Joy unspeakable.

Five years ago tomorrow, I miscarried for the first time. It’s still one of the deepest pains I’ve ever known. But tonight as I was writing and praying, I decided to go back to the letter I wrote Anna the day I found out I was pregnant. And I stand amazed again: such a powerful, loving God watches over me. He’s a God who lets nothing, even the laws of nature, stop him when it comes to blessing his children.

Wednesday, 17 April 2013

Dear Baby,

I found out a few hours ago that you’re joining our family. No news ever could’ve made me more excited: you have only existed in my dreams until now. I missed you before I ever knew you, so I can’t even tell you how wildly overjoyed I am that God has blessed your dad and me with the gift of you! You are so loved and wanted there aren’t even words to express it.

The first thing you need to know in life is how wonderful your dad is. Besides Jesus, your dad is my favorite thing about being alive. He’s strong, kind, and loving; in other words, he is exactly what every man should be. And no need to worry, Baby – he’s also unbelievably good-looking, so you will be too. I love your dad most of all in the world because he loves Jesus and he loves me. Love is hard sometimes, Baby, but your dad will do whatever it takes to love you and support you. He was in my heart decades before I knew him, kind of like you.

I don’t know anything about your personality, Baby. I don’t know the choices you will make or what you will be good at or who your favorite person will be. I don’t even know yet if you’re a boy or a girl. But I know this: you are ours, and that means we will love you forever. Even more importantly, you belong to Jesus, who is the source of all power and love in the world, so you are safe forever too. In fact, I’ve already been talking to Jesus about you, and it’s sounded a bit like this: Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou.

With so much love,

Mama

Meltdowns.

This pregnancy has a dark side: it’s churning up the noxious stuff, the stuff that reminds me what a train wreck I am. You can work around it for years, and then this teeny person, who doesn’t even have a voice, starts conjuring things in your mind. Apparently, I am carrying an intuitive little girl. Or maybe it’s the hormones.

When I went through addiction counseling, I made – and kept – all sorts of promises that allowed me to live in freedom for the first time ever. The promises gradually became habits, my modus operandi, and everything improved. My health, my appearance, and my confidence soared. No longer did my brain resort to the addiction cycle to cope with everyday life. I was in charge of my behavior, no diet necessary, and Jesus bolstered my strength to live in his provision. I felt and looked so wonderful that I attracted a very hot man who married me just under a year after we met.

Then I got pregnant. Of course, joy flooded me: it was impossible! A miracle! And of course, that’s undeniable. But there was a singsong voice in the back of my mind, like Clare Dunphy, that said, “You’re gonna get fat.” I pictured my former marshmallow-esque body. I pictured my very hot man not wanting me anymore. I pictured myself buying huge clothes. And, to make matters worse, I realized as the weeks went on that my neat and helpful counseling promises weren’t working. When I didn’t feed my fetus every three hours, my blood sugar dropped, and I became weak and dizzy. Twice I fainted. When I didn’t eat ample carbohydrates, like fruit and grains, massive headaches hit without warning and were followed by crippling nausea and fatigue. The baby was simultaneously breaking all the rules and producing purple stretch marks on my midsection to boot. I started saving for a Mommy Makeover.

One thing I’ve learned: my healing never comes until I dig into the ugliness and write about it. When I see it on paper, I can name it and deal with it. So I’ve spent hours recently writing about my addiction – how it looked, felt, sounded. I’ve been journaling and letting my introspection explain myself to me. And it’s rough because underneath it all, I am still a train wreck. I am still all the things I once was if I’m not constantly vigilant.

I asked my man tonight, “Who in his or her right mind would give me a baby?”

Without missing a beat, he said, “Jesus.”

“Then I am seriously doubting His lucidity,” I replied, quite seriously, before melting into tears again. Sometimes I am so excited for Anna’s yuletide arrival that I can barely breathe. Her pictures are so heartbreakingly perfect, and her butterfly-wing flutters feel so delightful. Other times I think, “What the heck am I going to do with a baby?” My man assures me that no one is ever ready; they just grow into it as time rolls by.

My consolation in moments like tonight is thinking about my last decade of life. I have experienced too much, enough to break me, but Jesus has brought me through it all. I shouldn’t be singing this way, shouldn’t be joyful or in love or blessed. After addiction, sexual dysfunction, miscarriage, divorce, lost friendships, and more, I should’ve been crushed. But Jesus didn’t allow that.

I also think of my personal constellation, my stars that point me home and outline the form of grace for me. My mom teaches me sacrifice, my dad teaches me trust, and my sister teaches me how to be a friend. My dear friend A.K. teaches me how to listen, my precious friend K.S. teaches me patience and faith in Jesus, and my best friend teaches me unconditional acceptance. My stepchildren teach me to play. My man teaches me to be both strong and kind. Anne Lamott would call these people my “tribe,” but they are also Anna’s. So when I hit the inevitable moments of not-enough, they will tap in for me, and so will many others. Anna does not have a perfect mother, but she will never lack love. God told me early on she exists to display his glory. And he will never not be enough for me, my husband, or our family. What can I say about such wonderful things as these? If our God is for us, who can ever be against us (Romans 8:31, NLT)?

Grace like the sea.

You know you’re pregnant when you roll your eyes at the ringing phone across the room and think, “I just poured myself a nice cup of chocolate chips and settled on the couch. Does anyone merit my attention right now?” That only happened once, I promise. And the cup wasn’t full. And I did pick up the call, but it turned out to be Charter Communications, so I had to reel myself in from throwing the phone straight through the window. Joe the Salesman wasn’t ready for that jelly.

That is the picture of pregnancy.

Of course, there is this other picture of pregnancy that I gaze at several times a day. It’s a 13-week-and-4-day ultrasound of the most beautiful developing baby I have ever seen. You guys, she is seriously, staggeringly beautiful. She is a picture of my wildest dreams. She is grace: a gift I didn’t earn and don’t deserve that was given to me anyway, to paraphrase Frederick Buechner. A hundred times a day, the thought crosses my mind, “How did I get this lucky? I am the wife of my favorite person, stepmom to two incredible children, and sixteen weeks pregnant with a grace baby.” Wow. Big time wow. Because when I was guiding my own life, I guided myself right into disaster. Repeatedly.

Barely two and a half years ago, I was in the throes of addiction counseling for compulsive overeating, a disorder that served as my prison warden for over 12 years. I ate little around others – excepting only my best friend, around whom I felt completely safe – but binged later in secret. I lied about how much I ate and how little self-respect I had. I was terrified of painful feelings, like loneliness and rejection, so I ate to smother them. After every binge, I felt ashamed and helpless, which often led me to anticipation of the next one. It was miserable and infuriating and dark.

Just over two years ago, my first marriage was officially ending. Confusion and heartbreak washed over me every morning, and I couldn’t find Jesus. Actually, I wouldn’t find Jesus. I didn’t really think He could help, as none of this was His problem. Everything was a mess, and I remember telling my mom I felt un-tethered, like my air hose had been cut and I was floating through space without anything to ground me.

I finally gave up. I don’t remember when, I just know that I did. There’s no sensational story of sobbing or snake handling or a contract signed in blood. All that happened is one day Jesus whispered, “Give me a try now?” And I said, “Yes, please,” and that was it. Peace. And now, having relinquished the pilot’s controls, I have been redeemed and made pure again. And there’s a life in me – both literally and figuratively – that is so joyful and so foreign that I hardly recognize it. But that’s what Jesus does. Every time, that’s what Jesus does.

My man and I have to rely on Jesus every minute of every day because we both have gigantic, ugly demons that don’t go away without a fight, even when the proverbial war has already been won. I would say all Christians are to some degree in this boat, since the Bible tells us Satan prowls like a lion, hoping and searching for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). But when I say my man and I have to fight for our freedom, I mean that my man and I have to fight for our freedom. And the worst part of it is that neither of us is perfect, or even holy. We have to borrow our victory from Jesus every single day. But most of the time, that’s what we choose to do. So in honor of our Redeemer, in honor of our testimony, in honor of the blessed-beyond-all-reason life we’ve been given, we’ve chosen to name our daughter grace like the sea. “Anna” means grace, and her middle name means “the sea.” We didn’t earn her, we don’t deserve her, but her beautiful self has been given to us for safe keeping anyway. It takes a powerful, loving, compassionate God to create something like that out of the broken, nasty selves we offered him. But that’s all we had to do. And then there he was, with all the hope and joy and trustworthy love we ever needed.

Also, happy four months of married life to my strong, sexy, incredible man. Thank God for you, my love.

Positive pregnancy tests.

I write my baby letters. Sometimes I speak them to her* when we’re in the car by ourselves. Sometimes I type and save them. Sometimes I pray them aloud so she can hear. There’s no telling what people will say to her when she gets here, so I want to make sure she’s got nine months of truth packed into her tiny brain. I tell her how much her dad and I love her, how wonderful her family is, how she can always trust Jesus. In fact, I never run out of things to tell her. The problem is I can’t seem to write about her. I wish I could tell you how miraculous she is and how much joy and wonder she’s brought us already. But every time I try, it comes out in a syrupy, overwrought voice that doesn’t sound much like mine.

I can tell you this. For a full decade, four medical professionals (three of whom are doctors) in two states assured me I couldn’t support a pregnancy past five weeks, and my body proved them right three times. It wouldn’t produce progesterone, and artificially spiking production didn’t work. PCOS seemed to be the culprit, but no one was certain. After several fruitless months of trying and three losses during my five-year first marriage, I didn’t have a reason to believe the doctors were wrong.

Then on March 8 of this year, I married the strongest, kindest man I’ve ever met. And almost immediately started vomiting.

We went on the honeymoon I’ve always dreamed of – mountains, cabin, fireplace, Jacuzzi, wine. And it was good. And never did “ovulation days” cross my mind because I was so obviously, certifiably, doctor-approvedly infertile. But then sneaky things started happening. A few mornings I felt so nauseated I couldn’t get my clammy self out of bed. And with a passion unrecognizable to me, I craved red meat. As in, I literally salivated over the raw hamburgers at the grocery store one day. I might have torn the package open with my fangs and feasted if the butcher hadn’t been right in front of me, asking from a healthy distance whether I needed assistance.

Then on the 17^th of April, I put on my favorite dress, kissed my husband, and headed to work. I realized I hadn’t menstruated, an odd thing since my medicine keeps me from being even an hour late. So on a whim I picked up a pregnancy test and a decaf coffee on my way. Maybe a few prayers escaped into the air as I did these things, but mostly my mind raced with menstruation math. When I arrived at my desk, I set down my bag calmly. I sauntered to the restroom. My steady hands placed the test on the sink. Less than a minute later, I peered over and saw the two pink lines that had already formed. Two. “Oh, God,” I breathed.

People have asked if we were trying to get pregnant. Of course, the answer is no; not only were we not trying, but we didn’t think we could. That doesn’t mean, however, that my baby is a “mistake.” Even though she wasn’t part of our plan, she has always been part of the Great Design God has for the planet. Our plan is short-sighted and imperfect in a thousand ways. But this baby – the one whose mother has a reproductive disorder – is the one God has chosen. He wants a person created out of our DNA, to be parented by us, to make his compassion and power visible to others. So whether the timing seems right or wrong, whether my body seems capable or incapable, whether other people agree or disagree, my man and I will love and raise our baby to bring glory to God.

I asked God one night in an overwhelmed state, “How did this happen? And why is it happening now?” I got an answer, flashing in my heart like a marquee: For my glory. So I already know how the story turns out: God’s glory will be undeniable. What a perfect reason for a baby to be born.

* I say “her” for two reasons: 1) simplicity, and 2) I believe I’m carrying a girl. The night my first pregnancy ended, which I have already written about, I knew I would one day have a baby girl and her name was supposed to be Anna because “Anna” means “grace.” I believe I am pregnant with that promise.

Bodies.

For the first time ever, I was a mom for spring break. My man and I took the kids to an indoor water park for a long weekend and had an incredible time. Because I am female, I spend as much or more time as the men looking at other women’s bodies when we’re all on display in our swimsuits. My reasons differ, of course: I compare myself to them, see where I fit in the array of physical femininity, and try to decide how happy (or unhappy) my man is with my body, based not on what he tells me but on how I appraise it compared to all the others.

That’s totally sick, isn’t it?

But I spent upwards of 24 hours engaged in exactly that, and it was maddening. Usually those thoughts happen on such a subconscious level that I continue about my business barely registering them, but this time was different. I had my daughter with me, and the thought of her thinking those things broke my heart. She’s dazzlingly lovely, and I want her to know it. I want her to know that she’s perfect the way she is. She so beautifully reflects her dad’s gorgeous Italian traits set on the smooth, olive-toned Native American skin she got from her mother’s side. She can choose to treat her body kindly or not, but it’s a perfect snowflake of a body that should never be disrespected by anyone, including her. Which is precisely what I was doing to mine.

And the thing is, every body I saw was “imperfect” compared to the cinematic, airbrushed ideal. Flabbiness was everywhere. Cellulite passed me every few seconds. Moles and discolorations marked almost everyone. My body is no better or worse than the others I saw. In fact, underneath our skin we all house the same snowflake perfection I identify so easily in my daughter. Some women treat their bodies more kindly than others – I have to work on this too – but God-designed perfection is our common trait. Besides, my body does so many wonderful things: it walks, dances, swims, makes love, stretches, hugs, laughs, twirls, and bends. How could I be anything other than deeply thankful for a body like that?

I hope, down in my core, that my daughter never forgets she’s beautiful. Jealous girls and lonely boys might try to convince her otherwise, whether they use words or not. Her dad’s voice, mom’s voice, and stepmom’s voice will be drowned out on occasion. So for my own part, I’m going to be preemptive. I’m trying to remind myself that I am perfect and beautiful, and I’m trying to listen to my man and my dad tell me the same thing. Maybe if I can remember it for myself, I can role model it and help my daughter remember too. She’s worth it, and so am I.

Cake batter.

I officially became a stepmom a couple of Fridays ago. It is no secret that I am brand-new to this. Yesterday I took my babies to baseball practice. Tee-ball fields and softball fields look exactly the same to me, so our car ended up as far away as humanly possible from the appropriate field – a mistake their real mother would never make. A couple of months ago, I made French toast for my man and his kids that was unrecognizable toast-wise. Or French-wise, which is particularly disappointing, as “French” is literally in my job title. And we’ll ignore the fact that I didn’t recognize the words “iCarly” or “Upward” prior to last summer.

But none of that seems to matter to anyone but me. It doesn’t matter to them that I can’t keep up with the (whopping, massive, unending piles of) laundry or that the tracked-in grass stays where we leave it for days on end. No matter what the house looks like or what dinner tastes like, we all laugh and talk and enjoy each other like families do. No one complains about my ignorance. Come to think of it, no one really notices.

I feel kind of like cake batter. All the right ingredients coincide, but it’s going to take some time before I become the real thing. Until then, I’m savoring every moment of this most blessed journey. Every time I see the car seat in my rearview or the butterfly socks in the laundry or even the fingerprints on the window, my heart dances. At work a few weeks ago, I found a lone game piece in my purse from one of our family favorites. When I smiled and mentioned my find to a coworker, he/she said, “Ha, well, you’ll get over stuff like that real quick.” I wouldn’t bet on it; I lost a lot to get here. But God has restored so much, lavished so much. So, as long as they’re willing to walk forever to get to the tee-ball field, I’m willing to give myself the same measure of grace as I evolve into a proper (step)mother. Cake batter eventually becomes exactly what it’s supposed to be. I will too.

Ears.

I have this thing with names. I’ve written about it once already. The thought of giving a blessing or honoring someone or telling a story with your baby’s name is such a precious concept to me. Many names are on my Love-It List, but as long as I can remember, my favorite name of all has been Kate. Growing up, my most beautiful Barbie was Kate. My favorite paper doll—yes, I played with paper dolls—was Kate. Just last year, I asked on FaceBook what my pen-last-name should be if my pen-first-name was Kate. It’s the perfect name—simple, elegant, and timeless.

So when I got pregnant in July 2008, I was beside myself with excitement. I kept thinking, Kate’s here! She didn’t stay long enough for me to know by way of scientific confirmation that she was a girl, but I know anyway because moms just know. When I daydreamed about what the rest of her name could be, a Buechner quote kept resurfacing: “Grace is something you can never get but only be given. There’s no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries…or bring about your own birth.” Having for years worn that definition of grace like a pair of contact lenses, I knew my daughter could have no other name. She was something I could never deserve, something only God could give me. My then-husband let me take the reins with naming, so I chose Anna Catherine. Anna means “grace,” and Catherine means “pure,” so my baby girl would be named “pure grace.” Which is exactly what she was. But she’d go by “Kate,” of course.

Unfortunately, Kate faded from me on Sunday, 14 September. I cried steady, silent tears, sitting with my back against the tub. I was a heartbroken mother whose daughter had been taken in the night. I hadn’t protected her, hadn’t known how. I did the only thing I could: I crawled back into bed and prayed. At first, I heard nothing, but the tender presence of the Holy Spirit comforted my heart. Then I had a powerful, inexplicable urge to look up Isaiah 49:16, a verse I did not already know. Bewildered, I opened my Bible and read: “See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands…” My name. Kate’s name. The tears came again, but this time for an entirely different reason. The verse reminded me that I am so precious to God that when he looks down at his hands—or, perhaps, Jesus’s—he sees my name. And in a small way, I had the same thing going with my Kate. The veins in my right wrist, I had noticed as a child, form an unmistakable K. After that night, it became a sweet reminder. Kate was gone, but her name was written on my palm, so to speak, and God makes all things new. God restores.

Over time, he has restored my heart. Time, I believe, numbs pain, helps a wound scar over maybe, but God actually heals. Certainly, sadness hits me unexpectedly sometimes, or with unexpected force: it was the saddest and most unfair day of my life, being at once Mother and Not-mother. But God has guided me through the process of letting my daughter stay with him, of not begrudging the laws of nature that sent her his way. For too long, I carried her as a millstone around my neck. I feared that not thinking about her might mean she never existed. As her mother, it seemed to fall on my shoulders to acknowledge her fleeting presence. But God has taken my heart from that prison of grief into a position of grace. I do think about her occasionally, but in a peaceful, heavenly way. I imagine her spinning giddily in a white cotton dress in a field of lavender, so drunk with joy she dissolves into giggles. I imagine her sitting on Jesus’s lap, enamored with him, asking him questions with the ethereal wisdom that a heaven-born child must possess. I imagine her smiling when she sees me, if you do that sort of thing in heaven.

And tonight, when it was time for a little earth-born girl to fall asleep, she wriggled onto the couch next to me and settled into my arms. She looked into my eyes with a beautiful face lit by a grin and laced her fingers with mine. She and I do not share DNA. I do not have memories of her in the womb. She does not belong to me in the way she belongs to her mother. But she loves me, and I love her, and we both love her father more than we could tell you. She and her brother have become a part of my heart, and as I look forward to many years with the man I love, I feel doubly blessed to be their friend as well. I never knew life could be this good, this full. But when God restores life and fulfills promises, he doesn’t do a halfhearted job of it. Speaking of promises, those letters the veins in my wrists so clearly form happen to be their initials—hers and her brother’s. As someone who does not believe in coincidence, only divine winks, you can imagine how this hits me. Especially since her name is “pure grace,” too. And she goes by Kate.

If you ever wondered whether God hears you cry out, whether he knows who you are…he does.

Ducks (or Chickens).

When I was a little girl, I had this fuzzy sleeping gown covered with either ducks or chickens. I can see it in my mind’s eye as I write, but my mental vision has gone a little blurry, like Christmas lights through unfocused eyes. My bed was a heavy, antique wooden structure with four curvy posts and a lacy comforter. Every night as I scooted under the covers, my parents read to me from my graphic-novel Bible, and my dad, positioned at the foot of my bed, sang “Jesus Loves Me” with his hands protectively resting on my little, crossed ankles. I grew up knowing I had a Guardian out there somewhere who looked on me with kindness and affection—my square one as I learned about Jesus’s love. I started with “the Bible tells me so” because in my cute poultry sleeping gown, I didn’t yet know the love of Jesus. I knew how to obey my parents, sing choruses, and retell Bible stories ad nauseum, but as Jesus says in Matthew, “Whoever has been forgiven little shows only a little love” (Luke 7:47b, NIV).

Then I grew up. And as we usually do when we grow up, I started making mistakes. I lost sight of the sweetness of a relationship with Jesus. I spiritually expressed my adulthood and independence by employing what Daniel Henderson calls “Christian autopilot.” Rather than talking to God and ardently seeking his face, I checked in when things felt difficult but otherwise lived a mostly clean life on my own, going to church on Sundays and name-dropping “God” whenever appropriate. I was devoutly serious about my faith, but not necessarily about my relationship with Jesus (although for a long time I convinced myself that those were synonymous). That worked just fine until the broken dreams and failure of an ended marriage hit me face-on. I might as well have been back in my sleeping gown on the floor of my pink bedroom for all the smallness I felt. But let me tell you a little bit about the love of my Jesus.

When you mess up everything in your life so profoundly that you have trouble keeping your eyes dry, Jesus doesn’t leave. Even if you’re somewhat—or completely—to blame. Even if you spend months resisting Him. Even if you do what He directly asks you not to do. He still doesn’t leave. He has seen what you do, but he heals you anyway (Isaiah 57:18). He leads you along…with kindness and love and stoops down tenderly to care for you (Hosea 11:4). He sends out His word to you and heals you (Psalm 107:20). He forgives all the smut that originated with or in you (Luke 7:48 and throughout the Gospels). In love and mercy, He redeems you (Isaiah 63:9). He erases your sins…and never thinks of them again (Isaiah 43:25). He restores your joy (Psalm 51:8, 12). He looks down at His palms where He has written your name (Isaiah 49:16).

Who does that? Who else not only listens but actually longs to listen to you for as long as you’re willing to talk? Who else floods your life with so much grace you practically drown in it? Who else speaks so deeply to your heart that you feel His words? Who else heals, not just mends, your broken heart? Who else keeps track of every tear that falls (Psalm 56:8)? Who else forgives you before you ask? Who else sees your heart in its entirety and loves you regardless? Who else wants to hear the banal details of your day, even though He was there, just so He can see them through your eyes? Who does that but Jesus?


The most rewarding relationships I enjoy—and all of the best people in the world happen to be in my life—are all to a certain point limited because they are human, but that is not so with Jesus. Jesus’s love extends beyond human capability, beyond human reason, to remind me every minute of every day that I am just as precious to Him—my broken, inexplicable, sinful self is just as precious to Him—as the little girl in the ducks-or-chickens sleeping gown is to her parents. And infinitely, infinitely more. Infinitely more. Because nothing—not death, life, angels, demons, fears, worries, present things, future things, my own darkness, or darkness stretching toward me from hell—nothing can ever, ever separate me from the love of my treasured Redeemer (Romans 8:38, 39). Who else loves like that but Jesus?

Bubbles.

I am thankful for bubbles.

My first memory, albeit a blurry one, is pictured off to the side. When I was twelve or thirteen, I was looking through family albums with my mom for a school project, and when we got to this picture, I gasped and said, “I remember that!” According to Mom’s note on the back of the photo, I was a little over a year and a half old at the time it was taken. Now, I have to admit: I do not remember what we were doing that day, I don’t remember any conscious thoughts, and I don’t remember what anyone said to or around me as the picture was being made. But I definitely remember the moment. The strength of my dad’s arms holding me up, the smile on my mom’s face lighting me up, and pure, uncontainable happiness spilling over within me. You can see it in my eyes. And I remember that it felt like bubbles—millions and millions of bubbles filling me up and running over.

Before writing this, I considered other “bubbly” moments in my life, and it turns out that many were from childhood: sitting on Pastor J’s lap during the children’s sermon at the church where I grew up; watching SEC football with my parents, sister, aunts, and uncles at my aunt’s house; mini-golfing with my “grown-up” friend AM; Christmas the year I was ten when my parents got me a personalized teacher’s bag; receptions after piano recitals when my beloved piano teacher AC would dote and brag on me; I could list 130 others at least. Perhaps this is why Jesus was so insistent on our need of childlikeness in his Kingdom. Being bubbly requires wonder, joy. It requires innocence, hope, and love. All the “adult” things people sometimes do—myself included—trying to feel bubbly end up pushing us in the other direction: buying things we don’t need, getting into relationships we shouldn’t be in, swallowing diet pills and/or overindulging in food and drinks, and so on. In my life, the bubbles have always come from connecting with other people. From peace with my place in the world and the condition of my spirit. From acceptance of myself. Those are a whole lot harder to come by than a boat or a one-night stand.

There’s a beautiful poem by William Wordsworth that starts with an often-quoted (and often-misattributed) phrase: “surprised by joy.” All of a sudden, a million bubbles. My favorite bubbly moments are those—the ones where you’re going about your business and then out of nowhere…joy. When you’re sitting on the porch swing in the peaceful twilight that follows a productive day and joy rushes over you. When your puppy curls up on your lap and sighs with contentment. When someone gives you an unexpected compliment. My wish for us as we end the year is to experience millions and millions of bubbles and the best of friends to celebrate them with.

“Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.” — Henry David Thoreau

Tires.

Yesterday early, so early, in the morning I groggily opened my eyes to the sound of my beloved dog snoring so loudly I feared a disturbance-of-the-peace citation from the policeman across the street. (Of course, we’re running this risk every time Peabody eats, drinks, or sees another animal. Or car. Or human. Or dried-up leaf blowing in the wind.) I am no morning person, but the sight of that little creature snuggled up next to me melted my heart, even though he did wake me up ten minutes before my alarm was supposed to go off. Oh, well: ten minutes to consciously enjoy the warmth of my bed. But somehow—this mystifies the mind—the ten-minute change in my schedule set off a chain reaction: a tad late getting in the shower, a little later packing lunch, moderately late making coffee, seriously late leaving for work. My anxiety quotient skyrocketed because I hate being late for work, even though I don’t have a first block class. Still, as I pulled out of the driveway, I could get there before the first bell, even without speeding, as long as traffic was at a minimum on the interstate.

What I was definitely not expecting was for one of my tires to blow out on a bridge, less than two miles from my exit. I lost control of the car but kept the steering wheel turned slightly to the right so that as I drifted, I’d drift away from traffic. As smoke trailed off into the distance from somewhere in the back of my vehicle, I cocked my head and said aloud, “Interesting.” When I had stopped shaking like a hedonist on Judgment Day, I investigated the tire. The wall had caved in, causing the rubber to separate from the wheel. It was masterful. So I crawled back in my car, turned on my hazards, and did what all girls do when they’re in trouble: I called my daddy. He was tied up at work, so I called my mom. She and her (male) assistant came, and in a few minutes the latter had my tire changed. Only one problem remained: the spare was flat.

Already we have a comedy of errors. And by this point, I was chuckling a little at the unlucky turn of events. But hey, nothing terrible had happened, and when I apprised my boss of the situation, he was very helpful. T assured me that I’d have enough air in the tire to get to the truck stop and fill it up the rest of the way. “Gotcha. Thanks,” I replied and settled into my car a third time. I’d barely turned the ignition when my mom walked up to my door, laughing. I rolled the window down and looked up expectantly. Through her laughter, she finally managed to say, “My battery is dead.”

“What?!” I said in disbelief. Apparently, the fifteen minutes of hazard lights flashing had been enough to drain the battery. So T, gentleman that he is, went to work on the third automotive problem of the day. Fortunately, I had a battery charger that my dad got me for Christmas the year before. But, as you probably already guessed, it was dead itself. And the only other thing I had to offer was a set of girly jumper cables. They’re not even jumper cables: they’re two cigarette lighter inserts attached by a cord that are supposed to start the car without touching the battery. Now, before you point and laugh, I have before started girls’ cars in the high school parking lot with said apparatus, so I know it works. It does not, however, work when what you have to charge is a full-size truck.

No problem! Mom had normal, human-style jumper cables under the passenger seat in her truck. When my car charger didn’t work, she opened her door and pulled up the lever to release the seat so we could reach them…only to throw a new monkey wrench into the situation when the lever broke off in her hand. I am not making this up. So now poor T is stranded on the side of the road with two maniacally laughing women who own two down-for-the-count vehicles. I’m sure this is not what he pictured when he took the job last year.

I called my boss and thanked him for his concern. Then, I said, “Umm…P.S.: Do you have jumper cables?”

“I thought it was a blown-out tire?” he said, more as a question than a statement.

“It was. Then, it was a flat tire. Now, it’s a dead battery and a broken seat lever as well.”

“Wow. What an awful morning,” he commiserated.

“Not an awful morning per se. Certainly a ridiculous one,” I conceded.

“Okay, well, I will find you some jumper cables. In the meantime, keep calling people in case you find a set before I do. We’ll get you to work somehow, I promise.”

I thanked him and hung up. Then, I called my friend A (remember Italy Day?) and explained the situation. “So…do you have jumper cables?” I asked.

Without hesitation, A said she would find me jumper cables. Not only did she find me some almost immediately, but she also brought them to me herself. At this point, we were quite the spectacle: three cars and four adults on the shoulder of the interstate, seemingly having a roadside party.

I did end up getting to work just fine. A little worse for the wear, perhaps, but there all the same.

After all that, this morning was so uneventful it was almost boring. Almost.

Mothers Day.

Chances are you think your mother is the greatest of her kind. Me too: mine is beautiful, wise, compassionate, and seriously smart. My mom has spent hours and hours of the last two years on the phone with me while I cried or complained or unloaded fear and hurt. She never turns down a hug or says she’s too busy to listen. She works to make sure everyone in the family has what he or she needs. As I write this, tears of gratitude spring to my eyes, for I am blessed with such an amazing mother. I love that a twenty-four-hour period is set aside for my family to give her an extra dose of special treatment. Mothers Day is a sweet time.

Mothers Day church services are a different story. To those of us who aren’t mothers, it can feel a little like not being tapped into a sorority. The beginning of the church service I was in last Sunday was like this. One of the pastors asked the mothers to stand as he thanked them on behalf of all of us. “Ladies, you make significant sacrifices through the years, and we rarely recognize it. You have answered the highest calling a woman can have: raising children. We want to bless you and thank you for your service to us.” He said other things—he spoke for five or ten minutes—but that’s the gist. My issue with this is not that it’s necessarily untrue: my own mother does some serious sacrificing, and she deserves appreciation for that and so much more. So do all mothers. Across the world, women spend their days cleaning up spills that no one else sees, mending tears in clothes, administering medicine, crying as they rock their children to sleep for hours on end when the little one just won’t cooperate. Mothers are strong, so strong.

But I do not believe that raising children is a woman’s “highest calling.” If that’s true, a sizeable demographic will never reach its female potential. In this subset, some have chosen not to have children for very valid reasons, and some have chosen against wifehood, as well. Some want desperately to have children, but for a reason that mystifies the doctors, it isn’t happening. Some have had surgeries rendering them infertile. Some have hormonal abnormalities, chronic illnesses, or other medical factors that bar them from motherhood. Some have watched in horror as their dreams of motherhood ended abruptly in the bathroom. For some, this holiday is a reminder of the loss of life or the inability to give it, not its celebration.

However, there is much more to the concept of “mothering” than giving birth. Some women who have not and will never bear children have left an indelible mother’s mark on the little ones in their lives. Aunts, stepmothers, grandmothers, nurses, teachers, big sisters, babysitters, family friends—these women and others like them have the same capacity for “significant sacrifice” and “service” to children* as the women whose biological offspring are involved. Mothering, I would argue, is the art of cherishing and guiding children, an art that does not require a functional reproductive system. Mothers encourage. They spend time with children. They cause smiles and laughter. They provide for children’s needs and wants. They teach. They love. Women with unused wombs are just as capable of these functions and eager to fill them as their childbearing counterparts. Many of these mothering-women have played important roles in my life, as I hope to in the lives of others.

So maybe the entrance qualifications for the Mothers-Day sorority can be modified. Rather than honoring only biological or legally adoptive mothers, perhaps we can include all mothering-women who nurture and care for the world’s younger people. While only one woman births us, many, many women along the way help us become who we are. One such woman in my life was A.M., a family friend who spent a lot of time with me during my childhood. She took me out to dinner (and as a good Southern girl, I almost always picked Cracker Barrel), she took me mini-golfing, she invited me to spend weekends with her in her apartment. Many evenings she made us hot dogs and we talked and laughed while eating in her kitchen. A.M. reached out to me: she loved me, cared for me, and looked me in the eye when we talked. I knew I was important to her. And there is no greater gift a mothering-woman can bestow than the message “You’re significant. You’re special. There’s something wonderful inside you that I love to watch and be a part of.”

For A.M. and all the other members of the mothering corps out there, whether you are biological moms or moms of the heart: thank you most sincerely for the love and guidance you so freely give, and a very happy Mothers Day to you.

*Although I use the word “children” throughout, certainly some women mother us when we are already old enough to have children and perhaps grandchildren of our own.

Livebox.

You might have seen on FaceBook that E and I had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day yesterday. An explanation is in order. E and I are 21^st-century Americans: we want our Internet, and we want it fast. We use it for communicating with people back home, for entertainment, and also for receiving messages regarding where we should be when because we are cell-phone-less here in France. So on Friday at 1:15 p.m. when it stopped working, we panicked slightly. Not on the level of Peyton-Manning-has-retired, but more along the lines of I-have-a-zit-two-days-before-prom. So it didn’t work right before we left to read our World War II assignment in the park? It surely would when we returned.

It didn’t.

Our panic level rose from yellow to orange, in the manner of the Homeland Security Advisory System. It was now prom day, so to speak, and the zit had grown to hairy-mole size. We played with it for a bit, but ultimately decided just to go to bed and assume it would kick itself back on in the middle of the night. You can sleep off a headache; why not Internet malaise?

You can’t. At least not in France.

By Saturday morning, we were on full alert. Batten down the hatches, boys; it’s Internet or bust! After becoming completely disgusted with both the troubleshooting manual and the piece-of-crap Internet box itself (called “Livebox”), we decided to visit McDonald’s to take advantage of their free Wi-Fi. The priority was making sure our families knew that our silence and missed Skype dates came from an Internet malfunction, not abduction by angry French World Cup soccer players. But wouldn’t you know it: our computers simply would not hook up to McDonald’s Wi-Fi. Our vexation mounted.

We went across the street to an Internet café. At least we knew it would work there. And it did. From a computer attached to a French keyboard:

(Notice, for example, the placement of the letters compared to where they are on your keyboard. Also, check out the punctuation marks. Totally different from yours. And do you see how there are two symbols plus a number on each numerical key? Yeah, that’s not easy to finagle.)

In the end, we spent 25 minutes—and a euro each—sending two emails per person of three to five sentences apiece, something that takes less than eight minutes when using our computers. After that, we were back to the issue at hand: fixing the Internet in our own apartment since we’d each paid 26 euro for it. Remembering the exorbitant price and feeling the anger mount again, we tried to call our landlord. Unfortunately, he lives in Avignon, which is nowhere near us. We got a busy signal anyway.

We returned to the apartment and fumed, frowned, and spoke harshly to Livebox. Nothing happened. Livebox is a jerk. E read the troubleshooting directions to herself. Then out loud. I did the same. We restarted Livebox. We restarted our computers. We turned off everything. We turned it back on. We seethed.

Leaving the apartment, we headed toward Orange, the company that makes blasted Livebox. They sent us to SFR, the primary Internet provider in Lyon. They sent us to France Telecom, the centralized French telecommunications company. They sent us to Orange. We noticed a pattern. We tried another Orange. They sent us to France Telecom. We tried a second France Telecom. They sent us to…wait for it…Orange. Our problem seemed to be no one’s but ours. We returned to the Internet café and dialed up France Telecom. There’s no toll-free number, but by that time, we didn’t care how much it cost to get the Internet running again. That is, until the café owner told us we owed him fifteen euro. Then, we cared how much it cost.

Raging anew, we lamented the fact that we’d spent money at McDonald’s, the Internet café (twice), and the landlord, and ended up with no Internet. Discouraged and forlorn, we returned to Quai Claude Bernard, growling and murmuring all the way there. Eventually, I said, “This may sound like the stupidest idea ever, but we could ask the guy at the café who speaks English to help us.” (We live above a café.) E said that she’d thought of that earlier, but was afraid to mention it since he was unlikely to be of any help. But he was our last option, and no one else in France cared that we desperately wanted to talk to our families.

Upon returning to our apartment, we found English Speaker and breathlessly explained our troubles. We handed him the troubleshooting manual, Livebox’s serial number, and several phone numbers. Expecting him to do what, I don’t really know. In the end, English Speaker was indeed able to help: there was a particular username and password that had to be changed periodically, and it was time to do so. It wouldn’t let us back in until we changed said information. Showering English Speaker with a deluge of Merci!s, we hiked up the 10 flights to our apartment and tried the password-changing. It worked! 

For two minutes.

I could go on, but suffice it to say that we pushed every button on Livebox and our computers, and everything was finally functional again, after another hour or so of work. We consider our connection to be pretty tenuous at this point, but at least it’s running again. I’d make a comment about how dependent E and I are on the Internet, but the fact is, it’s actually our families we’re addicted to. More than anything, E and I just wanted to be able to communicate with the people who are so special to us. So this post is dedicated to you. May we never have to be cut off from one another again. Cheers!

Groceries.

My students always used to ask what sorts of things were different in France. On the spur of the moment, it’s hard to come up with an answer like that. Like when someone asks you, “What sorts of movies do you like?” All of a sudden, you think, What do I like? Well, a couple of days ago something happened that I can cite as a definitive difference between France and America.

E and I went grocery shopping twice last week: once to the Sunday market for produce and fresh bread, and once to the store mid-week for everything else. Unfortunately, I’d already run out of produce when we went to the store on Wednesday, so I picked up some apples, cherries, and tomatoes to hold me over until Sunday. As is customary in France, for the surge of customers waiting to check out, there was one open cash register (and four closed ones [and a handful of unoccupied employees who weren’t about to get to work {which reminds me of a French comedian who said that Obama’s “Yes, we can!” slogan would never work in France. They operate more along the lines of, “No, we can’t!”}]). Anyway, when I finally got up to the front, I put everything on the little conveyor belt, just as one does in the States. Everything went smoothly until we got to the produce. “Il faut les peser,” the cashier informed me. Because I was flustered, I couldn’t catch the words, so I asked her to repeat. She did, and added, “Je vous attendrai.” Great, so I had to go back to the display where I picked up my produce so that I could weigh it, all the while with her waiting for me at the front with the other six shoppers in line behind me.

I had no problems with the apples or tomatoes, but I simply could not find the button on the scale for cherries. So that I wouldn’t hold anyone up any longer, I just pushed the “grapes” button and hoped for the best. Close enough, right? By the time I rushed back to the front where she was indeed waiting with the rest of my purchases, the line had increased by three more shoppers. I was so embarrassed about holding these people up for so long that I wanted to crawl under that produce display and become a troll as a cautionary tale for other unsuspecting Americans.

The weird thing is that no one seemed especially put off by my unintentional antics—and it was the middle of the afternoon on a Wednesday! They looked at me as though I were a fish in an aquarium. What is this species, one seemed to ask another in French eye language. Why is its face turning red? It appeared as though no one was really in a hurry. Certainly the cashier was not: she’d been talking to the customer before me about going south for vacation—the French get six weeks of paid vacation per year—long after she was done ringing up the woman’s purchases. The other potential cashiers were not in a hurry; they were instead ambling around the grocery store without a care in the world. Even the customers were more curious than frustrated. In America I would’ve been raked over the coals.

When Jeff and I had our neighbor F over last month, this same thing came up. I asked F what was the most surprising thing about America, after having grown up in Austria. He said, “It surprises me how quickly everyone moves in the stores. We move through the line fast, always. What if you love your customer and you want to say, ‘Your barber did a good job this week’? You cannot do it. You must just move, move, move.” Upon asking the same question to Professor B, a French professor from the region where we’re staying now, I was given the same response: “Why are Americans always in a hurry in the stores? If something takes awhile, we could just talk to each other in line, no problem. And what if we want to talk to the person who works for the store? But you cannot do it! We are rushed all the time.”

It’s a surprising thought.

But would it work in America?

Call it greed, call it capitalism, call it “making an honest living”…but one thing we hold dear in America is making money. I don’t necessarily mean that in a bad way. We want to take vacations to get away from the stress of everyday life, we want our children to go to highly rated private schools, we want to shop at Whole Foods or Greenlife so we get the cleanest food possible. Our lives require a lot of money. If we were to slow down in stores or in restaurants, we’d accommodate fewer customers, thereby bringing in less money. In France, for example, it’s common for a restaurant to fill up and then shut its doors for the night: patrons will stay from seven o’clock until midnight, lingering over bread, wine, and cheerful conversation. Would slowing down in this manner be worth the exchange we’d make? We would make a smaller profit, but we would know people better and perhaps, for that reason, benefit from increased national solidarity. Would racial anger begin to dissipate? Would religious extremism attenuate? Would we be physically healthier if we took things a little more slowly? Or would it make a difference at all? Perhaps we are too ingrained in our ways, too dependent on our money and independent of each other, for anything to change. After all, as a hardened introvert, I have trouble imagining myself talking to people for long periods of time at the grocery store or spending hours at the dinner table with others. Perhaps talking in line at the grocery store and lingering at the table wouldn’t make a difference. And we would probably have to give up the private schools and find other sources for the organic food.

I don’t think the French are wrong or the U.S. is wrong here, but perhaps we could benefit from each other. What’s the most important thing to get out of our lives, and how is the best, most balanced way to do it? I’d love to know what you think.

Fête de la musique.

On travaille moins et on joue plus ! (We work less and we play more!)

That slogan was on ads citywide for Fête de la musique, the national French holiday for music. Fête means “party,” “festival,” or “celebration,” and it is the word used to denote public holidays. I like the sentiment: Fête de la musique translates to “music party/festival/celebration.” The French counterpart of Independence Day is Fête nationale, which would translate as “national party/festival/celebration.” In keeping with the idea of a party, red, white, and blue bulletins were printed out with the above slogan on the front and a schedule of all the registered concerts in and around Lyon on the inside. However, some concerts are little more than a duet or trio with a boom box, and those were not included on the list. Dancers also seem to gain rights to their land for the night by squatting, so you just have to amble around if you want to find them. Anyway, contrary to how it might sound, the French do go to work on Fête de la musique, and most of them work a full day. But at 5:00 p.m. sharp, the party begins. Actually, it began a little before that outside my window on Monday afternoon: by 4:00 p.m., my window and head were pounding a bass rhythm in time with the impromptu discothèque on Quai Claude Bernard.

It has long been known that the French are healthier than Americans—fewer heart attacks, strokes, alcohol-related deaths, and Type II diabetes diagnoses, to name a few. We already know that they walk/bike more, eat less sugar, and enjoy smaller portions of food. But surely there has to be another reason for their robust health. As we walked the streets of Lyon in pursuit of good music and the perfect crêpe au chocolat, I wondered whether Fête de la musique might be the secret to French health…or at least indicative of the mindset that contributes to French health. On 21 June each year, people gather for the simple pleasure of being together. They dance in the streets, sing along with the bands, and eat ice cream and crêpes. They chatter and laugh and walk around with cocktails. They take pictures and breathe deeply and hold hands. It’s the very picture of their expression joie de vivre (“joy of living”). Who can stay sufficiently stressed out to have a heart attack when they’re having such a great time?

The fact is this isn’t just the picture of Fête de la musique. Have dinner at any restaurant in France, and you’ll see the same thing: people in groups, laughing and talking and enjoying each other’s company. Last night we had our “small group dinner” which means that eight of us students went out with one professor for the sole purpose of enjoying ourselves in the city with someone to make sure we spoke French the whole time. L, one of the grad students, asked Professor B why the tables were all set for upwards of four people. After all, in America, most tables are ready for two, three, or four. Professor B replied, “Because that’s how many people have to sit at them!” In France, she informed us, people don’t just go out for dinner. If you’re at a restaurant, it’s because you’re celebrating something—which you would always do with friends. You go to restaurants when friends come to see you, when someone graduates, when a couple gets engaged, when you get a promotion. You don’t go just because you made it to 5:00 at work without keeling over.

Speaking of work, I think the French attitude toward it might also explain the decreased incidence of health problems. While the Fête de la musique bulletins might have especially brought it to the forefront, “On travaille moins et on joue plus!” is the general sentiment in the French mind as it relates to work. Professor B explained that the word “career” is used much less frequently in France than in America: one has a “job,” not a “career.” Work is simply not as meaningful or beneficial for the French as it is for Americans; the French punch in their time card, give their boss the next seven hours of their day, and then go home to enjoy an evening with their families. Professor B said that French people “live for evenings, weekends, and holidays.” Those are the times when living happens. As a result, the French workweek is only 35 hours, and everyone gets six weeks of paid vacation a year. And even more than that in some companies. The “lunch hour” is actually two, so people generally walk home and eat lunch with their families. Work is a means to an end, not an end in itself. That has to help the health statistics.

While I embrace the French culture of joie de vivre, I do believe there should be a balance between responsibility and fun. It seems to me that Americans in general lack the willingness and perhaps the know-how to lead truly sociable lives. I suspect I am just such an American. On the other hand, there is a value in working to better one’s environment, whether in the arena of business, education, medicine, law, parenting, or other such fields. These might be missing some extra punch in France because of the longing for weekends and holidays. Perhaps the French economy could be stronger if there was more interest and ambition on the part of the workforce. Or I might be wrong about both nationalities. What do you think?