When she's not home...

I wash her clothes when she's gone for the weekend. Shake my head when I find a baby snickers bar in the washing machine. Fold her jeans just the way she likes them and stack them on the end of her bed. I listen to music in Spanish fighting the lump in my throat. I am reminded that she is not really mine. That her world is so different from my own. Yet the crossover is amazing...often surprising. I brush a long black hair from my coat when I get into the car. Smile when I pass the Mercado. Glance down 33rd when I pass by, wondering if she's there or not. She is my daughter. Yet she belongs to another. Another mother. Another family. Another culture. Another country.

"She holds my heart out in the wind
...

She laughs at me when I feel this way
Windblown, restless and so afraid
But there's more to life than yesterday
So she laughs at me when I feel this way."

~Storyhill

Here I am watching my heart out there in the wind. Watching it walk around outside of me. And, yeah, she's free. She's laughing and alive and opening her arms to the world. Laughing that I am so worried...that I find this all so painful. And, yeah, there's more to life than yesterday. There's today and the whole rest of the future. There are the places where our paths meet and run along together for a while, where she is not wholly an "other." Where she is part of me and I am a part of her in spite of not being part of each other's yesterdays. And I am windblown, restless, and so afraid.

So, I fold up the laundry, the towels she brought with her and insists upon using. I hang the jazzy shirts in the closet and breathe deeply the smell of her. I plan a trip to the science museum for when she's home. Plan to make the foods she'll love. Push down the butterflies in my stomach wondering what I'll say when she comes home. How to comfort her sadness. How to speak love in a way she understands.

Thoughts on Parenting

I have a friend who describes her sister as a really great mom. I asked what she thought made her sister such a great mom & she said, "She doesn't get her identity from her children." She went on to describe how her sister doesn't see everything her kids do as a reflection of who she is as a person, and that keeps her from jumping all over them when they do something wrong or overreacting when they get a little crazy. She has her own inner peace (that's peace from God, people) & sense of identity, and that allows her to help her kids through their stuff without getting all tangled up in power struggles or punitive discipline. It's sort of like being able to look at things from the outside, where you can see the whole picture and find the real problem, rather than being so close to the issue that all you can do is react.

At the edges of faith

I suppose that when you start wishing that life was easier and that you could just run away and live a quiet boring life somewhere, then you're probably exactly where God wants you.

When I start to get that scared feeling I know I am at the edges of my faith. I am at the place where all I can do is pray. Literally. Many are the times in my life when I've been frustrated by the placating response, "I'll pray for you," or, "All we can do is pray." I have never ever before known what it really feels like to be in THAT place where all you can do is pray. I mean, sure I've been in places where there isn't anything I can do. But, that's just the point. There's nothing I can do. Try being in a place where there are lots of things you can do. You must, in fact, do something. And you have no idea what the right move is. That's where my life seems to exist right now. In that place. ...where all you can do is pray. And then, slowly, quietly the move you must make unfolds. It comes from without you, not within you. But you will not get the answer before it is time. You must wait. Patience. And all you can do is pray. I don't have words yet to explain what happens next, when it's time to make the move.

This is a place of great anxiety for me. I suppose I will have learned faith when this place is no longer a place of worry.

Peace - The second candle of Advent

I've been trying to put my finger on a definition for that simple little word. Peace. Something in me knows what it is. How do I explain it to my 4 year old? We light the candles each night. Our conversation goes like this:

Me: What is the first candle for?
Mane: Hope.
Me: What is hope?
Mane: Waiting for something.
Me: What are we waiting for?
Mane: Christmas!
Me: What's special about Christmas?
Mane: It's Jesus' birthday.

Me: Now, what is the second candle for?
Mane: Peace.
Me: What is peace?
Mane: Calm. I don't know.
Me: Yes, peace is calm on the inside. It is not fighting. It is feeling content inside.

Not to mention that she doesn't really know what "content" means. It's hard to figure out how to define peace.

I've been studying peace in Bible study, too. Isn't that interesting? Things coincide in such marvelous ways.

And today I think it came to me. Peace is trusting God. It is knowing that God sees us and knows our needs and cares for us. Peace is not being anxious or afraid. Because we know that God is with us. Jesus came to be peace...the Prince of Peace. To be "God With Us." Emmanuel. Knowing that God is with us brings peace.

Peace is knowing you don't have to worry. I don't like to define things by what they aren't. Somehow, though, there aren't any good synonyms for peace. Peace is the absence of fear. Peace is the absence of war.

I've felt around for other words. But "calm" isn't exactly it. I don't think you always have to be placid and calm to be peaceful. And "happy" isn't it. You can have peace and still feel sad. Jesus did. He wept. Yet he is the Prince of Peace.

It's a knowing. A contentment. Contentment is as close as I can come. Maybe it's security. Knowing you are secure in God, the one unchangeable, immovable being. The Unseen Hand. The Creator. The Alpha and Omega. Prince of Peace.

And may the God of peace bring you peace this day...this week...this month...this year...this lifetime. May you know the truth of peace...undefinable and completely free.

Be Nourished

I wonder if it's a uniquely American thing to have such a love-hate relationship with food. Americans, in general, are so easily satisfied with cheap food, fast food, junk food and so disconnected from real food, slow food, good food. Obsessed with being thin, so often overweight, and always in search of the perfect 5-minute meal.

We have been on a food journey for the last several years. A few years after Mane was born we started eating almost entirely organic. The difference is huge. Everything tastes better. We eat whole grains ...better for the body and more filling. It's partly an environmental mission, both the external environment of the world and the internal environments of our bodies. It's also an economic mission, supporting organic farmers, fair trade, small farms. It's an economic sacrifice for us, in hopes that it will bring about change in the larger community. A perk is shopping at the co-op, which always smells great and is small enough for me to let Mane walk around. People know us there. One of the clerks has a son Mane's age. We were pregnant at the same time.

As most in the organic foods community can tell you, convenience foods are still available to the organic consumer. Mac and cheese still exists, as do canned soups, microwave dinners, and french fries. Organic doesn't necessarily mean healthy, and it doesn't mean that we've slowed down and learned anything about food.

This is something we've learned from Vespera. Really good food is a process. The time we sacrifice for good food is repaid in something more nourishing than flavor. Caldo is a good example. Boil and season the chicken, chop and add veggies, taste, adjust the seasoning. Chop more veggies to serve cold over the top, lime wedges, avocados, cabbage, tomatoes, peppers, onions. Warm the tortillas. Serve in big bowls, everyone gathered around slicing their avocados, squeezing the limes, dipping tortillas. It's a ritual. It is not eat-and-run. It isn't a perfect 5-minute meal. It is nourishment. Body and soul.

If you ask Vespera, food doesn't taste as good if it isn't home-cooked. If the lingering smell of it doesn't fill the house. Partly, the food is better for the anticipation. You will soak and blend and strain and boil the chilis, and you will wait gladly when you know that mole is in the making. Though your stomach growls, you will not demand a simpler meal. You know what you are waiting for. You can do your homework better knowing mole is on the way.

And when we all come to the table and perform the ritual of dishing the plates, slicing the tomatoes over the top, crumbling cheese and spooning cream, we are nourished, knowing that our food is slow and real. There's something in the familiarity, once you know how it's done, that feels like home and comfort.

Being American, I had no idea how important food could be. And, I think, that somewhat strained relationship Americans have with food makes us hesitate to love food. Loving food is associated with obesity. It means you like to eat a lot. Loving food in other cultures, though, has a lot more to do with quality, ritual, familiarity. It means that sometimes you eat a lot, but, often, just a little is satisfying. And the look on Vespera's face when I get her family's timeless recipes right is worth every single priceless minute I spend in the kitchen.

It isn't that I love to cook, though sometimes I really do. It's that there's something in the process that is so much more rewarding than quick food.

I laugh, too, when I think of a saying I once heard and heartily agreed with. I heard that we should eat 90% for nourishment and 10% for pleasure, or something like that...meaning that we are too focused on dessert, and we need to learn to eat foods that are better for us, even though it isn't fun. I think this attitude of denial is why obesity is so rampant. I want to tell people that it's ok to love food. Find a way to cook it that makes it so good you can hardly stand it. That's going to take time. It's going to be slow food. But it is going to be worth it.

You will be nourished.

One Reason We Don't Spank

Please be advised that this blog entry is rather sensitive in nature.

http://untotheleast.blogspot.com/2006/12/spencer-spanking-plan.html

Dreaded Adolescence

I will make no more bones about this. I am sick of people moaning about teenagers. I hated it when I was a teenager, and, now that I have a teenager, I still hate it. In fact, I wish that the words "teenager" and "adolescence" did not even exist. If we couldn't stuff them in a category and slap a label on them, maybe we'd treat them like real people and stop moaning about them.

Ok...vent over.

Here's the serious part. I was talking with a bunch of moms the other day and they were all worrying about when their kids become teens. I know that being 13, 14, 15, 16 can be difficult, confusing, frustrating. There's a depth and intensity, though, that I think is precious, valuable, golden. I wish people would cash in on that intensity they way they exclaim over precious baby toes and teeny-tiny fingers, they way they all reach out to hold the little bundle in its early years. Nope, teenagers don't want to be treated like little bundles, but, I think they want to be treated with joy, love, respect. I remember hating being looked down on as a teen, everybody expecting me to rebel...assuming I was rebelling at the slightest statement of opinion. Are adolescents what they are because we expect them to be so? Their emotional volatility makes it difficult to know what to say sometimes. And, yet, there's so much life in a teen. So much intensity. Does it scare us? Do we hate to be faced by the emotions we learned to push down and master somewhere along the way?

We watched a video in Bible study, and the speaker had just done a book signing for a children's book she had written. The book was about royal people in a castle, and the children were invited to come in costume. The girls dressed as princesses and the boys as knights. That's just what they chose. And it was completely natural for them. Small children assume that they really are royal. They have no trouble believing that they are special, destined to be great, heirs of a great inheritance. The rest of the world is pretend for them...dull, boring, nothing like who they really are.

Somewhere along the way, we all become convinced of something else about ourselves. Growing up is hard. But, just when they need to know they really are knights and princesses, we begin wishing the years away. We want them to be young again or to grow up already. We do not like the painful process of growing and becoming.

What would happen if we rejoiced over teenagers, invited them into the stuff of growing up, talked to them about life and love. What if we told them what we really thought, dug deep in ourselves to be vulnerable and intense just as they are. Perhaps, we hate those years because they hurt us. But we have put up the walls. We know how to hide. We are not emotional and vulnerable. We must not let them see who we are. But...if we did. If we did? How would it change things?

I am practicing. I am practicing with a girl who was raised by someone else. She is sweet, honest, deep, emotional... I didn't raise her, and I cannot take credit for who she is. She is not demanding. She doesn't insist on having things her way. She wants to help. I cannot take credit for this, and, yet, I can't help but wondering if, when Mane gets this old, I can be the same way with her, if it will take the pressure off that dreaded adolescence. I *tell* Vespera when I feel like there's something wrong but I don't know what. I tell her what is painful for me. I tell her what I wish about myself. I tell her how beautiful she is, how talented and creative and funny. I tell her how happy it makes me when she's happy. I sit in her room when she studies. I ask her to keep me company in the living room when we're home alone. I tell her what I want for her and what I expect from her.

And I can't help but wondering if this isn't the way it's supposed to be. If we open up the communication wires, could we ease the transition? If we let them in on our own struggle, would it help? If we tell them what is on our minds, would we all feel better?

Of course, my therapy training tells me it's important to not put to much pressure on them, don't expect them to be adults, don't create a situation where they feel responsible for how you feel, guilty for your own hesitation and pain. You cannot force them to talk, and I suppose some won't.

As with everything in life, I suppose there is a balance. I suppose we are in trouble if we go to either extreme.

I suppose I am idealistic and I know nothing about parenting a teenager. As I have said already, Vespera is someone I cannot take credit for. I will visit this post in ten more years and know if it holds true for the child I have raised from birth.