the story of outer space and the shake-shake bridge

“We’re on a ‘venture!” she declares, loudly and bravely.  He is a few paces behind her, and once he’s reached me he follows up with the necessary info: “We’re going to outer space, Mom. And this is our rocket ship,” he tells me, indicating the glider swing upon which he hoisting himself, just next to his sister.  The story builds over time. I’m told that he is the little white dot (“Do you see me?) and that once he has finally landed on the moon, after careful consideration he finds it slimy to walk.

Today was a brave sort of day, a day of saying “yes” and I suppose that when you say yes, something is bound to rise up to meet you.  Either that, or your just have the eyes to see it better.  Being brave today  meant being outside.  The sun has not been to visit in days, and when the thick fog finally lifted after this weekend, the clouds just filled the void.  It is overcast and chilly, in the way that I’ve come to count on from winter.  It’s the kind of sky that dares you, almost, to come outside: “See if you can find some goodness here!” it taunts.  So being brave today means confronting that ominous gray and being in it’s space.

Boots, hats, jackets, and mittens that won’t stay on, times four, and I remember why this takes guts.  But the discouragement from getting it all together dissipates quickly with the first sharp breaths of cold air.  The familiar sting on the cheeks and the tightness in the chest only last a few minutes, and while I let the weight of the cold settle over me I watch the transformation in all of us. There’s something about getting outside, being in that open expanse of air and sky and earth never-ending that invites the imagination to mimic the landscape.  Though their play was entertaining in the comfortable confines of our family room, the Little Ones become more animated, their bodies reaching to explore the negative space of our backyard.

The adventure continued, and the Eldest described a new path: “Now, we’re on the shake-shake bridge” he narrated for my benefit, feet planted firmly on the glider swing, his arms creating waves of movement from the ropes downward. (You know, the shake-shake bridge, at the playground – with all the planks tied to each other, and it shakes and wobbles as you cross from one end to the other. The shake-shake bridge).

It’s days like today that set me straight.  The literal happenings, the actual doings are nothing particularly spectacular, nothing terribly out of the ordinary.  We were brave at times, yes, and had our ‘venture. Stepping out of the rocket ship, I wonder, what is the moon like?   Is it full of waking, and sleeping, but mostly waking and sorting it all out?  Is the adventure of moon walking about how to walk out love even when it’s “slimy” and you feel like you’re slipping, or getting stuck?  What sort of creatures are on the moon?  Are they friendly? Are we friendly?

And then there’s the shake-shake bridge.  Here’s the thing about the shake-shake bridge: it can be thrilling and terrifying all at the same time.  It shakes one way, then wobbles the other.  Your step is uncertain, and you overcompensate a bit with the next.  But you are never in danger.  The bridge isn’t going anywhere: it’s all part of the game.  And sometimes that’s just how it is – I get lost in the game, fearful of the unbalance, forgetting that I’m safe and secure the whole time.  The fun is in the twist and the wobble.

For all the running and jumping and swinging and sliding, for all the moon walking and rocketship-ing, it’s the story of being brave, and saying yes.  For all the ball throwing, and stick hunting, for all the mud stomping and dragon growling, it’s the story of freedom and fresh air.  It’s learning how to create a story worth living.  Today it’s the story of me, here on earth, pushing the Littlest in the swing with the rhythmic sway of gravity and the tides, watching that little white dot land on the moon.

my very own once upon a time

I stood over the sink, my hands raw and red, burning from the the hot water.  Bits of pasta, small pieces of green beans, and leftover coffee grounds collected in the bottom of the basin. I hummed a sing-songy nothing to myself, making music alongside the gurgling water.  The kids were all tucked in for the night, and I was pretending not to hear their going-to-bed-noises.  Instead, while I leaned my hip against the wet edge of the counter, and dumped the water of the pot, I went over the day in my head, pouring out each event like that water, and conjuring up the story of the day.

For the past two years I’ve picked a word for the year.  I’ve used this word like a rudder, to steer myself, or like a map, to help me determine my course.  I’ve used it like a mantra to help me stay focused and like a lens through which I see the minutiae of my life.  I’ve learned the consistent pace of my own self when I chose breathe.  I’ve learned about how my cracks only make space for Glory to shine through when I chose enough.  This year my One Word is Story.

There is story all around me, if I can just hear it – the old t-shirt that I sleep in tells a chapter and verse of the story of us, for instance.  Or there are stories, worn smooth, rubbed down with each telling that the words now are more like family folklore than an actual recount of events.

In choosing “story” I’m choosing to focus on not just the events of the day, the many things that happen and check lists that are accomplished (or not) from sunrise to sunset, but instead to see the narrative that holds these things.  A story has themes.  A story develops characters.  Lessons can be learned, right and wrong meted out, justice served.   Beauty is writ out of the work of living.  Stories are meant to entertain.  We each have our own “once upon a time.” What is mothering if not the moment-to-moment development of character (the little ones’ and mine)?  And isn’t it my work too to see the beauty in the work of life?  Goodness knows, there is plenty of entertainment in my days!

In her book Storycatcher, Christina Baldwin writes “Story is the narrative thread of our experience — not what literally happens, but what we make out of what happens, what we tell each other and what we remember.”  Every day my story is written, but not in the literal happening of my life, but in how I see it, recall it, tell it, remember it.  This year, I want watch my story unfold, not just within the narrative of my life, or even the larger story that is family history.  I want to watch my story be braided into the tapestry of the Big Story, too.  Sometimes that’s not easy, because it often can look like the underside of that tapestry – the rough, tangled mess of dull knots.  I want to learn to turn those tangled knots over and see the other side, to make meaning out of folding the laundry and putting the dishes away.  Our story is woven, strand by strand.  It is the warp of bath time and wooden block towers,  the weft of singing together in the car on the way to school and running trucks after dinner.  Alone, these things threaten to be trivial and mundane, but when seen as part of a bigger story, they serve the purpose of adding color, and texture; they advance the plot, they get us invested.

I am writing story.  I am being written into story.  As I come to see my life in the scope of the Big Story, too, I can watch the work of the One who holds my story.  I can hear of His grace at work, I can see His gentle touch of guidance.  This year I want to see each misstep, each adventure, each heart swell, each struggle as tale to be told.  I want to hold the stories of my family’s past, to pass them along down the line, add ours to the fabric of folklore.  I want to be the one they all come to and say “Tell me a story, Mom.”  I want to always be ready with a story.

On the podcast, The Moth, as they sign off they exhort their listener to “have a story-worthy week.”  I’m going to spend the next year with story on my lips, story in my heart.  I’m going to have story in my steps, and story in my eyes.  I’m going to be the one saying “well, that’ll make a great story some day.”

Today’s story was one of turning siblings into friends, and, still standing over the sink, I’m pressed with the image of all three of the Little Ones chasing after each other, trucks in hand. I finish up the dishes, sat the last pot to dry, and wring my hands through the dish towel.  Mark had come to the kitchen now, and we were  finishing up the nightly dance of setting our house right again after the undoing of the day.  The quiet had settled in over the house, not thick but gauzy, and my mind turned over the day once again, listening for the story told.

 

turning three

My round faced, wide eyed, Middlest: you, dear, are turning three.  Mark and I sat across the table from each other a few nights ago, while you were tucked into our big bed, singing your heart out even though your lights had been out for nearly an hour.  He said to me, “Can you believe she’s going to be three?” And I said, “Yes.” Emphatically, yes.  Because you haven’t been a two year old for a long time, now.

No, you weren’t long to stay a baby.  That’s not because you were rushed out of that cozy part of life, but because you just stood up and took yourself right into the fun parts of being a bigger kid.  Even this week, in the hallway of school, walking with your big brother and a classmate of his, you refused to be left out of their giddy laughter and silly boy banter.  While the classmate’s younger brother clung to his mother’s hand, you dropped mine in order to run in the circles of the big boys.  This year was your first to go off to school.  You walked triumphantly into that classroom on the first day, never looking back.  Your enthusiastic chatter when I pick you up is musical, and the world is glorious through your eyes, your words.  I’ve never mourned the fact that you are not a baby any more because it is just simply too much fun to watch you grow up.

If last year I was delighting in your imagination, this year I am even more awestruck with the way your brain creates.  You have grown past the need to imitate the life you see around you, and though what you witness certainly informs your play choices, you take command of your world of play with fresh creativity. Some days you demand that I call you Christopher, short for Christopher Robin, and when I may veer off course and slip, accidentally referring to you as Renee, you call me to task.  Often you will assign me a new persona: sometimes I am Owl, others days I’m Rabbit.

More recently, you want to be called Wilbur, and you’ve been asking for a little pig for your birthday.  And, boy, it can be hard to say no to you.  Though we haven’t had a cat for about a year and a half now, you still pray every night for our kitty cat.

You are a caretaker, always.  At home, often you want me to tuck one of your guys into some baby carrier to be held close to your body, or teach you to swaddle one of them up tight.  At school, you have taken sweet Thumper, a stuffed bunny, under your care, and are sure to wake him up, dress him, and tend to his needs while you are there. At Romae’s, it’s Pooh Bear that you push in the shopping cart, making sure he is well fed (but not before you get glammed out in your jewels).   I’m pretty sure that when your little brother was born, you thought he was a gift just for you.  You still beg to hold him, though he will hardly sit still for even a kiss.

You wander around our house in whatever shoes you can find.  Sometimes you shuffle around with daddy’s slippers on your feet, other times you pull my boots up to your thighs and you look like you’re walking on the moon.  Even when friends come over, leaving their shoes near the door, you like to slip those sneakers that are not yours.

And, sweet one, the faces you make!  Your face is so expressive, those eyebrows saying more than most people can with words.  You’ve taken to creating and demonstrating your faces: happy, sad, sleepy, surprised.  While I was nursing the Littlest recently you sat across from me and showed me your “stormy face.”  How I love that stormy face!  We’ve called you a walking cartoon.  True to your character (I would expect nothing else), you will not perform those faces on any command other than your own.  Our family pictures this year will testify to that.

You are a collector, of things great and small.  Rocks, sticks, flowers, stickers.  I tried to foster this by giving you a box for your special things, but one box quickly became two, and I became a vigilant curator of your collections.  Our hikes are more meandering explorations of the world than they are fitness endeavors.  You remind me to slow down, check things out.  Some of my favorite moments this year have been walking hand in hand with you down a crunchy path, my eyes forward, only to have my entire being yanked backwards and down because something caught your eye and you refused to let go of my hand to get a closer look.  Your dad says you are not to be trusted with stickers.  Though it is true that for weeks after any particular incident I can still find remnants on the bottoms of shoes or the underside of water bottles, it brings me joy to see you covered head to toe with stickers, telling me an elaborate story to go with your creation.

No, I’m not sad that you are growing up.  My heart is bursting in all of the ways that I know you now that I didn’t know you even just a year ago.  Dear one, I am honored to celebrate three years with you.  We will light the candles on the vanilla cupcakes of your request, sing our loudest joy, and praise Him who created you.

 

of princesses and queens

I won’t forget when Peter Pan came to my house, took my hand
I said I was a boy; I’m glad he didn’t check.
I learned to fly, I learned to fight
I lived a whole life in one night
We saved each other’s lives out on the pirate’s deck.
Dar Williams, When I Was a Boy

Renee and I are making our way through JoAnne’s Fabrics, pushing our shopping cart amidst the Halloween displays and aisles filled with scrapbook supplies.  Griffin is with us, too, giving me that toothy grin from his perch wrapped around my belly in a carrier.  Today, we’re on a mission.  When the kids start at the preschool, they are issued a blue school bag meant to last through swapping of art projects and important papers, mittens and hats and library notices.  The kids are encouraged to make this bag their own by decorating it, also helping kids recognize their blue bag hanging with all the other blue bags in the line of cubbies.  Two years ago, when Grant first began school, he picked out patches for me to iron on.  Now it’s Renee’s turn.

“I want sparkles!” she has told me, numerous times now.  Each time, I’ve smiled and told her we’ll see what we can find.  Because, truth is, I’m just not much of a sparkles girl.  In fact, I cringe a little at the thought of sparkles that will brush off of the bag, leaving trails of pixie dust in our wake.  But this one sitting in my shopping cart, my little girl-smushed-between-two-boys, is a sparkles girl. If it’s shiny and bright, she’ll take it.  At my mother’s house she has a special stash of cast-off costume jewelry.  She likes the weight of the gold around her neck, the twinkle as it shifts in the sunlight.  At her friends’s house, she knows right where to find the plastic high heels, and she won’t take them off until it is time to go home.  Sometimes I think she wants to be a princess.

The thing is: I don’t want her to be a princess.  Don’t these girls know about queens?  Queens, who actually rule the kingdom, and have power – female power. I want her to know the strength of being a queen, not just the fluff of being a princess.

I may not be a sparkles gal, but I never want Renee to think that she can’t be one.  I want her to have her own style, find her own skin and be comfortable in it.   What I want to do is show her the strength that she has, and the beauty, just for being a women.  To show her how softness can be strength. And that starts with me.

Later that evening, I stood over the kitchen table smoothing the iron over the chosen patches.  Her name is bold in white letters, bordered with orange flowers and silver stars underneath.  There are butterflies on the front of the bag, and flip flops on the side.  And the American Flag in heart shape is there, too, for good measure.  I smile, because I see her in these decorations, and though secretly I’m glad there is nothing sparkly on this bag, ultimately I know that it was her choice, not mine – I said not a word while she deliberated.  Queens can wear sparkles, too, you know.

I’ve inherited much from my mother, and one quirk that runs thick is her knack for editing children’s books while reading aloud.  Oh, I’m sure most parents do this on some level, but usually it’s because it’s a bit too long, maybe.  But the kind of editing that my mother proliferated had more to do with content, often with a sociological bent. In this house, we like a book from the Little Golden collection “The Good Humor Man,” written in the 1950s.  There is a part in the book where the Good Humor man is ringing his bell, calling everyone out for ice cream, and “mothers leave their kitchens, and the daddies leave their lawn mowers” as they run to greet the good humor man.  And this is fine, mostly.  But about every other time, I switch it up, and stick the daddies in the kitchens and the mommies out there getting some fresh air cutting the grass.

At first, the kids just thought this was funny.  Grant, especially, is pretty keen on the memorized words of a book, and doesn’t like the narrative to stray from what he knows is on the page.  So he would laugh and correct me.  But I continue in my madness, and we’ve had conversations about this: about the daddies and the mommies and all the things that both can do.  Because as silly as it is, this one little line of an old book, I want my kids to hear my words loud and clear: you each, boy and girl, can chose to do anything, be anything.

Our family hikes often, and one weekend this summer we were hiking along a trail peppered with signs meant to educate us about the history of the area around this particular trail.  It was here that I learned about Rebecca Webb Pennock Lukens.  I was surprised to learn that the first female CEO of an industrial company was from our own backyard. Rebecca took the reigns of Lukens Steel, an iron and steel mill in Coatesville, PA,  when her husband died in 1825.  Though the company was on the brink of bankruptcy when she inherited it, it prospered under Rebecca’s leadership.  She ran the company for twenty years before retiring, and was named by the editors of Fortune Magazine into the National Business Hall of Fame in 1994.  Rebecca was a queen.  I tell you this because I was dumbfounded how this woman –  marking such an important milestone – shaped history, mine and yours, a dozen or so miles from where I live, and I have never heard her tale.  I wonder about her.  What kind of leader was she?  How did people regard her in business? What kinds of sacrifices did she have to make – to her work, to her family, to her self?   1825 was such a long time ago, and yet I can only wonder what she might think of where we are now, in the midst of mommy wars, and arguing over our ability to “have it all.”  I wonder what Rebecca would tell Renee.

This goes both ways, too.  As much as I want to show Renee that she can be a strong girl who doesn’t need to be rescued by any prince, I want Grant to know that he doesn’t have to be a prince. He doesn’t have to fall under any particular constraint of how to be a boy.   This summer, as we traded in sneakers for flip flops, Renee asked to paint her toe nails like mine.  I said yes, of course, and sat her on the lid of the toilet, cupping her chubby feet in my hands as I carefully stroked out purple to match my toes. It didn’t take long before Grant decided he wanted his toe nails painted, too.  How much do I really believe what I’ve been telling these kids?  If I am adamant that Renee have every opportunity to try on life, than shouldn’t I offer it equally to her brother?

And so I tell the man I’m with about the other life I lived
And I say, “Now you’re top gun, I have lost and you have won”
And he says, “Oh no, no, can’t you see

When I was a girl, my mom and I we always talked
And I picked flowers everywhere that I walked.
And I could always cry, now even when I’m alone I seldom do
And I have lost some kindness
But I was a girl too.
And you were just like me, and I was just like you.
Dar Williams, When I Was a Boy

Yes, Grant had his toe nails painted.  We leveled it out that he could choose from black, or navy blue, or dark green, and that he couldn’t have his fingers painted.  He’s four years old.  I’m not concerned that he’s going to start wearing make up or wanting to be a girl.  I would be concerned if he felt like he was missing out on something just because he is a boy.  I want him to know he has choices, too.  He is one of only a few boys in his gymnastics class, and his best friend at school is a girl.  He sees the manly physicality of his dad wrapped up with the tender love that Mark gives so freely.  Mark is a man who is not afraid to declare his love, and speaks these words often.  But he shows it, too: in the way that he serves this family, every day working hard out in the world, and then coming home, to wrestle, play catch, to wash the dishes and help with the laundry.  Because that’s how it is in this house — girl, boy, man, woman — we all pitch in.  We all bring something to the table, and it’s not divided down the gender line.

Sometimes I feel this overwhelming pressure to understand my own sense of being a woman in order to parent through this well.  To make peace with the choices I’ve made, and thankful that I have choices.  To recognize what it is that I bring to the table, and celebrate it, too.  I want them to see me work hard, and to watch me enjoy the benefit of doing just that.  My kids are still young.  They have years to decide how they want to be, male and female.  They will try on different suits, maybe find one that fits better than the others.  But I see it as my job to make sure that they are offered all of those suits.

I guess that means that I can’t take the princess dress out of the closet, but I will make sure that the queen is in there, too.  I bet Renee will choose the queen, as long as there are some sparkles on it.

it all begins

I have been slow to relinquish summer.  My hands have been clenched into tight balls, white knuckles grasping at lazy days at home, not ready to trade bathing suits for sweatshirts.  I love fall, really.  It is my favorite season for all sorts of reasons.  But the summer that had me terrified in May made a better friend than enemy. I have to remember that this new season likely will, too.

The Little Ones, luckily, don’t have this same angst that I do.  School began.  The Eldest was happy to find a few familiar faces in his new class, and always puts on his best self as he hangs his bag in his cubby, squeezes his arms around mine in a tight goodbye.  The Middlest was brave as she stepped into her first school adventure, and with her style and story, I know that she’ll captivate those teachers, like she has captivated me.   No tears, no worries.  Just that swagger that saw some good looking donut holes and a trunk full of dress up clothes.  Likewise, I paused only a moment at the door before the Littlest and I left our missing pieces behind in that school building of circle rugs and wooden chairs.

We’re only a week in, and here’s what I can say: I can tell you that I’m trying hard to make peace with our drive to school.  Four days a week, now, I’m hoisting bodies into car seats, buckling our morning into place with a click, as we sit together in traffic and wait our turn to go.  Forty five minutes on our way there seems pretty normal, and though my whole being wants to stomp and shout, I made this choice knowingly.  Round and round we went in conversation about finding somewhere closer, or staying home altogether.  Ultimately, this is the choice I made: four mornings in rush hour traffic, flipping the radio between NPR and “Wee Sing Silly Songs,” all of us giving up a little something, giving in to a little something.  I’ve tried to be all zen about our drive, really – something like seeing all these cars as fish in one big river; about finding my breath, making peace with time.  But mostly it ends up that someone is hungry, and someone is falling asleep at all the wrong times, and someone is poking with legs and fingers and arms.  Mostly, someone is not unbuckling the car seat when they should be, or some IS unbuckling it when they shouldn’t be.  Mostly, it’s just four of us stuck in a car together longer than we want to be.

Only a week in, and I’m staring down the barrel of three snotty noses.  Just as this, the long week, was coming to a close, and I was almost lifting my hand in victory, grasping at the trophy of a weekend, the Eldest trudged down the stairs, flopped himself on the couch, and pulled a blanket up over his shoulders.  Because I was already in the middle of making peanut butter crackers for the Middlest, and listening to the protest of the Littlest, in his crib and begging to be set free, it took me a moment to even notice him.  But when I did, it was all there for the telling: the hot-to-the-touch forehead and cheeks, the weepy looking eyes.  I cancel plans; I dig out the saline nose drops.  And in our house where we try our best to share everything, this too, of course, gets passed around.  The weekend that was supposed to be a reprieve merely pushed me further into my own exhaustion.

Then today, when I exiled everyone to some corner of the house, I exiled myself, too.  I took my cup of coffee and sat in my pajamas on the front stoop.  I sat there, on the chipped concrete, watching the cars whizz up our hill.  It is a busy road.  There is no lazy, quiet porch rocking here.  The cars speed dramatically by, like bumblebees on mission, and the trucks engage in war with their gears  to push themselves up the incline.  These motor noises echo and reverberate against the hill and the house.  I sat on that step, listening to the cars, and asking God: “what would you have of me, today?”

Sitting on that step, having drained my coffee, and about to gather my wits to go back inside, I watched a butterfly flit about our butterfly bush.  The purple wands of flowers aim this way and that, and all summer long I’ve been battling them.  When we planted these bushes two springs ago, we never had any idea that they would stake such an aggressive claim in our front garden.  I’ve pruned like a maniac, becoming addicted to following the wooden stalks down to a crotch, finding the next invasive arm and making a clean cut.  We’ve worked hard to keep this beauty in check, and though the thick piles of green and purple that I’ve hauled into the woods has sometimes given me pause, I can look at the butterfly bush this morning and know that I’m doing right by it.  It’s filling out in all the right ways, and it is less accosting as visitors walk up the steps to our house.

This is what I heard God tell my heart this morning.  He told me about the pruning, about the cutting, about the raw ends being exposed.  He told me about the beauty and strength that are already here, waiting to be given some sunlight and some room.  I felt Him whisper to me about growing into who I am meant to be.

The Middlest had finally grown bored with her books, and her curiosity propelled her off the couch. When she pushed open the screen door, I stood up from the front step, calling together all who had been exiled.

It all begins somewhere.