My husband is holding me back. And it’s awesome.

This past week something came up that would have been kinda fun for David to do, but he couldn’t, because he’s married and has kids.

I’ve been the spokesperson for a spouse and kids not meaning you had to settle down.  Settling down is something old people do and is code for “I’ve given in to the man”… marriage on the other hand is something you do when you find a person you want to spend your life with, having kids is something that happens when you’re too drunk to properly use birth control you want that love to expand into new people.  Neither of those things have to involve the dreaded “settling down”.

So when this little incident arose and it was blatantly obvious that having me around was holding David back, even though it was from something small and fairly insignificant, my world was twisted up.  WHAT!?!?!  Being with me is holding David back?!?!  This is not what love is supposed to look like!!!  What was I dooooooooing!?!?!”

Because love isn’t suppose to hold you back, right?

Then it occurred to me, my dream job has always been to be Snow White at Disney World… I’m so meant to be Snow White that two of the three main requirements “hair black as ebony, skin white as snow” are hardwired into my very DNA, not to mention I can sing.  All I need is a tube of red lipstick and this Disney Princess is ready to rock!

But I will never be Snow White at Disney world because David hates the entire area around LA so much it hurts… and as such we can never live there.

David is holding me back.  And I’m holding David back… in much bigger ways I’m sure than the little issue that spawned this mental drama.  We’re holding each other back.  And on that note the kids are holding us back… possible even more than we’re holding them back, which is also quite a bit.  We’re just a cluster fuck of stopping each other’s fun.

But we do it because it’s more than just that.  (Well, that’s why David and I do it… the kids do it because if we weren’t around to feed them they’d probably die… they’re basically stuck with us.)  I’m 100% positive that the things I gain by being with David are better than being Snow White, even though that would be totally awesome.  I’m assuming David feels the same way because love is basically just selfishness disguised he’s constantly chosing to be with me.

In the end I think we’re probably all winning.  And even though nobody’s going to pay me for it I’m going to be Snow White for Halloween.

And just for the record, this little piece of self realization does not mean that we’ve settled down.

Death. And how much I’ll miss one tiny, smelly, sweetheart.

Wednesday afternoon Banana, my precious tiny dog, passed away.

I got this picture the day before he died.  Verona adored this little guy almost as much as I did.

I found Banana as a stray a few years ago and brought him home with the full intention of taking him to a shelter only to find all the shelters were full and nobody would take him… and so, be default, he became ours.

Death is a weird weird thing while simultaneously being the most natural thing in the world.  Banana’s death was beautiful and full of love, while at the same time being horrifying and gross… but somehow the beauty didn’t take away from the horror at all and the horror didn’t taint the beauty… they just existed side by side in a bizarre juxtaposition of inevitability.

We knew it was coming so we all had a chance to say goodbye, but Wednesday morning when I saw him I knew the time was very near.  He was so weak by that point that he couldn’t walk or even stand so that morning I move him and his little bed out into the sun so even though he couldn’t see anymore he could feel the warmth and the kids and I spent the morning outside playing so Verona could spend some more time with him and he wouldn’t be alone.

When they went down for their nap I brought him inside to sit on my lap while I watched a movie, something we’ve done together most evenings since I found him those years ago.  Despite having no eyesight left he kept pulling is head up, something that was incredibly difficult for him, to look at me.  He seemed so scared so, through my tears, I told him he didn’t have to be, that everything was going to be ok, and I was holding him so if it was time he wouldn’t to be alone.  I also reminded him how incredibly loved he was.

A few minutes later suddenly the room was filled with an emptiness, I reach down and put my hand on his tiny chest and realized he was gone.

When I picked his dirty, scraggly self up off the street those years ago I never anticipated how much I would love him or how blessed I would be by him.  He needed me at a time in my life when I desperately needed to be needed.  While it was good to have the chance to say goodbye it doesn’t make me miss him any less.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

DPP :: Community

December Photo Project

Want to know one of the main reasons I don’t want to send my kids to school?  Coffee time.

Ok, not coffee time specifically, but what coffee time represents.  Coffee time, Thursday mornings in the lounge at the church.  Everyone takes turns bringing food which sometimes means homemade banana bread from a woman who’s been perfecting the recipe for half a century and sometimes means Einstein Bagels that a college kid picked up on his way here from class.  Sometimes there’s 5 people, sometimes 20.  Alway’s there is coffee.

Coffee time may be one of my favorite times of the week.  I love the fact that the age span is usually 80+ years.  I love the conversations which cover everything from the most important of spiritual matters to the most hilarious of Chuck Norris jokes.  I love that nobody judges the pastor of 60 years and nobody judges this young tattooed and pierced mom who isn’t comfortable calling herself a Christian.  I love that we can all take an hour out of our busy busy lives to sit down together and just be.  I love the community.

I love that I have learned some of the most profound things in my life on Thursday mornings in this room and I love when Peter (the older man on the couch in the back of the picture) weaves a story into a lesson on how we are called to be better than we are and I see Verona taking in every word.

If my kids are in school all day they’ll have the chance to gain knowledge, but if they can come here they’ll have the chance to gain wisdom (and probably plenty of knowledge too).

In the end, I think wisdom is pretty damn important.

I want my kids to grow up learning more than just long division.  I want my kids to experience LIFE!  And the wonder and beauty that is the people around them!  I want my kids to experience FULLNESS and RICHNESS and COMMUNITY!  Because in the end if all you know is long division you’re going to be missing out on a lot.

Love. Ridiculousness. Beauty.

I told you all a few weeks ago about my friend being attacked, beaten, and sexually assaulted.  I am not going to pretend to know what she’s going through… there’s no way in the world I could.  And honestly talking about how this is effecting me sounds like such a self centered bullshit thing to do.  It didn’t happen to me… it happened to her.  And yes, it’s effecting all of us but something seems so incredibly wrong about going on about how this makes me feel.  Forgive me for indulging in such lunacies nonetheless.

We (myself, my friend, and the rest of our small community) belong to a religious tradition that believes not only in pacifism and non violence but also that returning love for hatred is the only way.  Those are all wonderful things to talk about abstractly and to believe when you have nothing on the line, it’s something else entirely when you’re face to face with that hatred.

Obviously this tragedy is making everyone re-evaluate those beliefs, it would be dishonest to claim otherwise.  We’re being forced to examine why we believe what we believe and whether or not those beliefs are realistic.

But here’s the thing.  Love isn’t realistic.  And love in the face of violence and hatred is downright insane.

It is ridiculous.

It makes no sense.

And maybe that’s the point.  Maybe that’s what makes it so beautiful.  Maybe the beauty of loving even when it’s so unbelievably hard is that you have no choice but to rely on God.  Standing up to pure evil (and what this guy did to her was nothing if not pure evil) and refusing to fall into the trap of returning the hate, returning the violence… refusing to keep that cycle of evil going gives you no choice but to throw up your hands and say “God, you make no sense and I’m following you anyway.”

(Or maybe it’s not.  Maybe it’s just a terrible idea.  I could always be wrong.)

I won’t stand here and say I know everything (or that I know anything for that matter).  I can’t say that I understand what happened or that I know that it’s because of some divine plan, or even that there is some divine plan.  I don’t know much of anything to be honest.

(Maybe there’s beauty in that too?)

And I won’t say that I love the guy who did this… because right now I don’t.  Right now all I can do is try my hardest not to hate him.  But I do hope one day I can come around, I hope we all can.  Because if I can’t believe that love wins then I’m not sure if I can believe in anything at all.

Nature in the City

I grew up out in a tiny town in the midwest, everywhere you went you were surrounded by vast fields of wheat waving in the breeze, acres upon acres of sunflowers with their faces turned towards the sun… trickling creeks with deer and all other manner of wild animals drinking from them surrounded by rolling hills of lush green grass.

I moved to the big city but almost everyone I’ve ever known stayed there.

The comment I hear the most from people back home is that sometimes it would be fun to be in a city but they would miss being close to nature, that being surrounded by concrete and buildings would be stifling because they wouldn’t be able to see the beauty that this world has to offer.

This is the view I had from my driveway tonight.

This scene is juxtaposed with the sounds of rush hour traffic, incessant honking, and a police siren wailing past.  Just below the frame of this picture is a row of less than impressive houses, most sorely neglected.  Just to the right is a street light and the rusted unfixable car that sits in my neighbor’s yard.

But the magnificence of these palm trees and the sheer glory of that sunset is undeniable.

The splendor of the world around us refuses to be hidden no matter how many government buildings, highways, and Costco parking lots surround you.  Beauty is everywhere, sometimes you just have to look for it.

Jesus Scratched His Balls

Christians, non-Christians, and people somewhere in between all tend to get caught up in some lofty idea of (cue choir of angels) who Jesus is, and subsequently lose sight of the fact that he was a pretty awesome guy… and that’s unfair.  Sometimes I think it’s fun/helpful to think about Jesus doing the run of the mill, profoundly human things.  Jesus was human, and as such…

Jesus farted in his sleep.

Jesus sat on the ground in weird positions for too long and his leg fell asleep.

Jesus did that thing where you think there’s one more step then there actually is and look like a moron when you half fall over at the top of the stairs because of said miscalculation.

And Jesus occasionally forgot what he was talking about.

Anything Is Possible

Listen to the MUSTN’TS, child,
Listen to the DON’TS
Listen to the SHOULDN’TS,
the IMPOSSIBLES, the WON’TS
Listen to the NEVER HAVES,
Then listen close to me-
Anything can happen, child, 
Anything can be.

-Shel Silverstein

Osama Yo Mama

I was going to try and write a post about how disheartened and sad the reactions of Americans and especially Christians left me feeling yesterday but was having trouble putting it into words.  Today though a blogging and unschooling buddy of mine managed to post on hers many of the things I wanted to say so instead of trying to rehash what I’m still having trouble processing go read what Jessica has to say. 

Why should I stop ripping off other people’s words there though, why not make it the theme of this post?  The only that could ease my soul last night was this prayer by St. Francis of Assisi, I don’t get into religious stuff on here very often but in the bible there is a promise that when you are so downtrodden that you can’t even make the words of a prayer for it the spirit will intercede and express the things you can’t on your behalf… St Francis was my spirit last night, maybe someone out there is feeling the same way and this can help them too so here you go.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

Grant that I may not seek to be consoled but to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Hey World,

and so are you.

Love Means Vomit Hugs

Love is hugging someone when they’re sad even though they’re covered in their own barf.

Last night while David and I were watching TV we heard a cry from the bedroom, thinking that Verona lost her pacifier I went in to find her laying on our bed (she likes to crawl up there) in a sprawling puddle of baby vomit complete with identifiable chunks of hotdog and watermelon.  It was matted through her hair, dripping off her face and clothes… and she was crying and reaching up for me.  Vomits hugs… part of the parenting job.  The afore mentioned situation repeated itself (usually followed by a super soapy shower for both of us) every few hours to varying degrees, including one time when a poor unfortunate Barney who had crawled up into her bed to comfort her got projectile vomited all over (he didn’t mind, eating baby vomit is a favorite pastime of his). 

The whole “you don’t really know love until you have a child thing” is so cliché it makes my head hurt but there is truth to it in that it’s a whole different kind of completely selfless love.  My love for Cherry Pepsi or Fraggle Rock doesn’t involve vomit hugs, my love of my friends or my brother don’t involve vomit hugs, my love for Daisy and Barney don’t involve vomits hugs thanks to Barney’s previously mentioned hobby, and with the exception of a few party nights in college gone awry, not even my love for David involves vomit hugs. 

A level of love that makes you hug someone dripping in their own sick at all is an astonishing thing… but a level that actually makes you WANT to do it?  To willingly cradle someone as they rest their hotdog/watermelon chunky hair on your chest and you love them even more than usual?  Now that is just freaking mind-blowing. 

Cheesy at it sounds I imagine this is the closest we will ever get to really understanding the way God loves us.