Here's a bit of playdate fiction. I'm scrapping the rest of the story, because it's boring, but this paragraph, I think fits nicely here:
There was no food for the mothers, Sarah couldn’t help noticing, and she started calculating how she could make a meal out of one or two bites from each of her children’s plates. At home they called that game “paying taxes.” On Saturday mornings, she rarely wanted a whole donut, but craved just a taste of each variety. Her children unquestioningly accepted, as a fact of their lives that she who gave them life would walk around the table and take the first bite of their donuts. She received ten percent of a honeybun, a maple cinnamon, a cream filled long john, and a glazed cake donut. Her hankering for a donut was satisfied, and the children learned that no great reward comes without an initial sacrifice.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
I Like To Do My Taxes.
Taxes are one of life’s surprising, and possibly perverse little pleasures for me. Beginning at the new year, I enjoy collecting the required documents, checking them off as they arrive in the mail: forms 1040, 1099, DIV, INT, mortgage interest, deductible contributions. They all sound so important, so official, and I feel a certain satisfaction in knowing what each document means, and where exactly I should apply it. If I need confirmation that I’m a grown-up, this is it. I pay my taxes.
I’ve always liked to think of myself as a Math Person because of my straight A’s in Calculus in the eleventh grade. My husband, however, thinks that it is immoral to refer to myself as a Math Person when I have to use my fingers to figure the sum of 7 and 8, and I have not committed another singular act of calculus since I graduated from high school.
But it is with pleasure that once a year, I remove my contacts, put on my granny glasses, and hover over my desk sorting through envelopes and receipts and making calculations (calculations not of Calculus, but with a calculator). I get out my Pilot precise V5 extra fine rolling ball pen, and write numbers in little boxes.
My husband yells from the other room, “You aren’t overlooking any deductions, are you?” He has not filled out a tax form since before we were married, a 1040EZ.
“You bring home the bacon,” I say, “But may I please fry it?” (which is not to say I’m cooking the books). There’s nothing EZ about what I’m doing. This is the big-time, the 1040 not-EZ. There are itemizations and forms to attach. We have investments and dividends and losses, and child tax credits, and additional child tax credits, and I want to say, “Don’t speak of deductions, Dear. There are formulas to apply, and a deduction, is never just a deduction.”
I read the instructions every year, all one hundred and something pages of them. I ask myself, “Am I blind? Over the age of 65?” and then check the appropriate boxes. I insert numbers into formulas, and new numbers come out, beautiful, dependable numbers.
And then they are finished, in one sweet little night, when our family rakes in a tidy sum that says, “It’s good to have children.” And I feel gratified that we have not once taken advantage of the government’s generosity with the public school system, or public trash collection. We have never been on any doles. We pay our taxes, we make charitable contributions, and then, because we earn our board and keep, we get most of it back. I am satisfied that there is order and justice in the Universe.
This may seem a little anticlimactic, my zeal for this annual ritual. So may I suggest that you picture me saying what I’m about to say with eyebrows elevated, with tap shoes and jazz hands? It’s this: “I like taxes!” and with a whispering flourish: “Yeah!”
I’ve always liked to think of myself as a Math Person because of my straight A’s in Calculus in the eleventh grade. My husband, however, thinks that it is immoral to refer to myself as a Math Person when I have to use my fingers to figure the sum of 7 and 8, and I have not committed another singular act of calculus since I graduated from high school.
But it is with pleasure that once a year, I remove my contacts, put on my granny glasses, and hover over my desk sorting through envelopes and receipts and making calculations (calculations not of Calculus, but with a calculator). I get out my Pilot precise V5 extra fine rolling ball pen, and write numbers in little boxes.
My husband yells from the other room, “You aren’t overlooking any deductions, are you?” He has not filled out a tax form since before we were married, a 1040EZ.
“You bring home the bacon,” I say, “But may I please fry it?” (which is not to say I’m cooking the books). There’s nothing EZ about what I’m doing. This is the big-time, the 1040 not-EZ. There are itemizations and forms to attach. We have investments and dividends and losses, and child tax credits, and additional child tax credits, and I want to say, “Don’t speak of deductions, Dear. There are formulas to apply, and a deduction, is never just a deduction.”
I read the instructions every year, all one hundred and something pages of them. I ask myself, “Am I blind? Over the age of 65?” and then check the appropriate boxes. I insert numbers into formulas, and new numbers come out, beautiful, dependable numbers.
And then they are finished, in one sweet little night, when our family rakes in a tidy sum that says, “It’s good to have children.” And I feel gratified that we have not once taken advantage of the government’s generosity with the public school system, or public trash collection. We have never been on any doles. We pay our taxes, we make charitable contributions, and then, because we earn our board and keep, we get most of it back. I am satisfied that there is order and justice in the Universe.
This may seem a little anticlimactic, my zeal for this annual ritual. So may I suggest that you picture me saying what I’m about to say with eyebrows elevated, with tap shoes and jazz hands? It’s this: “I like taxes!” and with a whispering flourish: “Yeah!”
Stay Home Moms, The New Creative Class (rerun from March 09)
From a letter to a friend of mine:
“I'm not saying that women all have to be stay-at-home BettyCrockers. In fact, I have yet to meet a woman who really relishes all the crap (literally) taking care of kids involves. My sister and I were just talking last night about how annoying it can be to have literary or scholarly ambitions at the same time we want to offer our kids the best foundation for life we can think of. She actually does home school her six kids, but just turned down a teaching position at Old Dominion University near where she lives, because her husband's in the navy and she can't schedule around his schedule. But hey, we get to stay home, write poetry and novels we'll never send out, and read them to each other over the phone. This is a luxury and I personally wouldn't trade it for the world (though I wouldn't mind actually getting published). Doesn't make me any more or less Catholic. In a different set of circumstances, I probably would get a job--indeed, I've had one before.”
I have a complicated relationship with feminism. I am vehemently pro-woman, but feminism’s pro-woman is not my pro-woman. I’m told by people who seem to know what they’re talking about, that there are a variety of “feminisms,” yet I’ve always been on the wrong side of the feminism du jour.
Can’t I say that I’m a feminist who is pro-life and anti-contraception, and who really wants more women to stay home during the day, so I have some Momrades with whom to play Bridge, drink Bloody Marys and eat mixed nuts? It seems disingenuous. So while I’m happy to vote and if I ever have another job, pay would be nice [though I am in a field (writing) where beggars can’t be choosers], I can pretty confidently say that I’m not a feminist. I’m over it, and I’ve been over it since, like, the nineties.
And yet, I have had countless conversations with women, who are educated—usually an unfinished graduate degree to their credit—who feel a knee-jerk reaction to apologize for staying home with their kids, while they simultaneously espouse feminism as the bearer of many great opportunities (of which they choose not to take advantage).
At this moment in history when motherhood is no longer the logical outcome of a sexual relationship, staying home with our kids is just another "lifestyle choice" on par, or even less than other more "dignified" careers. What I argue now, is that the advent of many modern conveniences has opened up the aesthetic liberation of stay-at-home motherhood, giving it a new dignity that I find preferable to any other career I might have pursued.
It’s taboo to mention that I happen to have some time on my hands. I’m supposed to be so harried and frazzled that I have no time for showering, and any spare time I must fill with excessive doting on my children. The truth is, I can be as harried as I want to be. If I want to run around with all five of my kids to soccer practices and PTO meetings, I can do it, and make my life, and the lives of everyone around me something akin to hell on earth. I can polish the toilet every day with a toothbrush, but no one’s life actually depends on my doing these things.
Therefore, if I manage my time correctly, I can read, write, cook, pray, clean, sleep, and still have a hefty chunk of time to spend on my kids. The stay-at-home mom struggles less with being overworked, than with a kind of boredom or intellectual acedia. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Without a room of one’s own, without a housekeeper, without a lot of money, without sacrificing the well-being of one’s kids, the stay-at-home mom can exercise the freedoms of the creative class, if we allow ourselves. My room of my own is my head, and I inhabit it with varying degrees of contentment all day every day. All I have to do is put my findings down on paper.
I for one am going to quit thinking of myself as a witless nobody confined to a life of vacuums and diapers. I prefer to think of myself as a British aristocrat without the quail eggs and castles. I spent some time with a group of wealthy British Socialists at Oxford, who brazenly proclaimed that their Oxford education was solely for the purpose of finding interesting things to say at dinner parties. So here, my blog is my dinner party. My unfinished graduate degree is a lifetime supply of quail eggs.
In summation: Motherhood already has an inherent dignity because it is the biological design of women to be mothers, but in a worldly sense, mothering our kids is a pretty good deal. What I want to know is why we are still apologizing for following the natural design of our hearts and bodies? Why are we still yearning to be the workhorses of the boardroom, the bedroom, and the kitchen? It feels counterintuitive.
“I'm not saying that women all have to be stay-at-home BettyCrockers. In fact, I have yet to meet a woman who really relishes all the crap (literally) taking care of kids involves. My sister and I were just talking last night about how annoying it can be to have literary or scholarly ambitions at the same time we want to offer our kids the best foundation for life we can think of. She actually does home school her six kids, but just turned down a teaching position at Old Dominion University near where she lives, because her husband's in the navy and she can't schedule around his schedule. But hey, we get to stay home, write poetry and novels we'll never send out, and read them to each other over the phone. This is a luxury and I personally wouldn't trade it for the world (though I wouldn't mind actually getting published). Doesn't make me any more or less Catholic. In a different set of circumstances, I probably would get a job--indeed, I've had one before.”
I have a complicated relationship with feminism. I am vehemently pro-woman, but feminism’s pro-woman is not my pro-woman. I’m told by people who seem to know what they’re talking about, that there are a variety of “feminisms,” yet I’ve always been on the wrong side of the feminism du jour.
Can’t I say that I’m a feminist who is pro-life and anti-contraception, and who really wants more women to stay home during the day, so I have some Momrades with whom to play Bridge, drink Bloody Marys and eat mixed nuts? It seems disingenuous. So while I’m happy to vote and if I ever have another job, pay would be nice [though I am in a field (writing) where beggars can’t be choosers], I can pretty confidently say that I’m not a feminist. I’m over it, and I’ve been over it since, like, the nineties.
And yet, I have had countless conversations with women, who are educated—usually an unfinished graduate degree to their credit—who feel a knee-jerk reaction to apologize for staying home with their kids, while they simultaneously espouse feminism as the bearer of many great opportunities (of which they choose not to take advantage).
At this moment in history when motherhood is no longer the logical outcome of a sexual relationship, staying home with our kids is just another "lifestyle choice" on par, or even less than other more "dignified" careers. What I argue now, is that the advent of many modern conveniences has opened up the aesthetic liberation of stay-at-home motherhood, giving it a new dignity that I find preferable to any other career I might have pursued.
It’s taboo to mention that I happen to have some time on my hands. I’m supposed to be so harried and frazzled that I have no time for showering, and any spare time I must fill with excessive doting on my children. The truth is, I can be as harried as I want to be. If I want to run around with all five of my kids to soccer practices and PTO meetings, I can do it, and make my life, and the lives of everyone around me something akin to hell on earth. I can polish the toilet every day with a toothbrush, but no one’s life actually depends on my doing these things.
Therefore, if I manage my time correctly, I can read, write, cook, pray, clean, sleep, and still have a hefty chunk of time to spend on my kids. The stay-at-home mom struggles less with being overworked, than with a kind of boredom or intellectual acedia. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Without a room of one’s own, without a housekeeper, without a lot of money, without sacrificing the well-being of one’s kids, the stay-at-home mom can exercise the freedoms of the creative class, if we allow ourselves. My room of my own is my head, and I inhabit it with varying degrees of contentment all day every day. All I have to do is put my findings down on paper.
I for one am going to quit thinking of myself as a witless nobody confined to a life of vacuums and diapers. I prefer to think of myself as a British aristocrat without the quail eggs and castles. I spent some time with a group of wealthy British Socialists at Oxford, who brazenly proclaimed that their Oxford education was solely for the purpose of finding interesting things to say at dinner parties. So here, my blog is my dinner party. My unfinished graduate degree is a lifetime supply of quail eggs.
In summation: Motherhood already has an inherent dignity because it is the biological design of women to be mothers, but in a worldly sense, mothering our kids is a pretty good deal. What I want to know is why we are still apologizing for following the natural design of our hearts and bodies? Why are we still yearning to be the workhorses of the boardroom, the bedroom, and the kitchen? It feels counterintuitive.
Monday, February 1, 2010
She comes across some old things that recall other days.
“I had this idea that there was a whole world of marvelous golden people somewhere… people who knew everything instinctively, who made their lives work out the way they wanted without even trying… Sort of heroic super-people, all of them beautiful and witty and calm and kind, and I always imagined that when I did find them I’d suddenly know that I belonged among them…that I’d been meant to be one of them all along…and they’d know it too.” (--April Wheeler, Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates)
At my parents’ house the other day, my mom and I went through old pictures. In my childhood, I was a towhead, a ham, always posing, vain from day one. I told the orthodontist that I needed braces in seventh grade to support my future career as an actress. I always intended to make it into the world of the marvelous golden people. I had to get ready for my close-up.
It’s interesting to look back at those pictures now, having arrived, most likely, at the pinnacle of what my life holds for me: marriage, kids, a little house. I could continue to hold on to the hope of a more "fabulous" life throughout my twenties, but some imperceptible switch flipped in my brain once I hit my thirties, and now, somehow, it seems appropriate to quit yearning for the future and perform a retrospective. If I can’t have the mythical future, I might as well set about mythologizing my past.
The evidence is all there, it’s in the photographs, that while I spent my youth pining for the future, I was in the thick of a marvelous and golden present and I didn’t know it. I had good friends, a good family, good health, and good legs. Any suffering in my life, I’ve had to fabricate. I want to shake that girl awake and tell her how good her life is. I remember so well how nothing was ever good enough.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful though, if instead of looking back on my past, regretting my lost youth, and the squandering of my golden years, I could somehow mine the gold from my present life and savor it? As soon as I envision for myself some other, better reality, past or future, my peace flies out the window.
In Revolutionary Road, April’s better hypothetical life was in Paris. If she and her family could move to Paris and avoid the trappings of a conventional suburban life, she thought she could be happy. Anything that got in the way of her dream was the enemy, including her husband’s success at his job and the conception of another child. When we set our hopes on unrealities, God’s blessings begin to look like a curse.
I could pick my poison on any given day of the week. One day it’s “I’ll be happy when my kids are better behaved in public.” Another day it’s, “I’ll be happy when I have someone else to clean my house.” When I can get through a Mass without taking the baby out, when I have time to read, when I publish a book, when someone notices how hard I’m working, when life is easy and I’m golden, happiness will ensue.
My confessor has said it to me so many times when I come in expressing yet another dissatisfaction or ingratitude: “You are exactly where you need to be. You chose correctly. There is nothing better than what God has given you: your family, your kids, your home. There is NOTHING better. Your life is Eden, and the Devil loves to make you think there is something more. That’s how he tempted Eve, and how Eve lost paradise.”
Hence, here’s a thought exercise for this morning:
1. What is the one thing, the one fantasy that prevents me from loving my life today?
2. What do I consider the obstacle to my achieving that dream?
3. Is it possible that what I consider an obstacle is actually a blessing?
This is Eden. My life is Eden. Ten or twenty years from now, I can look back on the pictures I’ve taken of my family recently. Possibly I’ll have experienced real suffering by then. Maybe for some reason, I will have lost paradise, and I’ll see myself smiling, surrounded by these five little faces, a husband who loves me, every grace and blessing, and I’ll wish that I had recognized what a charming life I had.
At my parents’ house the other day, my mom and I went through old pictures. In my childhood, I was a towhead, a ham, always posing, vain from day one. I told the orthodontist that I needed braces in seventh grade to support my future career as an actress. I always intended to make it into the world of the marvelous golden people. I had to get ready for my close-up.
It’s interesting to look back at those pictures now, having arrived, most likely, at the pinnacle of what my life holds for me: marriage, kids, a little house. I could continue to hold on to the hope of a more "fabulous" life throughout my twenties, but some imperceptible switch flipped in my brain once I hit my thirties, and now, somehow, it seems appropriate to quit yearning for the future and perform a retrospective. If I can’t have the mythical future, I might as well set about mythologizing my past.
The evidence is all there, it’s in the photographs, that while I spent my youth pining for the future, I was in the thick of a marvelous and golden present and I didn’t know it. I had good friends, a good family, good health, and good legs. Any suffering in my life, I’ve had to fabricate. I want to shake that girl awake and tell her how good her life is. I remember so well how nothing was ever good enough.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful though, if instead of looking back on my past, regretting my lost youth, and the squandering of my golden years, I could somehow mine the gold from my present life and savor it? As soon as I envision for myself some other, better reality, past or future, my peace flies out the window.
In Revolutionary Road, April’s better hypothetical life was in Paris. If she and her family could move to Paris and avoid the trappings of a conventional suburban life, she thought she could be happy. Anything that got in the way of her dream was the enemy, including her husband’s success at his job and the conception of another child. When we set our hopes on unrealities, God’s blessings begin to look like a curse.
I could pick my poison on any given day of the week. One day it’s “I’ll be happy when my kids are better behaved in public.” Another day it’s, “I’ll be happy when I have someone else to clean my house.” When I can get through a Mass without taking the baby out, when I have time to read, when I publish a book, when someone notices how hard I’m working, when life is easy and I’m golden, happiness will ensue.
My confessor has said it to me so many times when I come in expressing yet another dissatisfaction or ingratitude: “You are exactly where you need to be. You chose correctly. There is nothing better than what God has given you: your family, your kids, your home. There is NOTHING better. Your life is Eden, and the Devil loves to make you think there is something more. That’s how he tempted Eve, and how Eve lost paradise.”
Hence, here’s a thought exercise for this morning:
1. What is the one thing, the one fantasy that prevents me from loving my life today?
2. What do I consider the obstacle to my achieving that dream?
3. Is it possible that what I consider an obstacle is actually a blessing?
This is Eden. My life is Eden. Ten or twenty years from now, I can look back on the pictures I’ve taken of my family recently. Possibly I’ll have experienced real suffering by then. Maybe for some reason, I will have lost paradise, and I’ll see myself smiling, surrounded by these five little faces, a husband who loves me, every grace and blessing, and I’ll wish that I had recognized what a charming life I had.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Quick Takes: quick links
(Thanks Jen, for hosting)
1.
I've been wanting to draw some attention to a few links I've been enjoying. Here they are:
2.
Dunia Duara
This is my friend Justin's blog (sometimes she comments here as "Jus"). She and her family are living in Kenya for a few years while her husband, a doctor, does a medical mission/residency.
Jus blogs mostly for friends and family, but she takes the most gorgeous pictures of her kids, the culture, and life in general, that just looking at her blog satisfies both my thirst for adventure and for domestic tranquility. She's Orthodox Christian, a great writer, an inspiring mom, a transmitter of beauty, and a dear friend.
3.
A Song Not Scored for Breathing
Christianity is nothing if not deep healing for serious wounds. Hope writes about sexual abuse, substance abuse, sexual addiction and recovery through Christ with incredible honesty and intelligence. This post gave me chills.
4.
Bloggers Anonymous
Speaking of addiction...
5.
An Aesthete's Lament
For those striving to live a life worthy of their blue china.
6.
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li
This is a short story collection I picked up because Steven Riddle is crazy about Li. I have not been disappointed. Incredible writing and story-telling.
7.
The Hurt Locker
I'm not usually a fan of war movies. This, however, was gripping and had tremendous food for thought. It's out on DVD. Warnings: Violence (not really, though there was some disturbing imagery), Language (probably, but I wasn't listening for that).
1.
I've been wanting to draw some attention to a few links I've been enjoying. Here they are:
2.
Dunia Duara
This is my friend Justin's blog (sometimes she comments here as "Jus"). She and her family are living in Kenya for a few years while her husband, a doctor, does a medical mission/residency.
Jus blogs mostly for friends and family, but she takes the most gorgeous pictures of her kids, the culture, and life in general, that just looking at her blog satisfies both my thirst for adventure and for domestic tranquility. She's Orthodox Christian, a great writer, an inspiring mom, a transmitter of beauty, and a dear friend.
3.
A Song Not Scored for Breathing
Christianity is nothing if not deep healing for serious wounds. Hope writes about sexual abuse, substance abuse, sexual addiction and recovery through Christ with incredible honesty and intelligence. This post gave me chills.
4.
Bloggers Anonymous
Speaking of addiction...
5.
An Aesthete's Lament
For those striving to live a life worthy of their blue china.
6.
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li
This is a short story collection I picked up because Steven Riddle is crazy about Li. I have not been disappointed. Incredible writing and story-telling.
7.
The Hurt Locker
I'm not usually a fan of war movies. This, however, was gripping and had tremendous food for thought. It's out on DVD. Warnings: Violence (not really, though there was some disturbing imagery), Language (probably, but I wasn't listening for that).
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Do Not Speak...
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Please Pour Me a Glass of Pinot Noir
My husband had to go out of town this week, and it makes me unhappy. If there is an ebb and flow to marriage, cycles of distance and closeness, we are on the shore at the moment, probably still on a high from our trip. I feel close to him, even though our literal distance from one another is about a thousand miles.
I do fine when he’s gone. As I’ve said before, I’m capable of handling the household: Bending, scooping up the pieces of the day, bathing children and putting them away. I’m a machine. But I’m reminded of a Bjork song I used to listen to in another life:
while you are away
my heart comes undone
slowly unravels
in a ball of yarn
the devil collects it
with a grin
our love
in a ball of yarn
he'll never return it
so when you come back
we'll have to make new love
I can’t help feeling resentful of our dependence on corporations that force us to be independent of one another. I had this sensation returning from Williamsburg as well, the first time I made lunches for my children. I was hyped up on the idea that there is nothing that people need in this life that God doesn’t provide, until I realized we were out of juice boxes, and I had no spare change around the house for the kids to buy milk at school. What fates dictate my dependence on these pre-packaged beverages? Why must I leave my home to go buy them? And why am I sending my children to school anyway? It’s the school’s fault we can’t just go get our water from the well. And this is, of course, fodder for a different post because it’s not really school’s fault. It’s my fault I’m too fearful to school my children at home.
But the example makes an important point: I want to blame the corporations for separating me from my husband and making my life less authentic, but it has just as often been something in me, fear, selfishness, that drives a similar outcome.
I keep thinking about a poem read recently, “The Entrance of Sin” by Scott Cairns (from his collection, Recovered Body ). The poet describes the events leading up to Adam and Eve’s fall:
…Sin had made its entrance long before the serpent spoke…
sin had come in the midst of an evening stroll, when the woman had reached to take the man’s hand and he withheld it.
...One supposes that even then, this new taste for turning away might have been overcome, but that is assuming the two had found the result unpleasant. The beginning of loss was this: every time some manner of beauty was offered and declined, the subsequent isolation one conceived was irresistible.
Even if my husband did not have to leave home this week, would I not eventually have succumbed to the idea that I need to invest in my own interests a little? The serpent whispers: “This has been great togetherness and all, but I’m ready to get back to my things. I don’t want to lose my identity. I don’t want to be so dependent that my happiness hinges on you being here.”
I do remember once, very early in our relationship, praying to God for detachment from my husband, something I probably needed in order to put more faith and trust in God. But it’s easy to confuse detachment for independence, and then wonder—what happened to our love? Some wicked devil has been collecting it with glee because we ourselves allowed it to unravel, by turning away, rebuffing, and withholding, in order to maintain this irresistible self.
I heard a homily last weekend on the Wedding Feast at Cana, about how the wine represents the “spirit” of the marriage, both the Holy Spirit that sanctifies the union, and the spark of spousal unity and attraction. When we feel our marriage has lost its spark, in either the spiritual or the physical sense, we should call on Mary and ask for her intercession. She urges Christ to perform miracles for us, to transform us, to turn our water into wine, to give us a spirit and a spark.
And then Christ, of course, keeps the best wine for later—when we’ve exhausted those early, superficial highs, when we’ve subdued the irresistible self, when we’ve asked for a miracle. He grants it.
My husband and I have always positioned our bed under a window, and one summer night, the bats were out, flying very close to our screen. We both jumped up to our knees to look out the window. It felt like we were two children, suspended for a moment by our mutual fascination in something other than ourselves--matrimonial innocence, like two lovers before the fall.
It was just a little taste of the sweetness that ensues when we quit treating one another like a trick pony: I’m here. Talk to me. Other couples talk. Why don’t we have anything to talk about? If we can look outward together, we are bound and united by our mutual experiences and labors. We don’t need to talk so much.
For now, my husband is away, united only by a phone call each night, and the pressure is on to make it count. Stay close, keep close, talk, talk, talk. When he comes back, I’ll fight the urge to leave the house pleading for some time off after a week home alone with the kids. I want to remember to ask Mary for a miracle, a little nightcap at the end of the day: to keep giving when I feel like I’ve given enough. Reopen the home and my heart to his headship. Take up the yoke again, with him at my side: Make new love, every day, new love.
I do fine when he’s gone. As I’ve said before, I’m capable of handling the household: Bending, scooping up the pieces of the day, bathing children and putting them away. I’m a machine. But I’m reminded of a Bjork song I used to listen to in another life:
while you are away
my heart comes undone
slowly unravels
in a ball of yarn
the devil collects it
with a grin
our love
in a ball of yarn
he'll never return it
so when you come back
we'll have to make new love
I can’t help feeling resentful of our dependence on corporations that force us to be independent of one another. I had this sensation returning from Williamsburg as well, the first time I made lunches for my children. I was hyped up on the idea that there is nothing that people need in this life that God doesn’t provide, until I realized we were out of juice boxes, and I had no spare change around the house for the kids to buy milk at school. What fates dictate my dependence on these pre-packaged beverages? Why must I leave my home to go buy them? And why am I sending my children to school anyway? It’s the school’s fault we can’t just go get our water from the well. And this is, of course, fodder for a different post because it’s not really school’s fault. It’s my fault I’m too fearful to school my children at home.
But the example makes an important point: I want to blame the corporations for separating me from my husband and making my life less authentic, but it has just as often been something in me, fear, selfishness, that drives a similar outcome.
I keep thinking about a poem read recently, “The Entrance of Sin” by Scott Cairns (from his collection, Recovered Body ). The poet describes the events leading up to Adam and Eve’s fall:
…Sin had made its entrance long before the serpent spoke…
sin had come in the midst of an evening stroll, when the woman had reached to take the man’s hand and he withheld it.
...One supposes that even then, this new taste for turning away might have been overcome, but that is assuming the two had found the result unpleasant. The beginning of loss was this: every time some manner of beauty was offered and declined, the subsequent isolation one conceived was irresistible.
Even if my husband did not have to leave home this week, would I not eventually have succumbed to the idea that I need to invest in my own interests a little? The serpent whispers: “This has been great togetherness and all, but I’m ready to get back to my things. I don’t want to lose my identity. I don’t want to be so dependent that my happiness hinges on you being here.”
I do remember once, very early in our relationship, praying to God for detachment from my husband, something I probably needed in order to put more faith and trust in God. But it’s easy to confuse detachment for independence, and then wonder—what happened to our love? Some wicked devil has been collecting it with glee because we ourselves allowed it to unravel, by turning away, rebuffing, and withholding, in order to maintain this irresistible self.
I heard a homily last weekend on the Wedding Feast at Cana, about how the wine represents the “spirit” of the marriage, both the Holy Spirit that sanctifies the union, and the spark of spousal unity and attraction. When we feel our marriage has lost its spark, in either the spiritual or the physical sense, we should call on Mary and ask for her intercession. She urges Christ to perform miracles for us, to transform us, to turn our water into wine, to give us a spirit and a spark.
And then Christ, of course, keeps the best wine for later—when we’ve exhausted those early, superficial highs, when we’ve subdued the irresistible self, when we’ve asked for a miracle. He grants it.
My husband and I have always positioned our bed under a window, and one summer night, the bats were out, flying very close to our screen. We both jumped up to our knees to look out the window. It felt like we were two children, suspended for a moment by our mutual fascination in something other than ourselves--matrimonial innocence, like two lovers before the fall.
It was just a little taste of the sweetness that ensues when we quit treating one another like a trick pony: I’m here. Talk to me. Other couples talk. Why don’t we have anything to talk about? If we can look outward together, we are bound and united by our mutual experiences and labors. We don’t need to talk so much.
For now, my husband is away, united only by a phone call each night, and the pressure is on to make it count. Stay close, keep close, talk, talk, talk. When he comes back, I’ll fight the urge to leave the house pleading for some time off after a week home alone with the kids. I want to remember to ask Mary for a miracle, a little nightcap at the end of the day: to keep giving when I feel like I’ve given enough. Reopen the home and my heart to his headship. Take up the yoke again, with him at my side: Make new love, every day, new love.
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