Happy In The Moment

As I glance out my kitchen window, I surmise that the clouds plan on lingering and will not be chased away by the sun on this last Wednesday in October. A hush like a heavy blanket covers our house. My eldest son, eyes still adjusting to the brightness of the kitchen light, lies draped over me, his head curling into the crook of my neck. We have no where to go, no where to be, but here. Together. We are quiet for a long time. And while I desperately love his two younger brothers, I hope that the "Olympians" will continue to rest for just a few minutes longer as I feel the warmth of Thomas' body fresh from his bed, smell his morning breath, and stroke that thick mass of black hair on his head.

Once upon a time it was just the two of us. As a baby and toddler, I would bring Thomas into bed with me, placing his body upon my chest, amazed that I had been given such an incredible gift and knowing how unworthy of it I was. That baby is now five, still a child but already journeying toward his independence from me, his mother, as he should be. So I try to grasp at and hold on to every possible moment offered to linger with him alone, silently praying the words of Elder Porphyrius as I hold him, "Lord, enlighten his heart. I entrust him to you." And then, "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner." The silence is ultimately broken as my son becomes more fully conscious. Inevitably the conversation turns to a topic near and dear to his heart. With eyes wide open and with all sincerity, Thomas launches a conversation that will carry on throughout the remainder of the day, "Mom, did you know that Megatron...?"

Be happy in the moment, that's enough. Each moment is all we need, not more.

Mother Teresa

Random Thoughts On A Friday Afternoon

It is late Friday afternoon, 4:15 to be exact. Outside it is cold, damp, and drizzling. I spent the day dragging my poor mother and children into the rain from grocery store to grocery store. Black beans are cooking on the stove top in preparation for tonight's dinner. My oven timer just beeped indicating that the 325 degree temperature needed to bake my pumpkins has been reached. My children are sleeping, and I am on my second Coke Zero (our coffee maker broke on Monday so beggars can't be choosers.) I should be cleaning the bathroom. I have just spent the last half hour on the phone calling our doctors' offices and then the passport travel office in order to attain information on which vaccinations we will need before traveling to Ethiopia. Poor Thomas, I have not vaccinated him since 2005. I have already promised him the biggest Lego set ever if he can make it through the series of shots with names like MMR, TB, and Hepatitis A that I am sure are awaiting him. "I want to watch movies on the plane," he relates, "but I am not so sure about this TV shot." My mood is reflective of the day outside my warm, quiet home. My heart is a bit heavy, and I am a bit teary as I think of our baby girl who is probably almost ready to make her entrance into this world, thousands of miles away. Already I weep for her mother, father, and family who will make the most unselfish decision ever; a decision that will forever wound them. Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy.

Indian Summer

It had been a long night. Though I had tucked myself in at 9:30 with every intention of sleeping for a complete 8 1/2 hours, at midnight I was still awake, book and string cheese in hand, reading (much to my awakened husband's chagrin) in bed. It was not that my current reading choice was so captivating that I simply could not put it down, rather just a case of insomnia. With the help of some Benadryl, I finally dozed off a bit after twelve, only to be jolted out of bed by Thomas screaming. Running into his room and flipping on his lights, I discovered my little one covered in blood from a nasty nose bleed. And as if to solidify why I cannot ever even consider being a nurse, I became quite woozy from the scarlet splashes of blood staining his blanket. Jared was called in to take care of applying tissue to the nose.

Needless to say, I skipped the 6:30 AM alarm, opting to sleep until the children awakened. Aware that the forecast for the day was predicting rain, I lingered in bed despite the bouncing and hollering taking place in the twins' room, dreading the day. Imagine how pleasantly surprised I was when I opened our room darkening shades to encounter the sun shining down upon the golden leaves carpeting our lawn instead of ominous clouds saturated with rain. Thank God. A bit of relief from the early chill predominating our region. A taste of the Indian Summer, which I had begun to doubt would ever materialize. Goodbye winter coats and long sleeved shirts, if only for the day.

We opted for a trip to the Shady Groves Pumpkin Patch, a locally run business, where we have been purchasing pumpkins for years. "I don't know if the boys should be allowed to play with the bunnies," my co-parent and eldest son advised. "They may pull their ears or try to step on them." I assured Thomas that there would indeed be parental supervision. Unfortunately, it turned out the farm was closed for the day. Tears of disappointment and muffled sobs emitted from the back of the van while I mentally concocted plan number two: a return to Stone's apple orchard five minutes beyond. The fields were closed for apple picking, but the boys, myself, and Grandpa and Grandma Swanson enjoyed ourselves anyway. After all, there were llamas to feed apples, a baby lamb to coo at, miniature donkeys to avoid (because a cardboard sign hung on the fence indicated they might bite), and a one eared goat to marvel at. Besides, there were free apples in the barn, pears to be purchased, walnut shells to be collected, and one lunch of pancakes and bacon to relish.

Indian Summer

Emily Dickinson

These are the days when birds come back,

A very few, a bird or two,

To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies put on

The old, old sophistries of June,-

A blue and gold mistake.

Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee,

Almost thy plausibility

Induces my belief,

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear,

And softly through the altered air

Hurries a timid leaf!

Oh, sacrament of summer days,

Oh, last communion in the haze,

Permit a child to join,

Thy sacred emblems to partake,

Thy consecrated bread to break,
Taste thine immortal wine!

To You

To the boy who would rather be reading Nietzche, creating movies, or eating steak than washing diapers, editing my blogs, or partaking of any food infused with kale, but does these things (usually) without complaining.

To You
Walt Whitman

Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams,
I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands,
Even now your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners, troubles,
follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you,
Your true soul and body appear before me.
They stand forth out of affairs, out of commerce, shops, work, farms,
clothes, the house, buying, selling, eating, drinking, suffering, dying.

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem,
I whisper with my lips close to your ear.
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.

O I have been dilatory and dumb,
I should have made my way straight to you long ago,
I should have blabb'd nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing but you.

I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you,
None has understood you, but I understand you,
None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to yourself,
None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in you,
None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will never consent
to subordinate you,
I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God,
beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.

Painters have painted their swarming groups and the centre-figure of all,
From the head of the centre-figure spreading a nimbus of gold-color'd light,
But I paint myriads of heads, but paint ho head without its nimbus of
gold color'd light,
From my hand from the brain of every man and woman it streams,
effulgently flowing forever.

O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!
You have not know what you are, you have slumber'd upon yourself
all your life,
Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time,
What you have done returns already in mockeries,
(Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in mockeries
what is their return?)

The mockeries are not you,
Underneath them and within them I see you lurk,
I pursue you where none else has pursued you,
Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustom'd
routine, if these conceal you from others or from yourself
they do not conceal you from me.

The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these
balk others, they do not balk me,
The pert apparel, the deform'd attitude, drunkenness, greed, premature
death, all these I part aside.

There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you,
There is no virtue, no beauty in man or woman, but as good is in you,
No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you,
No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you.

As for me, I give nothing to any one except I give the like carefully to you,
I sing the songs of glory of none, not God, sooner that I sing the songs
of glory to you.

Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard!
These shows of the East and West are tame compared to you,
and interminable as they,
These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of apparent
dissolution, you are he or she who is master or mistress over them,
Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain,
passion, dissolution.

The hopples fall from your ankles, you find an unfailing sufficiency,
Old or young, male of female, rude, low, rejected by the rest, whatever
you are promulges itself,
Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing is scanted,
Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you picks its way.

Wonder

I've always classed fantasy stories into three groups: Those that purport to exist within our world (i.e. Harry Potter), those that are wholly separate from our world (i.e. Star Wars), and those in which you must escape our world to enter the fantasy world (i.e. Alice in Wonderland). Most of my favorites fall in the first two categories leaving those in the third category, stories in which kids escape to Neverland or Wonderland or Narnia, as my least favorite. I guess in some way I've always thought, or at least wished, that our world was full of magic and have liked my stories to reflect that reality. I don't like thinking the magic is all somewhere else.

However, this morning at around 10 AM the magic was gone. Beth was gone for the weekend, breakfast was accomplished but the kitchen and living room were a mess, I was already tired, and I had three hours to go until I could even think about putting the boys or myself down for a nap. What to do?

"Do you want to go to the park?" I asked Thomas. "Sure," he replied.

I knew it was chilly outside so I began putting on the jackets and shoes. After all of that rigmarole, the four of us boys stepped outside and discovered it was just a bit colder than I had anticipated. I looked down at the boys to see if they would be fazed, and they seemed fine, so I continued. Just as I had finished strapping the twins into their car seats, I heard a five-year-old voice behind me say, "I think its too cold to go to the park."

I had to think quick. "Okay. Let's just go for a drive along the river and look at the pretty leaves." Thomas agreed, and in fact he sounded excited, so we were off.

I drove down to the river, turned left and headed "north." (The Mississippi runs east-west in the Quad Cities.) It was a beautiful drive. We passed through small towns and over tributaries, saw bridges and dams and birds flying south and, most of all, foliage that was just beginning to bare its autumnal glory. We had gone about a half hour when I suddenly hatched a more ambitious plan: Eagle Point Park is just another half-hour up the road.

That was much farther than I had intended to travel and the provisions were light, but there is one feature to this park I knew Thomas would love, so I pulled over for gas and crackers and chocolate milk and Coke and we stocked up for the second half of our journey. The drive was really quite pleasant, with Thomas quizzing me about the Clone Wars episode we had watched the night before most of the way, and we made our way peacefully to the park.

We pulled into Eagle Point Park, parked by a playground and began to disembark the van. As we did so, I began to notice little white flakes in the air around me. "You've got to be kidding me," I thought to myself. "Can I play on the playground?" Thomas asked. "You can, but there's something else I want you to see first." Thomas acquiesced, though he sounded a bit disappointed.

I held the twins' hands as Thomas sauntered along beside us. "Dad, is it snowing?" Thomas asked. The flakes had become a little bit larger as we walked away from the playground equipment along a freshly mowed path lined with tall evergreens. "I think so," I smiled.

As we continued to walk through the trees, the wind and the snow continued to pick up. Thomas laughed, "I can see the snow in Russell's hair!" I laughed back through the snow, "This is crazy!" The twins were meandering in our general direction down the wide, still-green path and Thomas and I were laughing out loud as the snow grew absurdly thick in the air around us. It was as if time itself had gotten confused and the seasons had lost their moorings. And then in the midst of this summer-autumn-winter-wonderland a castle magically sprang into view.

In that moment I became the Darling children flown to Neverland, Dorothy swept off to Oz, the Pevensies in Narnia, Alice down the rabbit hole. Watching my three boys giggle as they rushed across the carpet of grass through the giant, fluffy snowflakes towards the castle crowned in golden tree-tops, I couldn't help being yanked momentarily into the fantasy world of my own childhood.

Being thrust so suddenly into such a pure state of wonder made me realize how far removed my daily life has become from the innocence of those younger days. I may still like my stories to tell me magic is all around, but in truth my eyes have grown dim to most of it. And maybe that's why adults write stories like Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, because we adults need to be torn from our everyday routine in order to recapture that essential child-likeness we so often lose. In fact, I'm writing this down now, because I am sure that as I go through the coming weeks and months and years even this moment will begin to dim, and I hope that in reading this description years from now I will be able to recall perhaps just a portion of its joy.

"Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it." Mark 10:18

Altar Smoke

Altar Smoke

Rosalie Grayer

Somewhere inside of me
There must have always been
A tenderness for the little, lived-with-things
A man crowds upon his worn fistful of earth.

Somewhere inside of me
There must have always been
A love
Made to fill the square aggressiveness of new-cut hedges,
And feed the pursed green mouths of baby leaves; A love
Made to understand the way grass cuddles up to porch steps leaned upon by time,
And why dandelions nudge the stones along the walk;
A love
For garden hose curled sleeping in the noon hush,
Coolness trickling lazily from its open mouth,
For shingles starched and saucy in white paint,
And an old rake rusty with dreams of tangled grass and butterflies;
A love
For candle flames, like pointed blossoms on their ghostly stems,
And frost-forests breathing wonder on the parlor windows.

Somewhere inside of me
There must have always been
An altar of hewn stones
Upon which my love casts these-
Burnt offerings-
To make a sweet savor
Unto my soul.

Give me the strength, my God,
To scatter my fires and tumble the altar stones in confusion;
Give me the strength to raise my eyes,
So that hard and sharp across my heart
Like shadow cut on mountain rock,
Will fall the agony of sunset-
So that I can see
The laughter of clouds spun into the blue web of infinity,
So that my soul can reach out
And melt in the sweep of forever
Above all these.

A Time For Everything

Outside a steady rainfall weeps from the murky clouds overhead. Fallen leaves wet with moisture scatter throughout our yard while many more journey on the stream of water cascading down our street. I have been reticent to embrace the change of seasons. While I take deep pleasure in the vibrant colors fall provides, the smell of dried leaves and their crackle when little feet prance on them, and the lovely foods - apples, pumpkins, squash - which will be used to create such delicacies as pies, breads, and comfort soups, I have longed to hold on to summer. "Too soon. Too soon," I want to cry, as I wake in the dark, fumble to find jackets, socks, long sleeved shirts and footy pajamas, not to mention my faithful friends, a pair of black Doc Martens whose heels are permanently crushed from wear. While I know that warmer weather is imminent, I can feel the change in the sun's heat and cannot help but mourn the arrival of chilled air, the closing of storm windows, and the return of electric heaters and blankets. Midwest winters are interminable and cruel with winds that are often excruciatingly harsh. From November until May, it is downright cold. "Not yet. Please, not yet."

Despite my reservations, after quietly creeping down my stairs the other morning and discovering the breaking of light through the sky, while surrounded by silence and the remnants of darkness, I felt the beauty of the change as the liveliness and bustle of summer quietly shifts into the hushed and peaceful tones of autumn. And then last night, as my husband worked late, and my three sons and I surrounded our dining room table to share a meal of homemade chicken soup and rice as the evening eclipsed the day, I experienced a profound peace. As darkness enclosed our home, lights illuminated the inside, dinner candles flickered (Thomas often likes it to be "romantic"), the drone of ancient Orthodox hymns lulled in the background, sounds from outside were subdued, and I was thankful for the seasonal change and it's invitation to move inward, to slow down, and find rest.

To everything there is a season,

and a time for every matter under heaven.

A time to give birth

And a time to die;

A time to plant

And a time to pluck what is planted.

A time to kill

And a time to heal;

A time to pull down

And a time to build up.

A time to weep

And a time to laugh;

A time to mourn

And a time to dance.

A time to throw stones

And a time to gather stones;

A time to embrace

And a time to refrain from embracing.

A time to seek

And a time to lose;

A time to keep

And a time to throw away.

A time to tear

And a time to sew;

A time to keep silent

And a time to speak.

A time to love

And a time to hate;

A time of war

And a time of peace.