storytelling

so much of life is about how you tell the story. it was a charcoal gray vw beetle from hawaii that got me thinking about it. but i should probably back up.

at the church we attended when i was a kid, we always sat in the same pew. always next to the same people, always behind the same people, always in front of the same people. every single sunday. always said hello, always shared the handshake of peace, every single sunday. but never once in all the years--my entire childhood, in fact--that we attended that church did i learn any of those people's names.

(i will pause here to allow you to reflect on the strangeness of that fact. my southern friends especially will find this inscrutable. someone told me once that people have two walls around them. for southerners, the first wall is very low, which is to say that it's easy to meet them and get to know them on a superficial level; it's not hard to get over that first wall. but the second wall, the one surrounding the real inner person, is much higher. whereas for northerners, the first wall is the insurmountable one; you just can't get in easily at all. we yankees don't say hi to strangers on the street, don't even know the names of the people we sit next to every single sunday for decades in church. but once you're past the very initial introduction, getting over the second wall, the one where you get to the real person, is much easier. be that as it may or may not, now it's time to get over the strangeness of this piece of my childhood lore because the strangeness of it is not what this post is about.)

this post is about storytelling. because the fact that we didn't know anything about any of the people we worshiped with every single sunday did not at all mean that we weren't curious. so we made up stories instead. we guessed at these people's lives: who they were, how they were related to each other, what they did all of the other 167 hours in their week. and in our conversations about them, since we didn't know their names, we made up names for them, too. the mafia family, the sausage lady, the little people--these were the (mostly unflattering) ways we referred to the people we sat with as we guessed at their stories. how were all those people in the mafia family related to each other, anyhow? why wasn't the husband of the little people couple in church two weeks in a row? was it possible that the sausage lady just didn't own a mirror? (putting these thoughts in writing doesn't make me particularly proud of them, come to think of it.)

the point--other than the fact that i am suddenly wondering what moniker my family and i earned and why and what stories were imagined about us--is that we naturally make up stories to fill in the gaps in our lives. we are, whether we realize it or not, constantly trying to make sense of life and our experiences by filling in details where they're lacking. which is what happened the other day when i found myself following a newish-looking charcoal gray vw beetle with a hawaiian license plate reading "ncduke." hmmm.

i made up some stories, none of which could i quite get to make sense. there are lots of details to fill in in such a circumstance, after all, unusual as it is to see a hawaiian car in north carolina. how did the car get here, anyway? and why? a student might have such a university-centric license plate, sure, but what kind of student is going to bring a car all the way from hawaii? instead, surely it was someone who had just moved here and thus shipped the car all the way. but could s/he have known s/he'd move to north carolina when s/he registered the car in hawaii? is this some far-flung cameron crazy who finally made it to the land of the blue? and the car looked very new, which meant it couldn't have resided in hawaii for long before coming to north carolina...anyhow, i just couldn't make the story make sense.

(another aside: if you'll indulge my curiosity and leave your version of the story in the comments, i'd be greatly obliged. maybe you'll figure it out more easily than i could.)

fast forward to later that night, when i found luke, who i supposed to be getting ready for bed, on the floor in tears. he didn't want at first to talk about what was wrong, but he finally did explain: "i just want to have a normal family." when i asked him why he thought our family wasn't normal, he said, "what kind of normal family has a dead sister?"

in retrospect, i am quite sure the combination of some old family photos he saw upstairs for the first time in a while with the fact that he had earlier in the day been telling a new friend about his sisters is what led him to end up in such a state. he tells his story very matter-of-factly: i used to have a sister named eliza, but she died. now i have another sister named anastasia. no big deal, or so you'd think to hear him tell it.

but that's a crazy story for a seven-year-old to have to tell. how does he fill in the gaps in his so-young, so-brilliant mind? how does he figure out the details that he cannot remember or never understood? and how will he tell the story over the course of his life, in a year or ten years or fifty years? how will he tell the story to anastasia, who will one day see those same family photos and wonder at the sister in the picture that she'll never know?

there are different kinds of stories, after all. and different versions of the same stories. there are stories we love to tell--stories of falling in love, of discovering five dollars in an old coat pocket, of the day we got a new puppy, of an exotic vacation. but there are stories we have to tell, too, even if we don't love to tell them. stories whose details are burned into our minds and whose gaps we can't help but fill...or sometimes can't bear to fill. sometimes, we can't but stick to the facts: that's a newish charcoal gray vw beetle with a hawaiian license plate reading "ncduke" here in the middle of north carolina. and that's all there is to say.

dipped too deep

(a disclaimer: i didn't write much of this post. in case it isn't familiar to you, all of the italicized text comes from the anglican book of common prayer, eucharist rite II.)


Holy and gracious Father: In your infinite love you made us for yourself, and, when we had fallen into sin and become subject to evil and death, you, in your mercy, sent Jesus Christ, your only and eternal Son, to share our human nature, to live and die as one of us, to reconcile us to you, the God and Father of all.

He stretched out his arms upon the cross, and offered himself, in obedience to your will, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world.

seven-year-old luke returned to his seat with a grimace on his face. “i dipped my bread too deep into the wine and it tasted bad!” he struggled to swallow the wine-soaked morsel.

On the night he was handed over to suffering and death, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread; and when he had given thanks to you, he broke it, and gave it to his disciples, and said, "Take, eat: This is my Body, which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me."

After supper he took the cup of wine; and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and said, "Drink this, all of you: This is my Blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me."

Therefore we proclaim the mystery of faith:
Christ has died.
Christ is risen.
Christ will come again.

does it leave a bad taste in my mouth? it should, i think. do i choke on the bitterness? on the night He was handed over to suffering and death. Christ has died. to suffering and death. the wine is sour before the sweetness.

We celebrate the memorial of our redemption, O Father, in this sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. Recalling his death, resurrection, and ascension, we offer you these gifts.

Sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of your Son, the holy food and drink of new and unending life in him. Sanctify us also that we may faithfully receive this holy Sacrament, and serve you in unity, constancy, and peace; and at the last day bring us with all your saints into the joy of your eternal kingdom.

All this we ask through your Son Jesus Christ: By him, and with him, and in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father, now and forever. AMEN.

dipped too far into the wine. it tasted bad. is it possible to be dipped too far? sanctify us also. a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.

And now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to say,
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
forever and ever. Amen.

Alleluia. Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us;
Therefore let us keep the feast. Alleluia.

The gifts of God for the people of God: Take them in remembrance that Christ died for you, and feed on him in your hearts by faith, with thanksgiving.

we are bold to say.
i am bold to say, Father, that i want to be dipped deeper in the blood. bitter and sweet, the sour taste of suffering and the bold sweetness of redemption. in the blood. i cannot be dipped too deep.

in some churches, the communion drink is grape juice served in those little plastic cups. while there is nothing wrong with this, it will never be enough for me. i believe i am meant to grimace a little, to choke a little on the bitterness of dipping my bread deep in the wine. we are meant to be shocked by the sourness of it--as He spread out his arms on the cruel wood of the cross, shocking indeed--before the sweetness. our bread, our daily bread, is meant to be tainted by the memory that the very Son of God is broken for us. we take and eat, we feed on Him in our hearts by faith, only because He is the bread of life, broken for us. dipped in blood. broken.

Almighty and everliving God,
we thank you for feeding us with the spiritual food
of the most precious Body and Blood
of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ;
and for assuring us in these holy mysteries
that we are living members of the Body of your Son,
and heirs of your eternal kingdom.
And now, Father, send us out
to do the work you have given us to do,
to love and serve you
as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord.
To him, to you, and to the Holy Spirit,
be honor and glory, now and forever. Amen.

“i dipped my bread too deep into the wine and it tasted bad.” amen, my love. this week, i am grateful for the reminder of the bitter suffering of the cross and the sweetness that only the blood can provide. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:15). i will drink deeply. “So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood,’” (how can we but choke?) “’you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day’” (John 6:53-54). sweetness.

as we struggle through the bitterness, the sour first taste and the grimace it inspires, may we long ever more for the sweetness to come. Christ our passover, sacrificed for us. we cannot be dipped too deep.

as for what's best

it seems to be the thing to do these days to write articles and blogposts and such about why you have chosen to feed your baby the way you do, and often, why that's the best way. consider this my two cents' worth, then, in a simply honest, not-going-to-be-helpful-if-you're-trying-to-choose-bottle-or-breast sort of way.

some background: luke was exclusively breastfed but for the occasional bottle of expressed milk, which he didn't really care for and so drank only of absolute necessity (thus very rarely). i took the advice to nurse for a year very literally, as any good legalist would, and nursed luke to sleep on his first birthday, kissed him goodnight, and without hesitation whispered that he had, in fact, just nursed for the last time. neither of us ever looked back. eliza, who was unable to eat by mouth, was fed expressed milk by feeding tube for four months, at which point she switched to some high-tech, medically necessary formula. she nursed only once in her life, her very first day, and never again had the opportunity to try. anastasia, now three months old, has been exclusively breastfed but for supplemental formula in her first week, necessary as it was to keep up her (substantial) weight until i could make enough milk to sustain her. i'm hopeful that she'll consent to a bottle or two of expressed milk on our upcoming 700-mile pilgrimage to the north, but i have my doubts.

but hear me on this: i am no member of the la leche league. i have lots of respect for those for whom "breast is best" is their life motto, but i can't get quite as excited as they do about it. nor have i ever been able to join the camp that touts all the benefits of bottle feeding--better sleep, more help from dad, etcetera--despite the fact that i often watch bottle-feeding parents and think, why am i not doing that right now? no, i can't get too worked up either way on this issue.

to me, breastfeeding is a relatively simple choice. the only prerequisite for milk production is childbirth, and it almost always happens without any intervention at all. it's free, it's easy (after the first few weeks), and it's healthy for mom and baby. it naturally makes babies sleepy, a good thing for everyone's bedtime (and thank you, but no, i'm not worried about breaking the nursing-to-sleep habit when the time comes. i figure God knew what was up when He made milk sleep-inducing, and i'll deal with the consequences of that opinion later. i never regretted it for one minute with luke). but nursing doesn't excite me. i'm not one of those moms who sheds tears over weaning, nor do i get those sweet, sappy feelings many moms describe when nursing. to be honest (and you know i always am), it's often uncomfortable, restricts my freedom considerably, is exhausting and isolating, and has the potential to cause all sorts of unpleasant problems--thrush, mastitis, and the like. it's a practical commitment for me and not much beyond that, but one i make willingly and readily and with very little hesitation.

so i don't really have a dog in this fight. if you're looking for advice about how to feed your baby, i'm not really the person to ask, and this isn't the blogpost to read.

but i do know what's best. there comes a day in every nursing baby's life (i assume--it has come in the life of both babies i've nursed, anyhow) when she is happily and obliviously chugging away and suddenly stops. she looks up at you and gives you a heart-breaking, tear-inducing, ear-to-ear grin, as if to say, "oh, you're here! i'm so glad to see you! i'm having some really great milk right now," and then gets right back to nursing. that, i can tell you, that moment is what's best. and for the pure joy of that moment, i'll take all the sleepless nights and discomfort and inconvenience i have to.

and now i have to go nurse that baby. again.

toes are funny like that

the next thing

when my mom called me this morning, she said she was worried about a man who lived a few doors down. there were multiple emergency vehicles in front of the house, and they didn't show signs of leaving. when i asked her how she knew it was the man who was unwell and not his wife, mom said she had seen the woman go out to pick up the newspaper from the front porch.

it was not two hours later that mom called back to say that the man had passed away.

it's what we do when unbearable, unspeakable things happen: we pick up the paper from the front porch. we worry about overdue library books. we get new cell phones (yup, we did that the very next day, too). we wash dishes, mow the lawn, answer emails, or make dinner when the world has suddenly been upended. and the next day, we do the next thing.

i'm not sure if it's a function of habit--we just always pick up the paper from the front porch without even thinking--or a semiconscious seeking after normalcy--at least i know how to do this thing. or are we actually unable to stop? i don't know my parents' neighbor well enough to know what drove her to pick up the paper from the front porch when the unthinkable was happening or maybe had already happened.

but i know that, on some level, it's what we all do. we do the next thing. we go to work, we get an oil change, we do the grocery shopping. even though it's still unbearable, unspeakable, we do the next thing. and the next thing we know, we're doing another next thing: we get a new job, move to a new house, get a pet. but the world is still upside down. it's not fixed, we're not saved by doing the next thing. still, on some level, we can't not. or perhaps i should speak for myself here: at least i can't not. i do the next thing. i get new curtains, get a haircut, have a baby. i try a new restaurant, clean out my closet, rearrange the furniture, find a new hobby. things aren't put right by doing the next thing, never. but it is still unthinkable, unbearable even if i don't do the next thing. so i do.

i want to tell my parents' neighbor not to listen to the people who will tell her to stop doing the next thing, to let the newspapers pile up on the front porch, forcryingoutloud, or to let someone else pick them up for her. to let the bathroom go unpainted, the flower beds go unweeded, the refrigerator go uncleaned, the laundry be forgotten. and maybe, just maybe, here's another place i need to speak for myself alone. because doing the next thing, even from my upside down place, is the only way i know to be. but maybe that's just me. is it, in fact, possible to stop doing the next thing?

the more i think about it, the more i realize how much i'm projecting. i don't know why the neighbor picked up the paper from her front porch on the morning her husband died. maybe her husband was still well when she picked up the paper, and he wanted to read it. or maybe it wasn't the paper she picked up at all, but instead a piece of medical equipment an emt dropped on the way in the door. maybe she wasn't doing the next thing, after all. i don't know.

what i do know--at least i'm pretty sure i know--is that nothing in her world is right side up tonight. and if she wants to read the paper, i hope she won't let anyone stop her.

speaking of family photos

okay, these pictures are admittedly old news by now. anastasia is way bigger, and i am (thankfully) at least a little bit smaller! but they're still so sweet--not too late to share them, i think. (and if you're looking for a photographer in or near southern california, check out our old-friend-turned-photographer, who took these pictures: krista lucas photography.)

where i am and have been, in no particular order

the first part of this post is nearly six weeks old. yup, six weeks ago, i started a post and never did get to finish it. i had more thinking to do, and i got interrupted (by a baby, no doubt) and i never did get back to writing it. to be honest, i can't really remember the rest of the thinking i was going to do. chalk it up to sleep deprivation, as a friend told me today when i confessed that i sometimes find myself rocking and bouncing even while i'm in the shower. (come on, mamas. you know what i mean. you rock and bounce so much that you forget you don't need to do it while you're washing your hair...*chirp chirp*...no, come on now; i know i'm not the only one.)

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"i have to get used to the idea that she's going to change."

this was sam's comment a week or so ago when we noticed anastasia's already-improving head control and almost-certainly real attempts at smiling. she's going to change.

the fact that this idea is something that takes getting used to made me realize how thoroughly screwed up (honestly, i have a stronger word i'd rather use for it, because it makes me angry) our ideas of baby care are as a result of eliza's screwed up life. one month into anastasia's life, i'm realizing i'm still undoing and unlearning all the things that became normal for the nearly-three years eliza was our never-growing-up baby.

it took me twelve days to realize that anastasia should be sleeping on her back, like all babies should, instead of on her side, like eliza had to. she was twelve days old before it occurred to me that she was not going to have a seizure and vomit and asphyxiate, so she really could sleep on her back. twelve days. screwed up.

i still cringe when anastasia is sleeping and i hear her smack her lips or sigh, because lip-smacking and sighing were always the start of a sleep-ending seizure for eliza. of course, anastasia smacks and sighs and keeps right on sleeping, just like all babies do, unlike her sister did. but four and a half weeks in, i still can't overcome what is now a reflexive cringe. screwed up.

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

see? there was more coming. you can tell, can't you? oh well. you get the point.

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i think maybe there are still a few people who check in on this blog. and maybe a few of those people aren't on facebook (gasp! can it be?). so for those few among the few, i thought i'd drop by for a quick update. there's nothing profound here, really, because i spend so much time snuggling and cooing at and "torturing" (luke's word) my baby with kisses that i don't think much. or if i do, i forget what i was thinking about because she smiles at me or giggles--hot off the presses! new tonight! giggling! love love love--or gurgles or coos or...you get the point. but here's a quick update.



anastasia is ten weeks old today. she acts so much like luke and looks so much like eliza, which, if i do say so myself, is a stellar combination. she doesn't believe in naps but sleeps like champ (most of the time) at night and wakes up smiling in the morning, with a smile that is so big it takes up her whole face and she can't really keep her eyes open anymore. this is a trick of which i will not tire, not ever. we are all three more and more smitten with her daily and have had a running contest to see which of us would solicit her first giggle (i won, just today, as i think i deserve to have, thankyouverymuch). luke cannot get enough of his sister. cannot. it is amazing and wonderful and so very dear.

there's the sappy superficial stuff. are you wondering when i'll get to the rest?

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who do you think she looks like? people will ask me. i can see from their faces that it's a relief when i say she looks like eliza. i don't think anyone wants to suggest it--as if i haven't noticed--because it might be hurtful or make me sad or something. for the most part, i'm really glad she looks like her beautiful big sister. it's the eyes, they'll go on to say. it's true; she has eliza's eyes. which makes it all the more amazing to me when she makes eye contact with me, her eyes full of curiosity and eagerness and searching searching for something to smile at or to recognize, so full compared to her big sister's eyes which never could quite look at you but past, somewhere else entirely, searching searching, i think, for something quite other. i do miss that gaze.

and i do miss eliza, somehow even more now than i have in a long time. anastasia was only a week old when i watched her sleep and wondered, who are you? you are a darling, sweet, beautiful imposter. i have a baby already. so who are you? it was a momentary, strange, but very real thing, this confusion of how anastasia fits into the arms of a mama, a family, that are already--were already--so very full. and in that same moment, i couldn't have been more in love with her, anastasia, someone so new and fresh and eager and darling and oh-so-mine. it's a strange thing this time around.



contrary to (popular?) opinion, i still like to talk about eliza. i still think of her all the time, miss her all the time, want to remember her all the time--which is not at all to the detriment of the joy i have in talking about and cooing at and obsessing over anastasia, nor to the pleasure i take in bragging on and loving on my increasingly brilliant and grown-up baby boy. as every mom who wonders if she'll love her second child as much as her first knows, the heart expands exponentially to make more room, doesn't it?

the thing about the family pictures still gets me. i've written about my thing about pictures at least once before, here. it really gets me that i'll never have a picture of my whole family together. i haven't changed any of the pictures hanging in my house yet. how do i do that? take down the pictures with eliza in them and replace them with pictures with anastasia? just add more and more pictures? i'm not sure i have the wall space for it. i want to cut and paste anastasia into the pictures i have hanging of our prior family of four...or cut and paste eliza into the new pictures i have of our current family of four. this is in an impossible dilemma. i expect it will get me forever. there's always going to be someone missing.




and i think, too, about what it will mean to anastasia to grow up in a family that has known and loved and been shaped by a big sister that she will never have known. what will that be like? she'll know her from stories and pictures. but she will never have known her. will she feel a distance from luke because he knew and loved the sister she never had the chance to love? will she feel left out of the memories, somehow? i think about that sometimes, and i wonder. i do think about it.

i've all but stopped accidentally calling anastasia by eliza's name. that is a strange and somehow sad feeling. in fact, i have more than once been talking about eliza and used anastasia's name instead. that i did not like.




and yes, anastasia wears some of eliza's clothes, the ones that haven't been incorporated into the quilt sam's mom made for us. that i like, seeing anastasia in things i remember so fondly from eliza's life. and why wouldn't i? she's wearing her big sister's clothes. that i like.

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sleep when the baby sleeps, they say, whoever they are. and as i hear the squirming through the baby monitor (i no longer cringe and expect a seizure, not most of the time anyhow), i wonder why i haven't been sleeping as the baby has been. g'night.