Archives for January 2006

If you called me up and asked how things were on a day when the toilet overflowed, the kids were at each other’s throats, Beanie pooped her pants and tried to “clean it up”, school went terribly, my laundry was piled up, the kitchen was a mess, Paul was in Bangladesh and I had a raging headache, I can gay rone tee you my response would NOT be, “Oh Super Duper!”

Please know that my commitment to stop complaining is not the first step into Stepfordian Wifery. I am going to keep it real.

I know it is challenging to be committed to not doing something. So let me turn it around:

I am committed to being thankful because gratitude creates a space in the worst circumstances.
I am committed to looking for God in every situation.
I am committed to talking to him first, to lamenting.

When things start to fall apart and my adrenaline kicks in or depression stalls me I either start to move too fast or not at all and I usually make up that I am alone in it; that I have to solve it; that it is up to me. I forget God.

It’s like someone turns out the lights and I start stumbling around shrieking or drop to the floor and assume the fetal position also shrieking. Neither of these options is very effective for getting the lights back on, trust me. But I have another choice I can stand there for a moment to get my bearings and then reach for Him. I can call to Him and when I hear His voice I can walk to Him or I can ask Him to turn on the light.

Sometimes that is enough, but there are times when I call and He doesn’t seem to answer. I reach for Him, but don’t feel His presence. I will be honest, I rarely take the time to do this and if I do and seem to be stuck I quickly fall back to running and shrieking or laying immobilized and shrieking.

This is my commitment: I am going to wait for Him, because I know He is there.

My sister, Torey, commissioned a friend of ours to do a portrait of Christopher when he was a baby. Ali sketched him then colored it with pastel chalk in blues and greens. I think there is a bit of watercolor too. It is mostly his face, off center to the left. To the right she colored as well to give the feel of space and light. She used a photograph that my brother took, while Christopher was sitting on my lap. In the the photograph he is leaning towards Nathan and I am smiling down on him in profile. That space in the painting is me.

This is reality: I am on His lap, His arms are around me and there is no space, just Him.

“What do turtuhls do?”

“Turtles?”

“Yes. What do dey do?”

“They don’t really do anything. I mean, they move around slowly and eat and pull their head in their shell…”

“Do they wibbet?”

“No, they don’t ribbet. I don’t think they make any sound.”

“Oh.”

For a couple years in the early days of our marriage Paul and I attended a predominately African-American Pentecostal church. I say predominately African-American because there were a couple of white people who attended: Paul and I. We loved that church. The people were so gracious, the music was extraordinary and the preaching was really excellent, we just didn’t have the stamina for the sometimes four hour services. Our pastor was a wonderful man, from a well known family of singers. He too was an accomplished singer with a signature song, “I Won’t Complain.” I can’t remember the verses but the bulk of the song was simply the line “I won’t complain.” The Bishop would just let it rip.

The first many times he sang it I loved it. It is a powerful song of trust and perseverance and the man could sing. Then I got pregnant and it was summer and the church didn’t have air conditioning and the service would have gone on for well over three hours, we would have sung ourselves hoarse, been preached upside and down, an ambulance been called to haul away an exuberant worshipper, the offering taken, the bulletin read in it’s entirety and just when you were thinking (OK, Paul and I were) the closing prayer was going to be prayed, the Bishop would say, “Sister Somebody from Kalamazoo is visiting and specially requested ‘I Won’t Complain'” and then the music would start and another half hour of our lives would be gone.

We complained.

Although it has been a decade since we heard that song it has been floating through my head in regular intervals, “I won’t. I won’t I WON’T I WON’T COMPLAAAAAAAAIN! No I won’t….”

I am feeling compelled to stop complaining. God is inviting me to shut up and I have said, “OK.” as:

1.It is bad manners.
2.I am 35, a mother and must set a good example for the children.
3.God isn’t keen on it.
4.A life without whininess would be something new.

I am a few days into it and having the man in India probably wasn’t a good time to start but when is, when you get right down to it. So I have been making it through, taking things slowly and keeping my chin up. Paul was due back today at 3:26 pm which was perfect because the kids’ gymn class ended at 3:15 and was less than ten minutes from the airport. He called at 2:00 to warn me of a ten minute delay then at 3:00 to say it had been pushed back an hour. I called the airline at 3:30 and confirmed that the flight was still due in at the adjusted time of 4:26. I thought about driving home, which would take 15 minutes and only give me around a half hour. Today was a cold and rainy day. I decided (foolishly) to kill time with the kids at a store and then buzz down to the airport. By the time I got parked and dragged everyone inside I really only had a little over 20 -30 minutes to kill some place. I was considering Target, when I spotted Salvation Army and decided to pop in. Fool. Fool. Fool.

We looked at toys and books and housewares and just when we made it to women’s jeans the Bean realized she hadn’t had a nap and wanted to be held. It was 4:08. I called the airline and learned the time had been pushed back to 5:00. Regardless, we had to leave.

Coming in I had decided to leave my purse in the car and stuck my wallet in my pocket. Doing this I forgot to grab my keys. I patted all my pockets as we stood outside the locked van, cold rain pelting our faces. Peering in the windows I saw my keys dangly merrily from the ignition.

Would someone please congratulate me on not uttering an expletive?

I ushered my tired and bedraggled party across the parking lot and back into the Army. We staggered to the register and I requested a phone book. I called AAA and secured a tow truck. They promised to be there no later than 5:13. I didn’t think there was anything in me left unwilted but something did and in a very strained voice I mentioned that I was waiting with three children and that we were trying to pick up my husband from the airport.

“Oh dear.” The AAA agent said.

“Oh dear.” I agreed.

She promised to pass on a request for speed.

I bought a box of cookies. Can you imagine cookies purchased at a Salvation Army? I searched for a sale by date but couldn’t find one and frankly, my colleagues were beyond caring.

We sat on the floor (!) by the front windows and I began doling out the cookies. Beanie wanted to grab her own and I said no while handing her a couple more. She promptly threw them on the floor. I grabbed her and tapped her on the face (I SWEAR it was not a smack) she promptly burst into tears and so I rocked her and gently pushed back her hair and wiped the tears from her dear and naughty face and almost laughed that I had given up complaining.

Then, by some miracle, the phone rang. It was the tow truck: he had made it in less than ten minutes. And some of you don’t believe in God…

So we hustled out into the freezing rain, where I signed the form allowing him to touch my van and then we all huddled around him (I tried to keep a polite distance as no one likes to work with four people breathing down his neck) while he did the job, and do it he did. Being the Smart Girl, I started the van promptly to make sure it would and the driver caught my eye.

“The last lady who locked her keys in ran down the battery.”

I smiled smugly. I wasn’t going to be fooled like that: one call to AAA a day is my limit.

It was now 4:45. I called the airline one last time and learned the flight was holding at 5:00. As it was 15 minutes out I felt comfortable that this was solid and so quickly drove to the airport, unloaded, ran through the rain, carrying Eden and hurried up to the proper concourse. I looked at the Arrival and Departure board just to get a boost and saw next to Paul’s flight number,
“Arrived” and then realized it was the wrong line and that next to Paul’s was “1720” which was 5:20 and then I seriously thought about packing the kids up and asking Paul to get a taxi.

Limply I followed the kids to the Game Room. I actually walked through the glass door but hearing the noise and seeing the lights I instantly felt murderous and backed out. The room was small and all glass so I was able to slump against a wall outside the room and watch my kids as they happily sat on the various games and pretended to play. It would have been perfect except for the baggie khakis that Beanie was wearing. Her “Big Guhs” today were especially big so they slipped right down with her pants which meant that everytime I looked up she was flashing half the airport. I would stagger to my feet, go in the room, hitch up her pants, stagger back to my post, relax and then notice she had shifted and so had her modesty.

At this point I began to wonder if Paul’s flight was going to keep getting delayed in 20 minute increments until Beanie grew into her pants or we all wasted away. I was hungry, too warm and very tired.

I remembered a friend I needed to call. By some miracle she was home and able to talk. She was in a moment, having had a long day and her husband working the weekend. She wasn’t complaining and I told her a little of my adventures and my resolution to not complain. I told her I needed to work out the difference between reporting and complaining. She assured me I was only reporting. That is a friend.

Paul’s flight eventually landed. They had boarded his briefcase underneath so he had to wait for that and was one of the last people off. The kids all shrieked, “Daddy!” and Beanie almost tripped someone running right in front to get to Paul. Then we were all there, hugging and laughing.

We haven’t had a lot of time to talk between dinner, Movie Night, the giving of gifts, getting the kids into bed and Paul passing out, but he did tell me a little about his trip. He couldn’t believe the traffic – the amount of cars, the noise and the rush of beggars, especially children, at every stoplight. The first little girl who approached his car looked strikingly like one of our neices, “…except her hair was all dirty and messy.”

This little girl gestured for a hand out. When it became plain that none was forthcoming she stomped her feet then did a couple flips in front of the car, landing perfectly with both hands out in a begging flair.

“Were you told not to give?” Thinking, ‘How could you say no to a little Indian Eva?’

“We were strongly encouraged not to…”

We both got a little teary-eyed.

………………………………

So this not complaining thing might take a little work, a bit of an adjustment but I think it is worth it because:

5. When you are the one sitting in the car and not the one doing flips in front of it; it’s just stupid to complain – ever.

In India it is 4 in the morning and Paul has just begun his journey home, planning to arrive tomorrow at 3:30 pm EST. That is 22 hours of travel. This trip was sort of thrust on him at the last minute. Because it was interrupting my family’s visit he told the person who booked his trip that he wanted to leave as late as possible and return the soonest. Because of the time changes and the fact that he often skips a day on his way out and because I am busy here it can sometimes be difficult to grasp his schedule.

I dropped him off at the airport at 2 pm on Sunday. He called me as soon as he got to his hotel at 4 pm on Monday. In India it was 2 am on Tuesday. He was supposed to have gotten in at 11 pm on Monday and was scheduled to do part of his presentation first thing Tuesday. Fortunately there was a change and his time was pushed back to that afternoon.

Paul doesn’t usually shove the things he does for me in my face but quietly does them. He is not the one to yell, “This is me sacrificing for you!” instead he simply sacrifices. Subtlety can be lost on me, but not this time. I got it. To spend 48 hours out of a 120 hour period on airplanes in order to be away from home 5 days instead of 6 or 7 is a great sacrifice.

This is me getting that and acknowledging it and saying, “Thank you.”

It’s definitely a wrap:

The last of the visitors have left
The kitchen is a mess of wine glasses, opened candy boxes and the remnants of breakfast
The furniture in the living room is pushed back from last night’s gaming
The floor of the laundry room is COVERED with laundry (OK – that’s almost a daily given)
Beanie is half-dressed (ditto above) and sticky from the last of the jelly beans
The big kids are on their beds yelling back and forth
I am sqinting my way through a headache that PERSISTS
Paul is in India.

Oh dear.

The bill for a week of nonstop merriment has been presented and is being paid.

I have pulled the dining room back from the cliff of squalor and plan to hit the kitchen next. The living room is just shifting the rug and moving back furniture, but the laundry might be a total loss.

A grandma is coming soon to watch the kids this evening as I have a meeting.

I will probably not post tonight as I am COUNTING the hours until I can lock the doors, put on some pajamas, slip into bed and read just a wee bit before nodding off to sleep this side of midnight. I will do it.

Having guests from the West Coast who are night owls over there are lethal for early birds hosting in the Midwest with children who rise before the sun.

I’m zausted…but back with stories to tell, resolutions to articulate and quotations to quote.

I’ll leave you with this.

The first night Torey and Nathan got in we had a big family dinner. Beansie was asked to pray and she readily bowed her little head and clasped her pudgy hands.

“Dear God, I love you…and I don’t love you…I love you and I don’t…I love you and I don’t…I love you…I don’t love you…I love you and I don’t…I love you and I don’t…I LOVE you and…I don’t love you…

AMEN!”

The adults all lifted their heads and looked around then Paul said, “Well that pretty much sums up the human condition.”

Wouldn’t you agree?