glimpses of joy – Page 3 – Glimpses of Joy

january thoughts on art and motherhood

A new mom friend from Evangeline’s preschool shared this essay with me (thanks, Rose!) and I loved this part especially.

“But at my most hopeful I think that writing and art are essential to motherhood and vice versa. Each accesses the most ancient, the most universal, the most complex emotions. Each requires the nurturing of a new consciousness, a new being, a new way of seeing. Each is endlessly different and endlessly dull, endlessly challenging and spiked with constant disappointment and beauty.”

I need this reminder in the monotony of winter. As the newness of the new year lessens and January presses on with long dark mornings and gray skies. Each day is spiked with beauty, and each moment with my girls is endlessly different and endlessly dull. I marvel over the little sentences Zelie is putting together and how she plays independently with her toys when Evangeline is at school. I find myself surprised at the pictures Evangeline is drawing these days, the shapes she now makes, the colors she puts together. And I die with frustration when Zelie wakes up in the middle of the night and then naps through the morning spin class I have come to count on with near-obsession. Or when Evangeline needs to be dragged to the potty before she pees her pants. And something about the gray and the cold makes it harder for me to recover from these attacks of extreme grumpiness.

56918188956__79993b7e-5c0e-4f69-8960-3bddbea8412b — creativity, but not where I appreciate it.

All the while, I am looking for ways to create. To write, to share my thoughts. To add beauty to our home. To try a new craft or baking project. Winter lends itself to this, with all the time spent inside and inside my own head. And most of the time I’m not even thinking about my biggest winter project, which is constantly growing, without any conscious effort on my part. Week after week I am surprised to see how big she is and how my belly is growing. It’s just happening. Ordinary, ancient, and amazing.

part of our story

As I’ve entered the second trimester of this pregnancy, I’ve been thinking about how this baby’s life has already changed our family’s story. About how this baby comes to us after losing another.

At the end of June, I had a miscarriage. I’d only known I was pregnant for ten days and had only told one friend. It was still so new, and then, it was over.

So this is my fourth pregnancy, my fourth baby. But I won’t explain that to strangers in the grocery store; I probably will hardly ever talk about it. For all outward appearances, this is Baby #3. But we know that there was a little soul who would have come to us in February, and we named him or her Valentine. It’s made me think about how many other families share this experience, how the question, How many kids do you have? becomes a bit more complicated to fully explain.

I may share more about the miscarriage and how we grieved and found closure, because I found it helpful to read about other women’s stories when it happened. But for now, we talk about Baby Valen with the girls, and we go and visit the cemetery where he or she (I’ll call her she), is buried. We’ve been looking for a way to volunteer time as a family, a way to engage in social justice in some way with the girls, but everything we’ve thought of has been too late in the evening for our current early dinner/bedtime schedule. So for now, in this season, we’ve landed on the spiritual work of mercy – pray for the living and the dead. We take the girls and pray a decade of the rosary and the prayer for the dead for the soul of Baby Valen and all the departed.

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I wish it wouldn’t have happened, of course. I wish I could have felt her move, held her, seen her, been able to get to know her. But I’ve been comforted by the reactions I’ve received from friends, and even the (free!) services offered by the local funeral parlor and cemetery. Overwhelmingly, it’s been – This is a person to bury, this is a person to grieve. Despite how common early miscarriages are, and the various factors that can cause them, I was never made to feel that this was something to just get over and forget about. And that’s been a good lesson and reminder for me, as we’ve talked about her with Evangeline. Baby Valen was still a baby, even though she was so little, and she will always be a part of our family. We can ask her to pray for us because we trust that she is with Jesus. It’s brought up good conversations about the communion of saints, the dignity of life, and death. And it just feels good to talk about her, this little person God sent to us for such a brief time.

Baby Valen, pray for us.

that time I ugly cried at a poetry open mic

I recently had an experience that I think could be described as mystical, in that it felt like a sudden and unexpected outpouring of grace. I’ve been trying to process what happened and why it happened ever since, because although I am very grateful, it was also extremely embarrassing.

On Wednesday night last month, Chris told me that the after-party for the Thursday night prayer service led by the seminarians would be a poetry open mic, and asked if I would want to read one of my poems. I immediately said no. But then, the next day when his classmate texted me asking if I would read a poem if she did, I reconsidered. Two invitations? I decided I would read my villanelle, but I would also read a very good villanelle.

This prayer service is held in the chapel of the seminary on campus, which has the acoustics of a huge bathroom. The seminarian leading the singing doesn’t need a microphone, his voice carries easily. And the response from the pews is thunderous. It is a beautiful time of candle-lit prayer, most of it sung, with a couple short readings and a homily. The last line that closes the evening is the seminarian singing, Let grace come and this world pass away. And the response is, Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

This last line, the chorus of voices echoing around me, got me. I had this sudden, deep longing for everything to be made right, a strong desire for Jesus. And the way I experience this kind of longing is through crying. (I’ve mentioned I refer to it somewhat jokingly as having the gift of tears, which is a thing, I just don’t know if I really have it). I teared up but quickly pulled it together because everyone was starting to leave and head downstairs for the open mic part of the evening.

After grabbing tea and scones, Chris and I found seats right in front and sat chatting with his classmates, waiting for the poetry part to begin. I was nervous because as it started, it seemed most people were reciting poems they had memorized, or doing original spoken word poems. I firmly planned to just read the two poems I had brought. Some were funny, some were funny and high energy, and mine were neither. But when it was my turn, I stood up, put on the designated “poetry scarf,” and began.

The first poem went fine. I did a little introduction about villanelles, said I’d be reading a really good one for them first, and read it. Then I turned to mine and felt it deserved a little introduction, too. I think I made the mistake of being rather vulnerable. I shared that this poem was about the Visitation, and that as I was a fairly new convert to Catholicism, I was still getting to know Mary. I like this part of scripture because it shows us Mary from Elizabeth’s perspective, and gives us another glimpse into her life. By this time, my voice had started shaking. I realized that I had just opened up a lot of myself in front of about forty people, most of whom I didn’t know. But I took a deep breath and started reading my poem.

As I was reading, it was the strangest thing, it was like I was surprised by the poem. It’s about two women, two mothers with babies in their wombs, and I suddenly thought, I’m probably the only mother in this room. I read, “Already she faced her share of the sword,” and thought, who am I to be writing this about this woman? By the time I got to the line, “Blessed one! With your yes you moved us toward/the home we long for, and all things made right,” I had totally lost it. I was full on ugly crying in the middle of my own poem.

I garbled out the last two lines, muttered, “Sorry,” and tried to sink as quickly back into my seat as I could. I could not stop crying.

I was so embarrassed and I had no way to explain to all these strangers why I was crying. I wasn’t really sure why either. I tried to dismiss it – it’s just because I’m really tired. But as I tried to block out everyone around me and how ridiculous the situation was, I remembered that God usually does speak to me in deep ways through tears. And this had felt like grace – just much more publicly humiliating and therefore bewildering than I would have chosen.

Two days later I went to a lecture on campus about Chiara Lubich, who founded the lay movement, Focolare. I had no idea who she was but for whatever reason I wanted to go hear this talk. The professor spoke about Chiara’s focus on Maria Desolata – Mary desolate.

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He said that Mary, at the foot of the cross, sees all of the misery and suffering of the world, and holds it all. That Maria Desolata was an icon for Chiara for looking unflinchingly and lovingly at a world in pain. Chiara wrote, “If Jesus forsaken seemed to us to be the pupil of God’s eye open onto the world, we can say that Mary desolate seems to us a kind of camera obscura taking in all that is negative in the world (Essential Writings: Spirituality, Dialogue, Culture, p. 299). And the professor commented, “The Mary who holds the disfigured Christ is also the one who can gaze objectively at the world in all of its disfigurement. Just as a photographic image is developed from a negative, Mary can hope for redemption of a fallen world in the midst of her and the world’s most complete agony (“Chiara Lubich: A Saint for a New Global Unity,” Casarella).”

And I started to cry again. Was that what I had experienced, a tiny glimpse of this? Was that the grace?

Professor Casarella went on to say that Mary desolate also offers “an icon of knowing how to lose.” He summarized Chiara’s thoughts on this, saying, “Apart from her Son, Mary had very little. When she lost him in his Passion, the loss was total and decisive. But she saw this loss for what it really was. The one who prepared all her life to be alone, became Mother to each of us, to the whole of the world (Essential Writings p.302)… Her love, her capacity for giving is human, real, and maternal. It consists of a unique capacity to bear the sorrow of the world in one’s heart. According to Chiara, when a mother hopes all things for her child and puts up with all the troubles involved, she sees further than others. (“Chiara Lubich: A Saint for a New Global Unity,” Casarella).

I was sitting next to one of Chris’s classmates and when she turned to me at this point to whisper something, she saw that I was crying. She looked concerned and asked,”Are you okay?” I nodded and whispered, “Yeah, I’m fine, I just had this mystical experience the other night and I think it’s making more sense to me right now.” She accepted this as a reasonable explanation (you’re the best, Jackie).

I’m still reflecting on all this and will be for a long time. But in the meantime, St. Therese of Lisieux said, “Everything is grace.” It took ugly crying in front of strangers but now I think I have some idea of what she meant.

first born out of my womb (a birth story three years late)

First born out of my womb, love of my life. That’s something my mom would say to me growing up, or at least how I remember it. Kinda weird but also great, like my mom (love you!). Chris and I are both oldest children and, let’s be real, there’s just something special about that first baby. Evangeline Marit made us parents for the first time. And, as I’m realizing, everything new about parenting, we’ll hit first with her. At least the basic developmental things in these early years. So, as we celebrated her third birthday last week and I reminisce about these last three years, I thought I’d finally typity type out a birth story. If that’s your kind of thing, read on.

I went into labor three days before my due date, on a Tuesday night. I was lying in bed when I felt some cramping start and I was like, OMG IS THIS IT?? It died away and came back and so I was like, THIS IS HAPPENING! THESE ARE CONTRACTIONS, THIS IS LABOR! I made Chris get out the contraction timing app we had found and start timing me and had all this adrenaline going. We were both so excited. Labor is exciting! I was also so curious what contractions would actually feel like, because talking to moms and reading about labor, it seemed like no one could describe the pain very well. I had in my head that labor would be like running a marathon. It would be hard, I’d need endurance, and perseverance, but I could trust my body, it was made to do this, and I could do this. I would be smart about it, I would breathe my way through the pain, it would be awesome. So, it’s Tuesday night, contractions start and I am SO PUMPED.

LOL.

so large

and so tired

Those contractions (which I know now were very early pre-labor contractions) kept me up most of the night and were still far apart and I could talk through them (which I felt great about, because I had nothing to compare them to). Wednesday morning Chris didn’t go to work and we tried to figure out what do to. We went to daily Mass, came home and I managed to nap a bit, and then we got fro-yo and went for a walk on West Cliff. Oh Santa Cruz, I miss you.

Wednesday night – after 24 hours of this early labor business – I tried going to sleep because I was exhausted. But there was still so much excitement and adrenaline, so not much sleep. By 10 or 11pm the contractions seemed to be getting a bit more intense, so we called my mom and she drove over from San Jose. We called the birth center to ask when to come in and to see if they had room for me. They said to wait until contractions were closer together, but that we could come later. My mom arrived and relieved Chris, who had been putting pressure on my back during contractions, so he could nap. Then, around 5am, we headed to the birth center. And I was still so pumped. Like, I appeared calm, and I was focusing on breathing, but I was just so excited that it was actually happening. And that I was handling it well, so far.

We checked in and I was only at 3 cm. I was a bit disappointed, but I shook it off. We got into my room, and it was super nice. I ate breakfast, walked around, sat on a yoga ball, took a shower, and walked some more. At this point, I hadn’t really slept for two nights, but I was still riding the adrenaline high. The contractions got more intense throughout the morning but I had my head in the game. I was breathing through the contractions and kept thinking, My body knows what to do. I kept imagining that the more painful the contractions got, the more effective they were, and surely this was going somewhere.

The midwife checked my progress around 11am and I was at 5 cm. Okay! And then, around 1pm, 7cm! Woot! Things were getting more intense, and this was slower than I’d liked, but there was progress! And then … still 7cm. An hour later they broke my water to try to speed things up, and checked again an hour after that, and said, “Oh, looks like it’s 6cm.”

WHAT! I’M GOING BACKWARD?? That’s when I realized, This is nothing like a marathon. I have no idea how long this race is. There are no mile markers, there is no way to tell when the end will be. And with that, I was crushed. I was so discouraged that Chris got really worried. Without telling me, he sent texts to family and friends asking them to pray for me. I think it was probably around this point, I remember asking, Can they just cut the baby out of me? I’d really be okay with that.

The midwife suggested getting in the tub to try to help me relax and get some rest. Chris got in with me to keep putting pressure on my back, and I tried to lean on him and sleep a bit in between contractions. After the tub time, I rallied a bit and decided to ask for some intervention. They gave me fentanyl, which takes the edge off the contractions, but only lasts for an hour. Once I got the IV in, I had to stay in bed, which was super uncomfortable. I have memories of lying on my back, staring out the window at the sun setting, and crushing Chris or my mom’s hands every contraction while making the weirdest, terrible moaning sounds. Part of me was amused at how weird I sounded, part of me felt bad for Chris and my mom having to sit there and listen to it for so long, and part of me just wanted to black out and wake up with a baby outside of my body.

Finally, around 8:30 or 9pm, I got an epidural. Sitting still on the edge of the bed for the needle shot was hellish, but at this point I didn’t care, because relief was finally coming. It had been 48 hours at this point. Once the epidural took effect, I was able to relax. The plan was for me to sleep a bit, but things started moving quickly. Soon, I was being told to push, and right after that, we met Evangeline!

We didn’t know if she was a boy or a girl, so that was a sweet surprise. We’d come with two boys names and three girls names, and right away I knew she was Evangeline Marit. With the epidural, I didn’t feel the pushing or her coming out, so I didn’t have as strong of a feeling of relief/giddiness as I did with Zelie, but man, when they held her up and said she was a girl and put her on my chest, it was amazing. And they left her there for over an hour, just letting us do skin to skin. And Chris pulled off his shirt so he could get some skin to skin time too. So cute.

skin to skin!

awwww

first diaper change!

It was a crazy long labor, and not what I expected, but I’m glad it was what it was. I wanted to have a natural birth, but I was open to whatever came up and open to interventions if needed, and it was definitely needed. There’s so much weird guilt, in some circles, about epidurals, so I’m glad I’ve had the experience of using one so I can say, You do what you have to do to have a good birth experience. Every woman is different, every baby is different, every birth is different. It wasn’t anything like running a marathon, it had some crazy emotional ups and downs, and we got this baby girl at the end. Now we’ll see if I get around to sharing Zelie’s birth story before she turns 3.

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getting some some to help that jaundice

one week old, hit the beach!

our four year anniversary retreat

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Chris has been wanting to do a marriage retreat since we were engaged, and we finally did one this year. In the break between summer classes and the semester starting, we have two weeks to spend with Chris’s parents at their beach house in Rhode Island. Our anniversary falls in this break, so last year we spent the day buying a car in NJ (lol) and went out to sushi. This year we booked ourselves a private retreat on Ender’s Island in Mystic, CT and took two nights away from the girls. We wanted some structured time to reflect on our marriage and pray together, and initially looked into seeing if any Marriage Encounter retreats would work location and date-wise. But the closest one was in Baltimore, so Chris’s dad suggested this little island, and we decided it’d be fun to plan our own time. I’m so glad it worked out this way.

Ender’s Island is a tiny island off the coast of Connecticut that was owned by Thomas and Alys Enders, and sold to the Society of St. Edmund in 1954. It now functions as a retreat space, with a sacred art institute and a small recovery program. We didn’t really know anything about the island before we arrived, but quickly discovered it was a little piece of heaven. I felt God’s love for us in so many details of the place. We had unknowingly booked “the Bishop’s suite,” which was two tiled rooms with views of the ocean and the island gardens from every window.

I was so glad we came in August, when the dahlias and roses were in full bloom. 🙂

Something I hadn’t thought about beforehand was how luxurious it would feel to be served all our meals, and not have to feed babies while we ate. And the food was so good. We ate with men in the recovery program and the priests who were there on retreat. It felt like a special gift to eat with those men, and reminded me of our summer at CityTeam in Oakland … where it all began. There was a group of Korean Catholics on retreat on the island, too, though they ate in the larger dining hall. I loved seeing two Korean grandmas holding hands to support each other as they walked down to the water’s edge.

To honor Chris’s love for structure, we spent time creating a schedule, which was much more enjoyable than I expected. We took a date night in South Bend to get started, and finished it up on the car drive from NJ to RI. During our engagement, we had done an Engaged Encounter retreat, and really liked the format of writing letters to each other about different topics and then talking. So we incorporated letter writing, and used our Engaged Encounter journals for some ideas of topics to discuss. I wanted to do morning runs, Chris wanted to do morning prayer and go to Mass, and we gave ourselves a big chunk of free time. There were some things that changed once we got there – we decided to attend a meditation in the chapel on Wednesday evening and learned that they do morning prayer right before Mass, and forgot the old letters we’d written while dating and engaged that we were going to read back through. Oh well.

The chapel had a huge relic – the arm of St. Edmund. A bit weird, but cool.

And, we got to go sailing! We saw little boats sail past the island and thought, let’s see if we can find a place to go this afternoon. So I happily abandoned my nap plans and we went to the Mystic Seaport Museum. It was an anniversary splurge, because we had to buy tickets to the museum to get to the sailboats, but we ended up seeing some of the ships because they made us wait an hour for the gusts to die down a bit.

Chris was grumpy about that. I thought going on the whaling boat from 1841 was neat. But sailing was definitely a highlight! It was a time of working as a team and enjoying being friends and really embracing our whiteness. Lol.

I wanted to include our schedule in case it might help anyone get started on planning their own private retreat! Individual or for a couple, it’s so worth the time and money. I usually love silent retreats by myself – this was special in that it was prayerful and also fun quality time with Chris.

Happy four years, Chris!

Wednesday

2:00-3:30 Check in, Settle into retreat space

3:30-4:00 Silent Prayer in Chapel

4:00-5:00 Session 1 – Reading Letters

5:00-5:30 Rosary

5:30-6:15 Dinner

6:15-7:15 Session 2 – Marriage Timeline

7:15-8:15 Session 3 – Sex/ NFP/ Intimacy

8:15-9:30 Free Time

9:30-9:45 Night Prayer

9:45 Bedtime

Thursday

6:45-7:00 Wake up, get ready

7:00-7:45 Run

7:45-8:15 Breakfast

8:15-8:30 Shower

8:30-9:00 Morning Prayer

9:00 – 9:45 Mass

9:45-10:00 Silent Prayer

10:00-11:00 Session 4– Conflict/ Communication

11:00-12:00 Session 5 – Relationships with Others

12:00-1:00 Lunch

1:00-3:00 Free Time

3:00-4:00 Session 6 – Finances

4:00-5:00 Session 7 – Budget

5:00-5:30 Rosary

5:30-6:15 Dinner

6:15-7:15 Session 8 – Designing Our Marriage

7:15-8:15 Session 9 – Vision Statement

8:15-9:30 Free Time

9:30-9:45 Night Prayer

9:45 Bedtime

Friday

6:45-7:00 Wake up, get ready

7:00-7:45 Run

7:45-8:15 Breakfast

8:15-8:30 Shower

8:30-9:00 Morning Prayer

9:00 – 9:45 Mass

9:45-10:00 Silent Prayer

10:00-11:00 Pack, Checkout

11:00-12:00 Session 10 – Goal Setting

12:00-1:00 Lunch

1:00 Depart

Designing Our Marriage

Marriage Timeline

Why this millennial convert is grateful for Humanae Vitae

We do not really want a religion that is right where we are right. We want a religion that is right where we are wrong. – G.K. Chesterton

As a way of response to the bemoaning in some circles of the Church’s “irrelevancy,” re the 50^th anniversary of “Humanae vitae,” (the papal encyclical that reiterated the Church’s stance on contraception,) I’d like to share the story of how the Church wooed this millennial home.

Unity, contraception, and authority – the super sexy buzzwords that shaped my journey from the evangelical world to the Catholic Church. I became Catholic at a Friday afternoon Mass less than a week after my first baby was baptized into the Church. A couple days before, I had a surge of doubt – How did I get to this point? Am I making the right decision? But when I sat down and thought about my spiritual course of the last few years, I felt overwhelming peace. Having been raised in the nondenominational, evangelical Christian world, I had learned to look to Jesus. To make decisions with the question in mind, Will this lead me closer to God? Will this require me to trust Him more? I was reassured, only Jesus could have led to me this place of trust, where I was ready to submit to the authority of His Church and cross the Tiber.

As a college student in the Bay Area, discovering the Church as a two thousand year old institution that has the audacity to hold to crazy truths that Protestant denominations have abandoned was shocking and challenging and, strangely, very compelling. I probably asked Chris, the one Catholic in our university evangelical student group (now my husband), a million times – You actually believe this? Oh yeah, and there was that. I also happened to find Chris very compelling. Contemplative and competitive, deep and fun, he really seemed to love Jesus … and yet, he was Catholic. Why do you have to go to Mass every Sunday? Why do you pray to Mary? If you eat Jesus, aren’t you a cannibal? I was a bit sassy, but, not so secretly, very intrigued.

I went to a Spanish Mass with Chris in Oakland throughout the summer of 2011 and when I studied abroad in Spain that fall, I found myself going to Mass with a new friend in the program. She was Catholic, and I continued to ask questions. I couldn’t receive the Eucharist, and had some awkward bumbles asking the priest for a bendición when I stepped forward in the communion line, but I went back week after week. The Mass was the same everywhere! If it was true, Jesus was physically present in millions of churches all around the world. Chris, back in California, was hearing the same scripture readings. A unified, global Church! The ritual and form was such, I could participate in a different language. I learned that Catholics fasted the hour before receiving the Eucharist; they didn’t bring their bagels into the pews. Church as a sacred space? Didn’t the Church know it was supposed to appeal to my generation with amplified music and hipster coffee in the foyer?

When I returned to Stanford, I still wasn’t sure about Catholicism, but I was pretty sure about Chris.

“I think we should date,” I said.

“Let me think about it,” he said.

And when he got back to me, he said, “I want to date you, but there’s two things you should know. I’m fine with marrying a Protestant, but I want to raise my kids Catholic, and I want to follow Church teaching on contraception.”

WHAT THE WHAT. There’s Church teaching on contraception?

I was shocked to learn that yes, in fact, the Church holds to the traditional Christian view that contraception is a moral issue and it is wrong.

And in fact, Protestants believed and taught this until 1930, when the Anglican Church announced contraception to be acceptable in certain circumstances and other denominations followed suit in the decades after. I had no idea. This rocked my world because every single Christian in my life until this point, once married, had no problem with using contraception. In fact, it seemed to be encouraged. Babies are blessings, but they are planned blessings. Faced with this news, I set about learning more because a) I wanted to date Chris and b) I didn’t want to be a Duggar.

I learned that the Church teaches that sex is inherently unitive, pleasurable, and procreative. I learned that for millennia, Christians have believed that the sexual act is, by nature, tied to co-creating life with God. And further, that couples don’t have the right to actively mess with that (sacred) reality. What about couples who are infertile? What about women past menopause? Neither of those cases involve the couple actively interfering with the sexual act to render it sterile – there’s nothing immoral about infertility. (Though it’s true that the Church has a long way to go in its pastoral care for couples struggling with this).

I learned that the Church teaches that couples can track their fertility to avoid or achieve a pregnancy. There are many methods of fertility tracking, but they are lumped together in the Catholic world under the title, Natural Family Planning.

When a couple is highly motivated and uses NFP effectively, it has a 98 percent success rate in avoiding a pregnancy. Well, isn’t that just Catholic birth control, then? Nope. A couple using NFP to avoid a pregnancy doesn’t do anything to alter the sexual act. They abstain from sex when the woman is fertile, following her body’s natural rhythms. It’s an ongoing conversation between themselves and God, month by month, but in general, there’s an attitude, an orientation, that is open to life as each sexual act is open to the possibility of life.

I found all this very new and alarming. And fascinating. People actually do this?? Do they all have a ton of kids because NFP doesn’t work or because they just want to? The vast majority of families I knew growing up had two kids and then were “done.” I was also intrigued because I knew basically nothing about my fertility.

I met with a married woman I knew who had recently converted to Catholicism to ask her about NFP. How does it actually work? She explained briefly how she tracked her fertility, and then told me that her husband actually wrote down her observations each day. He was intimately familiar with her cycle and could see, with her, if she was stressed or sick, from the signs her body was giving her. My take away from this was – I have no idea what cervical mucus even is! It can tell you that you’re sick?? But I was drawn to several points from what she shared. Her husband cared about her fertility. The man could discuss cervical mucus! He had a vested interest in it. And this led me think about, for the first time ever, I don’t want to be the one responsible for if I get pregnant or not. If I get married, I want my spouse to share that with me equally. And a second thought, I don’t want to ever feel used by my spouse, or use him. If we could take only the pleasurable aspect of sex and not the other reality of possibly creating life, by rejecting part of my body, namely, my fertility – well, that didn’t seem as right to me anymore. I wanted to be all in, with him, holding nothing back. It started to make more sense that for something as intimate and powerful as sex, there would be a lot of self-sacrifice involved for the sake of the other.

It was the strangest thing, but as I learned more about NFP, I found more and more that it seemed empowering of women. I met with a nurse and NFP instructor in San Jose and she taught me more about my body than I had ever learned in health class. My body is amazing! Women are amazing! Why aren’t we all taught how to track our fertility? This coincided with an obsession I had with midwifery, and there’s a lot of rhetoric in the birth world about how strong and goddess-like women are, so I was riding a feminist high. This feels like true feminism! Why is the pill given as a solution for any female problem? Why are we told to medicate our fertility away?

Learning more of the why’s and how’s of NFP led me to start considering the authority of the Church. “No contraception” felt like a super personal, crazy demand that the Church somehow had the boldness to impose on me and my sex life… but as a Protestant, I had come to profess Jesus as Lord. And that meant He had authority over my life. This was a foundational part of youth group, college ministry, church on Sunday, you name it. Give your life to Jesus. “Your life” included how you thought about your studies, future career, justice, money, friendships, and sex. I am so grateful for this formation. It molded my heart, from a young age, with an inclination towards radical trust in the Divine Will. But I never once heard anyone talk about Jesus having authority over family planning. Trust God with the number of kids I’m going to have? That’s going a little far, wouldn’t you say?

And yet, why? It began to feel inconsistent. I looked at the spiritual mentors in my life – people living out their love for God in their decisions about money, their work for justice, their sharing of the gospel with word and deed– it seemed nothing in their lives was outside of God’s control. Except, it seemed, accepting children. Save sex until marriage, and then, go crazy? I assumed so, but didn’t really know; it wasn’t talked about. The vibe I gleaned from excitement about engagement and weddings (though, granted, this wasn’t huge in the Bay Area,) was once you’re married, all that chastity and self-control stuff is finally a thing of the past! And this felt odd to me. It started to make much more sense that I was practicing self-control and practicing chastity for when I would need to use those virtues in the rest of my life. If using NFP cultivated self-control in the relationship between a married couple, wouldn’t that be good, not just for the individual, but also the marriage?

There were these flashes, then, when the Catholic Church didn’t seem quite so crazy. Or, if crazy, at least consistently crazy, and very confident of its authority to proclaim truth, which was interesting. I kept getting glimpses of how this counter-cultural lifestyle would require me to trust God more than I ever had to before. If the Church seems more consistent on the sex thing, what else might it be right about? Rather than pushing me away, it drew me in.

I kept reading and asking questions, praying and seeking God’s will. I felt my heart open and continue to soften until I felt I could agree to raise my kids Catholic and do this NFP thing. So, still Protestant, I married Chris in a Catholic church. I went to Mass on Sundays and let the Holy Spirit speak to me, often through the gift of tears . And in perfect timing, it led me to that Friday afternoon Mass at the end of October, my husband holding our two month old daughter who had been baptized six days earlier. I felt the chrism oil dripping down my forehead and knew, when the priest said, “Be sealed with the Holy Spirit,” I could say, “Amen,” because it was Jesus who had brought me home to His Church.

Goodbye, University Village

We only lived there for 8 months, but University Village was a remarkable place. It closed today after 56 years of housing married students with families at Notre Dame. 56 years containing so much life in such a small place. So many babies born, so many countries represented, so many friendships forged in the common ground of that unique season of life, doing grad school while raising kids.

Truly, finding an international village in South Bend, Indiana was a wonder and a joy. At the final mass in the community center, I found myself tearing up, seeing the children who had been born there, the ones who couldn’t remember any other home, and the parents who had been through so much with the community at their side.

I think we might have been debriefing a meeting with Housing or Affleck-Graves

I’m glad we made noise and asked the University to move forward on building a replacement, and I’m glad it appears to be in the works. But it is sad to lose a physical place that holds memories for so many, and to see the community scatter in the intermediary time.

We have the privilege to be able to buy a house here, and we did. I’m coming to love it. But even if I had known this house was waiting for us, I would choose to live in the Village again first, hands down. Being friends with our neighbors, Evangeline being able to run up the stairs to see if Nora and Jules or Carter wanted to play (Building D!), or take them some of the muffins we had just baked, or ask to borrow some ginger, it made Indiana feel like home. I felt known in an unfamiliar place.

The fire alarms in the middle of the night, the poorly insulated 500 sq foot apartment, it was all part of the deal. We could have neighbors over for game nights because we lived close enough for baby monitors to reach. Chris and I could go out and leave the monitor with the upstairs neighbors. I literally only survived, even thrived, in my first real winter, because every morning I knew I could go up and visit Rose without putting on layers and layers of clothes or having to drive (I didn’t drive at all the whole month of December). We were spoiled.

After a couple months of living in our new house, I’ve gotten used to it’s size. But at first I’d find myself standing somewhere thinking, I’m in just one room of this whole house. There’s a whole room for just this bathroom. And now it feels more normal but I still miss the small space we had. I could see or hear the girls wherever they were, messes were quickly picked up because otherwise there was no room to walk, and after tidying the living room and vacuuming from one plug, that was as clean as it got.

I have to be more disciplined now about not acquiring stuff just because it’s free or really cheap and I know we have room for it. It was nice to just not have room. That said, I am grateful for our house and I feel the need to be generous and hospitable with all the space we have now. We’re trying to get in a groove of hosting people for dinner or s’mores after the girls are asleep, and I’m making a point of moving the girls in together once our friend starts living with us so that there will still be a guest room ready for #peachtreeguests. (Wish me luck with that). 🏡❤️

Visitation Villanelle

I came across a villanelle a few weeks ago and it made me want to try my hand at one again. It’s a fun form, like a puzzle, definitely structured but not too strict. So a few days after the feast of the Visitation, I started working on this. I looked back at it today and was surprised how much I liked it. Enough to share it, I guess. I started it during an adoration hour at the local convent and looked it over again there today. It struck me in a new way how cool it is to be made to create, to bring beauty into the world, alongside the Creator.

258.2014 — Romare Bearden, *The Visitation (1941)*

The Visitation is the name given to the visit Mary pays her cousin Elizabeth just after she has said, “Let it be unto me according to your word,” and is newly pregnant with God Incarnate. Elizabeth is an older woman, but also miraculously pregnant, with St. John the Baptist. It’s a visit of powerhouse saints/Jesus/Mother of God/the Holy Spirit all there present together in two bodies as these women greet each other with joy. John leaps in Elizabeth’s belly and she is filled with the Holy Spirit when she hears Mary’s greeting. She shouts, “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” She seems to help make real for Mary all that has just happened, and is happening inside her body. And Mary then breaks into song, praising God. Like she’s been given permission to feel all the feels about this now.

The Visitation (hand version) — James B. Janknegt, *The Visitation* (2008)

This is probably my favorite encounter in Scripture. It’s a little like that quote, “Behind every great woman is another great woman replying to her frantic texts in the middle of the night.” That’s what the Visitation is for me. An image of two great women, doing amazing things, helping each other in that moment of WTF is happening – can I really do this? Mary needed someone to have her back as she set about doing the impossible, and that someone was Elizabeth. To me, the story seems told from Elizabeth’s perspective, so that’s how the poem came out, too. I don’t normally share my poems at all – this feels very vulnerable! – but it also feels like it was meant to be shared. Maybe it’ll encourage you to do that creative thing you feel like you don’t have permission to do.

visitationmariotoalbernati — Mariotto Albertinelli

Visitation Villanelle

She came to me, the mother of my Lord,
and grinned with amazement at the sight.
All creation with me seemed to roar.

Grey haired, belly swollen like a gourd,
I stood to kiss her in the morning light.
She came to me, the mother of my Lord.

Her voice, as she crossed the threshold of my door
rang through my womb – from a great height,
all creation with me seemed to roar.

The baby leapt – tethered only by the cord.
The joy coursing through us! I shouted outright.
She came to me, the mother of my Lord.

Already she faced her share of the sword
She who believed all God said would be, might –
All creation with me seemed to roar.

Blessed one! With your yes you moved us toward
the home we long for, and all things made right.
She came to me, the mother of my Lord.
All creation with me seemed to roar.

visitation-janetmckenzie-com — *Janet McKenzie, Visitation*

savoring summer (a pep talk)

Since coming up with my ambitiously chill summer to do list, I got hit with a wave of feeling majorly blah about summer. Most of the friends I’ve made in South Bend are connected to Notre Dame, and therefore have reasons/the freedom to travel with their families in the summer. So while I’m glad to be home, it’s a bummer to be one of the few in town. It’s given me a glimpse of what it would feel like to move somewhere new and not know anyone. When we moved last July into University Village, I pretty much instantly made friends. And they were my neighbors. Play dates and babysitting swapping were so logistically easy, it was crazy. It was like freshman year dorm level instant besties with other moms out on the playground. I was amazed and grateful, but, like everything, began to take it for granted.

I’ve been listening to a podcast series called “Grown-Upping the Summer,” and they talked about summer being a time to focus on connection. My first thought was, but everyone’s gone! I have no one to connect with! But then I realized that this maybe was an invitation for me to try to lean in and savor the glories of summer with my girls as they are right now. 14 months and coming up on 3 means days segmented around naps, usually with a morning outing and then hanging out around the house until Chris gets home. Dinner on the back deck at 5:45 and bedtime at 6:45 and 7:30. Routine, routine. Mornings are my favorite and I realized this week I want to try to be more mindful of enjoying the time I get with just Evangeline, when Zelie is taking her first nap. Instead of trying to get a bunch of things done in that time, sitting down with her while she splashes naked in the pool, or reading books, or doing play dough together. She’ll be going to preschool in the fall so I won’t have mornings with her fairly soon, which makes these ones sweeter. (I’m trying to remind myself.)

Zelie is also at just about the cutest stage ever, I think. Her waddle, her babbling, her weird sign language sign that means FOOD NOW, her spitting water all over herself and me when she drinks. And she’s still so small and cuddly. I wanted to wean her this summer but now I’m like, she’s my baby! Plus I really don’t know how to go about doing that. But lately there’s been times when she does something and I think, it’s crazy how much cuteness is in my life. And then other times when I think, it’s crazy how many poopy diapers I change in a day.

They both love getting out of the house so I’ve been trying to take them fun places. We did the zoo and the park on Thursday, a strawberry u-pick on Friday, and the farmer’s market this morning. Evange did great at the farm and actually picked a bunch of strawberries! And was very protective of them.

Chris will have a lighter load after this week and I’m hoping to schedule in some regular time for myself. But otherwise, trying to enjoy a hot, humid Indiana summer with two baby babes and really soak it all in.

(Eating the fruits of our labor. With Strawberry Bourbon Shortcakes minus the bourbon and mascarpone.)

ridin solo

It’s like S-O-L-O. Okay, I still have two days left of this so I’m really tempting the crazy toddler fates by blogging now, but this past week with Chris away has gone wildly better than I feared, and this is why. I know you are dying to know.

The interwebs. FaceTime and WhatsApp are amazing. What an age we live in. And Evange has only cried for Daddy once so far.

A potty miracle. Evangeline is back to normal in this arena. I know on an intellectual level that my mood shouldn’t be affected by my toddler’s behavior, but try telling me that when she is constantly doing little poops in her underwear all day. However, that has not been the case (I have received this as a wondrous gift) and she’s woken up in the mornings in a great mood and it’s set the tone for the day. Wooooooo hoooooo!

Amazing family and friends. My mom arrived the day Chris left and stayed for three and a half days. It was so fun to have her here! Once she left, I received a barrage of kindness in the form of babysitting, meals provided, meal invitations extended, playdates, and a second trip up to South Haven to play all day with my sister’s in-laws who adore the girls. So grateful. (They even watched the girls so I could get to a Saturday vigil mass, thereby avoiding doing zone defense on Sunday morning.)

Summertime exploring. I’ve remembered that (when I have no other choice) I really love finding free events to take the girls to. We hit up South Bend’s Best. Week. Ever/First Friday and it was great. Evange loved the different concerts (including Dan the Music Man, hilarious) and walking across the overpass over the St. Joseph River that runs through downtown. She tried really hard to get a dance party started but no one else was feeling it. Today we drove up to a bluegrass festival along the river front of Niles, MI. Another free event with music and a river, another win.

Relaxing the screen time rules. AKA giving into Evangeline’s demands for movies more often than normal and telling myself not to feel guilty about it.

Introverting hard. Without Chris around, I’ve been reading a lot after bedtime. I finished Someone by Alice McDermott (I think I’ll keep going backward chronologically and read all her novels), One Beautiful Dream by Jennifer Fulwiler (finished this one super fast, 10/10 recommend), and now I’m working on Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry. It’s my first time reading anything by him and I’m loving it so far. Not sure exactly why I started with this one, but I want to read his poems and essays too.

Sleep. The girls are sleeping well. Zelie went three nights in a row with no night feedings, which was a first. Another unexpected grace.

And that’s it! This is the longest I’ve been apart from Chris, and it’s weird. It’s given me new empathy for parents who have spouses who are deployed, or travel often for work, or are incarcerated. I’ve been trying to offer up the hard moments for them.