A poem or two for April

 You may know this one already: 

"Good Bones" by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine

in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,

a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways

I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least

fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative

estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,

sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind

stranger, there is one who would break you,

though I keep this from my children. I am trying

to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right? You could make this place beautiful.

You could listen here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/89897/good-bones

Snake

BY KATIE PETERSON

The thunderstorm came like a pot boiling over and the color

of water was made by that, all of a sudden, a pigment

more tropical than dense with the reflection of light.

Everywhere the scent of at least five different kinds of plants

lifted up. The desert can’t talk back but I believe

it breathes instead, breathes vivid when the water

wants it the water can’t wait and it breathes back.

I turned and went into the house.

Under the dining room table, a snake.

Green with a yellow stripe bisecting its back.

Motion ate each centimeter of floor

and air, scared, it makes sense to say, though there

exists or existed no safer time ever in which that shape

wouldn’t want to move, dead August being the exception

to this when heat makes molasses of all of us.

Why did I want to chase it out? I did, I got a rake and kept

making it make that beautiful scared

shape upon the floor, so clean.

Like two ice cubes rubbing each other

and too cold to melt. Nothing organized that fear.

Seeing the edges it found its way out.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57648/snake-56d23b5ae3965

Happy Easter!

 Alleluia, everyone! We made it to another Easter season! This is the season of new life - and of giving thanks for the lives we have and cherish. 

We've had a lot of living packed into the last few weeks. I left off with a story of death, but also of hope - a new saint, our friend's young child with Downs who died innocent of sin. We hosted a couple sisters not last week, and purgatory came up in our conversation. One of the sisters was very matter of fact about the fact that she had a life before the convent that would require some years in purgatory to atone for - and she felt we shouldn't sugarcoat the fact that atonement is a real and likely future for many of us. This is where people of faith might stumble along. Surely, surely, we won't die to be sent to an afterlife of atonement after all the suffering we undergo here.  

But since we are not that young and innocent soul like our friends' son, we just keep adding to the need for purgation, even when we think or perhaps we are atoning for past sins we committed when we were less concerned about punishment and death. But the more we grow spiritually, the more responsible we are for our failings, as unflashy as they might be. Here I am, post Easter gorging on jelly beans and feeling all sorry for myself because my kids are gone, and I lack purpose in life. Why do I so easily fall into this a sin of ingratitude after three days of glorious celebration together, or is this excusable post-party depression?

Of course, I am grateful for our Easter celebration - it was a particularly harmonious family gathering. All the kids came home to celebrate the Resurrection and their dad's fiftieth birthday and their little sister's ninth. She made a birthday wish list and the ninth thing on it was for everyone in the family to pay attention to her on her birthday because she was going to be alone with mom and dad when she is 10 (when her sister graduates from high school).

And so pay attention they did - we did not have a particularly silent Saturday during the Triduum. We went to the indoor arcade/amusement place and played laser tag and mini-golf and video games before having pizza and tacos for lunch. Then we went to the Vigil Mass together and sang our Alleluia's loudly from our full pew. And after the vigil we gorged on steak (some of us had given up meat) and ice cream cake and jelly beans and champagne before the Easter Bunny went to work sometime around 2 am. 

Fortunately, our kids now sleep in till at least nine, so the Easter morning sunrise was missed, but a celebratory brunch and egg hunt was had. We did not return to Church after 3 days of services (4 for the Catholic school kids), but we did give thanks for the day by taking a nice hike and then sitting down to another feast for dinner and more birthday cake - this time carrot cake - with close to 50 candles for my husband. 

I am full of gratitude for these birthday honorees, my husband and our youngest, and full of gratitude for the good news of the Easter story, and full of gratitude that our kids enjoy each other's company. We played a lot of games and just sat around and talked and ate and laughed a lot. It was a glorious weekend with much to be thankful for. Alleluia. Christ is Risen indeed.

After the rain

 The morning of our friends' son's funeral was gray and rainy, the kind of perpetual, misty rain that lasts all day. The cool, damp air required rain jackets that muted the white and bright clothing that we were asked to wear. Because the funeral was for a small child who died in innocence, the Mass was a White Mass, a time for rejoicing, celebrating a new saint. I wore a light colored dress with a white cardigan; my husband wore his tan suit. Our daughters wore their school uniforms - they came from and returned to school after the Mass. My friend who had lost her little boy wore a long white dress and her girls wore their First Communion dresses; her other two boys wore white pants and shirts and little vests of the kind made for First Communions or late baptisms. 

And yet, despite the celebratory dress, it didn't really feel like a moment for celebrating. 

After the Mass we all drove sedately to the cemetery for one last goodbye. The cemetery was tucked out of the way on a tree lined plot coated with bluebonnets. Other graves were planted with roses already blooming and other budding plants, as well as assorted statuary and totems of loved ones. It seemed like a relatively new cemetery; more than one gravesite was freshly covered.  Both my husband and I were surprised they did not lower the tiny pine casket into the grave while everyone was present. All the mourners followed the parents in placing a hand or a flower on the casket and pausing for a brief prayer for the grieving family, asking for the new saint's intercession.

Then we all gathered for a reception at an historic home that now usually hosts wedding receptions. All eight of my friend's siblings and their families were in town, along with her husband's brothers and of course the grandparents, and lots of friends from the kids' school. The mood lifted a bit as a slide show played, and everyone ate. Cousins and classmates ran around. Mutual friends reconnected or met for the first time. The parents thanked everyone for coming.

After the Mass, the graveside service, and the reception, the family was going to go back home to sit with family, to change clothes, to clean up. Two days later the other kids went back to school. Time to return to the routine. Life continues. 

This is the prettiest time of year in Texas. The bluebonnets are coating the hills all along the highways, with splashes of prairie-fire (also known as Indian paintbrush) and pale pink evening primroses and occasionally sunshiny coreopsis contrasting with the blues. The redbuds just finished their purple blush, and now the fresh yellow green of new leaves are brightening the trees.  

The wildflowers announce renewal and new life and joys of beginning again, even when life is heavy. Next year the bluebonnets will return. Perhaps in remembrance we'll go back to the cemetery to say a prayer, or send bluebonnets to the family.  Today's gospel about Lazarus reminds us that Jesus wept because he loved his friends. Even if we believe in the resurrection, we, too, weep because we love our friends. And yet life goes on. I just finished reading Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts" with my students - Icarus is drowning in a corner of the painting; war is waging as Auden stands in the museum, but the farmer keeps planting, travelers continue on their way, we go back to the work of surviving. 

Discomfort

 It occurs to me that perhaps I should title this post, "Beginning Again with Lent Pt 2."  I've taken a bit of a vacation from Lenten sacrifices. Last week was Spring Break, and amidst travel to New York and Boston and reuniting with family and friends, I have been very lax in practicing any sort of Lenten discipline, other than that travel is a discipline in itself in a way.

For instance, because of stormy weather over our final destination, home, on Thursday evening, the last leg of our travel, a flight from St. Louis to Austin, was cancelled. It was the last flight of the evening to that destination. We sat on the plane prepared to take off - in fact, we had taxied from the jet bridge - when the message came through that we had to wait. So we waited an hour on the plane before the flight was cancelled. Then, I had to wait in line to rebook a new flight. While I waited, I got on the phone to an agent and reserved a flight to San Antonio for the next evening, because all flights to Austin were full the next day. And I rented a car with the consideration that I could drive the 12 hours the next day and be home before this flight to San Antonio landed. Plus, I had the two girls with me, and the teenager is terrified by flying. With these reservations made, I stayed in line to see if I could get any vouchers. No vouchers were given because the cancellation was weather related, but the gate agent was able to book us on a flight that went first to Orlando and then to Austin that was leaving at 5:40 am - four hours later. 

When I conveyed this news to the girls, the teen started weeping because she didn't want to get on two more planes. However, I was calculating the time and cost of sticking with the rental car - shuttle or uber to a hotel at 1:30 in the morning, buy a few hours of sleep for a couple hundred dollars, find a ride back to the airport to pick up the rental, pay a couple hundred for the one way rental car, food and gas on the road, spend twelve hours of driving plus stops, returning the car the next day ... I hugged her and promised her that driving was more dangerous. 

Then we laid our coats on the ground and curled up on the airport floor to close our eyes for a few hundred minutes in supine position.  We might have slept an hour or two; it's hard to tell. 

The rest of the trip went as smoothly as can be expected, although a little turbulence made my daughter declare she never wanted to fly again. Our flights were packed with dozens of small children and their weary parents going to Disney World and returning from it. Their exhaustion confirmed my old decision to swear off Disney vacations - although we have enjoyed taking the kids to other amusement parks. 

Despite adding 12 hours to our trip and a terrible night of sleep, oddly enough I didn't mind the disruption. These are a part of the adventure of travel. In fact, I was slightly envious of the couple ahead of me in the line for the gate agent, even though they were taking their sweet time rebooking. The guy was a musician who was going to miss his gig in Austin, so they asked where could they go on a direct flight the next day that had a direct flight back to their home in New York on Sunday. They had a free ride to a 3 day vacation. I think they ended up going to Colorado or Oregon. What a liberating feeling to just go. 

Had this disruption happened at the beginning of our trip, we might have been more upset. And I have to say, the fewer people on the itinerary, the easier it is to deal with the discomfort. My two youngest are pretty mellow, other than the fear of flight. Sleeping on the floor wasn't a huge problem for them - or the lack of bathing. In fact, I had to make the youngest take a shower when we finally arrived home. She was ready to go play with her friend down the street in the same clothes she had had on for 2 days.  No big deal when you are 8. 

So did I think about offering it up? I actually did.  Just over a week ago, some dear friends, Navy friends whom we reconnected with here, lost their three year old son. He died in the early hours of the morning from complications from a virus. Perhaps because he had Downs, his little body couldn't fight it off. Their grief, and our own sorrow at his death, has sat heavily with me all week. And perhaps that is what helped make our own travel discomforts seem minimal.  Although I cannot know what the pain of losing a child is like firsthand, I have imagined it many times, have felt the fear of potential loss during a sickness or after an accident. What mother doesn't feel a sword pierce her heart occasionally? And yet, how we have been spared. How often potentials have never actualized.  Our little traumas are small compare to what others have suffered. 

So pray for them. Their son surely does not need prayers. They will have a White Mass next week - a mass of celebration because his heart was pure, and if anyone is in Heaven, it is children who died too young in their innocence.  This thought is a consolation, but it doesn't take away the pain of losing years together.  

Beginning again with Lent

Sometimes I look forward to Lent as a time of much needed renewal, and I plan ahead for it.  Other years, especially when Lent arrives early, I am caught off-guard. This year was in between. I did some prep, like signing up for a women's reflection group at our parish and ordering the devotional workbook, but when Ash Wednesday arrived last week, I still felt like Lent snuck up on me. A week in still feels like the beginning. 

Part of my lack of preparation on Ash Wednesday was due to being out of town the week before. We went to the mountains of North Carolina to see the house my husband designed for our cousins (they had a vision; he drew it). When we booked the trip (made possible by super sale airline tix), we laughed about it being our Mardi Gras celebration, And it was a lot of fun, until I broke my wrist at the roller rink Saturday night. The story should be that I slid while trying to win roller derby or that my husband tried to do snap the whip and sent me flying, but in reality, a reckless teen took me out from behind. Ironically, I had been trying hard to be cautious because I remember my mom breaking her tailbone while roller skating when I was a kid, and I wanted to be able to sit comfortably on the plane ride home.

After a trip to the ER (the benefit of a small town hospital - no wait at the ER even on Saturday night!), we continued to enjoy the time with family - unplugged, playing cards, making music around the campfire, etc. With my arm splinted up and wrapped in a trash bag, I even got in the hot tub. I just couldn't take a hike to a waterfall or sleep well, which was too bad because they had great mattresses. 

We returned home on Monday and had a Mardi Gras party on Tuesday as a fundraiser for our daughter, who was raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Our son did almost all of the gumbo prep and dessert baking and decorating with purple, green, and gold balloons and streamers. We STILL have beads left from our stay in Mississippi. A friend brought king cake, and I bossed the kids around with my arm splinted. I don't recommend Mardi Gras parties on the actual Fat Tuesday because you are left with leftovers. All those delicious things begging to be eaten on the fast day maybe makes the sacrifice more penitential.

Fortunately, I was able to get in to see our primary doctor Tuesday about my wrist to get a referral to an orthopedic surgeon by Thursday and surgery scheduled for Monday.  Now that we are in the civilian sector for medical care, I have some strong thoughts about insurance/medical issues - and my lesson this time is to call all the involved parties and talk to a person, even if on hold for hours, to make sure all the necessary paperwork gets submitted. I may have traumatized my girls by uttering a primal scream in the car Friday afternoon - after hanging up the phone -  when I thought I was going to have to reschedule surgery because some paperwork was submitted with wrong codes (Was my strong reaction a symptom of perimenopause or low blood sugar from foregoing lunch that day?). Thankfully, someone stayed after hours to correct it and get everything submitted. Maybe she heard my quivering voice mail. Thank you, kind human being.

So I had the weekend to be grateful and to continue to endure the pain of bone on bone grating in my wrist. I did not open my Lenten devotional until Sunday afternoon, after the priest had given me a blessing after Mass on my husband's sweet request. In the prayer he reminded me to unite me suffering to the Cross.  

I am not always thoughtful about offering it up, although I remind my children of this practice. I had been intentional about not ruining our vacation with complaints about pain, although I did feel sort of nauseous the rest of the weekend. And the ache in my arm, which ranged from dull ache to stabbing pain depending on how I moved or how much ibuprofen was in my system, made me think with compassion on all those who suffer chronic pain and how tiring it must be, but I didn't think of offering my pain. Perhaps it seems too transactional - I forego complaining, so God takes away someone else's pain. I know that's not the theological explanation, but it seems that way. 

Now in the second week of Lent - with a plate in my wrist after surgery on Monday (I am typing with one hand) - I am more intentionally offering up the pain and inconvenience of being one handed as one of my Lenten practices, or at least acknowledging the pain as a reminder of the suffering of others. The priest's comment has me thinking of the nails that would have been driven through Christ's wrists. When I woke up to shooting pain in my arm on Monday night I again thought about crucifixion as a horrific way to die. If breaking my wrist was enough to make me pass out from a vagal response, how could I have endured the worse pain of being beaten, broken, and carrying a cross.  

Before my surgery on Sunday night I had trouble sleeping. This was a minor surgery, but I was kept awake by anxiety nightmares about surgeries gone wrong. I dreamed I drank something and aspirated while anesthetized - although I was completely alert in my dream. Even though risk is minimal, it exists, and it's a reminder of the finitude of life. In the morning I texted messages of love to all the kids and gave extra hugs to those here. I regretted I wasn't more sympathetic when our boys had their ACL surgeries. I probably didn't recognize their nervousness enough.

Soon enough, surely by the end of Lent, this pain will fade, unlike the chronic pain that others suffer.  We've also started our other ways to fast, pray, and give, For instance, we have substituted the divine mercy chaplet for the rosary at bedtime, and that prayer is another reminder to think of the suffering of others above my own. We aren't eating sweets or meat or drinking alcohol - which I haven't wanted since being hurt, so it's not much of a sacrifice. My daughter added drinking milk, which I'm not sure is a spiritual practice, but she doesn't like it, so it is some kind of discipline for her.  This year I'm not doing the cheap coffee thing - partly because we are stocked up on coffee right now. Nor am I really cutting back on media, because I have done that already from a lack of time.  Instead we are trying to buy less and live on what we have. I thought I'd do the buy nothing thing during Lent, but we have some birthdays coming up, and the youngest needs new cleats for soccer and an Easter dress, etc, so instead I'm just trying to buy nothing unnecessary - of course, I bought pillows for the new chairs on Ash Wednesday - so not doing so well on that.

I'm not loving my Lent devotional so far, but I think I will enjoy the group at church. I have missed my ecumenical Thursday morning Bible study because I'm teaching on Thursdays. However, since I finished the Bible in a Year in February, I've started the Catechism in a Year. Already behind with that, but I am just listening to a few episodes now and then, rather than treating it as a daily obligation. I do need something good to read (I just finished a good YA novel about the 1989 overthrow of the Ceausescus, I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys. Definitely reads like a YA book, but it offers a good insight into life in the oppressive Communist regime in Romania.)

For giving, we've got our list of groups we give to financially, but I've also got snack bags for the people asking for money at the intersections. And we're talking about signing up for some family service project. Giving time is probably one of the harder disciplines.

If I grow in any way this Lent, may it be that I give up my urge to be in control and recognize my dependence, my need to of repair - I can't heal myself. I can't get through the day without help. I have to give up things I did with two hands like tying my shoes for a time. Fasting from things - meat and sweets and alcohol and shopping - is just a way of clearing the weeds for mediating time with Christ. May I use the freed time for that, for listening rather than telling and asking. Still hoping for clarity about what's next. Still learning to be grateful for our many gifts, still learning to be less self-centered, more aware of others' needs, still learning to love God and neighbor more wholly.

And here are some things I've been grateful for:

A trip to a farm to horseback ride with dear friends

   

A boy who had a birthday:

Swinging

Time in the mountains

breaking my left wrist and not my right

Young ladies lovely within

Aging

I started typing this almost two weeks ago - but it's still on my mind. 

Today, I am celebrating being a mother of 2 for half of my life - my second son is turning 25.  I have two 25 year olds for a month. My daughter told me that Rihanna, who performed the halftime show of the Superbowl the other night, is pregnant for the second time in a year - she can call me if she wants advice about having Irish twins!  When we were watching her performance (the only part of the event that I watched), I was critical of her dancing that seemed unenergetic - she seemed to just stroll around. The kids had said she had a baby who was 4 or 5 months old (internet says born in May 2022, so 8 or 9 months or so), so I thought that she was just struggling with post-partum weight, but low and behold, she is already several months pregnant! So now I feel guilty for being critical.

It is an interesting commentary on pregnancy in our culture that the announcers didn't say anything about this. Apparently, she had not announced she was pregnant before the show - but surely the broadcasters/producers/choreographers/whoever is in charge knew. I missed the introduction, so maybe they said something then, but the banter after the performance before the game started up again was inane and boring - 5 or 6 middle to old age guys in suits talking about how danceable her music is. Nothing about Rihanna being pregnant and having just had a baby in her mid thirties; she is almost a geriatric pregnancy, as they say when you pass 35. Or slightly kinder: Advanced maternal age. My daughter thought she was 36, but a quick internet search reveals she's only 34. 

Would it be more socially acceptable to talk about Rihanna having a baby or not to talk about it? Pregnancy used to be something to hide, and my daughter commented how you don't see pictures of pregnant movie stars very often. I think this is primarily to protect the privacy of their children (for instance, I saw an article about the dictator of North Korea that mentioned he had children but the age and even sex of the youngest is unconfirmable). But there is also a long history of not mentioning the ways that women are affected by their reproductive system. I had no understanding of how fertility cycles worked until I was preparing for marriage and learned about NFP. I thought I had a yeast infection the first time I had a fertile cycle in my teens.

Now I am entering that stage of life when my reproductive years are limited. I still have signs of fertility and fear getting pregnant, even though the chances of a 49 year old getting pregnant are about 1%. (I've looked it up. My cousin just had a baby at 47.) I don't have major symptoms of perimenopause other than I have trouble falling asleep and then wake up with night sweats, even though I am usually freezing when I lie down. My husband has mentioned shopping for a king sized bed because I'm like a unregulated space heater. And perhaps he would suggest that I'm moodier and more forgetful than usual. Perhaps I should say I'm seeing signs, but not suffering.

The other day I engaged in a conversation with an acquaintance that turned from elementary school news to supplements for perimenopausal women, and she filled my ears with the battery of pharmaceuticals she was taking - overwhelming! I feel like I need to do some extensive research. An recent article in the New York Times about "The Change" has widened the public conversation, also. I caught the end of an interview with the author on public radio the other night.  When the next generation of women, who were raised on the internet, go through this, it will be all over social media, but my generation is still whispering about it - or maybe I am just not in the right circles. 

The hypothesis to research is whether hormone replacement therapy has great enough benefits to justify the risks. I love being able to write "none" in the space for medications (although I admit, I take ibuprofen not irregularly), so I hesitate to take synthetic hormones after all these years of NFP.  On the other hand, heart disease runs in my family, and estrogen is supposed to protect against it.  I may look more into homeopathic supplements, although there's a part of me that is suspicious of any supplements - as well as lotions and creams.  For that matter, I am suspicious of the medical industry in general.

Not to mention the beauty industry - an article in the WSJ a few weeks ago was about how celebrities are choosing to age naturally. This is not the same naturally that I think of. They are still using creams and lotions and doing micro-needling and blading, and other procedures. They just aren't having surgery.

I am having surgery on Monday if the authorization from my insurance goes through. I broke my wrist roller skating last weekend, and it needs to be reset. I promise I didn't fall from clumsiness, although I was that - a big teen skating fast knocked me down.  Did my wrist break because I am middle aged or just because I fooshed? (fall on out stretched hand - I learned a new medical term!) Seeing as the little girl sitting on the bench next to me where I was catching my breath after vagelling also had a brace on her arm for a broken wrist, I think it would've broken if I were 29 or 19 or 9. That kid was skating hard!

More to come...