Loving Well

Today has been muffled by snow and the thickness that falls around a house where a child has been sick. In a way it's been long, and in a way it's been a day of grace, a day with no plans, no journeys, no great accomplishments. In days like these I often experience a head clearing, unexpectedly, out of the fog.

A moment of brightness, glimmering only, not overwhelming, as I remade Elspeth's bed with clean sheets, as the girls played in the bath some feet away: I'm singing "All day, all night, Angels watching over me, my Lord. . ." Suddenly I feel comforted, though I had not been asking for comfort or reassurance--I feel as if I am watched over by goodness and love, mercy and tenderness. Even when I do not seek it, even when I forget to know it, it is there, a presence that occasionally surprises me and bids me peace.

This is a secret I have just started to uncover: I do not have to be happy every minute of my life to be content. This year has been intense in its own daily way as I let go of things which I held to and wished for so furiously: my family's proximity, my wish for those I love to be near; my solitude; my writing. At one point recently I finally began to understood: it is okay to feel unhappy sometimes (and goodness knows, with my family, writing, and community, I have very little cause for unhappiness). But it is all right, at moments of frustration and bewilderment, not to feel warm and content and like a well-petted dog safe in her own basket. It is okay to be vulnerable, to be sad sometimes. Before, I fought it, railed against it, desperately searched for things and people to make me happy again. I was not at peace until I had researched my discontent, blamed those responsible, made a bit of a scene, and finally achieved some level of bliss again. I am beginning, just beginning to understand: Joy and peace coexist with discomfort, with frustrated aspirations, discomfort, and with inconvenience.

Also I am beginning to learn the extent of what I must let go. Certain moments, like the silence that fell over the house tonight when the girls were finally in bed and Martin teaching his class, strike me. I recall Elspeth's wet nose against mine after her bath, the way she curved her body toward me and hugged my neck; there is Beatrix's impish, jagged-toothed grin, and Merry's surprise tea time this afternoon. This is not the sentimentality that leads to miserably sticky songs--no, it is the force of joy coupled with the blow of sorrow that such particular sweetness will pass by quickly, that my life also will pass by much more rapidly than I imagine. These things I love so intensely, these things I take also for granted, I must let go of each one. I must let go of every person I love; I must release to them their own lives. So little belongs to me, and so little is mine for very long.

These moments bring me sharply back to gratitude and humility. They remind me of the privilege I have been given. I hold a warm, soft bird in my hands for a minute; the wings extend; it is gone.

To a smaller extent I am also discovering the release that comes with letting go of things. Every thing I rid myself of these days, every item I see depart from my house, I celebrate its going, because its absence opens more space in me. Sometimes I am tempted to rid myself of almost everything, but I am certainly not an ascetic at heart and I love prettiness and I love that my girls are growing up in modest prettiness. There is the loveliness of things but coupled with that is the realization that nothing we own merits any real worth in a monetary sense. Yet I love this beat-up old banker's desk and the ficus tree which speaks spring through the winter and the saris my mother saved from my childhood that now hang in doorways in our house. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to NPR's Tippit's interview about the historical Buddha as I put away and ate more of the piles of peanut butter chocolate-chip cookies we baked this afternoon. I love my new TV that my parents bought me for Christmas and I love watching it. I love Yeungling and I want to relish butterschnapps in hot chocolate.

And tomorrow, I am sure, I will once again pull the covers over my head in a bid for five more minutes in bed, and tomorrow I will inevitably raise my voice and howl over the constant mess in the house. Tonight, though, I have felt loved well. And I have remembered that I too must love well.

Vomit vs. Parmesian

Both have strong odors, but one tastes better than the other. One I ate for lunch and the other Elspeth expelled in the middle of last night. Both, in their freshest form, causes me hard work, but one outcome looks good on noodles and the other. . .

Well, I'll spare you the rest. Despite my regular engagement with world news and literature, I find myself often relfecting on the basic fundamentals--such as the scent of child-vomit. (DELIGHTFUL, old chap.)

There are certain things that I will associate with my children being small, and one of them is the scent, the sight, the epic journey of bodily fluids. It's incredible, actually, how such fluids become acceptable conversation among parents of our acquaintance and at auspicious occasions, say, a holiday or birthday party or a nice dinner. "Say," starts one parent as the others taste the first course, "Did I tell you so and so [fill in bodily function] last night?

"You think that's bad," counters the other, and the discussion is in full swing, each story more wildly disturbing than the other until dessert ends with a wild free-for-all of tossing-cookies and poop and spit-up and goodness knows what, delivered with the same gusto with which single, hip people our age describe an especially challenging hike or sky-dive.

Somehow this is all socially acceptable. It's like a first trip to another country--you end up discussing stomach problems more than world peace or justice or the economy. I suppose it follows, since if the stomach's not right, nothing else is worth thinking of. You can live with a broken heart, after all, or a guilty conscience, but you can only cramp and upchuck so long without begging the Almighty to take you home.

And if there's anything worse than feeling your own stomach heave, it's watching your three-year or nine-month old's stomachs heave. One you can endure in quiet, the other you have simply no control over.

(Did I mention this Christmas, when EVERY single house guest--and there were nine of those and five of us, came down with a horrible stomach virus? We took a wee break to fit in Christmas day and continued on from there).

Luckily this little bug is trifling, and therefore worthy of no real gut-groans, just an irritation in the middle of a snowy, cold, wintry week.

Viva la ginger ale.