A list of excuses

all the reasons I haven't been writing

• I’d rather read a novel than try to draft something worthwhile. I’ve finished more fiction in the last month than the last year, and it’s making me wonder, have I been avoiding fiction because it makes me emotional? I am so good at being in my head, but when the story makes you feel things, when it’s a character you keep thinking about, because this imaginary person reflects parts of you, what is that? Is that what’s supposed to happen when you read? Perhaps I’ve been avoiding emotional complexity in books and movies — not theological complexity, not hard topics, but the feelings inspired by well written characters — because feeling things is so much scarier than thinking about them. They say truth is stranger than fiction, but isn’t all Truth actually a story? Do we need stories to make sense of the truth?

• I want the likes, but I don’t feel like doing the work. I want to have written, not to write. I want it to feel easy, not like everything is stupid while I’m writing it. I want the tidbits I’ve gathered and collected in my Notes app to coalesce into a brilliant essay without fighting to connect the dots. I want life to make sense. I want to not feel like a hypocrite when I write about things, but can’t do them. I want to succeed, but I’m not willing to hustle, and I don’t know where that balance actually lies. How do you care about your writing, but not let the things you care about more suffer?

• To borrow the words of another woman:

  I can’t exactly say I’m a paragon of self-care. That is not happening right now. It can when you have a kid who’s three. But it can’t when you have a one-year-old. That’s just reality. But since autonomy is not my primary value, it doesn’t matter. People are actually my primary value…And I have a home rich with persons.¹

• The babyyyy. He is squishy and delicious, and has tan lines in his fat rolls. When we go to the beach and he gets sandy he is like a little breaded fish stick. Sometimes he just sits in the chair and chews on my hat string, or sleeps in the carrier while I stand in the surf. He is trying to crawl, and sits himself up, and sometimes gets stuck under the couch. He’s in the developmental stage of adorable and delightful, and oh my gosh, why am I always holding you and if you grab my hair again I’ll go crazy and I’d do anything to make you laugh, but please take him, my arms might fall off. He might be cutting teeth. Sometimes we just sit on the bed and he grabs my face and laughs, and I think the world can’t get any better until I realize I really need to clip his finger nails.

• The garden is needy and demanding, like a seventh child to fuss over. I research diseases and bugs that are new to me, and wonder what is beyond repair and what might be nursed back to health. I plant another row of beans and the toddler helps — her little fingers handing me a soaked bean, “Here you doh, Mommy.” She squats in the garden next to me and brings me the spray, and tries to pull weeds and asks if she can eat tomatoes. Her little squeaky voice echoes questions and more questions, “You hold my hand, Mommy?” “I so tired”. I send someone in to see if the baby’s still sleeping and try to pull a few more weeds. There is always something more to be done, but it’s paying me in flowers right now.

• The other night I marched out to the garden, hypodermic needle in hand, to inject my squash with Bt. I was going to save them from the dreaded squash borer! Picture this:

  A woman squats in the garden with a small, purple, plastic IKEA bowl. She is wearing tall boots and a floppy hat, and probably smells. She is trying to suction organic caterpillar killer liquid into a syringe — it is harder than it looks. She succeeds in injecting the first squash, but there’s two whole rows to go, the needle is now bent (did we say it’s harder than it looks) and as she caps the needle and starts in on the second one she can no longer ignore the fact that she is dangerously close to injecting herself with Bt. because swatting at mosquitoes with a needle in hand is dangerous.

  Needless to say, I returned in the morning and just sprayed the dang things. I think it still helped. TBD how many plants we lose. I might still inject them, but there’s probably a reason those syringes at the doctor are pre-loaded.

• The weeds, oh the weeds. They would take all my time and still need more. It’s a thankless battle, and every time I’m tempted to complain about them it’s like an object lesson for life. You don't get selective growth, just like you don’t get selective emotions, or cheap grace. The same storms that are causing those weeds to flourish are helping everything else grow². All of the Christian life is this Paschal mystery — baptism, death and resurrection. As the visiting priest admonished us, “Don’t look for cheap grace.”³The Christian life is the already and not yet, summarized in the honoring of two of the greatest sinners made saints, whose impetuous faith and thorn in the side give hope to the rest of us mortals. So yes, I guess you can’t garden without weeding.

• Hope is hard work. Sometimes it means sitting with difficult feelings, or lying awake at 2 AM, or weeding, or doing anything you can to will your body to keep moving through the motions while your brain is screaming at you. Hope is remembering that life is like climbing a 14’er when you’ve hit tree line and another false summit. It’s remembering the physical sensation of cross country races when you wanted to step off the course, or practice room sessions where nothing was in tune. It’s remembering that for every time you stay in the muck, instead of checking out, there is something to be won, even when it feels worse and you’re sure you’ve accomplished nothing. Hope is the scariest thing in the world.

• There are so many new babies, and it’s wonderful, but it makes me feel old, and sometimes a little grief-y⁴. I have to remind myself to unblend my experiences when a new mom texts me for advice. I want to jump in and say, “Oh but this and that…” and yet, maybe for her it’s different. I am prepared to be a safe landing if something is hard, but am I equally prepared to let it be good? I try to offer gently, not overwhelm, but sometimes I wonder, “Is it really so much easier for everyone else?” Maybe we all wonder that. And maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. Maybe there’s no way to save anyone from the trial by fire that’s life. But I hope that I can encourage. I can definitely bring food. Sometimes I’m not sure if I’m whispering to my 22 year old new mom self, or the person I’m texting, but I think it’s what we all need to hear:

This is really hard, you’re doing great.

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Lately:

garden harvests, let's hope this squash stays happy, yellow zinnia!, still some potatoes, summer sunsets, building blocks, foraging, beach nights, the cucumbers are here!

Cooking: We’ve had a glut of eggs so I’ve been making my MIL’s egg casserole recipe as an easy dinner. It’s particularly nice for Sunday nights, because it’s low maintenance, filling, and if I double it, usually makes enough for leftovers for Monday morning:

• 24 oz frozen hash browns (we just use the 26 oz Walmart bags)

• 15 eggs, whipped

• 1 lb sausage, browned (can also use diced ham, bacon, etc…)

• 1 1/2 c. cheese (non-dairy “cheese” works here too)

• 1 c. milk (we used whole goat’s milk, but I’ve also used non-dairy and it works)

• 1 tsp salt

• 1 tsp pepper

• 1 tsp ground mustard (optional) — I just squeezed in a little spicy mustard the last time I made it and no one complained

Mix together, pour into a greased 9x13, bake at 350 for ~45 minutes, or until eggs are set in the middle. I usually serve it with some sort of fruit and bread-y thing for dinner. These muffins turned out, but stuck to the wrappers (not enough butter?), the pumpkin was less seasonal, and more, “let’s use these cans on my shelf”. We also made these blueberry muffins for a cousin’s birthday breakfast this week and they were a hit!

I kept procrastinating a Costco trip, so we’ve had some weird dinners. I tried sheet pan French Toast, which was semi-disastrous, and thought, “Man, if this is how people feel making dinner every night, no wonder they hate cooking.” I think sometimes I take my comfort in the kitchen for granted. Hats off to everyone who is learning to cook as they go, feeling a little out of sorts, and persevering anyway.

Reading:

I’ve finished Funeral Ladies of Ellerie County by Claire Swinarski, Hannah’s Children by Catherine Pakaluk (finally), and Beautiful Day by Elin Hildebrand. I picked up a few middle grade books that I’ve heard of but never read, so am going to try to pre-read those for my voracious reader. Middle grade fiction is a lovely entry point right now — easy to finish, but no less of a good story. What have you been enjoying? I might try to jump in with the

Reading Revisited

schedule for the rest of the year, now that I feel like I’ve gotten a bit of concentration back.

Thinking:

A month off of Facebook and Notes has been so good for me. I still miss the easy dopamine hit of posting something fun or funny on Notes, but it may not be worth it for me. I am not good at moderation, and I am very good at seeking out disembodied places to play with ideas. It’s not that Notes is bad, but it feeds the idea world I already so easily live in, which easily spins me into anxiety. What is much more difficult for me is staying in my body, in the place I’m actually occupying, and working through relationships with friction in the real world. Online people can be “real” but the relationships are frictionless in the sense that you can just ignore something if it bothers you. Now, where does this leave me with pesky things like “growth” and “promotion”… I don’t know. TBD. For now I’m happy to stay off it⁵for the rest of the summer, and then re-evaluate. It is undeniable that I’ve read more books, done a lot more of the things I say I like, and been more present to my own life.

Farm Life:

Two of the pigs went to the butcher today, and as I told my son, who is thrilled to have two less animals to water, “They’ll be off your plate… and on your plate!” He grinned. After their escapades, I don’t think any of us felt sad at all. Keeping animals watered is a full time job in the heat, but sometimes we get a thirty minute date night out of it while FaceTiming our new nephew (okay, his parents too).

In sum:

“Mommy, it’s funny, it seems like every time right before we go to the beach, Daddy has to do something with the cows…”

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend. Hopefully your plans involve water and frozen treats!

1. Angela, five kids, from Hannah’s Children (p. 239) This was non-fiction, but the ending chapters made me bawl. Again, perhaps I had been avoiding this book because I wasn’t ready to feel some of the feelings. I especially appreciated this woman’s story (Ch. 17) and her frank honesty about theology and our weird understanding of autonomy. “I didn’t freely bring myself into existence. There are things that are beyond my choice. I do have free will. Absolutely. And that’s an element of the image of God in us. So I’m not trying to say, “Just be an automaton.” But I am saying that you’ve got to have a healthy sense of contingency. You know, this is not your show, as some Protestant preacher said in a book sometime,” (p. 245)

2. Except for the potatoes, they got botrytis from all the moisture and died. I actually could be digging them up right now, but it’s too hot. And let’s be honest, I think the tomatoes also suffered from too much moisture. But my plant diagnoses are a work in progress and heavily dependent on the gardening extension book, my Signal “garden fairies” and lots of Googling

3. But for real, we will use some weed barriers next year…

4. When the boy that was 10 when you met his brother is holding a baby it makes you feel OLD. Had a discussion with a friend about this. We’re not old, but we’re definitely not young and cool and I’m making clothing choices based on sun protection and whether or not I can afford to be overstimulated by something that’s cute when the baby is also chewing on my hair. Also based on whether a 4 year old (!!) is going to suddenly pull your dress up, just for the heck of it in the church narthex. Wear the spandex/shorts, people. Especially if you have little imps 😂

5. Except for all the times my kids are a lot and I don’t want to make dinner and I just want to have a nice, digital “hit”. Ugh. Then I’m like ewww that’s a gross addiction feeling. Hi, it’s 4 pm, give me likes and sugar please. Sad, but true.