New Life

Yesterday, my husband picked up the phone while we were watching a rented movie.  We would normally NEVER pick up the phone during a movie, but our kids are at Grandma's....

I could tell by the way Jeff was harassing the caller that it was not his mother.  Maybe his sister?

"Have you had that baby yet?"

Well, there are only 2 people he would simultaneously be asking that question to and harassing.  My sister Kristy, or our friend Jamie, who might as well be his sister.

Then his eyes got big, as did his grin.  "WHAT?! Wow! WOW! I was kidding - aren't you like 2 weeks early? That's great!"

Baby girl safely arrived yesterday. From what I can tell from the pictures, she is not only healthy but beautiful.  And it is killing Jeff and I not to be there to meet her.  Something drastic may have to be done about that.

Wondering why I am posting this on a blog that supposedly explores feminism and Christianity?  A person who identifies in some way with either, in my understanding, would celebrate a new life.

Perhaps that is biased, because I am a celebrator of new life.  I love when new seeds sprout out of the ground or new buds appear on trees.  I love to watch fuzzy ducklings swimming along behind their mother. I love to sit with an armful of chubby puppies licking my face. But most of all, I love new baby people.  Especially when they arrive into the lives of my loved ones.

And thinking of new baby's parents - doesn't the birth of our children require a reinventing of ourselves?  Every new relationship does, I think.  Even stages of relationships. Or stages of life.  And arrival of children, no matter their birth order, signals a new stage of life.

As for my sister Kristy ... don't worry, you won't be able to miss the news of the new life coming soon to her household.  This blog will mark her baby's arrival with fanfare:)

Pools and Book Talk

Today, most of the girls from my book group met for lunch and swimming with our kids.  And to discuss our book.  The friend's house we met at is indescribably beautiful and simply should be featured in some sort of magazine.  SO great to spend a hot afternoon with girlfriends and their kids around a pool. I love it. No guys around, just girl talk and swimming without self-consciousness and laughing at the kids' antics.

The book we discussed? The Help. We decided we are all going to make it a girls' night out and see the movie as well. And guess what? Amanda will be posting our book discussion the first Friday in September on ... The Help.   You can read it, listen to it, and  *gasp* watch the movie?! I don't know if that counts....I'll leave that to Amanda to decide;)

Hope you are keeping cool and enjoying your summer.

Unfathomable

Chances are, wherever you are this morning

It. Is. Hot.

And the grass is probably either brown, getting brown, or your neighbors are totally watering their lawns every day.   Even here in the land of precipitation, things are less than green.

But you're eating, aren't you?  I am.  In fact, I have variety in my balanced diet.  I even have recently complained about grocery store prices and am always wondering what new and exciting recipes to cook for dinner.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/8630255/Horn-of-Africa-famine-Somalia-Ethiopia-and-Kenya-suffer-worst-drought-in-60-years.html#.Tie-6i149gQ.facebook

This picture got to me.  I cannot imagine looking into my child's face and telling them I don't have anything for them to eat.  Really, do we have any idea what starving is like? No.  We have no concept of there being no food to buy or pick.  Nothing.  Not even the can of vegetables that's been in the pantry for a year or leftovers from three days ago.  Nothing.

What heartbreak could exceed your own child starving to death.  How senseless does it seem that a little life full of potential is snuffed out by lack of food.  Not cancer, but not enough to eat.  Is that even possible when I just threw out half a bowl of pasta salad my family wouldn't eat?  When the farmers at the market still have stuff left at the end of the day?

Somali refugees are here in the states.  These people have been through a lot, and I cannot imagine what is going on in the streets of this already fragile country.  Ethiopia's recent memory has famine etched into it already.  Kenya seems a little more stable and hearty - but the elections a few years ago proved that things can get ugly fast.

Terribly sad and depressing post, I know.  I believe, however, that we should face up to what goes on in the world.  We get to look away the rest of the day.

http://www.worldconcern.org/crisis/
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/

More Change

My life is currently the calm before the storm, so to speak.  There are some big changes brewing. How fitting was Amanda's Pull of the Moon post?!

My side gig, as it was, is no longer.  Between vacation, my husband's work obligations, and another transition I will mention shortly, I no longer had a whole day during the week to devote to the Center for New Americans for the remainder of the summer. That doesn't mean I am done working with refugees, but I am officially no longer a caseworker aid. 

After I finished my last full day at the Center, I headed straight for Visions for Change, the place I will be working for my internship in the fall, to receive an enormous packet to read for the class I will be teaching in the fall.  One baton passed, the other received.  This is another non-profit agency I probably will be highlighting in the early fall:)  I haven't started the packet yet (shhhhh!), because I have been packing my days with summer fun and relaxation with my kids. 

Because this might be the last summer I am home with my kids.  I can't quite wrap my mind around that yet, but the possibility looms. So I am trying to enjoy this one as much as possible. Everything "summery" is being attempted by us. 

I begged my family to go hiking in the Adirondacks this Sunday, but they wanted to go to church because we hadn't been in a few weeks due to travels.  I couldn't really argue with them.  But I was totally trying to avoid the inevitable. 

Our beloved pastor is gone.  And I was putting off facing the reality of this as long as possible.  And I wish we would've continued to. 

There is nothing wrong with the new pastor.  She is really nice.  She's just ... different than the old pastor.  And I liked him and the way things were just fine and didn't need a change.  Let me be clear in saying that I am determined to stay at church and get used to her and support her.  But she is more conservative than my old pastor.  More formal. 

She does altar calls.  Every Sunday.

I am not a fan of altar calls every Sunday.

But I am also reading Paul's stuff, right?  Which means I've been preparing myself for things like "more conservative."  In theory.

Change can be exciting, and simultaneously frightening.  It can be welcome or unwanted.  But it's part of growth, which is in turn a part of life.  I know a few readers of this blog are facing big changes too: first baby on the way, first full time job after being a mom, starting grad school, etc. 

 I read a lovely little something this morning about learning to float (this is fitting as I am just about to log off and take my littlest to swimming lessons where she will take a "float test" today).  When you stop fighting the water, your weight in it, that's when you can float.  Otherwise, you sink.  I would like to add that you don't sink if you're wearing a life preserver.  So while I am trying to learn to go with the flow and stop struggling, I have the life preserver that is my friends there to back me up.  Sometimes there are too many waves coming fast and furious to relax.  And that's when it's nice to have your girlfriends throw you a lifeline. 

Hang on, ladies. 

Long Live Women's Sport

Monday is often article day, or current events or something like that.  Who's paying attention?  Anyway, I couldn't help but notice all the headlines this morning about the Women's World Cup Final game.  And I couldn't let that amount of attention for a female sporting event go unheralded on this blog.

I watched the game too, though I'm not exactly an avid soccer fan.  I confess I was actually relieved when my oldest took a break from soccer this year.  But this was a great game and I was totally into it, shouting directions to the coach to the extent that at one point I recognized my idiocy and turned to my husband and sheepishly said, "You know, because I know more about soccer than Pia Sundhage."

But YAY that a sporting event featuring all women athletes captured the world's attention like this.  Yay that the U.S. team captain is a 36 year old mother of 2.  (I am trying not to be envious that this is the only part of Rapone's bio that looks like mine). Yay that there were men in the stadium painted up and shouting for women athletes and brandishing signs like "I'm Solo, Hope!" Yay that little girls like mine can have role models like Abby Wambach.  Yay that girls can wear jerseys embroidered with the names of women. 

The Women's World Cup Final  in 1999 made way for this, I realize.  As did tennis athletes like the Williams sisters. And of course Title IX. This is an event in my children's lifetime, however, that they will remember and note.  Every time events like this get this kind of support and coverage, they internalize it. And it becomes more natural for them to see this kind of embrace of women's sport than it was for me, much like computers and other technology is natural to them in the way it was not for me.

My youngest is signed up for soccer in the fall and so I will begrudgingly pick up the mantle of soccer mom once again. (I've still managed to hold out on the minivan and other soccer mom accessories). But it is important to me that my girls know that "athlete" is one of the identities available to them.

The Pull of the Moon

Maybe you noticed this wasn't up when it was supposed to be? Um, I totally forgot. And then I went camping. I'm so sorry! I guess on the bright side, it's nice to have a summer where the days run together and I never know what the date is?

Well, here it is. Better late than never?

Nan is going through some changes. Changes that have happened over time. Changes that have been coming for a while. Changes that ultimately cause her to "run away," as she puts it. She leaves on a whim. She comes across a journal, buys it, and leaves the next morning on a cross-country journey.

There are things about Nan and I that are clearly different. She is in a different stage of life. Her child is grown. She's in a different income bracket. She's in a different generation. She's experiencing physical changes that I haven't yet.

But those differences aren't what I noticed most about Nan. What resonated with me in her were the ways that we were the same. 

Nan wants to be seen. She wants validation. She wants her youth to stick around. She's a mother who loves mightily, but she has regrets about her parenting. She is touched by beauty and wants to share it with those around her. She is a wife. She isn't that great at dealing with change. She is moved by ordinary moments in her life and remembers them vividly.

Change was definitely a predominant theme in this work. Dealing with change. The inevitability of change. I am, like Nan, not a person who embraces or even likes change. But it's just a part of life. I heard once that all change is loss, even changes that are good. No matter what the change, something is left behind. And in order to fully move on, you have to mourn that loss, whatever it was.

Nan talks about aging as a punishment. A crime, even. What have we done that we deserve this loss of our youth, our looks, our figures?

But then, Nan says something that, in my mind, spun the perspective right around. "I am every age I ever was and I will always be." Aging, rather than a continual act of loss, can be seen as a continual gain. I am the five-year-old me and the thirteen-year-old me and the twenty-six-year-old me and the thirty-four-year-old me. And I'll still be all those mes when I'm the fifty-year-old me.

Eugenie, sitting on the porch of her farmhouse, shelling peas, left behind by all those she knew and loved in her youth and even middle age, offers Nan a concise conclusion. The final word that Nan has discovered on her own, but maybe hasn't been able to summarize. Life is about the people. About sharing experiences. About embracing the change that is inevitable in life so that it doesn't kill you. She validates Nan's experiences of being moved to tears by ordinary beauty. She gives Nan a picture of the beauty of aging. The loveliness in letting go.

Screaming In the Dark

Today I was in Target,near the back of the store, when suddenly there was a loud bang and then pitch black.  Total darkness.  The disorienting kind where there is not even a shadow and you can't see your own hand in front of your face.  You almost feel like you're floating, and it's even difficult to determine where sounds are coming from.  In a few moments, though not fast enough, the lights came back on and a collective sigh rose from the aisles.

In this darkness, mustering faith in the technology of things like generators, I listened to the comforting screams of other shoppers.

Comforting?  Sure.  You know you aren't alone when you hear other people screaming. I probably should have screamed too in solidarity. The last thing you want to be in total darkness is alone.

I don't think I knew any of those other shoppers. I don't know how much I have in common with them.  But for a few minutes, we shared a common dilemma that for a few short minutes, became all-consuming. 

Can anyone really see clearly in life?  Aren't there things in life that seem like total blackouts, at least at times?  Love? Parenting?  In those times when you feel as if you are suspended in space without direction, isn't it nice to hear from another human?  They don't have to be giving you sound advice - just hearing them screaming because they are scared too can help you get through a scary moment.

I think that's why I wanted a blog like this.  This is me talking (or screaming) in the dark: hear it and be comforted.

And please scream back:)

No God, age 10

Today, I decided to hop on my parent page that monitors my daughter's New Moon life.  I was reading the profiles of all her chat friends when I stumbled across something that made me think.  And wonder.

So of course I bring it to you to ponder as well.

A 10 year old girl, in her opening line of introduction on her profile, declares herself an atheist.

What is the world like for a 10 year old atheist?

I wouldn't know.  At 10, I was busy asking Jesus into my heart every night and then writing it down in a journal to make sure I would know an exact time and place. As if upon death I would be asked to provide some sort of written proof at the pearly gates. (Yeah, if anyone convinces my kids that they need to know the exact time and place they asked Jesus into their heart to get to heaven - I will punch that person in the face.  Really.)

There is a lot of ground in between those two extremes. Which I can't help but think is a good thing...

Maybe Tomorrow

Back from a trip to Ohio to visit with family and friends.  There will be posts on a regular basis again. Today I am playing catch-up on laundry (the amount of mud my youngest child ground into her clothing on her "adventures" is alarming), re-stocking my house with food, actually cooking tonight, and running kids to the next round of lessons and such.

And probably reading the Martha Stewart Living magazine (secret un-feminist indulgence!) I couldn't resist in line at the grocery while I sit by  Skaneateles Lake tonight during my daughter's violin lessons.

I have a hard time exiting vacation mode.