Unorthodox Easter Celebrations

 For days now, I have been trying to write an Easter post.  The problem is, I've been arguing with the Almighty.  This is nothing new.  I have been wrestling with God for as long as I can remember.  I was that girl in Sunday School who asked the good-hearted, volunteer teacher the questions that made her uncomfortable:  "How could getting a new family make up for the children Job lost?"  "Why did God have to kill all of the Egyptian babies to save the Jews from slavery?"  Stuff like that.

I've been looking for something MORE, something I cannot articulate, but it is a deep, unmet need.  This morning, Easter Sunday, I woke up knowing what it is.

I need resurrection.

I have been not-quite-living in the place where death and grief and fear reside for too long.  I need a revival. I need to overcome the power of death.  Easter seems like a fitting day to begin to do that.

A devout Christian who was always too liberal for my religious friends and too religious for my liberal friends, I have spent a considerable amount of time over the past few years struggling to figure out how to authentically express my faith.  I miss belonging to a faith community, but I cannot bear the idea of an institution that is harmful to anyone perceived as OTHER.  As a little girl, I fell in love with the Jesus who befriended the broken, messy, undesirable people.  Those are my people, you know?

And while I have met many, many wonderful people in all manner of faith traditions (including non-Christian or Jewish religions) who share that basic "Love One Another" premise, I have yet to find a Church that fully embraces that.  After more than two decades actively engaged in a congregation that did so much wonderful work but expected rigid adherence to a handful of rules that I just could not accept, I finally had been chafed raw. The sore spots became too agonizing to live with anymore.  Sorrowfully, my Personal Chef and I left our church.

It took a long time, but the wounds have healed up enough that recently we have begun discussing finding a new community, a new church.  We went so far as to set today--Easter Sunday--as the day to begin.  This morning, we would wake up and go to church together as a family.  We still have no idea where we belong, but as a place to start, we know a priest whose entire life is built on that tenet, "Love One Another." He is our kind of Holy Man.  He is the head of his order, administering his duties from a beautiful retreat center, so he does not have a congregation for us to join, but he would be leading an Easter mass we could attend.

Then, I overslept.  I never over sleep.  Part of my chronic illness manifests in sleep disturbances that have me wide awake every day in the wee hours of the morning.

Sigh.

Instead of going to an Easter service, I have puttered around the house.  As I was hanging laundry to dry on the clothesline, I pondered that Easter story of resurrection.  I guess I have never understood the teachings about Jesus overcoming hell and death.  If one buys the idea that he is God come to earth in human form, then the idea of him coming back from the dead is no big deal, right?  If the big deal is that he changed the rules for Jews--that now ordinary Jews and also non-Jews can commune directly with God without going to the intermediary priests with their animal sacrifices--then why was his life sacrificed as part of a mass execution of criminals?  Why wasn't it at the temple in Jerusalem? (I know, I'm still full of questions.)

I may never understand the Easter story.  This morning, though, I did come to understand the power that death holds over me.  So much of my behavior is dictated by my grief and my fear of suffering more grief.  I swing between paralysis and mania, either doing nothing because I'm too bereft to move or overscheduling every minute because I'm afraid I will never get the chance again.  I have spent far too long in the place where death rules.

I need resurrection.

Unexpectedly, I find that I've always had a wonderful teacher in an old friend.  Bob is an eccentric, hippie friend who was born with a heart defect that results in death for most babies.  Miraculously surviving his infancy, Bob was only expected to live until his adolescence.  As a young teen, he was sent home from another hospital visit in a wheelchair to die.  He amazed everyone when two years later, he walked across the stage at his high school graduation.  In his mid-twenties, he had to go on oxygen, because his lungs were never meant to work as hard as they do for as many years as they have. Twenty-five years later, he's been married, had a daughter, got divorced, joined a Moose Lodge, traveled around the country, helped some of the world's foremost physicians break new ground in the treatment of cardiac and pulmonary disease.   He's coming up on 52-years of living.  He has taught my family so much about life.  And this morning, I realize he's taught me a lot about the power of death.

I have always been amazed at Bob's good humor.  His joie de vivre is overwhelming in the best possible way.  And just this morning, I realized that it's the answer I've been looking for.

I have always looked at Bob from the point of view of his certain death.  Bob, on the other hand, has been operating from the position of his certain life.  Bob's secret is that he loves, loves, loves every moment he gets.  Every meal is the best one he's ever eaten.  Every visit with a friend is the best time he's had.  Every joke is the funniest he's heard.

Bob spent several days this past week in the hospital.  He was released Friday afternoon.  Friday night he called me and asked me if I'd pick him up and bring him to our home, because he didn't feel comfortable about driving himself.  See, ever since Thing 1 and Thing 2 were preschoolers, Bob has made a point of "tie dyeing" Easter eggs with my kids.  He had no intention of missing our traditional gathering this year, just because he "isn't feeling so good."

When I brought him home last night, I was sad that there might not be any more Easters together.  Death has its claws in me deep.  Death is no match for my friend and teacher, though.  I want what he has.

I need a resurrection.

The Soft Opening Before the Grand ReOpening

     If you have ever met me in person or read a few of my blogposts, then you know that I am the Luckiest Girl In The World because I married a man who can cook.  My Personal Chef is in fact a world-class professional chef who is going to cringe when he reads that I have described him that way. Too bad.  It's the truth--not doting-wife-says-so truth, but actual has-credentials-to-prove-it  truth: Gold and Silver medals from several American Culinary Federation competitions; acronyms on his business cards that denote his qualifications as a Food Management Professional, Certified Research Chef, and Certified Executive Chef; a two-page resume that highlights a fabulous career that culinary students dream about;  chef friends/colleagues whose names you'd recognize from TV.  He's the real deal.

Photo by Rose Lincoln, Harvard University Gazette, 2003

     I bring this all up not to make you feel bad about your plain, old wonderful husbands who are great at lots of things, but do not belong anywhere near your kitchen. Rather, I bring this up because after decades of  loving a chef, my vocabulary is full of foodie terms.  So, after a several month writing hiatus, this post serves as my "soft opening."  In the restaurant world, the soft opening is that period of time when a new place is opened (or a renovated place is reopened) for a period of time to work out the kinks in the new systems BEFORE the publicity for the place hits.

    Since I've last written,  I've messed around a little bit with the formatting.  I've spent a considerable time thinking about what I want to say.   Mostly, though,  I've just been doing my best to stay afloat as a mother, wife, daughter, cousin, friend, and colleague.  It was a long, hard winter for me.  It just was.  I woke up above the ground today, though, so I get another shot at getting this living business down right. So, I'm back.  I've missed you, my friends.

Don't Stop Believing

I've come to the conclusion that this blog needs some revamping and I need to get a grip.   So, it may be a little bit before I post anything of substance.  I'm coming back. I am.  And I'm going to do my damndest to make sure it was worth the wait.  Okee dokee?  

Blessings in Disguise

     It's been just about a month since my last blog post. It was an action-packed month.  My son spent 18 days in a mental hospital fighting for his life.  In the course of a (relatively) routine medical procedure, I almost lost my mother. One of my dearest friends did lose her father. Both my fibromyalgia and bursitis flared up. There were no fewer than six major snow storms to deal with.
     Before you start feeling too badly for me, it wasn't all gloom and doom.  A group of girlfriends took it upon themselves to plan the Valentine's Day Brunch I have annually with style and tremendous affection.  I got to offer a challenging job to a colleague, with the confidence  that she is more than up to the task. I got to spend an evening with one of my favorite babies and was reminded what it feels like to be smitten. My eternal bachelor brother proposed to a great woman and to everyone's amazement (including his) she said yes.
    It's not the first challenging season I've ever lived through.  It's not even the MOST challenging season I've had.  It feels like I came through it having gained more than in the past, though.
      By the time Valentine's Day rolled around,  I was completely certain that I know what it is to deeply love others and to be loved deeply in return.  I know what real strength looks like--and feels like.  I was shown what it is to be brave, fierce, and dignified.  I discovered some personal limits I never acknowledged I have before, and found that the world didn't come to an end.  Rather,  I experienced the relief that comes from letting someone help bear a burden.
     And so, while I am so very glad that this season is over, I am grateful to have been through it.  I consider myself blessed in countless ways.
    

A Work in Progress

     The sun sets. The sun rises again.  I keep waking up, so I keep getting more chances to get it right.  I'm going to go ahead and say I'm doing a good enough job, even though the list of all that I'm failing at is insanely long, like waiting at the DMV long.   Today, though, I'm going to recognize that I'm doing my best and it's been good enough. The laundry is caught up.  The dogs and the boys have all been fed regularly.  I've met my work deadlines. I've prepped the bathrooms for a way-overdue repainting. I've even managed to remain mindful of some important self-care business:  drinking plenty of water, eating lots of veggies, and getting outside.  It's good enough, indeed.

     I had a truly wonderful return to the Sachuest National Wildlife Refuge this week.  I was in Newport on business and spent my lunch hour walking the trails.  As soon as I took the first bend, I came upon a deer enjoying a snack.  She didn't startle.  She must have been very hungry, because she never stopped eating. I probably could have pet her if I were so bold.  It was an astonishing surprise. I stayed with her for about five minutes, before my work responsibilities drove me further down the trail.

Just past my deer, where the thicket thins and there is a clear view of the rocky shoreline, I saw a group of the harlequin sea ducks that winter in Narragansett Bay. This band of quirky looking flightless, diving water fowl draws birders from all over to the Rhode Island coast every January.  That this is just an ordinary part of my day makes me feel blessed. In fact, it is these ordinary moments--a walk at a local wildlife preserve, picking out paint for the bathrooms, playing keep away with the dogs and my laundry (especially socks, the dogs LOVE to steal socks)--that make the challenges manageable and the worries bearable.

     Thing 2 is out of the hospital, but not out of the woods.  Every day I drive him back to the hospital for some intensive outpatient supports.  That he's so actively engaged in his own treatment makes me hopeful.  That he's negotiated some very difficult situations since being home, including facing the issue that triggered the dangerous swing from manic to depressed, makes me proud.  If you ask him how he's doing, he's likely to respond, "I'm a work in progress."  And it's the truth.  Aren't we all?

  

Hanging on by a Dish Towel

     It's been a rough few weeks.  There's a rock pile of issues that haven't crushed me yet, but staying on top of them has left me more exhausted than I've been in a very long time.
     I've been navigating my way through a Professional Leadership Opportunity that has been exceedingly challenging.  Turns out I have what it takes to make the Tough Decisions and to manage them effectively.  That I am surrounded by an incredibly strong team of folks who are smarter than I am has helped immeasurably.
     My fierce, beloved mother has a serious surgery coming up that is weighing on me.  I mentioned she was fierce, right?  So, while everyone expects things to go well, it's still cause for a daughter to worry. That she doesn't graciously accept any fussing over her is both part of her charm and part of my angst.
     Thing 2 is not in a good state right now.  After weeks of increasingly manic behavior, the pendulum swung sharply in the other direction yesterday.  In the good news department, he has sought out professional support himself BEFORE he hurt himself or anyone else.  I will forever be grateful for that.  Still, nobody's mother is okay with having her child committed to a mental hospital.  I certainly am not.
     And so, I am clinging to my sanity the only way I know how.  I've thrown myself into the mundane flow of housework.  I've taken care of the dogs.  I've done dishes.  I made hash and eggs for breakfast.  I'm scaling the mountain of laundry.
     There is a rhythm to the domestic routine that helps slow my heart rate and reminds me to exhale, then inhale, then exhale again.  In a season where I have absolutely no control of so much of what is going on around me, being able to take charge of my physical environment keeps me grounded. So I will scrub toilets and match socks.  I'll change the sheets on the beds and vacuum.  I'll sweep away the tumbleweeds of dog hair.  Later, I'll go visit my son and his clinical team.  And I'll check in with my mama.  And I'll return a few more emails about the Tough Decisions.  There will be more laundry to fold.  Dinner to prepare.  Dogs to walk.
     This too shall pass.  I have a great support system.  My Personal Chef (especially) and my family--the one I was born into and the one I chose--has been truly wonderful. And of course, there is plenty of laundry.

Who Woulda Thunk It?

     A year ago today I screwed up all my courage and drafted my very first blog post.  Since then, I've written 70-something posts that over 3,000 folks have read.  It's not a very big readership. I know.  It's stunning to me that it is mostly folks I don't know, though.  Most of my readers found me through other bloggers or while searching for a blogpost about something I've written about or searching for weird ass shit that somehow led them to me (which is a bit creepy).

     I have not followed any of the rules about being a blogger, apparently.  My format is a mess and I don't also have a Facebook page or Twitter account for the blog and I don't generally publicize my posts.  I think perhaps this year, I will take some time to learn the rules and maybe take this writing thing a bit more seriously.

     You see, for me, this past year was mainly about getting over myself.  In retrospect, the amount of terror I felt is absolutely ludicrous.  Readers, you have been tremendously kind to me.  My friends and family have been really supportive. Other bloggers have been especially wonderful.

Elle over at This Is Mommyhood gave me my first break, by letting me guest blog for her.

Jenny Lawson (you know, Supreme Goddess of the Blogosphere from The Bloggess) let me share her Traveling Red Dress story on my blog.

Similarly, Lisa Rosenberg at Smacksy inspired me to write about the Official Summer of Awesomeness To Do List when she wrote about hers.  She, too, let me share a link to her blog.

Stephanie from Mom in Two Cultures and Louisa from WeezaFish are among my favorite penpals ever.   And I miss my friend Boo over at Boobaloo.  

     Thank you, all of you, for being so good to me.  I'm kinda excited to see what this next year will bring!