When late doesn't mean untimely

i really dislike being late to things. i set clocks a few minutes early, and i'm one of those "if i get there on time, i'm actually late" kind of people.

except motherhood has changed me. or rather, it's change my sense of timing, not so much my preferences to be early for things. the tyranny of the urgent is different when your hair is unwashed, the table still laden with yesterday's dishes, and your food comes through the fast lane (because sometimes it just does). they say the now is all about them, the little moments, and they are, and i just eat them up some days. others, though, i just keep my head above the mess, and barely.

i've been so absent here. i've felt so wordless, and yet there are so many spewed meaningless-ly elsewhere. and then i finally bought ann's book. so late i am, but finally here, and i remember the counting. and somehow i also remember that when you have an eternal perspective (and which christian bought does not, i ask?) you aren't actually late; you are simply donning grace's cloak.

counting, join ann and others?

340. the "better lates than nevers" i'm experiencing with my family
341. for bikes delivered to the boys
342. so we can exercise together
343. and those three little boys sleeping in their helmets because they just can't get over the gifts
344. and sleeping in (despite daylight savings)
345. and husband getting a taxi to airport instead of waking us up
346. sleep
347. sleep
348. owen no longer sick
349. and shea less sick
350. and the others avoiding getting sick
351. for husband's work going well
352. for impromptu play-dates
353. and mamas coming over at night
354. and sister phone calls
355. always, grace

Scrawling

yet again it's too early after a night that went too late, and my head throbs as it's been doing lately. i can't undo the tired, can't undo all the mess, nor the empty.

i've been still, trying to be filled.

i almost came to say goodbye to this space, to crumple the paper, toss it aside.
~~~~~~~

my coffee cup has rings in it from where a sip taken and time lapses have left their mark like a door panel growth chart, and three rings down the brew's just too cold to enjoy.
the baby's forehead is still hot, his cheeks still somewhat flushed; he fuss-whimpers for me to hold him while struggling to settle down.
the fat orange tabby meows for letting-out, and somehow i'm hearing all metaphors this morning.

good morning memphis chatters on mute. i forgot i wanted the weather.
i've written of bleak winters and missing my spring, and here they are, all my favorites: the japanese magnolias, forsythia, buttercups, redbuds, and new green sprouts. i see them, but dimly, lacking my usual enthusiasm.

see? life goes on, coffee gets cold, and weather reports get missed. this is how the empty seems to fill me up lately. i know there is more, can see the Bigger just outside my peripheral, and somehow feel unable to reach, to articulate my gladness at spring.
~~~~~

i know words will come, for in the beginning was the Word. He will come, He is. these are the truths that don't let go (even when i feel i hold on to nothing).
i know grace is freeing (even when i feel i'm drowning), and her story will write itself (it looks a lot like "wash me" on the back windshield).

cats need letting out, diapers need changing, baby needs nursing, and husband needs transporting to airport. ebb and flow, slow tide, whoosh.

dare i smooth out the crumples in my paper and press flat my hopes again? scrawling....

how worship is the hardest thing we do

we talked of the commandment, how he tells us how to love him, worship him, return to him the glory that is always his, and that little part of me always chafes at the being told what to do, and i wonder if we aren't just puppets after all.
and then one of the ladies suggests that worship is not for us and i think if it's austere, then there is more room for him to fill, less for my useless attempts at purity and law to clutter the space, and i breathe low. think, that worship is sometimes painful, and it is, i know, because i have sung praises on a tongue that wanted curses, have prayed selfishly because i didn't know how to say i love you and mean it, and because all i really want to worship is my own self, my own strengths, my own time and needs.

and it's only the heart for him. pure form means nothing if a heart is defiled, and he knows the heart, knows my thoughts,
and if knowing me, how can he love me?

this is worship.

heavy

it's been a week, my ring resting on the window sill above the sink. days have been spent washing dishes and laundry, and the ring was put aside for safekeeping and skin protecting. i slipped it back on and bought paper plates this week--my desire for sparkling reminder outweighed my Eco-conciousness.
we hold hands this week often, weighed by heavy thoughts, and talk about jobs and mothers and prayer and fear.
our newly wed love simmered like indian food i taught him to like, piquant and saucy. or like too-long shopping trips just because we could, and spent too much money on too little food. or like our long, meandering drives with nowhere to go and tank full of gas, counting the miles in conversations.
today's love looks like night-times not entangled in sheets but a pint-size baby overtaking a king-size bed and a trip to the grocery becomes my day away, and a cart is loaded while a purse is diminished, but we still drive to talk, fingers grazing over gear shifter and penny trays, little boy conversations trickling over our shoulders.

this has been a long week with heart-wrecking conversations and monumental decisions. i would appreciate any prayers if you think of us.

Rainbow math

it's late with no clock to whisper the time or day.

with one hand i stroke his cheek, dispelling the myth that there is no room for intimacy after babies. i love his day-old scruff, stroke his hair, corner-smile at the little kisses he plants on my nape.

with my other hand i curl owen towards me, make sure he's still sleeping, only to prove the myth after all. i am close enough to still smell his shampooed hair, and his toes dig into my ribs (again); my smile turns full at the wonder of being surrounded by my loves.

it's a working of math, for this word-girl: the at once mother and at the same time lover, how i never really stop being either.

i drift to sleep thinking, white is the sum of all colors.

For Mama

she starts the water running, warm, begins to fill the sink with suds.
i scold, no, no let's enjoy this time, let's just visit, but she fusses back that she just wants to help, to be here, and well, why not get some work done, too?
this is the time-honored rite of a mother and daughter washing dishes together: the hands ruddy and wrinkle, and the hearts bond over trivialities. we, for whom this is still new, remember the silent time soberly, for there is nothing more solemn than a mother who doesn't know her daughter or a daughter who mothers alone.
she washes; she doesn't know where my dishes go (a subtle nod to the gaps we're trying to erase), so i rinse and dry, and we continue the growing. we reverse-learn our quirks and tell each other our stories.
she tells of me-as-babe, the sarge who bossed everyone around. i tell her of shea's funny logic or avery's scaredy-cat ways. i ask her for advice on potty training (will he ever learn--yes, she insists), and we commiserate in this mutual motherhood.
despite no dishwasher (and months of my moaning otherwise), the dishes end too quickly.
water drains, gurgling.
the last dish is put away.
we no longer stand side-by-side at a sink, but the heartbeat of women working still beats.
i can't believe how big grace is, how far we've come in a year.

Shattered

there is a place where the sacred is unsafe
the holy burns,
and unsinged we dare to ask if we are secure

we think we purify ourselves
by removing our shoes
never thinking we stand a world apart
paperthin
between this world and the next
where our clay-frail bodies one day will shatter
like the stars

the dead sloughed off
shines nova-bright, now--

how unsafe it is to be burned down
only to be consumed again by holy fire

we shatter