The Sacred Journey

I'm noticing I gravitate toward biographies and memoirs when life throws me a curve ball. Makes sense, I guess. When you are walking through the valley, what could be more comforting than the testimony of those who have gone before you? And since there really is nothing new under the sun it is impossible to open up a good biography and not see some of your own struggles and fears represented there. Right now I'm reading The Sacred Journey: A Memoir of Early Days by Frederick Buechner.

In the book, Buechner examines his childhood and young adult life looking for, listening for, God. Here is an excerpt from the intro:

"Life itself can be thought of as an alphabet by which God graciously makes known his presence and purpose and power among us. Like the Hebrew alphabet, the alphabet of grace has no vowels, and in that sense his words to us are always veiled, subtle, cryptic, so that it is left to us to delve their meaning, to fill in the vowels, for ourselves by means of all the faith and imagination we can muster. God speaks to us in such a way, presumably, not because he chooses to be obscure but because, unlike a dictionary word whose meaning is fixed, the meaning of an incarnate word is the meaning it has for the one it is spoken to, the meaning that becomes clear and effective in our lives only when we ferret it out for ourselves."

Good stuff.

Grown Up?

I got married, we bought a house, and I turned 30 this year. All this has led me to wonder, am I a grown-up yet? I have my doubts. But I have noticed some differences.

I throw away the socks that have lost their partners.
I can actually be awake and do stuff without music playing in the background.
I only go to the movie theater if there is something good playing.
I wonder "what are their parents thinking?" when I watch movies about teenagers.
I exfoliate twice a week.
I eat fish and vegetables.
I never let the laundry overflow the hamper. Er, I never let the laundry overflow two hampers.
I actually enjoy listening to NPR.
I find myself sitting through concerts.
I own a scale and use it religiously.
I apply moisturizer to my neck as well as my face, and regret that I haven't always.
I no longer consider putting down a book just because it's about old people (you know, 40 or 50 year olds.)

Unfortunately, some things have remained unchanged.

I only open mail under extreme duress, and even then I don't reply to said mail.
I convince myself on a regular basis that I have cancer and am dying.
I like animals more than people.
I make long to-do lists and then promptly "lose" them.
I get mad when I don't know what I am doing.
I believe that the best offense is a turtle's defense.
I make fun of TV news personalities. (Except Allison Rosati, who is perfect and wonderful.)
I get flustered in social situations.
I can give the appearance of being organized without actually being organized at all.

Hmph. It doesn't quite seem fair. If I'm going to start getting wrinkles on my neck I ought to be able to balance a check book in exchange, you know? But I'm not done, er, maturing, so maybe by the time I'm 40 I'll have my day planner all filled in, I'll be on top of the mail, and I'll look on all news people with compassion and generosity of spirit.

Where I'm At

Ahhh, the weekend is here! The plan this morning was to sleep in, but Piper was on one of her puking sprees. After I was awoken the third time by the sound of kitty heaves coming from somewhere near my feet, I scrapped the sleeping thing! So, after a bagel and a cup of coffee, I’m back where I spend a disgusting amount of time these days - in front of the computer.

What on earth keeps me attached to this machine so many hours a week? Let’s see - there’s Ghost Hunters on You Tube, there is Spider Solitaire (which is even better when played during Ghost Hunters, since very little actually happens on that show), there is Facebook, there is the blog world, there is Google news, and, I’ll admit it, there are the many websites designed to give hope (realistically and not-so realistically) to women who find themselves consumed by the desire to become a mom.

Most of the women on these sites face the double stigmas of being both childless and objects of the degrading stereotypes about women and their "biological clocks". I’ve always felt kinda sorry for them, in the tepid way you feel sorry for someone you don’t really relate to and can congratulate yourself for bearing little resemblance to. I even managed to get pregnant without ever having to join in on one of the indelicate discussions that goes on in these TTC forums.

But that was before. I’m no longer pregnant, and every month there is an escalating urgency to getting pregnant, which I am having a hard time talking myself down from. If you are thinking right now, “poor Ross,” you are right! But it’s like this mysterious mandate (and please, nobody say biological clock or I’ll kick you!) and I feel overwhelmed by it. One of the things about these sites is that you see a picture of where you could end up - superstitions and crazy diets and unsavory mail order products - and it scares me.

Oh well. This is life. Suddenly we look around and find that, without a lot of forethought or intention, we’ve started off on a new path. I accept that this is my journey right now, and, as embarrassing as it may be, it includes eager attention to minute bodily change, fistfuls of home pregnancy tests, and pathetic Google searches like “negative pregnancy test but still pregnant?”

Taking Stock

One thing about crisp fall days is that they make a hot cup of coffee seem an almost sacred thing! Another thing about fall days - they fill me with nostalgia. As the leaves change and fall, and as I get toward the back of the calendar that hangs on the kitchen wall, I find myself taking stock of all that has happened since this time last year.

It was last November, when the trees were already mostly naked, that Ross and I traveled up to South Haven. We walked by the water and visited the shops and ate really expensive Italian food for dinner. Then, at the end of a long, sweet day, he proposed. I seem to remember rose petals and champagne, but what stands out is seeing that beautiful ring for the first time. We set the date for four months away, with little idea of how many distractions life would throw our way.

In December I was in a car accident and wrecked my faithful old Neon. In January my Fibromyalgia was bad enough that I decided to leave Verizon for good. In February we went through all the madness that comes with buying a house. Mercifully, in March we were married at last. It was probably the most exhausting four months of my life. But what a finish line! Nothing I have ever experienced compares to the grinning-like-an-idiot, bursting-at-the-seams happiness of my wedding day.

Since then I’ve been living the “married life.” When you are a newlywed people constantly ask you “how’s married life?” Do people really want to hear about the bliss of falling asleep with his stomach against my back, or how his gentleness nurses my soul when I’m feeling sad, or that sharing a bathroom is like a running joke with no words, and how every touch from his hand makes me a little stronger? Since it seems rude to draw attention to such lavish good fortune, I usually just say “fine.”

But even with a love, a home, and a future better than I could ever have deserved, this year hasn't always been easy.

In my experience, there is nothing worse than lying in a bloody hospital bed and realizing that the intense pains you are feeling are actually labor contractions, and that there is no possible happy ending. That when the physical pain is over you will not be taking your baby home. That the child you have dreamed about and worried over will be gone. You will never get to hold her, or kiss her, or tell her how sorry you are that you couldn’t protect her from this awful, unfair ending.

The next week we were nestled in a cabin in the mountains of North Carolina, sleeping and eating and walking off the shock of what had happened. We were surrounded by the beauty of creation and the loving tenderness of family. Everywhere I looked I saw the promise that God is good, God is faithful.

By the end of that month I was pregnant again, unintentionally and with a great deal of apprehension. I had nightmares and was plagued by pregnancy tests that got fainter instead of stronger as the days went by. The lining was insufficient and the baby didn’t stick and I found myself having my second miscarriage in as many months. There wasn’t the same violence and gory fanfare of the first miscarriage, and I felt guilty for feeling grateful that it happened early and that it wasn't as painful.

And that brings me to October. We just returned from a trip to Wilmington where we slept in a beautiful sleigh bed, tapped our toes to live blue grass, snapped goofy pictures in a grand old mansion, and witnessed the joyful union of Kendell Cangelosi and Brian Stange. As the leaves fall and I sip my coffee, the spirit whispers, "God is good, God is faithful."