Weightlifting

On the treadmill, I set the time and increase the pace. Music pumps in my ears as I propel my legs on the machine to keep up with its demands. I push my boundaries and test this body of mine. I measure its output and assess its progress in preparation for the half-marathon in April.

Weight-lifters bend and stretch and grunt in front of mirrors. Trainers roam with their clients. People everywhere are trying to care for the bodies they’ve been given. Some work with desire to change it, to tweak it, to reach after some satisfaction. Some work with the desire to recover, to return to health, to make their tired bodies work another day. Some are living to make it work and some are making it work to live. The irony abounds as we stand next to one another on the treadmill. Continue reading

Raising Men

On a rare beautiful sunny January Saturday, we pour out the back door with a short window of Drew home amidst a busy call-weekend. In the garage, the oldest climbs aboard his “racing bike.” I help him around the car and through the driveway. Drew settles the youngest into the wagon and wrangles the dog on the leash. I place the helmet on the head of my little bicyclist and wait for the snap of the clasp under his little chin.

With one inaugural push, he pedals as fast as he can do the sidewalk. The farther he gets away from me, the more my heart begins to pound. It is as if my body is on overdrive as I begin to panic a bit. My eyes focus on the driveways to watch for cars backing out. My voice raises to attempt to slow him down, unsuccessfully. My feet can’t help themselves and I run after him. He’s five houses away from the intersection with Wilmington Ave and yet I’m sprinting full speed.

Does he really know how to stop when going so fast? I forgot to remind him to stop at the intersection before he took off, will he remember? Is he old enough for this? ~~He’s not ready~~. I’m not ready. Continue reading

In the Beginning

written on January 5, the first morning returning to work in the new year

“In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”

My 2015, I lay before the Creator. A shape-less, useless lump of clay. Wet and slimy, it sticks to my hands and I am overwhelmed. So much is yet to be known – what will be shaped from this day? This month? This year?

Will it be a strong structure that can withstand the wear-and-tear of whatever is to come? Will the structure created be so bound to the temporary that by 2016, it will be relegated to a shelf as a relic to days gone by.

Giving Thanks for the Christmas Circuit

Every Christmas, we pack up our lives and pile up the gifts. We drive south on I-65 and we begin our Christmas circuit that takes us all over the state. From house to house, we drag all our items out of the car (an obscene amount no matter the length of stay thanks to the little ones). Drew distributes and unpacks while I begin the vigilant watch of our 4 year old and 20 month old in new territory. Suddenly everything seems breakable or a choking hazard.

Christmas with two young ones is exhausting. Chasing them around leaves me so tired that 9:00 p.m. sounds like a perfectly acceptable bedtime. Watching them in new environments is a game of risk, a test of multi-tasking abilities while maintaining conversation, and a sport of trying to communicate with Drew through mere hand signals or looks that clearly say, “It’s your turn! I need a break!” Mitigating negotiation-deals with the four-year-old at every Christmas meal is always humbling while we sit in front of those who prepared the meal. He contorts his face and says in the whiniest, most pitiful voice he can muster, “I don’t like this. How many bites do I have to eat?” We unwrap presents and I practice my telepathy as I send eye-signals to the oldest to not immediately blurt out “we already have that” or “I don’t like that” or the most obnoxious, “Where are more presents?”

And yet, Christmas with two young ones warms the jaded adult heart like nothing else. Christmas morning in striped matching PJs, the boys jump up and down with un-matched glee as they see the stockings. From house to house, we get to watch our grandparents be great-grandparents to our boys. Our youngest’s shyness dissipates and he begins cackling and playing games with everyone. He plays peek-a-book, freezes, and shows his mean face. To watch my boys be known and loved by family – it is the greatest gift. Continue reading

A Few of My Favorite 2014 Things

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Kneeling at the Altar

His tiny hands rummaged through the ground and picked up the seed. Holding it before him, my oldest exclaimed with the joy of discovery, “Hey, Look!”

“It’s a buckeye seed,” my dad answered enthusiastically. “Remember what seeds do?”

In his little boy voice he echoed back, “They drop in the ground and turn into a new tree!”

My dad had begun the education on our way in the car. For the forty-five minutes it took to get from Brownsboro Road to pull through the gates, “Grandpa” did his best to describe in young-boy terms the formation of North America and the molecular wonder of creation. Staring out the window, my newly-turned four-year-old seemed both young and old at the same time. A filled-out boy frame with the ability to listen while still sitting in a car seat and distracted by bull-dozers by the side of the road.

It was November and we were finally fulfilling my dad’s birthday present – an afternoon hike to Bernheim Forest. Continue reading

Rushing, Rushing, Rushing… then it’s there… alleluia

Pushing the cart around Kroger at 5:00 p.m. and I think to myself – no one moves as fast as a mom squeezing in an errand before picking up the kids. Coffee filters. Eggs. Yogurts. The fuel that keeps this family running day to day. The next morning I find time FINALLY to sit down in the silence. The house is quiet. Yesterday has been cleaned up. Today is before me.

Rushing, rushing, rushing… and then it’s there…alleluia.

Standing in my closet, I frantically debate back and forth on the shoes before me. I first choose the bronze flats but soon reverse course. It’s a cold day and they won’t quite cut it. I place them back and pull out the red clogs. I think back to my college-self that wouldn’t be caught dead in the clogs. I place them on the ground and slip my feet in. I come downstairs and I remember who I am – one who is not defined by the choices I make in my closet.

Rushing, rushing, rushing… and then it’s there… alleluia.

Rounding the circle loop on the way to daycare, the sky shocks me out of my routine. Pink has broken out and splattered across the sunset. As my hands shift on the steering wheel and I slow down to take it in, it seems radical and extravagant. It seems like a extravagant painting that is being wasted on a busy mom rushing to get boys picked up and home for dinner.

Rushing, rushing, rushing… and then it’s there… alleluia.

30: BLINK. 30 years, 3 days, and Counting

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BLINK
Words from my dad on the occasion of my 30th birthday… presented over lunch with two squirming boys on a Sunday afternoon at a quiet spot (that is, until we arrived)

Blink.
That’s it.
Open shut them open shut them
cry then eat then sleep then cry.

Finding your voice
finding your feet
losing your fat
in come your teeth.

Long summer days
dolls in your arms
but then its your friends
and school-day alarms.

Homework and games
leaves orange brown
thick golden hair
laughs all around.

Stepping then running
then sprinting and bursting.
A long-legged blur
for the future you’re thirsting

The fresh life you sought
brings you close to new friends
who love and live with you
and form a new lens.

Through which to cast
an eye towards another
and see your reflection
embraced completely.

That embrace once returned
leads to love’s relation.
and vows and new houses
and two new creations.

Eat then work then love then sleep
open shut them open shut them.
That’s it.
Blink.

I blink and time has passed. Thirty years, three days, and counting. Days have passed and I have endured them. Some have sped too fast to catch my breath. Some have crept along too slow in between breaths.

The significance of these 10,953 days is not in the accumulation of meager wealth, success, or power. It is found in the ones who have walked these days with me. Continue reading

Beautiful is the Tapestry that Holds Me

Pink and white seersucker trimmed in lace. Raised and tapered at the shoulders. Skimming the ground. Cinched at the waist. Clothed in my mother’s old robe, I putter around the kitchen as I make breakfast before the world stirs. Out-of-date and yet full-of-history, it is the robe my mother wore in the hospital as she spent her first hours holding on to my little life. The feel of the seersucker and lace edges. The sight of the pink and white. Her face glowing in love. My first moments.

Any attempts to remember those moments beyond the photos taken are merely imagination. And yet, I venture to guess the memories exist somewhere within me. Time may have locked them away. But all are not lost. Rather, every caring gesture, nurturing act, and tight embrace are threads within the tapestry knit within me. Continue reading

Love Remains

The babysitter is secured and the plans are coming together to celebrate a friend’s birthday tonight. We’ll gather at one of his favorite restaurants and retell our memories. We will recount the small things that once seemed inconsequential. But in the absence of his physical body with us, they have become everything.

When I let my mind wander, I can get lost in the memories. The moments we shared. The adventures. His dreams. His smile. The times he was fully alive.

For a moment, I am with him. All that has been lost returns. All that is fractured is made whole. Continue reading

pause.give.thanks

the practice of paying attention

Grappling with Time