On numbers, eyes, and pauses

She walks in the building, in the motion of a day and its doings.  She wears a youthful beauty, but the effects of a heavy heart reside in her face, in her forlorn eyes.  I saw it immediately.   Like all the rest, she’s come to pick up her forms and tells me her name.  As I retrieve it from the drawer, I remember what was written inside.

I never considered that this job would be a front row seat to such humanity.  Answering phones, mailing invoices, scheduling appointments, greeting clients, these are the tasks where the stories of life are relived.  They flood the handset of my phone, spilling out into the spaces around my desk.  This place is not for sugar coated, hazy daydreams.  The tax office is where the deepest of life must be brought to the forefront.   And it gets me every single time. I never truly expect to find it in the sea of small talk, in the momentary encounters.  But, it comes, stealing my breath.

I remember how she placed an X over his name, every place it was printed.  The word, divorce, written on a key line.  I know the weight those seven letters hold.  I remember how it changed my family forever.  And there it is, on nearly every page, evidence of a joint life now being severed and split.   Brutal and real.  I uttered a silent prayer as she walked away.

And yet, another story where love surpassed the grave, as she slowly approached the desk with a smile on her face.  The spouse signature line will remain empty, for the first time in 54 years.  Her sigh is rich with a lifetime as she pauses there and sets down the pen.  Oh darling, she says.  We’ve never met, but I sense a kindred spirit.  It goes on, it just does, whether we like it or not and here I am having to handle all of this without him and to be honest, I have no idea what I’m doing.  But, another sigh, we go on, we just do.  I don’t understand how.  It’s a mystery.  As she walks down the hall for her appointment, I can hardly bare the weight of her story.  I can tell, theirs was a lovely life, rich with all the seasons.  And she carries their legacy in the fortitude of her smile, in the warmth of her eyes.  So heart breaking and beautiful.

Time after time, they pause at that same line, leaving it blank for the first time or perhaps, it catches them off guard too.

Does one ever get used to such things?  I hope not.  I hope that we always feel the tides of life, rising and falling, the motion of existence.  I hope the stories do not become commonplace. I hope the weight of life biggest moments are felt according their true value, as magical or devastating, as they may be. 

Birth and death and marriage and loss. Lifetimes. These are the stories of the tax office, often translated in lists and numbers.  Numbers aren’t my thing.  I read eyes and pauses, gathering a different kind of data.

The powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

 

 

on the new, the known, and the terrifying

It all started with, oh perhaps, never mind and some details later, the pregnancy test that confirmed what I already knew.  Baby #3 was on the way.  And of course, all the people were like, oh, hey there’s totally no morning sickness the third time around, and I never believed them for a second.  Turns out, I was right. 

But, as the quality time with my old pals nausea and vomiting seems to be winding down, allowing me to return to something nearly human, I’m struck by the difference of time number three.   Is it because I already have one boy and one girl? Is it because we saved everything in the attic?  Is it a universal third time ease? I don’t know.  But, what I do know is that a handful of my friends are pregnant with baby number one and when I sit in a room with them, I see this great energy oozing out of them. This new, wonderful experience of waiting nine months for what will forever change them.  The excitement of making preparations, pondering just how different it will really be.  It’s a beautiful, powerful force, this energy.

And then, that thing called energy, it’s not a descriptive word I would use for myself, because while I am delighted at the idea of adding another life to our family, mostly I want to take a nap.  But, naps make me nauseous, which is totally unfair, because a girl needs sleep.  I am not lying when I say I was drinking coffee the other day and falling asleep at the same time.  Is this the picture of a mother of two, expecting her third miracle?  Anything resembling energy is distributed to the ones already born and any option to sit and rest, you take it, because this time you know a truth.  It’s all incredibly, amazing hard work, and somehow, you survive the sickness and discomfort and forget it in one glimpse, you lose sleep, you lose your mind, you’re happy and delirious, you give and there’s enough of whatever you need. Babies grow. Love grows. Children grow. There is enough.

As I was talking to a friend who had her third last year about this time, we laughed about spending twenty minutes picking out clothes for the first and how the same pajamas days in a row are good enough for the rest.  We talked of the energy that consumes a new mother and sustains the rest.  And then, with a trembling uncertainty, we talked about the next stage in which we find ourselves.  It turns out, five year olds go to school, and school, well, that’s a whole new game. 

We got the letter saying H had a spot in one of the magnet schools we wanted and the rest of the day I was something of shaken mess.  I mean, sure I knew he’d go to school, but all of a sudden, one stupid piece of paper and the marvel of a boy who I want to grow up to be brave, adventurous, kind, smart, and confident was again a fragile, new creature that I wasn’t ready to share, in the first baby kind of way. 

Today we read books and watched the Olympics and at bedtime, he said, mama, will you rock me and sing me songs?  Oh, I would.  More than anything in the world, I would. His giant legs spilled off my lap, but his head rested near my heart and in a way, it was like it had always been, since the beginning of us.  In the dark, I sang all the words to our favorite bedtime songs, you’re skin and bones, turned into something beautiful,  and the winds of change are blowing wild and free, and old dream maker, you heart-breaker, where ever you’re going, I’m going your way.  With his eyes closed, he said, okay, I’m ready for bed. 

Oh, my heart. 

---

At the end of that phone call, my dear friend suggested that maybe by the time the third kid starts school, we’ll feel the same ease in which we now talk about pregnancy.  

I don’t know though, suddenly August feels like tomorrow.

 

because the words are antsy

Such aspirations to write often, to not let days pass by without penning thoughts and moments, but in these early weeks of growing a baby, I find myself with little left to offer the quiet of evening, but to sit and wonder how long I should stay awake before excitedly crawling into bed.

I know that is perfectly fine, but I still have words trapped inside.  So on this Tuesday, I'm claiming my lunch break, because they are getting antsy.

My mind reels lately, with all the thoughts of life, you know the same ones I've been asking and could be asking for forever.  I'm not sure I know more than I did before, but small trinkets come my way that carry me forward and I know that this journey, this wild adventure is absolutely orchestrated by the one who knows.  I'm starting to consider the questions differently, pondering that the answer I seek is not found in the form I seek it.

Anyone who knows me or follow along here know that change is my thing.  Feeling restless? Get a haircut.  Re-arrange the furniture.  Move to a new state.  Wonder if you'll ever feel settled anywhere on this earth.  And hey, get pregnant, because why would any calendar year pass without major changes.  I always laugh when it comes to tax time, and the software asks, have you had any major life changes this year?  It's nearly impossible for me to think of a year in my adult life that didn't include at least a handful of those.  And then I consider the people who answer that question with a resounding, NO and I'm thrown into this baffling state of wondering how that is possible and what that may be like.  But, I never get too far down that rabbit trail, because the very idea makes me feel a little trapped, for them, even for me.  I don't like that at all.

Throughout most of my days, there is a continuous discussion of my thoughts that goes something like this...  Is there a place on this earth that will ever be really, truly home? 

Like, in the scene at the end of Away We Go, a film that forever stirs my restless.  I can not watch that movie without feeling all of it, the search, the wanderings, the wonder if ever home will meet them somewhere on a map.  And then, they arrive at her childhood home, just weeks before the birth of their child and she steps into the closed-up house and sees the light streaming in and hears the beckoning of the waves beyond the door.  She steps through the French doors and stands before the sea, tall grasses wave in the wind and in absolutely no words and endless emotions, you know they've found home.  That, right there?  It's magic I won't soon forget.  But, home for me, at least in the childhood sense doesn't exist anymore and when I got married, we both knew we needed to forge ahead creating our own. So, three states later, we find this landing place that we happily will fill.  And for all the things I like,  for all the reasons that let me know this is the right place for the right time, I've still to check the box called, "Discover the place that is truly home."  This place is nice.  It's important, but it's just a place and I don't know if I feel the tender roots nestling into the soil or if I feel just as wind blown and free as ever.

There are times when I feel slivers of it, standing on edge of the ocean before the dance of the salty spray, rushing winds, and crashing waves or fully the divine connection of being immersed in process of creating art. 

I read once, somewhere that I can not name, that perhaps some creative souls will wander the earth, driven by an insatiable desire to discover, experience, and create.  And because their souls connect to God on a deeper level, in this creative way, that perhaps they will never feel truly at home, until they stand face to face with the greatest artist of all.   Maybe it's his presence or the evidence of it, that sustains them, until that glorious day. So we search. We create. We are restless. This might be one of things that makes the most sense to me in all this world.  So,  how do I cherish that restlessness so innate in me, in this perfect blend of contented discontentment?  Because, contented discontent, oh, I get that.

Maybe I'll just ask questions for a long time without knowing, being sustained by the glimpses for all my days.  Or maybe we will indeed cross paths with that place marked home for us here, during these important, fleeting days. 

And so, as it goes, these words feel better than I have given them a space, as raw and unedited as they are. 

Until next time.