Yes, the time is correct. I’ve been up, I think, since about 3:30am and have the oddest sensation of being completely well-rested and thoroughly exhausted at the same time. I’ve been reading Under the Tuscan Sun and find the writing at times verbose and at other times compelling – I want to move to Ah, it is good to dream.
Reading, though, how she talks of this house makes me think of my own house: thoroughly lived in and chaotic bordering on complete madness. Is this me? If a home is a reflection of my inner person, what does my home say? My toilet is skanky – is my soul just as unwashed? The cobwebs, the dust, the permanent layer of dirt on my laminate flooring: I have no place; no one clean and uncluttered carved out piece of space in my home. Even my desk, my work space, is cluttered and occasionally cleaned. My home is littered about with things I will get to someday: books I will read, projects I will finish, paints I will someday let my children use. I’m anal and at the same time completely loosey goosey. I want to change, desperately, but I find the more I want to change, the more I want to cling to the person I am.
Today is the last day I have a three-year-old. This is a small death. My heart aches at the thought that I will never again smell my sweet baby’s breath or feel the pull of baby’s lips on my breast. I will never be fat and heavy with my child and feel her kicking inside – that secret moment that is mine alone unless I choose to share. I will miss the nightly feedings, diaper changes, the adorable outfits and each new development. When does that change – the enjoyment of development? When my babies were infants I looked forward to each new step, ready to mark it on a calendar and celebrate with pure joy. Now, while there is still a bit of joy and excitement, it is tinged with heavy grief – my babies are growing and becoming adults. Already in Rhys there is no little boy – he is boy becoming and puberty is walking up the steps to our home. Quinn is somewhere in between. Lulu is firmly entrenched in little girl-dom. She likes make-up, press-on nails, Barbie dolls and dress-up. Pink is her favorite color and she is her favorite princess. Where did my babies go? I rejoice in who they are now but feel such a sense of loss. Where will they be tomorrow and have I done everything I could to ensure a happy childhood and set them firmly on the path to being stable adults who are secure in the fact that they always have a home next to my heart?
I have begun to accomplish a few things again. Peppers are drying in the dehydrator and the house is resplendent with the smell. I keep waiting for my eyes to burn from the oils in the air but so far, we are good. I had to throw pounds and pounds of apples onto the compost heap, which will, I’m sure, be eaten by our dog before they can return to dirt. I put many more pounds into our refrigerators and that will have to be enough for now. I’m hoping that I can begin making applesauce with the apples that remain but, like everything else, I start with a manageable thought (a small pot of hand crushed chunky applesauce) and end up with the world (mixing all the apples together in a big pot, running them through my food mill and bottling the result, all in one day) and then feel so stressed and anxious at the thought of such a huge task that I do nothing and most likely will be adding more apples to the compost in a few more weeks. My thought is that next year, I just spend the $50 from buying apples on buying applesauce at the store: pre-mashed, pre-bottled, pre-worked and ready to eat.
I am in a weird spot with God. We talk, frequently, but they are small conversations, momentary meetings with a sentence or two about where I am. I am trying to read my scriptures, beginning with the gospels as I need the strength that Jesus provides, but I feel disconnected. Sometimes I feel that in my attempts to make my devotions more consistent, they become less impassioned? There are moments my faith seems so strong and sure, my rock that secures me to existence, and other moments where I wonder if I am not just roaming this universe alone? I cannot deny my previous experiences with deity, just as I cannot ignore the promptings of the Holy Spirit, even now. Sunday I read Matthew 1 – I love how tender and gentle Joseph is – and as I read of the lineage of Christ and the foretelling of His life, I was filled with the gentle whisperings of the Spirit, firm and strong and compelling, that Jesus is real and that He is my Savior and that the Bible is true. How do I take moments like that and weave it into washing dishes and folding laundry and making applesauce?
In a similar vein, I have been thinking about mediocrity versus ordinariness. My life is ordinary and plain and simple and everyday, but does it have to be mediocre? There is such difference in the connotations of these words. I don’t know truly where I fall and I am uncertain as to the difference in the actual living as opposed to reading the words. I am also uncertain as to how to make that positive difference happen in my own life.
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