Weather

So Bay Area weather is essentially all it’s touted to be. But my favorite thing about the weather here isn’t the perennially cloudless, sunny days, or better yet, the transformative lack of humidity and mosquitos—it’s the evenings. Every evening, the weather magically gets cooler and crisper. It makes me want to breathe deep and wander long. It reminds me of that first thrill of fall on the east coast, when months of oppressively muggy, hot days finally give way to a brisk coolness that makes you want to open windows and slip on long sleeves. Nearly every night here is like that. Dave used to go on and on about how he loved as a child to open his bedroom windows and sleep to a cool breeze, and I have to admit there is something to that.

One of the strangest things here is the lack of rain over the summer. It rained and thunderstormed aplenty in Virginia: we got used to radar-tracking storms to see how long thunder claps would keep the kids up from their naps or sleeping at night; a small tornado uprooted one of our trees a few months before we moved; we checked the weather app every day to figure out how to dress, or whether to bring rain jackets to school. Plenty of times, I’d forget to check in the rush to get the kids out the door, then groan when it starts to pour and I’m not wearing my wellies or raincoat. I haven’t checked my weather app once since moving here. Our chalk drawings stay on the sidewalk for months. We leave toys out on the deck. It’s all rather bizarre.

The first novel I’m reading since the move is The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, a strange amalgam of science fiction, Chinese history, theoretical mathematics and astrophysics, philosophical treatise, and epic quest. My favorite part of it (spoiler alert) is considering what life would be like if a planet existed in a stellar system with three suns. Because of the mathematically unpredictable movement of the three suns, at times the planet can be drawn into the orbit of one of the suns (at which time the planet has regular day-night cycles and mild weather), and at other times it cycles irregularly between them (resulting in completely unpredictable cycles where nights can last for weeks, and deadly temperature extremes). The planet can be far from all three suns (extremely cold conditions where it snows water, then dry ice, then the atmosphere sort of congeals), can be exposed to all three together (every living thing erupts into flames and the surface of the entire planet becomes a lake of lava), can be affected by the gravitational pull of all three suns in one line (all things and the atmosphere itself gets sucked up into a vortex and pulled to the closest sun), or can collide with some or all of the suns (splitting the planet in half and forming various rings that later collapse, destroying all life).

The inhabitants have no control over these events or how long various periods last, and the extreme weather often wipes out a civilization with millions of years passing before another develops. Civilizations devote their energies to trying to predict the motions of the suns, before realizing it is impossible and deciding to leave their world altogether.

I don’t understand the mechanics behind why the weather in the bay area is always so mild and dry—why there are rarely ever clouds during the day, or why the evenings are always perfectly cool—but it’s interesting to mull on how completely it is all out of our control. One day I am going to stop remarking on how nice the weather is here; it will just seem normal, much less the fact that, well, I don’t have to worry about suddenly erupting into flames when my planet gets too close to a few suns. But for now, I’m going to sit in the mystery of it all a little bit, that of all places in the entire universe and galaxy, I have landed upon a place where I can open my windows every night to a cool breeze. 

On Books: Or How I Ditched My Kindle And Went Back To Paper

“Maybe you can tell I gravitate toward fiction rather than the newest Christian titles? I was formed (since second grade) by C. S. Lewis, who taught that it's story rising to the level of myth that puts us in touch with our deepest longings. I can see Jesus everywhere, hiding in plain sight: The Lone Ranger (who fights for justice while always being taken for a criminal), Superman (a deliberate Christ figure if ever there was one), Hiccup in How to Train Your Dragon (who wins through weakness), The Iron Giant (who wins through self-sacrifice), Balto (who was despised and rejected but is the savior), Miles Vorkosigan in the Vorkosigan Saga (whose disability enables him to triumph), Tavi in the Codex Alera series (who, well, that would be a spoiler), Gandalf, Frodo, and Aragorn (prophet, priest, and king), and so on.” – Kathy Keller

I am an armchair escapist. A story addict. I don’t know if I just like good writing, or have an overactive and empathetic imagination, but I live in stories and live for stories. It’s been that way ever since I pulled all-nighters in middle school reading Pride and Prejudice and then Jane Eyre and then Count of Monte Cristo. If I’m not reading a good book, it feels like something is missing from my life, and in a sense, good fiction has ruined my appetite for most other forms of entertainment.

Sometimes there’s a bad side to good things, and the problem I got into early on was reading the junk food equivalent of the book world. Stuff that is more sensation than edification, that drags you down, makes you less content with the real world rather than more invigorated for it. Mostly for me this meant novels with too-explicit sexual tension, ranging from romance to thriller to fantasy genres. It’s like getting a hit: it feels great, mostly for the first fifty pages, when you get into characters and plotlines that exist purely for fantasy-fulfillment; then it sort of tanks as the ridiculousness of the plot and shallowness of the characters become obvious. Then you search for the next hit.

Eventually, in my search for some kind of novel, I’d go for whatever was easiest to lay my hands on, which meant borrowing free e-books from the library onto my kindle, which meant mostly junk-reading. Cheap, easy, probably popular stuff, and sometimes stuff I would be too embarrassed to be seen holding the book cover of, but that was the great thing about the kindle: you could be reading Dostoevsky or Nora Roberts and no one can tell the difference.

All my life, I’ve had the niggling feeling that I needed to rehaul my book diet, and through a series of events, I finally grabbed the conviction to do so. For me, it meant giving away my kindle and returning to the accountability of paper: putting books on hold at the library, and carefully investing in pieces for my library.

And it means renavigating the book world, which I’ve always found confusing. I’ve never met anyone with the exactly same book tastes as I have: Annie Proulx, Juliet Marillier, Annie Dillard, Lee Child, Tolkien, Anne Lamott, C. S. Lewis, Robin McKinley… Sort of a motley mix of reliables, with the occasional nice surprise (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, The Night Circus). Contemporary novels but only if the subject is not too depressing and the writing amazing; fantasy but preferably if the world is not too odd and there is compelling romance; historical but only if not too archaic; mystery and thriller but only if not too gory or scary. And I probably could be pushed beyond my comfort zone sometimes to read something worth reading.

Lately I’ve been finishing the Jack Reacher novels (just read Worth Dying For which was excellent). I’m contemplating rereading Watership Down or The Good Earth, both of which are good enough to own. I started rereading Lord of the Rings but can go back to finish that. As far as new tries, I remembered Kathy Keller being a fiction reader, found this helpful page, and now have on hold at the library Master and Commander, Storm Front, and Young Miles. We’ll see how it goes.

Life-Giving

Dave’s sister coined that term a while back and it’s a concept that’s stuck with me. Even when she’s out here spending time with the kids, she’ll schedule life-giving things for herself: a jazz concert, time for deep conversation.

I think to me, something life-giving is something that restores a part of myself that I’ve maybe lost, or lost sight of. That’s the thing about mothering: it’s all-consuming in a way no other venture really is. God created me to enjoy and be good at a lot of things: to write, to play music, to travel, to teach, to knit, to draw, to study, to enjoy stories, to linger in deep conversation, to be in nature, to shop, to bake, okay, to sleep—the list goes on. Some of those things are incorporated into what I do with the kids, sure, and there’s a unique kind of pleasure in that, but the parts I did for myself just fade away. Not so much amputated as atrophied, until one day I find myself with some time off and don’t even know what to do.

You would think doing something life-giving is automatic, but it’s not, especially when you’re out of routine. My default isn’t really to ask, “what can I do to restore a sense of myself?” My default is to eat chocolate ice cream (which I’m doing right now—why aren’t there more ice cream places around here? that’s one thing I miss about Boston) and read escapist novels. Which usually leaves me more loath to return to real life rather than refreshed for it.

Everyone’s list probably looks different, but things that generally fall into this category for me are: a deep conversation with a friend (away from the kids; play-dates don’t count). Playing the piano for a length of time (again, away from the kids, who like to join in—sensing a theme here). Visiting a yarn store. Browsing in a bookstore. Meeting with a friend. Shopping for myself. Taking an art class (taking any kind of class). Journaling to God. Eating something new. Being surrounded by nature. Giving a good lecture. Taking a nap in a quiet house.

Sometimes I don’t know I need to be doing something life-giving until I’m at the point of burn-out, but one of my resolutions this year is to be better at taking care of myself. I tend to get obsessed with a task at the exclusion of all else, and since parenting is one non-ending task, I actually need to remind myself that it’s okay to leave the kids, to get out, to do something that helps me remember who I am. The more I enjoy myself in the different ways God created me to be, the more I enjoy God, the more I enjoy the kids, the more life I can pour into them. I actually need to put some forethought and nearly always some planning into it, since it’s not a default, and since doing anything without kids involves planning. But it’s always worth it.

Hobbies

The tough thing about motherhood is remembering who you are. Not who you are in an existentialist sort of way, but who you are as in: I am someone who takes exercise classes. Who experiments with gourmet dessert recipes. Who works on Chopin’s ballade in F minor. Who goes to the mall and movie theater. Who reads magazines in bookstores. Who swims. Who makes up songs on the guitar. Who reads poetry.

Just because I have to plan in advance to go to the bathroom nowadays, much less naturally have time to do any of those things anymore, doesn’t mean I’m not still that same person. Just because in the past, I was too busy studying for a big test, or didn’t have access to a guitar or a pool, doesn’t mean I wasn’t still that same person. But often those things fade out of your life so gradually you don’t even realize they’re gone.

I’m sort of cracking open the door on some of those things. I bought a lovely bound sketchbook and have been filling it up with pencil drawings (bad ones of the kids, better ones of still life) and ink doodles. I’m working on that cable throw. I cracked open our Norton Anthology of poetry. I make some effort to write every day. I did an exercise video.

In a life filled with work and kids, where everything boils down to what is functional and necessary, it feels good to do a little something just for its own sake. It’s like using an atrophied muscle. It feels good in a healthy, restorative way, and it brings something of myself back that I’ve lost. I’m learning that it’s okay to donate some time and energy for these things. There is some part of me that is what I do, or that becomes what I do, and it feels good to remember.

Knitting

It's really cold outside right now, which means it's about the time I pull out this cabled throw I've been working on every winter for the past two years. It's a brainless enough pattern that I don't have to think while my fingers move, and the yarn feels awesome-- a blend of alpaca and merino wool. I definitely have a weakness for luxury yarns.

Life-Giving

“Then, without making a request for anyone’s attention, Tetsuya Kato began to play. He started with Chopin’s Nocturne opus 9 in E Flat major no 2. It was the piece he had most often heard in his head since coming to this country… The felt-covered hammers tapped the strings gently at first, and the music, even for those who had never heard the piece before, was like a memory. From all over the house, terrorist and hostage alike turned and listened and felt a great easing in their chests. There was a delicacy about Tetsuya Kato’s hands, as if they were simply resting in one place on the keyboard and then in another. Then suddenly his right hand spun out notes like water, a sound so light and high that there was a temptation to look beneath the lid for bells. Kato closed his eyes so he could imagine he was home, playing his own piano. His wife was asleep. His children, two unmarried sons still living with them, were asleep. For them the notes of Kato’s playing had become like air, what they depended on and had long since stopped noticing. Playing on this grand piano now Kato could imagine them sleeping and he put that into the nocturne, his sons’ steady breathing, his wife clutching her pillow with one hand. All of the tenderness he felt for them went into the keys. He touched them as if he meant not to wake them. It was the love and loneliness that each of them felt, that no one had brought himself to speak of.” – Ann Patchett, Bel Canto

I’ve stalked good pianos for most of my life, from churches to lobbies to auditoriums, so it was pretty exciting to finally get our own piano this year—mostly thanks to D, who took advantage of a used piano sale at a local music department because he knew how much I’ve always wanted one. It’s a baby grand, and the sound is incredible. The feel is incredible. I had pretty much forgotten over the past decade how much I love playing. It’s like saying hello again to a part of my being I had forgotten existed; part of me feels recreated.

Other things that make me feel like that—eating caprese salad from fresh tomatoes and basil from the garden, with fresh mozzarella and quality aged balsamic vinegar with oil. On the occasion that I have the excuse to, baking a really good cheesecake. Discovering a new kind of cheese or wine. Taking an art class, the last being a pottery class I took when Ellie was around one year old. Reading a good book, though unfortunately it has to be a really good one, which seems harder to find these days. A conversation that makes me laugh so hard I cry.

D’s sister likes to talk about doing things that are life-giving, and I think that’s a good way of thinking about things like this. Something life-giving leaves you feeling more energized. It helps you not lose the person you are, the person that isn’t related to what you have to do most of the day. It takes some reflection and planning to achieve, since by definition it’s usually something you don’t typically do, or you used to do but don’t anymore, and that takes a certain amount of space, time, materials.

It becomes harder but more important to do after becoming a parent. Tina Fey wrote in her biography about how people are always telling moms to take “me time,” and listed suggestions including grabbing a meal consisting of leftovers while standing over the sink with a kid tugging at your pants—and that’s sort of what it’s like. Or my “me time” is taking a shower. Getting to my email. Usually after a few weeks of this I start getting crabby and D starts ordering me to go do something for myself. And then I actually can’t think of anything to do, which is why it’s good to have thought about it some in advance. What is life-giving for you? How do you make room for it in your life?

Caregiver Fatigue

It’s been a hard week. Everyone but me got sick. D was holed up in bed. The kids got fevers followed by a state of permanent fussiness. Dee-dee has to be held constantly and has a meltdown at the slightest provocation, meltdowns that can last for over twenty minutes. E has taken her usual particularity to an extreme, losing it if I don’t do everything a certain way, refusing to eat most things.

It isn’t long before I start feeling the familiar symptoms of caregiver fatigue. I feel trapped, like I want to yell really loud or get out of the house, but I can’t. Every little thing the kids do tick me off. I can’t deal with another meltdown, another crumb falling into the carpet, another mouthful of unwanted food spit across my shirt, another cramp in my legs when I’m holding him while bending down to pick something up. I start bitterly comparing my life with my husband’s—he doesn’t have to take care of the kids all the time, his life is so much easier—or with that of other people (conveniently forgetting single parents or mothers of twins).

Most of all, I lose perspective. I feel like the kids are doing this to me on purpose. I feel like my whole world has narrowed to this house that gets messier and grimier, to heating up leftovers no one wants to eat, to washing the same sippy cups that get the annoying grime stuck in the straw parts that I can’t get out. I lose sight of the fact that I wanted to take care of the children more, of the help that I do have, of the fact that this will pass as they recover. I lose sight of who I am, what I do, aside from being a caregiver.

The closest way I came to feeling this way before I had kids was when I’d get burned out at the end of some ward rotation. I’d feel sick of wearing pants with drawstrings all the time, of eating peanut butter and graham crackers; I’d get mad at every stupid consult and social admission. But at least then there were other people on my team, people taking shifts with me or that I passed off patients to. In this motherhood thing you can feel very alone. All day, I’m trying to keep it together with the kids, be the better person, but there’s no one to speak for me. No one to understand what I’m going through. No one to point out what I might be losing sight of at any given time.

I cycle into this state every so often—a place of anger, resentment, bitterness and depression that eventually leads to some realizations. That I need time and space away by myself to regain perspective. That I need to remember who I am by doing things I enjoy for myself, both one-time experiences and cultivated interests. That it is okay to pay someone to watch the kids for all of the above without feeling guilty. That we need to constantly reevaluate the complicated balance we maintain of work, childcare and ministry to see if the things that are most important are staying that way. That we need to clarify expectations and needs with each other without placing blame or communicating resentment.

I’ve gotten somewhat better. I play in a worship band and have been teaching a resident lecture series, both of which account largely for why I’m much happier around the house. We're helping to plant a church, which has helped us focus on something outward together. I’m working on the concept that paying for help is okay. I control my temper around the kids (slightly) better. I try to recognize the signs earlier. I try to displace my anger less and talk through issues more. 

It’s a work in progress, but I think the biggest thing is realizing that this thing called caregiver fatigue exists. It’s not that I’m a bad mother or person. It’s not that I’m not cut out for having kids. It’s not that my kids are abnormally bad. It’s not that my life is unfair or horrible. It’s just what happens when you are constantly giving to meet demanding needs. You just can’t do that forever; we don’t have inexhaustible reserves, and that’s okay.

Fashion

“Maybe it’s the effect of the depressed economy, maybe it’s the influence of elegant Michelle Obama–but restrained, ladylike fashion is fully in style. So don your gloves, pull on a polished skirt suit, or slip into a sophisticated ball gown.” –Fall Fashion Week 2009 trend, www.omiru.com

In preparation for the day when, alas, I will no longer be able to wear scrubs every day, and in celebration of my potentially feeling up to wearing more than pajamas all weekend, I am enjoying imaginary clothes shopping. This is where I look avidly at various fashion sites, aesthetically admiring things I wouldn’t dream of wearing, and dreaming about things I would instantly buy if I wasn’t saving up for diapers (and child care).

A few things I was admiring: a yellow patterned blouse under a green belted peacoat. A chunky necklace paired with a flared skirt. A sheer-sleeved teal blouse with a tweed pencil skirt. Muted green handbags, sparkly cocktail rings. Anything flowy and chiffony. Anything sold by Anthropologie. Anything Jennifer Connelly was wearing in He’s Just Not That Into You. (A few trends I completely do not understand, no offense: ankle boots, head-to-toe animal prints, capelets. Then again, I remember seeing capris for the first time in college and thinking they were ridiculous. I now own more capris than shorts.)

I find looking at maternity wear fairly depressing. Maybe I just haven’t found the right stores, but all I can see is the huge must-be-fake, thirty-pound belly strapped onto all the models that is completely ruining what would otherwise be a mediocre outfit. My sister took me to a maternity store for fun last weekend and I left vowing to wear normal clothes as long as humanly possible.

Well, it’s fun to think about all this. It’s enjoyable the same way it is looking at a good painting, a striking photograph, a well-decorated room, hearing great music. Inspiring though at the moment existing more in fantasy than anything else. I was just as glad come Monday morning to pull on the usual green scrubs and my serviceable, scruffy clogs.

Week Sixteen (no more back-posts; all are now written real-time)