Internet Grapes

The pieces were there all along

Usually I do one or two jigsaw puzzles over winter break, more than that over the summer, and maybe one during spring break. Once in awhile I’ll do one over a long weekend. (I did many during the initial Covid lockdown.) One reason I don’t do them more often is because our house only has one good puzzle-doing surface - the dining room table. And although we don’t all eat together at the dining room table all that often, I like having that as an option, at least. So I don’t do puzzles very often. 

This year I got a puzzle for Christmas, as I often do, but I didn’t make time to put it together before school started. Last Sunday (the day before school started for me & the other teachers, but two days before the students would return) I decided to break my own usual rule, and I started the puzzle that Annabel had given me for Christmas. It’s called “Summer Fun,” and it’s much wider than it is tall, and the picture on it is a beach scene. There are lots of parasails and boats, and there is a lot of sand and sky and water and a boardwalk in the foreground. There are a lot of beach goers of various ages of various sizes and shapes and colors, some bicycles and strollers and food carts and beach umbrellas and dogs and scooters and dune buggies. And more! It’s the kind of puzzle I enjoy doing, because all of the background is so full of little things that you don’t have to spend a lot of time trying piece after piece and piece in one vast unvaried section of the puzzle after you’ve matched all of the pieces that having easily identifiable - although perhaps tiny! - differences. 

It’s now Saturday, and I still have a ways to go before the puzzle will be done, but I’ve made a lot of progress. I’ve hit that point where, whenever I sit down for a few minutes, I see quite a few new matches without even trying. It’s probably the point in the puzzle that I enjoy most, because it gives me what I guess I am looking for when I do puzzles: challenging questions, that require me to struggle enough to feel like I’m exercising my eyes and my mind, but for which there are certain unequivocal correct answers that are extremely gratifying to discover. Sometimes when I’m doing puzzles, I say “bam!” when I snap each piece into place, especially when I’m approaching the end stages of a puzzle. (I’m pretty sure my dad’s the one who started doing this one year when we were doing puzzles during our week at Potato Creek State Park, but the rest of us were quick to pick up on it.) 

I am 51 years old, and I am a fourth year middle school teacher. I was a theatre major in college, then started a masters in theatre program, temped for awhile while I applied to law schools, then attended law school, then worked for 11 years as a lawyer, first at a law firm and then at a title insurance company in their claims department. I had gone to law school basically because I loved being in school and didn’t know what I wanted to do. But I never loved being a lawyer, so when I was laid off in 2009, I actively looked for a new job as a lawyer, but I actively hoped that I would figure out another career that fulfilled me in a way that being a lawyer never had. (I believe that if I’d sought to become a criminal lawyer, the one type of law that really fascinated me, I might have felt differently.) I initially had no idea what that new career might be. I spent time taking family portraits and some time copywriting. I eventually started volunteering at Annabel’s preschool once a week, then started teaching there four days a week. The other teachers were pretty great, and getting to know and work with the kids was amazing, but the pay was extremely low, and I didn’t really get to make many decisions. I wanted something more, but was hesitant to make a move, since I was (am) still drowning in law school student loan debt, and didn’t want to do the wrong thing again. I started subbing for our school district, and got to try out elementary, middle, and high schools. It was so, so hard. But it was also extremely rewarding. After a year of subbing, I decided that I would like to become certified to teach middle school math full-time. After two more years, I received my teaching license, and the next August — over 9 years after I last worked as a lawyer, at the age of 48 — I started teaching in an 8th grade math classroom at a middle school 10 minutes from my house, and I’m still there with no plans to leave. When I talk about my later-in-life career change to people, I often say that being a teacher has been harder than being a lawyer was, because that’s true. It’s also true that while I can’t always say that I like how a particular schoolday went, I love the students, and I truly love that I’m a teacher. I don’t know if I should ever have been a lawyer, but I am 100% certain that becoming a teacher was the right decision. Bam.

The other day I came across a little online quiz that I’d filled out a few years ago. “What’s the first job you remember wanting to do?” was one of the questions. “Teacher,” was my answer. (I chose to go to law school because I didn’t want to leave school.) 

As I was working on my puzzle this morning, I picked up a piece with a small curved bright red spot on it. I had picked it up many times before, comparing it to the picture of the puzzle and to the pieces that I’d already put into place, but time after time, I couldn’t figure out where it went. This morning, though, I picked up the piece and immediately recognized it. I dropped it into its spot, which connected two large parts of completed puzzle to each other. “Bam,” I said to myself quietly, and laughed a little. 

And then suddenly I was struck by the fact that the puzzle piece had been there the entire time, and that in fact I had looked at it over and over, but it wasn’t until I recognized it that I could fit it into place, and this felt like a very Wizard of Oz type life lesson. (“You’ve always had the power, my dear. You just had to learn it for yourself.”)

How many pieces are still there right now, sitting in front of me, waiting for me to recognize them? Is it possible to help my kids? — Or my students? — to find the pieces earlier? More easily? How many pieces are lost to me forever, never to be put in place? Have I been particularly bad at recognizing the pieces of my life puzzle, or are some pieces just hard to find no matter who you are? Would someone else have recognized the connections between the pieces earlier? Could I have done better if I’d changed something? Listened to my inner self earlier? Trusted myself more? Spent more time thinking and wondering and less time doing the next thing?

THE PIECES WERE THERE ALL ALONG. I just had to recognize them for myself.

 

like a ship without a rudder*

In the morning it is always rushrushrush, around the house, out the door, to the school (schools).  More often than not, I choose a little extra sleep instead of a shower.  I dress in clothes without caring how they really look on me, because almost no one will see what I'm wearing, anyway, or at least no one I need to impress.  The same jeans I've worn for the past three days, and this old ratty gray sweater?  Sure.  Why not? 

Katie wakes up on her own, usually, and could get dressed by herself, but usually she begs for assistance, at least in helping choose the particular clothes that she'll wear today.  Her school has a uniform policy - navy blue or khaki bottoms, white or navy or light blue tops - so only a very limited part of her wardrobe is eligible to get worn on any given school day.  This morning I had to go down to the basement to bring up clean laundry so that she'd have the khaki pants that she's supposed to wear today for choir.  She eats cinnamon waffles or yogurt for breakfast, plays with the kittens, watches a tv show.  I have learned that socks and shoes or boots have to be located and put on well before it's time to leave, because you never know where we'll find them. While Katie is eating and dressing, I start preparing lunches.  Today they both got thermos type containers full of leftover turkey and noodles.

Sometime after Katie and I have gotten up, but before Annabel is awake, Geoff leaves to teach his 8 a.m. class.  Sometimes he has already let out the dog; sometimes he hasn't, and I do that, too.  Annabel has to be woken up, every morning, almost without fail.  I wake her and change her diaper and dress her in warm enough clothes.  We come downstairs, and she drinks a little milk, eats a little waffle, lets me help her put on her socks, her boots, her jacket.  Before I am really ready, it is time to leave.  We grab lunches and Katie's backpack, and we zip up jackets and I get my purse.  I hold Annabel's hand on the snowy front steps that we still haven't salted or shoveled, and we walk out to the car.  Katie gets into her seat and buckles herself in; I put Annabel in her seat and buckle her in, too, and then we leave for Katie's school.  I always feel like we're running late, and usually we are.  After we drop Katie off at school, we drive the other way across town to Annabel's preschool.  We get there too late for the regular drop off, so I have to park and take her into her classroom.  She usually doesn't want me to go, despite the fact that five minutes before she had been clamoring to get to "my school" to see "my teacher."  She clings to me, a little bit, and I tell her I love her, and most days she goes off with her teacher fairly contently, but occasionally she cries.

On the days that she cries I usually go out and get in the car and cry a little bit, too.

And when I drive away from her preschool, suddenly I have nowhere I have to be right away or at all, for hours, and the day stretches out ahead of me, empty.  I float there, unimportant and unnecessary and uncertain.

Sometimes I just wander, looking for things to take photos of, and sometimes I do stop and pull out my camera.  Sometimes I meet Geoff for breakfast, because usually neither of us has managed to eat anything before leaving home.  Sometimes I go to the store, although I usually haven't managed to make or bring a list of what to buy, so the trip to the store, like everything else, feels disorganized and of limited use. 

Today I have done dishes and vacuumed the downstairs and the upstairs and practiced playing the piano (for at least an hour) and drunk coffee with peppermint mocha creamer.  I have browsed the internet and updated Facebook and picked up toys and folded laundry.  I have sent some emails.  Some days at this time I have done much more, and other days I have done less, and either way, it never feels like I have done enough.  It never feels like there is time to do enough.  Maybe if I could get by with less sleep. 

I sat down to write this, and what really keeps popping into my head is "WHO AM I" and even though I guess I know the answer, I still wonder how it will be when I look back on my life and my children's childhoods.  Will I be proud of who I was?  Will I wish I had done it all differently?  If I were to go back to lawyering, would I feel like I was making a bigger difference?  Would I feel more important?  Would I feel smarter and more stable?  If I do not ever practice law again, but instead cobble together some sort of career from photography and/or writing and/or being a mother, will I miss the routine of an office job?  Will I feel like I haven't done enough with my life?  Or will I always be grateful that whatever time I have - though it may never feel like enough - is time that I can spend in ways of my own choosing, pursuing goals and tasks that matter to me, if not deeply, then at least truly and personally?  I honestly do not know the answer.

And also, wow.  Will I ever write anything that's not about the workings of my own mind?  And if not, should I still write anyway?

*(Every time I hear or think the word "rudderless," I get the Lemonheads song of the same name going through my head.)

returning

Oh, hello there!  Let me introduce myself.  Actually, I have a hard time with introductions these days, because one of the first questions people ask is something about what you DO, and I don't have a good answer right now.  I'm a stay at home mom, sort of.  I'm unemployed (and still collecting unemployment, for another week and a half).  I'm a(n) aspiring photographer.  I'm the wife of the director of music here at the church.  I sing in the choir.  Grudgingly, but with a smile, I admit that I'm licensed as an attorney in Illinois, although not here in Indiana. 

It turns out that I'm relatively uncomfortable with general uncertainty.  (Gee, who knew?)  I am happy, these days, most of the time, most of each day, with most of the parts of my life.  The days pass so much more quickly than they used to in Chicago - or wait, actually, that's not exactly true, because most days here I feel like I can get so much more done - and can definitely run more errands and go more places - than I usually could on a day in Chicago.  But in a way the days feel faster, because most days and most weeks I find myself willing them to slow down.  There is never enough time to manage to do everything that I want to do, and yet almost every day brings something to look forward to in a way that many days didn't back when I was working as a claims attorney in downtown Chicago.  I have no long crowded commute to dread.  I have no angry customers.  I'm not at the mercy of a corporation that's going to keep changing the rules that I am supposed to abide by.  I don't have endless phone conferences with people who are mad at me.  In fact, I hardly ever deal with anyone who's mad at me!  Other than sales clerks and restaurant staff and the UPS guy, I hardly interact with anyone with whom I didn't choose to interact.  I see my husband, my kids, my mom and dad and stepmom and brother and his girlfriend and their two kids.  I see a couple of neighbors, briefly, occasionally.  I see Katie's first grade teacher and Annabel's preschool teachers.  I see the people who sing in the two church choirs that I sing in, too, and I see people who attend church services on Sunday. 

I have explored the area around Fort Wayne quite a bit - various parts of the city, the corn and soybean fields surrounding the city, quite a few parks and nature preserves, and many of the small towns 10 or 20 or 40 miles away.  I take my camera and set off with a particular destination or no destination in mind, and I come home feeling like I accomplished something.  There is not as much to explore as there was in Chicago, and I really miss my Chicago wanderings, but on the other hand, I can explore quite a bit even if I only have an hour of time to myself, and that was something that I really couldn't do in Chicago.  I have a GPS now (we bought it with points for me for my birthday), so I can wander to my heart's content, and when I'm ready to go back, I only have to hit "home" and I can find my way back.  "You have arrived...home," the robot voice will announce, and for the first several times I heard that, I felt something resonate inside me.  Home. 

Speaking of our home, I love it.  At least once a week, and usually more, I am somewhat overcome by how much I enjoy living in this house.  You see, I was really unhappy about a lot of aspects of living in our condo in Chicago, but I'd half-convinced myself that I was just becoming a person for whom the grass was *always* so much greener, and that living in a house wasn't going to make me any happier - I'd just find new things to be upset about.  I am relieved to discover that this is not true.  I love that the girls each have their own bedroom.  I love having two floors, and not having anybody living below us (or above us).  I love having our own front yard and backyard and attic and basement - with our own washer & dryer.  I love having two bathrooms.  I love the cozy den with wood paneled walls and wall to wall carpet (even though it's so stained it's ridiculously ugly), and I love that none of the other rooms downstairs have a television in them.  We bought some Halloween decorations for the first time, and we are going to put up Christmas lights on our house for the first time ever. 

What do I miss?  I miss my friends in Chicago and the ability to get together with any of them for a (relatively) quick lunch.  I miss the endless bounty of places (beaches, woods, streets, museums, churches, neighborhoods, restaurants, parks, and on, and on, and on) to explore.  I miss really yummy Thai yellow curry chicken, delivered or picked up. I miss being in a place where I had a history, interacting with people with whom I shared years of history.  I miss the sense of excitement and wonder I had when I would explore new parts of Chicago.  I miss being in a really big city. 

I don't miss our huge mortgage payment (supposedly the sale of our condo will close sometime this month) or our condo.  I don't miss the traffic.  I don't miss the panicky anxiety about whether we'd be able to pay bills each month.  I don't miss the politicking and gameplaying that had gone on at both mine and Geoff's jobs. 

I miss feeling like I knew what the future held for me, although it's been awhile since I felt like I knew that. And honestly, I guess I am maybe becoming more comfortable with uncertainty than I used to be, because I recently had a phone interview for a job as an underwriter with an insurance company, and although the job itself sounded like it would be ok (and a few people I've talked to have said that the company itself is known for being a wonderful employer), the idea of going back to an office to work in a cubicle (or best case, probably, a windowless office with industrial gray walls) from 9-6, day in and day out, doing a job I don't really care about, with two weeks of vacation a day (until five years of employment, at which time I'd earn a third week) makes me feel trapped.  As I (not melodramatically at all) said to Geoff, "It would feel like a kind of prison." 

I know that really, if I took a job like that (if in fact I were to even get offered a job like that, which hasn't happened yet), I would adjust to a return to that kind of daily routine, and it would not feel like prison.  It would not be the worst thing.  And it would be a very good thing for one of us to have a job that provided health insurance benefits. 

So I've been thinking about this, about my reaction to the idea of going back to a job like the one I had for 7.5 years, and I think that maybe I am just ready to have an adventure, or ready to continue this adventure that we have already begun.  I am ready to see whether I could really earn any money as a photographer, or at least whether I can earn as much as I've been making on unemployment.  I think maybe I could.  I think maybe I can.  I don't want to take another job unless it's a job I am really excited about.  Could that happen?  Maybe that could happen.  If there is any time when it could happen, I think that that time is now.  I admit, though, that I want more than that.  I don't just want to try to make some money as a photographer, because I could probably squeeze that in in addition to a full-time job, a few times a year, at least.  I want more than that.  I want time with my husband and kids, and I want a flexible schedule, and I want to keep spending my days and my time doing things that I care about.  It could be that this is too much to ask, but the hell with that.  For now, I'm going to ask anyway. 

And speaking of spending time doing things I care about...another thing I miss is writing here. 

life with you

Geoff is gone, having lunch and a visit with a friend, and Katie is at school.  Annabel and I are here alone.  She is watching Sesame Street, mostly, and I am puttering around on the internet, reading an article about Roger Ebert in Esquire, checking Facebook, looking at photos on Flickr, and drinking a diet Coke.  I am wearing my sock-monkeys-in-Santa-hats pajama pants, and a gray tshirt, and I have a prayer shawl around my shoulders.  There is a prayer shawl ministry at church; several members of the church (all women, at this point anyway) knit or crochet shawls in soft yarns, and later they are blessed and given out to those who are ill or grieving or "experiencing life struggles."  Geoff presented it to me last night when I got home from my trip to Indiana over the long weekend, and when he did, I teared up.  I do feel that I am experiencing a life struggle, it's true. 

In our home it is peaceful and boring and cozy, and I get up from the computer and walk a few steps into the living room, where Annabel is standing, pushing up and down on her tiptoes in her Mary Janes (she mostly insists on wearing shoes or boots even when we're in the house; sometimes she also insists on wearing gloves or hats or sunglasses; she will not, however, allow me to leave any accessories in her hair for more than a minute or two).  She sucks her pacifier like Maggie on The Simpsons - regularly and determinedly.  I lean down over her, across her, and wrap my arms around her round toddler belly.  She leans her head with its soft blonde hair against me, looks up at me, and smiles faintly.  She is engrossed in her show, mostly, which she requests by name ("sess seet").  Still, she tolerates my embrace.  I pick her up gently.  "Woo, woo, woo."  I set her back down. I pick her up, "woo woo" at her, set her back down.  She chuckles just a little bit.  She is happy to have a little bit of attention, to know that I remember that I am not alone - that she is here with me - but she is mostly content to watch her show a few feet away from me and my silliness.

As I am lifting her up the third time, I think at her, "I could have lived a life without you in it," and I am overwhelmed with gratitude that that did not happen.  

I put her back down on the rug, gently.  She stands, shifting her weight a little bit, where I put her, looking unreasonably small for a human with her own individual personality and preferences. 

I come back to the computer and type this out, making myself teary in the process.  I look back at her when I am done, and I see that she has managed to pull on a pair of gloves.  I smile at her and tell her I love her.  She gives me a little smile, turns to the tv, and dances to the music that's on, looking at me out of the corner of her eye, making sure I'm watching.  I am.  Her smile gets wider, her pacifier pushed over to the corner of her mouth to make room. 

peace and the unknown

I have spent a lot of time in the past year telling myself that I would feel better if my future life were more certain.  If I knew where we'd be in a year or two.  If I knew what city we'd be in, what house we'd live in, what jobs we'd have, what school Katie would attend.  If I knew that we were going to emerge on the other side of this un-insured time healthy (and not bankrupted by some emergency or illness that had taken place in the meantime).  If there wasn't so much that was unknown.  If there wasn't so much that was up in the air.  That was what was bothering me, I told myself (and Geoff) - that I didn't have any real idea what our lives would be like in the future. 

My photography business could succeed, but will that happen before my unemployment benefits run out?  Will I have to take a part-time job working retail?  Will I end up accepting a temp job, legal or non-legal?  Will I end up back in an office, working as a lawyer?  If I do, will I have time for photography work?  I've applied for some jobs out of the area - if I get one of those, will we leave Chicago?  And for where?  Somewhere closer to my family?  Somewhere else that's not close to anyone we know, but that's exciting to us for other reasons?  Should we try to stay in this condo until we can make some money from selling it, or should we just cut our losses and try to get out now?  Should we stay in it as long as we're going to be in Chicago anyway?  Or should we sell it either way?  What's going to happen to us when my unemployment benefits run out later on this year? 

I'm sure that this kind of uncertainty is hard for most people.  I know that it's been hard for me.  I have thought often about what I read in Stumbling on Happiness a few years ago, that possibly the biggest single factor in determining a person's level of happiness or contentment is the amount of control that she (or he) feels she has over her life (ironically, the author points out that depressed people are likely to have a more accurate view of the amount of control they are truly able to exercise over their lives).  In so many ways, for several years now, I have struggled to feel in control of my life. I have been waiting to get back to a place where I can look forward to next year, or even next month, and know what will be happening in my life.

Last Saturday night, a friend of ours from church treated us to a concert downtown performed by the St. Olaf choir.  It was a wonderful performance full of beautiful, moving music.  (Go see them if you get a chance.)  There was one piece, though, that stood out for me not because of the performance, or even because of the music itself, but because of the lyrics of the composition.  The piece - "This House of Peace," by Ralph M. Johnson - had been commissioned for the opening of a medical center in Oregon, and the lyrics included both a Gaelic blessing (as the chorus) and real words taken from letters written by loved ones of people who had been treated at the healing center (as the verses).  The last verse includes: "We live moment to moment now,/ not knowing what next will be./And in this unknown, I live in peace./She is sleeping well."  

At the very end of the piece, the lyrics repeat: "And in this unknown, I live in peace."

And in that moment, as the soloist's voice rang out through the sanctuary, I had my own epiphany.  I realized, suddenly, that the future is always unknown.  Here I have been thinking that once I had a job, or once we had a home we never planned to leave, or once we had financial security, or once we had health insurance, that I would know what my future held, and that the future would no longer be a vast unknown.  But in that moment, in a flash of intuition, I realized although we may sometimes have the illusion of knowledge and stability, that in a very real way, we never actually know. 

I never knew that I would be involved in a car accident in the summer of 2006 that would total our car and leave the other driver dead.  Katie and I could have easily been killed, too.  I didn't know, when we bought our condo, that it was not the sound financial investment that we thought it was; we were sure at the time that we would not live here for more than a year or two.  I never knew that out of all of our family members who attended mine and Geoff's wedding, including grandfathers in their 80's (and one of mine who is now 90), that the only person who would not live long enough to see our fifth wedding anniversary would be Geoff's sister Stephanie.  I never, ever even thought that the way I would leave my former place of employment (where a claims department had been in operation for at least forty years) would be because my employer would shut down the entire department and lay all of us off at once.  

There are good unknowns, too: I never knew I would marry my best friend after meeting him on the internet, or what amazing personalities my children would have (and when I would have them), or the fact that losing my job would turn me into an aspiring professional photographer within the year.  

I have been waiting, you see, for the knowing.  I have been waiting for more certainty in my life, assuming that once I had that, I could be less anxious, less fearful.  I have been waiting for stability to bring me peace.  And while it is true that my life has certainly had more dramatic upheaval and change in the past few years than most people's probably have (and certainly more than my life had in the few years before that), there will always be changes that can not be anticipated.  There will always be frightening unexpected occurrences that pop out of nowhere, and stressful events that I don't handle the way I thought that I would, and (thankfully) wonderful surprises that spring out of the mist to greet me.  And if I wait until my life is constant and stable before I allow myself to feel at peace, then I may never feel at peace. 

I want to feel some peace. 

At dinner after the concert, I told Geoff and the two women that we'd gone with (both of whom are friends of ours from the church) about the epiphany I'd had during the concert, about how we are always living in the unknown, and about how I wanted to find peace, regardless.  At home that night, half joking, I told Geoff that I wanted to give up when it came to trying to figure out what to do with my life (with our lives), and that maybe it was time to do what the church's interim pastor had suggested in a sermon awhile back - that when we no longer knew what to do, we should "give it to God," admit that we were not in control, and ask for help.  "I am ready to give up," I told Geoff.  "I do not know what are the best choices for us to make right now.  I want help."  I decided that maybe I needed to believe the idea we had explored in my Mondo Beyondo course - that "something greater is holding me," and that the universe has a way of working things out.  Just the idea that this was a possibility - that I could stop worrying about it - that God or the universe would deal with all of the agonizing implications arising from every tiny decision - made me feel a little bit better.  I don't know if it's true, but I don't need to.  Just the idea that it might be - that it's ok for me to stop trying to line up and piece together the 582 different future scenarios my life could include - gives me some peace. (And there is that other truth I've realized over the past few years: no matter how much I expect and prepare for the worst, it does not seem to make the worst any less painful, when and if it does happen - all it does do is make the previous days more painful.)

Anything can happen at any time, I told myself.  But for now, we are all right.  We are healthy, and we have clothes and a home.  We have friends, and family, and computers, and televisions, and cell phones.  We will strive for peace in the now, without knowing what will happen tomorrow. 

The very next night, our church - where Geoff has been the director of music, and which we as a family have attended and participated in for the last five years - was set on fire by a member of the congregation. The sanctuary and offices are mostly destroyed.  The outer walls are mostly intact.  Geoff's piano is ruined, and his personal music collection (thousands of dollars worth of music collected over decades) is largely destroyed.  

You may expect some pithy ending to all of this.  I don't have one.  Except that Geoff could have been at the church that night, working on some things, and he wasn't.  The fire could have been set on Thursday night, when Geoff was at the church, working on some things, and it wasn't.  Someone, including the man who set the fire, could have been killed, but no one was.  Geoff could have lost his job, but he hasn't.  Insurance will cover not only rebuilding the church (although it's possible that the total rebuild could cost more than the insurance policy limit, it will at least cover the vast majority), but also Geoff's piano and most (if not all) of his music. 

Already there is something amazing happening at the church, too, which is that the community is coming together in ways that I haven't seen while we've been there.  The huge loss of the church building that so many of its members have cared so much about for so many years has caused grief that we are all sharing, together.  It is a reminder, as so many sudden losses are, of what matters most.  And just as I will never be grateful to my former employer for leaving me without a job (especially in a time when finding a new job has been, and continues to be, so difficult), I do not give thanks to the arsonist for starting this devastating fire that destroyed so much of what was once (and what will surely be again) a beautiful building beloved by so many.  And yet it would also be wrong to fail to notice the good that so often does arise out of loss, or to fail to realize that sometimes the events that endanger our previous stability the most are the same events that create new possibility.  They may even show us where our real strengths lie. 

Or at least this is what I am telling myself, even in the midst of my own grief and confusion.  And even in the midst of this grief, knowing even less about tomorrow than I did a few months ago, I am amazed to find that I do have some measure of peace. I try to hold it close to my heart, for as long as it will stay.

adjusting the lens

Even before we made an offer on our condo, we knew it was not our ideal home.  We wanted 3 bedrooms - one for guests, since neither of us have family in town.  We wanted 2 bathrooms, or at least two toilets.  We would have really liked air conditioning.  We would have liked a spacious tub (with jets, even!), a new sink and toilet, a bathroom floor that was tile instead of vinyl.  We would have liked pretty granite countertops, and wood cabinets, and new appliances.  We would have liked an open floor plan, where a person cooking in the kitchen could have carried on a conversation with a person sitting in the living room or dining room.  And oh, we really would have loved our own washer & dryer. 

If our home didn't realize all of our dreams, it did satisfy all of our requirements, plus some.  There was parking (and not just a designated space, but a spot in a garage).  There were two bedrooms plus an office.  There was a living room and a separate dining room.  There was storage space (we have half of the space in the basement).  There was a shared (and free) washer and dryer in the basement.  There was a small balcony on the front that appealed to our (or at least to my) romantic sensibilities.  Pets (both dogs and cats) were allowed, and there was a fenced in backyard where we could let out the dog.  We loved the hardwood floors, and found the crown molding (in a few rooms) and glass blocked window (in the entryway staircase) charming.  And we could (barely) afford it.

In the first year or two after we moved in, I painted every room (floral wood, silver sage, tuscan beige, Del Sol, magic spell, thyme green, and a gentle pink color for Katie's room that I don't remember the name of).  We fantasized that one day, when the value of the place had increased, we would refinance the place and redo the kitchen and the bathroom.  We would put new cabinets in the kitchen (the current ones, our inspector had pointed out, were never properly attached to the wall) and install a new countertop (we could not, our inspector warned us, install a granite countertop without also getting new cabinets, since the current cabinets were so weak that the countertop would likely collapse them).  We would put new tile in the bathroom, both on the wall (our inspector said that the tile, too, had never been properly laid) and on the floors.  We would refinish or replace the scratchy-bottomed tub.  Maybe we would convert the hall closet into a space for a tiny washer & dryer.  Maybe we would install French doors on the office entrance, to make a better guest space.

Fast forward to now, 3.5 years after we moved in, and the value of our home has not increased.  I took a pay cut in October, and will lose my job in March, and the idea of redoing our kitchen or bathroom seems like a ridiculous pipe dream.  Instead, we live daily with various inconveniences.  The burners on the stovetop don't adjust well.  The cabinets are still hanging onto the wall, but I regularly examine the seam between the back of one cabinet and the wall to see if it's widened (so far, it hasn't visibly grown, but often, as I'm putting heavy dishes into the cabinet, I imagine it crashing onto the floor, and wonder, in a semi-detached way, whether the fall would happen slowly enough to give me time to move out of the way fast enough).  The oven doesn't heat to the right temperature (we adjust for it), and long ago the handle ripped off of the refrigerator door (we just pull on the side of the door).  Almost every time I load and unload dishes into the dishwasher, the wheels on the rack of the dishwasher fall off (they snap back on).  There is one tile on the bathroom wall, above the faucet, that routinely falls off the wall and into the tub.  ("Mommy!  Daddy!  The wall fell off again!" Katie will call out to us.  We push it back into place.)  And last week, the gutters (and the part of the house attached to them) fell off of one side of our building.  (Insurance will cover it as storm damage, a result of all the snow and ice this winter, but there's a deductible.) 

Then there is our clutter and mess.  I can sweep the kitchen and dining room at 8 am on Monday only to have clumps of dog and cat hair floating around by 8 pm Monday night.  There are four of us living here now, and each room is jam-packed with stuff.  Right now, in addition to all of our usual furniture, our home contains a Jumperoo, a high chair, and a baby swing, not to mention a Christmas tree that we still haven't taken down (the ornaments are off, at least; soon the tree must follow).  Annabel's crib is in our bedroom, and Katie's room has a bunk bed and shelf and desk set-up that leaves almost no room to turn around in.  There is a cheap Ikea futon in the office for guests that is a complete pain in the neck to flatten and fold up again.  The laundry and the dishes and the sweeping are overwhelming and never ending. 

And then there are the people living in the home.  Katie is almost five years old, a wild tornado, leaving destruction in her wake.  (We do make her help clean up, most of the time, but there is still plenty left for us, too.)  Annabel has not slept through a single night in her life; I feel like a miracle has taken place if she only wakes me up once.  She's on the verge of crawling, and we find ourselves scouring the living room rug multiple times a day to clear away anything that she could stick into her mouth and choke on (where does it all come from?).  I have been living with a job that has left me feeling by turns exhausted, angry, hopeless, and trapped (sometimes all at once), and now I am free of the trap (we're all laid off effective March 9th; that is a story that still needs to be told), but anxious about the future.  (My insurance covers all four of us.  My salary is more than 2/3 of our income.  My 401k is the only retirement plan we have, not that it has much value at this point.)  Geoff stays home with the girls, trying to juggle housework and dinner preparation and Annabel's naps and Katie's preschool with his own job at the church. 

Tuesday night Annabel woke up to nurse when I went to bed, then again a few hours later.  Within 10 minutes after I laid her back down in her crib, Katie appeared at the door, telling me she'd peed the bed.  I cleaned her and her bed up, tucked her back in, and found I couldn't go to sleep until almost an hour had passed.  I had just fallen back asleep when Katie appeared at the door again, telling me she'd had a nightmare that was too "horrible" to even talk about.  I took her back to her room, tucked her back in, rubbed her back and sang her "Edelweiss," and went back to bed myself.  Within 15 minutes, Annabel was awake again.  After I put her back to bed, we all slept for another 3 hours.  It was a rough night, admittedly much worse than most. 

It can get disheartening, sometimes.  Some days it seems like we will always worry about space and money and potty training and sleeping through the night.  Some days it seems like every step forward is followed by at least one equal step back. Some days I realize that I am looking at the days as part of a long struggle that I feel like I should have conquered by now.  I have been a lawyer for over 10 years now.  I will be 40 next year.  I feel, sometimes, like I should be doing better than this. 

And yet last night, as I stirred a batch of chocolate pudding on the stove (you have to stir the pudding constantly, which leaves room for deep thinking), listening to music on the CD player in the kitchen, and hearing the sounds of Katie and Annabel in the bath (and the occasional murmurs of Geoff, with them), I realized the likelihood that one day, this will be a time I look back on with great nostalgia.  One day, we may wax fondly about the stupid wheels that fall off of that dishwasher rack, and almost certainly we will laugh about that bathroom tile falling into the bathtub, because as frustrating as those things may be to us now, they are minor inconveniences in the middle of what is, in so many other ways, a wondrous blessed time in our lives - a time when Annabel and Katie are learning to be friends, when Katie's imagination is taking off in ways that amuse and impress us every day (in the past few weeks she has introduced us to at least five alter-egos/imaginary friends: Lunda, Lund, Blenda, Lenda, and Frank), when Annabel's babbling starts to sound like a language (ticka ticka dada blauuuuu), when the four of us are learning to be a family.  I come home from work, and Annabel kicks and yells happily, open-mouthed, to see me.  Katie yells, "Mommy!" and runs to give me a hug.  I know that as much as I am looking forward to seeing them grow up, I will miss them the way they are now.   

It occurred to me, as I stirred the pudding, that maybe one day I would even miss the way that I can so easily satisfy so many of my girls' needs.  When Katie wakes up in the night after a bad dream or after having wet the bed, I can help her.  When Annabel wakes up in the night hungry or upset, I am able to give her what she needs.  For each of them, I am able to be her comfort, able to solve her problem, able to put things right again so that she can go back to sleep.  How much more complicated will their problems be when they are older?  Will I wish for problems like today's (despite the sleep deprivation they cause)?

I do believe that the not-so-good things will get better.  I do believe that one day our finances will be in order, that both Geoff and I will be bringing in regular salaries, that eventually our student loans will be paid off.  I believe that one day we will have 2 bathrooms (or at least an extra toilet!), and that no tiles will be falling off of our bathroom walls.  I believe that someday we will have a guest bedroom, and our own washer & dryer. 

And so I am resolving to try to experience these days through a filter, imagining how I will feel when I look back on them from a future existence, thinking kindly of them the way I expect I will when I am no longer living them.  It is not so much a matter of pretending that I like the things that currently bother me; it's a matter, I think, of adjusting the lens through which I view those things.  In the whole picture, they can be small.  They can be background.  They can be out of focus.  (They can be bokeh.)  

I spend too much energy worrying about what we don't have, wishing for some ideal situation that I can almost guarantee I will never have.  It's silly, this waiting around for the ideal to become real, when I have so much to appreciate right now.  My husband is my favorite person in the whole world, and I would not want either of my daughters to be anybody other than who they are. We are all healthy and strong and full of love for each other.  Our condo is cozy and bright, and it's home.

How much better would it be if I am able to recognize the good in what I've got now, while I've got it, instead of only looking back later and missing it when it's gone?  How much happier will I be?

Let's try to find out.

Weekend update

Katie is having quiet time in her room right now (which perhaps may become a nap), and Geoff is taking a nap, and I am eating root beer float ice cream.  It is DELICIOUS.  This is the second gallon I've plowed through on my own...TODAY!  Ok, kidding, no.  In the past two or three weeks.  I am pretty sure I'm the only one eating it, though, and the second gallon is almost gone.  As I was just dipping myself this cup of ice cream next to me, I was thinking, "WHY didn't I just buy two gallons the last I was at the store?  That would have been so smart!"  But alas.

(I don't really have the energy or focus or skill set at this time to write an entry here that is polished and related to a single topic.  I'm just going to babble for a little while.)

I am reaching the end stage of pregnancy now, as far as how I feel.  Bending over is still not so bad, because I tend to squat instead of bending straight over, but getting up from a prone position has a tendency to make me feel like a turtle on its back.  And OH, my aching back, if I walk for any length of time, especially at the end of a long day.  Geoff and Katie have started walking to her daycare almost every weekday, now, and on Wednesdays, when I work from home, I've walked with them.  It's a little over a mile away (even longer since we usually try to stay away from the busiest streets, which would be the shortest rout).  For Katie, this means if she walks there and back, she's walking two miles in a day, which we figure is a lot for a four year old; perhaps not surprisingly, she has been accepting bedtime and sleeping through the night so much better the past couple of weeks.  But for Geoff - and for me, if I come along - this is over four miles in a day.  On Wednesday I was a little tired on our way home in the morning, but by evening, I was HURTING.  And yesterday I walked to the el in the morning, which is around three quarters of a mile, and that was fine.  But walking home from the station at the end of the day damn near felt like it was going to make me collapse.  When I got home, I walked up the stairs one step at a time; I just didn't have the energy to climb them any faster.  Today we walked to Ihop (and back) for brunch, and by the time we climbed the stairs at home, I was just about as tired, practically limping up the stairs. 

We had a nice Easter.  When I thought about Easter this year, I thought often about what I wrote here, back in 2001, about how often we live in a Good Friday kind of world, where dreams are crushed, and where despair triumphs over hope - where the worst possible outcome is the most common kind of outcome, and where hard work and a good heart don't seem to get you much of anywhere.  The past year or so has been that kind of year, and it put me in that frame of mind.  For awhile, I've been a pessimist, or at least much more than I ever was before.  But this year, as Easter rolled around, I realized how much better I have been feeling lately.  I am feeling good again, feeling once again like my future still holds promise, feeling both that I am blessed to live in this world and that the world is blessed to have me in it.  The pregnancy has helped with that, of course, and even though I'm still aware that huge things could still go wrong with that, I'm willing to bank on things going right. 

If you haven't, I wish you could meet my daughter, because she is seriously awesome.  She's smart and funny and imaginative and sweet.  She tells me out of nowhere that I am beautiful or "simply lovely."  She tells us stories and wants to play pretend with us.  She has started requesting a napkin at the start of dinner, if we've forgotten to give her one, instead of wiping her mouth on her sleeve.  She has stopped fighting bedtime lately - when I tuck her in and leave her room at night, she is often smiling at me.  She is really excited about being a big sister, although she does seem mildly concerned about what exactly is going to happen that will get the baby into our lives.  I've explained to her where the baby will emerge, but she keeps worrying that my belly is just going to burst open at some point. 

I sure hope not, but there have been some days lately when I've been a little worried about that myself.  This baby kicks and wriggles harder and more often than Katie did at this point in the pregnancy; Katie's movements, while frequent, never actually hurt me.  I can't say the same for this time around. 

So, overall.  A good week.  A good month, even.  I'm happy.

all those things I've always been

What I am realizing lately, more than anything, is that if I take it day by day, and let go of past misery and loss, then each day carries itself - and me - forward.  Each day is pretty good.  Days like today: I made pancakes, played with Katie, drank coffee Geoff made me, put Katie's hair in pigtails (on request) and took a few pictures (including the one below - it's hard to be sad when you're living with THAT), took Katie to daycare (and got lots of hugs and kisses - I hardly ever drop her off), worked from home all day, listened to music, washed some dirty windows and mirrors, worked out to a The Firm DVD in my living room, took a shower, ate a salad for lunch in the backyard (with Geoff, in the sunshine), played with the dogs (ours and the neighbors').  This is a good day, not even over yet.  Day by day, things are pretty good.

I wrote this in mid-August:

I am still angry about the miscarriage.  I'm angry about the fact that it is now 20 months since we started trying to get pregnant (and I'd been wanting to try for a second child for around 6 months before that, but we waited for the start of the year so that new insurance would kick in), and I have nothing to show for it except a lot of grief and disappointment, not to mention physical discomfort.  I am angry that I have put too much stock into the idea that I could get pregnant at any time, so I have foregone making plans for too many other things. 

I'm not just angry, though; I'm also sad.  And tired - Katie has not been sleeping well lately, sometimes waking me up as often as four times a night, and almost always at least once.

I have been hard on myself for a lot of things, including feeling bad. Yesterday Eliza and I talked, and she suggested that when we went home that night we should make it a goal to do something nice for ourselves, to be kind to the ones we love, and to spend that time with open hearts.  And you know what?  It made a difference.  I came home, and Katie and I made chocolate chip cookie dough, then ate dinner, then she took her bath.  After she'd been in the bath about five minutes, she called out, "Mommy, aren't you going to take a bath with me?"  I was tired, and a little headachy, and my first instinct was to say "no, not tonight," but I stopped myself, and thought about opening my heart, and I said yes.  Baths with Katie involve a lot of splashing and tickling and laughing. It was a good way to spend 30 minutes or so.  And then we got out, and it started to rain, so she ran out onto the front porch, naked, to feel the cold rain on her little body.  After a little while, I put her in her nightgown, and put her to bed.  After she was in bed, I looked at the pictures I'd taken during the day, and I uploaded some to Flickr.  And after that, I drank some green tea and did some yoga for beginners with a DVD I have. 

Things are very much the same now, but better (and with more sleep).  It is still painful, to work with a woman who was due 6 weeks before me, as she approaches her due date in October.  It still makes me rage, occasionally, against the universe and everything, about the unfairness of it all, although one ironic thing about the miscarriage is that my grief from it, as great and intense as it was, was (and is) less than the grief and depression that arose (and arises) from trying and failing to conceive, for month after month after barren month.  I have decided that the major reason for this is that the miscarriage was a large event that called for grieving, not just by me, but by almost everyone who knew me, whereas the seemingly endless months of infertility do not fit in with anything that I know how to grieve appropriately, and they do not lend themselves easily or comfortably to public support.  Each month of failing to get pregnant is certainly not worthy of the grief that the miscarriage caused me, but all of the months put together have affected me much more than the miscarriage.  Now that we are back in the months of trying to conceive, I find myself trying to hold onto a mentality that does not involve tallying up each month as another personal failure. 

When people wonder how I am, I am torn between explaining that I am still in mourning (not only for the miscarriage, but for the failure, so far, to have another child, and the knowledge that I may never have another child) and between explaining that I am good.  I am fine.  I am loving and loved, busy and happy, blessed and lucky.  All those things I've always been.

if you listen

We drove up to Door County, Wisconsin, the Sunday before Labor Day, the three of us.  We left after church, after bustling around to get ready, to get where we needed to be when we needed to be there, and then we were on our way, and after 5 hours or so, we were there. 

I'd never been to Door County before, but it will give you some idea of how I felt about it if I tell you that every hour or so I said something like, "This is wonderful."  "This is so nice."  "This is AWESOME." 

We stayed in a cottage we rented for two nights from a woman at the church.  There was a hammock right out front, a fire pit over to the side, and trees everywhere.  There were other cottages not too far away, and a lake you could see from the window.  There were two bedrooms, a living room with two couches, a fully-stocked kitchen (except for coffee filters - and I'll tell you, paper towels are not the same).  There was a sandy beach a mile down the road, and a petting zoo 20 miles down the road.  The weather was sunny and mild and just gorgeous.  There was no tv.  There were no phones, except for our cell phones (on roam).  There was no computer, no internet.  There was nobody else we had to see except each other and our dog, who also loved the trip. 

The first night we unloaded our stuff and looked around.  Katie went in and out the screen door, staying in sight, talking to Molly, talking to her imaginary friends, smiling, puttering around.  The dog was obviously in heaven.  After a little while, we put Katie in her bathing suit, grabbed towels, and drove over to the beach, which turned out to have one of the most gradual inclines of any beach I've ever been to, so that Katie could walk 20 feet ahead from us and still not be in water higher than the middle of her thighs.  I wore my camera around my neck and took picture after picture.  Later, when it was getting dark, we went back to the cottage and ate hot dogs.  Geoff and I drank beer.  We started a fire in the fire pit, got lawn chairs out of the storage shed, pulled green branches off of nearby trees, roasted marshmallows, and made s'mores.  Katie went to bed happily, and Geoff and I sat in the living room, with the lamplight glowing yellow, and talked.  I went to bed about an hour later, good-tired and sleepy.

The next day Katie was up with the sun, and I got up with her.  She and I and the dog walked to the water and looked at the sunrise.  Katie swung on the hammock.  We made bad coffee, ate breakfast, stopped in Baileys Harbor for better coffee, drove to a petting zoo in Sturgeon Bay, ate cheeseburgers and shared a piece of cherry pie at a local restaurant.  Later, there were naps.  When I woke up first, I pulled a jigsaw puzzle off of a shelf and worked on it while Geoff and Katie slept.  Later, we went to the beach again. 

Over and over, in the car and in the cottage, we listened to Elizabeth Mitchell's "You Are My Little Bird."  We all sang along. 

On Tuesday morning Katie woke up early again, and she and I walked around outside.  She put on her tutu with her PJ top and her yellow crocs, and lay in the hammock and wanted me to push her so it swung.  We took our time gathering our things, packing up, loading the car.  I decided it would be good karma to collect kindling for the next person who came to the cottage, since there had been kindling waiting for us, so Katie and I wandered around the grass, picking up sticks and carrying them to the pile next to the firepit while Geoff took his shower. 

Later, when we were almost ready to go but were lingering, I was pushing Katie in the hammock, and the sound of "If You Listen" floated out through the screens of the cottage windows.  (If you go here and click on "You Are My Little Bird," then "listen," you can hear the song yourself.)

(If you listen you can hear
Birds sing and flowers grow
If you listen you can hear
My love for you just grow and grow

In the silence that surrounds
Deep peace and love are found
In the days that will be here
My love will call you loud and clear

And in that silent place where loneliness is found
I'll wander through the open door to look for you
And in that magic place up high beyond the clouds
Floating in a sea of dreams, I'll sing to you

If you listen you can hear
Birds sing and flowers grow
If you listen you can hear
My love for you just grow and grow)

I looked around me, trying to listen, to see, to feel, as much as I could.  I pushed Katie and thought about her and that weekend and the peace of the moment, and how she was my baby, and how someday she will be grownup, and how this moment is in the meantime, in the middle.  She lay happily in her tutu and crocs and pajamas, eyes closed, smiling.

And while I pushed her silently, while I looked at everything I could, I looked around behind me, and Geoff was standing in the doorway of the cottage with tears in his eyes. 

(A small set of photos from the trip are here.)

for myself

scarf
Originally uploaded by jessamynnorth.

About a month ago (maybe more?) I decided to go to The Yarn Store and buy some yarn.  I was going to buy the prettiest, nicest, best and most beautiful yarn that I saw.  I wouldn't even look at the price.  (You don't really want to know how much I spent, and really, I'd rather not dwell on it.)

And so I bought that yarn you see up above, and I'm making myself a scarf.  With any luck, I will finish it this weekend, in time to wear it once or twice (or 10 times?  more?)  before the end of winter in Chicago.  Just looking at the unfinished scarf (throwing it around my neck every so often to see how long it's getting) makes me happy. 

I had never done any knitting when I took a knitting class in September of 2004.  Taking the class was a gift to myself - an hour or so every week that wasn't spent at work or doing housework or taking care of a baby.  The very first thing I made was a scarf, and I kept it for myself, because it had too many mistakes for me to willingly give it to anyone else.

Since then, I have knit scarves, children's sweaters, slippers, hats, and purses.  I kept none of them.  And almost without exception, I forgot, before sending my creation out in the world, to even take a picture of it. 

I figured it was time I made something for myself, a present to me, from me. 

I have a lot going on these days, in some ways.  At any moment, big changes could be afoot, and so I think I have been trying to keep myself in a constant state of readiness.  I try not to plan too much, do too much, push myself too much.  "I'll have enough going on soon enough," I think.  "I'm going to take it easy on myself."

But then the big changes don't happen, and I am left in the same place.  I haven't moved.  I haven't grown.  More specifically, I haven't written, I haven't taken many pictures, I haven't taken any classes, I haven't gone back to the gym, and I haven't gotten serious about dieting. 

I have no real wrap up for this.  Taking the time to write this is part of my (repeated) realization that writing is something that helps me stay happy.  When I stop, I'm hurting myself.  So I'm goin to try - again - to write here more often.  I hope that there are still people out there reading, of course.  But even if you're not, I'm going to have to do it for myself.