Lonely

It has been a quiet week here in Fort Wayne, my hometown. For my sweet R., has been away in Texas visiting his family.

While R. and I are relatively independent, and by no means one of those couples attached at the hip, we really don't spend that many nights away from one another, and often the one who is gone is usually me. It's lonely in this big rambling house without him, and while I confess there was an excitement at the thought of some truly "alone" time, time when I could do all those things which R. doesn't like...wild and crazy things like ordering out chinese food, and burning incense (to which R. is allergic), and letting the cats sleep in bed right next to my head (another allergy no-no), and loading the dishwasher the way I want to (and the way God intended), and letting the dachshund squeak her Ellie the Elephant squeaky for as many hours as she would like, and, well, I guess that's as wild and crazy as I get, for I can't think of any taboo things I would need to do without R. here, the luxury of all that "me time" was short-lived.

Mostly it's just been quiet. There have been a few catastrophes, of course, there was the afternoon when the temperature dropped to below 30 degrees, and I realized the heat wasn't working, and had to take the girls to their mother's house to spend the night while I packed up the dog and my toothbrush and drove north to my parent's house to sleep on their couch. And, there was, of course the multiple vomiting incidences but those have become par for the course in my world.

Now it's Sunday afternoon, and the evening is slowly crawling upon us, and at 9:15 I get to drive out to Fort Wayne International Airport and see my sweet love, the weary traveler make his way back to a wife who loves him, and who realizes how lonely life is without her anam cara.

Lies, All Lies

Dear Readers,

The day will come when I am actually a consistent and contemplative writer again. I will pause thoughtfully before typing the first thought that comes in my head. I will write enlightening stories about the human spirit and the ways in which the divine and profane intersect in poignant exchanges. I will try to be worthy of my ordination. I will actually meditate.

But in the meantime...

That brief nausea reprieve mentioned in the last entry was just that. A brief reprieve. Damn you, morning sickness. Damn you.

All the pregnancy books say (and I quote from this morning's peppy advice in my daily pregnancy book), "Right around this week, your pregnancy sumptoms might have spontaneously disappeared. This typically--and thankfully for mothers who have experienced extreme morning sickness--happens at the end of the first trimester. For approximately the next three months, you should be feeling wonderful!" The operative word in the previous passage was the word might. And that jaunty exclamation point simply mocks me, me the woman who can now simultaneously vomit in a bag and drive.

So, now you all know why I'm not typing. And there's so much to say...the tale of the missing diamond ring, the madcap adventures of R. and I in Ann Arbor (a.k.a Nerds in Paradise), what it means to sleep with the enemy (and I don't mean R.), the three hour visit to the OB-GYN, the outcome of the Nutcracker auditions, choosing God-parents, new family traditions. Sigh. So much to say, but now I have to go throw up again. So, you'll just have to wait in breathless anticipation.

I'll be back soon.

Love,
The Contemplative Chaplain

July 2022 Comes Early

Holy Mary Mother of God! This morning when I woke up I felt...good. Like, really good. Like, not pukey at all. AND, I felt so good I made biscuits for R. and me. And, here I sit with my cup of tea (which smells good!), the sun streaming in the window and think to myself, "There's a whole day in front of you, little lady, what you gonna do now?" And because I don't feel sick the possibilities are endless...a trip to the library? A long walk or, dare I say, a run? Washing the family room windows which I've been staring at for lo those many days on the couch? Sky-diving? Pole vaulting? Hog tying? The possibilities stretch before me like a patient etherized on a table (alright English majors, who said it?).

And, I just had to tell my little blog community first. Because, well, because you're all so sweet to me and it was about time I had happier words to share.

I feel like it's Easter morning. Christ is risen, risen indeed!

Never Fear...

All is well.
Baby's fine.
I'm fine.
Dachshund's fine.

I haven't written because I can't keep my head out from the toilet bowl.

More posts to come when this phase passes.

Like maybe in July 0f 2022.

Neti Pot

There is so little to report on this front. I vomit. I take anti-nausea medicine. Then I sleep for many hours. I wake up with smeared mascara and bedhead. I eat. I vomit....you know, lather, rinse, repeat. Same old, same old.

I've become pretty accustomed to the whole routine by now and my staff have learned that when I walk out of my office door toward the bathrooms with my toothbrush in my hand and "that look," that they should all be really nice to me. I am blessed to work with colleagues who are empathatic in the extreme, and I came out of the restroom the other day, with my make-up smeared and a toothbrush in my hand only to find one of our nurses standing with a wet washcloth, a glass of ice water, and some crackers. I could not work for a more flexible and giving agency.

But enough about the 'ole emesis. Since I've already freaked you out with my vomitspeak, let me enlighten you on the most wondrous tool in the history of humankind. The legendary neti pot.

Now I know, when you click the link it's a little frightening, what with the blue nozzle shoved up the nice lady's nose and all, but let me tell you that as a life-long sinus sufferer, I have become a neti-pot devotee. And now that I can take absolutely NO sinus medication for the foreseeable future I am have become an apostle of the neti-pot. I am, dare I say it, a neti-pot prostitute. Lo, I remember the day when the neti-pot first came into my life, my ex-husband and I were in Washington D.C. visiting friends and happened upon a natural food store, and having read about the neti-pot in some obscure naturopathic literature which my ex-husband was often fond of reading, and being neti-pot virgins, had our first glimpse of the beloved pitcher. We took it back to our friend's home that night and poured salt water into our noses with wild abandon and never looked back. I would guess that no one else in the D.C. metro area had such clean nasal cavities that night. When we divorced, there was actually a Very Serious Talk about who should get the neti-pot. I still worry about poor K.'s sinuses.

R. is not a neti-pot devotee. He refuses to try it. He refuses to talk about it. He refuses to accept that the neti-pot is clearly the finest piece of medical technology ever invented. And I'm sure his sinuses cry every night in frustration. In fact, when I told him with glee that I was writing an entry on the neti-pot he said, "Oh, aren't the vomiting entries enough?" To which I say, "Hell, no!" And, I say it with clear sinuses and only a little bit of water dripping out of my nose.

And Dooce Called It, "The State of My Weight"

One of the phenomenal blogs that I read is dooce.com. Dooce is irreverent, honest, wickedly funny, and wise beyond words. I've been rereading Dooce chronicles from her pregnancy in the Dooce archives and found a brilliant post which she called "The State of My Weight." She bemoaned the many pregnancy books which go on and on and on in an incredibly prissy tone about how imperative it is that one not gain too much weight in the first trimester, and how incredibly annoying said books are because most women in the first trimester cannot keep anything down their throats long enough to convert to actual caloric gains.

In the first trimester, I have learned, it is a crapshoot. Eat what you can. Fend for yourself. Who knows what will stick (case in point, the greasy Quarter Pounder with cheese and large fries from McDonalds did NOT make me puke. However, the healthy watermelon and green beans barely hit my esophagus before they were rejected...go figure!). I am actually at a negative weight gain in the ten weeks of this pregnancy, despite the fact that I can no longer squeeze into my favorite jeans. So, dammit, I'll eat the Quarter Pounder, prissy pregnancy book. So there.

However, there is a larger truth here which I need to address. And I speak it in all seriousness and with all vulnerability. I am afraid of gaining too much weight. Throughout my life I believe I have flirted with an eating disorder. I have never starved myself, or exercised to oblivion, or thrown up purposefully. But, I have learned that sometimes eating disorders come through an unhealthy obsession and focus on what one eats, and perhaps I am like many other American women who struggle in this realm.

I am a feminist. I hate what our culture does to dupe women into believing that they have to be a certain size. I hate the airbrushed images which flood through the television, and magazines, and other print media. I hate that food has become an object to which we assign moral values (how many times have you heard someone say, "I'll pay for this tomorrow. This cake is so sinful!"). I work tirelessly at reinforcing positive self-image into my step-daughters and in hiding from them my own "body issues." Frankly, It embarrasses me that I care about weight and body shape. And it shames me that at a time in my life when my body is nourishing another life I worry about being too "fat."

This pregnancy is an utter gift from God and I am blessed to be able to carry a child. I know this. But the broken and damaged parts of me need to be reprogrammed through grace and I am slowly, and carefully learning to embrace my body as it is, rounded and whole. But, again, my confession to each of you is that this is still hard for me.

It is time for me to practice a radical acceptance, because this is no longer just about me. But sometimes I don't even know how to begin.

And If you Have a Weak Stomach...STOP Reading!

When I was a little girl, I got a terrible case of the flu after Easter one year. As is often the case when my temperature goes above 101 degrees, I began to get "a little squirrely" (as my father refers to my high temperature hallucinations )and began to believe that marshmallow peeps Easter bunnies and duckies were chasing me. To this day, I shudder when I see marshmallow peeps reappear in March or April in the grocery stores. I am haunted by the yellow and pink marshmallow creatures. Which I vomited day and night in the spring of 1978.

To that end, it now appears that I will be haunted to the end of my days by the following items:
Golden Grahams cereal, lime jello with pears, peanut butter toast, Ginger ale, Zesta saltines, and assorted other foods.

In the last week, I have tossed my cookies more than I have in the past twenty years. On top of which, I have a nasty virus, a temperature, a sniffly nose, aches, chills, and other related symptoms. I have been out of work for too many days to count and am living in fear of being fired, or worse for this people-pleaser, not believed.

I simply want my health back, even if it is just for long enough to feel like less of a burden to my sweet husband who has been patiently catering to my every whim. He is a Mensch.

My doctor prescribed an anti-nausea drug which seems to keep the pukes at bay, but which also seems to keep my ability to stay awake at bay...but for now, it's a welcome relief.

Cat Killer

All day I have been wallowing in guilt.

Why do I have to love animals so much? It just hurts. Even animals who don't own me end up affecting me.

This morning I left to go for a walk in the neighborhood and noticed that our friendly neighborhood stray cat, the tom cat who drives my cats to distraction by sleeping on our lawn furniture directly in front of the living room window where Cooper and Moses perch like sharks, tails wagging and voices yowling, was curled up in a ball in the neighbor's yard. "Ah," methought, "Mr. Tom is having a little siesta this afternoon." And with that, I began my four mile trek through the neighborhood (which isn't nearly as invigorating now that I've been banned from running).

You can see the end coming, can't you?

At the end of the walk, Mr. Tom was still curled in his kitty fetal position, and I wandered over slowly, not wanting to touch him because all the pregnancy gurus say, "If you're pregnant, stray cats are the enemy...beware of toxoplasmosis...danger, danger!" I got near him and whispered, "Hey, kitty..." and poor Tom opened his blood-matted eyes and stared at me with a pathetic look. I realized that Tom was a sick boy. He was breathing quickly and shallowly. It wasn't good.

I asked around to some of the neighbors whether anyone knew where Tom lived, what happened, what should be done, and from a conglomeration of sources learned that Tom was fine yesterday, but apparently had been hit by a car (the report of a four-year-old), and had been curled up near that same tree for the past day. No one seemed interested in pursuing the matter further.

R. and I chatted. It was, after all Labor Day, where could we turn? We didn't have the money to invest in getting Tom taken care of at the Emergency Vet, nor did we have a home for Tom to return to (my cats are fiercely protective of their turf and would attack a weakened male in a heartbeat, not to mention spray every conceivable surface with urine in the process). I called the SPCA, who had a nice holiday message saying to call the Humane Shelter and Animal Control. I debated. I hemmed and hawed. I went out to check Tom again. Still sickly. Not opening his eyes. Poor baby.

I called the Animal Control folk and explained the predicament. They were very helpful, said they'd send someone out to "help." And, they did. Three hours later. Which turned out to be fine, as Tom was in the exact same position, with a few leaves which had fallen out of the tree resting gently on his little yellow back.

Mr. Cat Catcher showed up with his cat catching paraphenalia. I showed him where Tom was sleeping. Tom didn't even wince or put up a fight when the cat catcher picked up mama-cat style by the back of his neck and placed him in the rusty cage. I began to cry. "What will happen now?" I asked the nice man. He smiled sadly and said, "I think you know. We just don't have the resources to help each cat."

It took everything I had not to interrupt him and say, "I changed my mind. Nevermind. I'll take him. Give him to me."

But I didn't. And I'm not sure I can forgive myself for that. I feel like a traitor. I feel like a skunk. I feel like I took the easy way out.

I came in the house and lay my weary body on the couch and continued to weep, and out of nowhere I felt tiny paws kneading my side. Moses had jumped onto the couch and offered his own little brand of cat sympathy. But I'm not sure I deserve it.

Thought for the Day

There is nothing dignified about puking in a grocery store parking lot. Nothing.

And Then She Had Another Good Cry

The feedback from my last blog entry has been phenomenal. Thank you, thank you. Your encouragement and grace has been a balm for my weary spirit. I found myself awake last night at 3:00 or so (after my fifth trip to the bathroom) writing blog entries in my head again, something which hasn't happened as often, but seems to have returned (of course I was too lazy to walk downstairs and get my laptop...but rest assured, the laptop will be within easy reach if the insomniac fairy strikes again tonight.)

The bottom line I suppose is...I'm just going to keep writing, and sorting through feelings, and trust that if someone doesn't want to read, they just won't read. Who knows where the Spirit will lead us.

[I just wrote a whole paragraph here about the fatigue factor and the seasicknessy queasies, etc, etc, and somehow accidentally erased it, or the mystery of the blogging universe somehow deemed it unaccepatable...so imagine it here...moan, whine, moan, thankfulness for it not being worse, sigh...there, it's as if it was never gone.]

This evening I took a tepid bath (pregnancy tip: the pregnancy gurus are not so keen on those scalding hot baths I really like...) with some sweet smelling bubble bath (or, it was sweet smelling until I became a little green at the thought and smell of all things soapy). I lay in the bathtub, my neck perched against a bath pillow and took a few deep breaths, and then out of nowhere began to sob. I cried and cried, biting a washcloth to keep from having the girls hear me downstairs.

My tears were nostalgic ones for I realized, in that soapy abyss some of the truths of my existence anew. I come from a long line of women bathers. My grandmother took a bath each night, often with lavender bath oil and I still remember the clean smell and the fogged steaminess of the bathroom on 38th Street after she'd come back out to watch 20/20 with me on Friday nights, trailing talcum powder with each step she took, her hair a little wet on the ends. My mother recently acquired her dream...a whirlpool bathtub where she can soak in her Apricot bath salts until her toes and fingers get pruney. When I was a little girl I would come in and sit on the toilet while my mom took her bath. And it seemed as if our conversations were somehow more sacred as our words reverberated off the tile walls and drowned out the noise of splashing water.

As I lay in the bathtub this evening, with my belly just beginning to poke out from under the bubbles, I thought about this new life I'll usher into the world. I wonder whether she'll be a bather too, or whether he'll make bubble beards on his chin. She or he is another link in the chain, another piece of the genetic puzzle, another step closer to the divine as this world continues to unfold and create itself with the Spirit's urging.

I miss my grandmother. I miss her profoundly. She would have loved this time. She would have loved the waiting and the anticipating and the baby showers and the offering of advice. She loved babies, and she loved me, her baby, with unconditional acceptance. This baby would not exist, in part, without her--not only for the obvious reason, that I would not exist without her--but because the fertility treatments I have undergone have cost money, money which R. and I did not have. Money which was ultimately an inheritance from my grandmother, but given in an act of tremendous generosity from my mother and step-father. If the baby is a girl, her name will be Ella, which is, in addition to being R.'s mother's birth name, a derivation of my grandmother, Ila's name.

At night, the light which shines in our upstairs hallway was the nightlight that shone at my grandparent's house from my earliest memories. I like to imagine her leading me through the darkness, and I recognize that somehow she still surrounds me, as soothing as the water which I soak in every night.

But it doesn't ease the sense of emptiness I sometimes feel at knowing she'll never hold my baby in her arms. And tonight I miss her fiercely.

On Why I Haven't Blogged...

I apologize a million bazillion times for those of you who have sent me personal emails saying, "Uh, excuse me, what's going on?" Because it isn't fair to leave people hanging on a thread in the first trimester of pregnancy. Before I go any further, let me assure you (and myself again) all is well, and like the medieval mystic woman (which one, Hildegard? Julian? Catherine?) said, "And all will be well..." That's sort of my pregnancy mantra.

My reasons for not blogging are myriad. The first is my utter EXHAUSTION (personal aside: in those pregnancy books that you can buy at your local bookstore, those ones with reassuring pictures of duckies and contemplative pregnant women sitting in rocking chairs looking saintly, they, the wise gurus of maternity, talk about how, oh, you may feel a little fatigued in early pregnancy. This is like saying that George W. is a little bit inept as a president. Get the picture?).

But more than the exhaustion, is that I don't know what this blog will be right now. I began writing as an outlet for my spiritual quest as a hospice chaplain, and I'm finding myself feeling a little sheepish at how little attention I feel I have for anything other than our family (those who are here, and he or she who will be arriving in April). And, I don't know how interested this readership is in hearing me wax poetic about the changes which pregnancy is bringing. There's part of me that says, "You know, women have been dropping kids into this world for ever and ever, it's not that revolutionary just because it's you, Christen."

I hesitate about becoming a "Mommy blogger," not because I don't find the blogs of Mom's to be phenomenally insightful and downright hilarious, but perhaps because I don't know if my writing is ever in the league that there's could be (i.e. dooce and amalah, etc.). Or perhaps because this role is still so new to me.

And on the contemplative front, I guess I feel like a contemplative sham. Perhaps I don't think I'm worthy of writing under this title, when I feel as if I have become the anti-contemplative. I'm simply too overwhelmed to do any reflecting.

So, there's my rambling wanderings which I've been playing with in my mind...and it feels better to have them in print. Even if I don't have any answers yet.

Guess I'll Have to Make Shelby An Honest Woman

Because we saw the heart beating today on ultrasound.

I've never seen a more beautiful blob on black and white screen in my life.

And Now I'll Have to Change My Blog Title...

Here's a Jeopardy question for you, the $1000 question in the topic "Overwhelming Encounters."

Q: What is...the event which combines the characteristics of a Spanish Inquisition, a therapy group, a job interview, an ordination committee, a spiritual direction session, and the most intense CPE supervisory session?
A: INTERVIEWS TO QUALIFY FOR BOARD CERTIFICATION AND AFFILIATION WITH THE ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL CHAPLAINS.

That's right, friends. I spent my morning in a chaplaincy conference room in Indianapolis being interviewed, grilled, understood, challenged, weakened, strengthened, stretched. I was prepared for a grueling experience, but I'm not sure I was aware of how exhausting it could be while six weeks pregnant. I walked into the meeting repeating, "They won't make me cry. I will not cry." And, lo and behold, when challenged on whether or not I "hid behind my words" in my spiritual autobiography, I found myself choking up a bit as I spoke of my reluctance at times to feel secure offering spiritual support to my patients when so often I feel untethered myself. Sometimes, or often, I don't touch that sadness or doubt within. And, well, that's when I had to swallow some tears.

I am not good at allowing myself to be nurtured. This amazing group of chaplains saw through my bullshit, and claimed me as one of their own. They heard my doubts and fears, and named me as worthy. It made me ache, but it challenged me to grow.

Oh, and I now get to add those three magic letters B.C.C. after my name, because the certification committee "passed" me. But moreover, they made me feel not so alone. And that made all the difference.

So am I now the Certified Contemplative Chaplain? Nah...too wordy.

Grumpy, Part Deux

And continuing on from yesterday's post, the one about grumpiness... Here is today's realization.

If you are the peppy activity director at a nursing home, it would be wise for you not to snap and crack your gum in such a way that it irritates the highly sensitive pregnant lady seated three feet to your right, lest she do something with that gum which would render you an identical twin to Dumb Donald in the Fat Albert cartoons. Just a thought.


But really, for all my bitching and moaning and grumping. I am doing well. And I am utterly thankful for doing so well. I promise I'll be back to more routine bloggage soon, and won't become someone who is so utterly transfixed on her pregnancy that she forgets the rest of life. It's just for now, I'm called into a bit of a quieter place...and for some reason I feel as if I've lost any vestige of creativity I once had, so writing feels a bit laborious. God save the poor Huntington congregation which I fear are hearing some mighty shitty sermons of late.

More soon...thanks all, for your prayers and kind words. Even if I am a little testy.

Grumpy

So far, I have very few symptoms of early pregnancy. Which mostly make this hypochondriacal maniac fear she's mere moments away from a miscarriage any moment...as if they'll take away my honorary postitive pregnancy test and say, "Sorry, ma'am there's been a mix-up here." Most people tell me to be thankful that I'm eating like a horse and craving only canned green beans (canned, dammit, they must be canned!) and watermelon. But, I am always wondering, wondering, worrying, wondering.

I do seem to have one clearly discernable symptom of pregnancy though...grumpiness. I am Grumpy (note the capital "G"). Today I had to deal with an asinine nursing home who weren't giving a patient her Ativan on time, and thus the patient was noticeably and understandably edgy and scared. I found myself clenching my fists in rage as I tried to be oh-so-polite to the nurse who was gossiping with her co-workers instead of doing her job and who made my patient wait 50-fucking-minutes despite the daggers I was staring at her across the dining room as I spoon-fed Betty her oatmeal between her panicked sighs. And then, there was the driver who was tailgating me in the Hummer as she talked on her cellphone incessantly. I refrained from giving her the, what I deemed appropriate, gesture. And instead demonstrated my wrath by driving really, really slow in a no-passing zone. Take that, Hummer-Lady! And I won't even go into the fact that my Martha's Vineyard salad at Arby's was lacking in red delicious apple slices. I realized I was muttering under my breath, "Where are the damn apples?" only because my colleague started laughing at me.

All this is to say that hell hath no fury like a newly pregnant woman whose scared out of her mind that she won't stay this way.

And now, dear readers, I'm off to soothe my mind with a bath and a cup of chai. In the meantime, be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

I Know, I Know

I know...I've been quiet. So distant. You must ask, "Is it something I said?" I drop important news on you in a cryptic way and then am so silent...

Sorry. All is well. Just contemplative. Lots to digest this week.

Forgive me for not talking more about the big news that we dare not name. I promise in time I will spill all the "he saids" and "she saids" and details of the drama that is unfurling even as we speak within my body, but it still is just so early. And I am such a nervous Nellie that I worry about "jinxing" it by saying more. Once we hit that golden milestone, or hear that first heartbeat perhaps it'll feel more comfortable to write freely.

So...I hold hope. And I marvel at feeling so good.

Thank you all for your kind messages and greetings. You calm me and nourish me with your words.

Other big news at Chez P-M. The dog got a new middle name. Every year it has become a habit in our family, I believe a tradition gleaned from another branch of R.'s family, to add a middle name to the dachshund's already elaborate title. It's sort of a rite of passage. She will officially be crowned with the full name of "Maisie May Weinerschnitzel Butt-whirler Frito Feet Pettite Miller." The newest name aquired for the penchant she has of smelling as if she just tiptoed through a bag of corn chips. And you're wondering how it is I've kept this news from you for so long!?!

I promise more bloggage this week. I'm just now getting my brains back after a week long mind lapse as I sat in slack-jawed wonder meditating on how much has changed in one week's time.

Annunciation

"Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her."
--Luke 1:45

Cautiously, gently I say, "Thanks be to God."

Futher proof that I need a child...

And these words were spoken and heard in my house tonight.

Conversation (or rather admonition) recorded at 7:56 p.m. on Strathdon Drive:

Contemplative Chaplain: Moses! Moses, STOP IT! No...Moses...quit messing with Mommy's hope...(30 second pause)...Moses. Leave Mommy's hope alone. Leave it. Moses! (Loud hissing noise made by me)...Moses. You are a bad, bad boy for messing with my hope. That's Mommy's hope, that's not your hope.

Explanation: On Monday I decided it would behoove me to have a few more visual cues to represent my need to hold hope when I feel desolate. To that end, I bought several beautiful polished stones with the word "hope" etched into them. I've placed them in strategic places...above the sink where I can see it washing dishes...on my worship center in my sanctuary...next to my bed...by my computer...on my desk at the office...

The problem is that Moses, my gray-and-white spitfire of a cat believes that these stones were created especially for him as cat-styled hockey pucks to knock down with his white paws at random and try to scoot across the floor.

Hope, apparently isn't hard to come by when you're a 20lb. tomcat. All you have to do is knock it around a bit.

On Not Crying

I don't cry. Not so much. I gave up crying that day in March of 2005 when, after not being able to stop crying for 6 weeks in the shower every morning while mourning the sudden death of my beloved grandma, I realized I needed some additional pharmaceutical assistance. And thus, the Lexapro. Which has mostly been a great thing, but which keeps me from crying. Most of the time. Which I hate, as I am a crier. I am one of those people who in my natural, non-medicated habitat cry while preaching sermons, while watching loved ones say goodbye to the dying, while witnessing a phenomenal sunset (trite as that sounds), and during many Hallmark commercials (ditto the trite). But with Lexapro...well, I stand detached and I watch (sort of like Peter Sellers in that one movie where he's the gardener, entitled Being There where he says, "I like to watch" in an endearing, nerdy, and not-stalkerish at all sort of way).

The not crying has it's many positives. I actually do my work, rather than fretting about my work. I actually step out of myself and stop panicking about what I would do in this situation. I actually make it the way it should be, less about me and more about the patient, imagine! I actually get up on mornings when I used to wallow in the dark and ponder the dark existence of the ominous scary things awaiting me in the world...student loan interest rate increases, butt saggage, possible infertility, the step-mothering angst, not fulfilling my potential, global warming, and the chance that somone may not like me or that my Greek neighbor's dementia will become so severe that he and his adorable wife will have to move out of their home, thus disrupting the rightness of the universe on Strathdon Drive (see, it is all about me in my non-Lexapro induced state, isn't it?).

BUT...and you knew this was coming, didn't you sweet blogees? The tears, I miss them. The tears connected me to so much of myself, and I feel like I lost parts of me to find parts of me, if that makes sense. I get homesick for my tears, and while I know that I will return to that part of myself in time, that there will be a wonderful time when life feels stable enough to reenter my non-medicated state (like when I'm not struggling with infertility woes), it still gets lonely on this side of the veil.

So, I wrote all this, and what I really wanted to write was: I cried tonight when I read the Church of the Brethren's account of their every-four-years National Youth Conference where 3,000+ youth stream into Colorado and do what youth do best...exude, shine, brighten. Y'all, I am a cynic. I am such a cynic, and yet when I read the accounts of what the future of the CoB holds I find myself whispering, "Yes, oh my God, yes." And the tears feel good on these dry cheeks.

We Activists Start 'Em Young...

I luxuriated this afternoon in the company of Lynn, one of my closest friends, who finally realized what was good for her and moved back to this part of the country from the-oh-so-gorgeous and politically-correct Ithaca, New York. I know it is cultural whiplash for her, but selfishly, I will donate my services as politically liberal ambassador from Indiana in exchange for having her back in my neck of the cornfields. I will shield her eyes from confederate flag bumper stickers on 4x4 pick-ups and will assure her that some Hoosiers do believe in recycling and wearing Patchouli oil (on occasion).

Lynn and I took her son Eli out for lunch and a few hours of galavanting around tiny North Manchester, which is the home of my college alma mater and short 40-minute drive and I still can't get over the utter joy of having her so close, a mere 40 minutes away (which sure as hell beats that expensive plane ticket to upstate New York and the cost of the Xanax I need to take to get on the freakin' plane). I still can't get over the delight in having someone who knows me so well that they roll their eyes when I order the same exact thing I always order at Subway.

My women friends have been scattered across the country for so long now, that I forget the easy comfort that comes with someone who I simply feel that easy familiarity, the comfort in having someone you don't have to hold in your stomach around, the understanding of someone who can finish your sentences and who can properly identify exactly what small object of which you are referring when you say, "You know...hand me the 'doo-hickey'..." The person with whom you lie awake laughing hysterically at 3:00 a.m. and the person who holds hope for you when you feel utterly hopeless and barren.

As we were finishing our North Manchester adventuring, we drove by my old house in town, a beautiful brick English cottage built in the 1900s where I lived for six years. I prided myself on the cottage garden which had been started by the former owner, and which I enhanced. I spent hours pulling leaves and pruning trees, and lying on the ground under the french Lilac tree in the spring waiting for a soft wind to blow those deep, deep purple blooms down into my hair. A church (a fundamentalist church which doesn't allow women to be pastors, not that I'm bitter) has bought the property now after my friend Lee (who bought the house from me) married and moved out a few months ago.

I mourned when I drove by the house today and saw that my beautiful day lilies and my fragile lady's mantle, my butterfly bush and my wild roses have all been torn out to make more space for what I can only assume will be pavement, else why would my plants be so cruelly treated?

I said in a dramatic fashion to Lynn's almost-3rd-grade son, Eli who sat quietly in the backseat, "Eli, can you believe what happened to my beautiful house and my beautiful gardens? Do you remember coming here when you were little?" Eli looked out the window solemnly as we crept past and said, "Look how different it is!" "I know, Eli," I said. "And I hate it...it's so ugly now..." There was a moment of quiet mourning until Eli, who had just received a new pad of drawing paper piped up, "Kiki! [his nickname for me], I know...let's start a demonstration! I have paper here already, all we need are some sticks and we can make some signs. We can stand outside on the sidewalk and tell them how unfair it is!"

I looked at Lynn and said, "You're raising him right, Lynnie. How's that for a nonviolent response?!?" Lynn smiled knowingly. She's not surprised. She's supermom.