Sunday, December 30, 2012
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
here comes pshantvah

But first this...







I hope you have a wonderful, Merry Christmas too.
Sunday, December 23, 2012
love-loss-festivity-and ordinary days
And just when I think I might have opened a chapter called moving forward--I arrive again at Christmastime. The children's intense anticipation, the familiar music, the lights--blue and white against deep, dark, snowy nights, are at one moment a completely wonderful source of joy, and the next an almost unbearable source of melancholy. Here I am balancing and managing the magic with the to-do's as a single parent for the third year, hoping that I can keep that childlike love for this time of year alive in them, in spite of my inadequacies and exhaustion.
Have you ever prayed so earnestly just to ask God, "If I can't have what I want now, could you please just let me know what You want."
"And if that is too much to ask could you just please let me know that You are there?"
Friday December 14, I took the little ones to preschool and started my Christmas shopping. By noon I had picked them up, returned home, and heard the first of the tragic news from Connecticut. Prayer is long distance compassion, charity in thought and deed, opening up your heart in an attempt to share the burden of another person's pain that would be otherwise unbearable. I saw the flags in mourning around town by evening, and they reminded me to pray.
Saturday was a busy day, so I was grateful that our friends from the ward brought over a mountainous pan of pancakes, and filled our kitchen counter with trays of leftover fruit and ham--which kept the kids fed all day as I shuttled the girls back and forth, through the snow--which I was grateful was atmospheric but light, to their dance dress rehearsals.
In the evening...the long awaited performance. The girls were in several numbers. Bethany's ballet class danced to Ave Maria.

Saturday I went to bed with a great sense of accomplishment, having survived the dance recital super Saturday. I am sure the girls did as well. I don't know why that mood has to be so fleeting...might have had something to do with the Sunday morning rush to church, for which I was no match that day. William and I arrived after my Sunday school class was due to start and the kids had already been separated in to other classes, and I remembered that prayer.
"Are You there?"
"Are You watching this?"
"Could You please give me a little insight into just where this is headed?"
Sunday evening I was playing Christmas carols on the piano and the bishop stopped by with an envelope. Said someone had given it to him to pass to me. I remembered that prayer again.
"Just let me know that You are there."
We have been blessed every Christmas of our life as parents by huge generosity from others. One year, when we were just students with two little boys, a whole clan adopted us and filled our home with decorations, and food, and gifts. I was pregnant that Christmas, but in January I miscarried. I was devastated, but one thing stayed in the back of my mind. It was the love that I knew God had for us, because he had sent that family to us in December. I knew that He was there. Sunday I was overwhelmed again. And humbled that I had wondered to begin with.

"I am no better... than those who never lived to know the magic of a boring evening at home,"
and I thought what a blessing it is to have another day to celebrate... holidays and ordinary days.
Monday, December 17, 2012
monday and snow
The snow we anticipated Saturday afternoon really didn't arrive until Sunday, December 9th. It was an odd snow. I noticed as soon as I opened the windows in the morning that it had accumulated on the roads but not the grass. Little John John remarked about it during Sunday school class, and said he thought it was due to recent "strange weather patterns." Far be it for me to be discussing something as controversial as climate change with the nine year-olds at church. It just kind of came up.
Monday morning I had to wake up the unwilling. Sam didn't make it to the bus and Bethany was late enough to give up the effort. I decided it would be more convenient for me to drive her and my eleventh dependent--her cello, in one trip. I pulled up to the elementary school to let Bethany out, and couldn't resist nudging Sam, whose legs were sprawled out across the dash to the point of sure discomfort, in attempt at feigned sleep, and protest against the cruelty of high school related sleep deprivation torture.
I was pleased that, in spite of Sam's suffering, he was able to enjoy watching Bethany walk up to the front door, confidently carrying her cello, more than half her size, dressed in a mini skirt, bright colored leggings, a green Alpaca coat from Ecuador, and the enormous Grinch hat that Ben wore in the middle school musical.
"She's taking the Wes Anderson thing to an extreme." He said.
I do worry at times that she connected with Moon Rise Kingdom disturbing well for a ten year-old. But where is my Bruce Willis?
Monday morning the snow came in earnest. The roads were slippery, but I felt more confident than I have in years past. I drove the boys to preschool next, then Sophie to Grandma's, then went back to Lindon Nursery, for irises, in honor of my Bethany...who at one point insisted she would change her name to Iris, as soon as legally possible. She will always remember the beautiful field of irises that we used to wait to see in full bloom every spring in Beijing.
I bought a couple of cups of hot chocolate for the boys at the 7/11 after preschool. As they sipped, and I drove towards Grandma's slowly through the snow, the classical station played a gorgeous choral rendition of Good King Wenceslas, and Granty said,
"This is a wonderful day!"
I do love Mondays. It usually means lunch at Grandma Martha's house then I get to go to Caitlin's classroom to help out the teacher for an hour. This often means I get to cut and staple, even use crayons and gluestick if I am lucky, and help the kids with their writing and math. It is highly therapeutic, and no psychoanalysis is involved.


Thursday, December 13, 2012
involving hope
One morning in November, I heard a man on the van radio say, "Planting anything always involves hope." I was impressed by the simplicity of that thought, and how I felt that he had been speaking directly to me, and I started to cry. I thought about it Saturday, and felt sorry that I didn't remember who had said it.
Saturday was the coldest day of last week, the second week in December. We had enjoyed several perfect days of light jackets. Lindon Nursery was selling flower bulbs at forty percent off Wednesday. I used some of my birthday cash from Grandma Martha to buy Spring...daffodils, tullips, and irises. Saturday snow was predicted by noon, so I went out first thing to get the bulbs in the ground before it arrived.





One day this will not be the present, and I suppose I will feel an intense longing for this view from the mess upward. And for everything that surrounds me... blankets, dirty socks, pencil stubs and candy wrappers, gloriously rescued misplaced shoes, and maybe I will even miss the figuring out, which some days feels like it will crush me, like rubble would, or maybe even like soil, but my hope is that it won't.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)