Ode to Joys

Even though I was nearly 500 miles away when this little beaut grew its wings, I felt deep joy at its introduction to this wild, weird world.  Of course, the mother in me would like to point out that the reason I was able to experience this joy was because my kids--decent beyond decency, good beyond good--filmed its wet-winged release so that I could experience it.

I cannot imagine a world without joy.  Especially right now.

What if it turned out that the best thing we could do in the face of so much ugliness and hatred was to simply enjoy something when the opportunity presented itself? To refuse to let that  moment of joy be taken from us?

It strikes me as wonderfully radical, this notion that joy, like breakfast, should never be skipped, lest the world come unraveling before our very eyes.

Last week,  I read an article about U.N. Ambassador Nicky Haley telling a group of conservative teen leaders that "owning the libs" (a term new to me, although it also hit close to home) was nothing a true leader would pursue. After reading it,  I realized that maybe I'd been played all these months.  And, yet, I also saw a sliver of hope in her message to these young leaders.

So I devised a plan in response to all that owning.

But it turns out that my new approach to this crazy life is actually my old approach to it--to never turn down an opportunity to embrace joy, to stand gape jawed in the presence of a newborn monarch butterfly, its wings still wet, its mind wondering where all the good milkweed is.

Joy, I believe, just might hold the key to something better.

In fact, I know it does.  . . . a better me, to begin with.

Now, Juxt a Minute!

I love this photo my neighbor Gary took--the beer in the foreground, the nuns and Calvin and Allie and soon-to-be Theo in the background.  I love it because of its juxtaposition--things that a person might not normally fit within a single frame.  And yet, here they are, tucked in together.  No wide-angle lens necessary.

As an ex-Catholic living on a very papal street, the fencewalker in me feels fine enjoying my nun neighbors and my now-UCC religious roots.  Certain that I can happily have both, just because.

I can't decide if my love of odd bedfellows and my tendency towards fencewalking are reasons or excuses for me.  Do they inspire my actions or explain away my inaction?  Chances are, the answer falls somewhere in between.

And yet, I have a handful of beliefs that are anchored in certitude.  For instance, I fervently believe that the only way we will get through these dark times is if we walk out together--nuns and ex-Catholics, believers and deniers, Democrats and Republicans, white and black and everything in between.  Odd bedfellows make powerful communities.

That said, you'll understand if the thought makes my stomach a little queasy . . . .

I mean, I wasn't the greatest Catholic and am hardly anything to brag about at work or at home or sitting in the back pew with a handful of other religious orphans, quietly composing my grocery list.

But I'd like to think that I'm willing to show up and give things a whirl.

Considering all of this, then, I'd say that odd bedfellows generally inspire me to act, even in the midst of my discomfort.  And that is a good thing.

As for my well-developed fence-walking tendencies?  Yeah, I'm pretty sure I lean into these when I don't want to lean into anything else too terribly far.  Or when I want to kind of fake it.

When I was what my friend Matt and I referred to as a "bastard lovechild " in the English Department (what else to call someone who only taught journalism and pop culture?!), I'd use my fence-walking skills to try to fit in.   Hungry to be mistaken as an intellectual (a highly-prized label in a literature-soaked environment), I'd feign excitement about polysyllabic words, philosophically-driven mission statements and heady discussions about the "why" of things, despite being a who-what-when-where kind of person.   Soon enough, though, the jig would be up, when a true scholar would ask me to look over her rough draft and I'd find myself drowning in commas and compound sentences, not knowing how or where to even begin.

Alas, it turns out you can't teach an old Strunk-and-Whiter Faulknerian tricks.

Still,  I  appreciate the different ways all of my English bedfellows teach and speak, despite my continual return to the comfort of a 20-word paragraph.

How can I explain this love of diversity living next door to a tendency towards the non-committal?  Look in the mirror and tell me yourself.

We are all much messier than the shiny slivers of selves that we portray on social media.  We are hypocrites and hypochondriacs, yet also capable of being deeply moved in the presence of beauty.  Maybe--just maybe--our truest selves are found at the antipode of purity--living at that furthest point from the clearest thing, muddied and relieved, and certainly not so easy to understand.  Juxtaposed from within.

You know.  Beautiful, in a sloppy sort of way.

The Real Birther Movement

I'm no bra burner.  But I also don't do the laundry.  Mark does.  And that's only because I once almost started a fire after putting our children's wet,  down-filled winter coats in the dryer, so this division of labor is as it should be.

It's important to know what's in your wheelhouse and what isn't.  So, what's in my wheelhouse these days?  Really, the question should be who is in my wheelhouse.

Women, that's who.

And it turns out there are lots and lots of women in the United States right now.  Just four years ago, in fact, there were 5 million more women than men living in the U.S.  On college campuses,  56 percent of students are women, as are nearly 58 percent of college grads. And, if you happen to live to 85?  Women outnumber men nearly 2 to 1 in that demographic.

My point?

Sweet God, men!  Start behaving.  Like, two years ago!!  And, frankly,  why are you still running the show in Washington?

True, we may make less money than you, but we will always make more children and milk than you.  And there's a reason that women, not men, give birth.  Survival of the species comes to mind.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm nuts about men.  Some of my favorite people are men.

But it'd be stupid to put them in charge solely because of body parts.

So I just would like to remind you men out there (and let's be honest--white men, mostly.  Plus, Ben Carson) that there are more of us than you.  And we are strong and capable and have endurance like nobody's business.  But, really?

Kids in cages?

Girls for sale?

Eighty one cents to each dollar of yours?

I may be cute, but I'm not stupid.

Roots Run Deep

This morning, I woke with a hankering to return to my childhood home on Sumner Street, to see if my beloved Pussy Willow was still holding its ground on the southwest corner of our house.  It was an amazing tree, producing immense pussy willows (called 'catkins,' I learned this morning--how great is that?!) that I was certain were Guinness-worthy.

Earlier this week, Mark and I drove down the narrow alley next to our C Street house, gape-jawed by the sight of the Bradford Pear we'd planted, whose crown now competes with the peak of the roof.

For me, it's trees, as much as the structures themselves, that beckon me back to the places where I once lived. 

Trees are like lifelong friends for me, shining a warm light on old memories while also acknowledging the unmistakable march of time, skin cracked and stretched, limbs bent and aching.

They are the both/and for me--longing and hope all in one.

The photo above is of a beauty that lives in my neighbor Lisa's yard.  Or maybe I should say Lisa's house shares this majestic Oak's ground.  Immense and stalwart, it is impossible to ignore.  And nearly impossible to photograph, at least with a phone.  How can I give you a sense of it when I can't possibly fit it into the frame?

. . . maybe that's how.  Let it spill out of all four corners, too much for the camera.

I'm reading Lab Girl by Hope Jahren--a lovely ode to science and nature, with trees taking center stage.  Yesterday, I had to put the book down after reading about a lotus seed that scientists nudged into sprouting--two thousand years after it'd dropped from its mama.

"This tiny seed had stubbornly kept up the hope of its own future while entire human civilizations rose and fell.  And then, one day, this tiny plant's yearning finally burst forth."  Jahren goes on to describe all seeds as being "alive and fervently wishing to be."

She might as well have been describing all living things, myself included.

It's true that I anthropomorphize just about everything, from trees to bugs to mammals, imbuing within them a swirl of hopes and emotions.  I don't think I do it because I'm so nuts about humanity and want to give nonhumans something to aim for.  Rather, I think I do it because it is the lens through which I see this world.  That said, I believe I am kinder to this world when I imagine its beating heart, when I see all things "alive and fervently wishing to be."   

Naming Names

I’m not sure I’ve ever bought into the whole “made in the image of God” thing.  For one, it seems a bit insulting to the divine, given our propensity towards appalling behavior. Besides that, it’s incredibly self-centered of humans to assume that we are god-like.   Give us a God complex and suddenly we start bellowing “Dominion this!  Dominion that!” like we own the place.   It’s all a little too much Old-Testament testosterone for my tastes

But I do like the idea of naming things.  And there’s no question that naming things is a godly activity.  

Names are often the first intelligible words we utter, which suggests that we are born with a need to name.  Mama.  Dada.  Rasta (yeah, Eric’s first word was the dog’s name.  Either that, or he was declaring his religious preferences).  Name something and then, in some mystical way, that thing somehow comes into being.  Which begs the question, without the word for something, does that thing actually exist?

Philologists--folks who study words and meaning--have found some compelling evidence that names and existence are closely tied.

The Egyptians were the first culture to name the color blue.  Prior to that, there is no mention in historical texts of that color.  And, even today, in the Himba tribe in Namibia, where there is no name for ‘blue,’ its members are unable to distinguish a blue square from a collection of green ones.  Hence, there is no blue there.  But the Himba also have far more words for ‘green’ than we have, which means they can discern types of green that we can't even see.  I like knowing that there are colors of green out there that I do not even recognize because I have no name for them.

Most of us have heard about Eskimos and how they have 50 distinct words for ‘snow.’  One could argue, I suppose, that when you are trapped inside while yet another raging blizzard roars on, what else is there to do but to come up with new words for the same old, same old?  A more accurate explanation, though, is that Eskimos have a keener eye, when it comes to snow.

Perhaps the key to our godly evolutions, then, is the acquisition of additional names for something that only has one name to us.  Beetles, for instance.  And then,  we dig in, sit back, listen and observe.  Intently.  Until one day when that one name explodes into 350,000 names.  

Tiger beetle.  Stag beetle.  Rhinoceros beetle.  Ladybird, firefly, predacious, soldier.  Blister, click and weevil.  

Oh, my.  

Naming names may not make me a god, but it does leave me breathless and amazed, suddenly aware of all the stardust and magic swirling around me.  And, in the naming,  I realize that I cannot unsee this wild space, where even 350,000 names are not enough for this thing I’d once simply called “beetle.”

Ready, Aim . . . Now What?!

Last weekend, I mostly had fun trying new things.  "Mostly" because I was shooting guns and throwing hatchets and sending arrows flying errantly in a general direction, any and all of which could do real harm.  Not a typical Saturday, to be sure.  Punctuated between the fears of scalping myself and blowing up a passing bird,  I gained some confidence, though,  and had a few laughs with my pals.

It wasn't an easy outing for me.  Some friends wondered what the heck we were doing, paying to shoot guns and throw sharp things. My daughter joked that I'd be joining the NRA soon.   And I was nervous because, the last time I'd done archery, I ended up looking like I'd done heroin instead, my arm bumpy and bruised for weeks to follow.  Plus, guns.

But I was glad I was there with Kari and Jennifer and new friend Amy, who pretty much owned the air with her shotgun skills.  It was important to me to do something that--right or wrong--has been painted into a corner these days.  And, in some ways, it was a Katie Perry moment for me.

I shot a gun and I liked it.

. . . well, sort of. 

That same, middling dissonance has accompanied me this whole school year, as well.  I've loved it.  . . . kind of.  And that realization makes me pause.  I mean, how on earth couldn't I have loved this school year, if for no other reason than because of its glaring absence of cancer and death?

Turns out that, for all my talk about choosing to live in the messy middle, it's possible that it's not all wine and roses.

Duh.

What I don't know, though, is if this post-cancer, post mom's-death weirdness is common.  Or if I'm in this boat alone. Although I suspect there are many boats on this particular stretch of water.  We just don't talk about them.

What I have learned in the past year is that no one (except another post-cancer friend) is interested in hearing about the side effects of the drug that is "freaking saving your life every day!"  That's why the cancer tribe is so important to me.  Just yesterday, for instance, I spent time with a friend who'd been in similar shoes the past year and, within about 4 seconds, we'd gone straight to the grimy details, both relieved to know that we weren't alone. 

And then there's this pesky mosquito buzzing in my ear, asking what's wrong with me that I haven't embraced post-cancer life by taking up ultra marathons or kombucha or Mahayana Buddhism.

The middle can be so damned middling at times.  And immensely unpopular.  Surely this isn't news to me.  So, occasionally,  I remind myself about the importance of living in that messy space, where different lives and different experiences intersect.  Where this wild life--warts and arrows and bullets and all--pulses in such complicated and beautiful ways.  And I realize that the middle is my home, and I'm glad for it.

Having a Not-So-Fresh Thyme

Maybe it's because Lent ended a week ago--not that I did anything sacrificial for those forty days, unless you count limiting chocolate to two meals a day--but I felt a little on edge at Fresh Thyme this morning.

First, there was the super hip couple in their faux fur (his) and funky Vans jacket (hers), who seemed to be camping out in front of the sprouted breads.  I practically had to stomp on their Birkenstocks to get them to move.  Then, this pudgy, feral child kept bumping into me as he stared, gape jawed, through the window of the meat counter, oohing and aahing at salmon filets in ways that did not seem natural for a 7-year-old boy.

At one point, I stood by the bok choy, transfixed, as that little organic fart fiddled with the spout of a large urn.  When he finally got it open,  golden honey poured out, pooling at the soles of his light-up natural-colored canvas tennis shoes.  And then--suddenly!--there were two of him, some non-GMO experiment gone awry, and his twin started grabbing maniacally at a now-opened package of honey straws. 

By the time I made it to the yogurts, my progress was stymied by a bearded, dazed man who might have been having a medical event or maybe he was recently transported by the tiny sample of fresh-squeezed acai juice, empty cup in hand.

Moments later, I abandoned my shopping list and headed to the checkout counter, where I watched an older woman in a "She Persisted" t-shirt carefully wrap each piece of her organic produce in a separate plastic bag. 

I might need to start meditating or something. . .

I could not drive to HyVee fast enough (yes, I drove there--so what?!), where I was reunited with my people, most of them a bit frumpy and clad in Husker wear.  Newly relaxed, I felt myself drawn to processed foods, for some reason. And donuts.  And liquor, but I resisted, since there was an East student working the checkout line I was in.  Plus, it wasn't quite 10 a.m., and I didn't want to be that person.

I want to eat well.  I really do.  I want to get giddy about collagen and cauliflower, grass-fed buffalo and beets, but, sometimes, I'm just not up for the circus that comes with all those things.