I love winter!!!

I love the beach. The rolling in of the waves, the salty water, the smell, the warm sand. But my other happy place is a snowy forest in the winter.

The suddenly visible animal tracks, total silence when all sounds are muddled by snow and clouds. The magic of coming upon a running stream surrounded by frozen nature. The nip of the wind on your face while the rest of you is bundled. The promise of a warm fire and toasty beverage when you return. The fresh snow on your tongue. The magic floof of falling backwards into a snowbank.

It didn't occur to me that I was allowed to love winter until a few years ago. I ran into someone who was, at the time, the youth pastor at my church. I walked by him on the sidewalk and we greeted one another. We    had one of those typical complainy conversations about how it was getting cold and then he said something that I'd never heard before.

"I need to be careful to not complain too much about the winter. Cold weather gives a lot of people life."

"Oh my gosh," I thought. "I AM ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE!"

There is a simple joy to burrowing under a thick blanket with cozy socks and a hot beverage. And in these final days of it, I raise my hot beverage to winter. I will miss you my friend. You are a balm to my soul, a slowing down in a too busy world. The antidote to the mania of summer. See you next year.

(P.S. Please bring way more snow.)

[Driving lessons] or [The water we swim in is different]

When I learned to drive, I learned a lot more than just how to operate a vehicle. Before I could learn how to safely get from point A to point B, I had to learn a lot about the "safely" part.

1. Before going outside, get your keys in your hand. It’s best to have a remote. 
2. Watch carefully as you go to your car. Is anyone following you? Is anyone near your car? Glance under the car and in the backseat as you approach. Is it dark outside? Up your alertness times ten. 
3. Unlock your car when you are within sight of it. Get in quickly, immediately shut and lock the doors. 
4. While you are driving, be aware. Is anyone following you? If you suspect you are being followed, do not drive home and avoid isolated roads. (I cannot tell you how many times I have driven past my street just to be sure that the car wasn’t following me.)

These four safety rules were ingrained so deeply that I stopped thinking about them. They became part of my automatic settings for using a car, like buckling my seatbelt. 

As an adult, I was riding somewhere with Caleb and observed that he did not lock his doors immediately upon entry. This surprised me, so I commented on it. In our conversation that followed, I realized that these driving rules didn't apply to every teenager who learned to drive. 

There was a lot of buzz last year surrounding #MeToo sweeping the nation. I think it's important to know that this fits into it. I don't know statistics, but I do know that if I ever have a daughter, I will teach her these rules. I wish I didn't have to, but I will. And I will teach my son. Because though the water we swim in is different, we need to keep working to understand how. (Including me)

To the NICU nurse who washed my pump parts

To the NICU nurse who washed my pump parts- thank you.

It was the middle of the night, and I had pushed the wheelchair over to Sammy’s NICU room with my bin of pump parts on the seat. I still hadn't held him yet, but I wanted to be near him. Caleb was sleeping in my hospital room and I wanted him to be able to sleep. He had been my hero and my champion the past few days, and though I couldn't do much, I could pump elsewhere so he could rest.

I don’t know if you had other babies that night because you made me feel like mine was the only one. You told me about pumping for your own babies, and how you made just enough milk. You taught me that milk could be trapped behind the white silicone piece on the pump. I think of you every time I pump, when I gently peel that part back to save those valuable drops.

You gave me company and made me feel like a normal human, not like a patient. When I finished pumping, I stood for a minute, watching my sleeping baby.

“Can I wash your pump parts for you?” you asked. 

A simple request, but so meaningful. Even though I was only a day or two into pumping, Caleb or I had been washing the parts every two hours around the clock. I don’t remember what day this was - two or three - so we’d washed them somewhere between 24-36 times. What a luxury it was to have someone else do it. You’d probably washed pump parts way more times than that for patients and certainly for yourself, but you still offered.

And it was a grace I will never forget. 

To the new owners of 622

Hi!

You don't know me, but I lived in the house you own now from approximately 1988-1993. It was the first address I memorized and is the place of my earliest memories.

I actually have no idea how many children before or after me came into conscious memory in the same house. Probably a lot, since the house was built in the 1950s. I have thought about this a lot, now that I have my own house and my own baby whose first memories will be in this physical place.

I remember being three there. When I say three, I mean three years old, but I also remember being just the three of us, Mommy, Daddy, Ellen. I remember running to the top of the stairs when I was learning to get dressed and hollering down for my mom to tell me if the item of clothing was forward or backward. I would hold it up and she would either say "Yes!" or "Other way.". I remember my mom telling me to put her hand on her belly to feel the baby kicking, and I never could.

I remember building a garden out of cinderblocks in the backyard, planting the seeds, and I remember harvesting carrots. The garden was in the northwest corner of the backyard, near the fence that we shared with our neighbor Charlie. I didn't know cardinal directions then, but I know them now. I wonder what's in the northwest corner of your yard now.

Charlie was the neighbor to the west. He was kind and elderly and had no children of his own. My parents often went over to his house to chat. Sometimes I would go too, my parents begging me to sit still, but it was so hard for a four year old. Instead I would trace the intricate carvings on the wooden frames of his furniture. Or I would lay on the floor and play with the fake fruit that sat in a bowl under an end-table.

Years later, when Charlie passed away, my parents would become the executors of his estate, a true testament to the power of being neighbors. It was from Charlie's house that we acquired the bed that I slept on from when I was seven or eight until I moved out of their house. The end-table with the fake fruit went to my grandparents, and when they passed away, I knew I wanted it. It became more rickety over the years, and we recently parted with it, but the memories remain.

I had my fourth and fifth birthdays in that house, and maybe my sixth, but I don't remember very well. At one of my birthdays, an older neighbor girl that I was dear friends with brought a Skip It. Do you remember these? It was a plastic ring that went around your ankle with a ball on the other end with a counter. You would try to hop over the ball as you swung it around. When they were popular, I did not have the motor skills to be good at it, so I mostly remember them as a very frustrating experience.

That same neighbor girl used to come over and play paper dolls with me in the little room or office in the back corner of the first floor.

It was from the window of this house at 622 that my parents pointed to the hospital where my baby brother would be born. He came home to this house. So many memories with him here. Running around the basement, falling down the basement stairs, swinging in the back yard.

It was in the room to the left of the stairs where I put lotion on my stuffed lion one night and ruined it.  Does that room still have a clothes chute in the floor? While my family lived there, a man stopped by who had also come into conscious memory in the house. He asked about the clothes chute and my mom shared that she was afraid of us falling down it, so kept a dresser on top of it. The man fondly remembered that when he was a child, he and his siblings would slide down the clothes chute. He was very tall and sturdy, so it was hard to imagine, but of course he would have been much smaller then.

Here's something you may not want to know about the bathroom upstairs. I remember one of my friends (a boy) from preschool or maybe church coming over and peeing in the shower. I was both horrified and filled with amazement.

When we moved out of 622, just up the street, one of the things we had to fix was the bathtub. We had always used it with a rubber disc that sealed off the drain. I remember asking my parents about it during one of my last baths there. They explained that the purchaser of the house wanted a working bathtub drain. We currently have the plastic disc that we use to stop up the bathtub in my house. Maybe someday Sammy and I will have a similar conversation about it.

I have so many more memories in the house - birthdays with grandparents in the dining room, making cookies with my mom, eating Nilla wafers with my dad while watching airplane trails. Know that your house holds all of these memories.

And yet, it also doesn't. The memories are stored in my heart and mind. It's like Charlie's table - I was able to get rid of it because I knew that getting rid of it would not erase the stories.

I hope you enjoy the time you live in that house. It will always be special to me. May it also be special to you. 

PPD

Some nights after work, I have been known to cook 3 meals, do a load of laundry, and have a phone chat with a friend. This is not one of those nights.

Real life #amirite

The baby is asleep already. I sit at the table, holding my bowl of lentils and rice in one hand, and a spoon in another. As I stare blankly out the window, my whole being feels hollow. My eyes feel hollow, my torso feels hollow. It's been like this all day, the weight of everything pressing down. 

I realize that the bowl and spoon are too heavy, and I put them down. Next I realize that even though I am hollow, I am too heavy, so I schlump forward on the table. Still too heavy. I want to be in darkness and I want to be on the floor. I lay down flat on my face on the carpet. I wonder how to proceed, but I am too hollow and too heavy and too damn exhausted to wonder very hard. 

I don't know how long I lay there, hollow and heavy, but eventually I feel my heartbeat against the floor. I remember, not with my mind, but literally re-member, finding my body again, feeling it fill up. I am still heavy but it is transforming into groundedness. My breath finds me and I turn my head to the side. "That's why I wanted to lay on the ground." I realize, my instincts affirmed again. 

This is what post-partum depression feels like. Sometimes. If you've been with me for long, you know that I am not afraid to tackle sensitive personal subjects on the blog. It actually feels better to share than not share. The American Psychological Association says that 1 out of 7 women will experience postpartum depression. While we were in the NICU, we learned that number is probably too low on average, because those are just the ones who seek help. And if you spend any time in the NICU or have a traumatic birth, the odds only increase. 

Several months ago, Samuel started to cry. Almost always when he cries, I rush to him, full of love and compassion. But that particular time, I reached for compassion and came up empty. Instead, my body reacted, "Meh. Oh well." Because I was prepared, first by my midwife, then by the NICU staff, and finally by the pediatrician at the first few visits, I knew what the disconnect meant. I saw my counselor from years ago, but could tell that this was not her specialty. I saw my doctor. I talked to my post-partum physical therapist (every woman needs one of these). I emailed my pastor and she called me while I was pumping one day to talk to me. I reached out to friends. I told my parents. I started seeing a new counselor. And things started to get better, lighter, little by little. 

I still have moments like the one described above. But they are more familiar now, and they end more frequently like I describe above. It wasn't always like that. And if I get stuck, I know where to turn, mostly. 

If you are struggling with this, search for "postpartum resource center" in your area. And tell people. 

on privilege and parenting

Dear Samuel,

I am often struck by your demographic information: "white, male". It is uncomfortable to recognize that those two characteristics, things completely out of my control or your control thrust you into the most privileged category of human on the planet.

What do I mean by privilege?

I do not have to worry about police stopping your car (or worse) because you look like you don't belong.
You will always be given the benefit of the doubt.
In every career field, you will be able to find a role model who looks like you.
I will not need to actively strive to keep you out of the school to prison pipeline.
You are likely to earn higher wages than your white female counterparts or your male or female counterparts of other races.

Now, don't get me wrong, your dad and I plan to do everything we can to raise you to be a kind, generous, confident, hard-working individual. But, the fact that data can tell us all the above points about you and your life while you are still an infant means that there are some inequalities in our system.

I am trying to prepare for these conversations (and other hard ones) now. I know that I am going to have them imperfectly, but I think it's better to try and be imperfect than not talk about it at all. To close, here is a quote from a podcast I listened to about this very subject recently.

"If we're silent about it, it tends to trivialize the voices of these marginalized groups of people, that can contribute to minority children feeling devalued. And as a white person in America, you have the privilege of not having to think about your race. You're not constantly reminded of the fact that you're white. And so, it's a lot easier to take a colorblind approach when you are white. Where if you're a black person in America, you are constantly thinking about your race. And so I think it's important that as white people, we also recognize that not everybody has this priviledge of not having to think about our race all the time. And if we want to move toward true equality, it has to be an effort on everybody's part." - Dr. Brigitte Vittrup

I love weddings

My pastor sometimes talks about the Celtic idea of thin places. These are places or times in life when the veil between the human and the divine becomes very thin. The saying is that heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in thin places, that distance is even shorter. (Source)

I went to a wedding a while ago. I find weddings, on the whole, to be thin places. There is something exceedingly special about being in a crowd of people that know the couple from all times and stages of their life. This crowd converges from far and near to celebrate in a way that is unmatched at any other time in someone's life. The energy is palpable. We are all breathless as the groom* and bridal party trickles in. Finally, the bride makes her entrance. The joyful significance of her procession down the aisle to her love brings a tear to many an eye, particularly for those who have watched them chase after love for many years before witnessing them finding it in each other.

There are things about weddings that make me feel uncomfortable. Sometimes I feel nervous about seeing people I haven't seen or talked to in many years. (#IntrovertProblems) This usually passes after I push through the first burst of it.. sort of like diving into a cold pool. The worst thing about weddings is when the officiant (or anyone else, but especially the officiant) makes stereotypical marriage jokes or offers marriage advice during the ceremony. The jokes kill the sacred mood that was just created during the processional. And let's be honest - the couple isn't going to remember the advice - you should have given them that before the wedding day.

But even amidst the small talk with strangers or the awkward jokes and advice, I still love weddings. To me, this is a sign that they are truly a thin place. In the midst of our too-long, rambling toasts and wondering if we are dressed up too much/ not enough, something special happens. It's un-ruinable. And that is why I love weddings.

*I have never been to a wedding with two grooms or two brides (though I hope to someday!), so I can't speak to that experience, but I imagine the weight and beauty of the ceremony would be similar.