the struggle of snow

It seemed like a good idea.  Watching the pearly fluffs of snow fall quietly from the kitchen window it was hard to resist the tug of the luminescence calling us outside.  It is a Spring snow, afterall, and possibly the last of the year.  But it is only moments later, standing in the basement with the Littlest clamped between my legs, wrangling the Middlest into her gloves, that I am questioning my sanity.

It is a battle I know too well, one that is more physically demanding than I ever think it will be.  On the surface it doesn’t sound that hard: Ok, kids, grab a jacket, and let’s head outside.  But the reality is much grittier. The basement, our point of departure, is full of all the things that a basement should be full of, including a furnace and water heater, and flotsam of former stages of life.  All this is naturally inviting for any explorer worth his salt, and this Littlest of mine is no exception.  His speed isn’t hampered until I get his boots on, and then he can barely stand upright anymore.  The bigger two kids are surprisingly helpful at finding jackets and hats, gloves and boots, but even their fortified desires for self-reliance crumbles at the thought of snow eeking into a potentially exposed crevice at the wrists.

Snow pants, boots, jackets, hats, gloves: check. I shooed the big kids outside, promising to meet them momentarily.

Though I don’t even have my jacket on yet, my body temperature has risen, and with it my blood pressure.  I’m frustrated at myself for being so frustrated.  I’m ready to cancel the whole endeavor, because I’m already sunk in the task of making it outside, and I can’t even begin to see how, once we’re out there, it’ll be any different.  Every 0.35 seconds I’ve scooped the Littlest away from untold danger and he’s using every morsel of strength he has to fight against putting his arm into his jacket.  After practically dislocating numerous joints, both his and mine, we head outside, desperately seeking that cold blast of air to cool me down.

And then the magic happens.  It’s like stepping through the back of the wardrobe into another realm entirely.   The brightness of the still-falling snow is almost blinding, and the corners of my mouth turn upwards instinctively.  My shoulders sink back away from my ears, releasing a tension I didn’t even know I was carrying.  The kids are spinning circles, dizzying themselves with their heads thrown back and pink tongues thrust out and lined with white dots of snow.  Any disappointment they had when I came out without the sleds has faded away and they have created a new game, rolling themselves like hot dogs down the hill.  Popping up out of the snow when they reach the bottom, the snow shakes off of their heads and their shoulders, and I’m struck by the sturdiness of their bodies racing each other back up the hill.  Layered up like a miniature abominably snowman, the Littlest can hardly stand in balance, let alone take carefully calculated steps, but he is content enough to make a snow angel or two.  Then, hoisted onto to my hip, he points me all around the yard as I become the battleship he steers, his voyage a mission to explore this white land.

The magic is there until it isn’t anymore.  The Middlest’s gloves just won’t stay on anymore, and now her wrists are cold and sticky-wet.  The Littlest has commanded this mother-ship around and around again, and is only frustrated that he can’t command his own body in the same way.  Now it’s the tug from the other pole: the hot chocolate and dry comfort that draws us back inside.  The wet mess of shedding layers is an exacting mirror of our earlier struggles to piece it all together.

And what I see is this: I see this pattern of sweat and struggle interspersed with beauty and magic in large and small ways.  The magic of life’s beautiful moments may be fleeting, but in order to see it at all, you have to be there.  You’ll never get the magic if you don’t show up.  Those few moments of pure joy, for both the kids and I, in the snow, showered by today’s sparkle, was hard-won.  It could’ve been easy, halfway into the hide-and-seek of mismatched gloves, to abandon the program all together.  But in pressing on, we had our hands open, palms up, the magic lighting on us the way the snow illuminated their tongues.  And it’s these glimpses of beauty that keep me pressing on, day after day.  Because so much of it is a struggle: it’s a struggle for bedtime, at the end of the day, each at the end of our shortening ropes, with the clock ticking off a world of crazy when all I’m seeking is quiet.  It’s the hard work of listening through the whining, the tears, and the tantrums to seek out what is underneath it all.  It’s a struggle to find time – carve it out, really, chiseling in to one thing or another – for all that is important.  It’s a struggle to learn, again and again, to love each other and do it well.

And this is what I need to remember, when I break out in a full body sweat in the middle of the struggle.  It’s effort; it’s work.  But that is where the magic is found.  This is the whisper that I want to sink deep into the wrinkles of my brain. Right there, in the middle of the struggle, there are moments of beauty – the magic of sleeping bodies, hearts and souls that connect, joy for joy’s sake, and laughter snorted through tears.  I only need to step out into the snow to see it.

 

making art

I look at the clock. I push the breath, hard, out through my nose.  I know that it is too early for him to be up from a nap.  That short respite will not do enough to push us through the tough early evening hours.  The Littlest is just too eager to be in my company, too interested in his new ways of exploring to be content with the confinement of his crib.  I take another deep breath in, readying myself to do what I know needs to be done.  I know there won’t be another pause until long after the afternoon’s dirt is washed off  for dinner.  After the last dish is placed in the dishwasher.  After the Littlest is moved, again, from grabbing a the electrical cords, and the toys are collected off the floor.  After bedtime prayers, and kisses, and one more drink of water.  But now, I put my feet back down on the floor, push myself off the couch.  It was only moments that I sat, but the inertia has weighed me in.  And I know that momentum will carry me into evening hours. I take the dozen or so steps to his room to recover my smile, and when I open that door I give it to him.

And, yes, would you believe that the Littlest is up every two hours at night, still?  I know, I know. I could just… or I should just…. or have I tried… but really, it is all too much right now, so I just go with it, slog to his room on call, rock, and nurse, and rock some more.  I sing, and I hum, and I close my eyes, and I’m pretty sure this is prayer.  And when day comes, sunlight piercing my tired eyes, his little-engine-that-could-body crawls faster and harder and stronger than either of his siblings.  Mistakenly, I thought I would have a bit more time before I would again have to relegate all small parts to special boxes out of reach, when I could keep his company, folding laundry all the while.  But it is a familiar freneticism of ever trying to stay one step ahead of his curiosity.  When  finally at day’s end I think back over the hours, I only laugh at what I once deemed satisfied accomplishments.  There is not much that can be accomplished in days like this.

This is the “tired thirties.” Madeline L’Engle accused it of such, and I feel such relief that it’s not just me.  This business of creating, of taking bits of crazy and chaos and mess and truth and sticking it together to make beauty — it’s exhausting.  Because that’s what it is, isn’t it?  This work of mothering.  This is art, and I’m an artist, just like the almost-three year old who sits at the table, her smock tied smartly around her waist, on her knees to reach the watercolors, paper covered with her deep wide brush strokes. Just like the four-and-a-half year old with his pencil gripped tightly in his pincer grasp wrangling sounds and lines and curves into letters to make words to make masterpieces.  I gather the food bits out of the sink drain, wipe the  rag around the basin before tossing it into the laundry.  The seven month old is climbling up my legs, and I think how does he even know to do that yet? But he does. I pick him up, kiss his wide mouth and throw him on my hip, my traveling companion as I’m off to refill the toilet paper, finding the beauty in it all.

rocking

The ball of my foot pushes the rocker back, and the chair makes a soft creak as it falls forward again in rhythm.  This chant is familiar and comfortable.  My eyes flutter open and then close gently with the rocking motion, weary babe suckling, heavy in my arms.  There is a soft breeze on his cheeks, same as mine, from the ceiling fan, and the evening light that slants through the spaces in the blinds sways over his body. We mark time in this place, countless times a day, but it is also the constant paradox of small lives that in this space time also stops.  I faintly hear the bigger Little Ones in the family room, cheering one happy moment, and just as quickly erupting into shrieking squabble.  Their story is not mine for just this minute, and I leave them to do what siblings do.  The drone of their play is mere harmony for this, rocking and nursing with the Littlest of all.  I fill his tiny belly, nourish his being, and receive my blessing.  His small fingers wrap playfully around the fabric of my shirt, rubbing and twisting until they no longer do. Rest comes.

The fabled calm at the end of the day seems so beyond reach in the marching orders of bedtime: to the bathroom! clothes in the hamper! brush those teeth!  There is little reserve left, and Little Ones don’t quickly listen; I am too quick with harsh tone.  This gray time between emptying and refilling are confusing at best.  Sometimes a drink of water is just a drink of water.  But we make room in the bed for one more body, squeeze in tight for a story.  Together we lift up our day, finding redemption in the retelling and being held by the One who hears it all.  We make haste with one more hug and kiss; dash down the stairs with kisses blown.  Often there is a hungry dog waiting, too, and a sink full of dishes.

Then, later, in the grown-up hours, after a glass of wine and hands entwined, together, we watch those bodies seem so small.  We tiptoe close in, grasp tightly to door knobs, feeling the turn so as not to click awake those Little Ones, and let our prayers out in sighs heavy with the day’s weight.  Small, round bellies rise and fall in rhythm.  Night’s light dulls the edges, blurs day’s brilliance into haze. Now it is with full peace that I cross my fingers over foreheads, sweep sweaty hair behind tiny ears, and kiss baby lips.

And then it is again, the fullness of night bearing down on our house in small hours, I waken to barely a cry, stumble sleep-drunk to the nursery.  I press his not-yet-awake body to mine, sink deeply into the chair.  I lift my shirt.  And again, press the ball of my foot against the floor, sending the chair creaking, the weight of my body and his, my world, back and forth, rocking.

building my nest

LORD God All-Powerful, my King and my God,
sparrows find a home near your altars;
swallows build nests there to raise their young.
Psalm 84:3

I was nursing my Littlest in a room full of wise women today as I sat in bible study.  Conversation had come around to the catastrophes of the world, the multitude of hurt and suffering that so easily overwhelms us.  We were being urged to remember these global issues in prayer.   Our discussion covered a lot of ground, and somehow we had landed here, on this verse in the middle of the Psalms. I don’t even remember how it fit with it all.  But I do know that this was a word for me to hear today, as I gathered the Littlest in my arms.

I am building a nest.  I am raising young. And we, my young and I, are welcomed to be in His presence, to make our home near his altar.  

My daily battles are fought and won, not by me, but by my God who redeems all.  To talk about the problems of the world, while completely critical, sometimes feels abstract and difficult to understand.  What I understand is that there is a four-year old wanting to “help” with dinner, a two-year old who has quietly tucked herself away someplace, probably with markers, and a newborn who cries loudly if I put him down.  These are my immediate concerns, and this takes all of my attention.  Even my prayer attention.  Especially my prayer attention.

In my best, most “spiritual” moments, for instance in college when I served  in a leadership position for our Christian fellowship group, I was sort of disciplined about using my prayer time.  I typed up a chart that listed all kinds of concerns that I wanted to lift up to God, and I rotated through it regularly.  Some things were standing prayers, others changed as needs changed.  I had big things, like famine, and war, and poverty, and small things, like a dating relationship or a big project for a class.  And I was actually pretty diligent about praying through these things.

I can’t do that now.  Nor do I suppose that is what God has intended for me now.  Of course I know that there is no formula or trick to earning God’s favor in prayer.  I don’t think if I click my heels three times after I say “amen” that my prayer will be magically granted.  But this time of mothering little ones has taught me that the form that my prayers take, the words I use (or even using words at all) is so much less important than recognizing the presence of God in all of this.  It is the stirring-the-pot prayer, the nursing-the-babe prayer.  It is the filling-the-bathtub prayer, and the driving-down-the-highway prayer.  It is the middle-of-the-night prayer, and the hold-my-tongue-prayer.  It is offering to God all those moments, and seeing Him in them all.  If my nest is at His altar, it is all prayer; it is all an act of worship.

God knows that my own little world in so all encompassing to me now that it is hard to see the World.  I know that if I can’t form the words to pray eloquently asking for relief of famine in the African horn, God isn’t going to be disappointed in my love for His people.  I’m loving His people.  He has called me to build my nest at His altar.  If me and my Little Ones are hanging out at His altar, in our nest of blocks and crayons, school and storybooks, temper tantrums and sleepless nights, than we are constantly in His presence.  If I am welcomed to raise my young at the foot of His dwelling, than it is a Holy place, and Holy work.

This all just makes sense to me.  That my prayers now are different, that my needs now are different, that my life now is different.  In many ways it is so much more real. How can I hang out at His altar and not be transformed by His Grace?  My need is too great.

The Psalm continues to talk about His blessings: to those who sing Him praise, to those who depend on Him for strength, to be water in the dry places.  He makes His people grow stronger, protecting His people.  He blesses those who trust Him.  When my nest is in His presence, it is easy to see His hand and receive His blessings.

Our LORD and our God, you are like the sun and also like a shield. You treat us with kindness and with honor, never denying any good thing to those who live right. -Psalm 84:11

there you go

There you go, working good from my bad
There you go, making robes from my rags
There you go, melting crowns from my calves
There you go, working good of all I have
Till all I have is not that bad.
-Caedmon’s Call, “There You Go” 

I am bone tired.  This work of caring for the Little Ones is hard work.  It is all consuming, and refining.  At this point my daily task is triage: managing whatever need is most pressing.  It is delicate, often, to understand priority.

Today went something like this:  home from the grocery store, the drive a bit long for all, Littlest wanting to nurse and punctuating our drive with cries to let us know.  Into the house we go, arms full of Little Ones and cold groceries.  Get the salmon and yogurt in the fridge – all else can wait.  Scoop up the Littlest, new diaper and then to the breast.  Another new diaper.  Feuding bigger kids, screams demanding intervention.  Half dressed Littlest goes into the swing to deal with the escalating tantrum of the Eldest:  show down.  Finish up that diaper change.  Middlest in potty crisis necessitating new underwear.  Back to the breast.  Burp, burp — uh oh!  Spit up everywhere: couch, my shirt, my pants, soaked through to my underwear; new outfits for Littlest and me.  Gather the laundry, scoop the detergent, lid closed on the machine. Did I mention it’s lunchtime?  Hungry Little Ones, and the rest of the groceries are still in the car.  On it goes, a full hour since we’ve been home, and I’m finally putting the last box of rice away.

The needs are pressing and persistent.  Somewhere in there I find time to slather a piece of french bread with peanut butter, and pee.

We’ve been stuck together, in this space, for some time as we’ve battled sickness in the midst of life with a newborn.  My mom suggested a few fun ideas that might freshen up our playtime: an indoor beach picnic,  for instance.  I nodded, loving the thought of it all, but knowing deep in my body that I do not have what it takes right now to orchestrate even that.  So we stick with the old favorites: we read, we color, we breath and we move on.

This season for me is about offering up what little I have, in faith.  Faith that my love is communicated in the daily chores of mothering.  Faith that these seeds are being planted, to sprout with fullness in due time.  Faith that this work is forming beauty and rightness and tender love deep in my heart, in their hearts. My offering is this tired body, it is my less-than-enthusiastic make believe games.  It is my voice reading to the Little Ones, less dramatically than it was last week.  It is days in pajamas, and one too many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  I offer it all, giving more fully than I knew I was capable.  It is received, and redeemed.  I know it is made better, more full.  I am certain that my Little Ones will know this desperate love that I carry for them, as they will know the burning love of the One who redeems it all.

This work is refining.  This work is humbling.  This work is revealing.  It is beautifying, and mystifying.  I give it all as my prayer, my living sacrifice.