The Liturgical Calendar on Memorial Day

Here we are again at the end of May.

A year ago this weekend is when everything started to get crazy. When the control I thought I had over my life and activities imploded, and I started waiting for the phone calls that would tell me what I needed to do, or would be permitted to do, and when and where.

As I write, this year, today, the kids are all home from school. It's Memorial Day. They are cooking up some joint activity that involves costumes and bonnets and textiles pulled from neatly folded stacks. They are getting along and working together to realize some vision that I can't quite make out from back here in my bedroom. I don't dare step outside and upset the delicate balance of the magic that is happening.

When I look back on last spring, it seems magical to me, too: a time poised before the precipice. For the past couple of weeks I have been dusting off memories of last year in Princeton: "A year ago today we played football on Princeton's practice fields." "A year ago today we drove up to New York and retrieved Pixie from the cousins." "A year ago today it was so hot we drove down Quaker Bridge Road and bought a Slip n Slide and inflatable pool." (Quaker Bridge: because a Bridge. And Quakers.) That last is bittersweet: how I spent time running between stores, looking for the best deal on a sturdy pool that would last. When the next week I was out of there.

This summer will be a series of anniversaries. I am hoping that there will be time and space to process each in such a way that I can put things to rest and move ahead. 

I have often wondered about my propensity to mark time by specific fixed points. Does everyone keep in the back of their mind what they may have been doing on a particular day the year before? In some ways this makes the regular rhythm of day-to-day more terribly beautiful: an overlay of the past on the pattern of today. There may also have been a time when I would do the same with the future ("This time next month I will be_________"), although I have not been doing it much this year. Since last June the view ahead has been more opaque. For example,  J and I plan to take a lovely trip together soon. We have been planning it and mentally marking it with the hashtag #dontwaittocelebrate. And yet, it keeps sneaking up on me.  There has been little counting down of "this time next month" and last weekend I realized that I am afraid to look forward to it. If I get to enjoy it, great. If not, there will be no smashing to smithereens of expectations.

This feels safe, and yet doesn't quite seem to be the way I want to live in the world: waiting without looking forward. And so I want to pick up the church's liturgical calendar like a piggy bank of stored goodness, and shake it, and see what else it might have for me inside.

I can hear the drumming of Deuteronomy, the Gospels, Paul: "Remember!"

"...you shall not be afraid of them but you shall remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt, the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which the Lord your God brought you out."

"You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today."

"He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.”

"Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound!"

And so of course I think that the church's calendar invites us to remember. To revisit again and again the things that we need keep before us but are liable to forget. Perhaps not all of those are things in the past. I am coming to think that the calendar is a pointing forward, as well. Around and around the years, seemingly marking time and yet (like a corkscrew) moving forward. Reaching out and pulling the future in.

And so as I revisit and remember this summer, I hope to see clearly God's goodness to me in the past: the ancient past, the recent past, the past year. But also to have a clearer vision for where he may be taking me, us. To somehow mark that he knows the plans he has for us: the gift of a future and a hope.

The Road to Character

Friday morning, David Brooks is coming to speak at the college across the way. I am trying to decide whether I am going.

Seeing his name in print puts me in a tailspin--that vermilion cover, the silver bookmark. I took it with me while I waited, and then I left Hillsborough radiology without it; after realizing this I turned around in the Applebee's parking lot to go back and collect it.  I read it as I waited for the very first of the series of tests that would eventually lead to the diagnosis of recurrent, stage IV cancer. Upon my return the staff found it for me at closing time on a Friday. On the way out I took a call from my doctor in the parking lot. We talked about the plan for Monday--an MRI, the possibility of needing to return early to California. So much unknown. Then I drove back out to Applebee's to meet the family for dinner as we celebrated the end of the homeschooling school year. I was done teaching.

Saturday morning we took the train into Manhattan as planned. We went to the top of the Empire State Building, not as planned, but as a surprise treat.

It was a clear day and we could see so far out ahead, in all directions. The breeze and clarity were a gift as I fought to keep my vision from closing in toward the focused tunnel it was becoming, even then. Later, we got on the A 8th Avenue Express by accident and went all the way up to 145th street. How we laughed at ourselves. And then back down, 64 blocks (on another train). We walked and museum-ed and picnicked in the park and later went downtown.

Saturday we played and Sunday we went to church. I stood at the front and read off-book from the first half of Isaiah 6.

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!” 

When I went back for the MRI on Monday, I took the book back with me. As I waited, I waded through a section on suffering. I read:

"...Suffering gives people a more accurate sense of their own limitations, of what they can control and not control. ..Suffering, like love, shatters the illusion of self-mastery...It teaches that life is unpredictable and that the meritocrat's efforts at total control are an illusion. 

Suffering, oddly, also teaches gratitude. In normal times we treat the love we receive as a reason for self-satisfaction (I deserve to be loved), but in seasons of suffering we realize how undeserved this love is and how it should in fact be a cause for thanks. In proud moments we refuse to feel indebted, but in humble moments, people know they don't deserve the affection and concern they receive."

I remember pausing, thinking that I was going to need to remember that.

I was soon called back for my MRI and later drove back to our home. As it turned out, the ink wouldn't be dry on the radiologist's report before I had an airline ticket back to Los Angeles for the following day. I spent the evening packing up what I could of our year in Princeton; the book was not able to come along. After finally getting to my turn at the top of the waiting list for it at the Princeton library, it was to be returned unfinished, along with the other books from my nightstand.

In the scope of the mourning that I have done, unfinished books seem such a little thing. In many ways they are. My year has been such a one as to accrue many similarly seemingly inconsequential losses (and just a few larger ones)--the sum of which happens to be nothing more or less than the loss of life as I was expecting, planning, assuming it to be. Whatever that was.

There are pros to this, as well as cons. Unfinished books are not the same as unfinished stories. Now when I head out to drive carpool I often mutter or shout "Living the dream!"--stealing a line from my sister--because I am so grateful to be doing what I am doing, and for the hope that more days are coming. There are twists and turns in the road, and that is something we all have in common. "This is not the end, but it is the road." And it goes on.

Brooks was right; I have been deeply grateful for many things. I think I will go tomorrow, after all. 

A-Waiting

As I mentioned in my last post, this fall has been hot. Hotter-than-summer hot. I have been waiting and waiting for fall to come. It has been in the 90s and 100s at our house, every day.

This year is hotter than past years, that is certain (I think--right? I haven't been in Santa Barbara for fall since 2012). When we first moved here, fall came with cool and rain and meant the end of fire season. Now, we have fire season all the year 'round.

Last Thursday morning we woke up to a 6 am text from emergency services. There was a wildfire burning in the hills behind our house. We walked outside and could see the huge plumes of flame cresting the ridge in the darkness.

We started packing, quietly, before the kids got up--not wanting to worry them. Two of them are old enough to remember the night in 2008 when we spent about fifteen minutes grabbing children and (the most random) things and heading to the Westmont gym for shelter, the burning embers raining down on us as we went.

Thursday, we knew that a repeat was unlikely; but nerves jangled as everyone remembered. And while we sat under evacuation warning and ready to go, I was still reticent to pack everything because it's work to get ready and it's work to unpack again.

(Note: experienced packing in evacuating can be revealing: for example, I should maybe never buy any clothes but grays and the blue-green spectrum). 

We spent some time watching the smoke, and took a field trip to watch the helicopters basing out of a field at Westmont. That was very cool, even when it kicked up a wave of dust and leaves that hit us like a wall.

The day was surreal. There was no immediate crisis and so normal life continued, with all of its rhythms and responsibilities. I drove carpool. The college held classes. Yet all the while there was an awareness that if the wind turned and picked up, --as forecast--all sense of normal could go flying out the window in a hurry.

I wanted to resist being hysterical or paranoid. Yet, those of us who experienced that devastating fire no longer have the luxury of just assuming that everything will be fine. For a visual, here is a video of our own street from that night, to give an idea of what we knew was possible. And so we quietly braced ourselves.


I spent the day going back and forth between searching the internet and the horizon for news of the fire, and trying to live the normal things I was called to do. Laundry. Piano lessons. Somewhere in the midst (I was walking to the mailbox) I realized how well the morning represented how I am living right now in terms of the cancer.

In this case the crisis is past; but I no longer have the luxury of just assuming that everything is going to be fine. I already felt that way in May, when I first found the lump. I know that lumps can be anything, and perhaps most often are something else-- cat-scratch disease, for example.

But I had experienced that it was plausible that it could mean what everyone dreads, the same way we know the wind can whip an inferno our way.

We find ourself in a season of waiting right now, not unlike the waiting on the wind we did on Thursday morning. This time we are waiting on the next round of scans. As with the fire, I am unwilling to panic and yet there it is, just beyond the ridge. And as with the fire, I have absolutely no control over how things will go. What is coming? I am grappling with what it means to live into the normal while still...waiting. One wants to be prepared, and yet not waste time preparing for what may never come. That seems to me a fine and important line.

I wish I had a tidy little summary for the way forward, but I don't. I imagine it involves looking ahead and preparing for the things that are inevitable and promised. I am certain it means looking for hope where true Hope is to be found. In the meantime there are many moving parts and moving people, and we are not waiting alone. Thursday I had a friend text with an offer of welcome, even though we had not yet been evacuated. Just in case. And last June a friend came to Los Angeles to go with me to appointments--and brought her toothbrush. Just in case. It turns out I needed her to stay.

And so as I figure out how to prepare (and how not to prepare), I have these many examples of how God has provided for me and for us. And that is a comfort as we wait.


To follow my SarcomaSummer2015 playlist, I built a new one for this season: A.waiting Fall. Here it is in case you want to groove and dance and sing along with me. I'm a little embarrassed at how familiar Nutmeg already is with all of these. "Motorcycle Drive By" is one of her favorites.

On Thursday, the winds stayed low. The emergency response was swift and thorough.  No evacuation was necessary, no houses burned. But all day and into the night we waited. And in the morning, we gave thanks.

Happy Halloween--and we're baaaack!

Yesterday was Halloween. It was a full day that ended well. It was also, in the heat of the afternoon, 103 degrees in our back yard. One hundred and three. Halloween. That's important for later.

Last year, we drove home from a fall weekend in upstate New York with family--Camp Covington 2014! On the way, we stopped at a front-yard farmstand and bought our pumpkins. Huge ones. We put our $4 per pumpkin in the coffee can they had set out for the purpose.

For Halloween 2014, we were at home outside of Princeton. Our neighbor on the dark country highway told us that trick-or-treaters never, ever stopped at our small cluster of houses in the dark with no sidewalk. So we cheerfully all went together to trick-or-treat in the neighborhood she advised. It was a delight to walk with J while the troupe trooped. We never all get to walk together because someone has to stay home to hand out treats. It was my favorite year. They had chosen a Spanish theme and coordinated their outfits. Nona supplied the matador and bull outfits. I remember thinking, "This coordinated group-think won't happen again."

But it did, sort of. This year, Pixie knew she wanted to be Scarlett O'Hara and we had all of the pieces for Dorothy from Oz in place already. The boys rallied around the idea of old-school characters and chose the Lone Ranger and Zorro. Although Pixie was old enough this year to go trick-or-treating with friends, the other three hung together with me and we enjoyed a sweet evening.

Two years ago, we were in Madrid for Halloween. The kids wore souvenirs we had bought (masks in Venice!) and handed out candy to the students, who came to our apartment on the way to a Halloween party the program hosted off the Puerta del Sol. We haven't been home for Halloween in a long time.

So, this year it was fun to be back in town for Halloween. This week ended with a little bit of chaos, and I was glad to wrap things up last night (and to get an extra hour of sleep!). Part of the chaos was a wildfire that started in the foothills behind our house on Thursday morning. Part of it was a Fall Festival at school on Friday, in tandem with flag football and ballet and all of the usual Things. By the time Halloween rolled around, it was Pixie's third time in her costume. This year when carving pumpkins, J broke out the jigsaw. I think it will become a staple.

We are all grateful to have made it to Sunday, on which we have worshipped and rested and had a neighbor up for burgers for dinner. And eaten chocolate, of course. What's your favorite Halloween candy?

This morning at breakfast I gave the kids the Cliff Notes version of this blog post, which asks whether Halloween might be more Christian than Christmas. I recommend it. It resonated with our kids, who are familiar with their Boppy's "Christmas Goody-Goody" song.

I remember that at the beginning of this post I said that 103 degrees was important for later. It still is, but I've moved those thoughts to a different blog post because I haven't yet wrestled them into order. Soon.

Niagara Falls

Since January, I had cherished hopes of making it to Argyle in order to catch our nieces and nephews in their epic dance recital. And when one is heading upstate, why not throw in a trip to Niagara Falls? IT'S PRACTICALLY ON THE WAY.

Left arrow: Niagara Falls. Right arrow: Dance recital. 

Upstate is upstate, right? What's an extra 500 miles between friends? Throw in the fact that J had a conference for work the same weekend back in Princeton, and it all made sense in a special kind of way!

Everyone stop and take a deep breath and think about what it must be like to live with me. Say a prayer for J while you're at it.

The plans came together and we set off for Niagara Falls in the wee morning hours of a Thursday. We stopped for lunch of some amazing (seriously) meatloaf in the grocery-store deli of a tiny town that was nearly-there. Such are the random serendipitous moments of these drives.

The closer we got, the more excited I was. I mean, I was really looking forward to this. I was convinced that Niagara Falls was something that would not disappoint, although I didn't have much evidence to go on. I was deeply hopeful that it would be like the Grand Canyon in that it would be even grander than what could be pictured or imagined: that it would demand to be experienced.

Horseshoe Falls

And, wow.

Nutmeg was afraid at first. The noise of mighty rushing waters is not to be trifled with.

foreground: American Falls

Rainbow!

The mist from Horseshoe Falls. We could see this from miles away as we drove in, like smoke from a wildfire.

We spent almost 24 hours at Niagara Falls, and that was about right. I booked us a hotel on the Canadian side with views of the falls. We could hear the roar of the water while in our room.

Breakfast in the hotel

The timing was perfect; in mid-May, things had just reopened after the winter (!) so we weren't in full tourism season yet. There were no crowds, and hotels and such were less expensive.
We hit an uncommonly warm day, though, which meant the Maid of the Mist was a delight.

The Maid is a boat that goes up-close-and-personal to the bottom of the falls. In misty Horseshoe Falls, we got soaked. 

I maybe thought about the wedding in The Office.

We hiked around to the different islands and got up-close looks. Nutmeg picked me about a zillion dandelions. 

It was fun to get to use our passports and overnight in Canada. As Nutmeg commented re: border control, "That girl was NICE to me!"

Bud's "You think?!?" to the "Climbing is Dangerous" sign above the falls

Kid photographer! OK, it was  a little romantic.

Niagara Falls did not disappoint. It was a whirlwind-yet-restorative family vacation, and I am deeply grateful to have been able to go. And truly thankful and amazed that it exceeded my expectations (unlike our trip to the Grand Canyon) and was in no way disappointing. There is something exhilarating in in hoping big and then seeing it come to pass. I am so so grateful!

Our crew of Road Ninjas at the Falls

Mail Call

I explain the duct tape later

I can't believe two weeks have gone by so quickly! They have been filled with joy. And filled. I hope to get to them soon.

But for now, in this little window I have before supper, I just wanted to note how wonderful it has been to get mail from many of y'all.

Real, hold-in-your hands mail. Snail Mail. Thrill.

So true.

Showing up like a surprise gift in our mailbox. And sometimes, actual surprise gifts. 

For one thing, we get mail a little more often than we do at home (because we are away from all those people we see in person). And given that there are six of us and my kids do some writing, there is always cause for hope that there may be mail. Which means the checking of the mailbox is a daily Event. One of our family liturgies of this year.

For another thing, we have our own individual mailbox across the country highway from our house, instead of the block of neighborhood mailboxes we have at home. This means that if we have mail going out, I get to put up a little red flag like I did growing up. And I then know when the mail has come because the little red flag is down. There is one location inside our house where I can check this status without going outside.

From our bedroom window

Which is important, because when it is seven degrees outside one doesn't want to get all booted up and find the outgoing Netflix DVD still waiting to be picked up.

The mailbox has served us well, although it took some hits for the team this winter. Twice it suffered dislocation by the force of heavy snow being thrown up by the plow.

Another time it landed about eight feet away from the post. 

Finally, J stopped repairing it and just duct-taped it onto the post for the rest of the season, which included incidents like this:

That snow is frozen solid, folks.

And now, Nutmeg has found herself a faithful penpal in a cousin down in Marietta. Neither of them can quite read yet, but they both can make letters and/or draw pictures. And so the correspondence has been flying back and forth. SO MUCH FUN.

She started out copying letters; she now often asks me to "tell me them out loud."

Anyway, as I contemplate going home and losing this: my little red flag and peeping out my bedroom window and waiting until slow-traffic times to cross our highway-- I am immensely grateful for those of you who have put a stamp or seven onto something and sent it our way. Please know that along with your post, several grins and some dancing were delivered. Thank you.



**UPDATE-- As of Saturday 5.23, there is no longer duct tape on our mailbox. 

Eight More Weeks--

Tuesday marked eight weeks from the day we plan to wrap up our time in New Jersey. For some reason, with the arrival of May came not only "May flowers," but a sense of "it's almost time to go." I wonder whether the Canadian Geese whose migration we witness experience the same sort of sensation.

Driving

If things go according to our current plan, this time eight weeks from now we will be on the road again. It is difficult to describe the complexity of emotions I experience as I ponder this. This week, I have been revisiting a song that has cycled in and out of my regular playlist over the past couple of years: "The Littlest Birds" by the Be Good Tanyas.

Well, I feel like an old hobo
I'm sad lonesome and blue
I was fair as a summer day
Now the summer days are through

You pass through places
And places pass through you
But you carry 'em with you
On the soles of your travellin' shoes

The contrast between the cheerful music and sad words reflects something of how I feel now that May has arrived. The music always makes me want to dance. 

And summer days are not through! They are marching closer every day. Nearly every day we have some new delight pop up. Because we have never been here in spring, I had no idea what hidden gems were waiting in the yard for us. Now, the kids can recite flowers in order of appearance, one wave coming after another:

snowdrops
daffodils
hyacinth
forsythia
tulips

And then, when I thought we were wrapping up, a dogwood exploded in bloom.



A few days later we found a blooming lilac bush back by the sledding hill.

lilacs on Sunday, our first summery day

This morning, without warning, both fuchsia and white azaleas! WHO KNOWS WHAT DELIGHTS ARE COMING is kind of the mentality of right now around here. Sooner or later, I know, things will settle into nice steady summer.

And then we will pull up stakes and head back to the land where summer is pretty perennial. It seems a little bit like the final curtain is about to drop on a fierce dramatic performance; and we're shifting in our chairs, getting ready to go back blinking into everyday life.

Pixie's first time driving the riding mower

Bud

I have started thinking about our return route home. The northern route? The southern? Checking locations for our favorite hotels, and seeing which little trips and sightseeing we can squeeze in along the way.

However, even as we start to plan the return and my mind fills up with images of Louisiana (or wherever), we are still very much here. Our kids met some kids at a park last week and then their whole family turned up at our church's family fun day on Saturday. Yesterday they all came over for a playdate. New friends, with eight weeks to go. Because we are not done here yet.

Family Fun Day at BRC Highlights

In the months leading up to our move out here, I started a google doc with a list of good things to anticipate here; it helped me look for the possibility of good in Princeton. Some of the things on the list were lightning bugs and thunder.

Looking back at it now, that list is pretty sparse; from my present vantage point, I am astonished by all of the things I had to look forward to that I didn't know about yet.

It's a little bit like our yard this spring, and all of the marvelous beauty that I didn't know was waiting. God has been very tender with me this year. There has been so much I didn't know was in store. I hope I have a chance to share more about it.

Our year has passed through us even as we have passed through it, and we've all grown (especially the children!). We will carry it with us on the soles of our travellin' shoes, yes, but in other ways and places, as well.

The song continues in this way, which is a fitting end to what I have to say for tonight:

Well, I love you so dearly, I love you so clearly
I wake you up in the mornin' so early
Just to tell you I got the wanderin' blues
I got the wanderin' blues

And I'm gonna quit these ramblin' ways
One of these days
Soon