The Thirty-First Letter: I Am Enough

/ Elizabeth

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Dear Daughters,

Sometimes when I’m putting on my makeup in the morning, you ask me about why I do it and why you can’t, and I say it’s a grown-up thing, and then you ask why Daddy doesn’t ever put makeup on, and I’m suddenly confronted with these vast and complex webs of gender and feminism, and feeling the weight of every sociology class I’ve ever taken, I bumble around more than I like and don’t give you good answers.

There aren’t good answers.

It’s tricky to suggest that the makeup makes me prettier or more put together or whatever ridiculous social construct is motivating me to do it, while at the same time emphasizing that you are so stunning, my beautiful girls, so stunning without it. And I’m not even someone who wears a lot of makeup–certainly not every day. It’s easy for me to leave the house without makeup on and not think twice about it.

But I hear you ask why I wear make-up, and I’m torn. If I believe you are gorgeous without it, why not live like I believe I’m gorgeous without it?

Another example: You’ve asked about why I pluck my eyebrows. Because they’re beastly, I want to say.

But I don’t say it. I don’t want you to hear me voice dissatisfaction with myself. (I get the irony here. Ideally there wouldn’t be dissatisfaction with myself.) And yet I tweeze tweeze tweeze to avoid the unibrow. Our genetics are against us, girls.

When we talk about my squishy belly, I pretend to not care that it’s there, to keep you from hearing my inner thoughts, and instead talk about how I carried you inside my belly for many months. I want to help you to see that all bodies are amazing and beautiful. My body is amazing. Your body is amazing.

All bodies are.

Squishy bellies and all.

A friend of mine asked me to take a picture of myself last week with “I am enough” written on my hand, so she could compile a series of photos to raise awareness for Eating Disorder Awareness Week. It was a worthy cause, and an important message on so many levels, so of course I did.

But, well, see, she asked in the morning. While I was in my pajamas. With bedhead. And no makeup on. Actually, I did have makeup on because I hadn’t washed my face from the day before, but I hadn’t brushed my teeth. I wasn’t really feeling like “enough” at the moment.

But then I realized that was the point. So I took the picture.

What does it mean to be enough? To believe that I am enough? That I’m enough of a mom. I’m beautiful just the way I am. That I’m complete. That striving for more isn’t necessary. Maybe all of these things. And a million other things.

I think the point is that there isn’t reason to be dissatisfied. There should be a wholeness to my existence, not a comparison with others or with my former self or future self. Do I live like I’m enough?

I’m not completely sure what that means.

I kept thinking about it throughout the day and then at some point in the afternoon, when I looked back at the picture, I didn’t see my bedhead and unbrushed teeth. I saw those words on my hand.

I AM enough.

I AM.

Maybe because I had inexplicably capitalized them when printing with the Sharpie on my hand, I suddenly heard the echoes of scripture.

I AM.

That’s what God says when Moses asks God who God is. I AM.

A present-tense, living God.

Jesus says I AM the bread of life. I AM the light of the world. The gate. The good shepherd. The resurrection and the life. The way, the truth, and the life. The vine. I AM. I AM. I AM.

I AM enough.

It’s a big statement.

I am enough, for sure. Fearfully and wonderfully made, the psalmist says.

But it’s not about me. My life’s not about me. Your life isn’t about you either.

The world will tell you differently. You’ll be told you’re the center of the universe and you should do what makes you feel awesome, but at the same time it will bombard you with messages telling you that you aren’t worthy, that you aren’t complete, that you aren’t enough. You’ll wonder sometimes about your looks, you’ll compare yourself to your friends, to celebrities, to your enemies. I can’t even imagine what the world of social media will look like in ten, twenty years. But I know that you’ll be challenged and nudged and prodded and made to feel less than fearfully and wonderfully made. So much less.

But girls, listen to me.

You are beautiful. You are strong. You are courageous, gifted, intelligent. You are loved and you will love. You are called. You have the image of God in you. You will create and redeem and sustain. This I know.

You are part of something bigger.

And that’s what makes you enough.

I want you to know it. I want you to feel it. I want you to believe it. I want you to live it.

You are enough, girls.

More than enough.

Love, 

Your Momma

 

 

The Thirtieth Letter: Storytelling & “My Whole Life”

/ Elizabeth

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Dear Daughters,

I recently spent some time hanging out with a dozen elementary school students during an after-school reading program. I was their weekly “special guest,” invited to come and share for about twenty minutes–to talk about myself for a little bit and then read something. The program director actually suggested I might want to read something I had written.

I began to think about what it is I “do,” what it is that is the thread connecting the various things I write and the way I see the world.

So I decided to talk about being a storyteller.

I took some samples of my writing and art that don’t seem connected–the journals I keep for each of you, my chapbook of poems, an article I’d written, the interview with Over the Rhine, a canvas I’d painted after hearing a friend’s sadness–and told these second- through fourth-graders that these diverse forms were all ways of telling stories.

And, I told them, they were storytellers, too. They had stories, they were living stories, and they could write stories, or draw stories, or tell stories in their own ways.

I emphasized storytelling as I shared about myself, and I emphasized it by reading some excellent picture books about storytelling and the way our stories are passed between generations of people, and I emphasized it by giving them each a single subject notebook from the dollar store.

I have never seen such excitement over notebooks before, girls. It was amazing.

After showing them their bounty, I didn’t want the message to get lost in the thrill of notebook-choosing. I wanted to remind them of all the things we talked about as ways of storytelling, how they could tell stories, how each of them had a voice that was worth sharing. I said they could write poems, or draw pictures, or journal about their days. And then I asked the group, “What sorts of stories will you write in your new notebooks? What will you write about?”

The first little boy to respond gasped, “MY WHOLE LIFE.”

My whole life.

Wow.

I loved his answer.

I loved his optimism.

I loved that he actually believed he could write his entire life, all nine years of it.

I loved everything about that afternoon because our lives change when we realize that they are stories, that we are living a story worth telling, the good and the bad, the beautiful and the difficult, the long drudgery of boring seasons, the astounding grace of joyful seasons.

I have the privilege of writing with words, typed into computers, handwritten in notebooks, but even if you aren’t a writer or an artist–and you probably won’t be–you have a story, girls, and not just a story to tell but a story to share.

I believe we’ve all got stories, and we’ve all got ways to share them. It’s about being present in the moment, present with others, present with ourselves. And being thoughtful. Deliberate. Honest.

Maybe you’ll share a piece of your story by listening carefully to a client or a cashier, share your story as you run marathons or build bridges in Africa, share your story as you argue a case in a courtroom or design a website in your pajamas.

No matter your vocation, you’ll have stories. So many stories. But you know what? They’ll all add up to one Story, if you look for it. And when you find it, I hope you share it.

I’m excited about your story.

I’m excited about my story.

I’m excited about our story.

Come along with me.

Love,

Your Momma

 

 

 

 

 

The Twenty-Ninth Letter: What I Do All Day

/ Elizabeth

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Dear Daughters,

I remember once when we lived in Texas—long before you were born—talking with an acquaintance of ours who stayed at home with her young daughter and, at the time, was expecting her second. I was curious about what sorts of activities she did with her daughter during the day, but then I made the mistake of trying to ask about it. In fact, I worded it in about the worst way possible: “So, what do you do all day?” I asked.

I cringe now, remembering how I felt when I said it, realizing how awful it sounded and knowing I couldn’t take it back or reword it once it was out there, hanging in the air awkwardly.

What do you do all day?

Granted, I didn’t mean the question the way it sounded—I wasn’t accusatory or incredulous but rather seriously curious about what sorts of fun things her daughter enjoyed doing—but the truth is that I had no idea what it meant to stay home and take care of children. I had no idea what it took to keep small human beings from killing themselves, which of course is the minimum required, and certainly no idea what it took to be a good, attentive parent.

I had no idea how hard it was to do even the most basic of tasks while caring for young children. Everything is magnified to the nth degree.

I am now, of course, more than aware. Trust me.

Let me tell you a story.

This morning I decided just before breakfast, around 8 am, that we would go to the food co-op in Lexington and then be back for lunch, because I had a meeting at the bank at 1 pm.

Now, I know enough not to overschedule—one small accomplishment for the day is quite enough, and going to a single store is often that one small accomplishment.

So, we eat breakfast.

Then I get the toddler dressed. Put a ponytail in her hair.

Then I remember that we have company coming in to town tonight so I better strip the bed upstairs and check on the state of that bathroom. I patiently help the toddler up the steps. Stripping the bed involves letting the preschooler help take the pillowcases off. Keeping the toddler off the bed. Keeping the toddler from going down the stairs by herself. Keeping the toddler from getting into my art collages across the hall in the art room. Then I go downstairs holding the toddler’s hand and the sheets in my other arm, dropping a pillowcase, waiting for preschooler to come back up the stairs to get it.

Then I gather up some towels to put in the laundry with the guest sheets, and we all go down the stairs to the basement to get it started. You take turns pretending to crawl on the floor and “hide” under a chair that is inexplicably in the laundry room. I convince you we do not have time to build a tent in the TV room. I check the dryer—before breakfast, your dad had already started a load. It’s still wet in there after one full cycle, so I start the dryer again. The dryer repairman is coming tomorrow.

I start the washing machine with the sheets and towels. We go back up to the main floor, slow step by slow step.

Then I remember that the store I’m going to has glass recycling, which we don’t have in our town, so I load all three bins of recycling into the back of our car. I’m pretty proud of myself for remembering to do this. I figuratively pat myself on the back.

Then the toddler needs a diaper change, which reminds me that it is garbage day and I need to take the stinky bag out to the curb, where the garbage can is already sitting. I remember that the kitchen trash is also full, as is our downstairs bathroom trash. I take all the trash out.

Then I realize I still haven’t gotten myself dressed for the day, so I do so, deciding that short sleeves and flip-flops are adequate because it’s drizzly but will probably warm up by the time we get to the store. And I hate to deal with jackets while we’re at a store. I spritz myself with perfume instead of showering and put some eye makeup on.

I remember that it will need to be a fast lunch before my 1 pm meeting, so I start water boiling on the stove to hardboil some eggs. Both of you love egg salad. I silently applaud myself again for thinking ahead.

Then I get the preschooler dressed, and we have a discussion about what matches and what doesn’t. Let her decide about her hair. Find a matching headband.

Then I pack snacks for the drive down in the car, and add sippy cups of water, and make sure we have a change of clothes for both girls, in case of motion sickness, as has happened before on this drive.

I remember to put the eggs in the pot of boiling water.

I become aware that it is taking a ridiculous amount of time to get ourselves ready for the store. I decide I will write a letter to you about it later today, and so begin to catalog in my mind all the tasks that I’m doing and you’re doing and how funny this might seem tonight as I relive it.

I remember that we need some bulk items at the store, so I take the canisters for flour and sugar and put them out in the car. Go me. I remember to grab the cloth bags. I make a list of items we need to get at the store, so I don’t forget while we’re there.

Then I run back down to the basement to check the dryer—this time, it’s dry—so I empty the dryer and put the wet sheets load in and start it again. Run back upstairs.

I move the eggs off the heat.

Both girls get shoes on; the toddler also gets leggings. The preschooler goes to the bathroom one more time.

It is now 10:15, more than two hours after I decided to go to the store, and we are ready to go.

I usher you out onto the deck in front of me, grab my phone and purse and diaper bag, and pull the locked door shut behind me, tugging hard to hear the latch click… and at that exact moment I realize the keys are still inside the house. I look at the car helplessly, and then raise my hand to shield my eyes so I can see through our glass back door. The keys are hanging right inside the door. On the hook. Where they belong.I push on the door, just to check, but it’s locked. Well-locked.

Sigh.

Your dad is in his executive cabinet meeting, so I try calling your babysitter, who has a spare key to the house, and her phone goes to voicemail twice. I realize for the first time just how cold it is outside, considering none of us is wearing a jacket. It’s in the low forties. It isn’t drizzling, but everything is still wet. I walk us over to our friends’ house, just around the block from us. They have a keypad lock on their back door, and I know we can get inside and be warm there, while we wait to get in touch with someone.

At their house, I take your wet shoes off, give you your car snacks and waters, and go find a charger for my phone, which is compatible with theirs. I plug it in and let you watch Dinosaur Train for a few minutes, mooching their wifi.

I get a call from your sitter and find out that she has the key but can’t get to us because it is the first day of class at the seminary—can we get to her down on campus, about a mile away? Yes, we can.

I pack us all up again, and we walk back to our house, get the double stroller out of the shed, the double-thick outdoor blanket from the back of the car to bundle you up, and head down.

I’m still in short sleeves and flip-flops, pushing seventy pounds of child in a double stroller, but we’re making progress, I think. Everyone I pass is bundled up in a hoody or winter jacket. I make it to campus and get the key, about the same time I admit that there is no longer time to get home, get in the car, and drive to Lexington and still be back for my 1 pm meeting. So instead I promise you a cupcake from a bakery up on Main Street, as a reward for being so good and noncomplaining all morning.

The bakery is closed.

I try to go inside one of my favorite boutiques in order to get us warmed up for a few minutes and the double stroller doesn’t fit through the historic building’s door.

So I truck it home, now having gotten more than a day’s workout in, though still incredibly cold, and by this time, you’re disappointed you aren’t getting a cupcake and also begin whining that you’re cold.

We make it home, and I splurge and let you drink some homemade cocoa while watching more Dinosaur Train. You spill it on your shirt and pants.

I make lunch–egg salad–and then begin the process of getting you ready for quiet time, changing diapers, getting the preschooler’s bedtime friends out of the room as well as her clock that lights up, and getting her a clean outfit. I put her cocoa-covered clothes in the sink and wash them out. Just before laying the toddler down in her crib, I happen to check my phone and see a text from your dad. Are you coming to the bank?

It is 1:05. And I’ve forgotten about the meeting.

It’s only a few miles away, so I holler to round you up, attempting the impossible task of rushing you, and the toddler indicates that she has yet another dirty diaper in need of changing. I change it. We get in the car. We make it there at 1:15.

That is a day in the life, girls. A day in the life.

What do I do all day?

Well, let me tell you…

Love,

Your Momma

 

 

 

 

The Twenty-Eighth Letter: Bread in the Wilderness

/ Elizabeth

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Dear Daughters,

I was thinking recently about the Israelites in the wilderness, after Moses tells them that God is going to provide bread for them to eat. The next morning, they wake up and there’s this flakey stuff on the ground, and Exodus tells us that they didn’t know what it was. They called it manna, which literally means, “What is it?”

It didn’t look like bread, girls. It was nothing like bread.

We lose the wordplay that emphasizes this part of the story when we call it simply manna today. We hear manna mentioned in sermons and don’t think much of it. But when we say, “God provided manna,” we aren’t saying “God provided sustenance,” we’re saying, “God provided something unrecognizable.”

They called it “What is it?”

Or, you could say, they called it “What the heck?”

Actually, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that calling it manna was a bit like calling it “Are you kidding me, Moses?” A bit like calling it “I don’t know what ya’ll are thinking, but this ain’t no bread.”

This was not the bread that was promised.

Those of us who grew up steeped in scripture and in church tradition hear the word “bread,” and we hear all the connections and metaphor we’re meant to hear—not just Jesus as the bread of life, but the last supper and communion and the bread and grape juice, the loaves of bread that multiplied to feed five thousand families, the breaking of bread that opens the eyes of the disciples in Emmaus to see that the risen Jesus is among them, Elijah promising the widow that her flour will never run out.

There’s a lot of bread in scripture. A lot of provision in scripture. A lot of promise in scripture.

But this flakey stuff the Israelites find all over the ground?

It doesn’t look like bread.

It doesn’t look like what was promised.

I was thinking about all of this on a grumpy day a few weeks ago. It was one of those days I didn’t particularly feel like being a mom.

Are you kidding me, Moses?

I didn’t feel like reheating my tea in the microwave again, eating my lukewarm egg on cold toast, choosing between leaving the bathroom door unlatched to let you come toddling in or closing the door and listening to you knock, knock, knock, Momma, Momma, Momma…

This ain’t no bread.

I didn’t feel like the incessant chatter requiring my constant response that is conversation with young children—in the car, at the dinner table, whispered in bed at 5 am.

What the heck?

I didn’t feel like giving up my quiet time in the afternoon to a crying toddler, didn’t feel like playing playdough or getting bundled up to go outside or coloring in coloring books, didn’t feel like letting you “help” make the cookies.

This is not the bread that was promised.

Yes, that’s what I was thinking. This is not the bread that was promised.

And what I meant was: This is not fun.

This is not what I want provision to look like.

This is not the bread I want to eat in this season.

I want to go and bake my own bread, thank you very much. I want cinnamon rolls and French toast and bagels and a sub from a central Pennsylvania pizza place.

So there. Honesty for you.

Sometimes, this is not the bread I want to eat, and so I am not very grateful.

Sometimes it feels like all I’m doing is scraping the flakey stuff off the grass every morning and pretending it’s nourishment.

I figure that’s okay. I’m in good company. Forty years later, it was still nourishing the Israelites, this not-what-I-thought-was-bread stuff, this are-you-kidding-with-me stuff.

Because, of course, it was the Israelites who had it wrong. They didn’t recognize it, but it was exactly what was promised.

It was bread.

It was provision.

It was hope.

It got them through the desert.

But I can guarantee you one thing—they sure were tired of it by the end.

Love,

Your Momma

 

The Twenty-Seventh Letter: Funerals, Faith, & 2015

/ Elizabeth

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Dear Daughters,

My grandfather died on Christmas Eve. He was 92, a decorated World War II veteran, and an overall former badass.

Yes, I can say words like that even though you aren’t allowed to.

In my memory, he was a calm, pinochle-playing, itchily-mustached, white-haired handyman who, right on cue, hollered “What?” whenever I declared “Red” was the color I wanted to play in Uno. I never knew the tough guy he used to be: the red-haired, hard-drinking, angry, physical beast he was before he met Jesus. Those were a lot of the stories we heard at the funeral—stories that woven together spoke of a life of transformation.

During the service, some of my cousins shared poems they’d written about him, and afterward an old friend of the family approached me. “I was surprised we didn’t hear anything from you,” she said. I hadn’t shared anything because I hadn’t written anything.

The truth is, I haven’t written much this last year.

I’ve painted and colored and brainstormed and blogged and read lots of really good novels, but my own creative writing has been a struggle. It’s been a difficult year to be present and attentive, to cultivate the practices necessary for introspection and revelation and seeing the world sacramentally.

Whew. This last year. It was a doozy.

I’m sure it was a beautiful year, too—your first school year, first haircut, first flower girl dress for the eldest; first words, first steps, first birthday for the baby—but it’s hard to remember all those moments of grace. As much as I hate it, the beautiful moments are not the ones that stand out in my memory. It’s the heartache I most remember, I most carry with me. It’s the sobbing on the phone with friends and family who are hurting. It’s the texting conversations about mental illness and unspeakable pain, the sitting in doctors offices to try to share burdens, the taking food to friends who have suffered so much this year. It’s the insomnia and what-if’s and not understanding how yet another person in my close circle of friends could possibly be diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, could possibly be carrying this pain for so long, could possibly…could possibly…could possibly…

That was what 2015 felt like to me, girls.

And then Pappy died Christmas Eve and I went back to Pennsylvania to be with my family, to give hugs, to be present. And in the midst of mourning, I heard stories of hope and transformation, stories of courage and Coca-Cola, stories of heartache, loss and love, fatherhood and forgiveness.

These were stories of faith.

Of faith.

I hear those stories and I’m a little bit jealous.

It’s not that I don’t have faith. I do.

And it’s not that I find it harder to believe in, say, the tenets of my faith or God’s faithfulness or the redeeming narrative of scripture, when I am confronted with the world’s pain, with my loved ones’ pain. No, my instinct is still to believe.

It’s just that, well, some days it’s hard to remember how to have faith. Hard to know what that looks like.

Sometimes, I think it simply looks like surviving the day.

Sigh.

2015 was full of a lot of those days. Days of mere survival.

And that’s okay. We made it through, girls.

We made it.

Love,

Your Momma

 

The Twenty-Sixth Letter: The Family Circle

/ Elizabeth

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Dear Daughters,

Occasionally when the toddler is quiet, I send the preschooler to go find her and report back to me what is going on. The other day, I was told that baby girl had found some pretty ribbon she wasn’t supposed to have.

Well now, we don’t have much ribbon lying around the house, so I knew I needed to go check on the situation.

That “pretty ribbon” was the innards of a cassette tape.

I’m not completely sure where the cassette had been stored, but she’d found it, and she’d pulled on the ribbon. And pulled. And pulled. And pulled. It was creased and knotted.

I was determined to save that tape. With a clicky pen, I wound and wound it back up, only to discover–when the cassette player kept eating the tape and rudely spitting it out at me–that I’d wound it the wrong way. After a texting conversation with your uncle Stephen about the engineering of cassette players, I persevered.

And so, after years of this cassette tape being hidden away in some box–a box apparently within reach of a toddler–I’ve been listening to some of my favorite old timey music again.

This is a Family Circle tape, girls. Family Circle.

My parents and aunts and uncles, in the 1970s, had some radical Jesus-movement-conversion experiences, or so I take it. And, coincidentally, they could all sing harmony. So they did what any group of vocally talented, excited-about-Jesus twenty-somethings would do: they started a traveling gospel music group.

The Family Circle eventually ended up with a painted Coach bus, complete with living space and multiple bedrooms inside, matching outfits for the adults, and kids who could sing off-key kids songs. After my youngest cousin was born, there were 13 of us in that bus.

I was born into the middle of that, bless their hearts.

On weekends and various vacations throughout the year, we travelled as far north as New Hampshire, where my grandfather owned a campground, down the coast to Florida, where he was a snowbird in the winter, and played at churches and campgrounds for love offerings. We had a dark green velvety tablecloth on the merchandise table–records, cassettes, eventually CDs were for sale. I don’t know why that very-seventies tablecloth sticks out in my memory.

Like many of my cousins, I had my own song for awhile, called “My Mommy Told Me Something.” But we kids mostly sang group songs like the old Gaither “I am a promise, with a capital ‘P,’ I am a promise, full of possibility…”

My nuclear family withdrew from the group when I was in elementary school because of my parents’ marital difficulties, but the Family Circle kept singing for many decades, even after all the cousins were grown.

They came out of retirement to sing at Pappy Sands’s funeral a few years ago. That was the last time I’d heard any of the old songs.

But gosh, I love the old songs.

What’s extra special about this cassette to me is that my parents’ voices are on it. I can hear my mom’s steady alto throughout. And on one song, I can hear my dad’s two-line baritone solo.

I could not believe the wash of emotions I felt when that tape began to play for the first time.

I’ve known these songs my whole life–every word, of every song. As long as I could sing, I’ve been singing this music.

But these last few weeks, I’ve been hearing these songs differently. I hear them and realize that all my aunts and uncles are grandparents now. Their voices are so young on these recordings. So clear and so young.

My cousins’ children are older than I was when we left the group, and yet I remember so clearly the conversations we had back then, young as I was, squished into the dining area of the bus. I remember sitting up beside my dad on the big red velvet navigator chairs. I remember my bottom bunk across from my cousin Justin. I remember watching movies in the back and getting foot massages from Aunt Diana, who was a reflexologist. I remember singing the Twelve Days of Christmas–each of us having our own day in order of our ages, so the kids all got to sing many times and the parents–my dad was the twelfth day–hardly had to sing at all. I was “two turtle doves.” Justin was the youngest then.

I’m glad I found this tape. I haven’t seen some of my cousins in years, and we won’t be traveling home to Pennsylvania at Christmas this year because of your dad’s job. But this tape reminds me how much I love these people, and how much I miss these people.

This is a special part of my story, and I hope you can feel how it is part of your story, too. Because that’s how our memories should be, girls. I want you to know my stories.

And I want you to know my songs.

Which is why I keep playing this tape. It probably doesn’t have many years left, you know.

I talked to my aunt on the phone the other week and asked if she had copies of some of the old Family Circle sheet music. I was thinking maybe I’ll find a way to sing it some day.

Maybe.

Love,

Your Momma

 

 

The Twenty-Fifth Letter: Boom Boxes & What I Can’t Imagine

/ Elizabeth

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Dear Daughters,

One of your lift-the-flap children’s books features a boom box hidden behind two cabinet doors. I honestly don’t know why. The book is nonsensical: under the pillow flap is a banana, for example. It’s silly.

When we lift those flaps to reveal the boom box, I’m never quite sure what to say. “There’s the boom box…radio…music-playing thing,” I trail off.

You don’t know what a boom box is. Obviously.

Though we are hipster enough to play music on a record player occasionally, we primarily stream it on our “devices.”

Back in the 90s, I had a boom box in my bedroom as a teenager. It had a double cassette player and a CD player. I used it to make mix tapes for your dad when we dated in college.

Believe it or not, our 1999 Volvo station wagon has a working cassette player in it. That feels comforting to me. We still have those mix tapes.

My point is this: I’m not very old.

This was not very long ago.

I wrote a poem once about saving a set of encyclopedias for you, despite their obsolescence. Because I loved encyclopedias growing up, loved their pictures, loved the feeling of research. I still do.

In seventh grade, we learned how to write a research paper. It involved reference books and card catalogs and hand-written notecards.

We couldn’t even imagine a world of the Internet.

This was not very long ago.

I was the first of my friends to have a cell phone in high school, and all it did was make calls. I remember my dad’s first car phone, with a huge bag of cords inside on the floor and a giant magnetic antennae outside.

We couldn’t even imagine a world of tweeting and texting, weather apps and Amazon video, Facetiming and asking Siri how to roast pumpkin seeds–all on our phones.

This was not very long ago.

My high school graduation present was a 35 mm camera.

The learn-to-type games we played as kids came on floppy disks. The actual bendy kind.

I was incredulous that wi-fi was a thing when I first heard about it, was confused when USB drives came around, and thought “Twitter” was one of the lamest words I’d ever heard.

This was not very long ago.

It’s not like I lived through the transition to automobiles from the horse-drawn carriage, girls. Nothing that drastic.

Except maybe more drastic.

Because the world has gotten so much smaller in the last thirty years. And also bigger.

Our lives are more public and we’re also more capable of keeping our real selves hidden. We’ve gotten more vulnerable and also more equipped to rally and proclaim. We’ve gotten stronger voices and also more polarizing discourse. We’ve come to expect a diversity of choices and are also more dependent on a global economy. We have so much knowledge at our fingertips and also learn about news instantaneously, errors in reporting and all.

It’s inspiring and frightening, these changes.

I can’t imagine the next thirty years. How can I?

I can’t imagine what life will be like for you. How can I?

In the 1990s, a boom box was pretty amazing.

As I type this, the two of you are watching a PBS show on the iPad about dinosaurs. (For the record, even the dinosaur names have changed since I was a child.) The toddler already knows how to turn off the iPad and begins to swipe the screen. You know which icon gets you to look at pictures, know that the little triangle in the middle of a screen means that a movie can play if you press it, know that talking to faraway grandparents means you get to see them. You even pretend to “text” with your phone toys.

What will life be like for you, girls?

I wonder about it, and I’ll be honest:

It frightens me sometimes.

It gives me hope sometimes.

Sometimes even at the same time.

But I try to focus on the hope part.

You are watching PBS, after all, not princesses. That’s hopeful.

Love,

Your Momma

 

The Twenty-Fourth Letter: Gratitude and a Full Life

/ Elizabeth

letter 24

Dear Daughters,

Life has been full.

I don’t like the word “busy.” Everyone is busy. Busy is overcommitted, flustered, multitasking, doing, and going. Busy is the struggle to find time that doesn’t seem to be there.

Full is in making time.

Making time for a full life is staying in bed to cuddle with a sweaty child who arrived in the wee hours of the morning instead of rising early to write my morning pages.

A full life is playing pingpong while a preschooler circumnavigates the table. It’s cinnamon sugar cookies for a trivia night fundraiser, campfires and s’mores on Saturday night, Sunday morning bran muffins, and a Mary Kay open house.

A full life is hot black tea with milk and sugar every morning, children who take ages to finish dinner, dealing with congestion at 4 am…getting another cup of water, dosing Benadryl, falling asleep on the couch with a no-longer-lap-sized baby breathing heavily through the timer light kicking on at 5 am. It is a de-scaled humidifier, abhorring Wal-Mart but going there anyway, and eating lunch at Chick-fil-A so often the three-year-old says “my pleasure” instead of “you’re welcome.”

A full life is a child who sings “Through many dangers, toils, and snares…” as well as “The doc is in, and she’ll fix you up…,” who asks beautiful questions about Jesus being in her belly, and says spontaneously, “All of the days I love you, Mom.” A full life is a baby who shrieks “Yay!” when I tell her that Daddy is on the way home, who “counts” for Hide-and-Seek like this: “Nine…Nine…Nine…Nine…”

A full life is leading a women’s Bible study, meat-heavy Wednesday night dinners at church though we’re primarily vegetarian at home, looking forward to Advent, gifting spray-painted mason jars.

A full life is a preschooler who says her mom’s job is “artist.”

A full life is a 12-week Artists Way class winding down, writing an Advent devotional, a poem about cardamom, getting inspired at the Peddlers Mall.

A full life is signing up to bring Crockpot macaroni and cheese to the preschool Thanksgiving feast, a child who remembers her Sunday school lesson about the Ten Commandments, who out of the blue said “Saul was good at being good” (quoting her children’s Bible), who continues to think that Goliath is the best Bible story, who can write her name and spell her sister’s name.

A full life is taking the time to go to the library, to spell out words and practice letters, to collect leaves until every window and arch is covered with construction paper leaf flags. A full life is a monthly reading group at Panera, buying fundraiser items from the neighbor kids, loving on Lulu-the-Cat, our neighbors’ pet who lives in our yard and prefers our porch to hers. A full life is scarves and gloves and snotty noses outside but going outside anyway. A full life is too dark at 6 pm to go running on uneven sidewalks covered with leaves.

A full life is the large tupperware on the toddler’s head, a homemade grape costume and comments about Fruit of the Loom, and a list of gratitude for November.

A full life is being grateful for the simple things that make up a full life.

A full life is a grateful life, girls.

A full life is gratitude.

A full life is grace.

Love,

Your Momma

The Twenty-Third Letter: SURVIVOR

/ Elizabeth

phonto-3

Dear Daughters,

I subscribe to a gorgeous quarterly literary journal and a bimonthly professional writing magazine. I love when they come in the mail. I feel their smooth covers and flip through the pages, pretending that I will sit down with a cup of tea and breathe them in.

But I don’t. I don’t read them. Seriously, barely ever. Maybe just an article here or there, a poem here or there.

Because, let’s face it: sometimes the beautiful thing is not the fun thing. And my time feels so limited in this season that, well, my sanity requires the fun thing.

And sometimes, sometimes the fun thing is reading an article about Taylor Swift in Vanity Fair on commercial breaks during the season premiere of SURVIVOR.

I’m serious. That’s what I did last Thursday afternoon while you were having quiet time.

A mom’s gotta do what a mom’s gotta do.

This mom’s gotta watch SURVIVOR.

Obviously, I am not the target demographic for reality television (or, I should point out, anything to do with Taylor Swift). Our only TV is downstairs in the basement and doesn’t have cable but rather one of those digital converter boxes. It barely picks up anything. I’m overly educated–there are more graduate degrees in our family than children. I’m a left-leaning moderate and hold my tongue when it comes to political discourse. I’m a creatively liturgical orthodox believer who thinks living out my faith means loving people. All people. So the “cast” of SURVIVOR does not typically consist of my peers.

In fact, I’m pretty oblivious to what’s going on in the media these days. I’m not sure I’d recognize a Taylor Swift song on the radio. And I didn’t even know the newest season of SURVIVOR had started this week until your Uncle Stephen asked me if I’d watched the premiere.

He’s my fellow fan and the only other person in my peer group who admits to watching the show. I’ve told him that when I finally make it on SURVIVOR, he gets to be my family member who comes to visit me. (For the record, your dad would be the most likely to help me win a challenge because he is a beast physically and mentally, but Stephen is a fan. And that’s worth something, I think.)

Stephen is the only person I can joke with about “when I’m on Survivor” because he knows that I am kidding. And also half serious. Or maybe ¾ serious.

Because I really love Survivor and I would totally go on the show in a HEARTBEAT.

You will probably not believe this about me, because by the time you are old enough to read this letter, I will also be old and frail and SURVIVOR will only be a strange part of cultural history. Okay, I won’t be frail, but like I said, I’m not a typical fan of the show.

Mostly, I’m fascinated by SURVIVOR on a sociological level.

I’m even fascinated by the fact that I’m fascinated by it.

I suppose that I spend most of every show wondering how impossibly I’d behave in similar situations. Would I even be recognizable to myself? I think about what I would do or not do for a million dollars. I think about what I would do with the winnings. I think about the causes we’re invested in, the institutions that need support, the nonprofits that need to make budgets. Could I be nice to the flagrant misogynists and arrogant beauties and incompetent smarties that get cast every season for the sake of a million dollars?

And I think about the myriad reasons I could never be cast. I’m not clichéd enough, for one thing. Not annoyingly Christian enough, not a physical specimen who can scoot up coconut trees, not confrontational enough, not enough driven by money, not annoying enough, not with a compelling enough back story. I’m also too tall for a girl and not busty nor athletic enough. I’m probably not mean enough. Or sarcastic enough. (Your father might beg to differ on that last point.)

And once I told my college roommate that I wanted to be on SURVIVOR someday and she said to me, unironically, “You do realize that those people have to survive, don’t you?”

Touché.

I don’t like to be uncomfortable or dirty. I fear urinary tract infections any time I am even slightly dehydrated. I’m prone to tears when I’m stressed out. I overanalyze what people are saying or not saying. I’m sensitive.

But you know what?

I’m also tougher than I think.

Since that first difficult pregnancy with the all-day sickness that just wouldn’t quit, followed by the unmedicated labor and delivery that just wouldn’t quit, followed by the breastfeeding struggles that just wouldn’t quit, I kept saying, in each moment, this must be the most difficult moment. But it never was. Every one of those moments prepared me for the next one. I was strong enough to make it through.

And then there came motherhood. There was this child who was sucking my energy and my life, and I can really say that at that time, I wasn’t sure it was survivable. But it was.

And then there was a miscarriage, and I wasn’t sure it was survivable. But it was.

And then there was a high risk pregnancy with so much, so much sickness, and so much psychological pain, and I wasn’t sure it was survivable. But it was.

And then there was delivery number two, which wasn’t supposed to be unmedicated, but it was, and I wasn’t sure it was survivable, but it was.

And every moment that seemed unsurvivable was survived.

Because I was tougher than I thought I was.

Because I am tougher than I think I am.

And you, girls, are tougher than you think.

You are tougher than you think.

So much tougher.

So go watch some SURVIVOR and know that you would kick some serious butt if you were on that show.

Love,

Your Momma

PS The early seasons are the best ones.

The Twenty-Second Letter: Labor Day & Marking Time

/ Elizabeth

phonto

Dear Daughters,

I shared a story in church a few months ago that I hadn’t shared widely prior to that morning. It was kind of a big deal, standing at the pulpit, telling my story.

We’d decided as a church to “mark time” together during the liturgical season of Ordinary Time–that long, uneventful season from Pentecost to Advent–by sharing stories of the ways we individually keep track of time, the significant events in our lives that have shaped the way we see the world. These can be beautiful moments, but usually, if we’re honest, it’s the painful ones that we remember most vividly. The painful ones that keep coming back to us.

After I shared my story, a friend of mine, someone who is also a writer, asked me if I was planning to write the story out to share it more publicly. I said no, probably not, because while I’m pretty comfortable with strangers reading things that I write, I’m aware that much of what I write for public consumption has been tweaked and edited in such a way as to distance myself from the message. Most of what I write isn’t personal, even when it may seem personal.

There is something about being vulnerable I just don’t like. But my friend thinks that it’s important for us as writers to be as vulnerable and honest as we can because that is what offers hope to the world. Hope to the world.

She really thinks that voicing our pain and our trials and our struggles–being honest when life is hard–and saying me, too, is the way we offer hope.

So.

Maybe there is hope here.

This is the story I told our church:

On Labor Day 2013, I was six weeks pregnant and I had a miscarriage.

I called my doctor, and we decided that it was a textbook case and as long as nothing out of the ordinary seemed to happen, I didn’t need to go to the hospital or even make an appointment for his office–which was good, because I didn’t feel like sitting in a doctor’s office, crying my eyes out. I could barely talk to my mom on the phone to relay the news.

This was the week of our revival at our church. I went to every service but I didn’t tell anyone who superficially asked how I was doing.

I had never experienced loss like that before, though many of my friends had. It was a difficult and dark time, to put it in the most generous terms possible, and I decided, within days, that I never wanted to be pregnant again. My eldest daughter, my sweet girl, would be enough. I couldn’t risk this kind of heartbreak again. I wasn’t strong enough. I cried a lot.

A week later, I was dry heaving on runs and throwing up, and so I did go to the doctor. I found out that there were two embryos in my uterus. A nonviable embryo, which had caused the miscarriage symptoms, and an embryo with a heartbeat. It was good news, shocking news, and also nerve-wracking news. There was reasonable concern about this pregnancy, and it was considered high risk.

You might not know this about me, but I am a worrier. And not just a little bit. A lot. So this whole “high risk” business was excruciating. It weighed me down. Every day. I came to terms with every worst case scenario I could think of. And I still worried.

I worried in Advent as I began to share the news that we were pregnant. As friends and family expressed excitement, I worried inside. I couldn’t be excited because I was afraid.

I worried through the season of Christmas when we had our ultrasound and found out the baby would be a girl. Even her on-screen health didn’t reassure me very much.

I kept worrying through Epiphany and then Lent began. Would she come early, like her sister, and be a Lent baby, or during Easter? I wasn’t the only one wondering. My OB didn’t think I’d make it past Palm Sunday.

She arrived April 25, the Friday after Easter.

Our baby girl’s first name means “light.”

Her middle name means “pearl.”

Two of Jesus’s images for the Kingdom—a light in the darkness, the pearl of great price.

All of that—the darkness and light, the worry and the pearl of great price—is wrapped up in Labor Day for me.

Love,

Your Momma