A Long Obedience

04 Sep 2010 13 Comments

by danka in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , ,

“Because how we spend our days, of course, is how we spend our lives.” -Annie Dillard

I’ve been chasing a track of thought the last couple of days. I’m not sure if I can quite articulate it, but I’ll try.

Last week, Matthew and I celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. You know that old joke, on your birthday someone will ask, “Well, do you feel any older?” It’s funny, and depending on my mood I fool around with the answer. But truthfully? No. I never feel older on my birthday. I always feel the same as I did the day before.

The night of my anniversary, however, after all the celebrations – all of them – when I was waiting to fall asleep, I did feel somehow, different. In the days leading up to the date, I had pondered the significance of the occasion and felt and thought a variety of things. Old. Astounded. Excited. Mostly old. (How is that I’m old enough to have been married for ten years?)

But on the Thursday night of August 26, 2010, I lay in my bed and I felt so very different. I felt wise and accomplished. I felt like I always imagined I would feel if I ever graduated university (how I will feel when I do graduate university, that is) only it felt ten times as hugely significant as graduation could feel.

It caught me off guard.

I have never done anything for ten years. Except this. My life has always been constantly changing. Changing location. Changing jobs. Changing religion. Changing friends. Hobbies. Habits. Opinions. The paint on the walls. I don’t feel very much like a person of constancy, reliability. I’ve never felt steady.

And here I’ve been a wife for ten. whole. years. My whole adult life, really.

But it wasn’t just that. It wasn’t just about me (like it usually is). Marriage is a we thing. It simply can not ever be a me thing. We did this. For ten. whole. years. We did it together. How miraculous.

I suppose that could be a post in itself, but I’ve been getting a new perspective all around. I’ve discovered in that last few months that writing isn’t something I want to do. It’s something I do, in one form or another, on a daily basis, and it’s something I have always done. Since I was old enough to hold a pen. I don’t want to be a writer. I am a writer. I don’t need a career path, notoriety and a steady paycheck to prove it. It’s part of who I am. That realization has brought a tremendous wave of relief. Writing is not something I can fail at. It’s simply part of my personal make-up.

I am a mother, and I always will be, from now and forever. My family is my family and I will never have another.

Other things about me that seem to constantly change, are, in reality, part of who I am. Ministry groups and volunteer opportunities in the community and among friends seem to come and go from my schedule. I’m always involved in some new thing. But whether the setting or cause is new or changing, I seem to have a personal service quotient that must be filled in order for me to feel like I’m living my life. It goes way back to when I was a teenager. Even though we weren’t involved in church in any way, my mom used to make sure we spent time volunteering. We canvassed for charities and participated in fundraisers and community service in general. I got used to living life that way. Now I can’t not live that way.

The same with creative endeavors. The same with home decor and improvement. The same with organizing. And reorganizing. Over and over and over again.

The more I’ve been paying attention to these regularities in my life I’ve been beginning to feel more comfortable in my own skin. And even though my schedule is far from the frenzied mass of activity it was a short time ago, I don’t feel like I’m doing nothing, accomplishing nothing. My life feels rich and full. I’m feeling more at ease with this girl God made. No, this woman. And I think I like her. How about that!

I’ve been less frantic with the fear that I will never accomplish anything ‘big’ or ‘worthwhile’ in my lifetime. I am pretty faithful on a day-to-day basis in the small everyday things God has given me. And I realize that if I go along, and am content, as time accumulates each thing will become better and better in its own right. I think I can be very satisfied with that.

“The essential thing in heaven and earth is that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.” – Nietzsche.

I’m part of this great marriage and this great family. I am a friend and I have great friends. I’m good at cleaning and organizing stuff. I write! I learn. I learn all the time. I have an abundance of simple pleasures: reading, walking around my town and around nature – taking it all in, the joys of cooking good food, the joys of growing things for beauty and, hopefully soon, for food, hearing laughter resound from the open mouths of my children and my friends. Girlfriends. Yes. Worship. Yes.

Yes.

Kid Zone

20 Aug 2010 8 Comments

by danka in Uncategorized Tags: , ,

I’m hiding in my bedroom with my laptop.

But I have the door open so I can hear what’s going on out there. From a distance. Right now they are gathered around the Wii. Mario Kart music. Excited voices. Competition. Encouragement.

I just fed them. Somehow their full bellies have muted the volume. They were getting a little high strung for a few minutes. It’s better now. I made two things for lunch and they consumed enough ketchup on the side to make up a third entree.

Kids.

In the last two hours I’ve been presented with three different toys with the request for new batteries. My Costco-sized pack of AA’s is quickly dwindling. Didn’t I just buy those? Whatever did parents do when they only came in packs of four? I have a zip-lock bag full of dead ones I want to recycle. I don’t even know where to take them to recycle them. Can you recycle them? Help me.

Actually, it’s going pretty well. I’m amazed I can sit here and type at all. They are all content out there. I’ve finished washing the third load of dishes for the day (it’s only 1pm). My friend’s kids are here. Two boys. It goes like this: boy aged 9, girl aged (almost) 8, boy aged 7, girl aged 6. They have known each other since the second one of the four (that would be Adora) was born.

We used to live next door to these boys. It was a sweet set up. Our two families shared a lot of meals, and a lot of evenings, and a lot of FUN. We still do, even though we live on different ends of town now. When their parents, our friends, started a business I provided daycare to the boys for a while. At the time, it went like this: newborn girl, boy aged 1, girl aged 2, boy aged 3. I was breast-feeding the baby. The two oldest were potty-training. In theory it was a great idea. In reality, I just about lost my mind. And the children lived in terror of me (I imagine) because I was an emotional, over-tired, frustrated, disciplinarian wreck with sore nipples who saw far too many pairs of pooed underwear in any given week. In sadness I had to tell my friend only six months in that I just couldn’t do it anymore. She had to put them in a real daycare, which sounded scarier, but was probably a lot better for them. It worked out in the long run and we’re all still friends. It took a while for the boys to come to trust and enjoy my presence in their lives again. That made me really sad because I love them. But now years have passed and it’s all forgotten and we’re good.

Wow, that story came out of nowhere. I was going to tell you about Back Yard Clubs.

We hosted a Backyard club all this week. Luckily (for the children) I did not run the thing, and only had to provide the backyard and the snack and some prayers. Some teenagers from our church did the rest. They played games, sang songs, heard Bible stories, played more games, sang more songs, and so on, repeat, forever, every morning this week.

It was a lot of fun.

Thank-God it’s over.

What is with me? I love kids. Every child that was here I know in real life and I love, love, love them. They were all super-well behaved. I was glad to see their shining faces! I didn’t even have to do anything but enjoy their presence – the teens did all the work (and they were fantastic) and yet, I cheered in my heart when the last parent drove away with their child when it was all said and done. (Except the two boys who are still here – I decided to keep them for a while).

It sort of reminds me of the time I thought I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher when I grew up.

And then I spent a year volunteering in a kindergarten classroom once a week.

And changed my career plans.

I love kids.

And I’m not just saying that.

I have issues. Sigh.

Flexitarian

18 Aug 2010 9 Comments

by danka in Uncategorized Tags: , , , ,

My children know that meat comes from animals. Bacon and ham come from pigs. Hamburgers and steak come from cows. chicken comes from chicken. Fish from fish, and so on. They know all this, and have for some time.

Well, Adora got it in her head that she would like to be a farmer when she grows up. So we spent some time talking about farming. We talked about Grandma Sonia and Bruce’s farm and we talked about the life cycle of the sheep. What Adora and Grace know of the sheep is how cute the lambs are every spring when we go visit, and the funny sound of the bleating Mama sheep, and how the wool gets sheared off. She turned three shades of green when we began to talk about slaughter (we were eating lunch while we talked). We went on to talk about how the steaks in the shiny packages at the store came from real animals from real farms that really, really had been slaughtered so we could eat them. The reality of what they already knew began to sink in. They wanted details. They wanted to know how the animals were killed. I told them I didn’t know. I lied. We were eating lunch after all.

Grace sat in stunned silence. Adora made gagging sounds, declared she wanted nothing to do with farming, and wanted to end the discussion right this minute. I told her that it is important to know where your food comes from.

She said that she wanted to become a vegetarian. Grace agreed. They know about vegetarianism because some of their friends from school are from vegetarian families. I explained a bit about vegetarianism and how you can’t just stop eating meat, you have to eat other things to make up complete proteins, yada yada yada. Still, they want to go meatless.

I was a vegetarian for a few years, as a bleeding heart teenager (although I never really gave up bacon and would be willing to occasionally eat ground beef or cut up chicken breast if, and only if, it was cooked in a manner to disguise the meatiness of the meat – think stir-fry or spaghetti). As it was, when I met Matthew, waaaay back in the day, my family ate meat a few times a week and his family ate it three meals a day. Over the years we hit a balance and meat is included in most dinners around here. I even learned how to cook a pretty good roast and handle raw meat (I was squeamish about it for a long time). In the last eight months or so though, I have shifted my stance on meat again. I have purposefully begun cooking at least one meatless dinner per week, sometimes two or three, in a weak non-committal attempt to both reduce our family’s carbon footprint and reduce our saturated fat intake.

Now we’ve come full circle and I have two little girls who are beginning to make choices about how they want to live their lives. In light of my own past, and the fact that a big juicy steak still doesn’t appeal all that much to my palate (I’m fine until I start thinking about it in the middle of my meal and sometimes have to stop eating because my imagination grosses me out) I fully support their desire to explore other dining options. I have two hang-ups, though.

1. My poor, poor husband, who is a meat-itarian, and has worked so hard to incorporate veggies into his diet in the same way I have worked hard to become accustomed to meat. I will probably be having to cook double meals to keep everyone satisfied, which is something I swore I would never do. Oh well.

2. Re-learning how to cook. I have a few good meatless dinners in my repertoire, but I am going to need more variety, and I am going to need to study up on vegetarian nutrition. All I can say is thank God for the internet.

That being said – if you have any great vegetarian recipes that make a nutritionally complete meal, please pass them on!

Only time will tell if this will be a passing phase for our family or the beginning of a pretty major diet change. I don’t plan on going full-vegetarian myself, but we will certainly be shifting more to a vegetable and grains based plan around here for a while at least. Pray for my husband ;-) for patience and that all his needs will be met while us girls experiment in the kitchen.

Slow and Disorganized

23 Jul 2010 6 Comments

by danka in Uncategorized Tags: ,

In the last four or five months, my life has completely switched directions. For years it was go, go, go. All the time. And because of the busy-ness, I was forced to be organized. Super-organized. I’m still pretty organized, and I always have been. It is my nature I guess. But when life and schedules crossed the border of crazy, my organization was knife-sharp.

Not so much now. My grocery and supply shops are not well planned. They are sporadic, and I seem to either forget half a dozen important items, or go for ten items and end up re-stocking the whole house. Speaking of the house, it is less clean than it has been in ages. The family budget is – well I don’t even know where the family budget is. The laundry is piled in the closet. Instead of starting a new project every couple of days, all of my current projects are on hold. I’ve been writing, yes, but I haven’t been working on anything specific. I haven’t rearranged a single piece of furniture or painted a single room (save for the foyer but it doesn’t count since it had to be done) since we moved in. I’m not myself.

In the same vein, this blog has kind of gone to rot. And I’m kind of sorry for that, but kind of not.

I have so much free time that I always think I’ll do it later, but then I don’t.

This is what I do: I read. I water the lawn. I spontaneously go out in to public and meet friends. I take the kids to the library, to the water park, to church. I lay on the grass in the sun, without sunscreen and without a hat, but with a novel. I sit in the hammock with a novel. I lay on the couch under a blanket, with a novel. I bake. I read. I go on the Wii. I go for a walk. I read.

Sometimes I go to work, but usually not when I tell my boss I’ll be there. I say ‘Hey, Michelle, I’ll probably be in tonight to do this and that.’ And then I show up the next morning instead and do this and that and a handful of other things too because I feel bad.  But she doesn’t seem to mind. Nice boss, eh? To so acquiesce in my laziness.

Occasionally I still have a day where the panic feeling rises and I worry about all that I’m not accomplishing, and that someone out there is looking on with disapproval. But then I remember that it’s just me. I’m the only one who cares about what I do or don’t do in a day. And I remind myself that I’m in a season of rest, a season that inevitably will come to an end, and so I grab a novel and head out to the hammock or walk the kids to the park and stare at the clouds and feel really tiny in the universe and really happy. Just for now. Just for a while.

Life is Like a Stack of Books

14 Mar 2010 6 Comments

by danka in Uncategorized Tags: , ,

I wear many hats. I juggle many roles.

I also read a lot of books. And magazines. And poems. And internet.

My life right now, is slower than it’s been in ages. And by slow, I mean I have wound down to a pace that I consider normal-life. There’s lots to do still. Just not to the point of being constantly overwhelmed. And I have to tell you, it is difficult for me to maintain this ‘slower’ life pace. A free block of time on my calendar, even if it’s a single free afternoon during a busy week calls out to me to fill it. Think of all the things you could do! One side of my brain calls out to the other. Girls nights! Extra shifts! Attend a fundraiser! A writing group! Sign up for art classes with the kids!

The hardest part for me right now is that I don’t really feel like I’m accomplishing much. I’m not sure how I got to the point where I feel worthless if I’m not meeting goals and taking steps and producing. And I’m not going to dissect that right now. But it is really hard for me to just go through daily routines that don’t feel purposeful. Like my commercial janitorial work for instance. I love cleaning the church. I love my role there. I feel like I’m contributing to my church family, doing some very basic things that need to get done in order to free up others to do things that need to be done, like preach the gospel and serve the hungry (teenagers) and so on. But going late at night to a big, empty industrial building week after week after week (it’s been almost two years at the place I was at tonight) and where I have never met a single person whose desk I dust, well, meh. MEH! BOO!

The funny thing is, from a simple work-to-earn-money perspective, I would be better off to ditch the church and get some more commercial contracts. I make three times (THREE TIMES) the amount of money doing commercial janitorial than the church can afford to pay me. And yet. I look forward to the day that I can quit the big-earning contracts. I gave some of them up to make time to take on the church work. Silly? Maybe.

What does this have to do with books you ask?

I can’t remember. I just sort of spouted off there.

Oh yeah. So I was thinking about life. And I was thinking about my Two Big Goals. And I was thinking about how many times in the past five years I have shifted and adjusted my work-load (various jobs), school commitment, volunteer work, parenting, hobbies, everything. And I looked over at the jumble of books on the coffee-table. And I thought, my life looks a lot like that jumble of books on that coffee table.

There are books that I bought. There are books that I’ve borrowed from friends. Books from the public library, and from the church library. Book club books. Books that were gifts. Books that I got for free from a publisher in exchange for reviewing them online (coming soon to a blog near you).

There are novels, heavy and light. There are a lot of essay collections (I like reading things in short bursts.) Fiction and Non. There are magazines. (I’m kind of a magazine freak. Although I’m getting better.) Research. Poetry. Philosophy. Books on writing. Books on craft. Oi.

But more than the what, I had a bit of a realization about my process. The way I process books is a lot like I process life.

I want them all.

I would like to read everything that was ever written.

Some more than others. But certainly more than there is possible time in one lifetime to actually do. Which poses the problem of choice. And in my reading, and in what I do with my time and my effort, I’m starting to get better at choosing purposefully and well.

Also. I get overloaded. If I’m not careful I will find myself in the middle of about ten books all at once; not making much progress with any of them. Occasionally I say enough is enough and limit myself to not starting a new one until I’ve finished everything I’ve started. I try to maintain the habit of having only two or three going at any one time, but all it takes is a trip to the library or the bookstore or a friend’s house (hey, can I borrow this?) and I find myself with really good looking options all around and I say ‘Oh what the heck’ and I dive right in and feast on books or life or whatever the silly metaphor is and before you know it….

******************

On a slightly different note. And yet not.

I declare tomorrow to be my very own personal Reading Break. Hooray! I had a busy work and fun filled weekend. I also had a busy week last week with the kids home for Spring Break, getting the foyer painted, friends from out of town visiting, going to Salmon Arm to see relatives and baby sheep and so on and so on. I’m tired. Tomorrow there will be no laundry, no work, no socializing, no running, just reading. I will wear sweatpants. I will attend the Sartre lecture. But other than that, I have no other plans but to read.

And all will be right in my world.