But then, yesterday, I also realized that we should probably talk a little bit more about the technicalities of it all. We've talked about how the baby is swimming like a little fish, and how he doesn't breathe, because he has an umbilical cord and how when he comes out, he'll take his first breaths, and the kids stare at me with big eyes.
But yesterday, Kai thought about it for a while, and then asked, "So... are you going to, like, poop the baby out?"
January
January 1, 2008
In Ontario
close to Toronto
we are visiting the family on my side.
Snow everywhere, piles of it just waiting
but we have no snowsuits
because we live in California.
I remember snow, I remember freezing
I remember mascara running off of my thawed eyelashes
on the bus, the fourteen year old embarrassment.
I am nauseous and pregnant now
but I remember my thin gawky body covered in overcoats that were too big
as I sit in this parking lot,
covered in snow
hijacking wireless
on a New Year's Day
that somehow snuck up on me
like this pregnancy, like being an adult,
like my children growing up away from the snow.
January 3, 2008
To say that I am exhausted would be a vast understatement. But exhaustion seems to be normal, right now, just as feeling as though I've been scrambled and put on toast seems to be normal. And we did get home last night at 2:00 in the morning, 5:00 in the morning Detroit time.
However, not to brag or anything, but the kids were angels, ANGELS, on our flights home. I mean, they were quiet, they slept, they sat and entertained themselves, they read the Sky Mall magazines and the safety manuals dutifully. The seventeen-year-old behind Chinua was a lot louder than my kids were, that is, until my husband turned around and asked, "Excuse me, are you going to be THAT LOUD FOR THE ENTIRE TRIP? Because I think you could bring it down a few decibels." And then I died, because it was not at all Canadian of my husband to do that. But he justified it by saying that everyone on the flight would be happier as a result. And they were. And they broke into song.
I felt some concern for Kenya as she sat next to me and amused herself for about an hour by eating one side of an apple off and creating a perfectly flat surface. She chiseled away tenderly with her little tiny teeth, humming to herself the whole time. Then she ate the skin away and made little faces, with eyes, and noses, and mouths. And then she named them. It reminded me of when she was at my grandma's condo and she ate the skins off of the grapes while murmuring softly over them, "There you are, little baby..."
But then, as she held her apple in her hand, as the flight attendant finished announcing our landing in Minnesota, she shrieked, "Mommydaddymommydaddymommydaddy! She said we're in MINI APPLES!" And I thought, okay, now I'll die of love.
Yup. The kids were great. Chinua and I, now. Well, I think we did pretty well, and it was all because of pheromones. We were doing that thing, you know, when we start bickering at each other and picking fights and sighing, and then we talk in fierce whispers for awhile about which one of us is being meaner. But the whole time I was thinking, "I don't want to do this right now, this makes for bad memories, I have had enough travel bickering to last a lifetime, no more..." So, when my Superstar Husband came up and hugged me, I did what I knew would cure me for the rest of the night- I smelled his face. And then I sighed for a long time. And he smelled the top of my head. And he slumped and leaned his head on mine, and said in the sappiest voice, "I love you." Pheromones. I'm telling you.
Maybe it sounds silly that I love the smell of my husband's face, but I DO. Especially around his jaw. Try it, the next time you're bickering. People around us may have wondered about us, but I think they usually do anyways, so the fact that we were sniffing at each other probably didn't faze anyone too much.
January 4, 2008
I'm out.
Well, no, not really. But don't you wish sometimes that you could just say, "See ya," and then find yourself a nice cozy world where it is not storming and there are no assassinations and nobody is asking you for anything?
I think it's the kind of day I'm having. It's a day when every movement makes me even more nauseous. It's a day when suddenly being pregnant and expecting my fourth child, who will be born before my oldest turns six, seems overwhelming. When nine months seems vast. When I can't get comfortable. Already.
A day to be a whiny child. Along with my whiny, not-quite-feeling-well children.
Today is a day when my to-do list is slapping me in the face like a wet fish, when I am ignoring it and procrastinating, lying on the floor trying to feel better. (Have I ever mentioned just how much I love lying on the floor? Sometimes I wonder if I'll still be lying on the floor when I'm sixty-five. Probably.)
Today is the kind of day that reminds me of days in the past when I used to hole up in my room with a book and a large bag of chips. Or maybe a cake. I would love to do that now, minus the food. But now I am a mom, and I'd better get used to it. And now I have work to do.
I'm trying to resign from being a bookkeeper, and in doing so, I seem to accumulate even more work—things that need to be done before I can fully lay it all aside. It's killing me. I feel like my life is one big deadline. For example, right now I somehow need to magically open up a high-interest bank account. I have no idea how to do this. I need to get tax receipts out. I need to get my computer fixed. I need to send out some communications. I need to work on updating a website.
I feel like I'm having a panic attack.
Maybe what I really need is to pray.
Breathe into me. I'm lost and lonely. I'm growing to hate numbers. I want nothing to do with this.
It's you that I serve. This is not for nothing. You are not harsh. You bend me but don't break me. You made life and we are glad. We are safe. The storm hasn't killed us. We have so much.
I'm tired. Please make me free again.
January 6, 2008
One thing that was hanging over me since we got home is the fact that we had no FOOD in the house. And that we've been eating nothing but eggs because we have no food in the house. I babysat for a friend yesterday and when she came over I asked if it was okay if her daughter had eggs for lunch.
"Well... she's actually already had eggs today, but that's fine, I guess," she said, kindly.
And I was like, "IT'LL HAVE TO BE OKAY, BECAUSE THAT'S THE ONLY CHOICE." But I didn't actually say that. But it was true.
So, today I went shopping, blissfully alone except for the little butterfly in my womb, and first of all I had to plan my meals.
Ever since I was eighteen I have lived in community, and in most of our communities there has been meal sharing. In the last one, at the Land, Renee practically begged to be the cook, the whole cook, and nothing but the cook, so help her God—so we let her. And I scrambled my brain on taxes. But anyways now here I am and there are SEVEN (dinner) MEALS A WEEK! I'm so new at this. I love to cook, let me just say. Love it.
But what do I cook? I mean, good gracious, how do I feed my family? I don't know how people do it, night after night. Maybe it's partly because I'm using up so much energy right now, incubating this baby, that about half an hour after I eat, I'm STARVING, but it just seems like overkill, eating everyday.
So, today, wracking my brain, I called my mom to ask her for her lasagna recipe. She gave it to me over the phone, in a kind of sketchy memorized fashion, since she's been cooking for decades.
Then, later, at the store, I called her again. "You said ground beef. But how many pounds of ground beef?" (What did I think she was going to say? Four?) She told me one, and then we hung up. Because it costs me about a million dollars an hour to call Canada on my cell phone.
Then, later, when they found my phone in the freezer, next to the frozen juices, the grocery store people calle
d the last number that I had called, which happened to be my Mom and Dad. (It says, Mom and Dad. We're not on a first name basis.) And they explained to my Mom that they had located my phone in the freezer and that when I came looking for it to please let me know that it was at the grocery store. But not in the freezer anymore.
What a day of phone calls for my Mom. There's nothing to let you know that you're still connected to your daughter like ground beef and lost cell phone notifications.
I'm sure she laughed.
January 8, 2008
This morning when Chinua and the kids and I got into the van, to drive him to work, it looked remarkably disheveled. Enough that I remarked on it. I said, "Were you tearing through stuff in here?" And my Superstar Husband shook his head and looked innocent. And then I saw that everything had been pulled out of every pocket in the van, including the glove compartment. "SOMEONE WAS IN HERE!" I said. And so it seems that someone randomly decided to go through our van, looking for what, the Lord only knows. And the Lord forgives. And so do I, especially since it seems like nothing is gone. The Lord would forgive even if the van was gone, but if that happened, I know it would take me a minute.
Last night my little Kai slept over at his best friend's house. I can't believe that he is old enough to sleep over. And he kind of isn't, really, except at the home of some of my most trusted friends. When Elena called me last night to ask if it was okay, I said, "Is it okay with me? You're the one keeping my kid!" She was wondering if he would miss me. I said, "Heck no. He isn't that kind of child."
And I was right. When I went to pick him up today, I hugged him and asked him how it went. He looked at me and said, "I didn't miss you." And I didn't say, YOU ARE NOT AT ALL CHARMING, YOU UNGRATEFUL WRETCH. But I thought it. It didn't help that he cried all the way out to the car because he didn't want to come home. Why do kids have to be so immature? How about a little credit, kiddo?
We then proceeded to have an awesome afternoon doing school and reading and baking bread. Because life at home REALLY SUCKS, and we hate to be here.
And then I thought about it, and how Kai had plaintively said, "I don't want to go home and be all by ourselves!" And I responded, "You have TWO siblings and one on the way and you're ONLY FIVE." Elena added, "You don't really know what it means to be by yourself."
But I realized, as I was driving home, crying for about the seventh time today because of my intense longing for the Land, that we are all transitioning. This boy of mine has lived his entire life with other people in and around and through and on top of all of the different houses that we've lived in. No wonder he feels like he's all alone. This is very different. We all need grace, here. GRACE! GRACE! Like that.
Tonight I made white bean and butternut squash soup. I loved it. The kids weren't wild about it, but I made them eat it anyways. And we made bread to go along with it. It was actually really easy, and I used dried white beans that I cooked all day in the slow cooker, rather than canned beans. A word to the wise, though, from a learning cook. If it says 19 oz of canned beans, that is not the same as 19 oz of dried beans. Because, you know, they grow. So, I think we may have this soup again soon, since I have these beans and half of a butternut squash left. I put parmesan in the soup, and toasted the pumpkin seeds, just like the recipe said. And I did not regret it.
5. Chinua is working late and after the kids go to bed (in twenty, no, nineteen minutes), I'm going to knit and watch "13 going on 30" because I deserve it.
January 9, 2008
Leafy is learning to talk at a speed of about a hundred miles a minute. He's also a little confused about which phrases are appropriate for him to use, and which are not. For example, he has told me to "obey" more than a few times.
As I came out of the bathroom today, he said, "You STAY OUT DA BAFROOM!"
It is something he's heard again and again. Mostly because of his habit of finding a cup, scooping some toilet water into it, and then offering it to our guests.
January 10, 2008
Do any of you have a middle of the afternoon slump? Because I sure do. I get regular house stuff done in the morning, and we do school, and then the afternoon is supposed to be the time of day where I do other projects, or organize stuff, or write, or paint! (Although I'd drop dead with amazement if that ever happened.) But now, I push through the slump and I write! I write. Because it keeps me sane. GRACE! GRACE! (GRACE! is sort of my version of Serenity Now!)
A wise woman once said that if you can go through trials without letting them embitter you, they will refine you. That wise woman probably heard that somewhere else, most likely it's a paraphrase of the Bible, maybe the whole Bible, since that seems to be a great deal of the message, and that wise woman is my other personality.
Because, my friends, I'm feeling BITTER. I'm feeling bitter, like with a raspy smoker's voice at eighty-two, imagine it with me if you will- BITTER. Maybe I'm thinking the voice of Marge Simpson's sisters- BITTER.
It's a sucky way to feel. It leaps up out of me at the slightest provocation. Bitterbitterbitterbitterbitterbitter.
Bitterness will suck you dry, it will take the joy out of your life, it will rob you of the lessons that the trials you have gone through are meant to offer you- a good gift, a gift from a Father who loves you. It might make you sick to your stomach, like it does to me. It might make your heart race with anxiety, cause your attention to wander from your children to inner rants and raves. It might cause you to accidentally crush a can of tomatoes with your bare hands. Or not, if you're not all that strong.
I believe that bitterness comes when we think we deserve more than we've been given. I think it also can fester when we don't know how to grieve and let go. Often it seems like grief demands a reason, like maybe I moved away because everything WAS SO SUCKY. Or maybe, just maybe, I moved away because it was simply time to go. A season passed, and love is everywhere, love is around the corner, love is right now. But we aren't where we were. That doesn't mean that where we were is bad.
The question of whether we deserve more than we've been given is an interesting one. Maybe, in a perfect world, some of us would make more money for our hard work. Maybe in a perfect village, we'd all let each other know how much our contributions meant. If I was perfect, I'd certainly be a better friend.
But today I was reading about Joseph with my kids. Joseph with the coat of many colors. One thing that hit me was that after Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, (totally didn't deserve that, I don't think) and then he worked his way up in his slave owner's household, he gets thrown into prison for leaping out of the lusty clutches of his owner's wife. Totally didn't deserve that, either.
And then, in prison, what it says about him is that he was such a great prisoner that he was put in charge of the other prisoners. Actually, what it says in my kids' bible is that he didn't whine and pout about being in prison. You know, like "poor me, my brothers jumped me when I was seventeen and sold me into slavery and then I got thrown into prison because some woman who is already married tried to hit on me and I ran away." You know? That would be totally lame of him, to object to that, right?
But somehow he still gets the award for being a good citizen. (I got that award once, a long, long time ago. I think I was eight.)
So basically, maybe some stuff has happened that makes me feel like crap. Maybe it was a raw deal. But, here we go, into a new year, and I want to get the good citizen award. Or not. Maybe I just want to be sweet, salty, curried, pickled, but not bitter. Maybe I want to leave this stuff behind. And be the best damn prisoner that I can be.
January 11, 2008
Today I believe I will be able to take the past and roll it between my palms, and blow the pieces backwards, where they can't touch me. I want to remember the beautiful things, so many beautiful things. I want to remember the things that have changed me.
I think that deciding to step away from what we were doing was one of the most courageous things that Chinua and I have ever done. I really believe that. And I
see how God has continued to allow things to fall into place, again and again, perfectly. I have received gifts, this past year, like the trip to Burkina, like the ability to be here still, even after a major car accident. And I see that it has not been without trials. There has been turbulence. We have had to fasten our seat belts, a few times. So maybe the unlocking of emotion right now is not without cause.
I know, however, that Joseph eventually became a prince, in Egypt. He got sprung. So tomorrow I think I will write a little about the next year. Maybe it will be ridiculously hopeful. I'm not planning to lose weight or start jogging. But I would like to shift a little closer to that rightness that I see there, off on the horizon.
January 13, 2008
I think in 2008 I'd like to turn 28. That'd be cool!
Also, I think I'd like to have a baby. I'd love to gain a bunch of weight! And then lose it.
And I'd like to move to India with my family.
But there are other things, also, things that I can dream of. I'd like to begin taking doing more writing and photography for advocacy.
I want to write my book.
I want to publish a book of portraits.
I would love to paint more. I have a painting that I'm about to start working on, and I'd love to make it one of several, this year. I didn't paint anything in 2007. There is this sleeping part of me called Painter, and she has retreated behind mother, writer, blogger, pregnant person who needs to eat a lot. But she wants to come back out to play.
Trees Tall as Mountains (The Journey Mama Writings: Book 1) Page 26