On Feeling Needy and Blue ... and Grateful (though there outta be a better word)

Awhile ago I wrote about some of the reasons I stopped blogging at the wide tent. In part, I felt like my writing created a false sense of who I am; that in trying to write with craft and wisdom, I worried that I lacked humility, and I was creating an on-line persona that was not quite honest, because it did not share all of my messy, complicated, needy self. I don’t know if my on-line writer persona here at my goodly heritage matches my real-life persona very well at all, but it’s something that I care about and strive for. If I have any wisdom at all to share, and any beauty, I suspect it is more true and more accessible if it’s coming from a real live human being, warts and all.

What I really want to write about today is gratitude, and not just gratitude in general, but a very specific gratitude for which there should be a word, though I’m not sure what it is. But before I can even get there, I have to let you in on a bit of my messy self, which in the past couple of days, has been feeling kind of blue and needy.

But maybe before I get to my blue and needy self, I should back up even further, in the interests of full disclosure and truth-in-advertising, and let you know that I have in my life suffered from pretty serious depression and anxiety. Not completely debilitating – I’ve never experienced a real breakdown, though in the past couple of years I came pretty close, twice. You’ll get more of that in my “Welfare of the City” series, which, come to think of it, is probably why that series is progressing so slowly…. But now I offer up my experience of depression only to assure you that “blue and needy” is not that, and I will most certainly be fine.

But still, blue and needy is, well…. blue and needy, you know? Yesterday in particular, by the end of the day, all I really wanted was a good cry. But by the time the chores and errands were finished, the dropping off at swimming and the picking up done, the stories read and the snack fixed and the teeth brushed … well, I was too tired to even indulge myself in a good cry, so I just went to bed. And the thing is, every Thursday night I’m on my own, because Julie has choir practice. Julie has had choir practice every Thursday night since before we had kids, so I’ve never known any other sort of Thursday night parenting. It’s no big deal … it just is. But last night it just felt like too much.

Who knows why? There are little things … the days are getting shorter, it’s finally gotten bitter cold, peri-menopause sometimes feels like it’s kicking my butt. Then there’s the way bigger stuff … a friend of mine, a young mother, was in surgery yesterday for a recurrence of cancer; another young mother I know is undergoing chemotherapy; one of my oldest friend’s younger brother died; Julie is struggling with stupid school stress and sad family stuff. In the midst of all that, my own desire to be present and kind and helpful sometimes leaves me instead feeling inadequate and petty and, worst of all for me, needy and vulnerable.

But that’s really all just backdrop to what I want to write about, which is not the blues, but rather gratitude. And not just the sort of gratitude such moments certainly call for, the I’m-grateful-for-my-health-and-my-family-and-the-roof-over-my-head sort of gratitude, though I certainly am grateful for all of that. But what I’m thinking about is more fortuitous? Providential? Neither of those words is exactly it, either, but it’s as close as I’ve gotten for that out-of-the-blue kindness, which is usually small, and often unaware of the context that makes it so needed, but precisely in its smallness, and in its lack of intention, it is just the thing. Breathtaking. Grace maybe. I’m feeling grateful for instances of grace, and the friends and strangers through whom God has visited them upon me.

Like the time I went to a family wedding in New York when Micah was just a baby. I had been nursing him since he came home with us at 15 days old, and though I never produced a full supply of milk, I had amassed a huge stash in the freezer of my own milk, from months and months of pumping before we ever even knew about Micah. By the time this wedding rolled around, though, I had pretty much worked my way through my stash, and was almost through the donations from Rachel and Cate who had, with the most exquisite generosity, pumped and donated their milk to the cause of teeny-tiny Micah-boo.

So I went off for about six hours to this wedding – the longest I had ever been away from Micah -- and Julie went off with Micah and visited Ansley, who lived near-by. It was a lovely, lovely wedding, full of people I adore, but for some reason I’m not sure I can adequately explain, I just felt so out of step. My breasts ached and I had to excuse myself to the bathroom and try to hand express milk so I wouldn’t leak all over my borrowed party dress. Because I had been ambivalent about leaving Micah, I had been late in RSVP’ing, and so was seated with folks I didn’t know at all – a middle-aged single man, a widowed neighbor of the bride’s parents, a couple of family friends and business associates, none of whom really know each other. From this vantage point, somehow, all the young, beautiful, normal people – the young friends of the bride and groom who were so effortlessly and unselfconsciously themselves at this most hetero-normative of all celebrations – it was just overwhelming. I felt like a freak, and all the ways that I have had to invent my life suddenly were just too, too much.

And then, when I finally got back to Julie and Micah, he smelled overwhelmingly of formula.**

On the way home from New York, I just couldn’t stop crying, keening almost. I was completely inarticulate, even to myself. My grief felt profound, yet inexplicable. Somehow the smell of formula on Micah’s breath had become the symbol of all the ways my life lacked normalcy – ways that, for the most part, I cherish, and wouldn’t trade for the world. But in that moment, I just wanted to feel normal in some sort of way that most folks – like the dear ones at that wedding – get to take for granted, but that mostly eludes me.

Certainly at the very least, I wanted to have breasts full of milk and never need a stash in the freezer, but short of that, I most desperately wanted a stash in the freezer. I hated what formula represented, the failure of normalcy that seemed to extend into so much of my life, right down to my ovaries and my breasts. In that moment, I hated formula with a passion, yet that’s what I was going home to: no more of my stash, no more of Cate’s milk or Rachel’s, just a can of baby formula to make up the difference that my breasts couldn’t provide.

When we got home, there was a message on the machine from a total stranger. She had heard, from a mutual friend, that I was looking for breast milk. She had a bunch in her freezer that she was not going to use. Did I want it?

The gratitude I felt in that moment … why isn’t there a word for that? She didn’t know, she couldn’t have known, but her gesture was exactly, exquisitely, profoundly what I needed at that moment. My gratitude to this woman was just as inarticulate as my grief had been just hours before. There ought to be a word for that, for the sort of gratitude you feel when someone totally unwittingly, through just common decency and kindness and generosity, becomes a channel of God’s grace in exactly the way you needed it at exactly that moment.

Which is a very long and round-about way of saying that I feel that sort of gratitude a lot. And believe me, it’s not lost on me how lucky I am.

So this morning, for example, I was feeling better – a good night’s sleep goes along way, not to mention a lot of kindness on my Facebook page yesterday – but still, I was a little punky and blue, feeling needy and vulnerable and inadequate to the task of being present and giving in the face of so much suffering around me these days. I was on my way to yoga with Jen across the street when Pat called. She couldn’t have lunch as we had been hoping, but she just wanted to tell me that my writing lately has given voice to some things – big things – she has been mulling, but has been unable to articulate herself. And she said a lot of other really nice things that I won’t bore you with, but that were just the right thing – making me feel not just needy and vulnerable, but also helpful, present, effective.

I ran across the street, late but with a smile, and then Jen did it all over again: first we could barely get through our practice for all the giggling, and then we fell into a conversation about her experience of pregnancy and impending motherhood that was so open and honest and affirming of my place in her life and her family.

Now I will say that Pat and Jen are probably the two most intuitive people I know, bar none. Both of them have this intense insight, like they see right into your soul and get it right every time. Now that I think of it, I don’t know anyone else quite like them, but they are very much like each other in this way. Which is to say there is no point, ever, in trying to bullshit them. And which is also to say, both of them probably knew that I was feeling a bit punky. But certainly, my gratitude is no less, nor is my awe at not only their kindness, but their willingness to make themselves vulnerable in order to lift me up. What a gift. Am I one lucky girl, or what?

** Please let me here assure you that I do NOT believe formula is evil. I did NOT breastfeed Micah because I think formula is evil, and if you formula-fed your baby, I do NOT think I am better than you, nor do I think Micah will have any sort of advantage over your child. I DO think breastfeeding is a powerful experience, and I’m awfully glad I was able to do it, and if you ever want support I’m your gal. But I think there are LOTS of good reasons to feed formula to a baby, and I’ve said as much while leading a La Leche League meeting. Okay?

Diary of a Mad Housewife: Micah and the New Normal (or: William and His Doll are So Yesterday!)

Wednesday was a bit of a comedy of errors.

I decided earlier in the week to finally paint the living room, after living for many months with a big red test swatch on one wall. I had bought a gallon of this test-swatch color, a slightly orangy-red that is very pretty, but not exactly what I want, as it turns out. It makes me feel like I'm in a fun, funky Indian restaurant -- exactly the right color for eating Indian food, but not exactly the right color for doing all the other things I do in my living room. Having already purchased a gallon of it, and knowing that red takes at least three, sometimes four coats to cover, I decided to use the wrong red as a base coat, and then get a gallon of the right red later to finish the job.

So I made Trixie fix herself a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner (meal planning and preparation in the midst of home renovation is not my forte), and then after dropping her off at swim practice, Micah and I headed up Rising Sun Boulevard to my friendly, not-quite-in-my-neighborhood paint store to get that gallon of the right red. We also planned to go to the Wawa for hot dogs. Julie was still at school grading papers, which is pretty much what she does these days, like a machine.

About two blocks from the paint store, it occurred to me for the very first time that it might not be open, and that I really should have checked before driving all the way up there. It was after six, and getting dark, but when we pulled into the lot, the lights were all on, and the door was open! But no, they were about to close. The very nice lady at the counter said I could buy a brush or something small, but I knew there was no chance she was going to mix up two gallons of paint for me (Michael needs another gallon of the special-order lime green I used to paint his living room in the parsonage this past summer.)

I was feeling pretty impressed with myself that I didn't just collapse into a puddle on the floor, and instead decided to make the best of a stupid situation. I picked up a few color chips that I needed, and Micah and I headed across the parking lot to Wawa, where we got hot dogs and chips, and I got a diet Pepsi and he got a strawberry milk.

Now before I can finish this story, there's something you need know about my family that is utterly absurd: we own three cars. Not only that, but two of them are vans. Yes, for all our eco-crunchiness, we are really just a mean, carbon-spitting machine of a family. And we are NOT proud of it. It is utterly stupid. But let me explain.

When Micah was a toddler, I took care of a lot of kids, one baby about twenty hours a week, and several more neighborhood kids before and after school. My natural tendency to righteousness has, in general over the years, melted more and more into humility, and one of the most humbling moments in my life was when we purchased a mini-van. I was humble, but boy was I happy. I loved my mini-van! I loved, and still do love, being the mom who could haul lots of kids around safely, who could pick up other folks' kids from school in a pinch, who could make last-minute plans because there was room, who could take a van-load of kids to the zoo or the aquarium on days when there was an early dismissal. I still love nothing more than a van full of kids, a bag of snacks and a knitting project or a book so I can ignore the kids whenever we arrive at our destination. My silvery-blue Honda Odyssey has a big spooge of yellow and green gunk on the carpet in the back that I think was once silly putty; it's always really really messy, even though I clean and vacuum it pretty regularly; it's scratched and nicked and dented all over the place, especially the back bumper because I'm a terrible parallel parker. That bumper has three bumper stickers on it, all faded and nicked up: "Lactavist," "God Bless the Whole World, No Exceptions," and "I Believe in the Separation of Church and Hate." Yes, I love my van. It has made me humble but oh-so-happy.

We tried being a one-car family for awhile, but we just failed. It's really stupid too, because Julie works just four miles from our house. But there's no reliably safe way to get there by bike, it's just a little too far to commit to walking every day, and she would spend an hour on three busses to get there by public transportation. There's no one in our neighborhood to car-pool with, and it was a lot of extra driving and time and coordination for me to drop her off and pick her up, especially since she generally tries to get to work pretty early. So several years ago we bought the "new" car, as Micah still calls it, a 1989 boxy silver Toyota Camry. Our friends thought we were nuts, and being taken for a ride by a smarmy used car salesman, but as it turns out, it really was the dreamed-of little-old-lady car -- you know, the one that the little-old-lady drives to church and the grocery store once a week and that's it? It had something like 50,000 miles on it, and the little-old-lady was the mom of the car dealer, so it had been meticulously maintained, with the whole maintenance history faithfully recorded and tucked in the glove box. We got it for something like $3500, and it was the best car buy ever. We've put a little bit of money into it, but it is an utterly reliable around-town vehicle, and we love it.

And then about a year ago, Julie inherited a 1989 VW Westfalia camper van from her aunt and uncle. Auntie and Uncle Bill took this van on one trip through Canada and then parked it in their garage, where it was used only by squirrels for fifteen years. We've had our eyes on it forever. It has a pop top and the back seats fold down into another bed. There's a stove and a fridge and little closets and cupboards and it's all very Euro-sleek but in a late-80's sort of way. When Uncle Bill died and Auntie went into a retirement home, their three vehicles got divvied up among their two nieces and their nephew, since they were childless. Without really thinking it all through, we jumped at the VW. Julie,especially, became completely enamored of it. She would come out of stores to find people peering into the windows. Men would stop her in parking lots to ask questions about it and regale her with stories of their own beloved VW's. And there was even a tow-truck driver who took a call for a flat tire after he was technically off duty just because he loves VW's so much.

The plan was to sell the Honda as soon as we got the VW in good working order, which shouldn't have taken very long, because it was actually in pretty good shape. But after years of sitting in the garage, a few things needed tending to. I also demanded that a second bench seat be installed because without it the van only had four seat belts, which made me no longer the mom who can haul lots of kids around. As it turns out, the tending of a 1989 VW camper van can take awhile (and, ahem, a bit more money that we intended), but it was all good, and by this past summer, we did all of our considerable summer travels in the camper van.

But we just keep not getting around to selling the Honda. Which is just profoundly stupid. What is even more stupid is that I keep driving it, because the VW just feels so big and clunky, and it's not my natural inclination to get in it if the Honda is right there too. But the other day when I drove the kids (including several neighbor kids) to school because it was raining, the battery on the Honda was dead. So I took the camper van, like I should have any way, and just left the Honda there for a few days. Until the Toyota started acting a little weird, and needed to go into the shop. Julie took the VW to school, and I called our good friends at AAA, who have never made a single penny on our family, despite the fact that we have the totally top-shelf premier membership. The battery was jumped and I let it run for a long time and much later in the day when I got into the Honda to take Trixie to swimming and then headed up to the paint store, it started like a charm.

But when we got out of the Wawa with our hot dogs and chips? Not so much. This time I really did almost collapse in a puddle on the floor. But Julie talked me down, and then I called AAA again, and this time they just changed the damn battery while Micah and I played "Rock, Paper Scissors" and "One Two Three Four, I Declare a Thumb War" in the parking lot while we watched. And finally, considerably past Micah's bedtime, we headed home with our hot dogs and our new battery, which we had driven all the way up the boulevard to get. But no paint.

On our drive home, apropos of nothing, Micah asked, "Mom, do you like boys or girls better?"

"Hmmm," I thought. "I don't think I could really say, categorically, that I like girls or boys better. There are some things I like girls better for, and some things I like boys better for. For example, I like girls better for marrying, so that's why I'm married to Mama Julie. But for having sons, I like boys better, like you. And for being friends, I really like both boys and girls. So I love being friends with Jennie and Pat and Kate and Jen and Suzanne and Cassie, for example, but I also love being friends with Woody and Joey and Tim and Dan and Pete and Michael and Mark. So I guess I couldn't really say if I like boys or girls better. I guess it just depends."

Micah thought about this for a minute. And then I asked, "How 'bout you? Do you like boys or girls better?"

"Boys!" he declared, without hesitation.

"Oh," I said, "That's interesting. Because Ada and Meg are two of your very best friends."

"Yeah, I like them, but I still like boys better. Nial and Jasper and Ian are my best friends."

"Yeah, they're pretty good friends, aren't they? I'm glad you have such nice friends." And then, just out of curiosity, I asked, "How about for marrying? Do you think you would rather marry a girl or a boy?"

And again, without any hesitation, Micah declared: "A boy!"

And here's the thing: I believe, more and more, that human sexuality is a very fluid thing, and that it's usually not useful to put labels on people until they are ready to put them on themselves, and even then they can change, and that's not only good, it's a beautiful thing. But right now, if you really pushed me, I would probably put money on the chances that Micah will, in fact, marry a girl. But I just couldn't be happier that at six and a half, it still seems perfectly normal and even likely to Micah that he might marry a boy someday. We are so blessed and I am so grateful to live in communities -- neighborhood, church, school -- where boys marrying boys and girls marrying girls is just the new "normal."

The Cost and Joy of Discipleship: Renewing My Lesbian Card

On my “ketchup” list in my last post was the fact that I have been thinking more about being a lesbian in the past ten weeks than I have in the past ten years. That might be a bit of an exaggeration (I’m a little prone to hyperbole), but not too much. Julie used to joke that they were going to take away our lesbian cards soon, if we didn’t get some pride … but then we didn’t, and then we were pretty sure the cards had, in fact, expired. Aside from in fact being lesbians, our lives aren’t very, well, lesbian. We don’t go to gay pride events, we’re not part of any gay and lesbian organizations, we don’t have a rainbow flag outside our house. We have plenty of gay friends, but they’re mostly not our friends because they’re gay, but because they go to our church, or they live on our block, or our kids are playmates.

So my newfound enthusiasm – giddiness even – for thinking and talking about being gay is especially startling to me, like someone renewed my card and forgot to tell me! And it’s not as though I haven’t given any thought to being a lesbian in the last decade, but honestly, it’s just occurring to me that for the most part, what brings gayness to the center of my attention has almost always been the ugly stuff: DOMA and the federal marriage amendment and the whole toxic political climate of the Bush years. But suddenly, we’re married! And we have a gay pastor! And hey, it feels sort of fun to be gay again!

I know that I owe you all an essay or two to conclude my marriage series, but it’s still percolating. I really thought getting married in Iowa was sort of a formality, something kind of cool we never thought we could do. I never imagined that it would be so profoundly generative, in such lovely and unexpected ways. I look forward to sharing all that with you soon (ish; no promises). But I’m finding that I sort of need to write and share my way around it for awhile. The meaning in it, which is gorgeous and unexpected and feels over and over like grace – it’s just too big right now to get my arms all the way around.

So in the meantime, I thought I would share a couple of scenes from a lesbian life, as they are happening to me, or coming back to me these days.

I.

Last Sunday at the adult Sunday school series called Sharing our Faith Stories, our pastor Michael led us in an exercise intended to help us feel more comfortable sharing with one another. It was sort of like “speed dating,” except it was “speed faith sharing.” The chairs in the social hall were set in two concentric circles, facing each other, so folks sitting in each circle were paired with someone sitting in the other circle, knee to knee. Michael would ask us a question, and we each had a minute to share, and then one circle would move one space to the right, so you had a new partner for each question. One of the questions was to tell about an embarrassing moment, and this is the story I told, as it turns out, to my dear friend Suzanne:

When we left Indiana to move to Philadelphia, it was largely because we couldn’t be out there and still be teachers, and Julie, at least, was really sure that she was called to teach (and she was right). As I have written before, it was painful to be closeted in our small, rural classrooms, and the city felt so fresh, so wide-open, so safe, ironically enough. And we were definitely loving being out again, like the BDOC’s (big dykes on campus) that we had been in college. That was definitely way before our lesbian cards expired, back in the day when we loved nothing more than a march on Washington, and if it was a dyke march, all the better.

So there we were, marching with tens of thousands of lesbians right past the White House, and there was a whole contingent who had stripped to the waist. And if you know me, you know that in general I like to have as little clothing on as possible, so OF COURSE I took my shirt off. I mean, right? What else would I do? And we’re marching right past the White House, and we’re chanting something like “Hey hey, ho ho, homophobia has got to go,” or singing “A you’re an Amazon, B coming Brave and strong, Clearly and Confidently you C! D you’re so dykey, oh how you Excite me, how Fortunate for the Female Faculty!” Or some such, you get the picture.

And then, quietly at first, and then a little louder, and more insistent, I hear a voice from behind: “Miss Rose? Miss Rose? Is that YOU?”

And sure enough, I turned around to see a somewhat flushed (and fully clothed, but quite clearly marching in the dyke march) former student. And by former, I mean like she was my student LAST YEAR!

Again, those of you who know me in person know that I’m no prude, and I would probably be quite comfortable being naked in front of most of you – certainly if we were marching together in a dyke march past the White House – but this was too much. Even for me. I smiled, and said, “Well hello! Just let me put my shirt on and then I can talk to you!” But I’m pretty sure I was blushing.

II.

It’s lovely to feel so celebrated and safe these days as a lesbian woman, wife and mother. It’s so lovely that I almost forgot how recently it felt so very different. I think it’s important to remember. This is a link to something I shared with my congregation one Sunday in worship just three short years ago, when Pennsylvania was considering an amendment excluding gays and lesbians from marriage.

III.

A couple of weeks ago in church, we sang a new response at some point in the liturgy, that went like this:

Open my eyes, that I may see

glimpses of truth, Thou hast for me.

Open my eyes ...

Well, actually, I can’t remember exactly how the song we sang in church went, but most of you who grew up in church probably recognized this, right? That never happens to me, because I didn’t grow up in church. All those hymns that you’re pissed off about because some earnest PC music committee changed the lyrics? Doesn’t bother me in the least, because I never knew the old lyrics to begin with. So I was pretty startled that I recognized this song, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until about the third verse, and then I remembered: Cris Williamson, Song of the Soul, from The Changer and the Changed (go listen!) – the song that opens with that same refrain:

Open my eyes, that I may see

glimpses of truth Thou hast for me

Open my eyes illumine me,

Spirit Divine ….

And if you were an earnest lesbian (or even just an earnest feminist) in the 1980’s, you probably know exactly what I’m talking about. Remember how we used to sit up in the Womyn’s Center on the fourth floor of Carpenter Hall, that gorgeous space where men were not allowed, and where the sun streamed through that big semi-circular window? There were great big couches and pillows on the floor and that lavender mural called “Weaving Webs of Women’s Lives,” remember? (And of course, if you didn’t go to Earlham College in the 1980’s, but you were an earnest feminist somewhere else in those years, you can probably at least imagine what I’m talking about). There was a record player in the corner and a slender stack of “women’s music” albums – or “wimmin’s music,” or “womyn’s music” – oh my, but we were earnest then! And I loved it all – Cris Williamson and Meg Christian [edited to get her name right] and their triumphant concert at Carnegie Hall, singing about loving women; and Holly Near, who was maybe even a lesbian for a minute or two, wasn’t she? But at the very least she was bringing all us gentle, angry people together in harmony. And Ferrin, remember her? Oh good Lord, she was not only earnest, but earnest and bleak. And Deirdre McCalla [edited to fix her name] and Theresa Trull and Toshi Reagan … they were all like the sound track of my life back then. And I loved it all.

So when we sang that song in church the other day, a song that I not only knew from before I became a regular church-goer, but knew from those sun-filled days in the lavender womb of the Womyn’s Center, it all came flooding back – how much I loved being a lesbian, how full of hope and pride and joy we were, such young women loving each other, and how much those women’s music singers – Cris and Meg and Holly and Deirdre and Theresa and Toshi and all the rest – how easy it is to remember them with sentimentality, or to poke fun (as I often do) at their earnestness, and to forget that they really were pioneers. That it was fucking brave back then to get up on a stage and sing about loving another woman. I’m glad I got to be reminded of that in the midst of my loving, open and affirming congregation, being led by an openly gay pastor – those women were among the many folks who paved the way for there to be such a church, and such a pastor, and such a giddy lesbian as me -- and I am ever grateful to all of them.

Gratitude

In his tour de force The Noonday Demon, Andrew Solomon reflects that while he can never love depression, he does love the things that depression has given him, including an exquisite gratitude for life outside of depression that people who have never known depression might just take for granted.  I have never experienced a depression of the magnitude that Solomon describes, but I have certainly suffered on and off, especially in the last several years.  Like Solomon, these days I am living in a heightened sense of gratitude thrown into joyful relief by fairly recent days of melancholy. 

Among the things I am grateful for is a rich full life, even if it means I have little time to write these days (I really do mean to get back to my marriage series, in which there are at least two more essays).  That does seem to be my life these days, though: too rich and full to find much time to write about it.  Still, I think gratitude of the sort I am experiencing these days is too much not to lift up.  

Maybe these bullet points will become essays this winter (and maybe writing them will help keep the winter blues at bay).  Here’s what I’m grateful for these days, in no particular order:

• My neighborhood.  Sometimes my neighborhood overwhelms me with its urban grittiness; with the tensions that stem from class and race and culture, with the noise and the trash and the sheer density of row house living.  But these days it’s like someone turned the kaleidoscope just a fraction, and suddenly the image is all new.  The other day Micah and I walked around the corner to drop in on old friends from Cooperative Nursery School days who just moved into the neighborhood, and Claire and I sat at her kitchen table and chatted while the boys played Lego's downstairs.  Then I took them on a tour of the garden, and sent them home with an arm-full of veggies, while I headed home with a basket of green-beans and a riot of cut sunflowers and zinnias, which I dropped off to Miss Kathy.  We chatted about her upcoming trip to Jamaica, how quickly the school year is approaching, and how much she loves her church.  As I climbed the steps to my front porch, I watched Micah two doors down, sitting on the steps with Miss Jayne, the matriarch of the neighborhood, his bike temporarily abandoned, while they had an animated conversation.  These sorts of moments keep piling up:  several friends pop in unannounced, and suddenly we’re scheming a pot-luck bar-b-que for dinner; Micah wants waffles for breakfast but we’re out of eggs, so he just starts knocking on doors; my lovely friend Jen and I can peaches all day to her fun and funky “peaches” playlist, chatting about everything from theology to pregnancy nausea to sex to Dansko clogs, and when we’re about to drop, Julie and Tim arrive for the second shift.  Yeah, I’m loving my neighborhood these days.

• My church.  My relationship with my church feels almost like a marriage:  sacred, covenantal, and a whole lotta hard work.  I’ve never even come close to thinking about leaving my marriage to Julie, but last year at church I began to understand how even loving marriages end in divorce sometimes.  But there’s a new wind blowing, like we’ve fallen in love with being the Body of Christ together, all over again.  It’s still a whole lotta hard work – church, like marriage, always will be I suppose – but it feels again like the bread of life in my mouth, a joyful cup shared with people I just adore. 

• My marriage.  I would write at length about my ever-growing adoration for Julie, but it would embarrass her.  Let’s just say that I never stopped being crazy about her, and it just keeps getting better and better.  Leaving behind the all-consuming years of early parenting, so intensely physical and spiritually rich, is bittersweet; but among the sweetness is the lovely and subtle sense that our marriage continues to be a dynamic and creative partnership.  (Also, she's just so damn cute, but pretend I didn't say that, 'cause really, it will embarrass her.)

• Old friends and new.  My dear ones Kate and Pete and their daughter Ada left two years ago for an adventure in San Francisco; they’ve just returned to our block (no doubt one of the reasons I’m in love again with my neighborhood), with their daughter, AND their son Josiah, AND another babe on the way.  They may have left their hearts in San Francisco (and I’m sure they feel they left at least a part of them there; it’s a beautiful place), but their return sure has plugged up a hole in my heart.  In the meantime, while they were gone, Jen and Tim moved in across the street, also with a babe on the way (a babe with several hours of Marta-care already in the bank in exchange for yoga); it will definitely require a whole essay to express the all the ways they are making our lives richer.  And one of my oldest and richest friendships in Philadelphia is always renewed in the summer-time: Donna and I did a lot better last school year finding time, but summers by the pool are like a little sanctuary in our friendship, for which I am ever grateful ... And, and, and ... in the category of old friends, there really are just too many.  My life is richly blessed.

• Men.  Suddenly I have all these wonderful men in my life, and while I could put them in the bullet point above, I think they deserve a category all their own.  My world has always been an intensely female one, though not through any conscious design.  Indeed, I’ve often rued the lack of real male friendships in my life, but somehow being friends with women just feels like breathing air, you know, and breathing air is GOOD.   But now I have a son, a son who is pretty intensely male and who wears his maleness with incredible beauty and grace, like a skin that he is so comfortable in.  I not only love it, his maleness, this beautiful skin he is in, but I find myself fascinated by it, and intensely drawn to maleness these days, wanting men in my life not just for Micah, but for me too.  And how lucky am I that suddenly there are all these beautiful men in my life?  There are the aforementioned Pete and Tim, old friend and new; there are my dear ones, Woody and Joey, who share their whole selves with us so lovingly; there is Patrick, whose generosity and wit are like grace, so unexpected and undeserved (and whose ethereal self WILL become embodied sooner than later, at least that is my fervent hope!); there is Gordon, who is mostly words in my computer, but words that shine such a lovely light in my world; there is Michael, my new friend AND my new pastor (two for the price of one!), who is bringing such a breath of fresh air to us all … well, let’s just say, I’m feeling like a lucky girl these days to have so many wonderful boyfriends.

• The Jersey shore: sun, sand, surf, Mac N Manco’s pizza, Johnson’s carmel corn, the aforementioned Woody and Joey … I'm off!

What are YOU grateful for? Leave me a comment why don’t you? It’ll make my day, and then I’ll add you to my list of things I’m grateful for!

Diary of a Mad Housewife: Gratitude in the Garden

On Mother's Day, Julie took the kids to church and then to visit her Auntie, who lives in a nursing home about an hour away, and I had the whole day to work in the garden.  It was cool and sunny, a perfect day.  When I arrived in the garden, though, I realized that the wheelbarrow -- the bright yellow, new, very expensive wheelbarrow -- was missing.  The night before, Micah had been done with the garden, so I sent him ahead with the keys.  I planned to follow minutes later, when I realized I couldn't lock up the shed because the padlock doesn't work without the key.  So with every intention of returning, I left the wheelbarrow full of weeds in the middle of the garden and went home to attend to the squirrelly six year old.  Upon my arrival at home, I was felled by an allergy attack of epic proportions, the sort that only sleep-inducing antihistamines will allay.  And I forgot all about the wheelbarrow.

When I arrived in the garden on Mother's Day, I immediately noticed it was missing.  I also immediately noticed that Mrs. Meadowland was standing on her front steps, talking to someone and shooting the evil eye at the garden.  My rational mind knew that she had nothing to do with the missing wheelbarrow, but I wasn't feeling particularly rational just then.  I burst into tears.

Another neighbor, a very dear man named Vlad, happened to be walking by just then and asked after me.  I poured out all my venom at Mrs. Meadowland to poor

Vlad, who used every single one of his considerable 12-step counseling skills to talk me down.  He could not have been more kind.  He went to get me his wheelbarrow, and said he'd be back in a couple of hours to fetch it.  He also recounted a story of a particularly difficult, bitter relationship he'd had, and how he decided to pray, for two solid weeks, that his adversary would get everything he needed. Vlad said that relationship was transformed, and there was nothing else he could attribute the transformation to.  He also observed that I really need to figure out a way to let go of the specter of the Meadowlands, which always feels looming when I'm working in the garden, so that I can really enjoy myself there.  "She's a small, bitter woman.  Imagine being her," he said. I felt so very very cared for.

While I moved mounds of compost around in Vlad's old, beat-up wheelbarrow, I thought about what I wished for from the Meadowlands.  All I want, I realized, is to have a cordial, polite, neighborly relationship.

A "Hey, how you doin?" sort of relationship.  That's all.  And I realized I could have that sort of relationship, even if they refuse to reciprocate.  Maybe an hour later, Mr. Meadowland pulled up, parked in front of their house, and began walking to the front door. 

"Good morning, Mr. Meadowland!" I called, in my most neighborly voice, but without stopping my work.  

"Hi! How are you?" he called back.  But I'm pretty sure he didn't see me, or know who had called out to him.  Still, I felt better.

I will admit that when Mrs. Meadowland came out a little later, I couldn't screw up the courage to call out to her, but I'm working on it.

Later in the day, my neighbor Tom, who is helping me build a fence (okay, let's be real:  I'm helping him build a fence; he's a master carpenter, and I can follow simple directions if he speaks slowly and clearly), stopped by, and apologized for not bringing the wheelbarrow back.  He had taken it with him and a whole load of weeds that he was dumping at a worksite where they needed landfill.

And I knew that.  I had completely forgotten.

I don't really believe that things happen for a reason, I really don't.  But I was feeling pretty grateful by the end of the day.  It was, as at least half a dozen young men passing by said to me that day, a "Happy Mother's Day."  

Photos, again, from my dear Donna.