Let's Stop Lying

“Mama. I’m afraid of dying. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to see my gecko again in heaven.” said my 9-year-old.

“I’m afraid of dying too, Love. But honestly, I am afraid of a lot. I try not to be, but the truth is that I have big fears.”  I admitted.

“I also feel really bad about the things I have done that are bad. Things from the past. Like when I hurt my gecko on purpose when I was six,” he confided.

“Uh huh. I have a lot of things I feel ashamed about too. Things that I have done. Bad things. Like when you were little. I pushed you once. You hit your brother and I pushed you out of the way. I was so angry. You were only two, and he was one. And I felt so ashamed of myself. In anger, I shoved you.”

His eyes opened wide. Relief and curiosity and disbelief washed over his face, releasing the tension, allowing hope to reflect from my eyes to his. He saw that I am weak. I am human. I am like him.

“Really?” he begged for more details. Each one that I provided made his face relax a little bit more.

I wonder how many of us adults try to pretend to have all the answers, for our children’s sake, or for the sake of coworkers, or maybe even for our own sake. We want people to like us, maybe even worship us, believing that we are not weak. We are strong. Like little lying Gods. Pretending that we know so much. Pretending we feel no shame. Pretending we make no mistakes. Pretending we are completely sure of the future.

Let’s tell the truth.

We are humans who do not know what tomorrow looks like. We don't know if we will be diagnosed with an illness this week, or if our hearts will stop before we finish reading these words. We do not know if a member of our family will do something horrible tomorrow, or if a car will collide with ours when we drive to the grocery store. We do not know if even the next second will come.

So that is what I explained to my boy.

Faith is in the admitting all that we do not know. Faith is in the believing that there is some great One who is taking care of us, who has our backs, who will continue to care for us for eternity. We don't need to know the details. Because, whether we like it or not, we have already accepted the fact that we don’t know what tomorrow will look like. We simply have faith that it will come. That the sun will rise.

Deep, huh?

I can think this way right now because I have to face the fact that I know very little about my future.

We pulled our oldest son out of school because it simply wasn’t working for him. So we don’t know where he will be next year. We have been talking about many plans, including taking a year off and traveling across the country homeschooling (and have decided that this would look good on a blog, but would torture part of our family. So we will not go this route.)

My husband has quit his job, so we do not know where our income source will come from in the next year. We don’t know what our “standard of living” actually is.

And, due to the last item, we are putting our house on the market, so if our house sells, we do not know where we will be living next.

Where does this leave me?

Living. That's where. Living with a faith that is growing as quickly as the clouds float by my desk. Living keenly aware that everything I have is guaranteed to be here only for this moment. And so I need to grab it, hold it, cherish it, and move on to the next second that, once again, is a miraculous gift. I cannot predict where the next blip of air will come from. I cannot possibly say who the next reader of this blog post will be. I will not try to pretend I know how my words will affect one single heart.

I am certain of only one thing— this moment.  In it, I hear my own soft breath mixed with raindrops from outdoors, and I smell the warm oniony soup simmering in the kitchen. I feel the rubbery surface of the chair beneath me and the tap of the keys under my fingers. And I feel hope. Hope that the words that I type may reach another soul who can taste them, drink them, and reach them forward, mixed with her own ideas, to share. Share honestly. Listen.

Maybe faith comes with admitting to knowing little. Perhaps God needs you and me to have the tender heart of a child, willing to wonder in the dark, so that he can speak to us. Maybe strength comes from admitting weakness. And teaching only happens when we can become the pupil alongside of our children. When we share the journey with them.

I am thankful for this moment on the page, in my chair, sharing my thoughts, and for experiences and words that may have possibly connected you to me.

Bluebird, I am Sad

Copyright Amy Aves Challenger 2014

Bluebird, why are you staring at me?

I watch your dark shimmery eyes through the thick panes of my tall window, casually snacking on seeds with your neighborhood friends. You chirp to one another making morning music that sings to the grassy field with little effort. Crickets and bullfrogs call back to you, and you know you are not even close to alone.

Not alone like me.

Your bodies flitter as sky colored angels, just dropped from heaven, to entertain the heavy lives down here. We plod along. Though you may be a mother like me, bluebird, still you are free to play, to jump, to dance, to peck, to holler, and to fly away at any moment.

Bluebird I’m tired.

I envy your perky crown of feathers, your carefree fuzz able to go whichever way it chooses. I admire your ability to balance on every surface as though the earth is only a playground to you. Your tiny dots of thought glance at me when my back is turned, tending to a child’s scream or catching a falling orange glass of carrot juice. You see that I am arched over like a bending branch, my bones cracking and tired. You wouldn’t dare rest on me. You might fall. Mothering has worn me. I am a shut-in, trapped among the smell of dirty socks, sweeping crumbs for pleasure. I am a heavy vessel living above flat feet sliding a broom across years of dusty floors.

Bluebird I am sad.

I cannot find the right place for my child this week. He feels lost, and he has told me so. How I wish I could simply hop over to another tree, and find some new fruit, a new home to rest upon, just like you do. I yearn to feel the cool damp wind in my hair, to float above this place, to carry my boy on my back, smiling down on the world like I imagine every bird does.

Bluebird I have hope.

My child saw your face, he heard your song, and he smiled. “Look at the bluebird mom! I want to live in the forest, with the animals, out there,” he said pointing, as he watched you gobble up the seeds we poured into your house yesterday. I wonder if you came here to feed our souls, to tell us that our homes are temporary, and our problems are as transient as the molecules of air that you glide across. I wonder if you are my gift today, reminding me that all mothers are sisters, and maybe I can fly off to a mysterious land this morning, even if only for this moment, just like you.  

My Virgin Flight To Heaven

Have you been to heaven? I have. Seriously! This last week I flew Virgin America to get there. After deplaning, I plopped my cowboy boots on to the pavement, following my husband and three kids to our Minivan rental car, and my blue jeans began to travel through a space where I had never been before.

“We are HERE!” I exclaimed to my exhausted family, as though the pearly gates had opened for us.

The 70-degree air tasted different. Sweeter, kinder, and fresher. My eyes saw a landscape smiling and arcing upward to blue space, lined with little rectangular buildings painted pretty pastel colors, reflecting dots of light before the hills came back down, pouring out gentle rolling paths and roads. I saw spots of peach-colored poppies springing up in surprising places, then yellow and white wildflowers scattered across green expanses of curves. Purple cone flowers poked up like Dr. Suess had propped them next to the curves on the roads just to make me smile. Soft purple grey mountains whispered a wise welcome from far away.

Snap, snap, snap. I took pictures. I wanted more more MORE of this place. I wanted to save it. Bottle it. Package it in a to-go container.

I was in heaven. I was back home, in Marin County, where my husband and I had raised our kids for eight years. I had not been back since our departure just one year before.

My oldest had thrown a tantrum as we had waited for our car. But the air had been circling like medicine, filling my nose, brushing my ears with a strange harmony. As I blocked my boy from hitting my daughter next to the rushing traffic, I barely felt much fear. Worrisome thoughts tried to surface, but they then sort of popped into the atmosphere like little bubbles, disappearing. (Like I said, it HAD to have been heaven.)

Later in the car, over my oldest boy’s nervous banter and flying fists, I tossed out random happy words as though they were freshly picked wildflowers blowing in the wind, “Oh look! Look at that HILL. Look at that SKY. Look at that WATER. Look at the BRIDGE.” I couldn’t stop. My kids peered up at me with slightly concerned faces as I stuck my head out the car window on the highway, smiling at the air blowing my hair into tangles. They became quiet.

It looked like I had devolved into a very naïve toddler. (My 6-year-old once told me that kids live in heaven, here on earth— all the time!)

We had driven these roads countless times before, but in the past, I had not been able to suck in their splendor in quite this way. My tightly wound mind had been cluttered with school issues, with flashing clocks, beeping times and dates. My focused stare had been distracted by my mistakes of the week, reminders of after-school activities, grocery lists, and corners of the house needing cleaning. I could not see this place, all of its richness, very often. In the past, there had just been tiny glimpses, but then my brain had flipped back to the ruckus. Back inside of the blinding atmosphere of stress that had encircled me, stealing heaven right from under my nose.

And all that time, the gates had been right there. Inviting me in.

As our visit continued, I ran along trails similar to those that I had jogged down hundreds of times before when we had lived in Marin. But back then I had been thinking about other things. Problems. What school, what teacher, what way to help my son? Support my other kids. What friend? What way to help myself? So I had not felt the mist that poured down on to the land from the warm sky. I had not slowed down to observe the stripes of pink in the rocks, the tiny green pieces of rock, thousands of years old, buried in the dirt. Often in the past I had taken pictures of the beauty, (I love taking pictures) but I had not FELT it. You know? I had not lived in it. I had not listened to the hum of the wind. Not like this.

And then came the people. I swear, it was like they all wore white wings. Halos danced above their heads. And their smiles were so big that I had to wear my sunglasses everywhere. The moms from school, the church friends, the pastor, the babysitters, the home-school teachers, the nature teacher, the therapists, the old neighbors, the new babies, the work friends, the grandfather, the grocery store clerks, the swim friends, the swim coaches, the old friends from the city, the old gecko Eddie (OK, he isn’t a person, but…) These people were not like REAL people. No sir. They were like those people you picture in heaven. Smiling, hugging, laughing, eating, drinking, playing. Being honest. Looking me in the eye. Loving my kids. Loving.

Or maybe I was different? Seeing differently. I was not afraid anymore. Not afraid to hug. To smile. To share. Not afraid to be disappointed. Joy felt like it was dripping from me.

“What is this?” I wondered. Oh yea— heaven.

And the grumpy people? Of course they were there sometimes, too. I sort of saw that one tall blonde mom with a great big chest who turned her extra long back into my face so I had to back away and end the conversation I was having (cause I couldn’t see or be heard anymore.) She didn’t remember me, of course. And I saw her, um, back. But I saw her image differently… Maybe her stress was too thick. Her insecurities too opaque. Maybe she couldn’t smile much because she couldn’t see the sky. (I felt no better or worse than her. Just undeservedly someplace else on that day.) But anyway, I turned my face away, toward another smile, and POOF, she was GONE. It was that simple. I didn’t look at her again.

I wonder— could heaven be found so easily— any old day, in any old place? Could it be a simple spin of the heart toward the good, away from that other place that pulls down our souls? Could it be a glance upward toward the sky?

Here’s the greatest part: I’m not writing this so that you wish you TOO could go to Marin (if you aren’t there already.) Or live there. Or go on my runs. Or know the same people. See, on my trip I learned that you don’t have to travel Virgin Air to get to heaven. God is not living somewhere else, somewhere far away. I think He is sitting right there next to you. In you. With us all— all the time. Patiently waiting for us to notice. He taps his foot, holding the door opened for me, for you, my friend, my reader, the person who believes he or she isn’t worthy. He opens it for the one who doesn’t believe heaven or God exists at all. He opens doors in pretty places like Marin County, but also in seemingly dreary places like, well, like the slushy East Coast where I live now! (I know, I know, that coast is gorgeous too, but in March, at times, one might think otherwise.)

Anyway, I think heaven waits in the arms of a tree on a grey slushy cold street in Connecticut. It is dressed as a sunset, smiling through a window in a crowd of slightly stuffy people. Heaven is gleaming from the dimples of the messy-haired homeless child holding a fluffy cupcake at the soup kitchen. Heaven is in the embrace of the teacher with the sparkle in her eye who loves my child despite his moods and struggles. It is in the stranger, or the new friend who smiles and asks you how you are feeling.

And so I came back from my trip to heaven with HOPE. Hope that I captured a little bit of my magical, undeserved experience in these words. Who knows, maybe I flew to heaven just so I could share it with you.

And if I remember what I learned from leaving my beloved Marin behind, from my flight to that wonderful place, then maybe I can live there more often, wherever I go. Forever and ever.

Daddy, Come Home!

“Where’s Daddy tonight?” my eight-year-old asked as we sat down for dinner. I glanced up at our nanny, Mona, my husband’s fill-in. We had often joked that she was my other spouse. Like a fixture in our home.  

A paper airplane flew over the table as my oldest boy’s screeching sounds cleaned out my eardrums. I turned to catch him jumping over couches, arms waiving, working his way into what we call “an unsafe place.” My body tensed. Mona took my place at the table as I hopped up to prevent chaos. One-on-one attention for my 9-year-old is always needed, or things become out-of-hand quickly at our home. Dangerous actually. I wondered how we would survive without Mona’s support. How I would stay sane. I hated thinking about that, as my mind generally painted pictures of a lunatic tangle-haired sleepless mom tying kids to chairs at dinnertime, shoveling cereal into bowls with a trowel.

“He’s coming home late tonight,” I answered over my shoulder, “has a very important meeting.” Then I turned to my hyperactive boy, “how bout if you go ride the exercise bike for a bit, T. You can wear the headphones and watch a show.” I suggested. He screeched louder, grinning, disappearing up the stairs. 

“Not again! Dad’s never around anymore.” sighed the eight-year-old. Trying to get my attention while  pushing his food around on his plate, unable to eat much.

My hand found his shoulder, resting there a second. “Sorry love, but…tomorrow he’ll be here.” 

A little while later, I watched my boy storm up the stairs, head hanging over his slouched lips. I followed him, secretly grateful for the intensity of his love for his dad. I was thankful that he expected his presence rather than assuming that dads don’t belong at dinner anymore. Plus, I was a little bummed too.

“He wishes he could be here, honey. He wants to be, but his job…” and I looked beneath his messy hair to see tiny tears quietly drizzling down my boy’s soft skin.

“But he wasn’t here last night, Mom. I barely ever get to see him,” he choked.

“Well actually, you do get to see him more than lots of kids see their dads.” I tried a new sales pitch as I sat next to him on his bed. My angle felt cheap, though true. I thought about my friends with husbands who traveled all week, coming home eventually worn out. How did those dads connect with their kids? How did they really know them? I wondered. Then I pictured my exhausted friends without husbands who had been raising their kids alone because of difficult divorces. And my friends with husbands who worked in the city and could rarely make it home for dinner, seldom even before bedtime, if at all. My eight-year-old covered his head and body with his comforter.

“At least you'll see him at breakfast for a bit!” I tried to cheer him up through the thick cotton, picturing my tall husband running out the door after having a quick five-minute chat with my two kids who got up in time to join him for toast. “And tomorrow he says he’ll be here for dinner.” Though I knew often even those promises fell through.  

I pictured my husband’s brain and body attempting to be here and to be there and everywhere. Like a drone lost in the sky, arcing this way and that, spinning. How he tried to be the best at everything. At work, he felt he was never able to do or give enough. Everyone around him was working over 60 hour weeks, sacrificing time with kids, sacrificing time with community. So there was guilt when he left. At home, he was needed beyond comprehension. The exceptional needs of all of our kids erupted each time he entered our home. They needed to connect with him, to laugh, to share, to have arguments and tantrums and to be picked up afterwards and embraced. They needed to be known. They needed to play ball, to ski, to have Daddy visit school, to roughhouse, to share their insecurities, their fears. They wanted life lived with their dad’s face in the picture.

And my oldest. There were moods to contend with, defiant behavior, doctors to visit, therapists to understand, behavioral reports, the school to meet with weekly. There were new methods for helping him that seemed to change as soon as we learned them. There were new diets, new vitamins, and medication considerations. There was always a new worry, a new challenge.

Meanwhile my husband’s countenance had been becoming paler, his figure thinner, his hair greyer. The moments we could grab together were like gold, even if almost always tarnished because of child's bad mood, a tantrum, or a sibling spat. Our time together hasn't been close to perfect. But priceless time, nonetheless. Each memory has become important nugget in our life, in our children’s make-up, in their stories.

A few weeks ago, after much painful thought, countless meetings and discussions, my exhausted husband decided that he wanted more time in the family story. And so he returned home after resigning from his job. He left for multiple reasons. But primarily he knew that he had to make a choice. He chose our boys, our girl…and I suppose he chose me. He chose to search for a job where he will still act as the intelligent, passionate, creative business leader he is, while striving to balance work and life and family. His decision was incredibly hard for him and difficult for me to witness. He suffered because he decided to press against the norm, to dare to be different. But now, as a leader, he is marching toward a different horizon; he is heading toward a place that encircles families and community and compassion, all bound together by innovative business practices, hard work, and the desire to do good — I think his horizon reveals a complete and gorgeous picture. One that God has given us.

Today my little girl runs to her daddy like she never did before. He folds his long body downward and she whispers secrets into his waiting ear. She tells him stories. My boys hold his hand proudly as they walk to the bus in the morning or to the car after school. Their grins are contagious. They look up and laugh, seeing him draping our girl over his shoulder. They wait to share their day with him.

I don’t know what our future holds, and some days that feels really scary. (Another post will come!) But I do know that my kids are incredibly blessed. They have a daddy. And a good one. A daddy to wrap their little arms around, to laugh at their jokes, to worry alongside of me when they are hurting. They have a daddy who will be an essential part of their stories, into eternity.

Thank you God, so much, for daddies.

Thank You For The Shit

Do you dare to tell the truth, or do you lie?

When you open your eyes in the morning, wiggle your toes, feel your brain pulsating in the rear of your skull, do you hear the pain that burrows there? The discontent aching from when your daughter tearfully told you she felt lonely on the playground; the hole in your chest leftover from the hurtful words of your angry, pre-teen child or that mean woman's glare? Additionally, do you take time to notice the murmurs of joy bubbling under your skin from yesterday? The lightness you felt when you spied your son with his nose hidden in a book in a sunny corner; the warm rush in your hand lead by your 6-year-old to her room for a tea party with bunny rabbits. Do you feel this?

And then do you rise up, prepared to answer the cells that have spoken to you on this morning. Do you push on to share your truth, your experience with the world? Heck, do you even think any shred of YOU is important enough to share?

Or do you lie?

Sometimes I lie.

Sometimes I open my hazel eyes and all I feel is beaten up. Like the earth has been chewing on me and spewing me into the atmosphere and then sucking me back in again to live another day as a cheerful mom. I hastily rise. I paste on my smile. I cake on mascara. I brush my long dried-out locks, and I fling myself out there in hopes of being something worthwhile. I try to be somebody else.

On these poker face days, I might talk to my friends or my family and say, “Oh yes, life is GREAT. All is well. My pipes froze and my husband just left his job (that we moved across the country for) because it was causing him enough stress to kill three men twice his size. Seeing his pain has been such a great learning experience. I fell down the stairs too, a couple of weeks ago. And I’ve been wheezing for some reason. But I am alive. Isn’t it all just an enormous blessing!”

Sometimes, when I don’t feel like sharing the faithless fear and uncertainty that lurks down there, I just knit that crooked frozen upside down arc beneath my nose. My needle punctures my flesh, burying the truth. I lie. I wear my fakeness, that I sewed in ever-so-carefully, with pride. I highlight the good news, and I don’t share the real stuff.

I mean, why would I want to burden you with all of my trash, as though I were important enough to warrant a conversation? Jeez. “Get a life,” I tell myself. And I look at you imagining you have so much going on in your life, anyhow. Plus my crap could make you look down on me, make you feel sorry for me. (Not that!) Worse, I might share my dirt, and you might dismiss me. What if you change the subject saying, “I’m so sorry. Really. You should write a book about this!” you say with a chuckle. “And I’ll read it.” (Second chuckle.) “But I REALLY have to go pick up Joey at soccer right NOW.” And you dash off wondering why the F*$K Amy thinks her problems are so important. Drama queen.

That is how my imagination works.

Sometimes I lie. I think you lie too. And I HATE that.

Lies hide the dirty, moldy, decomposing truth about me, and about you. The shit. (Yes, you might think, that’s the great thing about them.) But wait just a second. Isn’t mold (and shit) good? According to my fairly limited knowledge of science, mold (and shit) allows new life to form. So could it be true that my darkness is there to feed your roots, bringing you sweeter, healthier, richer fruit. And maybe your dead leaves feed me, too? Maybe we don't have to fix each other's shit, but simply absorb it. I believe your true story helps me grow.

So no more lies. No more even wishing to show you, my friend, my reader, my sister— anybody rosy and simple. That person never lived in this body, anyway. No more banging my head against the wall for burdening you with me. My light doesn’t come from any (attempted) portrayal of somebody beautiful, perfect, and burden-free. That kind of light is artificial, missing the scratchy, freckly strokes of me altogether. My light enters your atmosphere by peeling back the layers of the faulty, colorful woman who I honestly am. I’m beginning to think that my treasures and yours exist for all of us. Perhaps gifts from above.

Finally, today I’m NOT going to try to be the best, cutest mom. Not the award-winning novelist (that would be nice though…first must get published.) Not the most “liked” artist (oh yea!) Nor the most popular friend.

Today I’m simply going to try to be honest.

And if I am honest, maybe my teeny tiny light will penetrate the cold chill of an East Coast winter.  Maybe my truth will ignite that of another, and the empty lonely wind swirling around me will transform to a warm breeze. I’ll patiently listen to someone’s story— someone who is bold enough to tell it. And then maybe my words, and my actions, and my experiences will truly make a difference.

Thank you God for the darkness and the brightness of the truth. Thank you for the shit.

Someone Always Shows Up

When parenthood pounds me into the dark rocky ground, and I feel like I’m suffocating under the soil— well somehow, someone, always shows up. That somebody carries a flashlight, and shines it in my face with words or actions, mercifully lifting me back to the surface, brushing the soil off my limbs. And each time I am picked up again, I grow into a slightly different mom. It is like I’m being pulled into a web of interconnected life, weaving an intricate lace blanket with edges that extend and comfort the farthest edges of humanity. And in the end, I am left with a bottomless certainty that I am not alone.

Today, I imagine the light came like this— A voice called to my old friend, “Yo, Hilary? It’s me… Yup, that’s right, the big G! So, when you have a minute could you please message your long lost friend Amy from third grade and tell her what you think of her?” Then I bet he added, “She is looking pretty crappy. Hilary, I know you’re a single working mom, and you just mailed Amy's kids that surprise gift last week because you are that kind of ridiculously kind friend. But I think she would love to hear from ya, again, Hil."

I imagine this conversation was going on, just as I was stumbling along frantically tracking my children, while attempting to recall why I had earlier ignored my gut. My husband had suggested it would be fun and efficient to take the Subway to see the U.S. Capitol Building from our hotel in Arlington. I had feared taking our three kids, one with severe anxiety, into an unfamiliar city without the safety of our oversized vehicle. But I had ignored my own concerns. I had wanted to believe that we could be like that family. Maybe I could be the cool city mom with kids dressed in dark urban woolen hats and coats who could calmly follow subway maps and hail taxi cabs when called upon. So I had half-heartedly agreed to the plan. But as soon as we started our journey, the truth snickered at me. I felt like we had entered the city scene buck-naked.  No more hiding in the car. We were a mess.

The kids were all a tangle of down jackets and straggly hair, and they jumped from bench to curb to wall, often splashing in wet something, (that may very well have been pee) before taking short sit-down rests on the pavement to open up an IPAD or cuddle with a valentine stuffy. My eyes twitched as I fondled my hand sanitizer waiting for the opportunity to spray it on every part of their little bodies. My oldest typically becomes unwound without some type of home-base to draw comfort from: a car, a home, a bedroom, are needed. Congested city streets, crowded subways and museums will not do. And so he was acting like a wild beast as we headed down, down, down into a dark subway tunnel that resembled the jaws of hell. He was running back up the dirty escalator, pulling on his siblings’ coats and shoes as they cawed at him like angry seagulls.

You may be laughing, but I wasn’t. I was petrified. Would I lose him among the crowded platform? Would he fall off the tracks? Would one of the other kids tumble down the escalator?

Then I decided to look at my phone for perhaps a sign of something…it was a light, after all, in the dim subway tunnel. And then I read this way-beyond-nice text from my friend Hilary. She had just sent me a gift last week, and now she was texting me the kindest compliment I had heard for a while. She said thoughtful things about my mom skills that I won't include here, as they will make me look better than I really am. After reading her message, I looked up, lifting my head a little higher and thought, “If Hilary thinks I can do it, then I can do this.” (But I was still scared.) And off I ran to split up the next scuffle...

Then, I imagine God rang up Beatrice, the security guard, who was on duty at this particular subway station. “Yea, Beatrice? How ya doin? Haven’t heard from you lately. It’s me, (the one who made you) and there is this mom and dad about to come round the corner with their hands full…Yea, that’s right. They don’t know where they are going and their oldest son is hitting the other kids who are crying and whining, and I’m afraid they’re gonna end up wasting a lot of money and getting nowhere but lost or mugged. Could you help em out, Beatrice?”

And as I rounded the corner this woman Beatrice in a security hat walked right up to us like she had been waiting for our arrival. She was our new best friend. “How many of ya are there?” she asked. We answered, five. “And where are ya goin?" We told her The Capitol Building. “Well ya gotta go upstairs to get the day pass for each one of ya, otherwise you’ll spend a fortune on tickets back and forth today.” And then she bent down, hands on hips, big smile on her black face with hot pink lipstick, and explained to each of my kids that if they didn’t behave, she would be babysitting each one of them while their parents went off to sightsee. And, furthermore she said, through a kind grin, that she was very much in favor of timeouts.

As I stood back watching her, in amazement, I realized that though we didn’t have the Suburban, we did have a whole sea of people...everywhere. And sometimes people can be really, really good. Too often, I miss the fact that I'm taken care of, despite my messed-up plans. The day continued with a cab driver who behaved like an enthusiastic tour guide, a lunch waiter who treated me like he was my personal valet, and another security guard at the Capitol Building who appeared to think he was our long, lost uncle. 

To be honest, the afternoon was still hard. My son’s difficulties only became worse as the hours passed. But I’m grateful, and perhaps wiser, because of those who made space for us, who were extraordinarily kind, and who accepted our "yuckiness."

At the end of our adventure, I listened, eyes closed in the Capitol Building auditorium, to a slightly boring recorded presentation. But the last statement (taken from our national seal) made me sit up straighter as it vibrated in my tired head. A faint chill may have even run down the nape of my tense neck as I heard,

“One from many… E pluribus unum.”

Yes. Today, I’m thankful for many. I am grateful for connections to old friends and to strangers, and to the enormous design that binds us all together, giving me the strength to be a better mom, tomorrow.

Dragons and Motherhood

I am so tired tonight. 

Do you ever look at your mothering and feel like gagging? Because you think you are doing a darned crappy job? I do. How could I possibly be given the honor of raising these three little beings down the hall from me, softly snoring through closed eyelids dreaming of smiling kitty cats and ice cream Sundays? Kids who want only seamless shirts, waffles and whipped cream to make them happy. Their innocence scares me sometimes, and I wonder if I’m strong enough and good enough to lead them to adulthood.

The amount that my precious three rely on my health and stability is daunting on nights like tonight. I feel unorganized, exhausted and selfish. Things have been hard at my house… Job stress, school stress, home stress, money stress. I mean, I just want to go eat some cookies, stay up late working on my novel, and then fall asleep in my clothes. I want to sleep in, eventually wake in the morning when I feel hungry, roll out of bed, have a cup of tea alone, and be a selfish brat. But I have the honor of being a mom and a wife...being something better than my very worst self, and so there is no room for lazy brattiness. Plus a great thing happened to me this morning which has caused me to stay up later than I should, so that I can share it with you...

Last night I slept on the couch with my husband because my oldest son fell asleep in our giant king-sized bed. Right in the middle. We didn’t have the heart to move him, since generally he has sleep trouble, so we retreated to the sectional next to the dwindling fire downstairs. A substitute bed. Kind of romantic, but really just the result of pure exhaustion. It was OK. We got to be together, quietly for a little while.

So this morning I woke halfway, wondering where I was, and in the darkness I heard whispers of tiny voices followed by a pitter-patter of feet coming down the stairs. “Why are they here? What are they doing?” tinkled the tiny voice of my 6-year-old girl.

“I don’t know. Maybe they were just tired. Should we wake them up?" my 8-year-old replied. At least, that is what I remember him saying, since my eyes were still sealed shut, under a large fluffy blanket. I was half-fantasizing that they would return to their beds and go back to sleep.

And then I felt it. I felt my daughter’s thin pencil arms embracing me. They could only reach halfway around my top half. I thought about how she had enough goodness in her to want to quietly hug a smelly mom sleeping on a couch, and part of me felt completely confused about how it could be true. Could a tired lump like me deserve such grace? Her gentle breathing in my hair felt perfect enough to last a lifetime. The heaviness in my head, and the weight of all my limbs departed. The problems of the days, weeks, and months flew up the chimney, disappearing into the night sky. An unsolicited morning hug from my little girl had started my day and ignited my hope for all of the possibilities that lay ahead. Maybe I could be a good mom, after all. Her soft voice in my ear whispered something about breakfast and a special fort that I must see at 6:00AM. I asked her if we could just hang out for a bit and chat.

We lay there and talked about whether dragons really can fly and if I’ve actually seen a real dragon. Was it striped or polka dot? Did it have wings? Did I ride on it, or is riding on dragons just a made-up idea?

That was it. So simple, but really, really big. Big as a dragon. I was a tired mom with little motivation to care, to do anything very good. But my child lifted me up. She showed me the enormous opportunity I have to connect with her and my boys in ways richer and more beautiful than any parenting book could ever illustrate. I just listened, I felt, and the blessing of motherhood took over.