Memoria Arts

{ Photo by eeekays }

I remember waking from surgery two years ago.

The pain was searing. I knew, profoundly, that things had gone very, very wrong…there was this space of time before the recovery nurse realized that I was awake and administered the next dose of pain killers and when I awoke, and all I could process was how much pain I was in. The ceiling tiles above me- plain popcorn cracker jack tiles that usually lined up in nice little rows like soldiers- jumped and tilted like a crazed wheel-go-round. When the nurse crossed my line of sight, she had this wavy look to her. “Like a cracked mirror, ” I remember thinking, hazily. When the pain killers entered via my IV, it was like someone slowly lined everything back up again- the ceiling tiles fell into orderly rows- and the nurse’s face resembled a human one and not a Picasso impression. Not much later, my ob walked in to check on me, and another mirror shattered.

I don’t remember so much the grief at that time- I just remember how the whole world seemed to have this weird hue, technicolor, almost garish, and yet, frighteningly beautiful. Sunrises and sunsets out the back door, setting over the hills- they would make this profound ache in my chest that I never knew had existed. And ever so slowly, things lined up again- reasonable rows and sensible ways returned, and although I knew I would never be the same, life took on a new normal.

As I’ve traced out the moments of the last few months for you here, I see fractured reflections that are not what they seem. I don’t think I realized at the time of the surgery that a part of me had spun off and broken. I don’t think we ever realize it at the time until we have the luxury of hindsight to see where things careened off the tracks- perhaps if we could see we’d never end up in the millions of goofy, dumb, oh-so-very-human jams we find ourselves in.

I look back now and I see all the fractionated pieces for what they are, and it just seems strange. How could I have gotten so far off track?

As I was walking into April, I didn’t have the twenty twenty reverse vision I have now, here in August. (And I question that I even have 20/20 now.) I just had this prayer. Lord have mercy.

In it’s own way, April was another awakening from anesthesia. Whether I had realized it or not, my soul-life had passed into unconsciousness and ignorance over a year and a half or two; the searing pain of April was reminding me that blood still flowed in the veins. Looking into the mirror of myself (boy, the metaphors are getting complicated here, but I think you understand what it is I am trying to say), it was as if I just first realized that something was not right- that the reflection did not look like it was supposed to.

I am such a self-assured dork. I find it an appalling part of myself, and when I have the chance to glance back at where my pride has gotten ahead of my cognizance, it brings me such sorrow.

The time for reading the Word and prayer seemed to be magically happening. (HA. As if that is ever true. The Lord ordained and so it occurred. Magic had nothing to do with it.) I had this smug little feeling going on- “hey, look, I’m doing it! the good Christian thing!” That feeling lasted for maybe a day or two;  then I started looking for excuses to get away, because what was meeting me in those times was not sunshine and roses.

If I could give a word picture, I’d refer one to Revelation 10:10, where St. John eats the scroll- it tastes sweet as honey but turns bitter on his stomach. Not that I’ve ever faced the realities that the beloved disciple did, or that I could even compare in sufferings; I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to experience the prophesy there on the island of Patmos. But I’ve never had Scripture do what it did (does even today) before that time…it was odd. Like slaps in the face, a good and thorough shaking…the “nice” “good” veneer was off and there the terrifying Truth staring right back at me.

I started in 1 peter, for whatever reason. And I remember my smug self-assurance going into the first chapter…my intellectual superiority…this ‘oh isn’t this nice’ attitude. One of the thought processes was – well, of course I am on God’s side. (Peter spends a long time talking about how to know false teachers from real ones, about false fruit, and good…a sort of Cliff’s note version to good and evil and how to know which one is which.)

The Word like honey turned bitter on my stomach. This very heavy hand came to rest upon my soul as I realized just how many times I was for evil instead of good. What was most appalling to me was that it was often out of ignorance and omission- because I was not actively for good I was passively for evil. Because I lacked spiritual discipline, because my life had become rank and stagnant, I was for evil. Oh what confessions needed to be made! It is a strange place to be in, as a child and now adult who had been raised in the church, to come face to face yet again with one’s sin. Each time it has occurred there has been a level of understanding- but I don’t think it has struck me so very hard or as profoundly as April did.

It was like the veil was torn for my eyes for a bit- so that I could see that the reflection I thought I had- that of Christ- was awfully dim and faded- and the mirror I was looking at and holding so tightly to was a fractured piece-meal of my own making- very much not of the Lord’s intent for me.

By the time I left April’s blustery winds and rainy days, I had come to understand that the Lord was calling me higher up and further in; it was time to grow up in some profound ways. It was time to let go of all that I was and thought, of what I wanted to be- because what I wanted wasn’t good for me. Or anyone else for that matter. (I find this whole process so difficult to explain. I can only hope that you, dear hearts, have experienced this at some point and can understand what I am trying to say.) It is hard to peel off skin and peer inward and then spill it here.

( And yes, I find comfort in the fact that it was Peter I started to read- smug, self-assured, Peter who failed and failed, stubborn as all get out and yet Jesus tells him- ‘on you I will build my church’- thank heavens for that. It gives me such great hope…that blustery old fisherman and I have *so* much in common and God does have a sense of humor that He’d yoke me with *that* disciple first. )

(Photo by pequeniocraft )

I have never known quiet in my adult life.

I had vague memories of childhood, snippets of time where both my heart and mind seemed quieted, at peace and at rest…moments where ‘all is well and all manner of things shall be well’, as Julian of Norwhich muses…

My adult life, however, has been marked by constant noise, within and without. The noise within is perhaps the deeper concern, because I wouldn’t trade the babble and roar of my children in their play for anything. The exterior noise is always with us in some way or another- the news reports, the deep concerns, the conflicting opinions, the pressures exerted upon us in ways we sometimes hardly understand. I get that.

I have spent an extraordinary amount of time over the last eight years accompanied by an inner noise so loud that I’ve rarely been able to hear myself think. I can’t decide if this has been by choice or by circumstance- looking now I tend to think it is a combination of both. And the result has been, to some extent, that I have been running from myself, from who I am, for eight long years.

That was the most prescient thought and understanding that came to me in the first quiet moments of what I’ve begun to think of as my new beginning, the day I finally grew up. For the first time in my marriage and the first time in my mama-journey,  I had finally come to the first hard stop in my adult life. My first retreat, my first stopping at the wayside. I know this sounds absurd- how many vacations have happened over the years- how many afternoons off at the coffee shop? How very true. But I would enter into these times so dearly over clocked emotionally and physically that what would actually happen more resembled collapse then a gentle surrender.

And more absurd- wasn’t I a Monday through Friday single parent, weren’t there five little pairs of feet circling about my skirts? A retreat? Are you kidding me? And “yes”, I’ll nod, “all well and true.” But a retreat is more in ones mind than in ones physical surroundings. Oh, I had to prepare food, wipe noses, give baths, change diapers, that did not change. It was my thought life, the spirit life where the retreat occurred.

It has been perhaps the most difficult thing I have ever done. The first few days I found that in an odd sort of way, I just needed to shut my internal noise off. I thought that this would be easy enough, but it was so difficult. I think and think and think things through, like a dog chasing tail. A large part of my thought process over a day is creatively tuned- that image, that color, what would that look like? ( I have since realized I am not that unusual in that regard as I have talked to other creative types. I used to think that was incredibly weird.) But at the core- there was a slew of demands on my ‘emotional bank’ so to speak, hanging like creditors, wanting a piece of my heart. My private pain. And I have literally run from ‘them’ for years.

It was an intense exercise to just meet the thoughts, as they stood, and let them go, to hold my mind as an open set of palms and just let the thoughts alight on my fingers and then let them fly off again. I wanted to curl finger, grab hold, wrestle, fight, or more than often, just turn tail and run. Such a rare few of them were gentle butterflies and birds. More often they were strange and deformed. It was hard not to see monsters. What was more striking to me was how often a particular Psalm would rise up and greet the thought. I’ve never memorized vast portions of Scripture, so I found this startling. Or one of the Prophets would speak. Jeremiah. Isaiah. Hosea.

I watched this all unfold, strangely detached and yet right there in the thick of it. It is oh so very hard to explain.It was so hard to just let my thoughts be. To not judge myself, to not over-analyze, or to reason away. One of the first lessons I learned was simply that- that I paid undue attention to them in a destructive sort of way. I tried to name everything, to put each little thing in a proper box, shove it up on a high teetering shelf, and not deal with it again.

To use an analogy, the constant cycle of breakdown and crash externally and chronic depression internally were a result of all those teetering shelves crashing down around my feet, begging me to deal with the mess. And up to this point, I never did actually really look at or clean up the mess. I would just blindly start grabbing things, shoving them into ill-shaped boxes, jamming them hard on shelves, and “getting back to life”, as I would reason. But what I have failed to profoundly understand is that the mess and those boxes were my life, and as long as I kept blindly flailing on, my life would always be this mess, this divided life that is and is not.

That revelation stopped me hard one day. I was walking from the dining room to kitchen with a child’s cup in hand, clearing the table. As this understanding and revelation occurred, I sort of just stopped mid-stride, and much to my consternation,  dropped the cup. (Thankfully, it was plastic.) I remember looking down at the spinning cup thinking, now how did that get there?

My faith has always been a place of safety for me, even though I’ve hardly understood it at times. I’ve found myself clinging to it in the worst of situations, wordlessly hoping that there really was a God up there that understood what it was I was struggling with. But I’ve always felt such a failure in the traditional sense of the word- I’ve never been good at praying or reading my bible for any length of time- I’ve never felt myself to be a ‘good’ Christian girl. I have all these doubts that encircle me more often than not.Imagine my surprise a few years ago when I began to blog and write and people would talk about my deep faith? Me? Really? (Imagine girl turning around and looking behind her, wondering if there was someone else in the room they could possibly be referring to.) I am just a wanderer, longing for Home. Theology more often than not confuses and angers me. I can’t line up and give you all the ‘right’ answers, because in my experience, there are no answers wide enough and deep enough to encompass the question. Except for Him. The Answer, with a capital A.

(Isn’t that odd, me who likes everything labeled and neatly in a box? My faith in God rests largely on not putting Him in a box. How weird. But it is what I feel comfortable with at the moment. )

All this to say, when it comes to me and prayer, I feel odd-man-out. I never quite feel like I am doing it right. Rewinding back to the day in front of the washer and dryer, I likened it to a groan, from deep, deep in my heart, from the bottom of my faith-toes, and can only be summed by this: Kyrie Ellison. (Lord, have mercy.) As a matter of fact, in the following days it became my only prayer actually vocalized or thought- as a terrifying thought would come to confront me, Lord, have mercy. When I physically began to wane, and feel faint, Lord, have mercy. And you know what? It was enough.

I feel like these revelations would come to me, these understandings, as a result of that groan…and I wouldn’t even know that I needed this answer or that answer, and yet, it would come…grace upon grace.

The first week or so was truly a letting go. Of outward expectations of a clean house or made beds, of being the ‘good mama’, the ‘good wife’. Of letting all these thoughts that had circled my head for years- forced buzz bees on a march- and letting them go. I can’t say at the end of the first week that I felt any better. As a matter of fact, I joked quietly with James that the Mac Truck had backed up and run me over a few more times that week, and would he like to see the treads worn across my body, cartoon style?

Yes, the train had crashed. But that week marked my slow walk away from the crazed tracks.

Photo by Isdro Cea

As my eyes fluttered closed that night, the tune of a John Mayer song flitted through my brain, his tenored voice singing “can’t stop this train…” and my last waking thought was, but it has to stop. I want off.

The sun rose well after the children the next morning. They had gotten into this habit of waking earlier and earlier in the morning- sometimes as early as five a.m. It seemed perverse to this night owl mama. On the one hand, I did like the quiet morning hours I had to myself (after they had eaten) to read my bible and greet the morning in some semblance of order, but on the other hand, I did not like the way the days often started- in fits of screaming from the little ones (woken too early by a spastic older brother) and ill words and harsh tones (from a not so awake mama). And the earlier they woke up, the worse it got.

I struggled to wake up that morning. I had slept hard; harder than I had in months and months, and it was almost like coming out of anesthesia- I was so disoriented. Isaiah was pulling on one arm, but as I woke up, I realized that James had cocooned himself around me, wrapped and enfolding me, as if to protect me. In that quiet moment, I felt such peace. Just to know that someone was protecting me, even in sleep. I tried to gently slip out of his embrace, but he awoke. He quickly instructed me to go back to sleep and said that he was going to take care of the morning madness. I gratefully sunk back into the warm covers and rested a while longer.

When I finally woke late in the morning, James was ready with a hot cup of coffee. We just sat at the dining table, staring at each other. He looked at me as if I was so fragile a word would shatter me like an eggshell upon the counter. Perhaps he was right. I still felt shaky and part spirit, breathing in and out but not quite understanding how.

To my deep sorrow, this was not the first time this total breakdown had happened. It was happening, on average, every six months- and I was becoming so physically sick by the time the crash came that it would take me a week or two to recover.

It was not until that morning, sitting in a shaft of Appalachian sunlight in a cold spring day, that I finally admitted to myself that I was struggling with chronic depression, and that I was running from myself.

I had suffered a horrible bout of postpartum depression after David’s birth almost three years ago. For three months, I could barely get out of bed. Every movement, every thought, paralyzed. I felt utterly disconnected. I would sit and nurse David and peer at him strangely, as if there was some sort of film bubble between him and I. He seemed so other-worldly, as did everyone else. James, in deep concern, scheduled an appointment for me to see my OB/GYN, who quickly discovered that my iron was at dangerous levels. I didn’t want to go that day- moaning to James that I was just to tired, that I wanted to sleep, not sit in a waiting room crammed with pregnant, hormonal women. Even the thought of it made me cry. Once Dr. H has discovered the iron problem and we began the proper therapy, my mood lifted. I know this is not true for every one who suffers from postpartum depression. But postpartum depression is deeply affected by the massive hormone shifts that occur after birth, so it does not surprise me that my iron levels played a big part in the problem. As my iron levels rose, it seemed as if more and more light shone in the windows, and I would look back shocked to see how dark I had thought the room was. It is true that someone who has not suffered from depression cannot understand it truly- they can be empathetic of course, and try to imagine, but until you experience it, you can’t understand how dark things get, how paralyzed you feel. Because to someone who hasn’t been down the path of depression, it doesn’t make sense or feel quite rational. Depression doesn’t make sense- especially for the person experiencing it.

I had thought at the time that it was the only time I had struggled with depression. Perhaps because of the deep hormonal shift, it felt the darkest part of my life. I truly struggled for months afterwards to find my bearings, and everything felt as if there was a veil over top.

Oddly enough, when I lost the baby, I felt the veil lift. I felt like the near loss of my life tore off the veil of depression, and I felt a sense of healing. I still think this is true. (I hope I can explain why in the posts to come.) I say odd, because for most people, wouldn’t the grief of losing a child send one careening into depression, not away from it? I think it would have, had I myself not come so close to death. I sorrowed and grieved for my baby, but at the same time I was grateful that I was alive and breathing. I felt the ‘borrowed time’ phenomenon- that my life was spared, and I needed to live that truth- that I needed to live.

But the breakdown train was still staring right at me in the face that morning. I spoke to James about all the many times I had careened and crashed over the last five or so years. One of the worst was right after I graduated- I had literally been running on fumes through the end of the finals to the point that I was physically shaky and faint the day of graduation. I had the emotional stress of the holiday season to survive through (and it was a doozy, I might add)- my graduation was the 17th, and Christmas Eve and Day followed quickly on its heels. After everyone left, I literally collapsed with what we thought was the flu. It lasted nearly four weeks. I lost over twenty pounds.

Clearly, it was a cycle for me. A cycle of destruction. It had to stop. I said this through tears…and admitted I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to find the answers I needed. We couldn’t afford counseling for me, and the church had been less than helpful in that regard, even though they supposedly had a counseling service, free of charge. I was so angry at that at the time, but I realize now that it was God’s doing. This is not to say that counseling should be avoided. What a wonderful, needful resource. I pray that if you have struggled or are struggling, and you have access to such a thing that you grab hold of it with both hands.

As I sat there, nursing the now cold cup of coffee and wiping away tears, I felt the moon of the night before had been an answer to prayer. I felt that I just needed to ’sit still’ with my emotions, follow them through their courses, and listen. James promised that he would take care of whatever house needs were there- or find someone who could- and that I needed to just be, as much as I possibly could while single-parenting the kids through the week. He told me that I was not allowed to court feelings of guilt or failure with all the things left undone. We went to the grocery store and loaded up on frozen meals and easy  things that would cook up quickly- while we tried to be mindful of Isaiah’s allergies, James said (rather cogently) that my physical and mental health was more important at the moment than having scratch made, allergen free meals.

It was a beginning.

Poets recall the fickleness of the moon, how inconstant the wax and wane. Perhaps they are right. But I love the moon in its courses simply for the fact that it is there- and how, on most nights- it reflects its glory light from the long-sunk sun of day faithfully. The moon rarely asks much. It does not beat upon the brow with its heat. It does not blind. If anything, it has become to me a lantern of hope. In the darkness of a clouded night, what relief the moon brings in its truth-telling as it slips through the cloud cover!

The moon and I became companions as February turned to March, and James began the second shift. At first, it was in the comfortable familiarity of our little house, newly freshened with paint and waiting for its new owners.

I found the routine easy enough- if exasperating as the bath time battle began- because of the sheer smallness of the main bathroom and the need to somehow bathe or shower five children in a reasonable amount of time. But once they were in bed, the evening was mine. For a few days, I found this somewhat freeing: I could scrapbook to my heart’s content, blog, facebook, twitter, whatever. At a week in, I began to overdose on the having so much time to myself, and began to feel restless. Evenings had long been the only time that we had together as a couple- our time to reconnect and recharge- I missed my best friend and I felt a bit unmoored emotionally. The one who listened to me and whom I listened to- was not there. It was just me and empty space.

The simple nature of the second shift meant that I was basically a single parent Monday through Friday. It seemed as if it would be a tough transition, to be sure, but one that could be accomplished in some sense of the word.

The barn house was another story. The square footage had doubled. There were two full size bathrooms now- which meant a much easier bath time to some degree- but on opposite ends of the house. One of my boys (who shall remain unnamed) took to running naked and sopping wet from one bathroom to the other, for reasons known only to him. It meant that the carpet in the living room regularly got doused, and within two weeks I had a ‘path’ of stain and dirt. (We’re renting. SO not a good thing.) Perhaps the hardest part was no longer having a dishwasher. I am not chronicling this to complain- but you have to understand how the circumstances shifted. In the old house, I had gotten down to a routine that meant I rarely spent more than an hour total on home care and laundry. In the new house, washing the dishes alone could take me close to an hour or more. (With two toddlers and a baby in the mix, I think you can imagine the dirt and goop factor overall.) There were still myriad boxes to be unpacked and dealt with. (Even now, a few remain, six months later!) It took hours after the kids were in bed to just bring some small semblance of order.

I began to become overwhelmed by the sheer needs of the home, let alone all the needs of my children going through a transition. It was particularly hard for Isaiah, who struggles with Sensory Processing Disorder. Our first weeks in the barn house were marked by constant temper tantrums and frustration until he found his bearings, so to speak, and became used to the new sounds and sights and textures of a place utterly alien to him. Even his physical and occupational therapists grew concerned as he suffered what seemed to be a huge setback in skills. It was temporary- thankfully- but it was incredibly difficult time for him.

Basically, I was busier than I had ever been so far in my married life and as a mother, and it was terrifying. I literally could not do it all- could not be two places at once, could not be both mother and father to my children, could not complete the daily house chores. Many days would begin early and end incredibly late, well into the wee hours. (First mistake.) Secondly, I thought I didn’t have time to take a time out, to rest, to accept my new role. (Second mistake.) I dropped off the radar, both with God and with others, especially my husband. I didn’t want to burden him with what I saw as ’small beans’- I wanted him to enjoy his new job unencumbered by the quotidian needs of our family. That was my job, wasn’t it? (Third mistake, and perhaps the most telling.) I was trying, desperately, to run on my own power. And to a large extent, I was running from myself.

In the beginning, I resented the moon when it appeared- because it meant another failure filled day was coming to a close and I was still behind.

About three and a half weeks in, I had a complete and utter breakdown. I am sure this comes as no surprise to anyone reading- you’re probably shaking your head a bit at my ridiculous drive to nowhere. And I’d laugh uncomfortably with you, because it does seem so absurd!

It happened in front of the washer and dryer, about an hour before my husband was to leave for work. Something there just smashed opened the flood gates of despair for me. I think, in remembering, it was the massive pile of ironing that was sitting there. My husband had yet to receive his uniform, so he was wearing polos and khakis every day in a very dirty, greasy factory. (The uniforms are entirely practical in this sense. They are much sturdier and can handle the industrial cleaning they need.) Ironing is something I do rarely- James did most of it- but when could he possibly do it now?  In the current situation, it was the last thing I could do in addition to everything else, and yet, if I did not, my husband would not be fit for work the next day.

I just lost it, dissolving into tears at the realization that I was in way over my head. I sunk down to the floor, an exhausted physical and emotional wreck. The fumes had left the tank- there was nothing left. I didn’t even cry at first. My husband just found me there, crumpled, staring off, glassy eyed. As soon as he found me, I began to cry. This turned into the glutteral, ugly, almost wailing cry- truly a cry of grief two years in the making- I was curled into the fetal position, just rocking back and forth, nearly incoherent.

Poor James. He told me it was the hardest thing he ever did to walk away that day. He had to leave for work. We could not afford him losing this job. In truth, it blindsided him. I had not revealed to him in the slightest how much I was struggling, so he had no inkling, no measure of how far I had run aground. He held me for as long as he could, and then he left. I was still sitting there, in front of the washer and dryer. I was alone. The kids were happily playing in the next room, content for the moment. The sounds of their giggles would make me tear up again. How were they happy when I’d made such a mess of things? But as the minutes ticked by, the giggles and babble called me back to sanity and reality. They were happy, and I had nothing to do with it. Thanks be to God. Something in my mama-soul shifted in that moment. I would never, ever, be enough. And it was okay. This weight was not His yoke, and it slipped off. I spent the next moments in the oddest hour of prayer I have ever spent. It was nearly wordless. Groaning would be perhaps the better term…I finally could relate to the Psalmist. At the beginning of the hour, I was physically exhausted. I felt I could not stand again for faintness. By the end of the hour, I felt a renewed strength. It was not my own. I felt spirit-woman that day. I had no idea how my legs or arms were working, how I got through the rest of the day, but I did…God’s grace.

And as soon as the kids were in bed, all the chores left undone, I crawled into bed. The large barn window in our bedroom reflected the moon on the wall. It was peering through the still naked trees of early spring, and the effect was something of making it look like there was rain across the moon. I was oddly comforted by this vision- it was as if the moon was crying for me and with me. A new season, finally, was to begin. And the moon was leading the way.

As January turned pages to February, we were thrust into a comfortable familiarity we had not known for some time. The shattered mosaic of our lives seemed to fall into place with an ease that almost frightened. We finally had a normalcy to our lives that I had tried in vain to engender through eighteen months of absolute strangeness. Try as I could once James had lost his job, I could not imbue our lives with any sense of true rhythm- one might think that the regularity of homeschooling would help- but if anything, it only accentuated the sense of strange detachment from reality, because school went on and on but our adult lives had just stopped, dead air, with no seeming end to the ridiculousness.

Friends had fallen away quickly at the signs of our despair- when our mortgage hung in the balance and it seemed we would lose everything- Job’s friends, as James would say in an ironic, deriding tone. The ‘normal’ things that filled our days for years, the grocery runs, the barbecues with friends, the church functions- what have you- disappeared rapidly from our lives within months of the layoff. It all cost money we no longer had- no babysitter would ever watch four kids for free, at that. It became almost a stupid foray into pain to go to church functions where people would talk about what they were doing, what job projects Mr. So and So was working on- trying to draw James out of his depression for sure, talking of something they both understood, a common language- but it only served to scrape against the scar of the layoff, fresh and burdened.

I don’t think anyone thought nearly two years ago when the economy tanked that it would be as bad as it was. The same with James’ job prospects. He was young, well-educated, and a hard worker who held tight to integrity in an industry where such a thing is prized- it wouldn’t take long to find another job, surely. But one month turned to three and our savings disappeared, three turned to six, then ten, then a year. Endless job searches. Interview after hopeful interview, only to be told that ‘they couldn’t afford him’ or he had ‘too much education for the job’ or any number of strange excuses. As the media has since documented, everything we thought James had going for him was actually working against him in an economy turned upside down.

When we discovered we were pregnant with Josiah mere months after losing our baby in August, it was a turning point. It was a point where, after four or so months of questioning, it was almost as if we had to put all our eggs in the basket of faith. There was no other solution and no other answer at that point- we had hit rock bottom and found that the only way out was by faith. We were destitute, in an odd only-in-America-middle-class sort of way. We still had the nice house and the nice car and the nice things, but at any point the house of cards could come fluttering down. Neither of us could find a job, and now I was pregnant- in a very sort of high risk way after nearly losing my entire reproductive system mere months earlier. The plumbing wasn’t all re-routed, to borrow a term. Even our OB/GYN expressed disbelief that Josiah was happy and healthy, fluttering around in the womb on the ultrasound screen- there was an audible letting out of breath held from the nurse and Dr. H and myself as we peered in on him for the first time.

But Josiah was another mouth to feed, as people would be quick to remind us, had they known. We told no one for nearly six months- until the pregnancy became undeniable, my waist grown too large to have ‘just put on a few pounds’ on my already chunky frame. It was one of the sweetest times for James and myself, and yet, one of the most terrifying. I was on the state insurance, so my health and Josiah’s was covered, but there were no other fail-safes. My health, as Dr. H warned, could turn at any moment, my blood-pressure sky rocket, and it suddenly become a high risk pregnancy fraught with complications. We were haunted by the possibilities, and yet were just content to enjoy time as it was. It was a blessed gift.

I thought for sure that by the time Josiah was to be born that James would have a job. Surely. But the birth came and went, and still, nothing. I said to a friend about a month after Josiah was born that I was in an odd night of the soul, where I knew that God had provided, would provide, was there and present and my faith unshaken, but yet, there was this debilitating sense of despair that absolutely nothing would change and we would be stuck in this limbo, this purgatory of strangeness, forever.

The new strange for me, it seemed, was when February dawned and he suddenly had a real job. We had a nine-to-five, Daddy will be home for dinner, go get the groceries, fill up the gas tank, get school done before dinner kind of life. “Normal”. It was a giddy, sparkling morning of time for us. We knew it would change into oddness all too soon when he began second shift. There was a feeling of borrowed time, and we were drinking it to the dregs. We knew the insanity of moving was coming soon- the house sold, and I posted to my blog that morning with a glass of orange juice sitting in a shaft of morning sunlight because it seemed to encapsulate so perfectly the inner expression of my heart.

Somehow, though, I understood that it was but a flash of time. There was more to be had yet, and I needed to gird myself. I remember glancing out at the somber drearyness of a very wet, very cold, and very snowy February and reminding myself that the weather outside was the truer reality than the house filled with sunshine. The storm was still there. I look back at that thought process now and it makes perfect sense in light of all that had occurred. At the time, it made me feel a bit crazy.

Somehow the narrative of the told story seems to distill down to this smooth progression of time. I think we tend to read blogs and literature and what have you and forget this dynamic, bash ourselves for not having it, regret our brokenness. But this whole cycle of pain for me was anything but smooth. The telling of this story may make it seem so this and that, perfect and plain, but it was anything but. Our lives are never normal, in the sense of the term. We are always lost and striving, found and faithful, longing for Home, for God, for a fullness we will never feel on this earth.

March would come to tell me in full of the storms it often brings on its back- my inner storm had yet to find the calming voice of my Lord on the waves.

January dawned in that strange, garish, bright light that resembles over-polished silver. Outside, you blink and squint, turn head and glance downward and everything appears technicolor and almost too much to bear. We had a lot of snow blanket the hills, the crystal glint adding to that other worldly feeling.  I’ve always wondered, aimlessly, at how the light of deep winter and high summer are the same, regardless of the near hundred degrees of difference in temperature. The sun in its courses…

It was a strange “other” world I was living in- my sweet house, grown small, up for sale- still ours but not. Jump of trembling faith into grace. My ‘world’, such as it was, was being packed into boxes, leaving the house with this odd stately air in all its nakedness, pictures come down from walls, paint covering over toddler smudge. If the end of Advent had left me feeling bereft and hopeful, January had all but come to claim what little hope I had. Our family always faces the bracing adventure of wintertime sickness in January- the year past had meant three long weeks of flu with a pregnant mama to boot, culminating in a near week-long stay in the Children’s Hospital with Lorelei, who had developed a strange staph infection in a cut near her eye. Timidly peering into January, I felt a bit desperate and a bit audacious in my prayers that my family would be spared this year. (The Germ Train is just a reality for a large family. How dare I beg?) And the thing was- aside from an endless ear infection that David just could not kick, we were fine. I found it disconcerting. I kept waiting for that big old germy foot to drop with a side of head colds or something! I remember thinking into the second week of January that I’d almost wish for a head cold because there would be something to do, to act upon- not remembering that we were to start school back the second week- because it was just- empty waiting. James and I were feeling lost and undone. We’d jumped. Now what?

That first week, we would often pile up the children in the spacious van- we’d still look back in the rearview mirror when one of the kids would speak, surprised at the far-awayness of the fifteen passenger. I’ll be totally honest. I missed my sexy little minivan. The van felt a beast of epic proportions. Although it did feel nice to be able to stretch out one’s legs…and I knew that it meant we were much, much closer to being out of debt, whether or not the house sold. But it was hard. I don’t think it was so much the minivan- because the minivan is just a thing after all. It was the realization that we were heading along a journey in which there wasn’t going to be a whole lot of looking back, or one of comfort. From here on out, things were going to be different. Really different. We’d pile the kids up in the van and drive aimlessly along the backroads of our hilly county- anything to feel a little less closed in and crazy in the house that was ours and yet was not.  There are many darling little farmhouses and barns tucked in these hills, and as we’d drive by one I’d particularly like, I’d wonder. The future before us seemed like the sky- big, empty, glaring. Wonder, dreaming, and fear would twine themselves in my head along the twisting back roads.

The second week we started back at school. The boys and I pulled out the books, the paints, and sort of aimlessly began to trod again the path of knowledge. My heart wasn’t it, and it seemed to rub off on the boys. It would take them hours to finish their math- Ben would read his lesson with a distant voice, almost muttering. We slogged. I prayed. I wondered. I would glance at James, over on his side of the basement turned office/playroom, absent-mindedly scrolling through job websites, making endless phone calls to former clients- trying and hoping and yet, bereft, too.

Josiah clamored to be nursed, David and Lorelei would play and fuss, fight and make up, and it seemed like the hands on the clock were running backwards. When the phone rang in the late afternoon on Wednesday, we nearly jumped out of our skins. I hadn’t realized just how quiet it had been the last few weeks. We usually had music playing in the background- but the speakers had stayed silent, waiting too. I figured it was just his parents calling. After all, they were one of the few people that called. My mom would always call in the morning- for ‘coffee’ as we called it- so I doubted it was her. James stood quickly as the conversation progressed past pleasantries, slipped into the garage- the only quiet (albeit cold) place in the house. After a few minutes he came back in and said that a staffing company had called back, for an interview he had given in November. November! “It’s that Fortune 500 company the next town over.” (Until he was officially hired, we never knew it was John Deere.) “They want me to do a phone interview in the morning. At 10.”

As I told in earlier posts, the next day was one of the strangest days I have experienced in a long, long time. He had no idea after he finished the phone interview if he had done well- and considering it had taken this company two months to decide on a third interview, we weren’t holding our breath. By the end of the day, he had the job. The job meant second shift- from 4 pm- 2:30am. Of course, he said yes! Who cares! It’s a job. A job we desperately needed.

And then- the third week dawned, poured into the fourth, and no word came back from the human resources company that did the hiring. There was this very definite wonderment on both James’ and my part if they had changed their minds. One phone call to say that he was hired- and then- nothing. All during this time, we would have about one house showing a week. It would be this mad scramble for the van and down the road- we had been keeping the house in a near-constant state of readiness that wore on all of us. We felt stir crazy.  I think James and I both began to think we had lost our minds.

And then suddenly, it all shifted. High gear. I felt woefully unprepared. And the fear, luminous, hung about the corners, daring me not to hope.

The bees were swarming the other day. They were on every limb of the fruit tree out side my kitchen window, they hummed over the garden, they circled dizzy swirls over the bedraggled grass in the yard. As I tiptoed out to the mail box, stepping carefully so not as to madden the industrious creatures, I found it a bit disconcerting. Everyone has talked about how the bees are disappearing, colony collapse disorder, and here, it seemed- was the entire population of bees in East Tennessee flitting over the overgrown acreage of our barn turned house. They did not seem so fragile at all. There was every kind I could identify- carpenter and honey, big fluffy bumble bees. The vision of them spinning in the grass reminded me of an impressionist painting I saw at the Chrysler Museum not too long ago- utterly fascinating, yet somehow- discombobulating. It was what it was, and yet it wasn’t. The same with the bees. They were there do a job- but yet the sheer numbers of them was almost frightening. And I’ve never quite heard anything like it.

They were at it all day. And the next morning…all was quiet.

It almost felt like a dream.

My life has felt a bit like those busy buzz bees for a long time. And I remember in the dizzy swirl of it- wondering, disconcerted, if this was all my life was- the is and yet isn’t. I was on a freight train to nowhere. Even now I wonder if I’ve punched my ticket again for the rail line- but at least now I can see it for the barreling beast that it is. The crazed circles I have flown over the last six or so years would make anyone tired. And then, when the slam of pain and loss derailed- what did I do but get back on? Busy bees, always buzzing. I remember, frantic, last year- in the haze and fog of Postpartum Depression- almost feeling a bit mad in the head- if I had gotten it all wrong- what if this was all life was- delirious swirl?

But somewhere deep at the core of who I was, I knew there had to be more. And less, in a manner of speaking. There had to be a reasoned, ordered, peaceful existence- somewhere, somehow. That is not to say a life without pain- because pain is always attendant- as He said it would be. But a life lived with meaning. But try as I might, I could not find it. I grew frustrated. I prayed the Psalms, utterly mad at it all, this life that was and was not.

I just could not fathom what a buzz bee free day looked like- that dream like state of quiet fruitfulness. (At least, it seemed dreamlike to me.) My husband and I had been praying…hard. Unfortunately, it is often what we do when we are left with no other options, instead of being our first line of defense. We prayed. I despaired. We prayed some more. And somewhere that quiet cool place inside my heart that I swore had to be there somewhere began to bloom. It is funny how prayer changes things- more often it changes us than we change God- and over a tick tock of time that seemed infinite (but a blink to Him)- my vision changed. I could see the blur out the window of the wreckless train I was on. Our priorities shifted. It was a strange, upside-down place to be when we realized that we wanted off the train, that we wanted out of debt, that we could care less what the Joneses were doing, friendly neighbors though they be. It was in the chill and hardness of winter that faith was blooming for me again. It still seemed bleak and hopeless. James had no job. The children were growing inches in days and consuming food like an invading army. We battled ear infection after ear infection in the little ones, and I felt bereft. And yet- there was hope. Could there be a way-station off this train- would it stop long enough for us to dive head-long into grace?

This blog grew quiet in those months. January poured into February, then March, then April. May, June, July. I scribble here occasionally, but I felt so pressed to quiet that I have not said much. A few dear friends, online and off, have encouraged me to tell of it now. I feel unfit for the task- I find myself slamming hand over mouth with Job- I am not fit to speak. That is a strange place to be, me who spills words. But now that I find myself looking back on the time, feet placed on new paths, I realize that I ought to spread out the map and say- see this here- this hill, that valley- because maybe you too face a journey like mine? It started there, in the bleakness of a frigid winter where there seemed no way out. It ends in the sunshine and summer of an Appalachian day. Lord willing, I’ll count out the journey for you in the days to come.