Shaking the Nonsense Out

"Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,

Break all our teacup talk of God...

The Beloved sometimes wants

To do us a great favor:

Hold us upside down

And shake all the nonsense out."

Hafiz (Tired of Speaking Sweetly)



I haven't posted anything in the past two months. It seems that sometimes all energy is absorbed by the process of merely surviving. This spring has without question been one of the most difficult periods of life that I can recall. Without going into too much detail I will just say that beyond going through an unexpected pregnancy in a new community and struggling through the normal ups and downs of deployment, I have also had to face some other very frightening situations that have shaken me to the core of my being. There have been moments when like Elijah, I wanted to say : "It is enough, Lord, take my life..." (I Kings 19:4)

As morbid as that sounds, the good news is that I am still here. I am not the same person that I was a year ago or even a few months ago. The little things that used to upset me don't seem to be even a blip on the radar anymore. I have had amazing help from friends, loved ones, and sometimes strangers at the right times, when I needed to know that I wasn't completely alone. But parts of the journey have been solitary, because I needed to face myself and God in a very real way.

I am not sharing any of this to be either macabre or overly dramatic. I find it encouraging that things that we think will be our undoing can actually have the power to remake us. The process is anything but enjoyable, but inner strength and resilience are built during those times in a way that cannot be replicated through any other means. The "nonsense" is indeed shaken out and we are given an ability to see more clearly and love more purely.

There is much to look forward to in the upcoming months. In about eight weeks, our daughter will be entering the world and I cannot wait to meet her. The boys will have their own challenges and triumphs as well as a little sister to love and help care for. And at some point this deployment will be over and Alan will be home. My hope is that the events of the past few months have better equipped me to be a loving parent, partner, and human being. In that case it has all been more than worth it.

For Jessie's sake

I have been doing a good deal of thinking about ongoing events in Japan, northern Africa and of course the ongoing situation in Afghanistan. I know these events make us all feel vulnerable and grief stricken, and the overwhelming nature of tragedy can sometimes make us either want to throw up our hands in helplessness or give in to numbness.

Military families experience the connectedness of humanity in a unique way. When unrest or disaster happens on another part of the globe and the military becomes involved, servicemembers and their families are immediately affected. Reading the news becomes much more personal because the stakes are that much higher.

It is still unbelievable to me that I am part of a military family. For most of my career, I have been a Montessori educator which holds peace education as its cornerstone. I work with young people in conflict resolution skills and have been amazed again and again at how young children are able to both state their needs directly and forgive easily.

A large part of peace education is teaching children how to let go of stereotypes so that they can truly see the other person or group of people. I admit(to my shame) that in the past I have held stereotypes of military members as being mostly two dimensional white alpha males who scream often and rarely listen. I know now that this is far from the truth. Both my relationship with Alan and meeting other wonderful folks in the military over the past couple of decades have helped to change this perception drastically. While Alan and I disagree about many things politically speaking, he is one of the most gentle and humble men I have ever encountered. I truly consider it my HONOR to belong to the military community.

As I wrote in one of my prior posts, I knew that Alan would be going on a deployment this spring. At that time, we thought we knew when he would both leave and return. We were both confident in the fact that he would be here either right before or soon after the baby was born, and then would be preparing for retirement soon afterward and we could finally be a "normal" family, whatever that means.

With the unstable situation on the world stage, however, times, dates, and mission have all changed and everything seems uncertain. He will definitely be gone for longer than either of us had anticipated and there is no guarantee that he will be home for the birth of our daughter, Jessie, or when exactly he will be returning afterward.

Yet even with the uncertainty, there is so much hope. Every time I feel the baby move, I am reminded what a huge gift I have been given in motherhood and being able to honestly say that I know without a doubt that we are well loved and cared for. Scripture is full of reassurance that no matter what apparent darkness may present itself, it can never extinguish the light. I will continue to believe that love triumphs over hate, good triumphs over evil and light dispels darkness even if it makes me appear naive.

I have to, for Jessie's sake.

"I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord!" Psalm 27: 13-14

Listen to this song(This is just so beautiful) by Jenny and Tyler... it says it all!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4k3RwLONbk

Cooking Lessons

When I met Alan the first time 23 years ago, he was 17 years old and I was 19. One of the things that impressed me the most was his independence and ability to take care of himself and those around him. At that young age, he was already completely self sufficient and had learned many of the life skills that I had yet to acquire.

The first time I went to his immaculate apartment for dinner,(he was already an amazing house keeper and still is), he made me the best fajitas I had ever had in my life. I grew up in Austin and had definitely tasted more than my share of the regional cuisine. So how was it that this native Californian who had spent most of his formative years in Chicago knew instinctively how to create melt in your mouth beef fajitas that I can still taste almost a quarter of a century later?

I was raised by a gourmet cook. My mother truly has the gift of creativity and perfection in the kitchen. My sisters Betsy and Laura both inherited this gene in spades while culinary know how seems entirely absent from my DNA. Don't get me wrong, I can put food together that doesn't cause illness and sometimes even borders on tasting good, but I am not patient by nature which true cooking unfortunately requires.

When Alan and I began this incarnation of our relationship I decided that I was going to change this. By God, I was going to get into the kitchen and create such mouthwatering sensations that HE would remember almost 25 years later. But he has a hard time staying out of the kitchen when cooking is going on, and invariably he would say kindly "Have you tried...? when I was in the middle of making vegetarian lasagna or even something as simple as pancakes.

At first his offers of help just made me mad. "I can do this on my own!" I would exclaim like a petulant two year old. But by and by I had to admit that his suggestions did make sense and improved my cooking immensely. The most humbling lesson came when I was making him a birthday cake for his 40th last fall.I was making everything completely from scratch including a kind of frosting that I had never tried. He had promised to stay out of the kitchen and let me do it by myself.

But the frosting wasn't thickening. Instead of stiff peaks of chocolate, mine looked more like concave puddles. I hated to admit it, but I needed some help. He gently showed me how to add just the right ingredients to make it the right consistency and saved his own birthday cake. I was glad the cake survived, but humiliated that I hadn't been able to wow him with my skill. I am pretty sure I even cried a little.

As we have spent more time in the kitchen together, I have come to value his help. Cooking is one of the every day things that we really enjoy doing together and I have decided that I would rather humble myself and actually learn than be stubborn and have dripping cake frosting.

As I am sure anyone who has every been in a military partnership can attest to, it is the every day things that really mean the most when you are fortunate enough to share the same time zone and physical space. Months apart during the year infuse the mundane things of life such as making coffee in the morning, sharing stories about your day, and of course, cooking with a kind of inexplicable magic.

Alan is going to be deployed soon. It goes without saying that I will miss him beyond belief and I am not looking forward to the yawning chasm of time and distance before us. But I have determined that I am going to keep cooking while he is gone and continue that learning process. I look forward to many more experiences in the kitchen together when he returns.

This partnership has definitely caused me to see more deeply the wisdom in the Zen "all we have is this moment" way of thinking. I know that I don't truly have the guarantee of more cooking lessons from him in the future, although I pray with everything in me that it is so. But I have today. And today he has promised to teach me how to make real butter cream frosting. Yum. I can't wait for the lesson.

Moments that take your breath away

It has been an eventful and slightly chaotic two weeks since my last post. The furniture took FOREVER to arrive, and we had so many difficulties with the shady moving company we hired that I was beyond grateful that our stuff arrived at all and more or less in one piece.

We have spent the last week trying to create a semblance of order in our lives, hanging pictures, placing books on shelves, and organizing the kitchen. The tiny house in the woods is truly beginning to look and feel like home. Although our furniture is what we jokingly refer to as Early American Yard Sale,having our own things here does provide comfort.

Sam started school last week and amused me when he got in the car after the first day and said in his formal way of speaking, "I don't understand why so many people think Texans have a strong accent. North Carolinians, or should I call them Tar Heels? have a MUCH stronger accent." He had a point. Although I find North Carolina cadence soothing and lovely, it is extremely distinct and takes a bit of getting used to.

The transition is not without its share of heartaches for any of us. It is just hard to start life over somewhere, and there have been some tearful homesick moments thus far and I fully expect there to be some more during the next few weeks and months. But there have also been experiences that confirm to me that it was a good move for us.

Sam had his first target shooting practice with Alan last week in the woods behind our house, and seemed to genuinely enjoy the experience, unplugged and all. Gabriel has managed to form a band in the two weeks since we have been here and they had their first practice today. I am loving the people and work at Greenville Montessori and returning to the classroom fulltime seems as natural as breathing to me. And hearing Alan's truck pull into the driveway on Friday evenings after his two and a half hour commute from Norfolk has become one of my new favorite sounds on the planet.

And then there are those experiences that sneak up and grab me when I least expect it and take my breath away. Like tonight. I was making the now familiar two mile drive down Highway 33 to the Food Lion to get two items I had forgotten for dinner. I left the driveway slightly annoyed at having to make a second trip to the grocery store, and almost had to pull the car over when I looked up and saw one of the most glorious magenta and golden sunsets descending behind the pine trees, bringing the day to a peaceful close and helping dispel my homesickness. Thank God for the power of nature to heal and ground us making us feel at home wherever we happen to be in the world.

Home at last

There is nothing as daunting as moving. It is exciting before, and a relief afterward, but the during is sure to bring lots of frustration, anxiety, and adjusting one's expectations as events refuse to comply with our original plans.

We arrived in North Carolina after three days of being encased in a car with three people, numerous suitcases, and a psychotic cat whose name is Ophelia but whom we have affectionately dubbed "Alien Kitty," due to her small head size and bizarre behavior.

The arrival to our new state had been proceeded by misunderstandings with the movers(only half of our belongings were loaded onto the van), having to say goodbye to our beloved older cat, Bear, who we found out the day before the move had an advanced liver disease, and the normal mixed feelings of being excited about a new beginning but being sad to leave loved ones and familiar surroundings.

It is now day four after we "landed' here and we still have no furniture save the air mattresses we bought at Family Dollar and the television set that Alan found in the attic. We hope and pray that the movers will arrive with real beds today. But in spite of the complications and lack of "stuff," being here is amazing.

Yesterday, we went walking behind our tiny house. We have a neighbor on one side, but open fields and woods for miles behind us. Being in the woods and realizing that I live here and can walk in them any time I choose to, made my heart overflow with joy. I kept asking Alan to pinch me because it all seems so surreal. The woods has always been my favorite natural environment where I feel the most peaceful and at home. When we rented the little house via a property management company I knew that it was outside the city limits, but had no idea that the forest would be my back yard. I look forward to many many walks in those woods and don't know if I will ever recover from the wonder that we get to call this beautiful place home.