words on the side

New Home

2010-08-20T14:31:00.001-07:00

Hello Friends and Followers,

I'd like to invite you to come follow my blog at it's new home: www.christintaylor.com/blog.

Moving this blog to my website is my attempt to consolidate all my writing in one place and to add as much momentum behind my writing career as possible. ;-)

I am SO unbelievably grateful for the time you give me by reading my blog and following it. I do not take for granted that anyone will want to read my stuff, so it's a thrill to see the little ticker on my blog followers go up and up and up. Thank you. Thank you.

It is a real gift to have you reading my writing.

So, I look forward to seeing you over at Words on the Side, on my website.

Best,

Christin

Miracles

2010-08-11T14:09:00.000-07:00

In her book Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott writes about witnessing a miracle at church. It's a beautiful story, one I wish I could quote for you. But right now, the book is stuffed away somewhere in an unpacked box in the back of Noelle's closet.

And so I'll have to conjure it from memory.

Lamott writes about a particular Sunday morning, when during a worship song she witnesses a lady lift up a fellow congregant, a man with AIDS, and weeps with him as the congregation sings.

It's a miraculous moment, because until that point the woman has been uncomfortable around the man with AIDS, a bit distrustful. But on that morning, during that worship song, she reaches out and touches him. She helps him stand to his feet and the two of them cry.

If I remember it correctly, I believe she even mentions that their tears and snot mingle together as they lean into each other's faces. It is a symbolic moment: two lives touching one another, holding each other's beauty and brokenness, where there had been alienation and distrust before. This is the miracle.

I have been thinking about this story all week, because I witnessed a miracle this past Sunday too.

I think it is perhaps the first miracle I have ever seen in church, and I do not say this lightly because I have seen bodies kneeling at the altar in prayer but those miracles did not knock me off my feet and send me into my seat weeping the way this miracle did.

To begin with, church started out a bit difficult for both Dwayne and I. We have grown up our whole lives visiting new churches and neither one of us necessarily thrills at the thought of being the new kid in church. It's such an odd community to visit after all, with all it's intuitive interactions and insulations. And yet, it is the body of Christ.

As we walked up to the church we noticed that no one was coming or going.

"Are you sure we have the right time?" Dwayne asked as we mounted the steps. It was a tidy and inviting building with large golden beams of wood and tall windows.

We pushed through the doors and found the building full of people. They stood around in clusters chatting. No one leaving or going into the sanctuary. This was clearly a body which knew and loved one another; however, they seemed oblivious to the newcomers.

I walked up to the desk with the big "Information" sign above it and waited. I had my first line rehearsed and glossy, "Hi, this is our first time visiting. Can you tell me where the nursery is?"

Usually, this first liner wins me a warm smile and easy conversation. "Oh! Welcome! Where are you from? Let me take you down myself." Or something along those lines.

But at this information desk, I waited and waited. The volunteer was engaged in a conversation with a friend and though he saw I was there, he did not move to help me.

"It says, 'Treasureland' over there," Dwayne whispered over my shoulder. I looked up and saw an arrow clearly pointing the way to the kid's ministry and so without receiving help, I scooped Noelle up and took her down to the nursery myself.

"Why is it so hard for people to understand? It's not that difficult to be nice to a new person." Dwayne shook his head as we found our seats in the sanctuary. I knew what he meant. Both of us were feeling a bit irritated, a bit indignant over it all.

The pinnacle of my frustration came when we entered the sanctuary doors and the greeter, who saw me out of the corner of her eye, neglected to turn away from her own conversation and hand me a bulletin. She would have let me pass by without a single acknowledgement had I not marched directly up to her and asked, "May I have a bulletin, please?"

I swear I have never had to ask a greeter for a bulletin before. That's their job -- to stand at the doors and greet you and push a bulletin into your hand whether you like it or not, whether trees are dying or not, just so you can have a moment of human contact at some point between the church entrance and the sanctuary seats.

"Oh sure!" she said with a smile and handed it to me.

Come on, Christin, straighten up! I coached myself as I walked down the aisle to an empty seat. No one will want to be your friend if you're acting irritated. So I eased into my seat and tried to imagine myself as sunshine, bright, radiant, warming.

As the service wound on, I found myself opening slowly and almost unwillingly to the worship and the message. Neither were flashy, but bother were substantive, heartfelt, sincere. They were not mainstream. They did not try to be. They were authentic.

At the end of the service, the worship pastor took the platform. "If you can stand," he said, "Please stand with us and sing."

So we did, and the words on the screen were:

Great is they faithfulness, Oh God my Father

There is no shadow of turning with Thee

Thou changest not thy compassions they fail not

Great is they faithfulness Lord unto me.

During this song a middle aged couple a few seats ahead of us suddenly walked out of their row. They turned at the front, and made their way to a man sitting, hunched over and alone. He was directly in the front and middle.

As soon as I laid eyes on him, I could see that he had cerebral palsy. His wide shoulders twisted over on themselves, and his head, covered with silver hair, bobbed about a foot above his knees. He could not sit up right, let alone stand, but he was in church, on the very front row.

The couple parted on either side of him. The woman leaned over with smile and whispered something in his ear. A nod wobbled from his neck and shoulders, and with that she and her husband each grabbed his biceps. They slung his arms around their shoulders and with one heave, stood up, stretching his curled posture straight.

Then, the husband did something incredibly awkward and gracious: he pulled up the man's pants because they were falling down due to his twisted posture.

It was an embarrassingly disjointed moment, but it was also amazingly honest. The man's pants were falling down. He could not help it, so his brother lent him dignity and held his pants for him. They stood like that for the rest of the song, their arms wrapped around each other, the husband holding the man's pants, the wife holding the man's waist.

I felt the tears bubble up hot from the cracks of my soul, and I tried for a time to stop them. But then I heard Dwayne sniffle beside me, and then someone else behind us let out a gentle sob. Suddenly, at the surface were so many emotions, so many fears and longings and blessings, so many tired nights and hopeful days.

While the man with cerebral palsy stood to worship, I slumped back in my seat and wept.

I wept until the end of service. I was crying still when the woman in front of us turned around and shook my hand and introduced herself as Bev and said, "We would love to have you visit our small group!" My eyes were still wet when the worship pastor and his wife invited us with open arms to their house for dinner that night. And I was still dabbing my eyes as we walked quietly back to our car.

Dwayne and I were both thinking of the three bodies in the front row, but neither of us wanted to speak. Finally, Dwayne broke in.

"I couldn't stop crying over that couple helping that man stand up," he said. "Now, that was church."

"Yes," I said, "Don't talk about it. It will make me cry again."

And I thought about the start of the morning and the condition of the human soul, the unwillingness we all carry to reach out and touch another person's life. The fear we have of each other's embarrassments and shames. The self-imposed alienation that keeps us bound up and alone more often then we'd like to admit.

I thought again of the husband's strong hand hoisting up the man with cerebral palsy's pants. It was an awkward gesture of grace and it gave us all dignity.

That, was more than church, I thought. That was a miracle.

Simplicity

2010-08-05T14:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, I have to make a list of the things we are doing without since moving to Washington. We didn't move here with the intention of simplifying - it just sort of happened. And we're not necessarily trying to be non-mainstream, it's just sort of working out that way.

Here's what we don't have anymore a: TV, Microwave, Dishwasher, garbage disposal, and 2nd car.

Ok, so you're probably thinking, "So what? No big deal" but let me just unpack this list with you a bit.

1) TV - first of all, TV's take up so much room!!

There is so much sitting space in our new living room now that we're not trying to fit in a TV. I like how the area is no longer oriented around an entertainment center. It's oriented around company, hanging out, talking. It's no longer oriented around being entertained, but rather having interchanges.

Also on the TV topic, I actually haven't watched TV since my stint at the Monastery a few months ago.

Something happened to me that weekend and I haven't recovered, but this is an insanely good thing!! The first night in the monastery, I remember going to bed at a decent hour because there was no internet to surf, or TV to watch. I was tired anyway, worn out after two years of helping my husband get through grad school.

But when I laid down, I couldn't sleep. My mind kept racing. Images from TV shows and movies kept popping into my head. I kept tossing and turning, jerking out of sleep with these faces and camera angles, and zooming. And I remember thinking very clearly - watching TV isn't entertainment, it isn't "vegging", it's filling my head full of junk that I have to detox from in order to relax.

I didn't leave the monastery thinking I was going to quit watching TV. I just stopped. I have had zero desire to watch TV since that weekend. And so, it wasn't a hard thing for me to leave behind the TV when we moved, in fact, it has been freeing to leave it behind!

2) Microwave - Okay, this is a hard one.

My in-laws have lived without a microwave for many years because they believe that it is detrimental to their health. And I know the debate about the safety of microwaves has been raging for years. Even still, I have been heavily dependent on my microwaves over the years.

I mean, it's just so easy for leftovers, and for Noelle's lunches, because YES! I will confess, we have surrendered to the chicken nugget and peas that constitute an easy lunch.

In fact, we didn't mean to go without a microwave. We believed we would have a microwave provided for us in the apartment here at Western. We have an oven and a fridgerator, but no microwave.

And you know what I've discovered in the last seven days since we've been here? I haven't needed the microwave ONCE!! I can hardly believe it! I've been able to reheat everything in the oven, or just make it from scratch. I'm starting to wonder why I ever used a microwave to begin with?

How is it that we come to be so dependent on things we don't really need?

3) Dishwasher - I haven't had one for the duration of our marriage, but I was hoping perhaps we'd get one with this apartment. But there again, I haven't felt it's need since being here.

4) Garbage Disposal - Now, Dwayne will tell you that I have loved my garbage disposals in the past, a bit too much. I loved clearing off leftovers, putting them down the drain, and grinding them away. Bye-bye food, hello clean counters and refrigerator.

So, like the microwave, I've been a bit worried about going without a disposal. This has been a bit harder to adjust to because I have grown accustomed to left overs and wasting food, to cooking more food than my family can consume in a week and then just flushing it down my sink when it goes bad.

Ideally, we would compost, and this is something we are considering. The trick is figuring out where and how we would do this on a college campus. Not sure it's doable.

In the meantime, living without a garbage disposal is making me rethink the portions that I'm cooking, and the portions that I'm putting on our plates. It's making me think about reducing food down to zero. Not because we're throwing away the scraps, but because we are consuming all of it.

5) 2nd Car - Letting go of our second car has been the best part of our move here to Bellingham simply because of what it represents for our personal lives.

We are able to do this because Dwayne's job is (I am not kidding you, folks!!) right down the hall from our apartment. You step outside our door, walk past the main entry with it's winding wood steps on the right, and the student lounge with it's many windows on the left, and then you are there - at Dwayne's office.

His supervisors' offices are right below our apartment. So he only has to go outside and around the corner to get to "headquarters".

Noelle's preschool is less than 2 miles away, so we could walk there if we wanted. And as far as my travel needs? My work will mostly be on the internet for the next several months as I lead my on-line writing workshops, and work on my book.

Perhaps of all the simplification this one has been the most healing to my soul. I will admit that the expanse of LA was starting to wear me thin. The long stretches of freeway, the traffic, the disjointed way our lives crossed each other, Dwayne going to school, me commuting at times 2 hours to work, Noelle going to the babysitter's.

All these things have been brought together in the most healing of ways here in Bellingham simply because of proximity.

We are still far from family. And now far from all our dear friends in Los Angeles, but each morning I find myself waking up to a quiet relief - like I don't have to work so hard anymore to keep everything together.

And I think perhaps this is the beauty of simplicity? The paring away of that which we don't need, but have built our lives on, so that we can live within the reach of our own souls.

Worms

2010-08-02T13:26:00.000-07:00

Here was my to-do list when I woke up this morning. It was a short list, but a big one.

1) Get Noelle de-wormed. She has come down with worms for the second time this summer! So in the midst of this big move, the poor thing has had upset stomach, diarrhea and a very sore behind. I blame the dogs she was snuggling right before we left Indiana.

So first thing this morning, I took her to Rite-Aid and bought her that chalky, minty medicine that kills pinworms.

Second on my list was:

2) Find a preschool for Noelle. She is so ready. There is no doubt in my mind that it is absolutely the right move for her. I'm not sure how many days or hours a week I will choose to have her in preschool, but I can see in so many ways that my little girl is ready for the new challenges and opportunities preschool will bring her.

Western Washington University provides a Child Development Center to it's employees and students, but it's very hard to get into. The wait lists are up to a year long. So I went to the CDC today with low expectations. I was hoping at least to get a referral to other preschools in the area.

One of Dwayne's supervisors very kindly offered to take me to the Daycare so that I could meet the director and talk with her personally. This was a wonderful connection. And so around lunch time we met Dwayne's supervisor, picked up her daughter from dance class and then went over to the CDC.

As soon as we walked through the doors Noelle was off like a flash. She ran into the classroom and began playing with the toys, perfectly at home in this new environment. I observed with pride how independent my little girl is. "She's ready," I thought to myself as I turned to shake the Director's hand.

"I think they're about to take a nap," the Director said craning her neck around to see Noelle. "Your daughter..." she waited for me to catch the hint.

"Certainly!" I piped up and rushed in to pull Noelle out of the way.

The Director escorted us back to her office, and of course Noelle was squirmy. She was anxious to get back to the classroom.

"Mommy, I was making you a sandwich!" she announced and fidgeted around the seat uncontrollably, lifting her legs and feet up underneath her, then twisting around to grab everything on the coffee table. She found a red foam apple.

"Yes, you can play with that," the Director said walking into her office with a pleasant smile.

I turned in my seat to face her as she sat down behind her desk.

"So, you're interested in our school?" she asked pulling a yellow sheet of paper out of her desk.

I heard a long low squelch beside me, and turned to see Noelle trying to EAT the foam apple.

"Noelle, don't eat that!" I retorted and pulled the apple out of her hand.

"Oh yes, you don't want to eat that!" the Director said in that same pleasant and unflappable tone. "Lot's of little hands have been all over it."

She went on to kindly explain to me that the preschool has a very long wait list, but if I filled out this yellow paper, they would give me a call perhaps in the Spring if there was an opening next Fall.

"We really can't guarantee what our availabilities are going to be," she finished.

I heard a crack beside me and turned to see Noelle bending over a mirror. She had found it behind the chair, pulled it out and dropped it on the ground.

"Oh!" the Director jumped up and picked up the mirror quickly. "You don't want to play with that!"

"Noelle," I hissed as the Director stepped out to put the mirror away. "Sit down on your bottom!" The director walked back in and Noelle begrudgingly shuffled up onto the chair and slumped down into it's corner. She sat with a look of flat irritation. It was past lunch time now, going on nap time.

I handed her a cookie. She crossed her brows and slapped it away from me. I felt a small flag of panic unfurl deep in my gut. What do I do with this two year old???!! She was completely misbehaving and I had no recourse. I needed to finish this meeting but where could she go? What could I do? There was no one to watch Noelle for me, and I had no idea how to threaten or distract her into good behavior. I was feeling lost in more ways than one.

I straightened up and turned toward the Director, who tried to look like she had not seen my daughter defy me. "I'd let her go in the age-appropriate room, but their about to take a nap," she explained meekly.

I nodded my head and took the yellow sheet from her. "Well, I was hoping you might be able to refer me to other preschools?"

The director smiled that same implacable smile and said, "We're not supposed to refer people to preschools, but here you can call the Opportunity Council..." and she stopped mid-sentence to write down the phone number.

And then Noelle spoke:

"I have worms." It was clear as the sunny days we've had here in Bellingham this weekend.

The Director choked on a laugh and then looked up at me. A deep blush crept up from my neck and I felt the heat of it to the top of my head.

"I have worms. I have worms. I have worms." It was almost deliberate and calculated. Noelle sat slumped into the corner of her chair watching the Director quietly, measuring the reactions around her.

"Well that's not what you're mommy wants you to tell me!" The Director laughed again and then turned to me. "Yeah, there's no chance of you getting into the school this year. And a slim chance you'll get in next year, but just give us the sheet and we'll call you."

We shook hands and I scooped my daughter out of the office.

Outside she screeched at the top of her lungs when I told her it was time to go home. "But I want to stay at preschool!" she sobbed and her whole body stiffened like a board so that I could hardly pick her up.

"Please honey," was all I could whisper as I followed Dwayne's supervisor back to the car and lumped her into the car seat.

Back at the apartment, I quietly prepared quesadillas for a late lunch. My own inner antagonist taunted me. "She's not ready for preschool. She's a savage! She's hardly civilized enough to be with other kids. What have you done wrong? Where have you failed her?"

Noelle carried her blue princess dress up to me and pushed it into my thigh. "Mommy, I want to wear this."

"Okay" I reached down and helped her put it on.

"I'm going to go lay on my belly, okay mommy?" I have been coaching her to do this when her stomach hurts. She walked down the hallway and disappeared into our bedroom.

I cut the avocados, and carefully spooned them out onto her plate. Things were quiet down the hall. Usually when Noelle is quiet, it means she's concentrating very hard on something she knows she should not be doing. Like rummaging through my purse, or pulling all the clothes out of the dresser drawer, or yanking on the blinds.

Though I was enjoying the peace and quiet, I knew I needed to check on her, so I walked back to our bedroom and pushed on the door.

This is what I found.

Throw Mountains

2010-07-23T11:41:00.001-07:00

I'm excited to have been invited to post a guest blog over at Throw Mountains today. Renee Johnson and Sarah Cunningham have a cool ministry running over there for 20/30 somethings.

Renee invited me to write a bit about the metaphorical shipwreck many young adults hit after graduation, which is the topic of my first book.

If you have a chance, stop on over there, read the blog, comment, but also check out all that Throw Mountains has to offer!

www.throwmountains.com

Facing the Child

2010-07-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

Noelle is exactly 2 years and 9 months old today, and I feel like I'm seeing the persona of a little girl emerge from the curtain and sheets of her toddler body.

Her protruding belly is disappearing. Her pudgy legs are getting longer, more gangly. Her face and mouth are turning into the silhouette of a girl and young woman I am going to get to know over the next several years.

This morning, she popped into our bed all bright and ready to chat.

"You guys went on a date last night?" she asked holding her luvie under one arm and crawling up the bedspread.

"Yep!" Dwayne said hoisting her up. "What did you do last night?"

Noelle sat up on her knees, her little feet splayed out beside her bum. "Well," she held out her hands and counted on her fingers. "I played and I -" pause, a twinkle in her eye "I pooped!" Then she slapped her forehead, laughed and flopped back onto the bed with us.

We were a crumple of sheets and bedspread and laughter.

I have had a revelation about my daughter in these last two days. Primarily about her personality. Well, that's not exactly it. I've had a revelation about my expectations of her personality.

Since being on this month long galavant across the country I have been forced to see her in a new light. Before this trip, I have been excited to fling open the doors and share my little girl with our family, to let them see the joy, the cuteness, the sweetness.

But then of course, we have been traveling, out of our natural setting, out of her normal rhythm, and she has been tossed around on the steady current of strange hotels, strange faces, strange schedules. In short, she's been sick and out of sorts. And on top of all of this, she has been, of course, a normal two year old. Primarily - obstinate and tactless.

For example, two nights ago, we had a friend over for dinner. During most of the dinner, my daughter was being a complete pill. I couldn't get her to sit down in her seat next to our guest. She was fussing and fighting, kicking and whining, and when she did sit down she was throwing her water around and making a mess.

After a couple trips to the bathroom for some correction, she settled down finally and pecked at her food. Later on, she was sitting in my lap and I decided to point at our guest and ask, "Noelle, who's that?"

She got that twinkle in her eye and said, "That's poop."

I was mortified. No idea what to do. I made her apologize and she did. Then I apologized again later to our guest. But I was fighting with myself the whole evening.

What was I doing that was allowing my daughter to be so rude? Hadn't she just been cringing and squirming the other day when NaNa was trying to give her a kiss? Hadn't she run away from BopBop yelling, "NOOOO" when he tried to say "hi"?

If you know me at all, you'll know that this sort of behavior would horrify me. And so I have set my mind to correct it. Dwayne and I have been admonishing Noelle to speak respectfully and kindly to NaNa and BopBop because they love us so much. And to talk nicely to people.

Anyway, back to the evening when Noelle called our guest "poop." After she had gone to bed that night, Mom, Dad, Dwayne and I all sat together in the living room.

"I don't think Noelle liked our guest much," my Dad said. I looked up to find him smiling. He was amused. Not defeated, like me.

"Oh because she called our guest poop?" I asked shaking my head.

"No, before that. I don't think she wanted to sit next to her at the table." And I could see in my father's eyes that he thought Noelle was onto something. When he looked at Noelle he didn't see a misbehaving little girl. He saw an intuitive child with the inability to manage her reactions.

And suddenly the light broke.

I do not want my daughter to be rude or a brat, but I also do not want to neuter her personality.

These are the new thoughts that have been swirling around my head and heart these last two days as I've been watching my little girl bounce around the house turning summersaults or sticking her feet outside in the pond:

- It's okay, if she doesn't like some one. We all have our aversions and attractions to people.

- But I want her to be gracious and kind.

- I don't want to make her feel like there's something wrong with her own tastes and sensibilities.

- But I want her to be well adjusted, to be able to move smoothly with society.

Ultimately, I am thinking about the line between training and guiding these little beings God has placed in our care, but then also giving them the space to be who they are?

The truth is, my child is much stronger than I have been willing to see. And I am recognizing that perhaps her personality is not going to be exactly what I would have chosen. Perhaps she'll be a bit more opinionated then I would have initially been comfortable with.

But when it comes down to it, I wouldn't trade that for anything in the world. I want her to be her. I want her to have all the fire and spice that is in her little being, because it is after all so much more interesting than being a "perfect little angel."

Last night, while we were on our date, Dad says that Noelle climbed up in his office chair, put on his glasses and sat at the computer. "I'm Bop Bop!" she retorted.

This morning, as I was walking across the grass to the back house, watching Dwayne and Noelle on the porch by the pond. Noelle stood with her hand on Dwayne's leg and shouted out over the yard, "Mommy!"

"Yes?!" I said.

She raised her little chin up in the air and crooned for the whole 3 acres to hear, "I love my Daddy!"

Home

2010-07-08T11:16:00.000-07:00

Being in my mother's home is about as close as it gets to heaven for me. Yesterday, Noelle told me that "NaNa's house is like a palace." Which is to say she feels the same way I do. :-)

After flying two short hours from Florida, then driving an hour up from Indianapolis, our family arrived at my parents' home in Alexandria, Indiana yesterday afternoon. Yes, if you've been tracking the Facebook status updates, that means that we have been in five states, and eight different beds in a little over a week. But the travels have finally slowed, at least for the next few weeks.

All our belongings are safely stored in Bellingham, WA. We reconnected with family in Orlando Florida, for the family reunion. And now, we will stay in Alexandria with my parents for the next three weeks before returning to our new home in Bellingham at the end of the month.

It's hard to describe just how delicious this homecoming has been. It's as if my soul has been slurping up some sort of nutrition it's badly needed for a long while. I have loved living in Los Angeles the last seven years, but have missed the presence of my parents and my sister. I can't tell you how many times during these last two years while Dwayne was in grad school and I was the primary bread winner that I wished I had my mother's help. So in addition to finally being able to be physically close to mom and dad, being in their home also feels like a place to gather and recoup before the transition to our new lives in Bellingham.

I have missed these last few years, the quiet sanctuary of my parents' home. The truth is, even growing up, our house was a quiet house. It has always been so. My parents are quiet, reflective people, and I took the peacefulness that trails them like a fragrance for granted as a child and teenager.

I just believed everybody's family was this way.

At this age and stage of my life, I see the markings and traits that characterize my parents and the life they've built together. And I see it as an entity which has certainly shaped me but exists outside of my own being as a person. In other words, the home I am building with Dwayne and Noelle is different, certainly influenced by, but different than my parents.

And I think this is why, when I stepped into the cool, quiet space of my mother's home yesterday, the ceiling fans turning lazily above, the lines of each room so clean, and simple, I felt that insane, yet quiet joy of permission bubbling up: permission to be, permission to let go, permission to relax, permission to not be responsible, permission to help, permission to embrace, permission to replenish, permission to go, permission to stay, permission to play, permission to cook, permission to nest, permission to let someone else watch my daughter for a while. :-)

My parent's house is beautiful and they have arrived at a season of their lives when they can afford a beautiful house, but even before this sanctuary on the skirt of Alexandria, when we lived in a small, one-story house in North Marion, and when we lived in rented homes on the mission field with borrowed hand-me-downs, my parents' homes have always been a safe place for me.

And I believe this was because their sanctuary had very little to do with the buildings and structures we've lived in. It's mostly had to do with them, their own beings.

I remember once, while we were living in England, I was about eleven or twelve-years-old, and my mother sent Annie and I off to a Christian girl's camp out in the English country side somewhere. It was in a beautiful old stone mansion with large ivy covered sides, and rolling views from the windows.

When the week was over, mom and dad drove through the gate and up the gravel driveway to pick us up. Dad helped us get our suitcases in the car, and Annie and I lept into the back seat.

As we pulled off, and sunk down into each other's presence, I looked out the window at the passing fields, and low stone-walls, and sighed. "It's so good to be home!"

Dad laughed and glanced at me in the rear view mirror, "But we're not home, we're in the car."

Meal Planning on the Cusp of Goodbye

2010-06-19T14:06:00.000-07:00

Right now I am procrastinating meal planning this week. We are exactly one week away from packing up the trailer and hitting the road North, and so how do you plan for meals exactly, when you know that in just a few days you will be packing up your kitchen utensils and will be emptying out the cupboards of food?

It feels like a jumbo rubix cube the size of my kitchen. If I move this, will it snap into place over here? If I pack this will I need it later to cook? If I don't buy anymore deli meat, will we run out and be scrounging around for lunches before we leave? It's a matter of not wanting to waste, but also not wanting to be left hungry and spending all our money to eat out.

And really the psychological puzzle of planning our meals this week is just the face of the much deeper emotional puzzle that lies underneath. We have been scheduling dinners with friends in order to 1) not have to cook this last week but also and more significantly to 2) say "goodbye."

And here are the flips and turns of my heart when I think about this next week: "If I say goodbye to them on Tuesday, will I wish I could say "goodbye" again on Saturday as we're pulling out of the parking lot? Will a dinner together be enough to bring closure or will I in a month be wishing I would have said "goodbye" in more significant ways? Is a cup of coffee here and a fruit salad there enough to wind up all the memories we've accumulated these last seven years? Is it enough to release this geography which has become our home?

A week ago Friday night, Dwayne and I spent the evening in Silver Lake with some friends. We met at Mae Ploy, one of the first Thai restaurants we visited in LA. The memory goes something like this: it was our second visit to Mosaic, and at the end of service a couple in front of us turned around to shake our hands. She was petite with tight jeans and long, silky black hair, he was talk and muscle-bound training to be a fire fighter.

"Do you want to go to dinner with us?" she asked.

Dwayne and I looked at each other stunned. Never before had we had perfect strangers invite us to dinner. "Sure," we said.

"Okay we'll take you to this great Thai place," she said and we followed them out of the dark corridors of the Los Angeles Entertainment Center and onto the lights of downtown.

We sat in Mae Ploy last week, seven years after our first visit, with new friends, and remembered the warmth and energy of our first encounter with LA.

We have lived so much of our lives in the small corners of LA over delicious meals. What about the first time we ever ate fish tacos at Wahoo's standing on Manhattan Beach Blvd, feeling the pulse of waves and people washing around us? Or our favorite nook at Par's restaurant, where one night after a particularly gravely argument Dwayne and I sat side by side and shared the best Lamb Shank I have ever tasted?

Or then there was the first time I ever tasted Caprese salad in the breezy back yard of a friend in Redondo Beach. I kept eating and eating and eating those delicious white puffs of mozerella with little tomato orbs drizzled in balsamic vinaigrette. The tangy, salty flavors jumbled down with the laughter and chatter of an evening surround by our Southbay small group.

What special memories. It seems hardly possible we are leaving them now.

My Weekend at a Monastery: An Open Journal

2010-06-05T13:46:00.000-07:00

Three weeks ago, I had the amazing opportunity to spend the weekend at Prince of Peace Abbey on retreat. Dwayne booked the weekend for me as a Mother's Day gift/ "thank you"-for-supporting-our-family-for-the-last-two-years-while-I've-been-in-graduate-school gift.

Really, I couldn't imagine a better present for me. It was an introvert's oasis.

I texted Dwayne on the first night there. "Checked in, went to Vespers, heard the monk's chant, ate dinner at 6 in the silent dining room, then walked the Way of the Cross Prayer Walk. Wish you were here."

My very extroverted husband wrote back, "Sounds awful!" I knew we were both cracking up in our respective parts of Southern California. He was up in La Verne watching Noelle for the weekend, and I was perched on the top of a hill in Oceanside, the blue roof of the monastery stretching away to the right, and the ocean disappearing over the horizon to the left.

But really, Dwayne's text captured the truth of the weekend more than he realized. The root word of "awful" is after all, "awe" a term we use all the time when we talk about things that are inspiring or sacred. And that was exactly how I was feeling about my first time ever at a monastery.

Here are my journal entries from he weekend:

5/21/10

I am here now. I got my key. My room is tiled floor with cinder block walls, but it is clean and smells welcoming. I am comfortable. One of the monk's knocked on my door this afternoon and showed me how to "turn on" the floors. It's supposed to be cold tomorrow and the floors heat up. Lovely.

What I am looking forward to most this weekend is writing and writing to my heart's content. But I am also looking forward to letting myself just be with God. I hope the two can coexist.

I feel anxious at the thought of unwinding, of going through the weekend and not getting anything done, of the thought of taking the time to sink down.

I think its funny to be anxious of these things. An indicator of the key to which my life has been tightened recently. As the Cantor chanted tonight in Vespers, "O God come to my assistance." And everyone said in reply, "Lord make haste to help me."

5/22/10

Didn't sleep very well first night at the Abbey. I had lots of dreams. Kept waking up expecting to hear the bell for Vigils at 5:30am. It's a comfortable bed and a comfortable room, so that's not why I couldn't sleep. I couldn't sleep because of a restless mind. It was like my brain was on hyper drive.

Jackie's words (My Spiritual Director), keep coming back to me: "it will take a while to unwind."

There is no TV, no internet here and it's freeing. I have plenty to do just with the writing and the prayers. I'll go to Holy Mass at 11am. Last night, as I was unwinding, TV shows kept popping into my head. It feels like junk to me now, not entertainment, like things to pull out of my mind so that I can relax. I feel lighter here. It feels like my soul is drinking up water. Getting refilled.

I'm starting to rethink the way we do things at home. I don't want Noelle's head to be full of junk. I want her to know homeostasis, ground zero, the quiet place.

5/23/10

Just got back from Holy Mass. Incredibly intimate. I was the only one there who did not know when to bow, stand, cross herself. In some ways I felt I was intruding on a deeply personal experience for all there. The Priest (Friar? Not sure what he's called) spoke and I was struck by how his messaged centered on Jesus, alone. So many sermons in the Evangelical churches I've visited focus on Christian living. There is a difference between those two sermons: Christ vs Christian living.

This message today lasted about 10 minutes and soothed my soul. It focussed my eyes back to Jesus the Risen Lord. There was much talk about peace. At the end we turned to one another and said, "Peace be with you." People kissed each other and shook hands. I needed that. Need personal peace right now. Beautiful.

I did not take communion as I already knew, thanks to Kristen Sipper (a friend from work who is a devout Catholic), they will not serve anyone who doesn't believe in transubstantiation. Kristen likes to joke that she's a vegetarian, except on Sunday when she eats Christ's flesh.

It occurred to me as I was watching them prepare the wine and bread that every day these monks, and believers sitting in the pews, witness a miracle. A true blood and body, tangible miracle and everyday they ingest that miracle.

What an amazing way to stay physically connected to your faith, to carry it not just in your mind and heart but in your body as well.

***

Time spent writing over the weekend:

Friday:

5pm: Vespers

6pm Dinner

6:30 - 7:00 Way of the Cross Prayer Walk

7:30 - 10:00 Wrote

10:00 Bed

Saturday:

7 am Wake-up and shower

7:30 Breakfast

8 - 10:45 Wrote

11 Holy Mass

12 Lunch

12:30 Texted Dwayne

1 - 2:30 Took a Nap

2:30 - 5 Wrote

5 Vespers

6 Dinner

6:30 - 7 Way of the Cross Prayer Walk

7:30 - 10 Wrote

10:30 - 1 am Read (_The Possibility of Everything_ by Hope Edelman)

Total Hours spent writing: 10!!

The Pink Chair

2010-05-15T09:38:00.000-07:00

Last night, I sat in the small pink velure chair, cupping Noelle's tiny shoulders with my arm. We sat together reading her favorite books, just as we have done nearly every night for the last two and a half years. These days, we mostly read the books on the couch in the living room before bed, but every now and then we return to the pink chair. This chair has been a part of Noelle's routine since that first burning night home from the hospital.

Memories are etched in my mind with exhaustion and that strange physical bond that happens between mother and baby, of sitting in the pink chair nursing Noelle eight times a day. I quickly discovered in the early hours of the morning, around 1 or 2, that the pink chair was the perfect height for my weary head. While Noelle was busy drinking somewhere between sleep and consciousness, I would drop my head back on to the padded top of the chair and fall asleep.

I lived in that chair for the first month of Noelle's life. I have shared this image often with friends when we talk about learning how to breastfeed and the all-consuming nature of that task: it is the image of me sitting in the back room in that pink chair, naked from the waist up, my arms out ready to receive what ever offering was handed to me next, a hungry baby, or a plate of food.

Now the pink chair sits quietly in the corner of Noelle's room. Gone are the days of nursing. Gone are the afternoons spent rocking in the chair just before naptime. Gone are the evenings, sitting with her on my lap singing songs before bed. Now we have graduated to the couch for our prayers and bedtime stories, but as I said before, sometimes, we return to the chair, like an old familiar family member.

Noelle is old enough now that she does not want to sit on my lap. She wants to sit beside me in the pink chair, and it's arms are not quite wide enough for both of us, so usually I tuck Noelle into the corner of the chair first, and then I wedge my hips in sideways, hook my arm around her shoulders and hold the book in front of us like a ring of love.

Last night, as we sat together in the chair before bed, it hit me like a pile of bedtime books - this chair is the ONE thing I want to take with us to Washington. Everything else we are getting rid of, because the job provides furnished housing. I have been pacing through our apartment, a knot in my stomach gathering as I assess the importance of each item. Do we want this? or this?

"It's just stuff," Dwayne tells me rightfully, but in the face of leaving behind my friends, my family, my job, suddenly my "stuff" has gathered a whole lot more significance. Letting it go is the last tether holding me here, to all the memories and connections we have built over the last seven years.

"Of all the stuff, you want to keep the pink chair?" Dwayne asks me increduously. "It's like used four times over."

And this is the truth. Of all the things in our home it is the least valuable, and that is precisely why I am so attached to it. "Where did it come from?" Dwayne asks.

"APU!" And I am surprised at how quickly the tears appear. "Annie found it in the dumpster." And that's another reason why I'm attached to that small little piece of furniture with it's cheap pink upholstery, and two cigarette burns like dimples on the arm rest -- my sister used to own this chair. My sister, who is now thousands of miles away in New Zealand, and to whom I can only talk but once a week for an hour if we catch each other at the right window.

The chair is a physical reminder of her presence in my home everyday, when I can not reach her anymore. And then there are on top of that all the memories of Noelle's birth, and those difficult first days of learning to be a mother.

"I don't see how we can take it," Dwayne says standing at the sink doing dishes with me. And I nod my head in recognition. The trailer we will bring to haul our stuff won't be big enough to fit the chair. Grief washes over my body.

There was a stretch of time, I remember, when Noelle would nurse before bed. I would gather her up on the boppy, let her drink and fall asleep, while I sat snuggled into the broken-in comfort of the pink chair, reading a book by lamplight. It was a moment for Noelle, and a moment for me. A moment to sink into the foreignness of new motherhood in the comfort of an old chair, imbued as it was with years of memories and personal connections.

A Snippet

2010-05-02T21:18:00.000-07:00

Well, I have been writing these last few weeks, but not much on the blog. Mostly, when I get a chance to write, I am working on the manuscript and so at the moment feel a little dry with the blog.

And so, as a way of keeping the juices flowing, I'd like to share with you just a few paragraphs of what I wrote today on the manuscript. I've got 13 chapters done so far, but am going through and doing a second draft of the chapters that exist in order to adjust the arc and pacing of the book to complete the last three chapters.

The book deals with the metaphorical shipwreck that happens for so many young adults once they leave college. See my website: www.christintaylor.com, for a quick overview of the book's theme and my first chapter.

This is the beginning of chapter 6, which is all about the genesis of my relationship with Dwayne. Because my metaphorical shipwreck effected my sense of identity, my spirituality, my vision of career, and my marriage, Chapter 6 establishes my relationship with Dwayne so that the readers will understand later on in the book the implications of my metaphorical shipwreck as it pertained to my marriage.

I wrote this from a writing Prompt in Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola's book Tell It Slant. They ask you to write about a family member, envisioning their life before you met them.

Enjoy! And remember it's a rough draft! :-)

I have, in my mind, this enduring image of Dwayne as a little boy. I see him swinging from vines, in bare feet, little face red with the Haitian heat, sweat beads glistening his freckles. I’m not sure how this image can be true, although I formed it somewhere along the line, perhaps during the tales he regaled me with when we were dating.

I don’t know how this image can be true because I also lived in Haiti as a little girl, and I remember no vines, or jungles. Only dry, dessert heat, brown grass, a single mango tree bent at the knees, arcing over our lawn in a pant, as if the heat was too much even for it. I remember running around bare-foot though. This much I am sure of, in my mind’s eye. I am sure that Dwayne is barefoot because I remember running barefoot in Haiti with a little friend, who was also barefoot and I remember him stepping on a slab of wood with two nails piercing through. And I remember holding his foot between my knees and pulling on the piece of wood with all my might until it released his pink flesh.

And so in my mind’s eye, Dwayne is swinging from tree branches on vines, barefoot with another little barefoot boy.

I ask Dwayne over and over again, “Is this true? Were there vines?” And his answer is always the same.

“No. It was a rope.”

“Oh, so were there lots of ropes, hanging from the trees that you would swing from?”

“No, just one rope, from one tree.”

Though I know this image of Dwayne swinging from vines, barefoot through the jungle isn't true, it remains engraved on my mind, because something about it captures the essence of my husband: who he was before I met him, and who he is now, embodied though he is in the frame of a man, and no longer barefoot.

The Wait is Over - The Journey has Just Begun

2010-04-18T10:31:00.000-07:00

After 2 years of knowing a change was coming, 10 months of actively praying about the change, 6 months of applying for jobs, and 2 months of interviewing, the Taylors finally know where they're moving: Bellingham, Washington.

This past week, Western Washington University offered Dwayne a Resident Director position beginning August 2nd and Dwayne accepted it.

Bellingham is located 20 miles South of the Canadian boarder, right on Bellingham Bay.

Dwayne took a few pictures while he was up there for the on campus interview.

No, that is not a UFO in the upper right hand corner. :-) It's the light shining off the glass of the dining hall.

So this is our soon-to-be home. Now it's time to prepare for the transition both physically and emotionally!

A Beautiful Mess

2010-04-06T22:53:00.000-07:00

This past Fall I had the good fortune to meet and befriend Kristin Ritzau, the author of _A Beautiful Mess_, forthcoming this summer from Conversant Media Group.

Kristin has the uncommon ability to inspire the best in those around her, and to then motivate those of us lucky enough to know her to go achieve that best. Her first book is an embodiment of the work she does with women to overcome perfectionism through the principles of Spiritual Direction.

She has basically taken this practice, Spiritual Direction, (something that is only open to those who happen to live close to Universities or churches who offer it) and made it accessible for readers in their own living room.

My latest article at Ungrind called, Recollection, is a reflection on the contemplative prayer called, The Prayer of Recollection. I was introduced to this prayer by my spiritual director and those who have read the article and taken a moment to write me, have expressed just how nourished they were by that prayer.

Well I'm here to tell you that my article is just a drop in the bucket! It is just a tiny taste of the depths and riches that exist in the practice of Spiritual Direction, and Kristin's book is a 200 page tour-de-force of this practice made available for you!

Her latest blog at Conversant opens the topic of Contemplative Prayer and explores the ways in which this sort of prayer experience cultivates intimacy.

If you liked my article and want to learn more about contemplative prayer, check out her website here.

Recollection

2010-04-04T18:15:00.000-07:00

"As a working mom it's easy to forget that my body cannot be broken like fishes and loaves and multiplied to infinitum. It's easy to forget that my broken body, unlike the Lord's, does not, in fact, give life to those around me."

To read the rest of my latest article on Ungrind, go here.

Thanks for taking a look!

Happy Easter!

Up-gathered

2010-04-02T15:58:00.000-07:00

I feel all ramped up.

Something is going to happen but I don't know what. I'm waiting for something to break - but there's nothing immediate on the horizon. Perhaps it's just all the excitement of these last few weeks. So many things coming together, moving forward, sweeping me up like Wordsworth's howling winds in, "The World is Too Much With Us, Late and Soon."

"The winds that will be howling at all hours/ and are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers."

I feel up-gathered, like many petals spinning toward the eye of heaven.

Next week Dwayne has his on-campus interview out of state. Who knows what will happen. We could know in two weeks where we're moving. Or we could be waiting for another handful of months.

I was realizing just yesterday, that my incessant need to know seems to have subsided. Somewhere between writing about it to you all, and praying about it, and thinking about it - I made peace with the uncertainty of our future.

I stopped trying to visualize just where we will be and realized that I could bend, and flex.

At some point I realize that this spiral toward the sky is going to break, and my many members will float back down to the earth, but that's in the future, that's a moment in time I can not hold. So be it. Right now, I'm following the ride.

The Blank Page Writing Workshops

2010-03-24T20:49:00.000-07:00

I am so excited to launch my online writing workshops called, The Blank Page Writing Workshops!

Go to www.christintaylor.com to check them out!

It has been a couple months now of dreaming and arranging, and designing and brainstorming and finally the initial blocks are falling into place.

Our first workshop is beginning this weekend, the second is slated to start May 8th. Doing this sort of thing is a dream come true for me. I never would have imagined in college that it would have been possible to be a mom, teach and pursue writing in this way. I love being a part of the writing process so much, whether it is my own or other peoples!

If you enjoy writing or know anyone else who loves writing please pass my link along to them!

Like a Big Rock in a Stream

2010-03-17T13:26:00.001-07:00

The other night, I sat in our living room and listened to the families on the other side of the wall coming to fetch their students home for Spring Break. The language I heard the families speaking out in the foyer and on the sidewalk was nearly exclusively Spanish, and I've just come to take this for granted.

I hear Spanish all the time, not just in our hallways between students, but out in town, in the super market, at the library, out at the park. Spanish is a gentle thriving current that pulses through every part of Los Angeles, diving and resurfacing in public places.

When we first moved to LA, I loved hearing different languages spoken at nearly every corner. Just the other day at the park a man barked out a middle eastern dialect to his kids as they chased after a frisbee. Every Monday I sit in the house of my Albanian friend and listen to her croon pet names to her husband and children in the oldest language in the world.

The sound of a different language permeating every crevice of my life here in LA was an exciting reminder that I lived in a vibrant city full of diversity. But over the past seven years, I've just sort of gotten, well -- used to it. My brain stopped registering all the different pronunciations and accents. The languages have become an inconsequential part of my days.

Except for this particular night, when the families were coming and going, the hinges of the large glass doors banging shut. For some reason, I came up out of my book like a diver coming up for oxegyn and stopped and listened again with new ears to the rattle and beat of that familiar language.

"Isn't it amazing?" I asked Dwayne.

"What?"

"Hearing another language right outside our door?"

He didn't respond. He has grown accustomed to it to.

"I mean, shouldn't I speak this language too?" I said putting my book down. "It's right outside my door!"

Dwayne and I shop at the local markets in Azusa and so often I feel like a great big rock lodged in the middle of the creek. All around me the workers and shoppers are speaking Spanish, but I wont because I'm too embarrassed. I mean sure they accommodate me, but still I get irritated with myself. I don't like making everyone meet me on my terms.

Sure the water will bend and move around the boulder, but don't I have some sort of obligation to listen and understand it's liquid voice?

Today Noelle and I went to the park. We put our stuff down on a picnic bench next to a stroller. I saw an abuela standing on the side of the park watching her nieto. She glanced over at us and I knew we were sharing the bench. After a little while she came over, sat down beside me, and with the comfort and ease of a friend said,

"Cuantos anos tiene su hija?"

I turned toward her and decided it was time to pull up my heavy stoney butt and dive into the current, no matter how much I might splutter and sink."

"Dos anos," I said. Then added, "Dos y medios anos."

She looked up at me. I recognized a hint of gratitude in her smile, and the current between us pattered on.

Getting Changed

2010-03-05T21:17:00.000-08:00

Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! The Calvary has come. My mom and dad hit LA yesterday and my life has been pure bliss since! There is nothing like two adoring grandparents to relieve a mom who is husband-less for a week.

Today I got to spend some extra time grading. For reasons that are inexplicable to me - truly I don't know why I do these things to myself - I arranged the syllabi for both my classes so that three major assignments came in this weekend. So I am swamped. Or I should say, I WAS swamped, until my mom and dad took Noelle for six hours today and let me tuck myself into one of the study cubicles in the Library across the street.

I hacked my way through half of the grading and am feeling exaltant this evening. Relieved.

To celebrate the arrival of Grandma, all the ladies (Noelle, Mom and I) decided to go shopping before dinner. We scooted into one of my favorite stores and for the second time today I tucked myself away in a little cubicle but this time to try on clothes. What fun.

We let Noelle run around the clean, well-lit, and empty dressing room while I got changed. After watching me try on a few pieces of clothing Noelle ducked her head under the door of my changing stall and said, "I gone change too momma."

"Okay sweetie," I cooed, thinking to myself, How cute! What a doll I have. She wants to pretend to do what I'm doing.

I heard the door of the stall next door shut, then open a minute later.

Noelle's sweet little face appeared under my door again.

"Momma, I all change!"

I looked down and found her naked as the day she was born.

Butterflies In My Stomach!

2010-03-03T07:42:00.000-08:00

Well, it's big times in the Taylor household this week. At 3:30 this morning Dwayne snuck out of the room and flipped on the hall light in order to get ready to go to the airport. At 3:47 he came back and gave me a kiss whispering, "I'll call you when I get there."

At 6:30 I got a text saying, "I'm on the plane and ready to go."

In approximately five or six hours he'll land at Chicago's O'Hare airport with ten of his classmates from the CCSD program at APU. They're all off to NASPA, the national Student Development conference where schools from across the country, and SD professionals from equal distances come together to find each other.

These last three weeks have been a whirlwind of exciting news. After casting out 16 resumes Dwayne waited to see which schools would bite, and ask to interview him at NASPA. He left this morning with ten interviews lined up for this week, two initial phone interviews already done. Both successful.

It feels like we've been on the up tic of a roller coaster. The anticipation has been building with each new confirmation that schools from Seattle to Boston are interested in Dwayne's resume.

We spent the weekend bouncing from men's department to men's department trying find the right combinations of ties and shirts, and sweater vests. He'll spend this week courting, and wooing from conference rooms to elevators.

And when it's all said and done, we will wait to see which schools are left, which offers stand, and from there, the on-site interviews begin...

Noelle-a-raptor

2010-02-16T20:29:00.001-08:00

There are two doors by which to get out of our apartment. One door is in our living room and leads into the foyer of the Resident's Hall, and the other door is in our kitchen and leads out to the front lawn.

Unfortunately, the handle on the door leading outside is perfectly suited for toddler hands. It's just the right height, and it also happens not to be a knob, but an actual handle, a nice skinny slip of silver easy for little hands to grasp.

"That handle worries me," mom told me after visiting us in the dorm for the first time. "I'm scared Noelle will get out and get lost."

Well, it was a legitimate concern. Noelle has managed to open the kitchen door and toddle out to the front sidewalk. We're trying to train her to wait for us at doors, but also as an extra safety measure, we started flipping the dead bolt - just in case.

The problem with industrial doors and handles, though, is that they're all too easy. The dead bolt swivels smoothly on it's little axis. I knew it was simply a matter of time before Noelle got tall enough to reach that too.

Which she did -- this weekend.

On Sunday before church, I heard Dwayne chasing after Noelle out the door.

"Did you lock the door?" I asked him as he was bringing her back in.

"Yes, but watch this." He locked the door and set Noelle down on the floor.

She turned around and on tip toes reached up. Dwayne and I watched in horror as her little cupped hand stretched up, swatted at the dead bolt and flipped it.

"It's like that scene from Jurassic Park," I said "Where the little terror-raptor learns how to open the door with its claw."

"Yeah," said Dwayne, "And nothing is ever the same again."

*For the sake of my husband - I know that there is no such thing as a "terror-raptor." It's a pun: a little dinosaur that causes terror. ;-)

Gorgeous Vistas

2010-01-25T22:35:00.000-08:00

Tonight, I held Noelle in my arms and sang her a new song before bed.

"Good night sweetheart, well, it's time to go - bah bum, bah bum"

She looked up at me, her big eyes reflecting back the small light in the hall. And she grinned with curious delight.

"Good night sweetheart, well, it's time to go - bah bum, bah bum"

Her little voice echoed mine, off key but delicious, "bu-bah, bah-bu, bah."

I couldn't stop. I didn't want it to stop. We just went over and over and over it again, just so I could hear that beautiful little voice meeting mine in the dark and I thought of a sermon I heard a long time ago - a pastor said that we think God has created such beautiful vistas in nature for our pleasure, but there is a universe of planets and views that we will never see. He enjoys gorgeous vistas that we will never know exist.

Sometimes, I feel that about Noelle. All the tiny moments in our day when she looks at me just right, or laughs in a certain way, or tells me particular story. All of these moments feel like gorgeous vistas, beautiful formations in the landscape of our day that only I will ever get to see. It feels like a wildly glorious gift from a Creator who watches with me, and I feel blessed. I feel so increadibly blessed!

The "I Wants"

2010-01-23T16:13:00.001-08:00

"Oo - mommy! I found the mountain!" Noelle says reaching with her whole body towards the car window.

I know what's coming next because we have this conversation every time we drive East on Route 66.

"I want to hike up mountain."

I nod my head, and then the "I wants" spill forth triggered by that first utterance like a brook over little white pebble teeth.

"I want BopBop to hike up mountain. I want BopBop and NaNa to come in a plane. I want to see the nay nays. I want BopBop and NaNa to see nay nays. I want to ride the trolley. I want to listen to the yay-yay song. I want a pop. I want a snack."

Really the progression of her sentences makes no sense at all. She is just skipping from one desire to the next as quickly as they come to her.

It's hilarious. But always at first there is this knee jerk compulsion in me to give her what she wants, to rush to her each whim. Except of course, I am driving, buckled into my seat behind a wheel. There's no possible way I can appease her wants.

And so I'm let off the hook.

I sit in the front seat and listen as her "I wants" dissolve into whines, and fusses.

I realize that my daughter doesn't actually want any of those things. I realize that she's just bored and also excited to try new words.

I also realize that it is my job as her mom to make sure she doesn't always get what she wants because in denying her I am teaching her that she can live free of her every whim. And what an oppressive existence it would be to live at the every command of our desires, right?

Just as I am coaching myself through this line of reasoning, sitting in the car watching the foothills slip by, and listening to Noelle whine, the sound of her voice morphs into the sound of my own thoughts.

I can hear my own whispered prayers in her little mouth.

Dwayne and I are on the cusp of a change. We know in May that everything is going to transition for us. He graduates, and we have to move out of the dorm by June.

The tricky thing is that we don't actually know where we're going. This all depends on where Dwayne gets a job. Now, he's been looking at schools and submitting his resume and lining up interviews and literally these job opportunities are all across the nation.

In the face of so much of uncertainty, I've found myself grasping as superficial realities to try and navigate the change. These have been my spoken and unspoken prayers:

“Please, I want to live in a city. I want to live somewhere beautiful. I want to live somewhere I can still teach. I want to live somewhere with a good school system for Noelle. I want to live somewhere with a church that values the arts and isn’t exclusive. I want to live somewhere close to family. I want to live somewhere close to friends.”

Not surprisingly, I’ve been a spirit cycling around with as much calm as a tornado, whipping from one want to another. Nothing, not one of my carefully articulated desires has given me peace.

I’m scared to death of moving to a new city in a new part of the world and finding that there is nothing for me, finding that I am alone, unknown, and useless. All the relationships we have built here, all the work I’ve done, all the connections I’ve made, all the progress I’m mounting in my career swept away.

I mean, there’s no real way to prepare for that, right? And the irony is that while my “I wants” feel like a way to assert control in the midst of this chaos, they in fact are just depleting my soul. They are tossing me about on their tempestuous shoulders because they are not real, they are simply preferences painted across a future without clues or hints or signs about what is to come.

Really what’s left for me to do? but sit in the car, strapped in, watching the foothills slip by, and let all my fusing and whining boil over the surface and then evaporate leaving behind a residue that looks something like surrender.

Haitian Threads

2010-01-19T13:56:00.000-08:00

Dwayne and I wrote our first blog post together this week and it has been published over at Fresh Brew!

Go on over and have a look and if you are so moved, leave a comment.

Speakaphobia

2010-01-04T09:01:00.001-08:00

Sometimes, I accidentally say the most absurd and inappropriate thing at the worst time. It's an embarrassing compulsion but one I've tried to get ahold of. It's as if my mouth grows a brain of it's own and starts operating autonomously from the rest of my body.

But last night it struck again, wild and out of nowhere, and left everyone in the room laughing hysterically, including myself. But I also felt terribly embarrassed.

This is how it went: We were spending the evening with new friends, an artist and a musician who work at a local church. They have a daughter a couple years older than Noelle and then a newborn baby.

We've met them through mutual friends and spent time together briefly in groups with others, but this wast the first time we've spent time with them alone, just getting to know each other.

They started the evening announcing the good news that they had just accepted a new position at a large church here in the San Gabriel valley. The position is full-time and will allow them to write music and be more creative.

We were all talking excitedly about this new opportunity when we stumbled across the topic of how strange working at a church is. How churches are not quite a business, but somehow need to be run like a business.

Everyone was agreeing and adding quickly to each other's comments, and a phrase began forming in the back of my mind....that churches are a unique organism.

Excitedly I lifted my hand in the air to emphasize my point, but somewhere between my head and my mouth the words got garbled and this is what came out, loudly, and right in the middle of conversation, me sitting perched on the edge of my seat:

"Churches are like an ORGASM!"

What to do About Sex at Evangelical Universities

2010-01-03T08:38:00.000-08:00

Do Evangelical Universities have a moral responsibility to provide safe-sex programs even if their policy is abstinence? I tackle this question over at Open Salon this week.

Thanks for reading!

Mommy's Buttons

2009-12-21T22:11:00.002-08:00

Noelle has figured out this last week that if she whimpers right before naptime or bedtime saying, "I'm hungwee momma! I'm hungwee!" I will rush in a flurry of panic and get her some food, thereby delaying the inevitable.

Her other tactic is to say in a perky, little voice, "Mommy I have to go potty!" Since we have just accomplished potty-training this last week, this is the second most powerful thing she can say to stop me in my tracks.

Tonight, we were getting ready to have our night time prayer with Grammy and Grandpa, who are visiting for the holidays, when she immediately started whimpering, "I'm hungwee mommy, I'm hungwee!"

By now, I've figured out what she's doing and so I just laughed at her and said, "Noelle knows how to push mommy's buttons."

At which point, she stopped, looked down and pushed both my boobs!

A Manuscript Coming True

2009-12-09T13:32:00.000-08:00

I've been neglecting this blog this Fall because I've had a hard time balancing writing my manuscript while also writing for my blogs (this one and dormwife).

My writing time happens in the margins of my life, during nap time or after bedtime and only after the chores are finished and my grading and lesson plans are done. With that said, the book which has existed in my mind as a shadow this last three years is finally becoming a reality in my computer, with a foreseeable end in sight!

I am so thrilled to be at this spot on the long hike up the mountain called "writing a book", because I feel like I can finally look out and see how far I've come and enjoy the view a bit. There is still alot of rewriting to do, but the bulk, structure and narrative arc are complete. Is it a masterpiece? Certainly not. Is it good? Probably not, but I don't mind. The thing I'm most excited about is that this vision of mine is becoming real!

I wanted to share this with you because you have been so generous to read the stuff I put up here and other places. You've been so encouraging and I realize that you are the ones most likely to read this thing when it is done.

So I wanted to let you be a part of the journey and to tell you - THANK YOU! Thank you. The time you give to read any two words I put together is a gift and I do not take it for granted!

I have met with a writing consultant at the university where I teach who has been so encouraging and has offered to help me make the connections I need in submitting the book proposal. I am so grateful for this little bit of light on the next few steps I need to take.

I'll let you know how things progress!

With lots of hope and encouragement this Christmas Season ~

Christin

Facing Our Beauty

2009-12-06T14:42:00.000-08:00

My latest article is up on Ungrind today! I am so grateful to Ashleigh Slater, the editor, who has given me the opportunity time and time again to share my writing with a wider audience!

I hope you enjoy this latest article and if you can, stop by Ungrind on a regular basis to read other great up-and-coming female writers.

Don't Just Do Something; Sit There

2009-11-09T09:22:00.001-08:00

Just a couple days ago I read this quote from my favorite magazine, "Don't just do something; sit there." It is of course a twist on the old challenge to get off our rumps and get going.

The quote was part of an article on how to deal with significant change in our lives. The author had recently lost her job and put together a list of suggestions for others navigating the choppy waters of transition.

I jumped on this article, because our family has been going through so much change this last two years. We've moved twice. Dwayne's gone back to school. We've had a daughter. And in just six short months, Dwayne will graduate and we will be moving again. This time to a destination that we can't even begin to guess at. We could move to another part of LA, or we could move out of state completely.

The options are limitless and while this uncertainty does inspire a certain amount of excitement in me, it also inspires the low pitch rumble of anxiety, churning and rolling like molten lava beneath the surface.

I don't want to loose more friends. Will I be able to make new friends? Will I like the new community we live in? Will I be able to continue my work? Will I be able to find a writing community? Will I be able to raise my daughter with out ANY family around?

The article talks about how in the midst of change we often spin out in a tizzy of activity, trying to create some sort of routine or sense of purpose for our lives. The result is exhaustion.

This part of the article put words to my experience. Since moving to La Verne, I've felt myself reaching out for all kinds of new commitments. I should join a Mommy and Me Class. I should volunteer at the Ruth House. I should start a mom's group. I should join a small group. I should, I should, I should, and all of these "shoulds" are wrapped up in the knowledge that in just six months, I'll be gone again.

All of these are feeble attempts to feel connected in a time when I feel so disconnected. And also an attempt to silence the voices in my head telling me that the answer to my sense of loss is to serve, serve, serve.

What a relief to be reminded that it's okay to let the terrain of my being lay fallow for a while. I need time to put roots down.

Of course, in the silence, there's no escaping the creeks and groans of uncertainty. Being still allows you no distractions, just the pain of healing.

The Perils of Learning to Speak

2009-11-06T15:25:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Noelle walked into the bathroom with her little car saying, "Itsa f**k. Itsa f**k."

What she was in fact trying to say was, "It's a truck. It's a truck." But the "tr" sound is a bit difficult when you're just barely two. For instance, she says the word "three" as "fee."

"That's a car!" I corrected.

She toddled back out of the bathroom. I continued to get ready.

A few minutes later she walked back in going "Itsa a f**k. Itsa f**k."

"It's a car, sweetie," I said trying not to laugh.

"No!" she insisted. "Itsa f**k."

Hmm. The dangers of learning a new language.

Lessons In Reasoning with a Two Year-old

2009-11-04T08:38:00.000-08:00

Last week, I decided to try an experiment in discipline involving explaining to Noelle why I do or don't want her to engage in certain behaviors.

I'll begin this follow-up post with a quote from the comment section of the last post:

My friend and pseudo-big sister Erika Hettinger wrote, "If I may suggest...The true power of these conversations is having them BEFORE the behavior occurs. So, having the same exact same conversation that you had about Baby E~, but on the WAY to Baby E~'s house..."

Yes, yes, yes, yes! That was a major part of a two part discovery in this one week experiment.

On Monday morning Noelle, Dwayne and I sat around the breakfast table talking. "Noelle, guess who we're going to see today?" This is the way I start every Monday before we visit Baby E and his big brother and sister.

But that morning I wanted to remind her of the conversation we'd had last Monday about sharing. So I broached the subject. I reminded her about sharing with Baby E. She made the same irritated faces (Dwayne is witness to these expressions!).

"And if big brother takes a toy away from you, just let his mommy take care of it, okay? We don't need to throw a tantrum and cry. We just find a different toy." Yadda yadda the conversation went along like this for just a minute.

The result? Playtime was much more enjoyable this week! At least I felt alot more at ease. I sat next to Noelle and when Baby E took a toy I reminded her to let him have it. No tears.

The critical moment came when the big brother, a year older than Noelle, took a toy out of Noelle's hands. Last week this resulted in the worst tantrum of all, Noelle on the floor bawling, red face, big angry tears.

Immediately, Noelle screeched and started running after big brother "wait, wait!" she said in a little voice. I crouched down beside her and said, "Noelle, let his mommy take care of it," and I could say this because thankfully C-'s mommy is right on top of things. This makes my job with Noelle easier. I'm not sure what I'd tell Noelle to do with children who grab things at school or the playground, but for this situation, in this home, it's nice to know that my friend and I are on the same page.

Noelle stopped and looked at me. "Let's find another toy!" I chirped and she moved on. She was like, "no big deal." Tantrum evaded. It was a really exciting moment for me.

Okay, so my conclusion is exactly what Erika said: explaining before the behavior occurs seems to be a really powerful tool.

Conversely, I ran across a situation last week where explaining in the middle of the behavior did not go so well.

Cut back to the high chair at dinner time: Noelle was back to her old tricks throwing food off the tray. I took her out of the seat, told her "no." Said that I did not want her to throw food on the floor and why.

I put her back in the seat, gave her the food back, she looked at me and quick as a flash threw her sippy cup on the floor.

"Oh no you didn't!" I said staring her down. She promptly went into time out.

The Unforgiving Redemption of Teaching

2009-11-02T14:53:00.000-08:00

So here's the latest post on Open Salon. Teaching is perhaps on of the most searing ways to learn about yourself, but the experience is redemptive if you have the courage to face the reflection of yourself in your student's eyes.

Please swing by, take a look and enjoy!

Very soon to come: the results of my experimentation with explanation! We went back to our friend's house today to play and I have much to tell you about the experience.

I hear Noelle in the background, just woken up from her nap. Alas, the writing must wait! But I will return as soon as I can! :-)

An Experiment with Explaining

2009-10-26T13:25:00.001-07:00

So, I'm embarking on an experiment in discipline with Noelle. I've been reading some books and websites. I've been trying the time-out thing, the incentive thing, the spanking thing. But recently, I've stumbled over the glimmer of another possibility: reasoning with my barely two-year old daughter.

Now, I never would have believed, and I still partly don't, that you can reason with a two year old, but let me tell you my stories and you tell me if you don't think I should keep pursuing this road of explaining "why" to my daughter in order to keep her from bad behavior.

Yesterday: Noelle sprinkled water out of her sippy cup all over her high chair. This is a regular problem. She loves to pour things and that has meant even milk and juice on the carpet. I give her time outs and even spankings over this, because we've talked about it so much.

Immediately, I took her out of the high chair and put her in time out. After time out, I talked to her about what she had done, and what mommy had asked her to do and said "no more" pouring her sippy cup.

Less than a minute later I found her sitting in the high chair happily watering the furniture and floor around her.

I snapped and grabbed the sippy cup away from her. I pulled her out of the high chair ready for more drastic action, but in an instant of inspiration, decided to see what would happen if I explained to her why I didn't want her to pour out her water.

"When you pour your water out it makes you wet, and it makes a mess for mommy and I don't want to clean it up, okay? Do you understand mommy?"

A quiet nod.

She didn't do it again the rest of the dinner.

These sorts of cycles have been getting more and more regular over the last month: bad behavior, mommy disciplines, return to bad behavior, mommy gets aggravated, mommy disciplines again. Although a couple times I've just sort of accidentally stumbled across explaining to Noelle why I do or don't want her to do something and then magically it works.

Part of the reason why I have a very hard time believing that simply explaining to Noelle will work is because it seems too easy. I mean, I've always believed that kids want to do what they want to do and that reasoning can not alter this primal want, only negative consequences.

For that reason, I've been digging in for a good fight with Noelle when it comes to obedience.

She's precocious and energetic and extremely persistent, so I thought that would mean lots of visits to the time-out corner and some sprinkling of spankings. What a surprise to find out she actually listens to me!

I still half believe that perhaps the reason talking works for her is simply because she's still little. I'm bracing myself for the true onslaught of terrible twos. I'm sure my little experiment in explaining will go flying out the window in about six months, but until then I figure I might as well keep trying it.

I decided to put it to work today.

We visited some friends this morning and she had a very hard time sharing and taking turns. Multiple tantrums and fits on the floor, and even a time out. I tried to talk to her in the middle of it, but there was too much emotion, and too many kids and toys.

On the way home, I decided to try and talk to Noelle about it over lunch. I mean, even as I thought it, there was another voice in the back of my head saying, "No way, she's forgotten it all by now, her two year old mind won't remember what you're talking about." But I decided to give it a try.

I waited until we were sitting quietly across from each other munching on our quesadillas and then I brought it up.

"Noelle, we need to have a talk, sweetie." She lifted her little face toward me and kept munching. "We need to talk about sharing and taking turns with our friends."

I'm not kidding, her little eye scrunched up, her mouth curled like she had just tasted something sour, and she dropped her head quietly.

I went on to tell her that it's fun to play with friends and playing with friends means sharing and taking turns. yaddayaddayadda. "What should you do if Baby E~ wants to play with the teapot? (pause) We say 'Okay Baby E~ you can play with it..." The conversation went on like this, not too long, just enough to talk about better responses than crying and whining.

"So what do you say? Next time we'll play and take turns with our friends. Do you understand what mommy is saying?"

Holding a quesadilla in one hand, munching away quietly, Noelle studied my face for a moment and then nodded her head.

So that's my experiment. We'll revisit the conversation face to face before we go play next time and I'm interested to see if it makes a difference. If things go any better. I'll let you know.

Peanut Butter, Honey and Jalapenos

2009-10-24T21:39:00.000-07:00

I have to shift gears when I talk to the college students in our life. But the change from my regular conversations with other thirty-year olds is pretty refreshing. Tonight we had the RAs over and the best conversation of the evening was about peanut butter.

You can read about it here.

An Addendum "To God"

2009-10-17T22:23:00.000-07:00

Anne Kellor shared these thoughts with me after reading "To God." They have given words to something I have been trying to negotiate and they flow easily and naturally from the last point of the last post. We are all moving water, flowing from one point to another, dwelling long enough at one eddy to let our hearts be altered, then tumbling on.

It is important to mention that I know Anne from graduate school. She initiated a Creative Nonfiction Collective after our graduation that I am a part of: five women writing honestly from their lives, responding, critiquing, and submitting what we've produced.

Here is what she wrote:

"Yes, yes, yes.
I too have long held my writing to be an essential part of my spiritual path and expression. That said, the longer I've committed myself to the process and the deeper I've gone in my craft, the more I want to share my writing with others, to have it reach people, be a part of a greater dialogue. So I don't think it's an either-or situation-- either you are writing for 'success' and publication, or you are writing for yourself and God; I think that for many, or some of us, it's both, and both feed into each other and are important. Balance is key. That said, our essential connection to God through our writing is what I believe must guide our intention and drive-- as opposed to clinging to success. That's what will keep drawing our writing deeper, and the deeper we go, the more potential we have to write powerfully and affect people through our writing. Reaching people won't necessarily happen of course unless we have the marketing and submitting perserverance, connections, all that, and even then, you never know. Which is why of course, we can't ever lose sight of our core intention and love of writing for writing's sake."

To God: After Reflecting on Returning to Spiritual Direction this Fall

2009-10-13T21:59:00.000-07:00

Jackie began our time with silence and asked me to turn inward and ask You what you had for me during our time together. I did what I always do. I searched frantically through my brain, frightened and anxious that I would come up empty, with nothing to talk about. Afraid that nothing was there. That you wouldn’t show up.

But after 10 or 15 minutes I remembered a passage from the book Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris that had brought such peace to me Sunday night. It was under the chapter “Detachment.”

In that chapter Kathleen writes about this old monastic term that has lost its meaning in modern times. She quotes the 16^th Century monk, Dorotheus of Gaza, who describes detachment as “being free from [wanting] certain things to happen,’ and remaining so trusting of God that ‘what is happening will be the thing that you want and you will be at peace with all.’”

Just reading this passage tonight floods my spirit with peace a second time. It feels so novel and so ancient all at once. Novel to me. Ancient in it’s wisdom.

I brought this to Jackie out of the quiet time. I told her that a shift had happened in my heart when I read the explanation of detachment and though my mind perhaps did not fully understand it, my heart released its breath and relaxed.

“You have a new tool with which to process you’re anxiety,” she said, with that sparkle in her eye that doesn’t go away.

Even now the remnants of our conversation are fading away. Oh help me remember, let me hold onto it. Here are the things that she said that impressed themselves upon my heart.

She asked me to what areas of my life I thought I might apply this “detachment” and I knew before she had finished speaking, the answer: my relationship with L~, finding peace with the hurt and disappointment there; my writing, letting go of the wanting of so many things to happen, of the angst that comes with measuring success; and with Noelle, and my anxiety over my offerings as a mother.

When I described to her the peace detachment brought me with L~. How it had released my heart when I spoke those words over that relationship, knowing that “what is happening between us will be the thing that I want and I will be at peace with it," she grinned and said, “God is holding it. Not you. That is detachment.” And yes, that was exactly it. The relief of knowing that I can be present to the emotions but that I do not have to hold the circumstances or the outcome of this relationship.

Then we moved onto my writing.

On one hand, I know without a doubt that it is my spiritual pathway. I know that I feel close to you when I write. I know that if I am feeling anxious, that often times asking myself, “When did I write last?” will shed light on the tumult of my heart.

But on the other hand, writing feels like such a selfish endeavour, self-centered, and indulgent. Who does it benefit? What has it done so far but cost, cost, cost my family in money and time? How can I possibly take another day away from Noelle to write? How can I possibly take more time away from Dwayne to write? These are things that feel dangerous to me as if this writing could sabotage the most intimate relationships in my life.

“Here, we could camp for months on three or four of the statements you’ve just made,” Jackie said after hearing the scramble of words and conflicting emotions out of my mouth.

Even as she said this I felt myself holding up arms, No, no, this is not that meaningful or important, it is just my writing.

I didn’t have to speak.

“This is an important matter,” Jackie answered my thoughts. “It’s a spiritual matter.”

Big sigh. “It is?”

“Yes,” she exclaimed and raised out of her chair. “Because it’s your vocation. It’s God working out his kingdom through you.”

What beautiful words.

There are two rivers running thorugh my spirit. One running out of the mouth of self-contempt toward worldly success, striving always for the ocean of “enough.” The other river runs from a source I cannot quite name and it runs with a deep longing toward significance, meaning, contribution, worship.

I want the latter, but I am ruled by the former. Detachment is letting go of the wanting of certain things to happen.

“There are markers” Jackie said. “That we can cling to. One, you write for God because he has created you to do this. Because it is your act of worship and your spiritual life. Whether or not a single soul reads what you’ve written – you write.”

“Next, I want you to close your eyes,” Jackie continued directing me, her hand conducting my heart like a musician. “I want you to imagine what it would be like if you won every bit of success and accolade possible. What does that look like? How does that feel for you?”

She waited for a moment. I knew an answer was not required.

“Now I want you to imagine that you are writing, and writing from your heart for God and that no one ever reads a single word. What does that feel like to you?”

I knew immediately my emotions over the final scenario: despair. It is not the right answer, but it is the ugly truth. The idea of my writing being only a hobby, only a pass time that my daughter ambles over disinterestedly one day, makes my stomach knot with anxiety.

“I know what each of those feel like,” I said, opening my eyes.

Jackie nodded her head, “And that is the reality of where you are at this moment. That is what you can take to God and show him. Go from there.”

We waited together for a moment and somewhere in the passing of time I remember these beautiful words:

“In the end, we don’t want to do things out of fear. Rather we want to be drawn by God.” Oh, to be drawn by God, rather than driven by the fear of inadequacy.

“You should not be afraid to pour into this area your life, Christin,” she said. “Because it is the wellspring of your spiritual health.”

In the end, she read this verse over me, “For it is by grace you [Christin] have been [given writing], through faith – and this is not from yoursel[f]. It is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Amen and Amen.

Open Salon Times Two

2009-09-30T23:22:00.001-07:00

Well, it's been an exciting week for me over at Open Salon. Last week, I wrote a post about White Privilege and the way that TV continues to perpetuate that privilege. Immediately, my post was an Editor's Pick, then put up on the cover of Open Salon, and from there a lively and somewhat heated debate followed.

Today's post is a little less controversial, but hopefully just as interesting. I've written about our "starter-friends," the collection of people we meet when we first go to college or high school or work. These friends ease us into the water of community and send us on our way, but don't usually end up becoming our best-friends, or even long-term friends.

You can check it all out here.

Thanks for your support and for reading!

Weeds

2009-09-17T20:00:00.000-07:00

"Hey Christina... I remember u mentioning u could get some weed...im going to a cubs game 2morrow and could use some. Do u have any? Thanks."

I got that text at 7:12 last night.

Contrary to what you might think, I don't in fact know how to get my hands on weed. I know, I know, shocking.

At first I thought it was just a random "wrong number" text, akin to the text I had gotten last week from "Tony" who met me at the club.

But then it was strange that "Christina," the weed supplier, had a name so dangerously close to mine.

"I mean it would be one thing if she had written, 'Ashley, I remember u mentioning u could get some weed.'" I said to Dwayne. "But it's a little unnerving that her name is 'Christina.'"

For a split second, and I mean a very SPLIT second, I thought I was living some sort of movie nightmare when you suddenly realize you have multiple personalities and that "Christina" hasn't aged in the last ten years and that she is in fact, YOU. Was I dealing drugs in a clandestine, double life?

But no, when do I have time for a double life? Truly? Right after Noelle goes to bed? On laundry day? Or do I squeeze it in between my teaching schedule?

Later on, as Dwayne and I were lying in bed chatting, it hit me. Like the pieces of a CSI case slipping together, I suddenly realized -- the sender's name had shown up on my phone.

"Wait, wait, wait!" I said jolting up in bed. "C---'s name wouldn't have shown up on my phone if she wasn't in my phone book?" And as soon as the words left my mouth I knew who it was.

It was a C-----, from church.

How does that saying go? "Beware your sins will find you out." :-)

Dwayne and I laughed and laughed until we fell asleep.

Of course, she meant to send the text to Christina, but had accidentally hit "send to Christin" instead. How horrified would she be if she knew what she had done?

I imagined C---- waiting to hear back from Christina, cursing the air, then getting anxious and worried. Why wasn't she texting back? Was Christina mad? Was she snubbing? Where else could she find some weed at such short notice?

Today, I decided to put C---- out of her misery.

I texted back, "How was the Cubs game?"

Our College Sound Track

2009-09-15T23:02:00.000-07:00

I'll be posting here on Words on the Side very soon. For now, if you'd like to read more you can pop on over to Open Salon and read my post about the music we listen to in college and the way it impacts our "growing up,"

Click here to read.

Thanks for checking in!

Christin

Autumn on a College Campus

2009-09-09T20:53:00.000-07:00

I love the onset of Fall on a college campus. While nature is closing out the signs of life, we are just beginning!

Check out my post about autumnal campuses at Open Salon!

Thanks for reading!

The Fires

2009-09-03T13:37:00.000-07:00

In the summer, the foothills are shrouded in smog, literally hidden by a curtain of murky air. In the winter they are crystal clear. The lines of the green crests and valleys cuts a gorgeous horizon across blue skies.

In the Fall, the foothills are stalked by smoke. One burning plume after another crouches over their shoulders.

MomStrengths

2009-08-25T13:28:00.000-07:00

The truth about our strengths is that we don't always know what they are. Dr. Chip Anderson dedicated his life to helping people discover and maximize their strengths through an aptitude test called Gallup Strength Finders. He writes that when people have a particular strength they are able to do what that strength enables them to do with great ease. Often times, we assume that others are capable of doing what we do. And so Chip writes that we "don't think that there is anything special about [us] or that [we] have any particular strength or talent."

I'm lucky enough to be a part of a community that gave me a language for my strengths at a pivatol time in my life. Consider the point in time when I took the Strength Finders test:

I was twenty-six, on a marriage retreat with my husband, and working at a film financing firm in Beverly Hills as an executive assistant. I went to work everyday butchering myself over to-do lists, filing systems, travel logistics, and calendar items. I had just left a job as a secretary at a church and landed my first position in the film industry, so I was extatic and determined to MAKE THIS THING WORK! If I over looked certain details on my boss's travel itenerary, I would just work harder the next day to master this slippery job which seemed always to be out of my competency.

I remember going to Mosaic and hearing one of the navigators say, "Strength Finders will change your life." I laughed. I thought, "Seriously, you shouldn't say those sort of generalities from a platform."

But after a weekend away with Dwayne, having learned his strengths, then my strengths, and how they worked together, I woke up to a crushing realiztion.

"I have to find a new job," I told Dwayne in the car ride home. I realized after that weekend, that I would never be more than mediocre as an executive assistant, because it played to all my weaknesses. And furthermore, my particular set of strengths had no value in that type of work environment.

Here's what I brought to the table - my strengths in order:

Empathy

Includer

Communication

Connectedness

Ideation

I won't bore you with the details of what exactly each of these terms mean, but let's just say that Gallup encourages someone with these particular strengths to pursue teaching and/or writing - not secretarial work.

So thanks to Mosaic and Gallup, I have been given a language to identify the particular strengths I bring to my marriage, to my workplace, but a new arena has opened up for me in these last two years where I'm struggling to see just exactly how my strengths manifest - motherhood.

I was thinking about this today as I drove home from a weekly playdate with a new mom friend. I am surrounded my mom friends who blow me away. It's easy for me to see how each of my mom friends excells as a mother and to see her own particular strengths manifest in motherhood.

Take for example my mom friend from Albania. Before she had three children under three, she studied as a lawyer and as you can imagine has an incredible mind.

And so her particular strength as a mother manifests itself in the way she teaches her children and trains their minds. Everyday she does a school lesson with them, and a Bible lesson. And she thinks critically about every little thing that may influence their minds: music, TV, toys, books.

My other friend in Santa Monica, is a bright source of energy and ideas. Not only does she come up with ingenious ways to stimulate her daughter's growing senses and mind, but she is a people magnet. Women flock to her and she has used this strength to be a resource for other mom's. She started a mom's group that quickly outgrew her living room and thrives to this day, as well as a baby music class, and each week she's trying new and exciting things with her daughter, leading the way for us other mom's to follow.

Her particular strength as a mom is creating networks and resources that help us all to be better mom's.

Another friend, who has been a huge influence on me as a mother has the ability to lead her children. She has always had a plan and stuck to it. She has found one or two books to help guide her as she guides her children, and the fruits of her dedication are evident. I want to say that her kids are well-behaved, and they are, but that's not the essence of what she's done right. Because I don't think having perfect, shiny little cherubs is healthy for the children. Her kids still goof off and get in trouble, but their hearts are open and sensitive. They listen to their parents and they have an absolute sense of security in their parent's authority. There is an intangible victory my friend has won as a mother and is fighting to win everyday. She's fighting for her children's hearts and spirits.

Her particular strength is a practical wisdom about training her children's hearts.

I could go down the list and name the rest of my mom friends, but I point out these three to say that I doubt these mom's see or realize their own strengths. I think their own values and world view are so intrinsic to their being that they don't fully comprehend what particular gift they have to offer to motherhood and their children.

But I see it, and I am hungry to know how my strengths manifest themselves in motherhood. Because it's hard to see your own nose. I choose to believe, despite the anxiety and fear in my heart, that I AM a good mother and that I offer to Noelle a unique gift in myself.

But the practical fall-out of this gift is two-fold:

1) Recognizing and maximizing the strengths I have in the particular arena of motherhood.

2) Not neglecting the lessons I can learn from the other brilliant mom's around me, and allowing their strengths to both enrich my daughter's life and to strengthen me as a mother.

Premonitions

2009-08-17T20:46:00.001-07:00

Last night I dreamed many things. It was one of those nights with lots of dreams jumbled in on one another, some disturbing, others inane, none of them particularly interesting.

BUT today two of the dreams I had last night came true!? It was bizarre and a little bit unnerving.

The first dream was about our new tea pot. It's a story not really worth repeating, as most dreams aren't, but let me just tell you that what I dreamed about our new bright cobalt tea pot came true this morning when Dwayne went to pour our tea.

I was so shocked, I actually told Dwayne about the dream.

The second dream was about a Day Care for Noelle. This past month I've spent quite a bit of time on-line, on the phone, and on tours trying to find a Preschool for Noelle to attend this Fall when I go back to work.

One of the Preschools is called Kindercare, but since it was way out of my price range I never visited it, and I never found out where it was. But I've heard quite a few moms and other preschool directors refer to it.

In my dream, I was in the car with Noelle and a Preschool director. We were driving down a street and the woman pointed out the window, "That's Kindercare," she said. I looked to my right and saw a school behind a gate with a big sign.

This morning, Noelle and I were running an errand and I took a route I've never taken before. I just about slammed on the breaks when I looked out of my right window and saw a gated school with a big sign: "Kindercare."

Honestly, it made me sort of nervous. I immediately started rolling through my dreams, trying to recall any I should be prepared for. But besides that, I don't want anything to do with mind-reading, future reading, palm-reading, dream-reading etc. I want my dreams to stay firmly in my sleep, and my reality to stay firmly in my day.

Has anyone had a dream come true like this?

The Kindness of Strangers

2009-08-12T13:41:00.000-07:00

I sat in the Frontier terminal, stunned. What had the flight attendant just said?

She pressed the mouth piece to her face again, repeating, "Flight 415 to Los Angeles has been cancelled. Please make your way to the Customer Service desk for your re-accommodations."

We had gotten to the airport extra early that morning, and my mind flitted through our last four hours of waiting. Noelle had been taken with everything. Like a ping pong ball she bounced from attraction to attraction: the moving walkways, the magazine stands, the baggage holders, the phones behind the check-in desk. How on earth was I supposed to stand in a customer service line and keep my daughter still?

"Good luck," said a sun-tanned college guy walking out of the customer service office. "That line took me three hours." My stomach dropped. Noelle squirreled around me pretending to take a nap on the terminal floor with her blanket. She flipped and flopped like a salmon, occasionally whapping the heels of the man in front of us.

I apologized a couple of times when I saw him glance back and shuffle forward irritated, but really, what was I supposed to do? I was just glad that she was staying close to me. She was a toddler for goodness sakes, and here I was about to make her stand in a three hour line.

"Just pull the mom card," my friend advised over the phone. "Really, Christin, you need help."

I nodded and hung up the phone. I watched as workers with green Frontier vests buzzed in and out of the office.

"How many today?" one worker asked another.

"Twelve have been cancelled so far."

I noticed a woman who seemed to be in charge. She was petite with brown hair and just as she was passing me, I summoned the courage to grab her arm.

"Excuse me," I said. She turned toward me with a blank expression. "I'm traveling alone with my toddler. Is there anyway I could get extra help?" Her blank expression continued and I realized I needed something else, some other reason to invoke her help.

I glanced over at a mom and new born baby sitting comfortably next to the office door. The mother was dabbing her eyes with a Kleenex as a kind middle-aged worker walked her through some papers.

I turned back to the supervisor, "I'm feeling a little emotional and stressed out by all the changes."

As if I had flipped a switch, the supervisor reached out and took my arm. "Oh honey, you just come with me." She lead me to another line for special cardholders and members, which was only two people long.

"Thank you," I said feeling the push of anxiety ease, but the worst hadn't come yet. I still wasn't home.

The lady behind the counter was of course overworked and stressed out. She didn't know where to look to help me, and the best she could come up with was a flight at 10pm on a different airline that would require Noelle and I to not only wait another seven hours but to take a train to another part of the airport and re-check in.

I felt the clouds of dizzy roll in again, and my chest constrict. I took my new tickets and moved out of the line, back to the terminal.

We had half the day, so I took a moment to gather myself. Noelle and I dropped our bags in some empty seats, and I scanned the people around us. My eye caught a sign for a gate across the hallway, "Los Angeles 5:50pm."

There is something called "Serendipity", and then there is something else called "asking." You never know what will happen if you ask, if you push and nose around just a little bit. Sometimes the act of asking is just enough to open the door to let serendipity in.

I scurried over to the gate check. A young fair-skinned attendant was walking out of the tunnel toward the desk. "Excuse me," I stepped in his way.

Trying not to be too obnoxious or overly frantic, I quickly explained my situation. I pointed to Noelle who was busy investigating the planes through the massive glass windows and then asked him, "Do you think there is anyway I could just hang around, see if there are any empty seats on this flight?"

"I just finished a flight and I have to take care of all these people waiting on me," he said shortly and pushed past me.

I heard a man behind me grunt his approval, "Mm-hm."

Until this point, I had kept the flutter of tears at bay, but this unfortunately was more than I could take. I was trying so hard to be calm, to hold myself together, but something about a stranger being unkind when I was already so stressed out punctured my composure.

I picked Noelle up and promptly began to cry. There was nowhere to turn where people couldn't see me, but I managed to hide behind a life-sized cardboard cutout of a flight attendant waving cheerfully at the passing crowds.

In a moment of unbearable cuteness, Noelle saw me crying, smiled and then hugged my neck with her chubby little arms.

When things dried up a bit, I turned back to the gate check. I was totally stumped. Should I just pack up my things, and take the train ride to the other part of the airport and wait for the flight that had been given me, or should I push and ask for something better?

Two things are true about myself: 1) I tend toward the sensitive side and am prone to verbalize every single emotion I feel, but 2) when all the tears or exhaustion or anger have been unleashed, there is a resilience at my core. I bounce back.

And so I did exactly this, bounce back to the gate check, though it was more like a slink. The gruff young attendant was typing away on his computer and as far as I could tell, no one was waiting for his help.

"I'm sorry to keep bothering you," I rushed in, "But I just need to know, do you think it's worth me staying or should I just go now?"

He looked up, saw my tear streaked face, Noelle quietly chewing on her finger, and welcomed me with a rush of warmth.

"I'll take care of you!" he said. "Just you sit down there and get yourself together and I'll sort everything out."

What is there about an emotionally distressed woman that culls people's sympathy? I mean truly, wasn't it enough that I was traveling alone with a toddler? Did I also have to be a basket case for the supervisor and this flight attendant to help?

But oh well, if that's what I had to do to get home, then let the tears flow.

I sat down with Noelle, sniffling, sighing, nodding my head and saying "thank you" profusely. In a few minutes, the young man came back with some papers. I dabbed my eyes with a kleenex.

"Okay, I've put you number two on the standby list. You just wait here and take it easy."

Sure enough, there were plenty of empty seats on the plane back to Los Angeles. So many flights had been cancelled that day, people were missing their connections and chaos was reigning through the Frontier terminal.

As a result, I got on the plane with an extra seat for Noelle (which I hadn't paid for in our original tix) and I sat next to the sweetest Morman Grandmother who showered us with snacks and treats and good advise.

Not to mention this cosmic bit of luck:

"Christin!" I turned around to see one of my sister's friends from Azusa Pacific University standing on the plane. "What are you doing here?" We gave each other a big hug and I felt myself ease into the gift of a familiar face, and the kindness of strangers.

Put the Pig Down

2009-07-13T21:48:00.000-07:00

I found myself caught in a conversation with one of Noelle's finger puppets the other day. It was slightly disturbing - my inability to let the conversation drop once Noelle wasn't interested anymore. She toddled off and I sat arguing with her little pink pig wiggling back and forth on my finger.

It began this way: Noelle sat at her little table. I sat beside her, slightly bored, unsure of how to play with her.

I remember talking with my friend, Rosie Bills, who has the joy of staying home with her little ones. She said to me, "Sometimes, I think about going back to work, but then I have such good days with them.." She trailed off and looked at her nine month old baby boy wiggling on the floor. A smile crept across her face.

"What makes a good day?" I asked.

"Well, I just have really fun playtimes with them" and I forget the rest of what she said. I just remember thinking that I didn't know what that felt like. That it has been hard for me to just relax into playing with Noelle. It's like the engine of my imagination is cob-webbed and rusty.

But then, I also worked nearly full-time without child care last semester. I was pretty stressed out. I worked when Noelle was asleep, and when she was awake, I felt my blood pressure rise and rise with the pile of neglected papers to be graded.

Now it's summer break. I have no classes to teach. No papers to grade. Just the delicious feeling of being present in her waking hours, no to-do lists ticking through my mind.

So I sat next to her on the floor, nervous, scanning the room, like a girl making a new friend. "I hope she likes me. I hope I'm not too boring."

In a flash of inspiration, I picked up her little pink piglet off the floor and pushed it down on my finger. The piglet popped up over the side of the table. Noelle giggled. I started up a conversation.

"Well, Noelle, Piglet, this is what we're going to do this afternoon..." both watched me with anticipation. "We're going to color for a bit, then mommy is going to put out the pork chops to thaw for dinner tonight."

The pig was outraged.

"How could you!?" she squeaked in a voice the size of her little body. Noelle squealed and laughed out loud.

"Oh piglet, don't be offended. I'm sure the pork chops weren't related to you."

"But really?! You didn't have the decency to keep quiet about it in front of me?"

With each outraged exclamation, Noelle laughed harder and harder. I was on a roll. The pig and I went back and forth like this, arguing over the meal. Before I knew it, I was engaged in a full-on reasoning match with...my finger.

"Why don't you just have something else for dinner?" the pig asked impatiently.

"'Cause I don't have anything else planned!"

I almost didn't notice that Noelle had stopped laughing or that she was getting up and walking away. It wasn't until she was at the toy box, half way across the room, her back turned to me, that I realized I couldn't leave the argument with the puppet unresolved.

But as irony would have it, and as you already know, the puppet was me.

Auckland, 2

2009-07-07T21:28:00.000-07:00

We got back from New Zealand yesterday morning at 8 and I have been pushing my way through the days like wading through a sand pit. I don't remember feeling this weary going to New Zealand. Something about flying against the rotation of the sun must be especially unnatural for the body.

This morning, I was so tired I decided just to sit in the comfy pink rocker in Noelle's room and watch her play. Before long she climbed up on my lap. Then eventually she swiveled around and laid down on my legs facing up and played peek-a-boo with me. Like a wind up toy running out of torque she slowed down, slowed down, and finally one of the peek-a's never became a boo. I looked down to find that she had dozed off. We both slept for two hours - it was delicious.

My sister is now married and on her honeymoon tucked away somewhere in the Northern end of the North Island. Watching my little sister get married and move half way around the world was a fantastic roller coaster.

I left for the trip all bound up and anxious, tearful and grieving. I have returned happy, filled with quiet joy.

Being in New Zealand allowed me to see the life my sister has built for herself. On one hand, this made me sad. While parts of New Zealand remind me of our childhood in England, in the end, my sister's life will be foreign to me. Her husband is South African/Kiwi. Her kids are going to grow up Kiwi. Because of the time difference I'll only be able to talk to her on weekends, and perhaps only see her once every couple years. Her children will grow in leaps and bounds before I get to know them, if I ever truly get to know them. Hence other women will have to step in and fill the big sister role in my sister's life.

But on the other hand, I fell in love with Annie's life. Her city is beautiful and inviting. Her in-laws are some of the most special people I've ever met. The church where she attends, East City Wesleyan, bent over backwards to provide Annie a beautiful wedding. We will never be able to repay all the hard work those men and women and teenagers put into decorating, cooking, arranging, and hosting. They thought of every little thing, even for Dwayne Noelle and I. Little considerations, like the beautiful tea set the pastor's wife brought Noelle, made it hard not to melt into their Kiwi hospitality. (Noelle is now and expert tea pourer.)

Witnessing all of these things put my heart at ease. Allowed a satisfaction and joy to open up.

On the way home, Dwayne sat next to two passengers and heard a little about their life. They shared with him how they each had family all over the world. Admittedly, Annie's in-laws are spread across South Africa, England and New Zealand. My new found friend across the alley is Albanian and is the only one from her family that lives in the United States.

"I think it's more and more common for families to be more global," Dwayne said to me once we got home. I can see the truth in this. We're not the only ones with family oceans apart. Perhaps we're just joining that global community where international travel has become the new "road trip" to visit Aunt Annie and Uncle Graeme.

Auckland, 1

2009-06-28T20:30:00.000-07:00

Water is beading on the sun room windows. It is cold in this beautiful city of Auckland. Not freezing, but just cold enough to make you shiver and then to make things even chillier the homes are not heated, so that you can't leave the cold outside, it follows you. Little heaters buzz at angles in the middle of each room, trying valiantly to take away the chill.

Yesterday, it was so warm in the sun room, I sat in the sun like a cloudy version of my own being, desperate to be warmed up. I drank in the sunbeams, and in doing so, I drank in the past.

Nearly twenty years ago I lived in a house with a sun room. I remember discovering it the day we moved in. The windows were lined with thick white insulation, and the heat in the middle of the afternoon was delicious. From that room you could see the pond in our new backyard, the swing set, and an abandoned corner of the lawn where bushes curled over on themselves creating the perfect den for secret girls-only parties.

The yard outside this sunroom in Aukland is inviting in a similar way. From here I can see a little girl's playhouse, and through the large window on the side of the playhouse, I see that it is stocked with all the perfect little girl toys. A small table and chairs, a little cabinet for dishes, a broom, a sunny yellow rug.

Curled over one corner of the play house is an orange tree, which has dropped fruit like precious jems.

Yesterday, my twenty-month-old daughter, Noelle, toddled around the playhouse, grasping tiny oranges in her mittens. Like a trained reflex I bent over her, “Don’t pick that up!” but as soon as the words left my mouth I realized how absurd it sounded. I stopped for a moment, forced myself to unwind.

There aren’t many things, really any things, I will allow my daughter to pick off the ground around our townhouse in Los Angeles. Mostly, it’s trash or covered in oil trickling down driveways. It’s not safe for her to get dirty there.

But here, as I watched her rub dirt from an orange down the front of her tan coat, I breathe a steady sigh of relief. Harmless, it will wash off. This is a kind of dirt I’m used to, the kind of dirt I used to get into when we lived in the house with the sun room.

I was ten years old then. Quite a bit older than Noelle, but as is the case now, I wasn't in America. Our home with the sun room and the pond was in England.

Annie and I frequently raced along the backyard with our neighborhood friends, scrambling through homemade obstacle courses. These courses included obstacles such as, scaling the stone wall that lined our back yard, jumping over the pond, swinging on the swing set twenty times and skidding for the home stretch to our den of bushes.

No doubt we were covered in dirt by the end.

Back then she had light brown curly hair and gaps in her smile from missing teeth. She was only eight. Now she is twenty-seven, and her teeth have all come in. :-) And her hair is still curly, but high-lighted with pretty blond streaks.

She is why I'm in Auckland, sitting in this sun room, sinking into my past.

Annie has fallen in love with a New Zealander and will be married in two weeks.

The Descent into Insanity

2009-06-12T17:46:00.000-07:00

Today, we thought Noelle had dislocated one or both of her shoulders.

On our way out to the zoo with Grammy, Grandpa and Noelle, I walked out of the house to find Noelle draped from her father's shoulders by the wrists. The minute she saw me she began whimpering. Dwayne let her go and I took her. At which point she began crying.

I put her in her car seat thinking she was just having a fussy morning, and watched as she curled into a ball, her arms limp at her sides. Big tears rolling down her cheeks.

We barreled down the freeway and I pestered Noelle with silly games, trying to get her to lift her arms. An anxious knot was tying in my stomach.

"Noelle, where is your eye?" She wouldn't respond just cried. "Let's sing 'The Wheels on the Bus'." Still no movement. "We're going to the zoo. Guess what you're going to see?" Finally she calmed down and looked at me with big red eyes. "You're going to see Reggie the Alligator! What do Alligator's do?"

Really this was a dirty trick. It's a game Noelle and I play based on one of her favorite books. I ask her, "What do Alligator's do?" And then she raises her little hand and rubs her chubby fingers together in an effort to snap. "That's right they snap!" I say and show her with my own fingers.

But this time, Noelle tried to lift her little hand and immediately melted into a heap of tears, dropping her arm back down to her side.

"Dwayne, I'm really worried," I said.

"Well, lift up her arm," Dwayne instructed. I gritted my teeth and lifted Noelle's wrist.

She wailed.

We called the doctor, who told us to go to the ER, and then gave us faulty directions to the ER. I thought I was going to crawl out of my skin, as we waited at each stoplight, rolled behind slow drivers, and then back-tracked over wrong streets to get to the Hospital.

My mother-in-law and father-in-law were in no better shape. Grammy was tearing up and Grandpa kept turning around to hold Noelle's foot.

In the meantime, Noelle sunk into sleep, as if the pain was too much and it was just easier to drift away. She slept for about 15 minutes, until we finally reached the hospital. Dwayne pulled her out gingerly.

She cried some more, her arms hanging limp on either side, and buried her face into his shoulder.

"I think my daughter's shoulders or elbows are dislocated," I said, like a madwoman. Dwayne shuffled in behind me with Noelle, followed by Grammy and Grandpa. We filled out the papers and took our seat in the waiting room.

I knew that I couldn't sit and wait. My heart was pounding, my nerves were jumping. "I'm going to the bathroom." I said to Dwayne and marched down the hall.

When I returned I found Noelle sitting on Dwayne's lap, bright as sunshine. She lifted and arm and grabbed the chair. Dwayne's head snapped up and we locked eyes.

"Noelle, where's your eye?" Dwayne asked. She lifted her little hand and pointed to her eye. A grin broke across her face.

We watched as Noelle proceeded to touch her eyes and her head with both arms. Dwayne suddenly laughed. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

A strange ball of emotion broke inside of me. First relief washed over me. Then confusion. The embarrassment. Then frustration. What was going on? Had this all been a mistake? Had I imagined it? Was I that over dramatic that I would drag my family to the ER for a few tears? "Lord," I thought, "I'm loosing it!"

We clamored back into the car, without seeing a doctor. "Did I imagine it?" I asked Grammy and Grandpa.

"No. No!" they chimed back. "No she was definitely in pain," my father-in-law responded.

Is this what motherhood feels like? The early onset of Alzheimer's? Reality slipping away from you? Your emotions whipping over things you don't know ever existed?

We went on to the Zoo, had a picnic, saw the bear, and the tiger, and the dragons of komodo.

We walked out of the lemur exhibit one at a time. Noelle tottered out holding Dwayne's hand and I straggled behind. I looked up just in time to watch as my daughter suddenly threw a tantrum. She arched her spine, and threw her head back with such force that she fell backwards from a standing position and landed on her head on the cement with a thump so loud everyone in the exhibit spun around.

I just about threw up.

Tonight, I'm laughing convulsively.

Tomorrow, I'll be in a white jacket.

Stew

2009-06-05T21:48:00.000-07:00

Contributed by Annie Wright

*Note from Christin: Three years ago, my sister moved to New Zealand to work with Global Partners. We poked and teased her that she would meet a man in New Zealand and fall in love - and she did. On July 4th, she and Graeme Els will be married in Aukland, and we'll be there to help celebrate. *

Two nights ago I enjoyed a nice meal of lamb-chops with mashed potatoes, green beans, squash and gravy. Immediately following the meal my future mother-in-law began preparing for the following night's meal. The aroma of which, I'm sorry to say, triggered my gag reflex.

But who am I to doubt her culinary skills?

Rewind a couple of days. On the night of my arrival I was very gently and lovingly told that my presence in this household meant the absence of all things fish or seafood. I was very grateful and made sure to thank my host for her accomodation of my appetite.

Fast forward. The gag reflex was continually put to use yesterday as I made my way around the house, with the unknown ingredients simmering slowly in the crock-pot. Attempting to be helpful, I stirred the contents to ensure that all would be well marinated, each time surpressing my desire to dispose of this concoction with its medicated meat smell.

What was this unusual smell? I will call it "stew."

Finally, evening had arrived and with it an unfortunate dilemma. The table was set and food was steaming, ready to be served and eaten. Just as my future mother-in-law was heaping a hearty helping of "stew" onto my plate, I courageously asked for a smaller portion. "I can only manage a little right now. By the way, what is this that you have prepared?"

Then with three words I was silenced, thrown into sprialing darkness.

"Steak and Kidney..."


S   I   L   E   N   C   E

And here now was my dilemma: Offend my future mother-in-law in one of two ways. 1. Eat the undesirable "stew" with the possibility of having it reappear on her dining room floor or 2. Eat everything around the "stew" but leave a significant amount of the main course on the plate.

"It's an English meal. Phillip's favorite."

Again I wanted to vomit, not only was I dealing with the smell that was now penetrating my nose, stomach and gut, not only would I offend my future mother-in-law, but I had to face the horror of alienating myself from my favorite future father-in-law.

"I suppose I should have asked..." Her words trailed off. By this point the other three people at the table were face down guzzling the "stew" from their plates.

They ALL liked it. Not one of them was completely disgusted by the "food." Did they not know that the kidney is the organ that takes WASTE from BLOOD and turns it into urine?!?

I was completely and utterly alone in my disgust. Attempting one bite, the fork flung from my mouth, still loaded with food.

"It's hot."

Blink. Blink.

M O R E   S I L E N C E

But the torture didn't end. Because of my choice for dilemma option two, I was the first to be finished eating. There sat my "stew" staring up at me devilishly. Threatening to punch my gut if I even looked at the bare rice or peas sitting quietly across the table. I was forced to stare in agony as the remaining four slopped up their fill greedily.

I fought hard the resentment I felt towards my future husband as he heaped a generous second helping onto his plate. Knowing he would desire a good night kiss, kidney stained teeth and all.

Didn't he see the agony I was in?! Why wasn't he rescuing me?

Under his breath he said, "You alright?"

To which I could give him no words, just a very slight shake of the head.

Tears were sitting just behind the surface of my eyes waiting for anything to give.

Then, quietly, as quickly as my future mother-in-law had thrown me into this tail spin and agony, she gently reached out her hand toward my plate and said,

"Why don't you let me finish that for you, Annie?"

Humbly, I handed her my plate.

I vowed sliently to myself and later to Graeme that I would never be offended if he were to ask his mom to forever make him steak and kidney anything, because he would never receive such a meal from me.

One of the Reasons I like My Work

2009-05-07T08:59:00.000-07:00

I stood at the front of the class, getting the movie set up, when Richard walked in.

I wasn't surprised. I'd asked for him to be there, just as back up in case I had any technical difficulties. He sailed to the front of the classroom, "So what are we doing here?" he asked with that particular flair. Richard is shorter than I am with a gently wrinkled face. He is uninhibited, talks louder than he should and is utterly endearing.

"Well, I don't need you after all," I said pointing to the screen where the DVD menu was playing. "I figured it out!"

"Well, good!" he retorted and swaggered over to my desk to look at the various plugs and outlets. "Now this plate right here," he pointed delicately, "it can get loose and short out your whole system." Richard likes to give me the rundown of the electronics in my classroom. Basically he just likes to socialize.

"So what are they watching?" he asked pointing at the screen.

"It's a movie about immigration post-9/11."

"Oh," he said raising his eyebrows knowingly. "You know I was just over in the psychology department and we were talking about all sorts of crazy things."

"Really?" I said, noticing the minute hand on the clock ticking closer to class time.

He moved toward me and looked up into my face, "Have you heard of Jean Bennett?" he asked earnestly.

"Uh, the little girl that got kidnapped?" it was getting close to start time.

"Yes, they never found her body." I wasn't sure where this was going, but suddenly he leaned in very close, tilted his head down and looked at me from under his brow, "If I say Nazi Mind Control do you know what I mean?"

I supressed a giggle. The students were rustling in the background. "No."

"I'll write this down for you," he moved toward the desk then stopped. "No you'll remember it," and he waved his hand at me in jedi fashion. He pointed to one finger at a time and pronounced each word very carefully. "M - K - Ulta - Monarch. Look it up! It will blow your mind."

"On google?" I asked.

He started working his way back through the rows of desks. "Blow your mind! You wont believe the stuff you find!"

Just another day at the office.

I Spoke to Donald Miller Today

2009-04-21T13:09:00.000-07:00

I spoke to Donald Miller today. Dwayne put me up to it.

Donald spoke in chapel at APU so Noelle and I buzzed on over to listen. I really enjoyed it. Donald has an unconventional take on Christianity, he's authentic, funny, and a good writer. Also he writes creative nonfiction!

"Just tell him as a creative nonfiction writer, you enjoy his work," Dwayne coached me. It seemed harmless enough, so even though I already felt the burn of embarrassment, I moseyed on over to the cluster of college students surrounding him. Dwayne followed beaming from ear to ear. He's such a good cheer leader.

"Hey, should I tell him about the article I'm writing?" I asked, leaning into Dwayne.

"Sure!" he retorted.

The thought came to mind because that morning Donald had chosen nudity as his topic for chapel. He talked about the passage from Genesis that says, "And they were naked and did not feel ashamed."

As it happens, I'm currently writing an article for Ungrind about an evening I spent naked at a Korean Day Spa, and the revelations it brought me regarding vulnerability. In fact, the whole time Donald was talking I was taking mental notes. He'll probably turn up in the story somewhere.

So for better or worse, I dove into the bodies swimming around Donald and walked up with Noelle strapped to my back.

From beginning to end I'm embarrassed of the conversation. When I have to think on the spot like that, I think in a fog. It's like my mind slows down, half speed and my words betray me.

I share all of this conversation with you, because sharing purges the embarrassment, right?

"I want to tell my daughter ten years from now that she met Donald Miller."

Stop. Right. There. Who is Donald Miller? Bono? The Dali Lama? The President? I shake my head already.

He grinned sweetly and leant over to look at Noelle who promptly gave him the cold shoulder.

"Ah, she won't look at me," he said.

"Well I just wanted to tell you that I'm a creative nonfiction writer..."

Wait. Wait. Wait. Dwayne's version was so much more gracious, so much less obnoxious and self-important, "As a creative nonficiton writer, I enjoy your work."

His eyebrows lifted, the corners of his mouth turned down, he nodded his head to say, "Is that so?"

"And I really enjoy your work."

"Thanks,"

"And I just wanted to mention that I happen to be writing an article on nudity."

"On what?" He leaned his head in, the students around us were talking very loudly and the nuances of my words were getting lost. Or at least, that's what I told myself.

"Nudity!"

"Oh!" He snapped his head back.

"On a night I spent at a Korean Day Spa." He interrupted me.

"Oh, like David Sedaris. He wrote about his weekend at a nudist colony." I nodded my head, but inside I was panicking. I wanted him to understand that I wasn't just telling him about my article on nudity for the sake of nudity, but because there's a deeper meaning there. A theme that is going to be informed by his talk, but I didn't get that far - I laughed awkwardly. "Yeah."

Great, now he thinks I was a pervert mom, with a baby on her back.

"Well, I really love your work." I said. Not totally true. I really enjoyed his first book. I haven't read his most famous, "Blue Like Jazz." And Love is a word I would reserve for Anne Lamott's work, or Annie Dillard's, or Joan Didion's. But still, I really like his stuff.

"Well, I love writing it."

Oh how the words just kept flowing out of my mouth unchecked.

"I'm sure you do! I'm so jealous of your life!"

It was written all over his face - disbelief. He looked down at Noelle and back at me, and there was no time for back peddling. The man has never been in a relationship. He's thirty years old and single, and while he has a very successful career, I absolutely would not trade my life for his. He knew it, I knew it, but the words were already out and another student was already moving in for their piece.

This is why Donald is successful. He is honest even when it hurts him, even when it makes his readers uncomfortable. I could see it on his face in that second. He would not let me romanticize his life. He would not let me turn him into a celebrity.

Bad Mom Moment

2009-03-15T23:00:00.000-07:00

So every mom has a collection of moments that they carry with them as solemn reminders not to be "that-sort-of-mom." I have dubbed them Bad Mom Moments. Moments when your guard goes down, when you have a lapse of judgement, a blip of insanity, and you do or allow things that you would never otherwise do or allow. Moments that make you spin on an axis and swear up and down to never be so stupid again.

All of my Bad Mom Moments have happened while I was talking to other people, basically socializing. I have this inability to listen to a person talk while also managing Noelle. I pride myself on being a multi-tasker, but all of my secretarial skills fail me when it comes to conversing. I get engrossed. I like to look at people while their talking to me. I like to give them affirmations like "uh-huhs" and "I see's" to let them know that I am fully engaged, fully with them. But as a consequence I'm not fully engaged with Noelle.

I'll open my sack and share with you a few of my Bad Mom Moments.

Classic - I was eating lunch at a friends house just after a mom's Bible Study. Noelle was probably about 10 months old. A few of the moms and their babies were hanging around. We were all eating, feeding our little ones, and chatting. I was chowing down on a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich while Noelle sat happily eating bread chunks at the Baby table. She couldn't yet walk, but she was big enough to sit at the table and munch. I was gabbing away with my friend Erika, when I heard the all-time classic line, "You're baby's playing with a knife."

I turned around to see baby Noelle waving the butter knife I'd left behind after cutting up her bread.

So Sorry - I was sitting at my friend Rosie's house for a morning cup of tea and chat. The kids were romping around the living room and Rosie's rock star brother-in-law was in town. We were drinking our chais talking and I, like a good responsible mother, set my tea down on the floor next to the chair.

I remember that I was mid-sentence, talking to Rosie's brother-in-law when I heard either him or Rosie say, "Oh, the cup!" While I was busy chatting, Noelle had picked up the cup and with perfect precision, proceeded to pour it beside my lap all over Rosie's white canvas cushions.

Heart in Your Throat - Yesterday, I took Noelle to our new favorite park. It's quite and nestled into the foothills and perfectly peaceful. We rolled up late yesterday afternoon to kill some time and energy before bed. While we were there a family of aunts, uncles, and cousins joined us. There were two other pre-toddlers, Noelle's age, and before long I was standing in a cluster with the parents chatting.

Noelle and the other kids were running back and forth along the jungle gym. I have let Noelle do this by herself because it's a very safe jungle gym. There is a bridge and a tunnel that she loves to run between, and there are only two openings in the gym where she could possibly fall. I have found it easy just to stand on the ground and pace her back and forth, spotting her whenever she gets close to the openings.

The father of one of the two-year olds laughed and said to me, "I like this park because there are only two openings to fall through!" He motioned and gestured as if he were stopping his son from slipping through the gap in the rails. I nodded and agreed, watching Noelle totter off over the bridge.

Normally, I would have walked with her, but I was talking to these nice people and she had done this a million times. So I stayed where I was a moment longer.

"At the other park," the father continued, "They have four openings on opposite sides and I can never get to all of them in time."

Just at that moment there was an outburst of screams from the other mothers at the park. I looked over just in time to see Noelle falling from the jungle gym, four feet to the wood chips. My heart leapt into my throat and I dashed over to her. One of the other mom's who was closer to her had gotten there first.

"She was just running and fell through it!" the mom said, pointing to the one opening in the gym where I hadn't been.

Noelle pushed herself up onto her hands, looked at me and then started crying. Luckily she had fallen in such a way that she didn't hit any of the railing and she landed on her feet tumbling over onto her stomach. I could tell that she wasn't hurt, but we were both frightened. The only scar was a bunch of scratches from the wood chips on her cheek.

I was so upset with myself. Certainly no other mom has ever been so careless!

Personal Hygiene

2009-03-05T09:32:00.000-08:00

Personal hygiene has become a fight. Ever since that second week of Noelle's life when Dwayne went back to work, it's been a struggle to figure out just when and how to take a shower, brush my teeth, get dressed, do my hair, and (may the gods smile upon me) put on make-up.

When Noelle was just four months old we went to Canada to visit Dwayne's parents. While there, I met Nalisa, a good friend of Dwayne's and a mom of three. She strolled into the house with her three children (under 5) buzzing around her. She was fully dressed, hair done, with make-up.

"How do you do it?" I asked in awe.

"Oh you haven't seen my uniform," she laughed. I thought she was going to tell me that she wore the same pair of jeans and t-shirt everyday. But she didn't. "My pajamas! Sometimes, 4:30 rolls around and I realize that I still haven't gotten dressed."

Getting ready has especially become a challenge for me since going back to work. Because while my freshman may show up to class in their pajamas, teaching in my pajamas with no make-up is unfortunately not an option.

The only way I can get ready is if I rush a shower in right after Dwayne is done with his, and before he has to leave for work. I have a 20 minute window. If I miss this window, then Lord help me! The clouds roll in, the tantrums collect, and all of baby-wrath lets loose.

Yesterday was that day. Dwayne had to leave early and so I had to shower on my own. I set Noelle up with her toys in the nursery, blocked off the top of the stairs, and closed the door to the bathroom. What I heard while I showered, was my little girl screaming and crying at the top of her lungs, banging her head on the bathroom door. This didn't stop once, not for the duration of my shower.

As you can imagine, I got out of the shower a sopping wet rattle of nerves.

"Why don't you just take her into the shower with you?" I hear you ask. Well, I've done it before, but to be honest, my shower is just one of my boundaries. When I'm not naked, wet, and trying to get clean, I will give my baby all of my attention. But I just have to believe that it's okay for me to take a shower on my own. The thought of having her in the shower with me makes me feel a tad bit suffocated.

There are other daily hygiene's that I'm willing to do with Noelle. This morning, I found myself brushing my teeth, bent over the sink, balancing on one foot, while I held the bathroom door shut with my other foot. I was trying to keep Noelle from escaping and falling down the stairs that are just outside our bathroom door. It was one of those out-of-body moments, where I suddenly saw myself as a cartoon. My hair a tangled mess, the baby running around in mad circles, and toothpaste dripping down my shirt.

Next time you see a mom in public with her kids, if her hair is even slightly combed, her clothes matching and for heavens sakes, if she's got on make-up, please stop and pay her a compliment. Tell her she looks nice. Pat her on the back. Give her a high-five. Buy her a candy bar. She has just won five major battles that morning, all before stepping out of the door.

Elizabeth Gilbert: A different way to think about Creative Genius

2009-02-17T13:30:00.000-08:00

This talk which Gilbert gave at TED is brilliant. It resonated with me deeply and nearly brought me to tears! It makes such sense to me that the act of creating is a divine one, one that is outside of me and a part of me all at once. A collaboration and a conversation - just as Gilbert says. I hope you enjoy this talk too!

Hairy Mistakes

2009-02-12T19:21:00.000-08:00

When I was six, someone gave me a Barbie Doll. I remember taking her in the back yard and cutting her hair. And I remember that I couldn't get it right. Her hair never looked as beautiful as I felt the scissors could make it and before I knew it, I had clipped away all her beautiful shiny curls. What was left was a stumpy mess of synthetic strands.

Twenty-three years later, I am no better. I thought I was better, until I tried to cut Noelle's hair. First of all, I don't know how straight hair behaves, so I didn't know how to cut it. Secondly, she wouldn't sit still. By the time I was done Noelle's silky straight hair was a cockeyed tussle of bangs.

I wish I had never touched it! I was immediately remorseful, just as I had been over my Barbie's hair. I think I even remember asking my mom how I could get my Barbie's hair back.

At any rate, I've vowed never to pick up the scissors again. I've learned my lesson. But that doesn't mean I don't get reminders of my mistake.

"What did you do to her hair?" Dwayne bellowed when he saw her. "That's the worst hair cut in the world!"

My sister said very politely and sweetly, "Christin, please don't cut Noelle's hair again until the wedding."

And then finally, yesterday.

I was out on a walk with Noelle. We stopped to talk to our neighbor Mike, an elderly retired gentleman. "Hello Noelle!" he said bending toward the stroller smiling. "How are you today? Oh Lord, we need to get you to the hairdressers."

Regression

2009-02-08T10:06:00.000-08:00

I think Noelle and I are trading places. While she's learning more and more about the alphabet, I'm loosing ground.

Yesterday morning, she was playing with her magnetized alphabet set on the refrigerator. As a part of the set, a big sunshine burst plays a little song every time she plugs in a letter. The song goes something like this: "P says 'Pah,' P says 'Pah,' every letter makes a sound, P says 'Pah."

Well, Noelle was plugging in her letters while Dwayne was making breakfast. I moseyed into the kitchen to throw something away. Noelle pushed the letter "Y" into her sunshine burst and the song started. I joined in and sang, "Every letter makes a sound. 'Y' says 'Kah'."

Dwayne froze, his spatula hovering over the skillet. "What did you say?"

I think I need to spend a little more time with Noelle's Alphabet Pal.

Enough

2009-01-29T14:24:00.001-08:00

For the last six years, Dwayne and I have resisted the urge to get a Costco membership. While our friends have found it doable even helpful in the financial department, and while Dwayne has always liked the kosher hot dogs for a $1.25, we refused to buy into the "$200 club."

The diapers did it. 20 cents a diaper for the Kirkland brand. Outside of clothe diapers, you'll not find a cheaper brand.

The first time I went into Costco with my little blue and white card, I went with my guard up and Dwayne's coaching ringing in my ears. I was there to buy only the cheapest things - diapers and wet wipes. But before long I was moseying down the meat aisle, then the produce aisle, then the diary aisle. I glanced in the refrigerated section and immediately grabbed my phone.

"Dwayne!" I squawked, "They've got two gallons of whole milk for $4.29." Further down I found another outrageous deal on cheese.

I wheeled my cart up to the checkout with my diapers, cheese, and whole milk. Noelle sat in the front of the cart fidgeting and begging to be let down. In front of us, a mother with her two girls fluttered around the conveyor belt. She wore a pink sweatshirt with navy blue jogging pants. Her hair was neatly curled. Both her girls wandered around troubling the groceries and whispering to one another. They were around nine and twelve.

I glanced at all the food the woman was buying. She had a slat of canned beans, a massive package of paper towels. Twelve apples jiggled in their plastic container. A huge bag of prepared salad poked it's head above the mounds of food.

"Two-hundred and seventy-three dollars" the teller said. The mom shooed her girls away and pulled out her purse.

Before having Noelle, I would have looked at her groceries and wondered, "Why the excess? Why do you need so much?" But in that moment, watching the mom push her mountain of food off to the car, I felt total sympathy.

I discovered something that day. Going to Costco soothes a mother's nagging fear - that she won't have enough to care for her family. I never expected this fear. It came lurking and crawling out of the confusion and exhaustion of having a baby.

It never dawned on me that as a mother, feeding my baby would touch a primordial nerve. I've written about this drive to nourish before. Beginning with breastfeeding, I was tortured by the fear that Noelle wasn't getting enough from me.

This fear settled over the last fifteen months, and sunk into the lower levels of my conscience. Now it translates in to all areas of motherhood. Because I work, I'm afraid Noelle doesn't get enough attention, enough intellectual stimulation. Because I live in a new town where I don't know very many mothers, I'm afraid Noelle doesn't get enough socialization. I'm afraid I'm not disciplining her enough, or guiding her enough. You name an area of child development, and there's a nasty demon to match it, sitting on my shoulder.

Enough enough enough. This is the theme of my anxiety.

So when a thing like Costco comes along and offers moms twenty cans of soup that will last two months, or ten pounds of cheese that will last six months, it's no wonder they show up in all their sweat pants glory and pay. You see, when I put those two gallons of milk in my fridge, when I slid the loaf of cheese away, I felt the ease of security ripple down my body.

Somewhere, the tiny anxious mother inside of me wrung her hands a little less and said, "Ah, that's enough."

Memoir in Two Months - Update

2009-01-21T22:46:00.000-08:00

It's January 25th, and I have completed 52221 words. I'm short 8,000 words of my goal to reach 60,000 by Jan 26th. While I didn't reach my goal, I'm still very pleased with the work I accomplished. Of course, there is nothing significant about the date Jan 26th, except that I go back to work tomorrow. That is to say, even though I didn't reach my goal, it doesn't mean that I'm going to quit the project. Mostly it was an arbitrary date to help get me motivated, and it worked! In that sense I've been successful.

In actuality, the story will probably take 68,000 words to tell in it's entirety. At the moment I've got 174 pages and 12 completed chapters. According to my draft, the plot will take another three chapters to fully reach it's climax and resolution.

These last two weeks, the pressures of preparing for a new semester with a new syllabus squeezed out my writing time, and in these last few days just flat out swallowed it up. I will of course keep working on the manuscript in the next few weeks to reach completion, but I won't be able to keep the pace of this Christmas break.

My plan was to write the rough draft, then put it on the back burner during the semester. Get some space so that over the summer I can return to it with fresh eyes. I'll edit over the summer and my ultimate goal is to take the manuscript, with proposal, to one book conference by the end of the year.

So that's my long term plan. It's been so nice to have the accountability of posting my progress in this space. Thank you for letting me share this writing journey with you!

More Faithful than a Sunday Morning Prayer Meeting

2009-01-18T12:30:00.000-08:00

I pulled onto Colorado Blvd from the freeway, pressing my earpiece closer so I could hear Jeff.
"Where are you?" he asked.
"I just got onto Colorado. I think I'm going into Old Town."
"Oh, you're way faraway!" he said. "You need to turn around."
Noelle cooed and mumbled from the back seat. Adrenaline pumped through my body. I was so close, but I was going to be late.
"I'm sorry I'm late!" I groaned to Jeff.
"I love you darling. If you didn't get lost on your way to lunch with me, you wouldn't be you."

I found Jeff and his boyfriend Sal sitting at a round table, tucked in a sandwhich shop. Jeff half stood and waved from the window when he saw me approaching. I jerked my head up and smiled. Suddenly the stress of getting lost and being late, melted away.
Jeff and I became friends in grad school. We both went to Antioch University of Los Angeles. One afternoon, he approached me in the courtyard of the campus.
"Are you a Christian?" he said, blue eyes clear. We sat together in class after that and have been friends ever since.
Over the four years we've been friends, Jeff has gotten skinnier but he still has that stubbly beard and blue eyes.
"Hello my dear!" he said wrapping me in a hug. "This is Sal, Sal this is Christin."
Sal and I shook hands. Sal was young and Lantino. He had small chiclet teeth, and an easy grin. Noelle immediately began flirting.
We settled in, ordered our food and like two friends who have not talked in a very long time, Jeff and I swam toward one another in a furious current of conversation.
"So tell me how you two met!" I said spooning mashed up baby food into Noelle's pink mouth.
Jeff and Sal grinned at each other. "It's you'r turn," Sal said and dove into his plate of food.
"Well, we met in February. But we didn't get along then," Jeff stopped and then confessed. "I wasn't his type." Quickly with all the main beats, Jeff relayed their story. Finally, after a debacled group date, the two of them ended up alone, had a chance to get to know one another and hit it off. "Technically, we have two anniversaries this year" Jeff went on. "We could celebrate in February or August."
"Let's celebrate both!" Sal offered, shoveling in another bite of food. He and Noelle were the only ones eating.
On the white fleshy part of one forearm, Jeff has a tattoo in Hebrew. The characters string down the skin like a rope in blue ink. On the other forearm, Jeff designed the symbol of a hand which holds in it's palm the sign of all religions.
"Did you go to Agape?" Jeff asked. I nodded. "I love that place!" he said. "What did you think?"
"Oh, I really enjoyed it," I told him honestly. "I see the Rev everywhere now." Just last week, I saw Rev. Micheal Beckwith on Oprah. He's one of her favorite guests.
"He's great, isn't he?"
"Yes, he said some things that really resonated with me."
"Like what."
"Oh, well, half way through the service he stopped for meditation."
"Oh, I love that part," Jeff puntuated. I looked at Sal who was nodding his head.
"He had us breathe and repeat after him. He said, "Say, 'Everything I need has already been provided.' That was really meaningful for me."
"I know! Sal helps me remember that." Jeff said. "Last night Sal and I had an argument and Sal looked over at me and said, 'Just be here now.' I really love that."
He asked me a series of other questions, Did I see the choir? Did I see the paintings of other spiritual leaders all around the room?
"You know what else I really appreciated about that experience?" I told Jeff and Sal. "Well, the Rev told all the new people to stand up and I was thinking, 'Great, here we go!' but then he had everyone raise their hands toward us and say this really lovely greeting: We see you, we know you are made in god's image, we welcome you here."
We traded more stories back and forth. Noelle squirmed happily in her highchair munching on apples and cheese. "I'm going to take Sal there," Jeff concluded and I agreed that he should.
"What are you writing?" Jeff asked, getting down to business. I told him I was writing a memoir in a month.
"I have some questions I want to ask you," I said. Jeff has written screenplays and one novel already. He's working on another. I was so hungry to talk about the writing process.
"I've gote over 40,000 words now but I'm struggling with the larger themes of the book."
"What are they?" Jeff asked.
"Well, my spiritual journey here in LA." I turned to Sal, "Jeff's probably told you that Christianity is my faith-choice." Sal nodded his head, and held up his hands like "no big deal."
"What's the problem?" Jeff pressed.
"I'm just having a hard time figuring out who I'm writing to. I don't want it to be only for Christians, but I'm afraid people who aren't Christians will read what I'm writing and think that I'm just deluding myself."
Both Jeff and Sal erupted.
"Christin, you are writing about a faith that's been demonized, but you're one of the good guys," I flat out blushed. Jeff continued. "People need to know you exist. You're one of those Christians who is so faithful, but who believes her gay friend has a right to get married."
Sal looked at me, "You've got good morals."
I almost laughed outright. My morals are exactly what I've been questioning. Over Christmas we had a small family reunion in Florida. I love my family so much and deeply respect and value what they have to say. But I walked away from Christmas, feeling confused and doubtful.
"Am I missing something that everyone else seems to get?" I asked Dwayne one night, struggling with my heart. I've come home questioning my decisions, and the journey my spiritual life has taken since moving to LA. I'm afraid I've compromised something invaluable.
"Christin," Jeff said, waving his fork in the air. "You're a Christian but you're tolerant." Then he laid the immaculate compliment on me, one that I can not own. "You're actually like Jesus."

This is why I hang out with Jeff. He makes me feel more faithful than a Sunday morning prayer meeting.

Friends in Low Places

2009-01-14T11:18:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Noelle and I got our blood drawn. Yes, Noelle had to have it drawn from the vein like me. Yes, it was traumatic for me and everyone in the waiting room who could hear her screaming. No, I don't know why my doctor chose to do it this way as opposed to the quick pin-prick I've heard that other Pediatricians do.

But the story begins two hours before all the screaming, and wincing when Noelle and I arrived at the Quest Diagnostic Center at 9am. I signed us in on the sheet that said, "Walk-ins" and took a seat in the quiet but already crowded waiting area. I was anxious and uncomfortable for two reasons. First of all, I was anxious about getting Noelle's blood drawn. Second of all, my blood work required that I fast and I was already hungry, having not eaten since dinner time the night before.

I looked around the waiting room and found a seat in the corner, just out of the sun. I plopped my diaper bag down on the floor and Noelle sheltered herself behind my legs, looking out at the crowd of strange faces. A tall skinny young man with black alligator shoes strode across our line of vision and took a seat. He was snappy, carried a Rolling Stone magazine, and obviously didn't belong in this shabby group of people: Moms without make-up, elderly women with canes, elderly men with hearing aids.

By this point, Noelle had ventured out from my legs and was rummaging through the diaper bag. She held a small bottle of moisturizer in one hand, and a tube of blistex in the other.
"She's so cute," came a voice to my right. I looked over to see a short, morbidly obese woman. She was looking at Noelle. "How old is she?"

"15 months," I answered, as the lady took a seat a few chairs down.

"Mine's three years old." I was surprised to hear this, because the woman seemed too old to have a three year old. She had gray streaks across her black hair and she wore very thick glasses. I assumed that her daughter was at home, since I didn't see anyone accompanying her. "She talks alot," the obese mother volunteered. "She talks alot with her hands."

"Maybe she'll be a writer," I offered.

The lady nodded her head. "Well, I had a hard time having her," she continued.

My stomach rumbled and I felt a hunger pain. The man with alligator shoes was texting on his blackberry. The lady kept talking. "With my age and all." I nodded understandingly. "And my body naturally resists insulen." Just at that moment an old lady hobbled over and sat between us, ending the conversation.

Noelle grabbed my hand and pulled me up. I knew it was time to walk a bit, so I followed as she waddled through the room. We passed by the sign-in window and consequently an older gentleman. He was short, bald, with sunglasses.

"Wow, she doesn't miss anything!" he said pointing to Noelle's blue eyes as we passed.

"I know!" I said with a smile.

"Yep, she takes everything in. That's obvious." I concerred and followed Noelle out of the office and into the hallway. A few minutes later, I returned to our corner in the waiting room, holding Noelle on my hip. The man with the alligator shoes was talking.

"They said it was only going to be an hour wait," he wore a big grin with blue eyes. "I'm fasting, so I thought, 'What the heck.' What's another hour?" We bobbed our heads in agreement. Just then a flood of new bodies walked into the office. Now every seat was taken up and people were waiting in the hallway.

"I've never been here when it was so busy," said the obese mother.

"Me neither," piped up the old lady next to her. "And I have an appointment."

I shifted next to the man with the alligator shoes to make room for the surge of new bodies. He was tapping away on his blackberry. "My work is freaking out," he leaned toward me.

"Where do you work?" I asked quickly.

"Azusa," he said. "In the music department." Ah, I should have guessed from the start. "It's the first day back to classes and the department is just freaking out." We chatted a bit more and I fidgeted uncomfortably. My stomach was starting to hurt and Noelle was pulling on my hand for another walk. I left as the alligator man was talking to the obese mom, and followed Noelle back out to the hallway.

We ran into the short bald man again. He rested against the wall with confidence. "There she is!" he chirped as we passed. I followed Noelle down the hall, but worried that we'd miss our call. So I grabbed Noelle and carried her back. She swivelled and screamed. Just as I was approaching the door, the short bald man stepped infront of me and said in a warm voice.

"Listen if anyone scares you, or makes you feel intimidated, you just tell them you have friends in low places." He handed me a small white card. I only had a moment to see a black gun in the middle of it. I grabbed it quickly and put it in my back pocket.

"Thank you," I said.

"I have a ten year old grand daughter just like that," he said pointing to Noelle, who was all limbs, and fits, and wiggles in my arms.

"Bright eyes?" I asked over the commotion.

"Yep, and she's still that way."

I hustled back into the wiating room and took my seat next to the alligator man. We looked at each other wearily. "They said there's three people ahead of me." He told me. "I think you and your daughter are two of them."

"Oh, good. Thank you!" I felt a wave of relief. Sure enough, a few minutes later I heard a faint call from the hallway, "Taylor!"

"That's you," the alligator man said.

"We'll be able to hear her cry," the obese mom said creasing her brow. I looked at her and would have easily hugged her, and the alligator man in that moment.

"You'll hear her cry, then you'll hear me cry." I grabbed our diaper bag and hustled off.

It wasn't until I got home that I took out the little white card and read it. In the center was a black hand gun in silhouette. Along the top were these words: used cars - land - whiskey - manure - nails - fly swatters - racing forms - bongos

Then circling the gun like a horse shoe were these phrases:
Wars Fought

revolutions started

assassinations plotted

governments run

uprisings quelled

tigers tamed

bars emptied

virgins consoled

mexican gold

orgies organized

Nowhere on the card was a phone number, address, e-mail or web address. At the bottom there was one last line that made Dwayne and I laugh so hard we could hardly breathe.

Also preach and lead singing for revival meetings.

Memoir in Two Months

2009-01-06T08:53:00.000-08:00

Well, the holidays are past and during that time I was able to reach 25,000 words in my goal of writing a book-length manuscript by January 26th. I'm not as far along as I would like, given that I have only 20 days left; however, I'm fairly pleased with the amount of writing I was able to do over our vacation. While I wasn't able to get consistent blocks of time to dedicate to writing, I was able to squeeze in little blocks of writing in creative ways. I typed in the airport terminals, standing on my head, sitting in the restroom. Seriously, most of the writing happened during Noelle's naps and bedtime.
No more travel, no more guests, no more crazy schedules from here on out, but I do have to start preparing for my classes this Spring which requires lots of reading, writing quizzes, writing assignments, and preparing the syllabus. I'm already feeling the urgency to get this underway and am afraid it's going to interfere with the time I would spend writing.
I've done the math, though and as I figure it, I can reach 60,000 words by Jan. 25th if I churn out 1,800 words a day. That's 3.6 pages single spaced. So here we go! Wish me luck, I'll let you know how it goes. And thank you for letting me share this piece of my writing journey with you!
In the meantime, as a way of channeling the writing muse, I'm afraid this blog won't get very much attention. However, I plan on picking things back up again on January 26th.
Happy New Year!

Like Father, Like Daughter

2008-12-16T15:07:00.000-08:00

Homes for Haiti

2008-12-10T19:29:00.000-08:00

One of my good friends from graduate school started this non-profit foundation called "Homes for Haiti." He has been a very successful carpenter here in the States, and now has turned his attention to building homes in North West Haiti, one of the poorest regions in Haiti.

What makes his foundation so special, is that 100% of the donations are spent on building the homes in Haiti. In addition to this the majority of those funds stimulate the local economy because he uses materials made there in Haiti, he employs Haitians, and every home project is directed by a Haitian.

The homes aren't glamorous, but they are lovely. Primarily they keep the families in them dry.

You might not know that I lived in Haiti from the ages of three to six and that Dwayne grew up there until his family returned to Canada when he was ten. At some level we feel a connection with this country and also with the foundation my friend is operating.

Take a look at what he's doing and see if you'd like to help out this Christmas season!

www.homesforhaiti.org

Favorite Book Birthday Party Reading List

2008-11-28T11:12:00.001-08:00

My birthday was the day before Thanksgiving. This year, I threw a favorite book birthday party. Everyone had to bring a favorite book, share why they liked it, and a favorite passage. At the end, my good friend Amy Klein (the "confessions of an on-line dating addict" in the sidebar) read some of her work about growing up in a devout Jewish home.

It was a wonderful party. Here's the reading list that evolved from everyone's choices. We had a pretty eclectic list by the end. I thought you all might be interested in reading suggestions:

American Primitive by Mary Oliver (Poetry)
Godric by Frederick Buechner (Fiction)
Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Fiction)
Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (Fiction)
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (Creative Nonfiction)
The Secret History by Donna Tartt (Fiction)
The Dot by Peter Reynolds (Children's)
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (Creative Nonfiction)
The Shack (Fiction)
Kite Runner (Fiction)
Cather in the Rye (Fiction)
The Power of One (Bryce Courtney)
Inside Steve's Brain by Leander Kahney (Nonfiction)
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton (Fiction)
Free Food for Millionaires
Anything by Christopher Moore

A Memoir By February

2008-11-24T10:10:00.000-08:00

November was National Novel Month and my friend Carrie Arcos joined a writing program in which they write a novel during the month of November. The last I talked to her she had churned out 40 pages in a week. Mind you this is a windy draft. A piece of work that is intended to get the writer started, not necessarily be a finished draft.

I am more than impressed by my friend because she is a mother of three and she teaches a class at Biola University. So I'm feeling extra motivated to get to work and write my own book. Okay this sounds ridiculous to me in one sense, but in the other I feel really ready.

I've been working on short pieces for as long as I've been writing. And I'm haunted by the question, "Can I do it? Can I write a book length manuscript?"

While I was pregnant with Noelle I churned out a feature length screen play in six months. I did this because I had the same itchy question, "Can I write a hundred pages of film?" In the end I wrote 180 pages.

During that same six months (I was on bed rest, so I had alot of time to work), I wrote a book proposal and began the submission process. It's been rejected five times and while I'm not entirely sure if it's "THE" story I've been waiting all my life to write, I'm feeling like I need to begin somewhere. I can't keep waiting for the right time or the right story. I have to just write what's in front of me to write.

So I've made a decision. Inspired by Carrie and motivated by my nagging question, I've decided to take this Christmas break to write the rough draft of my book. While I'll still be plenty busy with family visits, travel, church activities, and Noelle, I won't have class, and that's a big portion off my plate.

Classes end on Dec. 18th and I don't go back to work until Jan. 26th. So wish me luck. I'm going to try and get something done. I'm going to hold my own feet to the fire and see if I can be as productive as Carrie.

Got Past the First Date

2008-11-08T08:13:00.000-08:00

Holy Moly - It happened again! Relief Journal. This time it's my first publication in a print journal. I've searched the site, but can't figure out when this issue is slated to come out. But I know you can pre-buy it!

Since my last name is Taylor, you'll have to scroll down the list to see me. Sorry, they give only author info, not the actual writing. I guess it's a way to get people to buy the journal. But I guarantee it will be well worth your money! My poem aside, this journal is full of delicious writing.

What's With all the Doom and Gloom?

2008-11-07T15:01:00.000-08:00

From the classroom to the telephone, I've been hearing some pretty gloomy sentiments since the election on Tuesday. What I've heard has been coming from the Evangelical demographic. On top of the general doom and gloom, here's what I've heard:

That the world's coming to an end.

The election of Obama is the beginning of the end times.

Obama may be the anti-christ.

We better pray for Obama because we're living in a depraved time.

What are churches going to do with people who voted for Obama?

I've found myself speechless in the face of such reactions and words, not only because I find Obama's election to be an incredibly uplifting and historic moment, but also because I believe that we're in a time of immense hope and opportunity. Not at all the kind of picture being painting of the end times.

I disagree with these doomsday prophecies for two reasons:

When I look around, I don't see a "depraved" generation that signals the "end times." I see a generation rising up full of character, dreams, and immense potential. I wish you could meet some of my students. They are so bright, intelligent and hard-working. I know that where ever these students end up they are going to make their sphere of influence a better place, and as a result the world will be a better place.

I wish you could also meet the people in my church, Mosaic, who are changing the culture around them through their art: film, music, spoken word, theater.

I wish you could look into my daughter's big blue eyes and tell her that the world she is growing into is a doomed place.

No don't! That isn't fair, not to Noelle, or any of the students and young people who are poised to lead in the future. To them the world is as bright as it's ever been, a wide open canvas ready to be whatever they make it.

I find the doomsday prophecies hard to stomach for one final reason, they steal the beauty of this moment in US history. We are standing in the middle of an amazing milestone in our country's growth. Another wall has fallen, another chain has been broken and I find Obama's election to be quite redemptive. Something that has happened today that would have never happened fifty years ago. I am so proud to be alive this moment. I'm so proud to be American.

I find the doom and gloom talk coming out of the Christian camp, distasteful. We of all people should be rejoicing and celebrating beautiful moments. Instead, we are warning the world that God's wrath is coming, the recession is his judgment, and the election of Obama is proof of the end of things.

I can't escape the image of two kids playing. One wins, one looses. The looser, rather than being disappointed and moving on, turns the whole thing spiritual. He shuffles away grumbling, "Now you've done it! The world's coming to an end!"

oo-aah, wheja wheja

2008-10-28T19:31:00.000-07:00

Noelle has started blowing kisses. What delights me is that while she refuses to learn how to say "more" or "please" in sign language, even after I doggedly rehearse it with her, she picked up blowing kisses without a single lesson. I like to think that this is a reflection of her character. Sure proof that she is sunflowers and sunshine. I know that this is just the goo-goo-gaga thought process of a wildly in-love mother.

She doesn't just blow kisses to anyone. She blows them to her Nana and Bop Bop, and to me. At night, when I lay her in the crib, she waves up at me and then slaps her palm to her open mouth and says, "oo-aahh." I think I might go bonkers with adoration. This bedtime routine is too perfect to be true.

Tonight, after her bottle was done, she just laid in my arms giggling like a bubble bath. I don't know what made her laugh. It was all I could do just to try and absorb the insane cuteness of it all. How is it possible that babies can be so scrumptious? I didn't get it before I had Noelle. I didn't realize that they are bright rain, falling from heaven.

Today we babysat for a friend. Her son is one day older than Noelle and as sweet as he is cute. I'm not just saying this to be nice; Caleb actually has a modeling agent. Liquid brown eyes, round nose, small chin, and hair like the Beatles.

Anyway, Caleb and Noelle were playing together and I was swept up in the meta-thought of how to manage two one year-olds?

I was busy scanning the room, refereeing any toy disputes, and scampering to tidy-up the clutter left in their wake. I was busy like this, trying to take care of them, but not paying attention to them, when suddenly they stopped time. It was nothing really. Just that routine one-year old sweetness that makes me believe in such a thing as a perfect moment.

I don't know if it's possible that perfect moments exist. I mean truly P-E-R-F-E-C-T snatches of time, when life is still rumbling along, the world is still dizzy, somewhere something is falling, and someone is piecing apart, but I believe I experienced that perfect moment while watching Noelle and Caleb.

This is all it was: They looked at each other. They reached for each other. Noelle said "ooo" and Caleb responded "wheja wheja." A mutual recognition of existence.

The Grain of the Soul - Revision #3

2008-10-16T14:47:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been embarrassed of who you were in the past? Not what you did, but your persona, that particular conglomeration of self, circumstance, and belief that made you who you were for a time?

I've been facing a particularly embarrassing me these last couple weeks. Since moving to the San Gabriel Valley, I'm forced to remember her alot. Every time I get on the freeway, I remember her. Every time I pass the metro station at the end of the Gold Line, I remember her. Every time I drive down Sierra Madre Street, I remember her. I remember her because I used to work in the SGV, and that was not a particularly flattering phase of my life.

We had just moved to LA and I had freshly crumpled dreams of working in the film industry. Instead, I was working as a secretary in a mega-church. An occupation that, while perfectly respectable in it's own right, felt as comfortable to me as a bra made of wool. As you can imagine, I was a little disjointed, and I feel a great sense of embarrassment when I think about how I behaved with my coworkers those two years.

They didn't know what to make of me. I was emotional, easily offended and erratic, running off to cry for hours at a time uncontrollably, and then maneuvering to try and prove myself in the most awkward ways.

In his book _Let Your Life Speak_, Parker Palmer shares a story about his own embarrassment over a younger version of himself. The summer before he started grad-school at Berkley, he was fired from his assistantship. He and a fellow research assistant spent the summer goofing off.

In the end, he still regrets behaving so badly, and at the time he was crushed over his failure. But he acknowledges a measure of grace about the course of his life. He writes that he should have either quit the job before being fired, or exercised self-control and settled into the work. But he goes on to say, "sometimes the 'shoulds' do not work because the life one is living runs crosswise to the grain of one's soul. And at that time in my life, I had no feeling of the grain of my soul and no sense of which way was crosswise" (41).

There is no better description of myself during those first few years here in Los Angeles. My supervisor at the time, my poor beleaguered supervisor, had some sense of this. I remember he pulled me into his office one afternoon and after a bit of chit chat, said to me bluntly, "Christin, you can do what you want to do."

I remember feeling that he was trying to tell me something about my life, something to set me free. But as Palmer put it, I was still so out of touch with the grain of my soul I couldn't make out his message. I was so lost I couldn't acknowledge that I didn't like working at churches and that I wasn't a very good secretary. After all, if I tried harder wouldn't that make it work?

It would take me two more years and one more mismatched job before I finally had the presence of mind to let go of everything I thought I should be, and wait tremulously for who I was going to be.

Something Extraordinary at a Coffee Shop

2008-10-06T20:06:00.001-07:00

Friday night, Dwayne and I went on a date. The first one in a while. We wondered around the Monrovia Farmer's Market, which seemed to go on for miles compared to the one in El Segundo. Then we hit the Monrovia Coffee Company for a little gig by one of Dwayne's fellow students.

Because it was coffee shop and because it was a casual collection of people, I suppose I didn't expect the music to be anything special. I was wrong. Soren, Dwayne's friend, was the opener, and after him Andrea Hamilton played.

I'm so amazed that I got to hear this talented musician play in such an intimate setting. She wasn't fancy, or glossy. She just told her songs, cracked jokes, improvised, and the air of the evening was so entirely informal that I hardly realized I was in the midst of such amazing talent. Except that, I couldn't pull myself out of the seat.

I thought we'd only stay for an hour, but when an hour came and Dwayne nudged me to go, I couldn't leave.

"Just one more song!" I said, and we stayed for an hour more.

I love LA for this reason. It's like talent is oozing out the pores of the sidewalk. You can go to a coffee shop, listen to a gig, and walk away having experienced something extraordinary.

I know who Noelle's voting for.

2008-10-02T16:06:00.000-07:00

Noelle doesn't sit still very well. I'd love it if she would relax into my lap and snuggle with me every once and a while, but the best I can usually get from her is just enough time to flip quickly through the pages of one book before she's squirming to get down.

She prefers that I follow her around like a shadow while she hikes up the stairs, dismantles her toy box or pulls all the towels out of the linen closet.

Today, however, she sat still for a whopping 1 minute and 46 seconds. I was watching a youtube video on my friend's blog of Sarah Palin talking to Katie Couric. Noelle scurried over to my legs and begged to get on my lap. So I juggled her while trying to watch the youtube video of Palin, then Lieberman, and then Barak Obama.

The minute Obama started talking, Noelle was transfixed. She didn't move a muscle. Not even one tiny finger. For the entire time he was on screen she watched intently.

I know that Obama is one of the greatest orators of our time, but the fact that he can hold even a wrestles baby's attention - now that's just ridiculous.

It's Like Never Getting Past the First Date

2008-09-25T08:26:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been wincing from the sting of rejection this last month. It's like a bee, a really massive bee, that hovers around me everyday, picking the most inexplicable moments to attack. When my guard is down and I forget, for a moment, that I wasn't good enough, the bee, with an inflated sense of duty, dive-bombs me. I find myself in the middle of the parking lot on my way out of class, cursing the air.

Here's the story. For the first time ever, I had two queries accepted this last month, as opposed to straight manuscripts. I was thrilled! Finally I've learned how to throw out the bait. But with both publications, they requested more of my writing. The minute I sent them that writing, they fell silent and I haven't heard anything from them since. This is the long silence before rejection. In my limited experience, if a publication is going to use my writing, I hear right away.

It's kind of like going out on a date, getting a kiss, and then never hearing from him again. I have a very witty friend, Amy Klein, who says that if they don't call in the first 24 hours, they "ain't never callin'."

It's just painful, there's no two ways about it. You meander through your days wondering, "What if I should have left out that anaolgy?" "What if I should have written in third person instead of first?" "What if my whole future as a published author rested on that comma?"

Dwayne pointed out that this may actually be the levels of acceptance. First round is a blanket "no." Second round is initial interest followed by a "no." That makes me feel good on some level; however, I think the second "no" is worse than the first, because it's a bit more personal.

It reminds me of the two producers I worked for at Nick Movies. One producer, R~, hated interns, as a rule. She didn't want me in her office, ever. If she had her way, I hid under the desk just so she didn't have to look at me. Funnily enough, I wasn't offended by this, because we had never even been introduced.

Compare this then to J~, another producer at Nick Movies who rejected me. She interviewed me for a full-time job. My supervisor sat in the very same room as us literally begging J~ to hire me. "She's superwoman" my supervisor said, pressing my application against her heart. "She'll be so good for the office!"

J~ talked to me a bit, got to know me, and then showed me out the door -- without a job. I obviously hadn't captured her imagination.

And I haven't captured the imagination of these two publications either. As cool as I try to be about it - "yeah this is the writing life" - it still stings. Most of the time I just ignore it, but ever now and then I just have to stop and say, "What a crock!!"

The First Step

2008-09-25T08:20:00.000-07:00

Well, after pouring through the Central Asia Institute website (Greg Mortenson's Foundation), and reading as much as I can find about the war in Afghanistan, I've decided the first thing I can do to help contribute Greg Mortenson's cause is to raise awareness among the people who HAVE to listen to me three times a week - my students.

I designed their next writing assignment around a comparative analysis of Greg Mortenson's methods for fighting terror and the US government's methods. We'll see what they come up with. They'll be reading these two articles in Parade and Time.

A Rant Against This War

2008-09-18T13:23:00.000-07:00

Upon the recommendation of my friend, Nick Briejer, I started reading _Three Cups of Tea_ this month. It's about Greg Mortensen, a remarkable man who has been building schools for children in the Karakoram Mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan since 1996. Not only is this story inspiring, it's unnervingly pertinent to the current state of affairs here in the US given the war on terror and the upcoming elections.

A brief recap of the premise of the book: Mortenson began building schools in the tribal region of Pakistan on accident. He was a climber and during a failed attempt on K2's summit, he stumbled lost, malnourished, and nearly delusional onto a small village called Korphe. After several weeks recuperating in the village and building relationships, he discovered the children attending classes outside at the mercy of the elements, scribbling their homework in the dirt, without a teacher. He promised the village mullah (chief) that he would build them a school.

And he did, with remarkable tenacity despite morale crushing obstacles. But once the school in Korphe was completed, he went onto build several more schools all across the mountains. The very part of the world that gave birth to the Taliban.

As you can imagine, when 9/11 happened, Mortenson was sucked into a vortex of need. While every other American and foreigner was fleeing Pakistan, Mortenson went right back in to battle terrorism the right way. By building schools that offer non-extremist education.

Reading Mortenson's account I can't help but feel desperate. What he is doing is so right. Is so absolutely dead on. But his work is eclipsed by the US government's war on terror.

The problem: poor, uneducated children in Pakistan have been failed by the Pakistani government, which does not build schools for them, or provide teachers. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia with all it's oil money is pouring money into the tribal region of Pakistan. Madrassas that teach nothing but the Koran and jihad are popping up all across the area like "cancerous cells." These families who are desperate for an education send their children to the Madrassas. When the kids graduate they are offered money to fight in the extremist movement.

Greg Mortenson's solution: Since 1996 he's been building schools that offer a non-extremist education. The villagers love him. He operates within the systems and social norms of their culture and has risen to a near god-like status among the Muslims there who long for education but despise the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

The US Government's solution: war.

Who has more money? Who has more power of these three? Mortenson fades quickly into the background when you line them up.

Today while listening to Fresh Air, I heard an interview with Dexter Filkins the author of "The Forever War." He has spent the last several years in the same region as Mortenson and was telling the host that Al Qaeda has in fact regained it's strength in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

I think we've all known this, but I had never before had any frame of reference for the area he was talking about. Immediately I thought about _Three Cups of Tea_. The host and Filkins discussed the options the US had in dealing with this problem. And it's a big one because at this moment Pakistan is our ally. I was so troubled as I listened to Filkins say that the US Government was going to have to turn their bombs and fire-power on Pakistan.

I nearly started shouting at the radio. I wanted to stop the car and pull someone over and tell them how terrible this situation is! How absolutely devastating this war is.

Why is it that the US government can think only of war? Why is death and destruction the only answer to this problem? Who over there at the Pentagon will stop and listen and think reasonably for just one minute?! Why must we pour our money into war? Why can't we pour our efforts and money into education?

The majority of Pakistan and Afghanistan is not extremist. They simply want the same freedom that every human craves. Freedom to learn, to make their future better than their past, and to leave a legacy for their children. If we help build a strong, efficient education system over there than these people will have options. They'll vote with their feet and I truly believe they will walk right out of those Madrassas and extremist movements.

In my opinion, THAT'S how terrorism will end. It will shrivel up and whither away. If not forever, than at least it will be far weaker.

I really must do something. I can not just read this book and write a blog about it. This feels too important. This is too critical a moment in our nation's history. But what? What can one woman do in Azusa, CA?

Letting the Self Rest

2008-09-09T14:44:00.000-07:00

Today, I wish I could hang a sign above my head that says, "Not myself today. Please don't take any first impressions."

It's been a whirlwind month. We moved, we went camping, we started work and school, my lovely mother came to visit, and I was actively involved in an artisan retreat. All this to say that I've expected not to be myself one day. I've been waiting on all the hype and excitement to die away and leave me feeling a little deflated, and finally after a couple weeks, that day has arrived.

It's a long day because Dwayne is at work and in class from 9 am until 10 pm. So it's just Noelle and me non-stop from morning 'til evening. Also, Noelle's top teeth sprung out last night, making their debut this morning. Cute, yes, but it's causing lots of strife. She is clingy, whiney, and easily frustrated, requiring more attention than usual.

To help us get through the day she and I decided to go visit Dwayne for lunch. She came out in all of her sunshine at the sight of new faces. Truly her father's daughter! But I couldn't muster the same brightness. My spirit was dragging and a pall was cast over my general area.

I felt it especially while talking to one of Dwayne's friendly supervisors. She was so nice. We discussed similar acquaintances, and shared a bit about our lives. For most of the conversation I couldn't help but feel drab and uninteresting. I felt as captivating as a rock, and this bothered me because I genuinely enjoyed talking to this woman. I wanted her to know how much I was appreciating her warmth and generosity of spirit, but I couldn't seem to get it together.

The blues have followed me home, and I'm left feeling a strange sense of loneliness. The sort of lonliness that comes from a spirit trying to recuperate from so much exertion and change. For me, I've realized that this is the cycle of my emotional life. In one hand, it feels good to be at my age and able to understand the ebb and flow of my emotions. I remember when they used to sweep me off my feet and carry me far out to sea, gasping and gulping to stay afloat. On the other hand, knowing myself a bit better doesn't make living through the weariness any more enjoyable.

I'm reminded of one Saturday afternoon during the summer before I got pregnant. My sister and I went body boarding at Manhattan Beach. I had been playing in the ocean alot that summer and so was pretty confident and easy in the water.

Annie and I pushed out a few yards into the lip of the Pacific, then coasted back to the beach on our boards. We did this a handful of times until unexpectedly I wiped out. The water grabbed me and turned me over in that laundry fashion that pushes water up your nose and leaves your sinuses stinging. I popped up gasping. I hadn't expected to wipe out because the wave wasn't that big.

I had played in waves much larger than the ones at Manhattan, but suddenly I found myself caught in a current. No matter how hard I tried to get back to shore, I couldn't do it. The board flipped again. So I decided to walk, but each wave, no higher than my waste, nearly capsized me and kept me from moving more than a few inches at a time.

I remember being exasperated by the whole thing. It wasn't like I was battling these mighty white caps to get home. But the more I pushed forward the more exhausted I got and the further away the beach looked. Either the waves were stronger than I realized, or I was more tired than I realized.

Finally, I stopped fighting the waves. Instead of battling my way through them, I stopped and ducked beneath the surface, letting them roll over my head in silence. Once they past, I popped up and began inching my way toward the beach at a diagonal. Walking nearly parrallel to the sand. In this way, I made my way back.

In this way, I hope to make my way back to a happier self. I'm trying to let the waves of weariness wash over me. Rather than fighting them off with relationships, fun, or activity, which might only exhaust me further. For now, I think the best thing is just to keep the beach in sight and let my soul float silently just beneath the surface. I think soon, I'll be able to start walking in.

Back to My Future

2008-08-17T12:07:00.000-07:00

Bhuddists believe life is a circle, and I'm inclined to agree. I've been reflecting lately on the ways my life has constantly moved forward and changed, yet looped back on itself too, like a pair of knitting needles creating new stitches by hooking old loops and pulling them through.

Take for example the summer of 1999, when my family flew to California to visit a bundle of potential Universities for my sister. We went to West Mont, Point Loma, and we visited Azusa Pacific University. I remember sitting on the bleachers of the baseball field at APU talking with my sister. I was envious. I wanted to be the one going to school in California.

In the following years I flew in and out of LAX several times to visit Annie and then eventually to spend a semester at Film School. Each time the plane took off for home I would peer out the window and look longingly on Los Angeles, wishing it was my home.

I remember then, standing on the porch of our little apartment in El Segundo four years later, staring at the planes taking off from the LAX runaway just across the street. I was breathless with wonder. How many times had I sat in those planes, wishing to live in LA? How many times, while taking off, had I glimpsed the apartment buildings we were now living in, never having the faintest clue I would one day live there?

My life had moved forward and yet, somehow looped back on itself too. This happened again when I started teaching at Azusa Pacific University. I remember standing in the classroom thinking, "How did I get here?" I had no idea when I had sat on those bleachers seven years earlier that I would one day end up teaching at APU.

Here's another example: when we first moved to LA, we went exploring one evening with Sam and Rosie Bills. We got lost, sort of. We stumbled across a corner of LA and wondered around looking for a spot to have dinner. In the dieing light, we passed the open window of a coffee shop with a rainbow flag donning the door.

A few paces later, a couple guys ogled Sam and Dwayne, then whispered at Rosie and I, "You better keep a hold of him!" We figured out pretty quickly that we had happened across the happier side of LA. We found a little Indian restaurant, ate dinner and laughed at our good fortune.

Three years later, I was working in Beverly Hills, and running errands for my boss. While driving down Santa Monica Boulevard I saw that very same Indian restaurant! I couldn't believe it. Three years ago that restaurant had been located somewhere in the haystack of LA, but now, here I was working as an executive assistant in the film industry and I knew exactly where I was. I was in Brentwood.

What really wigged me out was imagining myself back then. So much had changed in three years. And for a moment, time collapsed on itself. I could see me standing on that street corner watching the cars drive by having no clue where I was, having no clue that one day I would be dressed in a black skirt, button up shirt and heels, whirling around exhausted and slightly disillusioned by a career that at that earlier moment I wanted so badly.

And here we are again, a new stitch in the yarn of my life. Two weeks ago, after living in the South Bay for five years, Dwayne and I have moved to Azusa, with the help of our friends! It took us all day, and lots of hard scrubbing (believe me, you don't know how much your friends love you until they clean your bathroom. Thank you Lorraine and Yvette!)

The irony is that it's a new home, but not a new location. Of course, I've already been here. My parents lived in Azusa for a year, and it just so happens that our new condo is literally down the street from their old home. So I know the neighborhood. I know the street names. I know the stores. I'm familiar with the local churches.

And the loop goes on. One more step back to my future.

"Goodbye Runaway Heart"

2008-08-11T10:51:00.000-07:00

I've been revving up the submission engine again this summer and after several submissions got an article accepted. Yippee. It has been published today over at Ungrind.com.

If you'd like to read anything else that I've written outside of this blog you can find the links in the margin.

Thanks for your support guys as I try to launch this slippery thing called, "A writing career."

Beauty

2008-08-10T09:52:00.000-07:00

I never feel more beautiful than when I'm camping. Yes, down in the dirt, no make-up, no showers, no jewelry. I realized anew this delusion when we went camping at Yosemite with a bunch of friends. Something about no mirrors, and no expectations equals no inhibitions and I feel as comfortable in my own skin as I do in the pair of floppy pants I camp in.

Then from time to time, I peak in a mirror, or the reflection of a car window and realize that the reality doesn't quite match my perception. When the reflection isn't around I feel as lovely as the European beauty I sat across from on the Yosemite shuttle. She had dark, deep set eyes, exotic olive skin, and thick brown hair. Her dirty bandanna, and lack of make-up only served to unleash her natural beauty. Indeed, her beauty came from the beauty of the rocky cliffs and massive sequoias that surrounded us.

But in my reflection the bandanna and no-mascara do not serve me as well. I find the disparity between my perception and the reflection a bit startling. I have to recalibrate my internal picture each time I catch a glimpse of myself. Finally, about halfway into the trip I've had enough.

Why is it that I automatically believe the mirror over my own perception? What makes the mirror right and me wrong? What makes my own perception any less of a reality than what I see in that cold hard glass? What a strange thing it is to realize that I have two different ways of seeing and evaluating myself.

There is comparison. Which can only happen when I look at a mirror, because then I hold the image of my still body up against the still image of other women. Suddenly, the bodies around me are reduced to a snapshot, a single glance, a summing up of parts to stack against my own.

Then there is this strange internal feeling about myself that emerges when there is nothing around to remind me of myself. When I am allowed to be totally unselfconscious. What is it? This internal knowing? It's like a lack of eyes. It's a lack of seeing. It's simply knowing. Being. There is no evaluation, just a comfortable acknowledgment that does not need to be compared in order to know itself.

I am not more beautiful or less beautiful than she is, they are. I simply am. My being calling back to the beauty of Yosemite. The soaring rock faces, the joyful running creeks, the mighty waterfalls, and the trees, the lovely towering trees, pointing upward to a beauty out of sight.

Thinking About Quitting (aka Self-doubt)

2008-08-03T20:17:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, while listening to "This American Life" I heard something that has me seriously considering shutting down the blog.

About halfway through the story the reporter exclaimed passionately, You know bloggers! They just sit around writing, writing, writing. Which I think is insane because they don't get paid for it. Which has got me in a tizzy.

I love writing my blog, but am I wasting my $30,000 writing degree?

Quake

2008-08-01T21:44:00.001-07:00

So we had an earthquake last Tuesday. It shook us all up. (Yes, that is a small grin you see.)

My sister and I were in the nursery. She was changing Noelle's diaper and I was packing for our upcoming move. Though it was quite frightening at the time, and although my sister said afterwards, "I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry," the whole thing is rather comic three days later.

You see, I thought there was someone pounding around our apartment. But when clearly no one was bursting into our place, and throwing themselves down on our floor, I looked at Annie, who whispered at once (because she's been in one before), "Earthquake."

At that precise moment the entire apartment began to sway. The eeriest part was the sounds. The walls and floor began groaning and creaking their protests. Annie grabbed Noelle and we lunged for the doorways.

The thing only lasted 20 seconds, but have you ever sat through 20 seconds of the earth shaking? While 20 seconds may not be enough time to hear a complete song, or microwave a dinner, you can still get alot done in 20 seconds. You can, for example, sit for a moment and watch the walls bending, you can grab your daughter from your sister's arms, you can begin to imagine the roof caving in and the floor falling out, you can jump up to grab a phone in case you get trapped beneath rubble, and you can dash across the expanse of the apartment to the front door where neighbors are all standing outside.

Yeah, 20 seconds is long enough for adrenaline to thoroughly work its way through your system.

With in 20 minutes we knew that nothing serious had happened. It was just a joy ride not a catastrophe, but I gotta tell ya, for a full two minutes afterwards my heart was pounding and my hands were trembling and I would not let go of Noelle.

Back to the quake: when my sister opened the front door and braced herself against the frame, she found herself standing next to my neighbor, who was himself taking shelter in his doorframe. He looked over, grinned, and said as mellow as an ocean breeze, "This is my first one."

That's when the apartment settled back down and I realized that I might need to settle back down too. I decided I wanted to be as zen as Edgar about the whole thing.

Or I could have been as upbeat as my mother. She was very chipper about the whole thing. While my apartment is by the beach about 40 miles away from the epicenter, my mom was up in the San Gabriel Valley, much closer. The fact that we couldn't get a hold of my mom for about 30 minutes after the quake worried us.

(Everybody and his brother was calling everybody and her sister and so the network was busy. Not very encouraging should there ever be a real catastrophe!)

But then a text beeped brightly across my cell. It was my mom with only this exclamation, "Earthquake!" No kidding. When we were finally able to get through to her we found out, no worries. She had been getting a pedicure. "My salon chair wiggled two inches across the floor!" she said delighted. "And all the Vietnamese ladies got really quiet!"

Okay, so the earthquake was no big deal. I was getting the picture. Everyone seemed to think it was more fun than frightening and I think I would have felt the same way had it not been for Noelle. Something about having her created a very different reaction in me. A reaction I didn't fully expect, and I don't think I could have controlled. I'm still marveling at the way my body immediately assumed survival mode. Had I actually mentally coached myself about how to curl myself around her so no falling debris would hit her head? Had I actually commanded my sister to get the phone so we would have a way to tell people where we were under the rubble?!

As soon as my mom got off the phone, Dwayne called.

"Hey! There was an earthquake!" He said excitedly. It turns out he was riding around in his truck oblivious. "Did you feel anything?"

***

Quick update on the "Nourishment" post. I took Noelle back to the doctor yesterday for another weight check. She had gained a miraculous ten ounces in 14 days. That's nearly an ounce a day! Holy fat goose.

Dwayne accuses me of feeding her foie de gras style.

Gearhart the Mystic

2008-07-25T07:11:00.000-07:00

The instructor of our session is a lithe, ex-gymnast, named Andrea, and she leads us through the presentation as if she is executing a floor routine. She is jumping, twirling, and doing somersaults across the room trying desperately to sell us on spending $495 to attend a forum which will change the direction of our lives. She is teaching us how to create a new possibility for our future. The first order of business is to tell our partners how we heard about Landmark Education.

Gearhart swivels around in his chair and we share.

"My neighbor invited me," I say.

“One of my clients told me about it,” he shares. “I’ve really sensed a major shift in her energy since she’s been here. So I was curious.”

And I am curious too. What does he do? He answers my question before I can voice it.

“I’m a mystic,” he says shyly. Andrea calls our attention back to the front of the room, and as Gearhart turns around a goofy grin spreads across my face. I am thrilled at the prospect of spending the evening sharing my deepest thoughts with Gearhart the Mystic. To understand why I'm so thrilled, you have to understand that there is nothing I enjoy more than meeting people who are totally and utterly different then myself.

He looks nothing like any mystic I've ever imagined. He looks more like a golfer, in fact, a golfer from Florida with his black polo, tan woven fedora with black ribbon around the brim, and long, distinguished neck.

Andrea ushers us onto the second order of business. Phase One: make a list of the areas in our life that aren't working. My mind casts out restlessly. I'm not really in the mood to reflect on my discontent. But knowing that I am going to get to share this with Gearhart, I pick something - writing.

Gearhart turns around. We hold our booklets, ready to share. "You first," he says.

"Well, I'm a writer," I say. If you think that I share this bit of information without feeling like a twit, you'd be wrong. Everyone in LA is a writer. Just like everyone in LA is a producer or an actor, or an agent. Case in point - Gearhart's answer.

"Oh really!" says Gearhart. "I'm an agent." He goes onto to tell me that in addition to being a Mystic and an agent, he's a TV producer.

He shares with me that he's disappointed with the way his TV show is going. He's producing a show about his work as a Mystic but the last three episodes aren't coming together. "But they will," he says with a sense of assurance.

The best part of talking to Gearhart is that he's assured about everything. As if he's already known it.

"I like your necklace," he points at the abalone shell hanging around my neck.

"It's from New Zealand," I share.

"Yes, I know."

"My sister lives there," I add. He smiles kindly, nods his head and says, "Yes, uh-huh."

Not only is he sure of where my sister lives, he's sure of my current state of being.

After Andrea encourages us to share what we're not doing in our lives to help make our dream future happen (I swear this session is just one long jaunt into self-defeat!), I tell Gearhart that I think it's time to brush up on my writing skills. Attend a workshop or two.

"Yes," he says excitedly, "You need to get your mojo back." Most of us go around trying desperately to communicate with people. We work all day trying to help people understand what we mean and where we're coming from. It is a little disconcerting then to talk to some one who seems to be tracking with you so completely.

Hence the reason why Gearhart's response catches me off gaurd. It sounds like an echo of my voice. I must look surprised too, because Gearhart immediately explains himself. "You need to get your inspiration back. That's what I'm sensing from you."

Ah - my inspiration. I hadn't realized it left.

Toward the end of the workshop, I decide to change tracks. I'm tired of talking about writing and the lack of my writing career. Instead, I decide to create my new possibility around making friends. We're moving at the end of this week to the North side of LA. The hot side.

So when Andrea asks us to share with our partners our new possibilities, this is what I tell Gearhart, "I want to be beautiful. Not just physically, but I want to be winsome. I want to draw people to myself." This sounds stupid to my own ears and ridiculously self-centered, but it's honest. And if a girl can't be self-indulgent at a self-help session with a Mystic, then really - when can she be?

Gearhart thinks for a moment and then says quietly, "Well that's not going to be very hard."

I almost give him a hug.

He wants to say more. I can see that. He opens his mouth, nods his head, and then sits quietly.

Maybe he sees my future in our new home. Maybe it is rolling out in front of him like a long thread, the people, the locations, the experiences. But he's not telling me. I suppose, unlike Landmark Education, Mystics can't hand out peoples' futures like candy.

Nourishment

2008-07-17T23:29:00.000-07:00

At the doctor’s office, I quickly stripped Noelle down to the nude (as is required for each weight check) and trotted up to the scales with a bright smile. Nurse Debbie stood back and watched as the dial whirled around. I looked away, wanting to heighten the anticipation. Weight checks are my favorite part of the doctors visits, because it's the surest way to see your baby grow.

“I’ll have to give you sixteen pounds on the nose,” Nurse Debbie leaned over and tapped Noelle on the nose.

“What?!” I thought. “That’s not right.” I glanced down to check for myself, and sure enough the black needle hovered over the numbers. I stood stunned. My daughter hadn’t even gained one pound in three months. In an instant, she dropped from the fiftieth percentile to the tenth percentile in weight, all with a single stroke of Nurse Debbie’s pen.

Debbie turned back to the patient room and said over her shoulder, “Dr. Goldin’s not going to like that.”

In the moments between Nurse Debbie’s weight check and Dr. Goldin’s arrival, I paced the patient room holding Noelle close to my chest. I could feel the panic rising up inside me. Noelle jabbered and squirmed happily in my arms. She had no idea the glacier of emotion pushing it’s way through the surface of my composure.

When Dr. Goldin came she asked me how many times a day I was feeding Noelle and what I had been feeding her. I told her that I nursed Noelle multiple times and fed her three square meals of solids.

"It must be your breast milk," she said, scribbling some notes for me. I peered over her shoulder and watched as the list of foods I was now supposed to give my daughter grew longer: egg yolks, ground beef, vitamins with iron. But her words echoed in my thoughts - my breast milk wasn't enough.

Nothing unhinges a mother more than the thought that she is not feeding her baby enough. Whether it be nursing, bottles, or solids. Mothers cultivate life, and in the most literal way, food equals life.

For this reason, the most traumatic part of being whisked away to the ER during the second week of Noelle’s life was not that I was bleeding severely, or the ambulance ride, or that my husband was working to keep me conscious. The most traumatic part was having to tell Dwayne to take Noelle to our friends’ house because I knew I couldn’t feed her.

I recently spoke with a vibrant friend who has beaten cancer. I can’t tell you the stage or kind. I can only tell you that she was in the hospital many days, and underwent months of chemotherapy. She shared with me that the most traumatic part of that entire experience was not necessarily throwing up, or loosing her hair, but it was not being able to get out of bed and give her children cereal when they were hungry. That weakness haunts her to this day, even as she stands fully recovered in her kitchen, bright eyed and full of energy.

The other morning, I was feeling particularly weary and tense, so I took a bath. I let myself relax into the warmth. Immediately, my milk let down. Tiny pearls of milk dropped into the water and curled out into white wisps. Patterns of liquid lace.

Was there ever a moment when the life giving attributes of a woman were more evident? Just when she lets go, just as she releases all inhibitions, the gift of nourishment comes trickling out.

Mom the Spoken Word Poet

2008-07-13T16:28:00.000-07:00

I wrote this for the current series at Mosaic called, "Practical Wisdom" and performed it twice this weekend.

Dwayne says I should post the poem. So here you go.

Proverbs 3
(An Interpretation)

What I'm about to tell you
Will lengthen the line of your days
Will harvest a crop of hope:

“In all your ways”
in every road where you put foot to path
in every street where you pass lights and lives
admit that there is one bigger than you, truer than you,
more real than the very breath you are now taking

“and He will make your ways”
straighter than the truth that has pierced your heart.
He will walk the trail you are now treading
And wear out every curve of confusion, every angle of apprehension.

“Don’t be wise in your own eyes”
be wise in the eyes of one who peers into your soul,
who sees what is not, and what cannot
be fathomed by those such as us,
dust as we are,
fading from one temporary moment to the next.

“Blessed is the man who finds wisdom”
it will be like he found a small child by the road
sat with her and heard the thoughts of God
held in the mind of one so innocent.

Those thoughts are deeper than Time
Simpler than a single note.

Beautiful are the traits of wisdom
“Nothing you desire can compare with her”
because nothing you desire brings peace
nothing you desire brings life
nothing you desire brings honor

But wisdom has laid these out like a laurel wreath
Ready for us to take with both hands.

That’s how God laid the foundations, placed the heavens, split the depths
That’s how he formed each one of us -
With sound judgment and good sense.

Cherish wisdom and know this:

The One, whose beginning and end meet on the other side of existence,
“He will be your confidence”
Though you fall, stumble, blunder, trip
He will keep you from breaking beyond repair.

The Shack Review

2008-07-06T15:46:00.000-07:00

Well, after writing about this book, and my hesitance to complete it, in my last post, I wanted to do a quick review. I did finish it!

There are so many blogs out there reviewing this book, especially on it's theological merit. I would direct you to Scott Daniel's review to get the down low on all that.

Not being a theologian, I'll just give you a quick over view of what I thought from a "story" point of view.

What I liked:

I liked how Young handled the tragedy in this book. As I mentioned before, it deals with the abduction and brutal murder of a little girl, a topic that could easily become melodramatic or sensational, especially written from the perspective of the little girl's father. My hat's off to Mr. Young for managing to navigate these emotions in a way that was believable and not off putting. This tragedy set the stage for the impending revelation, and made the rest of the narrative much more gripping.
I don't think it will spoil anything to tell you that much of the narrative is a conversation between the narrator and God. Again very tricky material to deal with. How does one characterize God? I believe that Young did so successfully. I came at it a bit sceptically but I gotta tell you I really liked that God was neither a single person, nor male, nor white. I found this refreshing!
As I mentioned above, this book has sparked so much debate in the theological realm. I'm not sure I can keep my head in that conversation, but from an average person's point of view, I really enjoyed how Young addressed our misconceptions. I appreciated the perspective he has on how a loving God can coexist in a world where there is so much hurt and suffering. In other words, it made sense to me.

What I thought could have been better:

In terms of craft, the writing is readable and engaging, but not particularly brilliant in anyway. There are a few pleseant turns of phrase, and a couple places where the figurative language is good, but to be honest, I didn't feel that I was reading groundbreaking stuff in terms of literature. What is ground breaking about this book is that it addresses apologetics in a creative way.
There is an awful lot of dialogue and explaining in the book. Especially on the part of God. I found myself skimming a few passages, because my brain was just getting overloaded with too much exposition. A little bit of scene sprinkled into these parts would have helped, but with that said, over all the book was a page turner. There was enough action to keep me going.

Overall rating:

I'll do what Josh Jackson does on his blog; give it a number rating. Taking into consideration the critiques listed above, and the pure enjoyment of the book and satisfaction by the time I was done reading, I'd give The Shack a 7/10.

I would say it's worth picking up.

Heartbreak and Radiance in Story

2008-06-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

After recently picking up _The Shack_ by William P. Young, I've begun to contemplate this notion: a story is only as uplifting as it is heartbreaking. That is to say that the more a narrative drags us through gut wrenching pain, the more power it has to heal us. Or as my professor once said after making us watch "Breaking the Waves," "[That movie] drags us through two hours of Hell to give us two minutes of Heaven." And truly those two minutes at the end of the film are exultant, but the two hours leading up to it are barely watchable - they are so painful.

_The Shack_ begins about a man, Mack, with five children. The youngest of which, Missy, is kidnapped and brutally murdered. The crux of the book details the experience Mack has thereafter, when he revisits the shack where his daughter was killed.

I have never really gotten into Christian fiction or "Christian" literature of any kind, but so far I've been able to hang with this book. Partly because Mack is ordinary, and the details of his daughter's kidnapping are believable. I'm sticking with this book too because Missy is neither too sweet, nor too precocious but exactly innocent. The way I feel my own daughter to be. The scenes in which Mack searches for his daughter are something straight from an Amber alert. It seems ordinary and so unthinkable all at once.

For this reason the scene where Mack finds Missy's torn and bloodied dress looms dark and unbearable in the first quarter of the book. It isn't overwrought and melodramatic. It makes me worry for my own daughter. It makes me shudder.

I asked Dwayne about the book yesterday, since he finished reading it while we were on vacation.

"You should finish it," Dwayne said to me.

"It's too sad," I said.

"But you feel really good at the end," he replied.

Seems like this has always been my trouble with Story, especially in the form of movies. People will rave about movies and how brilliant they are, for example "Crash" or "Babel," and even though I know these people are right, I avoid those movies. I understand that in order to really get to the radiance I'll first have to face the inhumanity wide eyed. Call me a light weight. A sissy.

Meanwhile, I'm left contemplating this question: why is it that I must first peer into the depths of darkness before I am able to wholly embrace the breadth of radiance?

If I can ever find it, I think the answer will show me my heart.

Quandaries

2008-06-11T19:31:00.000-07:00

Today I actually found myself putting my sweet baby girl down onto the floor of a public bathroom while I used the toilet. I was alone, and running errands with no one to help. Before I had her I don't think I ever would have imagined laying a baby down in a dirty public restroom. But sometimes you find yourself doing things the hard way, or the long way, or the dirty way, just to make sure your baby is taken care of.

Here are the quandaries I would have never imagined getting into before having Noelle:

1) Regularly nursing my baby in the car before or after church because there is no "nursing room" in the building, and because service is at that awkward hour between naps and playtime. Would be a breeze, except friends from church regularly stream by the windows smiling and waving. How should they guess what I'm doing?

2) Leaving Noelle locked in the apartment while I run down to get laundry or run back to the parking lot to pull the car up. If we had chosen to live in suburbia with our own washer and drier, or our own garage neither of these scenarios would happen. Actually, leaving Noelle alone in the apartment while she was sleeping or sitting in the car seat never bothered me until I ran into a neighbor one day who asked me cheerily, "Is Noelle with her Daddy?"

"No," I said. "She's in the apartment." The neighbor balked and looked at me as if I was the worst mother on the block. The next time she saw me without the baby, she made a point to ask, "Noelle's not alone is she?"

3) And here's the kicker - the predicament that takes the cake: expressing my milk while driving in rush hour traffic. This is how one ends up in such a pickle. I teach a class every Tuesday and Thursday night. Because of the horrendous traffic in LA it takes me nearly two hours to drive to work. In order to keep the milk supply up, I must pump when I miss a feeding. But what happens if you're running late, or if traffic is particularly slow? You whip out the Medela Pump in Style, and discretely pump while creeping along at 10 miles an hour.

I can't tell you how many times I've panicked over getting in an accident while pumping. In addition to other undesirable consequences, I imagined newspaper headlines - "Mother caught pumping breasts in LA traffic." It's exactly the kind of story that turns up on NPR's news quiz, "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me."

Missing My Parents

2008-06-03T14:06:00.000-07:00

My mom and dad moved back to Indiana last week. A kind friend asked me on Thursday, "How are you doing?"

And I replied, "I'm fine, surprisingly." Well, I'm not fine, or I haven't been fine. Although it's taken me until this very moment to realize it.

I would say the sadness started on Sunday. I began to think of every friendship I have or have ever had, and began restlessly reaching out to them. I called a friend from High School. I wrote an "I'm Thinking of You" e-mail to a couple friends. I made a new resolution to send weekly e-mails to certain friends telling them that I've been praying for them. A resolution I make regularly and hardly manage to keep past the first round of e-mails. That's as far as I've gotten this time.

Today, the sadness has followed me. I went to visit another friend, who showered me with gifts from her refrigerator and cupboards, and I could hardly put two words together to say "thank you." I've had as much spark as a slug.

I came home, put Noelle down for a nap, and talked to Dwayne on the phone. In the moments following the phone call I sat absolutely still on the couch, pressing the dead phone to my ear. The gloom was palpable. I could have been Eyore.

"I'm going to lay down on the couch," I told myself, because somehow I needed permission to not grade papers, or cook Noelle's peas, or put away the laundry. So I laid on the couch and named the cloud hovering over me: loneliness.

I guess it stands to reason that when you're feeling lonely you'll assume it's because you need more friends, or more interaction with the friends you've got. And this is what I assumed, that I needed more time with friends. But as I laid there, I suddenly remembered a lunchtime date with a friend who absolutely shines. Just after that I remembered a sweet note another friend had left me on facebook. Need I mention all the gifts that had been showered on me this morning by a friend? No, I wasn't lonely for friends. It was something else.

I was - I am - lonely for my mom and dad. I don't think I expected this because after all, I'm twenty-eight, a wife, and a mother.

My aunt and uncle flew through LA from New Zealand this weekend. They sat on my couch - the very one I was moping on - and we discussed living far away from our families. Their oldest son lives in DC, their second oldest in Indiana.

"We can tell that N. misses us," my Uncle said referring to their oldest. He and my aunt sighed and looked at each other. They missed him too.

"We can tell our kids need us," my aunt added. "Not everyday anymore. But they still need us." It was clear to all of us that my aunt and uncle need their kids too.

I'm surprised to feel how much I still need my mom and dad. I think especially my mom. I need her in a way I never imagined needing her when I was in High School and Junior High.

I need her the way a woman needs someone else to wordlessly understand what it's like to be a caregiver, and a nurturer. I need her the way a woman needs another woman to know her, the way she has come to know her own child. I need her the way a woman needs another woman to show her that it's possible to keep giving beyond your limits. In short, I need her the way a mom needs her own mother.

I miss my parents, but there's no shaking this loneliness. So what do you do with a gloomy heart? I think you stay on the couch for a little while. You let the emotion sweep over you. You let it rise to the top of your head and then sink away, until your spirit has worked a sort of alchemy and the sadness has turned to gold.

"God's Love, Mother's Milk"

2008-05-14T10:29:00.000-07:00

While in Seattle, I ran across the January issue of The Christian Century and saw this image on the front: the virgin Mary nursing a baby Jesus. Her naked breast lay on the front cover for the world to see, and baby Jesus, with all the presumptuousness of a baby, pulled her breast into his mouth.

I know this scene. I know it like I know my own heartbeat. The feeling of a baby curled up in your arms, their warm mouth gently pulling. I was immediately intrigued. I kicked up my heels and started reading. The article said that while the origins of the "lactating Virgin" image were uncertain, it gained new significance in Tuscany during the mid-14th Century. In communities consumed by plague, wars, and mal-nutrition, the image of Mary nursing Jesus became a symbol of "God's loving provision of life, the nourishment and care that sustain life, and the salvation that promises eternal life."

Gradually, this symbol lost it's meaning. The article goes into interesting details about how this happened, but I will tell you that by the late 1700's the image of the cross had arrived on the scene as the new depiction of God's love. It was, however, an extreme love born out of suffering and intense sacrifice, not the nurturing, life-giving love depicted by a nursing mother.

I have to tell you that this article cast a ray of light into my spirit. It opened a shaft of understanding. I've never understood the symbol of the cross as a depiction of love. I mean, not understood it in a bodily way. Not in a heart, mind, soul and guts kind of a way. When I see the cross I think of sacrifice ,and for good or worse, that's where the thought ends.

But when I looked at the painting of Mary nursing, I identified in a visceral way to her act of love. I feel those tiny palms ambling over the crests and valleys of my chest. I see two precious eyes, as wide as pools, searching my face. I remember the pain it took to learn to breast feed, the sores, the raw flesh, the exhaustion. I know the night and day physical demand. The way Jesus was never more than two hours away from his mother for the first four months of his life. I can imagine the way she must have staggered out of sleep, fumbling her child up to her breast. I can feel the way her breasts filled tight with milk when Jesus was not close to nurse. In short, I understand (as does every mother) the ceaseless demand of love, and then that strange abundance of grace that flows from some hidden crevice, even when you think you have reached the very last strand of sanity.

And to think that God experiences the same throes of love for me. Wow, I'd never thought of it that way.

Still, the mystery is left unsolved. I am baffled by a God whose care for me and every other human being exceeds the outer limits, even the boundless love of a mother.

Mother's Day in Seattle

2008-05-12T20:28:00.000-07:00

Go here to see more pictures.

Auditory Hallucinations and the Responsibility of Being a Mom

2008-04-27T20:12:00.000-07:00

In most cases, Auditory Hallucinations strike at the onset of deafness. Those who suffer from them say it's as if someone has turned on a radio inside their head. Music, which they have no control over, plays and plays sometimes to the point of madness. Scientists took pictures of patients' brains at the moment they said they were having an auditory hallucination. Then they took pictures of regular peoples' brains while listening to the radio. Both sets of pictures looked exactly the same.

I learned about this fascinating disorder last week while listening to Radio Lab. Leo Rangell was the first interviewee in a series of people talking about their hallucinations. One day, he woke up in the hospital to the sound of a Rabbi singing outside his window. Twelve years later, the music is still playing inside his head.

As Leo tells it, he didn't realize the music was inside his head. He really thought it was coming from outside his hospital window. With each new day as he got progressively better, the music changed. It got perkier, happier. Until he was riding in the car on the way home and realized that even though he was not beside his hospital window, the music was still playing. And this time, as he drove home fully recovered, he listened to these lyrics: "When Johnny comes marching home again, Hoorah, Hoorah."

At first the music nearly drove Leo crazy, but now in his late nineties he said it's become his friend. In fact, the music talks to him. If he really pays attention, he says there's always a reason for the song he's hallucinating. For example, a few years after his wife passed away, he woke one morning to the song "Bring Back My Bonnie to Me." Later that same morning, he realized it was his wedding anniversary.

This weekend I caught a severe head cold and have been sick as a dog. All weekend, I was snuffly, feverish, achey, and irritable. Poor Dwayne got the brunt of it. I wanted just to sleep. But couldn't seem to get more than a few hours in a row, because Noelle was battling an ear infection of her own and was extra needy.

The majority of my frustration stemmed from my pre-baby self, the me who believed that I had a right to a sick day, a day off - free of any responsibility. 'Round about Sunday afternoon, while I held Noelle's rosy little face in my arms, I realized for the hundredth time since having her that I'm a mother, and we don't get sick days. At least not for a few more years.

This may sound depressing to you, but it was actually freeing to me. Once I stopped trying to pass her off to Dwayne or grandma or grandpa and just accepted my responsibility, things went much better with the two of us.

Anyway, I woke up this morning to the sound of her squeaking in the other room. Dwayne had gone to work, so it was just me and her plus our colds. A song started playing in my head. Just the melody. I couldn't quite place it.

I thought of Leo Rangell and his songs and how they always mean something. Suddenly the lyrics clicked into place. It was the Beatles. As I sat spooning mushed up bananas into her mouth, these words ran through my mind;

"Eight days a week. I love you."

A Thought About the FLDS

2008-04-14T19:28:00.000-07:00

I've been following the stories about the FLDS and I have found myself sympathizing with the women and children separated by this raid. This morning, as I sat in the Dentist chair, I listened to the latest talk show commentary on the story. The judges and attorneys kept talking about how we have "rescued" the children - all 416 of them.

But I gotta tell ya, I'm not sure I believe that their "rescued" state is any better than the alternative. At least on the compound they were with their families and mothers. Now they are in foster care, wards of the state, and vulnerable to who knows what, not the least of which may be neglect.

Dwayne worked with foster kids for a couple years. My friend Yvette has built her life and career around foster kids. Neither one of them have very encouraging stories about the foster care system. In my mind, those FLDS children are better off on the compound, surrounded by the support and network of their families, and parents - regardless of how many mothers they have.

Let me clarify - I don't agree with polygamy or child brides. Certainly not! But now there are reports that the 911 call by "Sarah" were a hoax and that leaves me asking the question, "So what abuses are these kids being subject to?" I hear tha fourteen year-old girls are getting married off. That's wrong, but during a recent segment of Talk of the Nation, Neal Conan interviewed an attorney and author expert in the field of polygamy who said that in actuality the FLDS rarely marry girls off younger than sixteen. And there was a time and place in this country when sixteen was considered the threshold of adulthood.

So tell me again, what have the FLDS done that merits tearing children away from their mothers? I'll grant you that perhaps I'm a little sensitive about this issue because I am a new mom. What if Christianity was in opposition to the law? I can't imagine having someone come into my home and take my little girl away from me because they thought monogamy was wrong.

Isn't there a better way to remedy the issue of polygamy than tearing families apart?

A Poem I'd Like To Share with You this April

2008-04-10T14:51:00.000-07:00

Before A Departure in Spring
by W.S. Merwin

Once more it is April with the first light sifting
through the young leaves heavy with dew making the colors
remember who they are the new pink of the cinnamon tree
the gilded lichens of the bamboo the shadowed bronze
of the kamani and the blue day opening
as the sunlight descends through it all like the return
of a spirit touching without touch and unable
to believe it is here and here again and awake
reaching out in silence into the cool breath
of the garden just risen from darkness and days of rain
it is only a moment the birds fly through it calling
to each other and are gone with their few notes and the flash
of their flight that had vanished before we ever knew it
we watch without touching any of it and we
can tell ourselves only that this is April this is the morning
this never happened before and we both remember it

Oh Well Noelle

2008-04-02T19:42:00.000-07:00

I've started a blog just for Noelle. All the baby stuff will go there, and I'll continue to write my reflections about life, including motherhood, here.

What's Really Important

2008-03-21T17:19:00.000-07:00

I have been battling feelings of failure lately. I mentioned this to my mom one evening. "Well you need to get over that right now," she retorted. She was holding Noelle and standing in my kitchen. "Even if you never do another thing in your life, you've made this little girl and that's enough."
My mother has a wonderful way of reminding me what's important.

On the Shore of Disappointment

2008-03-09T17:30:00.000-07:00

Recently, Dwayne and I have been talking about disappointment and how it's hard to watch someone struggle. Our tendency is to want to rush in and encourage them, because disappointment is dangerously close to frustration and hopelessness.

For example, Dwayne has been struggling with a touch of disappointment this week and I have been tempted to show him all the reasons why he shouldn't be disappointed. Not because what he's feeling is inappropriate. On the contrary, it's very understandable. However, it's disconcerting to acknowledge that sometimes we feel let down by God, and so it's easier to try and convince him to feel otherwise. To say things like, "Yeah, but look at how this or that has worked out." or "You never know where else you might be if it weren't for this or that."

Words like these are meant well, but in the end they do my husband and every other person who's in a moment of discontent a disservice. It snatches the emotion away from them and denies them the permission to experience it.

I'm reminded of two books - _The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems_ by Tracy Hogg and _Let Your Life Speak_ by Parker Palmer. Two vastly different topics are covered in these books, but ironically they both have given me insight into the predicament of disappointment and frustration.

Tracy Hogg writes about all things baby and included in her book is a section about sleep training. When parent's have created poor sleep habits in their babies, she lays out a plan to help condition new sleep patterns. Of course the baby will protest and lots of crying is involved, but she doesn't advocate letting the baby "cry it out." Instead, she tells the parent to simple sit beside the crib and soothe their baby with their voices. What the baby wants is to be held, or to be rocked, or to be given a pacifier. But Tracy admonishes the parent not to give in. "Your baby is simply frustrated" she says. "Never fight a crying child. But maintain contact by placing a firm hand on his back so that he knows you're there...The idea is that you're giving him comfort and security and letting him have the emotion."

While she is talking about babies and sleep training, I couldn't help but think about my husband and myself and every other person I've known who's gone through a time of disappointment. It's tempting to what to "fix" the emotion, but like Tracy so astutely points out, it's better to sit on the periphery of that person's experience and let them have the emotion.

Parker Palmer talks about this tendency to want to "help" people as an outpouring of our own insecurities. He says that while we think we're taking care of the person in depression or disappointment, we're actually injuring them, because our help comes from a need to disassociate with that person's pain.

Palmer says that standing on the edge of another person's mystery and misery makes us feel "useless and powerless, which is exactly how a depressed person feels -- and our unconscious need as Job's comforters is to reassure ourselves that we are not like the sad soul before us."

So this time around, I've been trying to listen to my husband rather than help him. I've been trying to "stand respectfully" as Palmer says, on the shore of my husband's emotions, letting his disappointment lap dangerously close to my feet.

My Secret Confession

2008-02-21T11:00:00.000-08:00

Last week, my neighbor, Nassim, came to visit. She is a middle-aged Indian lady with six children of her own. Her oldest is twenty-one and her youngest is three. She loves visiting Noelle and when she does, she comes with a bundle of mothering tips.

"When you hold your baby, hold her like this," she says leaning Noelle's upper body back on her palm and cradling Noelle's small neck between her fingers.

"If she is spitting up alot, you go to the fridge and eat something cold for breakfast."

"To get her to sleep, you rub her head like this," she motions pulling her fingers gently across Noelle's crown.

I enjoy these visits. Even though I'm not sure about the accuracy of some of Nassim's advice, I can't help but believe her. After watching her raise three of her youngest, two of which were twins, she has earned a certain amount of credibility.

Last week, our conversation turned toward sleep and nap times and how she managed to get her twins to sleep.

"Oh, it was terrible," she said. "I would feed one and she would go to sleep and then the other one would start to cry. Sometimes, I didn't sleep at all."

A wave of exhaustion hit me, as I remembered my own sleepless night the day before. And that was with just one baby.

"Nassim," I said, "How did you do it?"

She stopped for a moment, Noelle reclining on her knee, and then answered thoughtfully. "This is what we do. It's our responsibility."

Nassim's response touched a deep chord. When she said these words, I realized suddenly that I was one of those women who values her productivity more than her role as a mother, that there is a part of me that resists the responsibility of motherhood. I want to be a successful writer. I want to have a career. I want to contribute something to the world at large and the idea of being a mom, staying awake at night, mastering breastfeeding and nap times, and spending hours changing diaper explosions doesn't plug those gaps for me.

I admit this as a short coming. I'm not comfortable with it. I want to see my responsibilities as a mother as equally fulfilling as my responsibilities as a career woman who helps pay the bills. I know, even as I'm writing this that raising my daughter is going to be immeasurably more rewarding than anything I write and get paid for, but still there is something broken inside of me. And whatever is broken has switched the circuits on my sense of significance.

For that reason, I'm stopping to acknowledge my own dysfunction, that rascally tendency to measure my success by what I produce, not by the love, sweat and tears of raising my daughter. In doing this, I hope to curb the brokenness that would whittle away my joy as a mother.