Taking Steps In The Right Direction

Wow, it seems like just a few months ago that I was writing about our last anniversary (oh, that's right, it was) and here we are again at that milestone! This March the First was a Tuesday, so we just spent the day together running the kids around like usual and then we took them to a babysitter and went out to dinner.  It was absolutely perfect for us.  We are in a good place on this here precarious road, and enjoyed reflecting on that while gazing lovingly, --a.k.a. uninterrupted--  into each others' eyes. [gag-me, I know...]

Stepping stones at the Portland

Classical Chinese Gardens

In other news, what is it about February? Is it that spring is right around the corner, and I'm itching to shed the Winter slumber, make some changes, lighten the load?  Because it was also February two years ago when I decided to step away from the Faceborg.  Obviously, the pull was too strong, and I ended up letting another two years slip away into the interwebs.  The reality is that I hadn't really hit bottom so I never really walked away.  This February found my heart stirring in ways it's never felt before, and I'm finding myself more than ready to let go of this thing that binds me.

I wrote a Facebook Note with my contact information and the following message to my "friends":

[editorial note: I think it's HILARIOUS that I thought it was 2 years ago that I started Facebooking.  That just goes to show what a time-sucking-warp it is.  I actually joined up in 2007-- so it's been about FOUR years that I've been thinking in status-updates!  Ay, caramba!]

March first will be 14 years since the day of the wedding.  And since my life revolves around my calling to that endeavor, I think that is a good day to make a change.

I remember, a little over 2 years ago [okay, four] in a friend's living room, surrounded by crawlers and their toys and their mothers, wondering about this "Face-Book" and why on earth you would want to quip about your moments to all your friends, who are no longer communing at your home, who are not on the phone, not at a coffee shop table with you, not in a letter, but who are sitting lonely at their computers, wondering what you are up to...?  Why would you do that?  Who would care?  What exactly would you say?

Being curious and maybe bored and maybe a little more procrastinating, I sign up.  I only remember one friend who said she is on this "Face-Book" and I look her up and "befriend" her all over again, this time a delayed and sightless, soundless friendship.  Soon my email address list connects me to friends and more friends and before long all the friendships I've ever had may now be transferred into a cyber-existence, like transferring the old reel-to-reel home movies to Blu-Ray to be enjoyed anew in hi-def but still not real and still sightless, soundless, touch-less.  Third-grade memories stay third-grade memories, even with the resurrected photos before me, the aged faces.

And for over 2 years I have invested in these so-called friendships, interacting with my keyboard, investing much, much more time into what is not seen, not heard and not felt compared to the time that Facebook has caused a speaking or a touching or a being seen.  Most days I sit down to fill my mind with what is outside of my own walls (I am a trapped and bored mother, I tell myself) and I am slowly filled with a creeping discontent, my life compared to yours.  You are constantly spending money I don't have, you are being loved in a way that I am not, you are making better meals and being more holy.  Or I judge you, a feeling I hate and despise about myself, for your pettiness or criticism or extreme political bias.  Or I practically explode with longing to help you when you are crying out in distress, needy and longing (and I know your whole situation, it's your "status") but I'm STUCK!  If I leave this keyboard I'll be faced with my needy children and laundry that needs to be put away and meals that need to be made and dirt that needs to be eradicated.  Even if I tried, I could not get to you in time, or help you enough.  You don't even live near me.  I don't even have any money.  I'm not even helping my own charge.  As I sit here getting fatter, I'm not even helping myself.

I have 260-something "friends".  I have whittled that down from 400-something!  I don't think I would use up all my digits counting up the ones I actually interact with, not including my husband.  My mom ran into my prom date in my hometown, and she said he told her that he "keeps up with" me on Facebook.  But we never interact.  He may as well be "keeping up with" Justin Bieber.  Except that they probably don't have a 20-year old shared experience--disregarding the fact that BIRTH is not a 20-year old experience for Bieber.  There are a couple of hundred more like him, and I am one of the same.  You might call it cyberstalking.  I'm seeing it as static.  Static that clouds and confuses and wastes my energy and time to where what is real and now is put aside.

Today, as I took more time to Be in the real world, serving little ones food--orange food to be exact-- and thanking God with them for putting the rainbow in food, and today we thank Him for orange!  And as I prayed and played and interacted and didn't ignore....the older one, the one with words, says to me, "I like it when you are here, mama!"

The horrible secret?  I am ALWAYS here.  But I am not HERE enough.  To him, I am not HERE.  You may have been stalking me on Facebook, seeing that I am definitely THERE.  And I am destroying my horrible secret now, this shame of not being HERE.

Apparently I get texted once in a while.  I guess.  I don't answer because I don't have texting and I never got the text.  We can't afford that extra expense.  And even if we could, being forced to be on this side of it causes me to wonder if I want even more of my interactions to be characterized by touchless, sense-less brevity and convenience.  Are we so busy?  So packed-full?  We cannot take the time for even brief conversations where I hear the comforting sound of your voice in my ear?  Where I can feel touched by a friend, another adult?  Are we so busy that sitting down to make 6 phone calls is too much?  I don't want to be that busy.  So busy that the majority of my interactions with people need to be so brief they must be electronic, lest we get (gasp!) talking and relating with one another!  Is this really why we do this?  Is it more than just video-game-esque fun, this texting?  I don't want texts from my children, I want to hear their voices.  I want them physically in my life for as long as possible.  I don't want cyber-children!  I know a lot from their voices, their eyes.  I need to see and hear.

So a little over 2 years later [actually FOUR], I am back to wondering why would anyone care about my "status"?  But I really don't care about the answer to that question anyway.  Even stronger is the desire to live in the moment.  I want to be HERE with my kids before they leave to struggle on their own for identity in a cyber-centric world.  I want to see your face over our steaming cups of coffee and read your pain through your "I've got everything under control" statements, and give your arm a squeeze (because you haven't been touched by anyone but needy children in a while) and tell you the words that no one would have the inclination to tell you if they never saw your expression, heard the tremor in your voice.  I am taking all this wasted time back, and I hope to GOD that I can live it better than I am now.

So write down my contact information, just in case you want to look me up when you are in Portland, and we can reminisce about Prom, or the third grade.  Or just in case you want to ask for my address.  Or just in case you want to tell me about the funny thing my kid did when they were at your house.  Or just in case you want to call and say Hi or make a coffee date or confirm our plans for Saturday.

On March 1st, I am exiting the world of Facebook.  I'm sure I will go through withdrawals, but I have a calling right before me that is HUGE and dare I admit it, neglected, and I am stretched too thin trying to waste time and live it at the same time.  I can really only handle what is physically before me, and if that is you, I will give you my full attention....and you will see it with your own eyes! :)

I am writing this in part to convince myself I have good reason to let Facebook go (a sure sign of a problem?) and partially to convince you to interact with me in real life.  I'm not making a case for everyone to quit Facebook; not everyone-- scratch that-- NO ONE is me.  I have problems that Facebook is exacerbating.  And I KNOW that my relationships "IRL" will be deeper as a result of letting go of good 'ole FB.

Thank you for being my friend...or my "friend" as the case may be.  Good times, good times.  :D

And you know what?  I haven't missed it at all.  I still feel this inclination, when I am feeling particularly emotional, to run and update my status with things like, "So help me, if there is one more spill today...!" but without that outlet, I've had to move that thought from this private internet part of my brain to the forefront, and actually deal with it.  I can actually feel my eyes change from glassed-over to focused, and it's like I'm snapping out of a trance.  And out of that trance, I can interact better with the real world.  And there are no more awkward run-ins with people as I try to put together what our complicated history is.  Because: there's our actual history, and there's what we know about each other from what we may or may not have read/put on Facebook.  It's very weird.

And by the way, deleting Facebook is tricky.  At first I only managed to "disable" Facebook.  A few days later a friend clued me in and I had to open it back up to properly delete it.  So in case you are wondering how to work it (because they really don't want you to go away), here's what you do:

• Log in
• At the bottom right of the page, click on the tiny blue letters that say "Help"
• I don't know if this will stay here forever, but in the right-hand sidebar under "Top Questions" the very top question is "How do I permanently delete my account?"
• Carefully read the page and click on the link to "submit your request here"
• Then don't touch it for 14 days or it will be reactivated

Now if you are like me and actually have information on Facebook that is somewhat valuable (for instance, so far that was the only place I had chronicled Noble's birth with photos and captions, little details I will have possibly forgotten when I finally make his baby book a decade from now), you can copy everything you've ever done on Facebook onto your hard drive.  Photos, comments, everything (as far as I know).  It's pretty cool.  So I did that.

Again, I am not writing all this to try to convince you that technology is the devil and that you should get off Facebook, Twitter, texting, etc...  All I know is that I needed to detach from the machine...and it feels like vacation!

Motherdynamics

Ann Voskamp said it true this morning: 

"Science may call it entropy, the second law of thermodynamics — nature slipping from order to disorder. But really, it’s this: the first law of motherdynamics — the clean always slips to chaos."

 

Sometimes we go around taking pictures of the mess, when we are feeling brave, and ready to conquer.  When we want to be able to look back and compare, and breath gratefulness at the results of our efforts, remembering the ugliness of the past, feeling proud that we made things new.

Sometimes I forget about that old picture, the ugly one; I don't really want to dwell on that anyway.  So I don't look back and see how bad it really was, where we started from.  And sometimes I get so caught up living in the new that I forget to take a picture of that, and all I have is half a record.... an album full of messiness.  I sometimes wonder, if I were to die and my survivors were to see my records, would they see how I immortalized the mess, or celebrated the newness, the redemption, the results of all the hard work?

We did this together, as a family, and I led the way,with encouragement.  My demeanor meant everything to this.  I got up and walked, with a little elbow grease and a lot of coffee and I loved on them and we worked as a team.  As much as I'd like everything to be equal and really, easier for me, I am their leader and that is my calling.

And there was another.  Those are steam-cleaned beige dining room carpets (the decorating flaw that is my homemaker's affliction!)  That only happened because of the kindness of a friend.  We don't come to this alone.  It is good to remember.

Today I am inspired greatly by Ann Voskamp at A Holy Experience.  ALL MAMAS,  YOU MUST READ THIS!  These are good, redemptive words...

"Simple acts of cleaning are my humble, conquering efforts in the quotidian struggle between chaos and order, creation and disintegration, God and Death."

"True saints don't seek God only in still cells, but commune with Him in the clatter and the kids calling -- this is their calling."

I am thankful today for how far we have come, that we haven't come here alone, and that there is cleanliness and order to show for it.  I am thankful that this is my calling.

Year Thirteen: Making Lemonade

Once, a long, long time ago, I told you I was going to go back in time and tell the stories I haven't had time to tell.  Well, all I needed was a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21 jigawatts of electricity and...well...thanks to some generous Libyans handing over their plutonium, I can finally tell you about March 1, 2010.

Our wedding anniversary is without a doubt the most significant date in our family calendar.  Not because it was the best day of our lives or because we are just that in love, but because it was the first day...the day we left our childhood lives behind and boarded the plane on a journey we would never return from (further up and further in!).  And every year on March 1st, we can look back and through the context of our marriage we  read blessings, adventure, brokenness, heartache, growth, change, healing, moments of deep love and of deep pain, and inexplicable miracles that have taken place.  We say with astonishment and sentiment, "look...look what has happened to us!"

Which is why we almost always make a point to do something to take pause and remember.  This, the thirteenth year, was hard, hard work.  The year began with a culmination of heartache and disappointment so great there was nothing left to celebrate.  We were done.  Done with each other, done with ourselves, done with this stupid marriage.  Year Twelve was the only year that didn't have a March 1st as far as we were concerned.  But apparently we are resilient buggers, and although we both came into marriage with some very heavy baggage...we have spent the last year in particular, cautiously--ferociously-- fighting for our selves and fighting like hell for our marriage.

And so far we are growing up, changing, and becoming better people.  This year, Year Thirteen, there was something to celebrate, albeit a little more serious and somber.  Thanks to the many friends that it takes to farm out all our kids and get us somewhere "away", we were able to pause, get away from the grind, and reflect.  Of course, we had to have a nursing, little tag-along with us, in the very squirmy and exploratory stage of life no less.  But it was fun to pretend we only had one kid (at 35+) and imagining what it would be like if this were our norm.  We'd probably have less gray hairs, less sleep-deprived eyes and better careers... ha!

This trip to Seattle was in part a gift from our beautiful and talented friend Anna, who let us stay at her apartment near the Seattle Center.  After a very refreshing visit with Anna she left us to have our time together, and the first thing we did was hit up a Thai place in Upper Queen Anne.  We love Thai, but the kids?  Not so much.  So any chance we get to eat without them, this is what we have.

 

Noble was a constant blur of activity.  He's just discovered that standing up gives him a whole different perspective, and he must touch and feel and taste any part of the world he can get his little dimpled hands on!  I'll be honest...it's exhausting!

This "next-day" picture was taken to represent our spontaneous after-dinner adventure!  We were walking around the Seattle Center and decided to see a movie.  The closest theater was quite a few blocks away, and lo and behold, the Monorail led right to it!  We'd never ridden the Seattle Monorail before (we've done Disneyland, of course) so this was very exciting.  (We don't get out much, okay?)  Blue-ish fluorescent lights flickered with every rattling bump and waggle of the train, and lonely characters in the corners-- their faces briefly illuminated by the strobing lights-- stared at us with stony expressions.  We, the effervescent vacationers with the baby, may have been on the set of a horror movie...these things can happen!

After the movie (which we loved and intensely identified with), we had to hail a cab to get back to the apartment and neither of us had ever done such a thing.  We weren't really sure what to do when I saw one coming!  Before I knew what was happening, I thought, "well, in the movies, they do this..." and I stuck out my hand and yelled, "TAXI!"  And you know what happened?  The taxi pulled right over!  Neither of us could believe it!  We weren't sure what to do with the baby...would he take us and a baby with no car seat?  I mean, it's a car, not the bus!  But he said, "yeah!  Get in!  Get in!" and as soon as we shut the door, he sped off.  So we held on tight to Noble and giggled out, "this is our first time in a taxi!"  Which the driver ignored, then he rolled down his window and spoke Taxi to the car next to him.  It would've been totally deflating if we weren't laughing at ourselves for how ridiculously excited we were of being out of our element.

The next day necessitated some tourism, so we walked all around to see the sights.  It was very cool for us just to hang out and be friends, talking uninterrupted (mostly).  Then we met up with Anna and a friend of hers who worked at the Space Needle and was gracious enough to take us all up on his day off.  What a blessing, and it was a perfectly clear day!

Here we are, the happy family...hopefully you can't tell that I didn't get ANY sleep because Noble, out of his element, was up all night and I was paranoid about bothering the neighbors.

What a silly, happy baby.  You could tell he was bored with us and missing his sibling playmates.

And this is everyone in the reflection of the windows, 520 feet up.

Next we headed South to do some more tourism-ing on our way home.  But really we had only one objective: Daily Dozen Doughnuts.  Even though Noble and I are gluten-free now doesn't mean we can't watch David enjoy these heavenly bites.  So off to Market we go...

 

We parked miles away and took a strange detour, which led us to this ghastly and beautiful sight (Noble, as you can see, is in disbelief):

You don't get this close to the Gum Wall without finding out that it...it smells really good!

  

I love that someone thought it was necessary to sprinkle glitter all over this fruity kaleidoscope of gum.  It was very colorful.

Behold: the Gum Wall.  German tourist take turns photographing each other in front of this American Wonder!

  

We are interested in another Wonder.  Of hot, doughy goodness.  Of cinnamon.  Of powdered sugar.  Of this guy:

Raise your hand if you know this guy.  He is so cool.  I mean, he is just doing his job, and like anyone else he'd rather not be at work, but he'll talk to you as if you are his next-door neighbor, not some once-in-a-lifetime tourist, come from afar for his deliciously greasy confections and fanfare.  He likes to snap the bags open, startling children and nervous nellies, and throw the doughnuts into the air, catching them one by one in your bag of powdered sugar.  Shake-shake, an exchange of money and it's yours!  Wonderful!

 

Sorry Noble, you and me get rice cakes (booo).

One last temptation before we hit the road.

We actually found this lemon as we were walking along, perfectly undamaged, like it just fell out of someone's grocery bag.  We picked it up (why not?) and had to laugh at the irony: the significance of the day, looking back on our marriage and realizing that we have been taking the lemons life gave us, and with pressing and twisting and squeezing, with a massive amount of sugar supplied by the kind of grace that only God can afford....we are, in fact, creating a pretty darned good lemonade.

May we continue to balance our lemons with the Water and Sugar, and year after year may we be only more refreshed by our marriage.  Amen!

Book Review: Love & War

Love & War.

Let me tell you about love and war.
In a few weeks it will be our thirteenth anniversary.
Luck 13. Yessiree.
We are amused by the irony that the ominous "13" teases us with. After all we've been through in the last thirteen years, a bit of ill luck would be nuthin'.

I look at our wedding photos and chuckle (smirk?) at what campy goofballs we were. We lived in a world of church youth groups, the endless summer that is Santa Barbara, and living at our parents' houses; a couple of camp counselors is what we were. In fact, we had almost 300 people at our wedding and I'm guessing at least half of them were under 18. It was a lot of fun. But we, the bride and groom, we were kids! We had no idea what we'd signed up for.

And then, when the honeymoon was over (literally speaking...of course?) we moved up to the Great Northwest for college and got busy with jobs and and babies and moving and other jobs and buying a house and more babies...this whole time dragging our pre-wedding baggage around with us. This baggage weighing heavy on our lives, changing us, infecting our relationship until we became people that the youth group kids might not even recognize anymore. And that was only about three years into it! For a while, things only got worse as selfishness and idolatry tightened the noose around our marriage.

Boy, could I tell you stories of what not to do in a marriage! And you might shake your head and think it all sounds obvious. But wait until I tell you what I've learned (by nothing short of a miracle) about what to do in a marriage, and you'll think I'm off my rocker! It will all sound subversive. Counter-culture. Ka-razy! But I'm getting used to that. Everything in the Kingdom of God is upside-down to the world, His intention for marriage very different from the world's impression.

So here in the middle of the story, we are battling our baggage and counteracting the cancer it has spread through our relationship over the years. We are battling a culture that says to give up because "this sucks, and my happiness is what it's all about!" It is a BATTLE. Sometimes, it feels like full-out WAR.
And you know what?
It is worth it.

That is my experience, and that is why I am so drawn to this book Love & War by John and Stasi Eldredge. They have learned what I am learning: You go to war to stay in marriage and make it thrive. And the battle...is worth it.

Here is a summary from the publisher about the book:

With refreshing openness that will grab readers from the first page, the Eldredges candidly discuss their own marriage and the insights they've gained from the challenges they faced. Each talks independently to the reader about what they've learned, giving their guidance personal immediacy and a balance between the male and female perspectives that has been absent from all previous books on this topic. They begin Love & War with an obvious but necessary acknowledgment: Marriage is Fabulously Hard. They advise that the sooner we get the shame and confusion off our backs the sooner we'll find our way through. Love & War shows couples how to fight for their love and happiness, calling men and women to step into the great adventure God has waiting for them together. Walking alongside John and Stasi Eldredge, every couple can discover how their individual journeys are growing into a story of meaning much greater than anything they could do or be on their own.

This book was provided for review by WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing.

You can pick up a copy here.