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.

You Are Not My God

And I’m no Supermom. 

Not sitting here dressed up in a shiny tight pants suit with wings on it, hair curled and blowing behind my sparkling youthful, faithful complexion. No one is featuring me in the "Motherhood Times" today. But this morning I am refreshingly aware that although I fall short as a mom (I’m 5’4” so I’m not THAT short, but still…) Well really, although I am small, I’m still padding along on my little fat feet, doing my best and admitting that I could do better. And today, thankfully, I’m leaning into the real woman, the mom, the wife, the artist who God made me to be. She is OK. But yesterday I hated her.

I'm sharing this ugly truth because I’m gonna bet that you also feel critical of yourself or your “momhood” at times. Or perhaps you think you don’t feel critical of yourself, but you spend a lot of time criticizing other women or moms you know (that is called deflection.) You may talk about their faults, how you feel sorry for them, how you can clearly see what they need to change...Or maybe you’re completely at peace with yourself and others all the time, in which case you can stop reading now (you liar.)

So back to my point-- over the holiday I felt pretty bad about who I am. Critical. It was like I had lost my ability to see that my image isn’t created for the other mom, relative or random person who is judging me. At times, I will give almost anyone the pass to my “OK-ness”. The right to tell me if I’m good enough.  Even when I know perfectly well that the path around this kind of self-mutilating thinking and behavior, for me, is simple: I have nothing to prove.  You are not my God. (BTW my God gets really jealous and angry when I worship you instead of Him.)

BUT too often my faith is weak, and I return to giving you, the relative, other mom, or friend or reader…I give you the keys to my worthiness. (I must insert here that my God tells me that I'm living in a very messed up world where I am judged and rated according to severely backassed values. Well, he didn't use exactly those words...) I mean, if you don't "like" me after reading this, should I even keep on writing?? 

Here is how my imagination works…There is this other mom, this relative (or two), this lady at church, this (old) pastor, old friend, old coworker. All of the people who have told me or showed me, sometimes indirectly, how much I stink. (Do you know anyone like that?) Well, the whole group of them hang out in my back pocket, have linked chains, and are great friends. Traveling with me everywhere, they seep toxic crappy chatter into my soul, making me feel deeply inadequate. They all carry scoreboards with questions like this about my motherhood: 1) Is she too uptight and controlling and opinionated? 2) Is she fake or instead too raw and unfiltered? 3) Does she feed her children too much health food? 4) Is she lazy? Or perhaps too active? 5) Does she try to do too much?  6) Does she fail to do enough cleaning or is she too tidy? 7) Too outspoken?   8) Does she spend too much time looking in the mirror? 9) Is she arrogant? 10) Does she spend (or have) too much money? 11) Is she a helicopter parent? 12) Does she try to be perfect?  13) Are her expectations too high?

The answer to every single question is of course YES! Sometimes. Sometimes I am all of these awful things. I try too hard, or not hard enough, or not the right way, and so I fail.

So now that I have smeared my round freckled nose around in it... I wonder if some of the moms out there like me (and that old pastor too who is the loudest yeller of all in my head)…If we could start trying harder to LIFT each other (and ourselves) up. Up up up. Let's float around in our strengths. Let’s honestly admit to our own weaknesses so we don’t keep pointing fingers at each other and then lets have an old-fashioned bonfire and burn the checklists, the gossip, and the high-and-mighty thoughts that are all weighing us down. Maybe when we release their heavy weight, we will get a little lighter, a little closer to heaven here on this very rocky, cold earth.

I dare you to start randomly finding strengths in that mom who bugs the heck out of you. (I’m doing it right now.) Say them out loud. Could we forget the glaring inadequacies we see in ourselves, that we then pin on other moms, other people? May we squint at the light that is present and unique and REAL in every person we come into contact with, and revel at how the flaws fall away, becoming only fleeting imagery when our gazes fix on the light. God created you and her and her and her and me. We are gifts to one another. 

Moms, we have a pretty hard job. Really. I think it will get a little easier if we link arms and carry one another along. 

Now off I go to burn that list…

May We Remember One Another

“It was a hard day for me, wasn’t it Mom?” asked my 9-year-old as I lay in the dark next to him in his narrow bed, the red glow of his gecko cage illuminating his raised thoughtful eyebrows and silky pale skin.

My mind snapped to the image of him grabbing his brother’s brand new neon green remote controlled SUV and running out the door...I recalled the salty tears staining the wood floor and the low hanging bushy brown head of his 8-year-old brother who once again was unable to embrace a moment of joy with a shiny new toy without interruption.  I remembered the chase and then the 9-year-old throwing the remote and kicking the car after being cornered by me with it in his arms…I recalled his pointy fingers later poking his sister’s toes until she yelped with frustration making him jump (sensitive to sound) and whack her across the thighs. More screams radiated through my holiday memory.  I then pictured the football catapulting through the family room, the empty bag of marshmallows that he just consumed, the sound of his screeching as he maniacally ran around the house, away from my husband who was trying to wrestle away one more gift that did not belong to this boy.

“It did seem to be a hard day for you” I agreed. “Do you know why?” I pictured all of the reasons the day had dipped into mania. I could see the things I had NOT done to avoid his over-excitement. I had forgotten to structure the day, forgotten to limit the activity, I had missed my cues. I was tired.

“I have no idea, mom. But I want to thank you for all of the nice gifts you got me that you wanted me to think were from Santa, but were of course not.”

I giggled.

“Don’t laugh at me Momma! I HATE it when you laugh at me.”

“I am not laughing at you, I’m just happy because you sounded so sweet just then. Like you were thinking about me.”

“What? What do you mean, Momma?” He said so softly. Maybe a little horrified.

“Well,” I replied carefully, “You are usually too busy and a little distracted to remember me. It feels good to know that you are thinking of me and the effort I made today to make Christmas nice.”

I worried that I was telling him too much. Maybe making him feel guilty. But he had tossed me a nugget, and I needed to thank him for it. The compliment (he was thinking of ME!) felt heavier than gold. I wanted to tell him the truth.

“I don’t remember to think of you?” He sounded truly horrified. “Really?” Pause… Pause…Silence… I could almost hear the ticking neurons in his little brain…how many years he had worked to get here…to feel empathy. Then, “I can see what you mean. I’m really sorry Mom that I forget to think about you.”

It was my Christmas gift. However tiny, it was the slice of connection I needed on this day full of expectations. A star telling me I am walking in the right direction. A light allowing my child to see me as I am, even if only for a moment. And I could see him, too. We accepted each other completely. We remembered to think of each other.

For me, Christmas this year brings with it a tiny, but enormous and ridiculous hope. (Hope directly from a newborn King, born in a stable, to a poor teenager. What if everyone had been too busy to notice Him?) First, may we simply slow down enough to remember one another. A thought, a gesture, a message, a moment in time where we go beyond our busy lives. Perhaps every day, even more than once, we can see the opportunity to carry light into a dim world. What if we think of our moms, our husbands, the checkout lady, the boy who is making the annoying sound, the mom whose mouth is turned downward, the friend on Facebook posting sad feelings, the dad looking for someone to talk to. What if we stop for a moment like my 9-year-old did? Second, I hope that we will all live together this way, somewhere, someday for more than a moment— I pray for an eternity of this kind of living. United. Loved. Accepted.

Merry Christmas!

Be Merry Because of The Small Stuff

The season crashes into my kitchen like a thunderbolt. I pretend I can’t hear, didn’t notice that giant flash, but then I force a glance at the tattered family calendar on the counter next the granola box, and I see that there are just over two weeks left before winter break is here. THAT must be why I’m seeing so many Facebook posts of cute families toting around tall evergreens. I better get moving! Two weeks to finish draping the garlands, lighting everything alive down the driveway. Two weeks to finish scribbling the list of gift ideas twirling around in my head. Snap cool photos of the kids, make a better card than last year, create address lists and mail cards before Valentines Day. Craft thoughtful handmade gifts, mail cards (didn’t I just say that?) Wrap presents. Or should I let Amazon do it all? Two weeks to demonstrate my gratitude to the One who created me and saved me from my own very frantic self while I hum a jolly tune, bake gingerbread men, mop up spilled egg nog, and prance around looking as good as possible in my newest red or silver sweater and snowflake earrings that I just bought... Wait, where did I put them again? Two weeks (plus the week of Christmas) to lose a few pounds before I’m on the warm sand in Florida, sipping a lemonade in my hot pink bathing suit… Me merry? Crap!

And then down the stairs pops my eight-year-old. “Mom! Guess what? Only two days before we go get our Christmas tree!”  I watch him patter down the hallway in his soft cotton socks, brown clumps of hair sticking in all different directions. “Oh YES, I love this thing! Can I hang the next ornament?” he asks as he peeks into the 4^thtiny pocket of the advent tree my sister made us a few years ago. His fingers pull out a miniature word ornament pronouncing “Noel.” The three dimensional word is trimmed in gold with a shiny safety pin on the end of a thin shimmery thread. Lost in my chaotic, frantic thoughts, and the smell of burning toast, I would normally miss this little moment all together. But my eight-year-old gently shows me a different world. He carefully rises onto his toes, pinning the word “Noel” to the cloth tree. Even though it is a fairly plain ornament, it shines when I peer at it through his eyes. Gently he steps back and the curve his lips create is like a giant upside down rainbow. He is very, very merry.  

As I write this I am learning that there are magical lessons to be learned from our children during the holidays.  The word “Noel” is speculated to have been derived from the French word “nouvelles” or the Latin word “natalis” meaning birth.  My eight-year-old showed me this morning that the light of birth, newness, youth, magic, unexplainable joy….this light shines in to even the most chaotic, old, distracted minds like my own. If we let it.

This holiday season I pray that we find a way to allow the Noel, like the young mind of a child, to shine its light into the madness of our days. May we stretch our minds to pierce the distracting and disappointing bubbles of busyness we live in, and to embrace, on the other side, a joyful, magical world. May we be merry because of the small stuff.

   

Listen. If you haven’t already, sit down for a minute like I just did, and take a tally of the magic you have already missed today. Maybe just a word, a smile, a song, a drawing, or a quiet question.  And then give thanks.

You will be merry-- I promise! 

Sensitive Boy, My Gift

What does it feel like to be inside of your body, my little 9-year-old man? Have these last three thousand and sum days of your life smothered your brightness already, making you older than you ought to be? Another morning is here where I try to help you rise, but you are heavy as a great cracked turtle, head aching, pulling inward and away from the pancakes and plans for the day where your sister dances with joy.

This morning I can see the chaos and confusion under your soft brow, scrunched up and tight. Offended by people moving this way and that, too fast, out of sync, making demands. Bright light everywhere, invading, complicated sounds, places to be. Fingers pointing. Hook faced frowns. Hurry up. Wait. Stop. Say your sorry. Get yourself together now. Get dressed. You feel it all, your little body overflows. Kaleidoscopes of sounds are screaming in your head, while most of us hear nothing but our own dull voices. Birds singing, brother and sister chattering downstairs, Daddy booming words, dogs barking in the echoing field, cars rumbling by, my distant voice. So often you live in the unseen and unheard, but are misunderstood as stealing the present. Sometimes they say your are distracting, annoying, inconvenient.

The cold air and open space outside of your nest of down are your enemies this morning.  But you are pulled up and out anyway, up to a life that blinds you, to face another day. You stumble across the icy surface of the floor, feet stinging from the touch of a hardness not made for your gentle body. Stiff bristles of the toothbrush invade your mouth. You turn away. No more Mama. I don't want to GO.  The icy tile surface under your heels sends steel through your veins. You stiffen. Squeal. Jump around waiting for someone to say, “Calm down!” so you can go back and hide.

I feel your body, doubling over, sagging to get back to safety. Under warmth and darkness you creep. But there is another pull. Someone (is that me?) is begging you to get dressed now, eat, gather backpack, coat, get outside, go to a place where hundreds of children cross paths, balls bounce, papers shuffle, faces make little sense, words hurt. I am here with you now, and I feel it all-- I understand.

My sensitive boy, come inside my arms for this moment to a calmer place. You are good as you are. My embrace will shield you from the thunder. Names will bounce from my hardened chest-- ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorder, Aspergers, Challenging Child, Distraction, Anxious, Annoying. They are flying like birds into the morning sky, raining back down to feed us with forgiveness. Your light is reflecting a rainbow of a gorgeous child, in everything around you. You are my Gift, My Treat, My Lesson of Life, My Love. I feel the world so much more truly, Little Boy, because of you.