Subdivision

On Wednesday we took our oldest to college for his first year. I spent most of the preceding days studiously avoiding that reality with my nose stuck in a book (BTW House Rules by Jodi Picoult is worth reading). So, I think, did he, given the frantic packing Wednesday morning.

We got him packed into my parents' car, which, being bigger than mine was able to hold the mini-fridge, the suitcases, the backpack, the bedding, the upright string bass, and all four of us. My husband's office had a pool going about how soon I'd lose it. While still in the dorms? On the way out of town?

Okay. It was before we even left the house. We've already worked out that our son's coming home Labor Day weekend for a family party. It's like he's going to camp for two weeks. I can deal with that.

But I keep picturing him like he was when he was little. Never sleeping more than an hour and forty minutes at a time as a baby. His belly laugh. His fixation on the ball toy from Discovery Toys and his obsession with pool tables. Golden curls as a toddler. Endless math problems to keep him quiet during church. How many times did I read The Foot Book? The way he said "oh shit" when he hit his elbow on the door when he was two that told me I had to watch what I said. He said it perfectly in the correct context and everything. Blessedly my mother was nowhere nearby.

And now he's in room 1406, overlooking the library and the bank. On his own. He is only a couple of hours away, and he has a debit card and a cell phone, so he's not completely disconnected from us.

But when I look at the map of our state on the weather report on the news, I now am looking at two different areas on it, because that's where my family is...are... which verb do you use anyway? It's a whole new world.

Loving Marriage

My last post was about chocolate chip cookies, some of which did go off with my boy on his camping trip. This post is about the reason I was baking those cookies in the first place, which was that my husband was after a freshly baked, warm and melty chocolate chip cookie.

In general, my beloved is pretty low maintenance. He wishes the same thing most husbands do, I suppose: that the house were cleaner; that I'd never discovered the internet; that I earned an income so he could live in the lap of luxury and stay home, eating bon bons and watching soap operas and tossing occasional handfuls of $20 bills in the air at the mall - which is what he pictures me doing all day. And, no, he wouldn't really watch soap operas if he were to be at home.

But, having arrived at our 25th anniversary, I am taking a moment to think out loud about marriage and be thankful.

About ten years ago, our couples group had a discussion about the book The Five Love Languages. We did this exercise where we were each given an index card and asked to wrote down what our top two love languages were - i.e. the way we best receive love. We then turned in the cards and Cathy, who was leading that night, read them off and we were to guess whose they were. Out of the entire group, one wife guessed one of her husband's correctly. That was it. The possibilities were, if I remember correctly, physical touch, surprise gifts, words of affirmation, quality time and acts of service. Acts of service was one of my husband's. After learning that, I stopped throwing him surprise parties (which, it turns out, he hates), and have tried to do things for him - like the afore-mentioned chocolate chip cookies.

The book exercise, which produced good results, was just one of many steps in our life together that taught us about each other. One of those "journey of discovery" things that all the wedding cards talked about. Cards which we ignored in the blur of presents and checks and getting ready to go off for a week on St. Martin.

Because when you meet and fall in love, it's all about those dreams that include a white dress, and a honeymoon, and the ephemeral "happily ever after" wrapped up in silver bows. And no matter how good the pre-marriage counseling is, you live in a dreamy euphoric state of being in love, fed by romance novels and movies and Hallmark cards, which leads you to believe that, because you are soooo in love, you will magically know everything about your beloved, like having some kind of love ESP, and the sailing off into the sunset will be very smooth.

But then you get home from the honeymoon and it turns into something more complex and more rewarding. In our case, we got home and when I went to pick up my brand new husband from his office on our first day back at work, he'd been laid off and was standing there with his box of stuff.

And that was the beginning of working together and building our life. Learning to live through job loss and weight gain, new homes and plumbing disasters, and budgets big on macaroni and cheese. There were days when we'd have to force ourselves to show up and days when we couldn't wait to see each other. We've navigated Parents' Day Out, pre-school, K-12 for one kid and K - 9 for the other so far, and in a week will send our eldest off to college. We've had one bird, three dogs and four fish. And we've suffered the loss of two parents, three grandmas, two great-aunts, one great-uncle, two aunts and several of our friends, and a couple of our children's friends. Looking back, I can see that the times of greatest struggle for us have happened when we lost sight of the fact that those words we said 25 years ago made us one person, not two any longer, and we (or, really I mostly) act alone.

In that haze of being so in love, I was clueless of what was in store. I didn't know how much I needed to grow and change. Didn't know I wasn't saved, didn't know how much or often or badly I'd fail, I was pretty sure I was doing just fine, thanks. But when I was far off, God provided me with a husband who didn't give up and pushed me to be better, with a church where I found out that I am a sinner and was lead to the Savior, and with children who, as they grow up, continue to delight and challenge us.

Really, what did we know? We were 21 when we got engaged over Papa Del's pizza and Lowenbrau beer. And you know, you can't know - you just think you do. My parents probably thought what all parents think when their kids get married fresh out of college - 'they're babies!' And we were. But we've grown up together. And we are more in love now than we were because we know each other better than we did. Embarrassing to our kids, I'm sure, but it's true.

If God is exceedingly good to us, we'll have another 25 years together. And as we're fielding the teasing questions about what presents will we be giving each other, I know that the real answer is that it doesn't matter if we get each other something from the jewelry store or the Apple Store or not, the truth is that we have already been given the gift.

Of Butter and Blueberries

As you can tell from the title, this is not a weighty post. It would be if I were talking about the kind that has settled around my waist, but, as my blog is kind of hobbit-ty, I feel a responsibility to authentically be gently rounded. Furthermore, anyone can - and indeed many people do -post about weight loss, so I will leave those kind of posts to the folks who actually have some weight loss to write about.

I'm in the middle of my annual blueberry kick. It's almost impossible for me to walk through the fruit aisle and not walk out with a container of them, even though I frequently haven't finished the last one. I have them with my yogurt in the morning, I walk past the box and grab a handful during the day. I swear sometimes I'm going to turn into Violet Beauregarde from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (which, if I don't stop the blueberry dessert trip I'm on, is not that far-fetched a possibility).

I made a blueberry crumb cake over the weekend using a recipe out of a cookbook called Baking Unplugged. It was excellent. The cake had great texture, nice flavor, and was made with butter and sour cream - which contributed significantly to said texture and flavor. Lasted two days, barely. So I'll head back to that cookbook for a recipe for a blueberry pie. I'm on a never ending quest to make pies like Grandma Clewett's, which were stunningly good. You could wave a fork over her crust and it would crumble. Her peach pie was my absolute favorite, but right now, I'm looking at blueberry pie because I'm in blueberry mode. I'll go into peach mode in August, when I can get really good Michigan peaches.

Today, however, I turned away from blueberries and made an effort to show my husband how much I love him with a new chocolate chip cookie recipe. My beloved has had a hankering for freshly baked, warm and somewhat gooey chocolate chip cookies. As he's been putting in 15+ hour days, I thought that the absolute least I could do for him would be to bake some. So I found an Alton Brown recipe for puffy chocolate chip cookies. I generally like Alton Brown, as I love food science, and find his recipes to be pretty reliable. This recipe called for butter flavored Crisco in place of butter, and I thought that sounded interesting. The Crisco stuff has no trans fat, which, if you believe the advertising on the side of the package, is better for you than butter. The reviewers liked the cookies, so I went ahead and tried it.

The cookies are, as promised, puffy. But, despite the cup of butter-flavored Crisco, they are not buttery. My husband liked them, which was, after all, the point, and so did our daughter. So my plan is to save some for them and send the rest with our son, who will eat anything not nailed down, on his camping trip tomorrow. The nice thing about disliking the cookies I've made is that I can send them off without a backward glance or even hint of longing. Those left at home are, like the Kraft individually wrapped singles in the cheese drawer, completely safe from me.

As for the claims of the non trans fat thing, I don't know if I buy it, but I don't care, I'm going back to butter (and blueberries). I just don't know what to do with the last cup of "butter"-flavored stuff that is now sitting in my kitchen. Our bedroom door squeaks...hmmm...

Mentally Prepping - or Just Being Mental.

I'm starting to think about what we'll be packing next fall for our college-bound boy. When I went, we used to have our van packed to the gills. But now so much of the stuff is so much smaller. Laptop not computer. Printer (smaller). Stereo? Nah - iPod and small speakers. And no typewriter. We just gained about four square feet of car space.

But then that lovely train of thought disappears when I remember that I played piano and they had one at school, so all I had to do was pack music. Our kid plays the upright string bass (fortunately the 3/4 size). It's like six feet tall and somewhat fragile. If he plays in the orchestra or the jazz band, we'll need to bring that down and find a place to store it, and there goes the auto real estate that we'd gained by the advances made in 25 years of technology. Toss in the possibility of bringing down his electric bass and amp, and I don't know that I'll fit in the car.

The big blessing is that he chose a school that is two hours away, so if he forgets something, I can just run it down to him, meet him for lunch at Monical's pizza, and head home. And, let me add, the fact that Monical's pizza is there will always keep me happy to make the two hour trip. For those of you who have not had a Monical's pizza, it's thin crust, herb-y loveliness. There are at least two within 10 minutes of campus, and I've been to both of them.

So, while I'm mentally working out the whole kid going to college thing and preparing myself for the loss, planning visits down there, complete with cheesy goodness, is making it easier on the mommy.

Spiritual Spackle

I've been painting a lot, with more to do on the horizon. Most recently I've been painting the kitchen. I still have some trim work to do and the more I look at it, the more work I see there is to be done. It is an odd color - Yosemite Sand. It looks utterly different hour to hour, depending upon the light. It will be great as a backdrop for things, and it goes well with our current cabinets and counter tops - which, God willing, will change some day. We're way overdue for a kitchen rehab, but replacing the garage door is first on the list, so for now, a new coat of paint is what our kitchen gets.

In preparing the walls for the paint, I pulled out the Spackle. The house is 20 something years old. It's been through four families and I don't know how many dogs - three of ours anyway. There are scratches, dents, nail pops and settling cracks to be dealt with, which require Spackle, the wonder goop. As I was prepping, I told my husband how much I loved Spackle. I got one of those 'I'm glad you're happy, honey' looks from him before he returned to staining the deck.

I am happy, because I really do love Spackle. I love how you can add water to an old tub of it and it comes back for you to use again. I love the fine powder that comes off of it when you sand it down, but most of all I love how it covers up stuff, as if the dent or crack was never there. And in verbalizing my reasons for loving Spackle (to tell my skeptical husband), I ended up realizing that Jesus is like Spackle. Not to be flip about it, but He is. He comes along and covers you up. Then He spends the rest of your life sanding you down to the point of smoothness, so that you are no longer dented, scratched or cracked. So that you are ready for the new coat of paint, as it were.

He's doing that with me. When I was saved, 18 years ago now, it was like I got covered with a lump of Spackle. As I've gone along, I've gotten smoother. I'm more compassionate, more able to shut up and listen, and less self-absorbed. Lest anyone think for a minute that I'm tooting my own horn, let me say very clearly that I was massively self-absorbed to begin with and am still pretty self-absorbed, as probably anyone who blogs is. But I'm better able to say that what someone else needs or wants is more important that what I need or want and, occasionally, act on it.

There have been all sorts of benefits from this spiritual Spackling. I have better friendships and relationships in general. At the end of the day, I am less filled with regrets over what I've done or said that was wrong, partially because if I shut up, I say fewer things that are wrong, and partially because I'm better able to apologize to whomever I've offended that day. And I can go to God and ask for relief from worries and distresses that would otherwise paralyze me.

The sanding continues, as it has to, and as I actually want it to. I have a long way to go as I still have a hard time sometimes putting aside what I want to do for what is right to do. And just like in my kitchen, there's a lot of trim work to be done. But the job is started and underway, and that, like Spackle, is a very good thing.

A Rambling Ode to Manual Typewriters

Last month on Twitter, there was a posting from Dr. Jacobs' always enlightening TextPatterns about manual typewriters. I followed the links on his post to an article from The Guardian about how some writers prefer to use manual typewriters instead of word processors. Cormac McCarthy's manual typewriter was being auctioned off for $15,000. Wow.

One of the points made by authors who use typewriters was that they require you to think more prior to writing. Which leads me to conclude that there is much that is written now that would benefit greatly from this approach, and to assume that it would also probably serve to prevent a lot of what is written from coming into being in the first place. Typing on a manual requires so much more deliberative effort, making it more serious somehow.

And the articles lead me to reminisce about typewriters and then to think about how word processors have changed our world for the (mostly) better.

My mom taught me to type on a manual typewriter. I got an electric one later which I lugged off to college. It came with its own case and weighed about 40 pounds. I earned spending money typing and editing (and sometimes rewriting entirely) other students' papers. Living in an engineering dorm brought a steady income stream. I now have my father-in-law's electric which I use for tax forms - always praying that the ink won't run out because I'm pretty sure they don't make those ribbons anymore. My kids find it fascinating - like dinosaur bones. I love the sound it makes when the keys are depressed and the satisfying whirr of the carriage return. Oh, and the clunk of the shift key. The whole sound experience makes me feel very, very productive.

I got my first computer in 1984. The "pre-writing thinking" referred to in the Guardian article was rendered largely unnecessary given the editing capabilities of word processors. And as the speed and capacity of the processors improved, I became used to thinking less prior to writing as I could copy, paste, delete and retrieve pretty much at will. I do love to type, but it takes so much less effort to produce and send things off on a computer.

And no virtually everything that is typed is sent off via email, Twitter, FaceBook and blogs. We fling out little bits of information that require neither structure nor context (which can't be given in 140 characters and a smiley face anyway), and little, if any, thought - which is okay, as they may or may not ever be read. It is coming at little cost; for the price of monthly internet access and a computer, I can type myself silly.

There is a lot that's good about this, as a record of everything I've ever written or researched is handy by when I want to check on something, although sometimes I look back and realize what I typed was either immature, unkind or just plain wrong. For our kids, while plagiarism is easier using copy and paste than it used to be (we had to work for it by typing each word we were copying from the encyclopedia ourselves), there is now a website called turnitin.com that the teenagers in our school district have to turn everything into, which automatically checks for copying. We've sent letters, pictures and music via computers and little by little we're saving the trees. And we can write things and send them immediately, when we realize we've forgotten a birthday or anniversary.

But, to me, the true glory of using a word processor is most evident when you have to do multiple, slightly different versions of something you're sending out to different audiences. For example, when my child was instructed to write the same introspective paper about an event that changed her life for the fifth year in a row. Leaving aside the sheer absurdity of asking a fourth grader to write such a paper based on ten years of life, each year we found that you can just change the name of the teacher at the top of the paper, tweak it a bit, print it off and turn it in. This year, in her more mature state, she ventured that perhaps she should be writing a new paper this year (not that she had anything to add at that point). I said that, while she could, if the education program was disconnected enough to make teachers ask the same question for five years running, then they deserved the same amount of effort from her that it took to make the assignment in the first place. And typing the whole thing all over again, yep, too much effort.

The Great Divorce

Currently our small group is reading C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce. An allegorical tale of a man who dies and gets on a bus to a large grassy plain. He meets various characters along the way, many of whom get met by emissaries who are sent to help lead these ghosts across the plain, up to the mountains and into perfect love and joy, if only they'll give up the chains that bind them to hell.

It's been a year or so since I've read any Lewis - and I'd forgotten how much I end up wincing as I recognize myself. I have a friend who says that if you read Scripture correctly, it should pinch you. Clive Staples is like that for me; I'm only a little ways into it and am already bruised.

I am listening to the book on CD in the car and am meeting the parade of characters, many of whom I resemble on some level: whining, pride, grudging duty, not accepting help, looking for how I was wronged or what I'm owed. It's terribly annoying and terribly necessary. I have to determinedly resist the temptation to listen and identify these traits in other people I know, rather than seeking to root out my own sin.

Throughout this uncomfortable exercise, however, I get glimpses of the picture, painted so deftly by Lewis, of heaven. One of selfless joy, of complete love and of a far better life. And so I keep listening because, when all is said and done, the chains of sin are really heavy and I don't want to carry them around. I do want to experience, on a more consistent basis, the sheer relief of letting go and letting God.