So I just finished reading The Firebird, Susanna Kearsley’s latest novel. This being the second book of hers I’ve read (after The Shadowy Horses), I am finding she is probably being added to my mental list of favorite writers (perhaps I should make an official list on GoodReads…).
I enjoyed The Firebird so much that I read all the back material about the history and her research and even her bio. I read that she’s been compared to Daphne du Maurier, Mary Stewart, and Diana Gabaldon, all of which are on my list already! Well, there ya go. I was only in my early teens when Mary Stewart became part of my favorite-authors list: I read her amazing set about Arthur and Merlin, which begins with The Crystal Cave, and found myself transported. Almost any other book about Arthur has let me down since then. I read probably four of her other books in my teens, whatever I could find in the local library or at used-book stores. Of course, I loved du Maurier’s Rebecca, that being essentially THE classic gothic tale, as I see it. And I’ve now read half of Gabaldon’s very entertaining (but lengthy) Outlander books.
When I was a young reader, I gobbled up everything I could find by Agatha Christie (I collected probably 20 or 25 of her books and read far more from the library) and by the awe-inspiring Madeleine L’Engle. I adored Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising sequence but never found anything else, at the time, that she had written (I’ve since seen more but haven’t tried reading any).
In between, I’ve swallowed whole most of Michael Crichton’s books (they were almost all gripping, more intelligent than many other best-sellers, and based on fascinating science), Amy Tan’s beautiful stories of Chinese mothers and daughters, and a fair number of Orson Scott Card’s novels, mostly the fantasy ones and not the sci-fi (I’m just now getting around to reading Ender’s Game, and at the halfway point, I’m just mildly interested).
Most recently, I’ve become a huge fan of Cassandra Clare (yes, her Shadowhunter books are deliciously entertaining), Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Elizabeth Knox, and Kate Morton (yep, Zafon and Morton both write what I consider to be gothic tales, or close to it). Of course, I think it goes without saying that I loved J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, but I was very disappointed by her first adult novel, The Casual Vacancy, and I haven’t tried her detective novel written under a pseudonym.
I think what I love most about these authors and their writing is their ability to really take me somewhere far, far away. Most have some elements of magic or something supernatural, or the hint of there being a possibility. There are deep, dark secrets and mysteries, long buried. There are thrills that keep me hooked till the very end. Many are set in other countries besides my own (I love England; the very soil seems to be soaked with layer after layer of story). The writing is beautiful and carefully crafted; the characters are ones I want to know. Ah, to be able to just open a simple book, step into it, and be completely enveloped, surrounded by other places and times!
There are always new books and new writers that impress me. Some I admire; others I adore. Thank you for sharing your gifts.
What to say about 20 years of happy married life? If it’s true that all happy families are alike, as Tolstoy put it, perhaps all happy marriages are alike and I have nothing to write about.
Perhaps I’ll write about what our marriage isn’t, to start. I hear so many people saying they are so lucky that they married their best friend. To be completely honest, I don’t know if my husband is my absolute bestie. Sure, I tell him pretty much everything, and we spend the most time together talking of anyone else in my life, but I think a couple of my female friends are still who I’d call my “best friends.”
I definitely don’t consider my husband my “soul mate.” There may very well be people out there who truly are married to their soul mates, and I guess I consider them lucky. But that’s not me.
My husband isn’t who I always dreamed of marrying, either. I didn’t picture myself with an Asian guy (I guess it never occurred to me); I suppose I assumed I’d end up with another Caucasian like myself, dirty blond, maybe, perhaps on the tall side, but not more than 6 feet. Maybe hazel or blue eyes. Nope, that didn’t happen either.
The person I did end up choosing to marry is 5-foot-8, Filipino, trim, good-looking but probably not someone who stops traffic. He has a laugh that cracks me up, and I love when he really smiles and it makes his eyes crinkle. I don’t get to catch this real smile in most photos because usually he strikes a funny pose (gah!), but when I do, I love to go back and look at the picture again and again. He has strong hands, very masculine.
I chose my husband not because I was hopelessly in love with him (though I definitely am in love with him, even 20 years later), but because I knew he would be a GOOD HUSBAND. After other dating experiences that disappointed me, I knew from dating Marce that he would do all he could to take care of me, to be kind to me, to try to do better when he did something that hurt or frustrated me. He was dedicated to being a husband, to someday being a father. He was excited for those roles. I had every confidence that he would always be there for me.
Twenty years later, I can say that I was right. He has worked hard to provide for our family, he has listened to my frustrations about all kinds of things and tried to do what he can to help, he has fully participated in taking care of our children (he changed diapers before I even did with our firstborn!).
We’ve had struggles; we’ve gone through trials. I’ve had moments, even days, where I’ve been angry at him. Our love story has sometimes been romantic enough for a movie; other times, it’s been laying low in the background as we’ve just gotten by, gotten through, raised our kids, tried to work, tried to sleep, tried to just make do. Some days I’ve disliked him a bit; most of the time, though, I’ve been reminded of just how much I do like him, for how fun he is, how laid-back, how pleasant to be around he is. He hasn’t made me laugh out loud a lot, but he’s made me smile far more times than I could possibly count. We’ve shared thoughts; we’ve completed sentences; we’ve understood each other well enough we haven’t had to say anything out loud. (At the same time, though, I’m flabbergasted by how he can somehow not hear and/or forget what I’ve told him three times or have absolutely no idea what I might like for a gift. Go figure.)
I don’t consider our married life any kind of fairy tale. Pretty much no part of our courtship was; the proposal left me wanting more (don’t get me started on that story). But we have shared a lovely 20 years and I expect many more in this life. Even better, I expect to spend eternity with him, because we believe that a marriage performed by the proper authority in our temples can truly last forever. (This short explanation from Mormon.org may be of help:)
Most people think of a marriage made in heaven as a rare occurrence in which both parties are deeply in love and highly compatible. We like to think that all our marriages are made in heaven. When a man and woman enters one of our holy temples to be married, they covenant (or promise) they will stay together forever—on earth and in heaven after they die, if they are faithful to each other and their promises to the Lord. A temple marriage doesn’t include phrases like, “Till death do you part” or “So long as you both shall live.” If we keep these promises, our children also become part of this heavenly promise—sealed to us forever. Read more about the importance of family at Mormon.org.
In short, it’s been an eventful 20 years. It’s not been easy, it hasn’t been a fairy tale; it’s been hard work. But I am grateful for every moment and for this good man who has been so good to me.
For a long time, I was young enough that I could still think “that (fill in the blank with anything particularly tough or tragic) can’t happen to me.” Then, as I got older, got married, and started having children, those things did start happening, either to me or to someone close to me, so that lovely delusion of the young went “poof.” Bubble popped.
I definitely never expected to be “one of those people” who had a child with Down syndrome. I knew a few people over the years, through church congregations actually, who had a youngster or teen with Down’s in their family, and I really, really never expected to be in that position myself. It was something that happened to other people. Only when I was pregnant with my second child and I picked up the newly delivered copy of the Reader’s Digest that featured the story of Alabama football coach Gene Stallings having a son, John Mark, with Down’s that it hit me — hard — that I could have a child with Down’s too. And sure enough, soon after I had blood work results indicate an amniocentesis would be useful, which confirmed my gut feeling. Yes, I grieved. I was worried, I was sad, I was surprised. But soon after, I accepted this new reality, and, well, you can read a little bit more about my wonderful teen on some other posts.
I also thought my parents would live forever. Only other people’s parents died. When my husband’s mother died just a year after our first child was born, I was sad for my husband and myself, but I still thought it would be a VERY VERY VERY LONG TIME before my parents left this life. It still was 12 years later that I had to go through that heart-rending experience, but it was still far, far earlier than I’d expected to lose one of my parents. My dad was only 71 at the time and very healthy, though a bit of a hypochondriac (yeah, it’s true, Dad.). Now I know just how fragile and unexpected life can be.
This year, a family member ended up paralyzed from the mid-torso down after a surgery. That’s the kind of event I have certainly never pictured happening to me, and to have it happen to someone I care about is something that weighs on my mind. My thoughts are with her so much. Sure, you read about these kinds of things, but … having it happen to someone close is still unthinkable. Until it happens, and it’s always in your thoughts.
I’ve now had friends lose children, a very particular kind of heartbreak. We lost the bishop of our ward, our local church congregation, three years ago this month, to a fatal shooting. It was headline-grabbing news, the kind that strikes your heart when you read about it happening to strangers. Having it happen in your own church building, to someone you know, to a family that’s extraordinary … well, it strikes your heart and stays there permanently.
Yep, here I am in my 40s and I’ve left behind those days of “it happens to other people.” Whatever “it” is, it can happen to me, my family, my friends. Life is fragile. It’s unpredictable. It can bring tragedy and pain and grief. Yet, at the same time, every day of life is also a miracle. It can bring refreshing rain or warming sunshine. It can even create rainbows. And when life offers up “those things” to each of us, we face the grief, we work through the pain, we move on. But we don’t have to do any of it alone. I find it such a blessing every day to know I have friends and family to turn to when life serves up the unexpected. And I try to make sure I’m there for them when they face “those things.” When “it can’t happen to us” turns into “it does happen to us,” we have each other.
Life can sometimes be stressful. Life can sometimes be sublime. It can also, on rarer occasions, be unrelenting in its attacks, throwing punches from the left, right, above and below and behind — any which way — to try to knock one out, making the simple adjective “stressful” woefully inadequate.
It’s been like that for me the past month or two: life has nearly knocked me out. I suppose that any of the somewhat small things that has happened to me could just be easily shaken off; it would be laughable to think that any would really make me want to walk a ledge. But the constant barrage has cumulatively made me angry, frustrated, exhausted, utterly drained and significantly less able to function.
As time has worn on and I’ve become worn out, but I’ve still had to just keep on moving forward because circumstances have simply not allowed me to stop moving, I have come to appreciate just how much I appreciate those who are willing and ready to step in and help lend a hand or just offer moral support as I try to put one foot in front of the other.
This past week I’ve been traveling, visiting family and friends and attending the college graduation of a nephew and his wife. I was already at my wits’ end before the traveling began, so being in the car for hours on end (with three of my four children all cooped up in the small space with me and my husband) and sleeping in different places and all the other things that go along with road trips have made me even more tired and nearly feeling rather out-of-body.
Even so, seeing these special people has been a little boost. We visited for a short time with my husband’s oldest niece, a sweet young woman who was just a kindergartener when we married 20 years ago. Seeing her reminded me just how much I am grateful for her influence in my husband’s life: when she was an infant, he had just returned from a two-year LDS mission and was starting to get back to school and work. But he had plenty of time to help baby-sit her while his sister worked. He loved the experience. By the time we had our first child, I was still adjusting to the whole concept of parenting and all that went with it. But he was just ready to go. He changed diapers and clipped tiny fingernails before I even did. He held her and rocked her in the middle of the night to try to get her to sleep. Even for me, spending time with her as a five- and six-year-old was so enjoyable that I began to look forward to having a small child of my own to do things with.
Spending time with my grown nephew was rewarding because he fits in so well with my little family: my children adore him and his wife, and we enjoy their company so much. It also gives me great hope for his generation of our family and makes me want to be the best influence I can be. I don’t want to disappoint him.
Sitting with my wonderful, dear friend who lives a day’s drive away is always a blessing. We get to have so little time together, but when we do, it’s renewing and enriching. I can be utterly myself with her; I never fear how I may come across. I can unburden myself and she will listen and support without judgment and with love and compassion. She can encourage me to have hope and to do better without making me feel chastised or preached to or lacking or bad about myself. She has a real gift. She’s like my friend soul mate, and I am absolutely blessed to have her.
Last, I’ve had a great deal of practical help from friends in our hometown while we’ve been gone. My oldest had to stay behind because of a school commitment, and our absence, combined with all the things that had already gone wrong before our trip, required us to ask for a lot of help for her with rides, a place to stay so she won’t be alone, and lots of other little things. A number of friends have gladly and willingly stepped in to take care of her and figure out how to solve little problems while we’re gone. Their help has eased my mind greatly on her account. My mind has been racing so much and has been so burned out by all I’ve had to keep track of and fix, etc., that I don’t know if I could have done what needed to be done for her had people not just volunteered and helped her without my even being involved.
Sure, it does take a village to raise a child (a child just thrives and learns the best with a mom and dad and extended family and friends and teachers and all kinds of other people in a community). But it also takes a village to keep an adult functioning. We’re really all interdependent. The better connected we are, the better we can keep on keepin’ on. I’m just incredibly blessed to have some good people in my life and incredibly grateful to them for helping me to survive the toughest periods of my life.
So I’ve written occasionally about beauty and self-image, but I haven’t said much about how we compliment each other. Have you noticed that most of the time we tend to compliment others on how they look in some way? “You’ve lost weight! Lookin’ good!” “Love that new outfit.” “Nice new hairdo.” “You look pretty today.”
I have to admit, of course I love receiving these kinds of compliments. Yes, I do like feeling that I look good. And I think compliments are pretty much always a good thing. But what happens when we’ve gained weight or we’re having a bad hair day? Are we going to automatically remember the times we were told positive things when we were thinner or fresh from the hairstylist? (and then think poorly about ourselves right now in comparison?) Just something to consider.
I was reminded twice recently just how wonderful it is to be complimented on attributes that will last. One, I spent a morning editing, which is my only paid job. And honestly, it’s not work for which one gets a lot of high-fives. Writing is more visible; editing, though, is basically a way to ensure someone else’s writing either gets noticed or doesn’t get attention in a bad way (“you misspelled my name?!” or “I’m going to sue you for libel!”). So as proud as I am of my editing work, it’s largely thankless and something about which I can only congratulate myself.
But during the course of this busy morning of work, I fixed a mistake, and the writer was appreciative. That writer either brought the important catch to a publishing editor’s attention, or that editor saw it in the notes on the story. Either way, that editor contacted my boss and said how much she appreciated my good work. My boss passed it along to the other editors with whom I work, so we all can know that sometimes, our hard work does get noticed. And bam! I’d gotten appreciation. Actual praise for the work I do regularly. Woot!
The other compliment recently that really meant something to me came from someone I’d never met before. I was doing volunteer work at the Fresno temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We Mormons go to church services on Sundays in our local meetinghouses/chapels/church buildings (we refer to them variously as such). But our temples are extra-special places, where we learn and make covenants with God and then can provide those same opportunities for our ancestors who have passed on. They’re particularly quiet, holy, and sacred, and going there to do work for our ancestors is such a blessing. Early one Saturday morning, I spent an hour there, working in close proximity to a few other women I didn’t know but drinking in the peace that exists there. In the course of our time together, I felt particularly warmed by the kindness of the women who were volunteering there with me. They smiled beatifically (absolutely true!) and were thoughtful and helpful. One told me that she loved how my eyes danced, among a few other observations about how I came across as a person.
Now that was a compliment to remember. Lately, I might have been feeling incredibly stressed and exhausted and worn down by all kinds of things that have been going on in my life, and I might have been feeling bad about my weight (I admit the stress has led me to eat very poorly, a habit I’ve been trying to break but have been not terribly successful in fighting recently). I was wearing no makeup; my hair hadn’t been fixed for the day other than receiving a quick brushing. I wasn’t even wearing anything nice. But this compassionate lady told me that she appreciated my soul, my spirit: who I am inside. And I thought, “You know, it doesn’t matter today how I look. Because who I am is shining out through my eyes and my face. And somebody noticed.” If I stay the kind of person I want to be (well, hopefully, become better), my eyes will always dance. I will always smile genuinely and with warmth and friendliness. Even when I’m 90 and my body looks very different and my face is wrinkled, my eyes and my smile will be the same.
Yes, I like it when people tell me I look pretty. But when someone compliments ME, who I AM, it really sticks with me and warms me from the inside out; it has staying power. If all of us just made more efforts to recognize the best qualities — the forever, enduring ones — of those around us, the world would be a nicer place. And maybe, just maybe, we could be less concerned about how our outer “shellves” look.
So I just finished reading Clockwork Princess, the conclusion to the three-book series The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare. These books could easily be read by someone who hasn’t read Clare’s The Mortal Instruments series, or they could be savored by those of us who already have developed a taste for the deliciously entertaining world of Shadowhunters.
The brief story: in 1878 New York, a teenage girl is orphaned, and her brother invites her to join him in London. On arriving there, she is taken by women who essentially imprison her in their house and insist that she has special powers. They spend weeks training her to shape-change, and she is astonished to learn that she actually CAN turn into other people. Luckily, she is rescued by a dashing young man named Will, and Tessa is introduced to the world of Shadowhunters, people who are charged with protecting humans from the world of demons and other “Downworlders.” As it turns out, the “Dark Sisters” were only tools in the hands of the Magister, who has very scary and nefarious plans to destroy Shadowhunters. Tessa, as well as an army of mechanized creatures, are the main components of those plans.
Clare gets to have fun in this series continuing to explore the world of Shadowhunters, but she also gets to add in components of steampunk, via the clockwork-angel necklace that Tessa wears and the clockwork creatures the Magister has created. The other ingredients that work so well for her in the Mortal Instruments are all there: teens charged with safeguarding humanity and using lots of cool weapons to kill ugly and dangerous demons; intense love affairs and some good makeout scenes; secrets and curses that throw wrenches into those love affairs and make the characters dark and brooding but tender underneath; lots of action and fight scenes; mystery and intrigue; and even some great snark, cleverness and humor. When I first started this series, the pattern was so similar to the other books that I thought it was too much of a copycat. But I enjoyed the story and the characters so much that I couldn’t help but just throw myself into it anyway.
Now that I’ve finished (and having read all five of the existing books in the Mortal Instruments), I find myself much more satisfied with how The Infernal Devices played out and concluded. When I finished the fifth book in the MI,City of Lost Souls, I was pretty annoyed with Clare. She simply got off the rails with the story and let it spin out of her control, like a wild dog in desperate need of obedience school. With the ID, she used a lot of her familiar elements but still crafted a story that is nicely paced and tamed. She tied up the series very satisfyingly and restrained herself. In fact, I felt completely happy with all of it, and I was teary-eyed with how the characters’ story lines were concluded. And having enjoyed City of Bones and the next few books in the Mortal Instruments, it was fun to tie together the characters from both series and see how they are related. When you get to know and love characters, it’s always wonderful to learn more about them.
I’d highly recommend the Infernal Devices series, and if you want to read City of Bones and its sequels, you might want to limit yourself to the first three or four books. But we’ll see. I’m hoping Clare can bring it all together and do it right in what I hope will be the real conclusion to the Mortal Instruments, which apparently will come in September 2014 and be titled City of Heavenly Fire. Next question is: how will the “City of Bones” movie be? So far, I approve of the casting. I just hope that the movie captures the humor of the books and not just the action and sizzling love stories. If it misses the humor, it will be a tragedy (which I do fear is a possibility: look at Harry Potter — those books had so much cleverness and wit that seemed to be largely missing from the movie adaptations).
Yet another day when I’ve been thinking about a topic and I end up reading something closely related. Some of the hottest books flying off shelves (or e-shelves) are romances. The latest is not just a romance; it’s erotica: the Fifty Shades of Grey books are at the top of the e-book bestseller lists and feature not just loads of sex but bondage and domination, apparently (nope, I am not going to read them).
And it would be crazy to even discuss this topic without mentioning the insanely popular Twilight saga (which, apparently, in some way is how Fifty Shades was inspired). Not erotica, at least, but heavy on the romance, lust, making-out, etc. Sure, there are action scenes dealing with the bad vampires, but it’s really about intense teen love. The very interesting series I’m reading right now, Outlander and its many sequels, is historical fiction that has lots of great characters in many settings, but the primary focus is the intense attraction between the heroine and her 18th-century husband.
I think many people concentrate on TV and movies when they consider the effects of mass media, and they are right to do so. But books can be overlooked in the kinds of effects their messages have on readers. This Deseret News article, for instance, focuses on film: romantic comedies, specifically, and how viewing them can affect real people in real relationships. I don’t think it comes as much of a surprise to anyone that relationships and love are not portrayed terribly accurately in movies, and I can say as a reader that there are plenty of books that fit that pattern as well. At least in literature, there are many more genres and many more books to choose from, and many can be found that do portray life much more realistically than film, in part just due to their length, honestly. But there are lots of books that are just print versions of rom-coms or trite romances (Nicholas Sparks, you’ve done damage in both print and celluloid!).
I’ve thought many times as I’ve read books that feature romance how so many skirt realities most of us experience. I don’t know about you all, but after 19 years of marriage, I don’t feel the same intensity of nonstop attraction to my dear husband as I did at the very beginning. In fact, I probably never felt the same way as some characters I read about. I remember reading The Time Traveler’s Wifeand thinking, Good heavens! These people have sex all the time!Do they not do anything else when the husband isn’t popping off into other time periods? And as much as I am thoroughly enjoying the Outlander series, really: does anyone (or everyone) feel like having sex with their spouse all the time? I’m not saying that isn’t a great thing between husband and wife and vital to a good relationship, but it isn’t the ONLY thing or even 50 percent.
The other main issue, I think, with some of these books is that they often posit that there is one “true love” out there for everyone, that love is destined, fated, that each of us must find THE ONE, our soul mate. This can cause a number of problems; for instance: if a relationship isn’t going smoothly, then our partner must not be THE RIGHT ONE (and we ditch a perfectly good partner and move on to find that elusive person); we might be fooled by temporary chemistry that someone we are crazy about is perfect for us (and we ignore all the signs that show he or she truly may not make a good spouse); we may never find someone who fits the supposed characteristics of a soul mate and end up alone.
One of my church’s leaders, Spencer W. Kimball, said something very wise but not what anyone might consider easy or exciting or the basis of a swoon-worthy story line: “‘Soul mates’ are fiction and an illusion; and while every young man and young woman will seek with all diligence and prayerfulness to find a mate with whom life can be most compatible and beautiful, yet it is certain that almost any good man and any good woman can have happiness and a successful marriage if both are willing to pay the price.”
Still, it’s hard to resist the siren song of these romance stories. They just make everything seem so intense, so easy, so larger-than-life. They’re fantasy. But we like fantasy. We like to read about things that aren’t like real life. At the same time, does reading these unrealistic stories do damage to us as readers as we go about our regular lives once the book is put back on the shelf? Do we end up with unrealistic expectations from our relationships? Research seems to show that the answer is yes, at least in film. I dare say the same is true for similar messages in print.
Yep, we look lovey-dovey and dressed-up here, but this is not everyday reality. I don’t care to take a lot of pictures of me (and us) during everyday reality…
Real life is harder, messier, more boring, more frustrating, more mundane, more work. Children can bring joy to our lives, but the work and the commitment involved can easily take away from our relationship as a couple (not that this is a good thing, but it happens easily if we don’t work to stop it from happening). The pressures of just making an everyday living and going about our usual day-to-day business can strip the thrill from our relationships. And time has a way of changing how we relate to each other, mostly for good. Love is a complex, wonderful, deep, multifaceted animal, and romance is only one of those facets. Sexual attraction is just a part of the romance. Infatuation and attraction occur strongly in the early stages of a romance, and real love develops past those, even though it is still desirable and a wonderful thing to still be attracted to our spouse 50 years after those early stages. My husband can still kiss me and make my legs turn to jelly, even 19 years into our relationship. But he doesn’t do it 10 times a day, and … well, I won’t go into any more private details. I don’t always look at him and think, Kiss me! I may just think, Thank heavens he’s home. Or I wish he’d do the dishes. After he’s home, the kids are in bed, and the dishes are done, then I am more disposed to think, Man, I wish he’d kiss me and jelly-fy my legs.
I think I have appreciated Anne Tyler’s books because they feel so much more real. They’re not romances, but they are about love. I was so profoundly moved by The Amateur Marriage, for instance, for its look at a less-than-ideal or smooth relationship. I love how Tyler can just dig right into real life, excavate some broken and dirty old shards, and hold them up to the light for our inspection. Yes, we think, this is how people lived then.
I couldn’t possibly write enough here about all the truths of relationships and longtime marriages. I certainly don’t have it figured out; 19 years is just enough for me and my husband to get in and get serious and tweak some rules so they fit us better. All I know is that media don’t often enough reflect real life. And that’s too bad. The shiny, glittery stuff that’s reflected to us off of film or the pages of books is too often easier for writers to portray and more desirable for us consumers. It’s just nicer or more appealing to consume a quick, too-sweet product than one that’s more subtle and layered. We want escape, all too often, not more of reality. But reality can be wonderful; in fact, it can be much better than the intense but one-sided stuff that comes at us from various media. I thank those amazing writers who have not just transported me to intriguing new places but those who have taken me right back to where I started and made it seem new and interesting in all its reality.
So I wrote yesterday about how I’ve been overwhelmed by all the huge obligations and responsibilities of mothering four growing girls. I’ve been feeling low on the coping scale for a few weeks, so by the time my birthday hit the other day, I wasn’t steadied by very many more reserves of patience or understanding.
I knew my “special day” would be crazy, so I expected that. What I also knew, after 19 years of experience, is that my husband is nearly completely unable to surprise me with anything, including gifts. I have to tell him ahead of time for any kind of occasion what I would like. Either he goes out and gets it and wraps it for me to unwrap and exclaim, “Oh, that’s great! I love it!” or we sit down to order it online together (he’ll click the “order” button so it’s from him), or we’ll go out shopping together after the fact.
I’ve largely grown accustomed to this setup, and I do appreciate that 1) I am difficult to buy for because my mood is always changing and 2) not everyone is a great gift-giver. I like to think I’m pretty good at selecting presents for others. I mostly really enjoy it, in fact. It’s so fun to always keep my eyes peeled for little ideas that come up in the course of conversations and then seeing something in a store or online that just matches up. It’s then so fun to see how the person reacts to what I found. I really love it. But no, not everyone can do that very well.
So my dear hubby really tried to come up with some fun things for me on my birthday (the other big problem for him at this time of year is that my birthday and Mother’s Day are always very close together: two big occasions to honor me right in a row, or even on the same day). He came up with a couple of ideas, one of which was one we’ve already done a few times, and which I do enjoy, but in this case, I wasn’t really in the mood and wanted something different. The second ended up being ridiculously expensive, therefore, out of the question. The upshot: on my birthday, as I was racing around doing mommy stuff and wearing myself out, I ended up with not a single present to open.
This drawing and the new header for the site are actually gifts from my oldest daughter. She’s my amazing, in-house talented artist.
It was not a pretty combination. In fact, that snafu ended up being the match that lit the powder keg. I won’t go into detail on my reactions.
What I keep trying to tell my husband is that I really like gifts. I was informed a couple of years ago about the Five Love Languages, and what I really appreciate are Words of Affirmation and Receiving Gifts. Like the website says, gifts are not about getting “stuff” or anything fancy or expensive; it’s about what goes into it. I love just little tokens that say something meaningful, or even semi-meaningful. I want to be thought about and have that thought go into that kind of action. My husband and I have discussed the love languages a few times since our introduction to them, and he knows exactly what I really like. Has he succeeded in learning and applying that knowledge? Not so much. (Let me even quote from the site: “A missed birthday, anniversary, or a hasty, thoughtless gift would be disastrous — so would the absence of everyday gestures.” Ha! See?!)
My mom says that most men are terrible at gift-giving and that I should just accept that my husband, as great as he is in so many ways, will never be able to surprise me or give me good gifts. I wonder if that’s true. If it is, then why would the people behind the love languages encourage couples to do better at speaking their spouses’ languages? It would be a lost cause. I still have hope it’s possible to change or at least improve a little.
I’d like to simply say, no, I’m not selfish or self-centered; I don’t think I have high expectations. I just want a simple but fairly meaningful gift on special occasions and just cute, sweet little tokens to surprise me throughout the rest of the year. I think I’m worth it. In fact, I need those expressions of love and appreciation to feed me, to fill up my tank so I can keep going, keep super-mothering. I simply can’t run on emotionally empty.
What say you? Are gifts important to you or someone you care about?
As I have gotten older, I’ve realized just how much it means that we as human beings have choices in our lives. I believe God put us all here on this earth for a certain number of years for a reason, and he gave us the gift of choice. He allows us to do what we want to do, and we get to learn from what we decide to do and be.
In saying that, I think much gets made of that part of the equation: hey, we have free choice! Whee! We can do what we please! It sounds so exciting, so liberating. And it is. But the flip side of that “free” coin is this: once we make a decision, we are faced with the consequences of that decision, be they “good,” “bad,” or “neutral” consequences. And part of those consequences is that once we open a door and go through it, we can’t go back through it the other way. Life is constantly moving forward. Once the door opens, it closes behind us, and here’s the kicker … if we’re standing looking at choosing among ten different doors, or just two, we can only pick one. And we can’t go back and pick one of the other doors once we’ve gone through the one we chose.
Let me try to explain and qualify: yes, we may face many doors during our lives that are pretty much the same ones we had to choose among previously, but they’re not exactly the same doors; time is always moving forward, and things change in small and big ways. We’ll never choose again, at age 18, 3 months and 5 days, which college to attend. We may decide a year later, at age 19, 3 months and 10 days, to switch to a different college, but it’s not the exact same choice. We’re not the same people, and we don’t have the exact same options as before.
I think of life as this path along which I walk. The path is constantly branching off, and there are forks always. Some are big, with large roads to choose among, and some are just little footpaths with grass tamped down by a few travelers. But we’re always at some kind of crossroads. And at each of those decision points lies a door we pass through, which closes behind us.
Me as a baby, with my mom: my whole life was ahead of me.
There are infinite numbers of paths the younger we are, from my experience. And as we choose paths and corresponding doors, we tend to have fewer big paths to choose among, and doors tend to shut more permanently the older we get. Sure, we hear “success” stories about people becoming athletes at decidedly older ages than usual, or becoming famous painters at 80, or some such thing, but those are well-known stories precisely because they are rare and unusual. (News means something out of the ordinary, and that’s what stories like this are: news.) For most of us, once we choose at 20 to pursue a career in business as opposed to chasing a dream of becoming a pro baseball player, the sports door is shut tightly behind us, and we won’t see it ahead again.
I think back on all the things I did as a young person. I acted in plays, sang, played piano, played French horn in band, went to various competitions for different academic pursuits, took all kinds of classes, dabbled in drawing, wrote, read like crazy, and baked and decorated cakes. I went to college as a chemistry major. I stood on the threshold of university life full of hope and excitement and the thrill of embarking on a grand adventure, a dream.
1988: My dad and I on our way to the airport to get me to college.
But once I was out of college, I had shut many doors behind me. Acting, playing French horn, academic competitions, drawing, even chemistry were all behind me. I still baked, I still read and wrote. I just changed my mind about being a chemistry major and focused on journalism. As life progressed and I made decisions to major in journalism, my other minor interests had to be sacrificed as I took more and more classes in my major. Then when I graduated, I worked 40 hours a week as a copy editor, further narrowing my journalistic interests, at least for the time, on editing rather than writing. As an adult and a college graduate, I had work to do. I had less time to explore and be general. Of a necessity, some interests had to be sacrificed.
My life further was changed when I decided to marry and when I decided to have each of my four daughters. Each of those choices opened up gorgeous paths with all kinds of interesting and beautiful plants along the road (not to mention some thorns and hills, let me add). But when I chose those doors, many others closed behind me. There were just certain things I would never do.
As a mother with children all at home, some teens, one just about to start school, and one in the middle, I have a road full of carriages to push along or to supervise. I can’t leave this path and try another one. When they’re all grown, I’ll have some different paths open up to me, some different doors to try out. But they won’t be the exact ones I might have tried before I went down those paths at ages 18, 23 and 26, for instance.
Sometimes I feel the loss of those paths never taken, considered but left behind. I admit I do envy others on different roads, on occasion, when my choices and their choices have put us past very different doors. Some have what I might consider “exciting” or “glamorous” lives. No, I am not talking about celebrities or anything like that. But I might have really enjoyed going into the foreign service as one friend did. I love to be in different places and get to know them, as well as the people populating them. I love languages and find different cultures fascinating. I would have loved to be a book editor at a big publishing house in New York. But either of those options would have been very difficult either with children or with the lifestyle I have decided is the way I’d like to raise my children, and where and how. (Yes, there are diplomats with kids or editors with kids, but I don’t see myself doing either of those jobs the way I’d like to do them at the same time as raising my children the way I’d like to do it. It’s as simple as that.)
I know there are still some interesting doors ahead of me, and I look forward to them. But I am now trying to really come to terms with the fact that the doors coming up are not going to be as plentiful or the same options as the doors I had ahead of me 20 years ago. I think that’s much of what aging and maturing and growing up really means. We come to grips with the naked truth that we are not who we were when we were young. Life is not an endless stream of possibilities anymore. We’ve already chosen many of those possibilities, and they are no longer dreams ahead of us but memories behind us. Our bodies are not the same as they were, our faces and hair not the same, our hearts and minds are not the same. On the first count, our society today, unfortunately, doesn’t allow us to gracefully accept that our bodies and faces are going to age and not look “fresh and young” anymore. In fact, society is urging us to do all we can to fight that fact. But all we can do is postpone it for a bit, not ignore it or stave it off entirely. On the count of our hearts and minds, however, I would like to think that despite missing some of those fun things I dabbled in as a young person, and just having the entire panorama of possibilities still ahead, that now I can be mostly satisfied with the paths I’ve chosen and where I am now. I got a good education, I’ve done some interesting work, I’ve traveled and lived in a variety of places and met many wonderful people, I’ve raised (so far) some amazing daughters. I’ve loved and been loved. I’ve experienced life, and I’ve been happy.
Me and my daughters, 2010. So much promise, so many doors.
Now, I see all the doors standing open to my daughters and feel pangs of memory of how it feels to be in their shoes. But I am excited for them and all that lies ahead in their young lives. I’m doing what I can not just to make interesting choices among the options available for me, but to support my girls as they make their own choices. What a gift that is.
I think about the idea of “enough” so often that I considered using it as part of the name of this website. In the end, obviously, I didn’t, but the concept comes to my mind frequently.
I’m not the type of person who wants more things. In fact, I’m usually working to get rid of things. Years of moving have taught me to pare down wherever possible. (I’m not a minimalist, however: I love my kitchen gadgets, and I use them. That’s a topic for another post.) I’m satisfied to keep a computer for seven or eight years or a TV for 10 or 15 years, even if they’re getting snazzier, wider and thinner. I have some clothes I’ve worn for years; I have a sweater I just adore that I bought in high school (guess it’s stretched out over the years…). So “enough” doesn’t apply to stuff. Well, it does, actually: I can say with confidence I have enough stuff.
No, “enough” applies to actions. I worried in high school if I had enough on my list of activities to show my dream university I was fit to enter. (I did.) Mostly, I’ve worried over the years if I’ve done enough. As a mother for about 16 years now, I think I worry the most if I’ve done enough for my four daughters, who are truly the most precious gift I’ve been given. I have generally been of the opinion that children will do best if given plenty of free time to find their own way, to keep themselves occupied and use their imaginations and their own inner resources. I haven’t scheduled them in lots of activities or sports or lessons. I haven’t spent all of my free time finding ways to keep them busy or happy. Even knowing that this strategy seems to have worked pretty well for them so far, I have moments of wishing I could just do more or be more for them because they are so amazing, so talented, so delightful. Because they are my only offspring, and these years I have of them living at home with me are my only chance to raise them: I just get this one shot. Because they deserve everything I can offer, everything the world can offer. Again, not stuff, but opportunities.
I’ve given my girls time. I’ve read with them, countless hours curled up on our beds, usually at bedtime, with countless books, many of which are now well worn, pages slipping out of their bindings, bits torn off corners. As they’ve gotten older, I’ve just sat and listened to them talk, telling me about their days, about their friends, about all kinds of thoughts swirling in their heads. I’ve not generally considered that a sacrifice, especially now that I have a high-schooler. She in particular has so much to say, so much that’s entertaining and interesting, at turns humorous and sweet. I cherish these tete-a-tetes. We’ve had “the talk,” we’ve talked about life and the big things, about faith and family; we’ve also talked about all the hilarious things that boys do and all the tasty morsels she ate for lunch. It’s been a pleasure; it’s been a treat.
Perhaps it’s a direct result of that time I’ve spent with them that I feel the urgency to do more, to give my girls the world. I’ve seen inside their souls and seen all that is possible, and I want to give it to them. Now that my oldest has realized how much she enjoys dance, she’d like dance lessons. But when would we fit those in among the band concerts and rehearsals or church activities or that extra class she’s taking in the evenings? Or as I see how much is lacking in our educational system nowadays (thanks to legislation, lack of funding and the bad economy, you name it…), I wish I could home-school or supplement with some somewhat structured lessons of my own. Oh, there’s so much I wish I could do.
But time limits me. Energy certainly limits what I can give. My budget limits me. My own needs, weaknesses and limitations keep me from being able to give all. (If you read about my struggles with my mental health, this will seem even clearer.) The number of children I have limits how much I can give to each, in some ways (I can’t be two or three places at once, sadly). But those things don’t limit how much I love.
At the same time, I know when I think about it seriously that my limitations are just part of life, even part of my children’s lives. They live in the same world I live in, where you can’t get everything you want, where you can only do so much, where the people around you aren’t perfect. No one should be handed everything on a silver platter, now or ever. Life isn’t perfect. There are always disappointments, always choices to be made between two or three good things. Giving my children everything would be doing them a disservice.
So I know in my head that I really am doing pretty well by my girls, that they are happy and well-adjusted, that they truly feel loved and secure. It’s just I struggle on some days when particular things crop up that I wish they could have or do. I wage a battle in my mind and — eventually — conquer my feelings of “not-enough” with the knowledge that they are happy, that they are loved.
I also struggle with that feeling of doing or being enough outside of my small family sphere, with the wide world around me. Every day, I see people and organizations that desperately need help, that need money, that need volunteer hours. There are children all around the world who need food; who need clothes and shelter; who need a strong, loving parent. And I don’t have to look far to be aware of those children. Teachers I know have those children in their classrooms. My daughters have these children as peers. Every time my oldest, in particular, mentions to me how grateful she is that I cook healthy food for her, that she has a comfortable house and plenty of clothes, that she has two parents in her home who love her, it’s because she has been reminded at school that all too many other kids don’t have those things. And my heart breaks, it just starts opening wide and trying to send feelers out to all those other children who don’t live in my home, to show them that someone cares. Oh, how I often wish I could parent so many other kids. Practically, however, I know I’m at my limits with the four I have right now.
There are so many worthy organizations out there that I could give time to. It’s hard to limit myself to just a few. Even as I say yes to one, I know there are many others I simply must say no to. It makes me feel bad to have to choose, to say no. It breaks my heart. The need is great so many places right now, especially, with our economy the way it is, but the need is always great in terms of hearts that need healing, souls that need to be nurtured.
I can only keep reminding myself of a story that I’ve heard a few times over the years. A man goes walking on a beach early one morning and finds a young man on the shore, bending down and picking up starfish and throwing them into the ocean. He keeps bending to the sand, grasping one starfish at a time, and throwing. The beach is just covered with starfish, who are likely going to die if left where they are, washed up on the sand. It seems a ridiculous endeavor, this picking up starfish one at a time and throwing them back. So the man asks the thrower, “Why? Why do you bother? You can’t possibly save them all. This won’t make a difference.” The young man’s reply, as he threw yet another starfish wide into the ocean, “It made a difference to that one.”
That’s the philosophy to which I cling in those times my heart breaks because I can’t possibly save the world. There are so many people in need, so many causes that are worthy. But I have to tell myself, what I do matters to “that one.” I just read about Mother Teresa’s similar thinking: “If you can’t feed a hundred people, feed just one.” I am making a difference to the four children with whom I’ve been entrusted. I hope to make a difference to the women I’ve been assigned to watch over in my church’s visiting teaching program. I hope to make a small difference in what I write here, that if what I say helps just a few readers, I’ve spent my time wisely. You, my friends, are my starfish. I wish I could rescue all the starfish lying on the beaches of the world, but I’m throwing back one at a time.
I watched this video for the first time yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope that I can just make one person’s burden lighter each day because I’m willing to share. Enjoy this beautiful, inspiring message.
So I just finished reading The Firebird, Susanna Kearsley’s latest novel. This being the second book of hers I’ve read (after The Shadowy Horses), I am finding she is probably being added to my mental list of favorite writers (perhaps I should make an official list on GoodReads…).
Life and Lims 