Love is Vertigo (a falling, floundering thing)

(Photo Source)

(To celebrate my new web page and in honor of Valentine's Day, I'm re-sharing some old posts this weeks focusing on the topic of love.  Today's post was shared on Valentine's Day 2013. Stop back tomorrow for another look at the many ways love finds us.)

I turned to see my two and four year old children driving their yellow, battery-powered, Corvette through our small, cramped living room.  I stood in the doorway between rooms, interviewing a potential babysitter, nanny when I looked up to watch her watching them drive by.  We were in the process of moving our older two out of daycare and hoping to hire someone to provide care in our home – the news that I was pregnant had finalized the decision. 

The incredible discovery that we were expecting twins had turned our world on its head the week before and, as I stood there talking, it still felt to me that our world was tilting, spinning out of control.  In that moment, the picture of our children driving through the house in a car that took up a third of the length of our living room struck me as both absurd and entirely appropriate. 

It was then that I knew we had fallen or were falling, though toward what I did not know.  The incline was steep and the sensation would not end, still has not ended, even now some two years later.  What I could not understand then that I do now is that what we were falling into was love, a deeper and wider love than we knew was possible.   

*   *   *

When I started dating the man who would become my husband, we would sit on opposite sides of the college cafeteria with our different groups of friends and make googly eyes at each other from across the room.  Whenever our eyes met there was a spark of electricity that spanned the distance and threatened to throw us off of our chairs if we didn’t glance away with speed. 

Later, when he studied in Oregon for a semester and I traveled out to visit, we spent an evening in Portland exploring, but all I remember is sitting together on a bench in the midst of the city.  I looked into his eyes, two deep and gentle brown pools, and felt myself falling, head-long, heart over heels.

*   *   *

When my daughter, my oldest, was born after months of waiting and reading, planning and anticipation, they placed her in my arms and I looked into those small dark eyes and felt a sudden and surprising moment of recognition.  It was an aha moment, a coming home and we sank into each other like two lost souls, like two lovers clinging as we plunged into life together.  I fell hard, as I have for every baby since.

*   *   *

Recently, I interviewed yet another babysitter.  The moment she walked in the door, my four year old pulled her into the hallway to see our new climbing wall. 

“A climbing wall . . . in your hall,” she said, “interesting.”  

I felt the same old sensation, the realization that we had fallen, are falling still, head-long into our love for these lives that have sprung up among us.  We are off-kilter, leaning hard into love and our home and our hearts are showing the expansion, the wear-and-tear of it all. 

Love, my friends, is a falling, floundering thing.  To love another, to be in and for love, is to consent to live continually off-balance.  Love is a leaning, plunging leap, a heart-pounding lunge that leaves your stomach in your throat and the only danger is that we would come to prefer the safety of solid ground over this sensation of continual plummet. 

To me, this is the only way to explain God coming to live among us, God looking, leaning down toward humanity.  God so loved the world that he leapt and fell in among us and in his falling for us he freed us from the fall, for the fall, and the taste is born in us for love – for leaping, falling, floundering, foolish love.

Christmas morning 2010, the Corvette we found for $25 on Craigslist.

Sitting in the Corvette, watching Bob the Builder.

Yesterday, On West 1st Street (#SmallWonder Link-up)

Saturday morning our kids were all away at sleep-overs.  John got up early and brought two cups of coffee back to bed.  When I stirred from my nest of sheets and sun, he asked, “Are you ready to hear about what I saw this morning?”

I guess I must have been ready because he told me how he let the dog out the back door, then went to the living room and looked out the big front window.  Across the street, the field has gone from green to gold and on the porch, two cats - one black, the other calico - sat facing the field.

“Really?” I asked, interrupting.  

We have one cat, Blackie, who wanders outside, the other, Perfect, is skittish and  rarely ventures from her self-imposed seclusion in the second story of our house.  When she does manage to make it outside, she ends up hiding in the garage, pressed out flat on the shelf formed by the open garage door.  Most of her adventures end with me on a ladder, coaxing her down, then carrying her back inside. 

“Yes,” he said, “I think it was Perfect.”

Seeing the cats, he went to the porch door and opened it.  Then he saw one cat, trotting off calmly down the road and Blackie sat alone on the porch.  We puzzled for awhile over the cats.  He was certain it was Perfect he saw on the porch and the cat trotting away looked an awful lot like her too, but “trotting off calmly down the road” isn’t in her repertoire.  

The more questions I asked, the more his story started to fall apart.  Blackie spent the night outside, that much we knew for sure, but I thought I saw Perfect in the morning.  How did she get outside with the doors and windows locked tight all night?  Maybe a third cat was involved? 

“This story is starting to sound less and less believable,” I said. 

“It’s true,” he said, laughing. 

“Next you’re going to say, ‘Then, along came a tiger, wearing pants, riding a unicycle.’” I said.  “And then I saw an elephant playing a banjo,’” I mimicked.  “This is starting to sound like a Dr. Suess book.”

I worried about Perfect all morning.  I scanned the rooms upstairs and quietly circled the garage calling her name and listening for an answering mew.  John cut out a cabinet in the kitchen and I worried the deafening sound of the circular saw would terrify her.  I trimmed shrubs around the house, hoping to find her cowering in their cool shade.  When we went out to lunch, we left the screen-less window open and the mud room door, hoping she would ease her way back home.  After lunch I found her back inside on the upstairs landing, jumpy and out of sorts.  She’d clearly had an adventure. 

Later we decided to wash the dog.  After trying to coax her upstairs and tugging her on a leash, John gave in and carried her to the upstairs bathroom.  Coco loves to go upstairs, but refuses to because the black cat guards it with growls and hisses and razor sharp claws - the upstairs is Perfect’s Oasis and Blackie likes to keep it that way. 

John set Coco her down in the bathroom and I shut the door, then we trimmed her fur with the electric clippers, focusing largely on her tail and hindquarters.  I hugged her body, holding her still while John trimmed her heavy wool coat.  She didn’t like it and skirted away when she could, but we cooed and praised her and she was torn between her dislike of the clippers and enjoyment of the attention. 

Satisfied with her haircut, we turned on the hand-held shower and John lifted her into the tub.  She shrank as the water soaked her coat.  She raised a tentative paw and looked longingly over the side of the tub, but stayed put under a steady stream of warm water and praise.  “Good girl, good girl, Coco,” we chirped.  I drizzled shampoo down her back and John scrubbed, clucking and singing over her like a mama bird over her chick.  Then the rinsing began and we exulted in the streams of dirt pouring down the long white tub toward the drain.

Crouched there beside my husband on the bathroom floor I remembered the first baths with our babies, the blue plastic tubs set on the dining room table and filled just so with warm but not hot water.  John is the bath man at our house, taking the honors of those first tentative sponge baths then graduating to cups of water scooped and poured over waving legs and arms.  He cooed and clucked over our babies singing love in half-flat tones and they, much like Coco, endured the alarm of water on skin, pulled along by the attention that poured down from their father’s eyes, his words and hands.            

When the dirt was more or less done running down, we turned the water off and I threw a towel over Coco’s head.  John wrapped her and lifted her to the floor where she shimmied and shook with that silly all-over-wet feeling dogs get and we were happy and pleased. 

These are a few of the things that happened yesterday on West 1^st Street.  The cat got lost and found, the dog got washed and trimmed.  At the end of the day I shut the chickens in the coop and walked slowly back into the house, looking out over all the green glory of this place of goodness we’ve been given.  Then I stepped my bare foot in chicken poop in the mud room and the cool, wet shock of surprise on my foot, the down-to-earth reality of that moment, summed up the day quite well.

*   *   *   *

Only 16 spaces left!  I'm super excited to be joining with Andi Cumbo-Floyd and Shawn Smucker to organize a weekend writer's retreat this summer at God's Whisper Farm in the beautiful mountains of Virginia.  Visit Andi's website for more info!

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.  

What if we chose to deliberately look for small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God?  

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.   

   

The Player

The Player

My husband wanted 
a record player.

Why? I asked.

We don’t have ROOM for a record player. 

We don’t NEED a record player. 

We don’t even OWN any records.

Still, every time I browsed local thrift stores 

he asked, Did you see any record players for me?

An icy no was my standard reply.

Where would we PUT a record player? I asked.

Why don’t you ask for one for Christmas? I offered.

 

One night we wandered the Salvation Army 

before heading out to dinner.  I turned my back 

not one minute and, of course, you know what he found.

A record player.

A brown record player.

In a portable plastic case.

He crossed the store grinning, 

that contraption hanging at his side 

like a briefcase. 

It’s only $10, he said.

It’s not even attractive, I whined.

Are you kidding?  

It’s portable.  

It’s awesome, he said.

Then, of course, we had to buy 
some records.  

I Feel Insecure (and What My Husband Has to Say About It)

I sat at the kitchen island prepping brown paper bags with the words, "Beloved Child of God."  Over and over I wrote with permanent markers in one color after another.  

Everyone who attends the As a Child Retreat will get a bag. Meant to trigger memories and fun, each bag holds playdoh, a bouncy ball, a lollipop and a colored pen.  

For months, I've been planning, praying, gathering materials for this retreat and now the day is almost here.  But last week, as I wrote those letters over and over again, I felt a creeping dis-ease that multiplied throughout the day.  By evening anxiety was spinning a sprawling web through my insides as I tried to explain to my husband how I felt. 

"I feel insecure," I said.  

Naming it helped, giving words to the way self sometimes crumbles in on itself, searching for something, anything solid to stand on.  

Finally, tired of sinking in my own stew, I asked my husband, "Is there anything you can say to make this better?"

Without a second's pause, he replied, "You're a beloved child of God too." 

Simple truths have a way of cutting right through the haze, don't they?  

I gave my husband a small glare.  By that point I was fairly attached to my pity party and, in the end, I envisioned a bag of chips being involved.  

But he was right.  

Later he told me how funny it was, watching me writing the same words over and over again, but not letting them sink in.  

"Beloved child of God."  

Yes, that's the heart of it.  Isn't it?  

Those four words offer the most solid ground I know.   

Crazy (Maybe My Mother-in-law Was Right)

“I have two bad things to tell you and one good," he said.  "Which do you want to hear first?"

“Bad news," I replied.

“The bad news is, my Mom read your postcard AND she hates the word ‘crazy.’ It’s like a swear word to her.” 

What?  Really? I thought. 

“The good news is, she liked the bible verses you put on the back.”

During the first summer we dated, I sent John a postcard.  One side showed the cover photo for the musical “Crazy for You” with the play’s title in large letters.  I was completely dumbfounded and not a little offended by the "bad news" and also pleased in a secret way that I’d managed to both impress and offend his mother in one fell swoop. 

But really, ‘crazy’ as a bad word? 

That’s just crazy.

//

“We’re just as crazy as them,” my husband said, bleary-eyed in the late-night-kitchen calm, “only our crazy is different.”

He was talking about our good friends, the ones who have three kids and keep a busy schedule of sports, scouts and all manner of fun activities.  I’d never thought about it that way, but immediately I recognized it as true. 

Maybe it’s the fact that we’ve gone through two dogs in the past month, or the way that more than one person has suggested we charge admission to our little “zoo.”  Yes, the upstairs of our house is torn to pieces, with exposed beams and wiring in the walls, holes in the floors where our littlest cat (who we strongly suspect may be pregnant) hides. 

But crazy? Us?

Of course.

That’s when I realized - you can’t see your own crazy.

It’s like we all have a mirror we look in to check for signs of crazy, but our mirror’s flawed with incredible blind-spots for the activities, dramas and investments we value most.  Holding the mirror up to others it’s obvious, “Man, they’re CRAZY.”  But us?  

No way.

//

Turns out we’re all a little bit crazy, in someone’s opinion. 

Over the years, John and I have developed a little code language regarding our own individual levels of crazy - think of it as the equivalent of a subtle hand gesture telling a close companion they have a glaring piece of spinach in their teeth.  This works because, even though you may not be able to see your combined familial level of crazy, a spouse can be very helpful in determining another spouse’s individual level of crazy. 

“You’re doing it again,” he says

By now, fifteen years in, I usually know pretty quickly what he’s talking about (depending, of course, on how far gone I am).  By “it” he means “crazy eyes,” this habit I have of talking loud and fast while my eyes ping-pong around in their sockets.  Crazy-eyes are a warning sign for me, a symptom of sorts that I’m heading for the edge.  

And you know what?  He does it too. 

Maybe he got it from me. 

Maybe that postcard really was the warning sign his mother thought it was. 

Maybe a certain type of crazy can be transferred from person to person like the plague.  

No, that just sounds crazy.  

The Ruby Year (on our Fifteenth Anniversary)

He gave me
a red stone.
A ruby pendant
dangled, round
and full like
a pomegranate,
wrapped
in the Sunday
comics, the only
colored pages 
in the midst
of stories told
in black and white. 
"I thought
you'd like it,"
he said,
and I did.


Photo source HERE.

You've Made Me Strong (Downton Gets It Right)

Baxter: "You've made me strong, Mr. Molesly.  Your strength has made me strong." 

Mr. Molesly: "My what?!"

// 

(Season Four Season Finale SPOILER alert)

"Oh, Mr. Molesly."

This is what we said again and again.  Poor old Mr. Molesly who always arrived with too little, too late.  Mr. Molesly who seemed forever behind the eight ball, always stepping squarely into one mess or another.  We said it just as often as we said, "Oh, Edith!" as we watched the two characters muddle through.

Julian Fellowes, the writer and creator of Downton Abbey seems to have taken it easy on us with season four's Christmas special and season finale.  After Matthew's tragic death last year and the horrific rape of Anna in this season's premire, the season finale was like a beautiful present where nearly all of the plot lines were neatly tied up with ribbons and bows. So neat and pretty that it might be easy to miss this moment of sheer beauty and truth that happens between Baxter and Molesly.

I so enjoyed watching Molesly rise to the occasion this season, his strength awakening as he senses Baxter's vulnerability.  Mr. Barrows is a man who preys on weakness and vulnerability, not unlike the gruesome Mr. Green who uses brute strength to violate Anna.  But Molesly offers another view of strength, strength that lends itself to weakness, rather than taking it to its advantage.

//

As a female Christian blogger I read a lot of blogs written by other Christians - male and female - and let me say the discussions about what it means to be male and what it means to be female are alive and well, but what I see missing are the conversations about what it means to be male and female together in relation to each other.

Don't get me wrong, there are lots of posts about the proper relationships between men and women, both in the church, in the home and in the world at large.  But all of these conversations seem, to me, to focus almost exclusively on the age old question of "who gets to be on top."  It's as though we're stuck again and again, placing men and women on opposite ends of a see-saw and the rise of one is inherently seen as a threat to the other.

Some argue that feminism makes women too strong and men just don't know what to do, thus women must become less so that men can be more.

Others argue that masculinity is an inherent threat to the feminine and so a man confident in his own strength is only to regarded as a cause for great alarm.

I love the picture painted in this brief endearing scene between Mr. Molesly and Baxter - "You're strength has made me strong." 

Molesly's strength is not against, but with, his strength is not a threat, but a gift.  When we look at men and women this way, equally gifted, then the argument shifts from "who will be on top" to "who will stand beside;" we move away from the see-saw and out into the wide open field of life where men and women, equally gifted, equally needed, work together.

I don't know what will come of Mr. Molesly and Baxter in the season ahead, but I'm hopeful for them as they already show the ability to "row together" as Mary says to Mr. Blake and that, indeed, is a very good sign. 

What did you think of the Season Finale and the development of relationships in Season Four?

Photo source.

On Our Anniversary (Let's Dance)

I've seen better days, dripping down your face.  We don't have to talk, let's dance. 

- Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

We're fourteen years in - seven years without kids and seven years with - so it feels like we're tipping the scale now toward the rest of our lives.  This was a year of cracking-open; a long, gray winter followed by the blooming hope of spring.

In April we sat, eyes sparkling, over an Italian meal, unpacking our dreams like a sigh, so much air held in after too many years playing the steady to other people's lives.  It was like standing beside an open window in spring, the fresh air wafting over us like Life itself.  Looking ahead, we clasped our hands together and jumped.

Only, it wasn't quite like that, not really.

It was more like a lot of work to get a house ready to sell while four small kids ran in circles around us.  Then, after the sale, it was waiting and wondering, a rollercoaster of hope and despair as we were chauffeured from house to house in the back seat of our realtor's car.  

And now it's still this: Waiting.

But there's another word that stands out from this past year, which is this one: Together.

Waiting. Together.

See how the one softens, even just a little, when placed beside the other?

Yes, that's how it's been.

We've been like that couple in the Christmas tale - the one where she sells her hair to buy him a chain for his watch and he sells his watch to buy her a comb for her hair.  You were willing to give up the land that made you smile so that I could feel at home and, when that fell through, I was willing to give up the writing and retreat space I so desperately need, just for the joy of seeing you astride one of those tractors you're always looking at on Craigslist.

But God kept us from foolish sacrifices and here we are still, Waiting Together.

Here we stand, facing forward, hand in hand, looking for that open window, ready to jump again.

In the meantime, though, we don't have to talk, let's dance.

Answers to Prayer

The realtor's car flew along green fields and over rolling hills.  Seated in the back seat, a small and simple prayer formed in my mind.

Looking up and out the wide, flat glass of the windshield, I glimpsed a cherry-red Cardinal lifting off from a large puddle in the middle of the road.  The timing was impeccable, as if he'd been waiting there, staged to arise in answer to my prayer.   

"Hmm . . . ," I thought to myself. 

Turning toward my husband who sat beside me, I caught sight of a single deer running through a golden field.

"Look," I said and "hmmm . . . ," I thought to myself.

Pulling into the driveway of the house we'd come to see, I kid you not, the sun that had been playing a day-long game of hide-and-seek shone down bright and clear right on us. 

"The sun came out," I said to my husband with a smile as we unfolded ourselves, up and out of the car.

*   *   *

My husband's text to a friend the night before read, "Kelly and I are sideways about a house.  Do you have time to talk?" 

When I saw it, I said, half-joking, "Sideways?  Head-to head is more like it." 

There was one house that was a maybe. It fit our short list of needs and I was ready to settle because the alternative - the dark, dingy, over-priced rentals we'd toured, the leases that bound us financially for a year - were more than I could face.

Our good friend texted back, "Sure, how 'bout tonight?" and showed up at our door shortly after the kids were in bed.

He listened, this great hulk of a man sprawled on our living room floor, and we talked and by the time we were done some of the dense fog of fear and pain had lifted and my husband and I shifted from foes to allies again, sitting side-by-side even in the painful unknown.   

*   *   *

Our earliest dates took place in diners where we sat in sticky booths considering one another over endless cups of coffee.  Returning back to campus one night, we stood under the street-lights, eyes searching eyes and it bubbled out of him, "I just want to make you happy."

That same boy turned man sat across from me at a diner the following day and I was able to see again the bond of love that spanned the table between us holding us in the booth; that cable that runs from heart to heart and forms a home for us and all the little loves we've spawned.   

"You're right," he said, as we ate, "I've been thinking about it all day long, I made a list of pros and cons and there are really only two things about that house that I don't like. And two isn't that many."

Slowly, carefully, we each relinquished the claims we'd been holding in exchange for holding each other.  Finishing our meals, we slid into the low, red, Volkswagen and chugged our way over to the realtor's office.

*   *   *

We walked through the house slowly, by ourselves.  Turning, talking, touching walls and switches, we tried that house on and turned slowly, each for the other, to see how it fit. 

Stepping onto the deck we heard loud and clear what we hadn't heard the first time through, the unmistakable roar of route 81 that passed nearby just out of sight.  It was loud, undulating, unceasing noise.  Continuing through the house, the walls reverberated with the sound of passing trucks. 


As the clouds rolled in, low and heavy and the wind picked up, it seemed that all of heaven and earth rearranged itself to carry the highway's sound to us.  It was the one thing we could both agree on, the noise of a nearby highway wasn't something we were willing to embrace. 

*   *   *

 

I prayed that we would know and we did.  We knew, together, that it wasn't the house for us.  But beyond that, we knew in all the little ways we could, that God was with us and that gave us the courage to walk away from what might have been an easy answer. 

That night our realtor offered us the key to a vacant rental he owned and suddenly, just like that, we had a place to live while we continued looking and waiting.  It wasn't the answer we wanted, but it was an answer to prayer.  Sometimes, when we're able to let go of whatever it is we want so badly, those unwanted answers can be enough, not because of what they "get" for us, but because of the way they remind us so clearly that God is with us. 


This post is linked with Playdates With God and #tellhisstory.

Taking out the Trash (an invitation to Love)

"If what you see from the eye doesn't please you, then close your eyes and see from the heart." - Anonymous

I watch as the tall white plastic container slowly fills throughout the day.  By evening it’s reached maximum capacity and I do a high-step, stomping it down with my foot before scraping in the leftovers from six dinner plates.

The following morning, as I throw in the twins’ diapers from the night before, the situation is nearing a crisis – the trash can is full, overflowing, and my husband has already left for work. 

I feel a flash of anger as my fingers delicately search for the red plastic drawstrings and pull up on the hefty bag.  I tie the strings in a tight double-knot, drag the bag to the back door, and toss it outside where it sits smoldering in the sun all day long, blocking the entrance to our house.  I leave it there, stinking, like a quickly scrawled note of reproach that greets my husband the minute he returns from work.

My husband and I take a tag-team approach to nearly everything it takes to run a household of six, but last I checked taking out the trash is still his job.  He mostly neglects this responsibility, though, except for Sundays, when the weekly trash collection is imminent. 

I try everything from arguments and accusations to passive-aggressive humor in my attempts to wrestle him into compliance.  I explain how it hinders my day, how the whole house gets backed-up when we don’t keep up with the trash.  But I don’t explain how it feels like a personal affront to me, which is where, I suspect, the anger really comes from.  I also neglect to mention how I’ve allowed this little failure to come to symbolize a lack in his love for me. 

I can see I’m being irrational, but I can’t seem to let it go.

Then, one day, as I bend again to lift that heavy, reeking load, I feel the invitation to view that neglected bag as a symbol of all that my husband does do for me and for our family. 

The truth is that he neglects the trash, in part, because he’s busy showing his love in a hundred other ways, both big and small.  Arriving home from work, he looks past the trash and toddlers, his wide smile seeking me out as he pulls me into his arms to ask about my day.  He helps with baths and bedtime and encourages me to take the evening off and head out with friends when the going gets tough and I need a break.      

The truth is I am loved.  So for now on, as I bend and stomp and lift and tote, I’ll use it all, every motion, as a reminder of his love for me.  Because love is patient and love is kind, but nowhere does it say, “Love is taking out the trash.”

(photo credit here)

This post is linked with Playdates With God and Hear it on Sunday, Use it on Monday.