This is my dear friend
Sarah's daughter.
And me. She is absolutely darling, and I double dare you to click on the link above to see how absolutely precious she is.
On Monday I went to a day long seminar on infant mental health.
Yes. Mental health for infants.
It is my new love.
Actually, my new love is when I see infants capturing their parents' hearts and their parents falling in love with them. The cooing, playing, babbling, smiling.
Did you know a seven day old infant can imitate you when you open your mouth wide or pucker your lips? They most certainly can. You must give them a few minutes, but they can.
And, if you ignore a little one, she will smile and charm and flirt with you to get you to engage with her.
They love those relationships, those little ones.
This is my most newest "niece." I have called her "Hepzebah" for many months because her mommy and daddy wanted to share her name only on the day she was born.
Welcome, miss liberty. You have already captured your mommy and daddy's hearts. They are completely, madly, totally, truly and most definitely 1,0000% in love with you.
Ok, I admit.
I'm a little smitten, too.
I cannot believe my friends are having these precious infants. It's a little odd, but perfectly perfect.
Miss Elizabeth and her husband also welcomed their own little bundle of coziness in early June. Take a peek. Of course, I cannot wait for the day when I get to hold my own.
This is social work:
* lining up matchbox cars so the six year old can crash his toy helicopter into them, the crashes getting bigger each time.
* one reading of Sponge Bob Squarepants.
* discussing the finer points of Pink Floyd in 100 degree wheat field summers on the front porch with the 13 year old.
* miniature 2 year old arms wrapped around my neck, little head pressed against my cheek.
* two toddler "i love you's" when I leave the home.
* i will do social work forever. i will love these kids forever.
This is social work:
* endless conversations with service providers that conclude we don't know as much as we'd like to believe. sighs. breaks in the conversation. what are the family's resiliency factors again?
* awkwardly supervising a visit between parent and child. everybody's on their best behavior. love and risk and hurt and power so thick you can reach out and touch it.
* staring at the computer, wishing so hard you can make your words really align to what you're thinking for that court report that's due today.
* i cannot do social work forever. i will love these kids forever.
When I write those reports, I listen to Massanet. Beethoven. It's just complicated enough without being dark. I cannot listen to Mozart or Siberius. They mock the complexity of my recommendations with their simple little melodies.
What people are capable of can astound you.
Both ways.
I am ...
... wilting from the heat. {Even in the blessed coolness of this basement apartment, my body is not deceived, realizes the full force of the heat outside and, well, wilts.}
... just finished reading "Velvet Elvis" and "Sex God" {a little different than one might expect}. Very worth my time.
... STILL
creeped out by my midnight viewing of "The Dark Knight." Were the Batman movies always this dark? I don't remember them being so. The Joker completely messed with my mind and I left thinking, "oh my goodness. I think I need a nightlight tonight."
... looking forward to camping with my beautiful friend Kim and her spunky kids the first weekend in August. {The other day, her 9 year old son, Tyler, was stalking butterflies in their backyard with a BB gun, wearing a
camouflaged bathrobe and sporting his summer buzz cut.}
... being grateful for the wonderfully random gift my friend Joe brought back for me from
Kauai. One might expect a Lei or a
Hawaiian printed something, but, o. Not so much. I am now the proud owner of a blue refrigerator magnet that has an image of crossed fingers on it. Above the image is printed, "Me and God are like this." I'm glad my faith is a never ending source of amusement and wonder.
... contemplating some pretty big life changes. Living in Vineyard Town was always supposed to a be a short term plan. The longer I'm here, the more I realize that there's probably something different for me. Of course, I don't say this lightly. As I'm about to start looking for jobs in metro Pacific Northwest, my heart rate is increasing just a little. Of course, at this point, I don't have anything to lose. And, what's that? Grad school, do I see you becoming more of a possibility?
Many blessings on your week this week. Stay inside. Or go swimming. Drench each other with water hoses. Drink some lemonade.
Be happy.
Beyond here there's no map.
a year ago, i turned 29. one week after my entire life course changed. i spent the day antique shopping in mountain oregon with my best friend, wishing the entire time i could dial back the clock. wishing i did not have a new apartment.
How you get there is where
you'll arrive; how, dawn by
dawn, you can see your way
clear: in ponds, sky, just as
woods you walk through give to fields ....
but i had a new apartment. a new job. a new life. i did not understand these things at first. i did not understand me.
sometimes i still do not understand me.
but i understand that this that is, is. prickly misunderstanding and confusion has given way to the niche that God has carved for me. it is not a big space, generally and metaphorically speaking. but it is a space.
. And rivers: beyond
all burning, you'll cross on bridges
you've long lugged with you.
i don't know that i can define this next year. it's taken awhile to let go of this past year. i have never, never wanted a year to pass so quickly. i do not know how many times i said to myself, "i just want to feel better."
Whatever your route, go lightly,
toward light. Once you give away
all save necessity, all's
mostly well: what you used to
believe you owned is nothing,
nothing beside how you've come to feel ...
i have a little secret.
in the past few months, i started to let go.
of what i believed i was. of what i believe i should be. i feel what i feel in christ jesus. sometimes it's not very holy.
i tell him anyway.
. You've no need now
to give in or give out: the way you're going your body seems
willing...
i'm willing.
...Slowly as it may
otherwise tell you, whatever
it comes to you're bound to know.
welcome, 30th year. i didn't think i wanted you.
turns out i wanted nothing more.
in the car driving out to the snake river last thursday, i spouted a liturgy of the things i wanted Some Day.
marriage. children. (i did get an odd sideways look as my traveling companion was one of my closest male friends.) a master's degree. maybe two. maybe more. to write. to publish. to take more piano lessons. to learn the violin. to travel. to live right now.
i couldn't be more grateful for the place i'm in in this very moment, though there's so much that is so very unclear.
these people here? all very different. also? i've really only known them in the past year.
i'm grateful for them, and that they chose to celebrate with me this year.
and i choose to be grateful for last year.
and i am expectantly living out this year.
(big thanks to philip booth and "heading out" (c) 1990).
this is my june.
welcome, old friend. many apologies i truly did not get to visit you this month.
welcome, baby.
farewell, relay for life. you are a truly noble cause. and i am truly glad you are done for this year.
welcome to the new song family, jeff b. congratulations, mrs. b.
this baby girl is almost here, too. but this baby shower did not get any pictures as my camera was used and abused for its batteries.
there is no picture for this one, but please welcome Happy House Person Caleb to the blogosphere. His well written, thought provoking posts will be at
http://whyiama.blogspot.comin my life i am grateful for many things.
jesus.
marriages.
new babies.
fundraisers.
good friends.
and the chance to sit down after celebrating all of these wonderful things.
there is one more thing.
this month, i turned 30.
which will be the subject matter of my next post.
... is the noise of me drowning in busy-ness. And ignoring this poor blog.
sigh. Poor little blog. It's always the first to go.
Relay for Life is quickly approaching, like scary footsteps rapidly coming up behind me. I know something is there, but I don't think I'm prepared to turn around and face it .... Coming up: a Karoake Fundraiser (I will so *not* be singing, but I so *will* be event coordinating); a carwash that I'm hoping our probation kids will put on and one teensy little fundraising lunch I need to cook.
misnomer that that is. I can't cook a teensy little lunch ~ undoubtedly it will be a very big lunch ~ but maybe that will raise more funds. Come, June 13th, please come! I'm ready for this year's event to be over already!
glug.
and I'm there with you ladies. I haven't escaped baby and wedding season and am busy making invitations, making wreaths and sewing little washcloth duckies. I'll be gone most weekends from here until July.
glug, glug.
this weekend I will be in town, but we're church conferencing with a Firestorm team from Bethel that's visit. I wouldn't miss that in the first place, but as well, most of my "family" from my little hometown are going to be up for it too. And they're bringing the kids! Hurray! I like the adult weekends, but I so seriously miss all of my little munchkins. {Groan. That reminds me that I still haven't prepared this week's Kids Church Lesson. Good thing I love those kids too. 5 year old random Jeremy told me last week that he accidentally ate dirt. Actually. He announced it during the teaching time. O, you have to love that, though.}
glug, glug, glug.
all right. Time to put on "South Pacific" and get to the rest of those baby shower invitations. And hopefully I'll have a minute to clean my poor little house {I cannot stand the clutter!} and balance my checkbook. And get some sleep.
Sidenote: Sierra and Aaron, I had no idea you guys had caught up with me here. It would be great to get an email address from you, but I guess I can contact you through Myspace as well. Be blessed!!
is in any way easy to explain ~ that between a mother and a daughter.
There is just one thing ~ one mantra ~ left over from my childhood that I can still literally hear my mom say: You choose what you want to do, Lisa, as long as it makes you happy. I hear that voice again and again, especially lately: The one thing I want for you is to be happy. What have I always told you, Lisa? You need to do what makes you happy.
I don't feel like I have a good handle on what that is. I don't know what makes me happy. I'm still in a state of ... transition. {What does it mean, Mom, to be happy? Does it disappoint you that I would rather follow a set of rules ~ of order and decorum ~ rather than seek happiness and joy with abandonment? It disappoints me a little.} She can't answer that for me. And if she had an idea, she wouldn't share it with me so that I could find it on my own. Today I'm left wondering what would happen if I truly pursued what made me happy.
What makes my mom happy? How does she know? What makes my sister happy? Is it the same as my own? Do my sister and my mom have the same relationship as my mom and I? Is it different? Did we become the type of women my mom had hoped?
What does that woman look like? What did my mom want for us when we were younger? Does my mom know how closely I hold her heart in mine? Do I tell her? Does she believe me when I do? Does she know I think about the days when my dad left and she was forced to pull it together and parent us on her own? Does she know I haven't forgotten? Does she know she's still, in so many ways, the gauge, the meter, the measurement of what's right, what's wrong?
Does she know she's the first person I call when things go right / go wrong / get confusing? Mom, I'm getting a second degree. Mom, I'm getting married. Mom, we're seeing a fertility doctor. Mom, I think something Very Wrong is going on.
How can we feel so different and then how can my heart be so inextricably wrapped up in hers?
Is my own relationship with my future daughter(s) going to look the same? {Are those daughters ever going to be here?} Am I going to want the same thing for them? Am I going to be able to raise them with tightly held values? Are they going to know and follow a God that loves them more deeply than I ever could? {Am I going to fail them?} Are they going to trust me? Be proud of me? Know that they're loved?
Did my mom think these same things before my sister and I were born?
A couple of years ago my mom shared that she wrote us poems while we were in her belly, waiting to meet the world. I've been praying for my children since I was 19 years old. So much faith resides in that place. Faith and love and fear and hope and anxiety.
All at once.
All true.
When my mom told me about the poem writing, I went home and wrote my own. One day I will tell my daughters that their poem is in every way entrusted to them my their grandmother. And it is only, simply, so deeply, a legacy of that love.
To My Daughter
When you are born I will
gaze at your soft, sleeping infant
body and praise.
You are a little girl.
If you are my first born rejoice
in the legacy you
are born in to fiercely silence
those who whisper what a shame
you were not a boy.
You are mine.
I'll teach you the joy
the courage it takes to
serve a God who so intimately
knows you and who so purposefully
made you female.
You will find your own
cost of your Alabaster box
and a God divinely male.
Your soul must find the God
also divinely female.
Please celebrate this.
I will introduce you to your
many grandmothers ~ our mothers and
the mothers sent to us ~
listen to them name each Wisdom's
origin and seek your own.
Seek the mothers
that are not me.
And if you are born only
into my conscious
I will not love you less.
You are mine.
{2005}
I hope I can make my mom as proud as she has made me.
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