A really great book

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“But I still didn’t know what to say. What do you say when it feels like you’ve come to the end of a really great book and there’s no more chapters, but you want it to go on forever?” (from Alvin-Ho: Allergic To Dead Bodies, Funerals, and Other Fatal Circumstances by Lenore Look)

Today Jon’s family closed a really great book when they buried his grandpa. My husband now has no living grandparents. A couple of weeks ago, one of his cousins sent us all a copy of an interview she had done with Jon’s Grammy for a high school project years ago. It was so sweet to read the story of how Grammy and Grandpa met, the early experiences that shaped her life, her memories of having young children, and her experiences of a changing world. It made me wish that we had similar interviews with all of our grandparents. If you are lucky enough to still have living grandparents, think about asking them to tell you the stories that shaped them and write it down. Share it with your family. Because someday you’ll come to the last chapter. And maybe you’ll wish that book could go on and on.

Her best

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“No matter what, she loves you and she’s trying her best.” (from Lucky For Good by Susan Patron)

In my best moments as a mom, I’m hugging my son and whispering that I love him and I’m so glad to be his mommy. I’m helping him with his pirate costume and participating in the sword fight of the moment. I’m wiping his tears gently and speaking soothing words. In my worst moments as a mom, I’ve lost my temper and snapped at him. And you know, it’s humbling to apologize to a three-year-old, to know that I caused a tear because I wasn’t gentle with my words or my tone. 

At church yesterday a lady was complimenting Benjamin on his boots (firefighter rain boots or, pirate boots as he calls them) and she said that she used to have a little boy just like him. “But then he grew up,” she said. I told him that he will grow up like her little boy and he said, “No! I will grow up like dad!”

I hope so. I hope he grows up with the best qualities of both of us. I hope he realizes through many of our best and worst moments that we are parents and also people, that we will make many mistakes and will always need grace. And I hope he knows that, no matter what, we love him and we’re trying our best.

To decide how

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There are always scary things happening in the world. There are always wonderful things happening. And it’s up to you to decide how you’re going to approach the world…how you’re going to live in it, and what you’re going to do. (from Countdown by Deborah Wiles)

I lay on the floor of my son’s room, wrapped in a soft alpaca blanket and listening for his breathing to change so I’ll know he’s really asleep. I can hear fireworks exploding, people celebrating the going out of one year and the coming of another. In our little home we have plenty to celebrate, and for that I am glad and grateful.

I’m glad because it really has been a good year–we had a baby (the world’s most beautiful and sweetest baby, I might add), we had the best year yet for our marriage, it’s been a year of reconnecting with friends, we’ve made new friends, we’ve enjoyed good health, we’ve enjoyed the imagination and wonder of our son. It’s just been good. I feel both braver and smarter at the end of this year. My life is full and joyful and sweet. I turned 30 and I feel good about it, like I’m grown up but still plenty young. I’m just glad.

And I’m grateful because I know. I know that every year won’t be like this. And I know that for many, both friends and strangers, this has been the hardest year of their lives. I know three mamas who have buried their sons this year. Their sons. A seven-year-old, a two-month-old, and a ten-year-old. I know two mamas who had their baby girls extremely prematurely this year (twenty-three weeks and twenty-six weeks) and though both babies are well, the struggles are not finished. I have friends who have buried a parent this year and the thought that I will someday have to do this makes my throat hurt so that I can hardly breathe. A young girl who occasionally babysits for us lost her grandmother and I so remember when I lost mine at that same age and how deeply I felt it. Deployments, changed plans, miscarriages, caring for parents and job losses–the weight of what acquaintances of mine have endured is staggering. These are just the things among people I know or have crossed paths with. We have, all of us, seen also horrific things unfold across the world. Terrible things and violent things. I won’t name them.

What will we do with that? What will we do with the knowledge that some years we get to celebrate and enjoy all of the good things in life and maybe the next year we will just try to survive in a fog of grief and fear? How can we face each new day, month, year knowing that it could be wonderful or it could be horrible and neither is very much in our control?

I’ve decided to do it like this. I will celebrate when it’s time to celebrate. I will enjoy my children and my family and friends and try to be flexible. If we get to see friends one last night before they scatter to California and Israel and Chicago and Atlanta, I will keep my kids up way too late and just enjoy the time. It doesn’t matter what time is bed time when it is friend time. I will laugh out loud at the hilarious things my son says and does and I will let him wear a pirate patch everywhere we go. I will take him to see the things he is interested in, to do the things he wants to do–camping, fishing, aquariums, mini-golf, dinosaur prints, whatever. Let’s do it. I will rock my baby to sleep and kiss her fluffy cheeks until they are chapped and put her hair in little pig tails and do whatever makes her giggle and I will enjoy it all. I will kiss my husband until our lips are chapped. I will pay for a sitter and enjoy more dates with my husband. I will invite friends into my home no matter how messy it is because friendship is vital. I will enjoy life while it is great. And I will hold space in my heart and my prayers for the ones who are not celebrating. I will remember their children’s names and talk to them about the ones they’ve lost. Liam. Ezra. Rex. I will remember them. I will honor them in my own small ways–donations, ornaments on my Christmas tree, writing their names in my prayer journal. I will continue to spend tears on behalf of the hurting. I will strive to make sure our family does not contribute to the suffering of others by buying fairly traded goods. I will try to add to the wonderful things happening in the world–acts of kindness, good humor, writing uplifting things, sending letters of encouragement, baking good stuff and sharing it.

There are always scary things happening in the world, but I don’t want to live in fear. There are always wonderful things happening and I want to enjoy the wonder. This is how I’m going to live.

Happy New Year. Thank you for reading.

Is this ad relevant to you?

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Maybe that’s why Brother and Sister Bear got the gimmies. Or maybe it was because there were treats, toys, and fun things to do wherever they looked–at the supermarket, at the mall, on TV, and just about every which-where. (from The Berentain Bears Get The Gimmies by Stan Berenstain and Jan Berenstain)

The kids are napping, the dishwasher is whirring, the washing machine is agitating, and I’m taking a break from the sewing machine so I pull up Hulu.com to catch up on my favorite shows. I could be doing other things. The floor needs vacuuming but the kids are sleeping and I don’t have one of those really quiet and awesome robotic vacuum cleaners. I wish.

“This hulu program is brought to you with limited commercial interruptions by ________,” I hear announcer guy’s voice say.” I click the mouse to adjust the volume. The commercial plays and across the top of the screen a question: Is this ad relevant to you? I click No, because it is a commercial for perfume and besides the fact that I don’t wear perfume, I hate fragrance commercials. I just don’t understand why the pretty people are always running through fields and making out with small glass bottles of fragrance or standing mostly nude in the ocean looking fierce. As the commercial plays out, I pour myself a cold glass of water from the office style water cooler in the kitchen and grab myself a snack.

I laugh at the antics of the Dunder Mifflin employees or the parks department staff and when another commercial comes on, I’m curious to see if Hulu has changed gears now that they know I don’t want to see fragrance ads. Make up. Expensive brand. Silly, I think. I wouldn’t pay that much for make up. That’s ridiculous. What is the matter with us here in this country that we think it’s acceptable to pay that much for cosmetics? But, oh, okay, well it’s on sale. Oh, and it comes with a free gift. Ooooh, tempting. Fat lipstick pencils–what a great idea!–and I do like that color…and that one! I can’t even remember the last time I bought any make up and I do make it last for a really long time, so when you divide it out by the number of months I’ll use it, it’s really not that pricey. And I could use that free gift for a Christmas present for someone. Okay, who should I give that to? “Is this ad relevant to you?” Hulu wants to know. And I stop my crazy thoughts. I really don’t need fat lipstick pencils. I have a drawer full of make up options in the bathroom and I usually end up wearing the same stuff every day anyway. My Christmas gift list is made. I don’t need a free gift for anyone else. This ad is NOT working on me, I want to tell Hulu. But the truth is, it almost did. It was relevant for me.

Amazon knows me well. They suggest things I might like and I agree with them. Deal sites. Need I say more? I mean, I’m not looking for new shoes, but if the deal site has Vibram fivefingers on sale half off, I might as well see if they have my size! When I shop at Target and use my debit card, they track my purchases, learn my preferences, and the cash register prints out coupons for things they already know my family uses. It’s almost creepy, the way the “ad experience” as it’s now known, is tailored to each consumer.

I don’t want to be a consumer before I am a citizen. I want the ads to not be so relevant to me. But they are. The problem is this: I have the gimmies.

I want a robot vacuum cleaner. I want a food processor. I want cookie cutters that can spell out any message I want. I want Christopher Radko Christmas ornaments. I want Vibrams in black. I want a pretty cabinet to hide my TV in. I want books.  Want, want, want. Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie.

It’s exactly what I want my children to be free from. But can I be free myself? When there are treats, toys, and fun things to do everywhere I look, can I instead learn to look within, to face up to my discontent once and for all? I believe there are a couple of ways to handle discontent. One is to feed it with one product after another than promises to make my life easier and happier and better, to chase that dangling carrot one step at at time into a place of exhaustion and even deeper discontent. Another way is to starve it with gratitude, with the blazing truth that I already have everything I need, that every problem I have is a first world problem, and that less sometimes really is more. If I feed discontent, it will surely grow until it is bloated. If I starve it with gratitude, my hope is that is will someday disappear.

So I’m grateful for the clothes we have and the machine that washes them with so little effort on my part. I am thankful for the food we easily afford, the dishes we eat it on, and the machine that cleans those as well. I am thankful for the break in my day that is nap time and a television comedy. I really have more than enough. And isn’t that the very definition of abundance? Wouldn’t it be foolish to live in abundance and choose to remain discontent? I choose contentment. I hope I can teach my children to choose it. I hope that one day I can answer no to Hulu every time they ask me, “Is this ad relevant to you?” No, I am content. No, I have enough. No, I know the difference between a want and a need and advertising professionals cannot make me confuse them. No.

Stronger

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“Taking care of someone can teach you a great deal,” he said. “It’s troublesome, and it’s easy to get annoyed, but your heart, well, it gets stronger. You do it for Tommy, of course, but you do it for yourself, too.” (from Wish by Joseph Monninger)

What’s the point?

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I don’t think she has very much fun, and what’s the point in being that clean if it means you never get to have any fun? (from Ellray Jakes is NOT a chicken! by Sally Warner)

I have always said the best way to get my house clean is to invite people over. If I know someone is coming, historically, I clean in a frenzy and make it perfect because I want people to believe I am some sort of superior housekeeper and that it always looks like this. And, for a long time, I went around feeling somewhat inadequate in the housekeeping department because every house I went to was spotless and I believed these houses remained in a permanent state of cleanliness that I had been woefully unable to achieve in my own. Not so, reader. Not so.

About a year ago, a friend invited my son and me to her house for a play date and when we got there I was struck by how messy her house was. I don’t mean that to sound rude. When I say it was messy, I mean that there were scattered toys, junk mail was on the table in a careless heap, dishes were in and around the sink, and I could tell the counter top had not been freshly wiped. When I say it was messy, I mean that it was exactly like my  house most of the time. It was normal. It was just their home the way they actually live in it. I couldn’t fathom the kind of confidence she must have had, to be able to invite people over in such a relaxed way, with no fresh smell of Lemon Clorox greeting friends at the door. When I got home I just felt so blessedly normal.

So I don’t clean my house for play dates anymore either. And, as a result, I have people over a lot more. Which means I have more fun. I no longer see the state of my home as a barrier to hospitality. You know what? We have a messy desk. There is pureed pumpkin stuck to the kitchen floor. There are whisker hairs on the bathroom sink and I can see a sock peeking out from under a toy peeking out from under the couch. It is what it is and what it is, is normal. I bet you have a junk mail pile too. So why stuff it in a drawer or cabinet before I come over? So I will think you are the type of magical person who has no paper pile? I am not relaxed around those magical people. I am relaxed around people who make me feel normal.

I worked a charity tour of homes once when I was in high school and the house I was helping give tours in was one of those that you can very briefly describe and everyone in town knows which house it is. (Oh, the big stone house on Bennett that always has a limo out front? I know that house!) It literally had an elevator in it. And one of the bedrooms had leopard print carpet. One of the bathrooms had a mural of the home owner painted on the tile. One of the bedrooms had a ceiling raised several feet to accommodate a piece of furniture. Anyway. It was that kind of house. Just before the tour, the home owner (as gorgeous and strange as her house) showed me around and gave me the spiel. When we entered one of the bathrooms, she said, “Ooops! I forgot to move these!” and hid the toothbrushes in a cabinet. I thought that was so funny–to hide your toothbrushes–to make it look like a house in a magazine spread that no one really lives in. And the truth is, I have tried and tried to imagine someone relaxing there and I can’t. It’s just too perfect.

Do I want to create an environment that people want to tour and photograph or one where people want to live and breathe and have a good time? Well, I might put the gnarly, twisted toothpaste tube in the bathroom cabinet, but our toothbrushes are out for the world to see.

 

If you wish

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If you wish for something, it stands a chance of happening.

(from Wish by Joseph Monninger)

The other day, while the baby napped, my son and I spent some time gathering pecans in our front yard. This is one of the things I love about autumn–Texas may not have the gorgeous, fiery foliage the Northeast brags, but we have delicious pie ingredients filling our yards from September to December. Benjamin was full of energy and excitement.

Mom! Some of the pecans are hiding in these little pecan boats!

This is a little, tiny, baby pecan, Mom!

Wow! Mom! They have FOOD in them?!

The realization that the trees literally rain food down on our heads filled my sweet boy with wonder and pure enjoyment.

Then he found a dandelion–a final dandelion, like the yard was holding on to that last piece of summer–one that had gone to seed. He held it up to me and I thought he would burst with the joy of it. I FOUND one, Mom!!!

“Did you make a wish?” I asked him as he blew the dandelion seeds and we watched them scatter into the sky like snowflakes going the wrong way.

A wish?

“You’re supposed to make a wish when you blow on a dandelion. What do you wish for?”

I just wish for more of these dandy flowers.

I laughed because, of all the things he could wish, that is the most likely to come true, much to my husband’s chagrin. (He is a fan of landscaping, and not a fan of dandelions.) And I thought, how wonderful that the one thing he wishes for will happen because he blew the seeds himself. They will spread and germinate and become new dandelions next summer.

I look at my children and you know, I wish it was a better world. I wish the evening news didn’t fill me with sorrow. I wish that every little boy and girl could be well fed and clothed, could have clean drinking water, medicine when they need it, and protection. We try to provide these things for our children. I wish my fed, clothed, healthy, safe and loved children will have compassion and empathy. I hope they can avoid the entitlement and narcissism our culture will certainly try to push on them. These are my wishes.

I hold them like a dandelion between my fingers, in front of my lips. How can I spread the seeds of these wishes in a way that they take root and grow?

I explain, gently and firmly, every time we are in the grocery store and my son asks for certain candies, why we don’t buy that kind of chocolate. I show him again the way to tell if chocolate is slave free. Then I spend a just a little bit extra to buy the right kind of chocolate. So that a child slave doesn’t have to work with a machete in the blistering sun to indulge my first world craving.

I lead my son in giving, in buying from good organizations, in supporting good causes. I explain it to him simply. As he grows, we will explain it more fully. I pray that he will understand. I pray that he will have empathy and compassion.

But I struggle, because I love Christmas. I love wrapping gifts and hanging beautiful ornaments and giving good gifts that I know loved ones will like. I love the extra baking and the extra eating of the holiday season. I struggle because I know that Americans, myself among them, spend more money on the Christmas season than it would take to deliver clean water to the world. I don’t want my children to be narcissists, but I also don’t want them to resent all the things we try to teach them because they are the only ones left out. That’s why we didn’t give up chocolate altogether, but we indulge in fairly traded and responsibly sourced chocolate. With Christmas looming, it’s tricky.

So imagine my delight at finding something today that allows you to spend money AND give to worthy causes at the same time. I could explain it to you myself, but I don’t think I could do it any better than Jen Hatmaker has already done. So I will simply refer you to her very excellent blog post Before You Spend Another Penny. It explains how you can get connected to Pure Charity and make the most of money you are spending anyway.

Even if you don’t read Jen’s post, please bookmark Pure Charity and check it out when you have time. Together, we can make a little bit go a really long way. We can spread the seeds of so many dandelions and give our own best wishes a chance.