Author: Brittany

One Thousand Wha…? Meandering thoughts on Ann Voskamp

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“We look and swell with the ache of a broken, battered planet, what we ascribe as the negligent work of an indifferent Creator (if we even think there is one). Do we ever think of the busted-up place as the result of us ingrates, unsatisfied, we who punctured it all with a bite? The fruit’s poison has infected the whole of humanity. Me. I say no to what He’s given. I thirst for some roborant, some elixir, to relieve the anguish of what I’ve believed: God isn’t good. God doesn’t love me.”            -Ann Voskamp

Wait. I need to read that again. Maybe twice.

“Take it slow,” says a friend, to which I wonder, is there any other choice? I feel like I’m reading the pages through finger-smudged glasses. My mind squints and demands, “Come again?” as I muddle through the rhetoric.

I landed at Starbucks this morning kidless, (WordPress is underlining that word in bright red right now but I’m using it anyway. I like the way it sounds. In fact, I’ll repeat it.) kidless, watching a long line of fellow addicted patrons ebb and flow through the drive-thru. A black Buick, a first generation 4Runner, swanky women whom I guess to be from the million dollar homes in Castle Pines, just-ripe teens texting in their boredom and obsession with modern culture, and suit jackets on their way to a meeting. I nestle into a corner with my books, my laptop and my journal. I have over two hours to read, do a writing practice, edit pictures, browse the internet. “This is going to be good,” I post on my Facebook status.

Oh, was it.  

“I read a chapter a day,” another friend says of this wildly popular book. Yes. Seems like a good pace. I’ll do that too.

The yellow ribbon of the bookmark I’m borrowing slumps over, smashed between ink and paper. I pull on it, ready to get the “shoulds” out of the way. You know the ones. “I should read something that draws me to God. I should read today’s checklist Bible verse. I should journal my heart, pray.” And then I’ll get to the fun stuff.

But I never leave her words.

I linger, copy, and am pulled closer. I nearly cry behind the metal post in the floor-to-ceiling window at the coffee bar. I am gripped, while preschool pick-up time runs faster and faster toward me.

“I wake to the discontent of my skin. I wake to self-hatred. To the wrestle to get it all done, the relentless anxiety that I am failing. Always, the failing. I yell at children, fester with bitterness, forget doctor appointments, lose library books, live selfishly, skip prayer, complain, go to bed too late, neglect cleaning toilets. I live tired. Afraid. Anxious. Weary.”

                                                                             -Ann Voskamp

I’m held there, struck by the courage of this woman’s journey. Not from the “poetic” beauty of her sentences, though they are beautiful. Nor from the fresh, pure perspective she offers of gratitude, though it’s stirred me deeply. What’s incredible is how she approaches a crossroads and has the fearlessness to keep going.

“The sun climbs the horizon. I throw back the covers, take another breath, and begin. I GET to. I GET to live.”

                                                                              -Ann Voskamp

She does not stay in hopelessness. She does not end at the grief, depressed and ungrateful. She pushes, seeks, and claws until she finds more.

There IS more. Much, much more.  

“At the Eucharist, Christ breaks His heart to heal ours-“

                                                          -Ann Voskamp

 

“I eat dessert every day and pour creamer in my coffee…”

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We’re like a herd of cattle lined up at feeding time. Actually we’re mothers standing outside preschool doors. And we’re hungry. Hungry for a break.

But what eats at me more is the vague sense that I’m out of place. I glance around quickly (so that no one will know I’m comparing body type and financial status and I.Q. like everyone else in this small space). There are neon gym shorts, black tank tops, slicked ponytails, chiseled calves…and I’m starting to feel like my 1 to 2 miles once or twice a week is looking severely inadequate. In my moment of unreason I try to suck in the slight overhang above the running shorts I will not run in today, while I think about how those gray and yellow stripes next to me look perfect over midnight blue denim.
There are gold earrings and tan arms that curl around toddlers whose hair is combed into delicate tendrils. There is lipstick and mascara and pedicured toes.

Then there’s me. I’m the girl who was a baby when I had a baby. I want a chicken coop and acreage that leaves me close enough to share sun tea and sugar with my neighbors but far enough to walk around without a bra under my shirt. I want a garden the size of my current front yard and a grocery store I can’t get to for 10 minutes. But less than 20, ’cause a girl’s gotta have a few things. I eat dessert every day and pour creamer in my coffee without figuring how many leg lifts I’d have to do to even it out. My hair tickles my shoulders and plays by the straps of a top from two seasons ago. I should have redone my nail polish two weeks ago. And I don’t want to feel lonely, which is how I feel in the morning line.

Until I look harder. There are also shades of blue that don’t go well with black hair. There are baby bumps and flip flops and whiny kids with breakfast still lingering on their cheeks. (If I had to bet I’d say they are a third or fourth child.) There are women who could be grandmas and some who could be high-schoolers. And there are plenty of us not yet showered.

My dad used to say, “They put their pants on one leg at a time like everybody else.”

He is right. We aren’t so different. Beyond pants we share passions, duties, fears, frustrations, joys, a fierce love for our kids and the breaks we take from them.

We are mothers.

Unforgettable Summer

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Today is the last day all three of my kids are home before they slide their arms through the straps of their backpacks. McKenzie’s is new, green and white checkered. It is a symbol of her struggle between being a tomboy and a girly girl, the journey of her transformation from one to the other and back again. Kyle’s will do. It’s from last year, and a perfect shade of orange. Maya’s is princess, her sister’s kindergarten choice passed down. It is her lot.

Two months between school seasons hardly seems long enough. I feel like I just carried in teacher baskets, and did my best to cease and desist all manner of panic attacks amidst graduations, parties, pick-ups, birthdays and camping plans for the day after school was out. Yet, two months can also seem much too long. Very much.

Summer came at us swinging. We inaugurated our new-to-us camper in Pueblo among cousins and s’mores and amoeba-infested ponds. We smeared pasty sunscreen and braved our community pool the first day we had free. We rode bikes and burned our skin. 

Then we crashed. We were tired. And lazy, and that’s when I began to notice a trend.   

“Mom, can I play DS?”

“Can I do games on your phone or Kindle since I don’t have a DS?”

“Can we watch a movie?”

These pleas were coming to me while the credits to one movie still scrolled over theme music. We had a problem. A habit I didn’t want to form. 

The following week became No Electronics Week. Except for toothbrushes, which aren’t toys. I’ve learned to clarify.

There was great weeping and gnashing of teeth. I didn’t budge. And I don’t think any of us expected what happened next.

The high-pitched, squealing laugh of my oldest daughter. The sputtering, exhaust-like, out-of-breath giggle of my son. The smack and flip of a set of diamonds, spades, hearts, and clovers. Cries for equality, fairness, justice. Declarations of victory. And the brave challenge to do it again.

In less than 48 hours I’ll be frustrated that I have to ask if they finished their breakfast and combed their hair. I’ll shove them in front of our plum tree and tell them to smile while they hold their bags like turtle shells. They will acquiesce. Half-heartedly. I’ll tell them to buckle up. Yes, even for 3 miles. And I’ll wish them an amazing first day, hoping that in whatever disappointment or wounds they bring home later, their lives will be fuller and richer and wiser for the experiences they encounter or the people they meet.

We’re starting a new school year, but this was the summer my kids became best friends.

      

 

  

The Middle is Mine

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Light turquoise wraps around the binding, holding together the whole of what’s inside. The cover says, “Love, Aspire, Grow,” while the face of several different breeds of flowers play behind them. Triangles as bright as the lemons on my kitchen table are lined in rows near one side as foreign designs splash across the bottom.

I guess it’s modern Bohemian. That’s what the back of the book states.

When I open to the first page I see more piercing yellow and exotic art among the quote: “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere. -Albert Einstein.”

May I introduce, my new journal. Did I mention it’s new? That means the pages are crisp and perfect. The pinch in the center where the last piece of paper meets the next piece of paper smells woodsy and dusty and fresh. The jacket design I picked from a dozen others on Target’s inviting shelves. I even grabbed this one, held the weight of it in my hands, spread it open to get the feel of what it would be like to write in it and then put it back. But in the end it drew me again. The inspiring blurbs around the outside fit just right in the margins, and the colors? Well, I love them.

Although, that’s not the best part. It is between all of this that gets my pulse going. The not knowing how I’ll fill in the empty spaces, but simply knowing I will fill them. With whatever I want. As often as I want. In as many ways as I want.

I always wish the first entry to be flawless. I start out with a vow that my writing will be long and lean, even on all sides and ultimately poetic.  That lasts about one paragraph. Because that isn’t me unless I’m trying really hard; and then I’m just missing the point.

Likely there will be prayers, angry demands and whining, and gratitude. In some spots there will be creativity that’s good, and others that should never be seen. I’ll tell secrets that won’t be whispered anywhere else, and stories that will never be read. I will ultimately “Love, Aspire, Grow.”

The middle is mine. And it’s my favorite part.

 

Parallel Wrinkles of Time

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When he’s old they won’t go away as he relaxes, those lines that parallel above his eyebrows like a notebook. And when I’m two years younger but just as crinkled, I’ll think they’re endearing. I’ll remember being at the threshold of our thirties and him giving me that heavy look. “We’re sinking.”

I always take this news not with a grain of salt, but a whole salt block because my husband, God bless him, is a proverbial tightwad.

“Ok. Everybody calm down,” I say. “Let me see.”

My arms tighten and my breathing becomes shallow as I scroll the mouse down the alleys of Quicken charts. I become downright afraid. 

How did this happen? Sure, the new car in the garage contributed but we had some here and some there and…where did it go?

I dig. Deep into the depths of my heart at what is going on in the tick-tocks of this moment. At what I want to avoid with everything in me.

It’s saying “no.” No grande half-caff mocha, two pumps caramel, skip the whip; no salsa and chips and tips; no date-night movies where Chase slurps at an ICEE and we piously roll our eyes at what we looked like 12 years ago; no camping trip with the family; maybe no dream property that we’ve been praying about and saving for. 

As the monologue between my ears slows, we settle into our roles. He panics and I rationalize. Sometimes we trade, but usually those cute wrinkles on his forehead increase with intensity and stature while I try to juggle numbers and search for what checks are due us. Except I can’t juggle anything but schedules. Sometimes. You see the predicament.

We could have to utter them. The two words we’ll do anything not to say. “We can’t” Can’t eat it, can’t drink it, can’t go.

At first glance this feels embarrassing. Shameful.

At a second take, I see that I still have coffee every morning. We eat healthier at home (Although the rest of my family probably doesn’t care and would still claw for the Hot-N-Ready if it was in front of them… Who am I kidding? So would I). We’ve never gone without shoes or meals, pillows or blankets, or Halloween costumes. In fact, sometimes the blanket IS the Halloween costume. And instead of popcorn and the sloping tiers of amphitheater seating we have the best date of our lives watching stars among the pines.

We have each other. And I’d rather live poor with you, than rich without you.

Curds and Grasshoppers

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A white and purple tub of cottage cheese, once emptied and clean makes a wonderful home. There is space for an abundance of grass, a couple sticks, and one small medicine cup to serve as refreshment. 

“He’s drank like, 6 cm., Mom so I need to get him some more water,” says Kyle.

I wonder how my son knows this amidst all the teaspoon and milliliter lines. No matter. I am not the expert.

Over the last day and a half I’ve watched as three, light-brown heads have spent endless fascinated minutes over that plastic bowl. I’ve heard giggles only an animal can bring out of my girls. And I’ve reminded Kyle to please not open the container on my bed. Please.

 I’ve only seen Mr. Grasshopper through the cracks of sun-kissed hands but if I had to guess, I’d say he’s miserable. He is the butt of their jokes, their rag-doll, their entertainment. And I’m not going to stop it on his behalf. I’d rather hear the giggles.

Shortly after capture Kyle asked me, “Mom, can I keep him until he dies?”

“Sure.”

To which Daddy replies, “So we just kill bugs.”

Basically.

I knew. I didn’t know.

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I knew what I was in for.

Dirt. Lots and lots of dirt. Enough to crest the murky waters of my kid’s baths and stick like a mossy stain on the side of a dock.

Weather. Moody weather. Capricious conditions that drove me to plunge my fingers between the ice in our red cooler just to ease the sweat off my upper lip; then grab my beanie because I start to see my breath, all while I duck from the strikes stabbing the sky and do a quick scan of the woods to make sure my children are not holding their homemade bow and arrow sets into the air like a battle scene from Narnia.    

Walking. Everywhere walking. To eat, to play, to pee; even to drive.

Improvising. Because I always forget something I need to cook or cook with, bathe with, sleep with, or give.

Port-a-potties. Like, more than you’ve ever seen together in one place. Always with a pile on the top unless you were lucky enough to hit them right after cleaning. If you were there, you know what I mean.

Ah, church camp. It’s the same every year. I hit day 5 weary, craving caffeine and fantasizing about the way my kitchen faucet at home can run water for as long as I want it to. I daydream about my family more than 2 inches away while I sprawl on a real mattress, and showering in hot, pummeling streams (as opposed to an ungodly arctic drip) without flip flops. 

I didn’t know.

I didn’t know that when I got home I would miss the smell of bark and sap.

Or the gravelly tone of the band leader while he played white and black keys of hymns that made me think of my husband’s late grandfather, who probably often had a sweaty upper lip too. Not from heat, but from tireless work that grew out of a deep passion for young people he hoped, prayed would come face to face with the One person who could change everything.  

I didn’t know that Facebook would seem, inadequate. 

That as physically spent as I was I would feel an ache for hometown friends, laughs and toddler burns around an old-time lantern, the way my throat burned watching a slideshow reeling before a valley green like watermelon skin, and hot chocolate every morning for 10 impatient kids who want bacon. Yes, 10 kids to 5 adults. Yes.

I didn’t know I needed it. But now I remember why I go back.      

 

 

Dull Orange

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My neck hurts. So does my lower back and therefore, I’m not sleeping right now. It’s 4:49 am Mountain time and I’m already worrying about what these digits will translate to in five more hours. Likely eyes that sting, patience that is missing in action, and a magnetic pull to my pillow.

But I just walked out to grab a bowl of cereal and saw that dull orange which tinges the sky only at wee minutes of morning. The shade changes with each one. And I love it. I’m not sure why. Maybe because it reminds me of Dunkin Stix fingers and camo with dad, the time he carved out for just the two of us. Or maybe because it’s quiet, uninterrupted time where I can read, journal or do the funky chicken if I so desire, without anyone knowing. But I tend to think it’s because mornings feel like secrets. Whispers saying, “Not everyone gets to see this color, right now, in this moment.” 

I did. And it’s special like Dunkin Stix and deer stands.

Lean In

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He was really excited. I was a bit nervous. We finally each had a bike of our own and to Kyle this meant one thing: distance. Distance that he hadn’t otherwise obtained because normally I was on foot. And distance equals freedom for a 6-year old boy. But all I was thinking about was how many years it had been since I’d attempted to balance atop two wheels. “Can you ride without training wheels, Mom?” Perceptive that one.

I was as stiff as a celebrity in Madame Toussads while I imagined my neighbors munching popcorn at their windows, entertained with all that is me. The training wheels weren’t sounding like a half bad idea.

I took up the caboose of our little train, mostly by default. Nonetheless we were off. And I wasn’t falling, but I wasn’t having that much fun. Until I remembered to lean in. Each textured corner of the sidewalk I got a little more comfortable. My grip eased, my back relaxed, and I started to see in front of me. A little boy on an adventure. And I got to do it with him.