barrenness

"Make me more fruitful and more spiritual, for barrenness is my daily affliction and load."

When the day is over, what have I accomplished? I could go back over my notes from class or my calendar and show you all the things I wrote and understand - even thought that doesn't often amount to much. I could tell you about all the conversations I had and the people that smiled at me. I could tell you about my outfit or the texture of my hair. I could tell you what I bought and the questions I asked in interviews.

None of those things matter to me. I'm past all that. I've suffered a lot from being unhappy lately. I haven't been able to nail down just what it is that is throwing me for a loop. But what I do know is that the physical products of my day do not release me from the lethargy of my soul.

I can only imagine what a barren mother feels like. I'm sure there's tension that fulfilling work is not being completed, that faith is dying, that no one cares and no one sees that something is killing her. I, too, feel empty, hopeless, directionless, forgotten. I feel as though my very being has been robbed of its jubilee.

It's important for me to remember that while I feel barren in my mind and heart, the LORD God is watching over me. And just as the Lord brings forth children, even when the father and mother are both barren, so too will God bring forth life out of my weak breath. I forget this so often.

I'm overwhelmed by my "load" and my depression.

The LORD is GOOD. He sees my barrenness and will give me life. He will bring back a feast of jubilee, forgetting the times I wanted more than I could have. These days of loneliness shall pass. The LORD is present.

Iowa Sky

The Iowa sky was so blue -
the grass so green. And the corn hung heavy on the stalks, ready to be plucked.
The summer evening was growing cooler. The slow August days had been enjoyed.
And she left.

In my dream last night she told me I looked pretty.
When she would sit in her green chair as I entered she never told me I looked pretty?
She judiciously told me I looked “nice.”

I clipped her toenails sometimes, and I took the longish hairs off her chin too.
She always lifted her chin up for me, and though ashamed of her state, did not cast her eyes far down or hide her chin.
I was so nervous with a pair of scissors near her thin tissue paper skin, but her chin was so strong-looking and sweet.

The one day before I left for school she sat in her green chair mending my dress I really liked.
She told me that some of my skirts were too short.
She remarked on my abundant wardrobe, and gently chastised me for having so many articles of clothing.
“I don't think this dress jacket is worth it,” she said. “I'll mend it but don't wear it on Sunday or anything.”
But she kept mending my new dress.
I always bragged about the bargains I found, and she listened patiently to me –
even though sometimes I was a little annoying.

She was giving me money.
She didn't have any money,
but she wanted to help me get through school,
and she wanted me to have pretty dresses even if she didn't always approve of their lengths.

I never got that money from her which doesn't make me so sad - except that I wish I could go to her while she sat in her green chair.
I wish I could tell her about what I did that day, and she would hungrily listen,
wishing she could have done the same or at least helped.
And then when I told her I needed her help
or that I wanted to weed her front petunia bed for a little extra cash,
her eyes would have lit up at the thought of helping someone.

thick head

These days are the thickest days, enveloping all my body. Water vapor from a steaming pot all around me lingering and curling around my elbows and calves, neck and hairline.

My brain, for the last two days, has felt the same way. Full of mucus from a cold, words directed at me slosh in my ears. My head is as foggy as the day and feels like it could be tipped over like a weight in a pool in the hot, wet afternoon.

Emily Dickinson poems on a picnic blanket undulated in thick air in the August afternoon with Brie and chocolate and my boy by my side.

August afternoons could be hateful and confusing afternoons, full of shifting legs, furrowed brows, and wet backs. But thick heads in August are peaceful to me. My disorientation is absorbed in a sense of pleasure that transcends all weather and sickness. The lazy days are as cumbersome but delicious as eating a sweet, drippy peach.

Mothering

Remember that feeling you had sitting in the back seat of a car as a kid not being able to understand the conversation in the front of the car? It happens to me even now. But for kids this feeling is pretty normal. It's not even limited to time in the car. Walking around kids are a few feet shorter, they get stepped on in crowds, and they are helpless. Their eyes see a tunnel-version of the world. Lots of waists of adults, lots of other kids, lots of edges of counter tops, lots of big cars, lots of big places. Like sitting in the back seat of a car all the time, a kid is tortured by constantly being a few seconds behind everyone on the news, the schedule, the pace.

With this in mind, I realize that patience with kids doesn't just extend to when they're doing something stupid without thinking about it. When they're naughty, they don't know why they shouldn't be naughty. The world is a cold, grumpy place full of adult waists and big rooms. Why should they listen to adults when slamming and locking the door allow them to play without interruption.

I've also learned that kids do some bad stuff that should probably be overlooked. I discovered that Natlie has been eating cheese puffs on her bed because of the orange greasy marks on her otherwise pristine bed spread. Part of me wants to chastise her. The other part of me tells me to ignore it. It's gross, but it is her bed. And therefore it's her choice to have the nasty stains of her snack where she sleeps.

Besides, I have bigger fish to fry with her.

Also, kids walk slowly. Pick them up and run with them like they're a football. Even if you don't run fast, they think they're going fast because their little legs don't go fast ever! Except when they have cheese puffs they shouldn't have or something.

I've learned you cannot over explain concepts like gratitude, reflection, remorse, guilt. The kid might as well be trying to do algebra because the concepts are far too abstract.

Last but least, try to be a mother with a companion. It's no fun to look after kids knowing you must be the go-to man for the kid all the time. And as my mother said, "Dads are just more fun." I'm far too worried about safety to take Natlie out to a waterfall or on a boat. Get married before you have kiddos, folks.

The Contents of My Purse Include

- a barbie water bottle that occasionally leaks all over the other contents of my bag
- Spongebob Squarepants band-aids
- gummy bears
- band-aid wrappers (why are they so packaged all up before use?!)
- my iPod because Natlie loves "Yellow Submarine" and "1234"
- my wallet which is rarely brought out
- my cellphone (my connection to the outer world)
- Natlie's sweater for cool California evenings
- chapstick
- the keys to our gated pool
- the key to our condo
- sun screen (Kid version and adult version)
- my sunglasses
- Natlie's sunglasses
- seven of Natlie's hairties
- old, wet pictures Natlie and I colored together
- a coloring book
- bag of crayons (broken and brand new - the brand new ones having just been picked up after a kid's meal at a restaurant)
- my camera

Waiting

With school close at hand, it's a surreal feeling to not be busy. But I know that right now my duty is not to be the craziest, hardest-working person I know. Oh, to be at peace with peace. Good ol' Sandburg gives me a little glimmer of hope for myself. I'm re-learning to take in each moment without becoming a puddle of goopy boringness. Take in each experience. Loaf, linger, let the days and moments kiss your brow. Friends and family are just around the corner in my life, but I've got some time to rest. I'm in no rush.

Waiting - Carl Sandburg

Today I will let the old boat stand
Where the sweep of the harbor tide comes in
To the pulse of a far, deep-steady sway.
And I will rest and dream and sit on the deck
Watching the world go by
And take my pay for many hard days gone I remember.

I will choose what clouds I like
In the great white fleets that wander the blue
As I lie on my back or loaf at the rail.
And I will listen as the veering winds kiss me and fold me
And put on my brow the touch of the world's great will.

Daybreak will hear the heart of the boat beat,
Engine throb and piston play
In the quiver and leap at call of life.
To-morrow we move in the gaps and heights
On changing floors of unlevel seas
And no man shall stop us and no man follow
For ours is the quest of an unknown shore
And we are husky and lusty and shouting-gay.

Change is around the corner. Engines will throb again. Life will re-gain a schedule. Adventure will return.

hey kid

I thought the world revolved around me. Wait, I didn't actually think the world revolved around me. But I did think that everything had to do with me - I was the connecting point for everything. It wasn't just when I was little. Even now I think that everything going on is because of me. I think that my friends were there for me. I think my family had me because they wanted everything about me. I think pictures with me in them were taken because I was in them. But I am SO NOT the center of the world.

Taking care of a seven-year-old day-in and day-out shows me things. I don't get a few minutes to talk to my friend or Mom on the phone? Okay. I don't get to go for a short walk by myself? I am taking a kid with me this time and she's going to slow everything down? Okay. I don't get to talk to my boyfriend every day? I don't get lots of free time for my own reading, self-betterment, etc? Or what about this more long term realization - I am not going to be college forever? I won't be with people my age forever, and I won't always get to be Miss Independent? My studying and courses will have to be put into practice? I will have to get along with people and live with people that may not even be my age and liking? Oh my goodness. I phrase all these realizations with a question mark because I am still in shock.

But there's nothing better than listening to an old man chat about baseball and trains and how things used to be, nothing better than scrubbing a little girl's scalp during bath time - her black head with white suds - with wet arms and splashed water on my jeans, and nothing more satisfying than holding that same little girl close to me and smelling that same dark little head of hair with a quick, approving kiss.

I can't think of anything better than helping my friend who struggles with what Christianity is. Or peeling a peach for a child's enjoyment. Or playing clapping games with kids I met this morning. There's nothing better than being in a place where I am not the center of attention. The world moves too fast and beautifully to be confused about what's revolving around what.