of my tremors this week is asking myself if i can set aside what i know, even when the memories are crashing back,  to hear what is real for my precious dear friend so that I may know her and her loss more fully.  

So for today, i was glad to get soaked and try to process what i know my body is holding for someone i love and also for the way the grief finds its way back into my bloodline with force. To be continued. 

 

makeup mothers day

Yesterday was make-up mother's day for me put on by the thoughtful and loving PH. It sort of speaks to that whole super high expectation thing I have going on,  and I confess that having to provide celebrations for me is no walk in the park. And I am trying. I am attempting to learn about myself and why my need is so desperate that they be so over the top amazing. When I grow up, I'm wondering if i can let go of my need for super celebebrations a little or at least laugh it off when it doesn't work. BUT for now, I'm still adolescent when it comes to wanting my birthday, Christmas, vacation, and mothers' day to be basically earth shattering. It leaves PH with the small task of being a mind reader. 

I agreed to the makeup mother's day in part because i wanted sleep and be irreresponsible pretty dang bad after the last few months. In short, I single-parented for approximately 35 days while packing up a house and caring for the bouncy temperaments of two children trying to navigate a mass transition. No probs. So...... it felt like one of those years that the day to be un-in-charge sounded pretty stellar. I actually find that mother's day can be a real bind. In part you really want this day where the kids are empathetic kind helpful humans with no boogers or poop cuddling with you, taking walks together, and eating all your favorite foods for a day. And on the other hand because you know that option A is nonexistent, than you want to find the few ways you can be fully indulgent ALONE.  For example:  sleeping in, going to the bathroom alone and uninterrupted, taking a shower alone and uninterrupted, going on a run, having a mimosa that makes you so relaxed that you sneak in a few pages of a book you have been trying to finish since your child turned 2 and then fall back asleep, and then the rest of the day doesn't matter as long as you get a full 12 hours not being the first line of defense. Is that super self indulged? Maybe. Does it also sound amazing? For me, right now, yes. 

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The bind comes in a few ways, one - the kids are confused because they assume mother's day includes them and don't know why you suddenly tell them to ask their father about everything. And two, im confused because i want to stare at them and love on them and being fully out of control gets awkward for everyone after about 4 hours so i start slowing inserting opinions when im not asked. 

How lucky is my family? Ha. I love um. And shockingly it turns out with all my quirks and party hopes, they love me back. 

Poetry share

I have always had a soft spot for poetry. It was how I knew to express the sometimes unspeakable. And tonight i find I am in a place where I need the words of another to say things I don't yet have all the clarity and form to express. Hope you enjoy! 

The Journey By David Whyte

Above the mountains
the geese turn into
the light again

Painting their
black silhouettes
on an open sky.

Sometimes everything
has to be
inscribed across
the heavens

so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.

Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that

first, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart.

Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out

someone has written
something new
in the ashes of your life.

You are not leaving.
Even as the light fades quickly now,
you are arriving.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes, 

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, 

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting  

over and over announcing your place 

in the family of things.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver 

can i get a witness?

About 20 tweens were dressed in sparkly black pants and red jerseys when the lights went up. I quickly spotted one of the tallest girls in the back. My heart did a little flip and I tried to keep my cool. But I didn't. Elise James, or E or EJ, was up there on stage absolutely knockin it out to a hip hop routine. And all i could picture was this long-legged, pale skinned, peach fuzzed head of a baby that I used to love to hold. She was about 3 months old when I met her parents and I have seen her do MANY many singing and dancing routines since then. But none like this, on a real stage with her grown up self.  Better than champagne toasts was this feeling of celebration and right place that I got while watching her on stage. 

And this connects to yesterday's post on Grub Club - E is GC member #13. The first friday dinners began with a 3 small babies and has grown by 10 more amazing miniatures. And the reason I write is not in anyway to boast of my special group but more to honor what I have come to learn in the last five years after leaving these dear bigs and smalls. We all need each other. In the world at large, yes, but even more so in the world in the day in and day out.  Life witnessed creates this depth and texture that is so very sweet.  

Ive been prideful to mask my need to belong, regularly, deeply and with delight. No one wants to name need and also it is very very hard to have your heart met well in this world. To add fun on top of a well met heart is like Disneyland but not fantasy. You know what I mean? My pasts speaks to how I either had my expectations so high that most in my life were set up to fail from the start. Or I puffed my chest and garnered all the independence I could to not need too badly, to not inconvenience anyone too much or want their company too often. In fact, where I have experienced a part of culture that says that needing is weak or asking for so much of people is too much, I actually think our need is what makes us human. And sharing that humanity with one another makes us all feel so much stronger in the world to get out there and do all the other badassery we have to get up too. 

My friend didn't ask me to come watch her girls today. But Hannah and I knew we wanted to be there.  When we arrived another good friend and her daughter were there too, and my heart smiled. I wondered what it meant to my friend to have others see her daughter grow up, to watch her daughter knock out her dance routine and glow. I wondered what it felt like to her daughters to have two extra Aunts and friends in the crowd cheering them. Its tiny, and its huge. And I wonder if we could all risk confessing our need more often as well as showing up unasked more often. 

grub club return

We never get the exact date right,  which always cracks us up, but somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-11 years ago, Stephen and I invited 4 other couples to join us for dinner on the first Friday of every month. We knew some of the couples better than others, two of the women had gone to high school with me and the other two went to our church and lived in our neighborhood.  I think it is fair to say for all of us that we had no idea what "Grub Club" would come to be in so many of our lives and the lives of our children.

At first couples would miss a month without too much thought, as life is so full, and suddenly we found that we were all changing our schedules to attempt to be in town for the grub club weekends. I'd love to say more so this blog will be continued, but I write about it today because tonight was our return to the table in a new way. Although in the last five years we have continued to prioritize breaking bread and playing with this group at least once a year, we really missed the monthly gatherings. What came into clear view once we were separated (why does that always happen?) was that these amazing couples are one of the most generous & unique gifts God has given to us in our lives. It was pretty surreal to return to the table with these folks and know we can come back again next month, heck, we can be back on the schedule to host. So, I'm all sorts of tired but I go to bed surprised and delighted by the welcome and open arms to our families return to these precious families. (miss you MUCHO fergs). 

change change change

I sat across from a friend who dropped by on a break from her own packing day, having a little chick-fil-a, wanting to hear everything.  She was as lovely and open-hearted as I remember. Sometimes I have to pinch myself where I get to begin in conversations with old friends - its so good. And honestly, as a sidenote, it was one of the things I loved about conversations in Seattle, most people got to things that mattered pretty quickly. Very little chit chat about haircuts and new clothes, not that it doesn't matter, but you recognize them and then get meaty. This friend said after about three sentences of conversation, "I see that your footprint here remained but what do you do with all the ways you come back different? How do you honor what you've learned?" Bingo bango. 

She got there real fast but these thoughts go through my head most days and could be paralyzing enough for me to stay indoors. I can't lose what I've gained at real cost. I answered her that I hoped I could be as open to others as I long for for myself - just enough for it to be okay to say something different or wear something different or care about something new or care about something less - to speak new ideas about Jesus or feel removed from their spiritual journey - to hate sports and love trump (cant picture these but the numbers say they exist)  - Point being I keep wondering can we offer more space to each other?

Just before I begin writing, I was reading a card from a brilliant friend in Seattle who said her wish for me was that Jesus would grace me with spaces big enough and connected enough for my generous, wild heart and gifting. And I thought.... yessss. Thank you for that wish. Me too. For me. And for my friends. 

How can we invite change in those we know the best? Can we be agile and courageous enough to let them free, awaken, heal, change too? I know I prize familiarity and that i have to talk myself out of knowing exactly how someone will act so i behave accordingly to their box. Yet Im learning we all just want a little more give on the boxes, a greater opening at the top, a more robust curiosity for what's inside. So, as I close out this day, that's what I am holding close. I will fight for the places I have been awakened to myself and attempt to be slower and curious with others to see the same in them. Actually, the thought of it has me beyond delighted, because it reminds me how much more is in each of us that needs particular time and space and age to blossom.  Cheers.

the little teachers

I pulled them both in so close to me I could smell the sugar from the donuts we ate on the way to the airport. Hannah chose Cuckoo for Coconut and Mateo ate his normal Raspberry Riot, and I had the French Toast for our final round of Mighty O donuts. I could hardly believe we made it to this moment. The three of us had been through some yo yo days as we packed and loaded and cleaned, and then lived out of different houses and cars for our final weeks in Seattle. It had been 35 days since Stephen departed for his new job in Charlotte, and in the 16 years I have been married to him I have NEVER spent that many nights a part. As I sat in between my kids I felt overwelmed with a sense of accomplishment and significance. I considered even throwing my fists in the air and shouting, "WOHOO!" Not because we were leaving but because we found our way with each other through a very complex season. 

Hannah and I had many talks of what leaving well looks like. Most days she far preferred just to get on the plane and go, she was SO done with the space in between. I get it. And yet when I saw her in her 2nd grade classroom, I saw the way her teacher and the kids appreciated and enjoyed her.  I knew it would catch up with her the bigness of all she was leaving. Laughing and making others laugh is really the desire of her heart at most times, and yet she is also very serious and aware. Her unique complexity made the days that were not funny at all very defeating and I watched her struggle with frustration, sadness and the body ailments that come with stress. It hurt me to see her trying to figure it all out and to know that some of the pain was unavoidable - we were leaving beauty.  I had to let her feel it to leave well. Many of nights we slept in the same bed and I felt such simple goodness in what the nearness of our bodies could offer one another in comfort and stability amidst so much change. 

And for my little buddy, I have been in awe. That his little body has endured the confusion of a dad gone for endless days when time makes no sense other than its too long. When you are driving different cars and staying in different houses and still you smile, and sing and sleep - oh my gosh you are an incredible small person I am cherished to watch grow. I am learning so much from you. And when you break down, you really really really break down, and its hard for me to be as big as I need to be in those moments, but when I can, and when I do, i am so dang glad that all you really want to do is curl in as close and tight to my body that life can feel remotely safe and known. I hear you buddy. I get it. You are incredible and resilient and teaching me. 

We did it wee ones. We endured some rough days, but I know you better know. I know myself more. I see that you actually caring for one another more. As the days carried on, I saw that your hearts too were drawn to one another, that you were holding each other more, and looking out for each other more - like you knew - we need each other the most. Thank you for teaching me so much and growing my heart for you in new ways. We made it to Charlotte and I love you more.