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Picture this: I am making a delicious lunch for Niki to bring to school because although they woke up at 7:45, they have decided at 8:25 that they want to bring lunch and will not eat the “baked fish treasures” on offer at school. They are supposed to leave for the bus stop at 8:30.
They are dressed except for socks and shoes, which they claim they cannot put on until I help them put their halloween costume in a bag. I have not yet done this because they came downstairs saying, “You need to put my halloween costume in a bag,” and refused to rephrase this as a polite request instead of a direct order. I told them I do not take orders.
Meanwhile, as I spread the sun butter and strawberry preserves on bread, I am suddenly overcome with an urgent need to use the bathroom. I drop the knife on the counter and sprint to the bathroom. On the way I somehow encounter a shard of something (glass? plastic? no idea) that impales my foot. I make it to the bathroom but while I am on the toilet my foot is bleeding all over the floor. I try to stop the bleeding with toilet paper, and end up with bloody toilet paper stuck to my foot and all over the floor. Niki is asking through the door if I’m ok and what’s going on and I am shouting instructions about filling their water bottle and putting it and their lunch bag into their backpack and where to find a tote bag for their halloween costume and oh by the way can you ask Daddy to come downstairs with the bactine and bandaids since I am bleeding all over the floor.
Randy (who is weak and feverish from his covid booster yesterday) comes down with first aid supplies and cleans the floor while I clean my foot. I hobble upstairs and roll up Niki’s axolotl costume (size adult medium because that’s all that was left when they decided on a costume) and they stuff it in the aforementioned bag. I gingerly put socks on over my bandaged foot and slip on my Birkenstocks to drive Niki to school, since we’ve long since missed the bus.
They insist, as usual, on taking an umbrella. They repeatedly try to open the umbrella in the hallway despite the fact that it’s not necessary to do that in the house AND IT’S NOT RAINING. They insist that it is “rainy” and I counter that no precipitation is happening and tell them they may not open the umbrella at all. I say (because we are currently reading a book together that takes place on a submarine) that that’s an order from their captain. They say “you’re not my captain, you’re my mom.” I say, “moms are captains.” They say, “no, moms are caretakers.” I say, “They are both captains and caretakers.” They say, “I’m not taking orders.”
AND scene.
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I have no idea why my hair grows out instead of down. I have left the realm of Bob Ross hair and have entered Malcolm Gladwell territory, and that’s not somewhere my hair wants to be.
But like every other seemingly small decision in our current circumstances, I have to evaluate the relative risk and safety of getting my hair cut. I’ve gone to see my stylist once since the pandemic started, and the salon was practically deserted and we were both masked. But every day is a new chance for some coronavirus bits to float in through the front door, right?
School starts a week from tomorrow and our house is in chaos. We are rearranging most of the rooms in order to give the kids their own rooms. This was a shift we had first discussed in the spring before the pandemic, which we planned to implement when summer started. Then we canceled that plan because my office, which was to become Zeke’s bedroom, was suddenly occupied by my husband, who was working from home. Because my work is more flexible and sporadic, my office became wherever in the house I was sitting.
Of course none of that has changed—we are still both working from home—but the realization that the pandemic is nowhere near over and the kids may be doing school from home from now through June has become undeniable. So we have been selling furniture and giving away furniture and buying new furniture and rearranging furniture to accommodate everyone in the hopes that we will each have a modicum of privacy and quiet. Randy will carve out a corner of our bedroom for his office and I will try to create an oasis for myself on one wall of the family room. In the meantime, our stuff is in bins and boxes and piled in the hall while we try to assemble all the pieces of the puzzle.
Hopefully a positive side effect of this undertaking will be the purging of many toys and books and who knows what else that’s lurking in our closets. I have no idea what to do with all the upcycled art I’ve made. It feels like it would be counterproductive to throw it in the trash from whence it was once rescued. I am trying to calmly remind myself that this whole thing will take a while. Of course we want the kids’ rooms mostly in place by Tuesday, but getting all the details right and inevitably buying accessories and giving things away in order to maintain the proper balance of stuff takes time.
Zoe is the most excited of all of us about this transition. She has thoughtfully researched design concepts on Pinterest and noted cool lighting and decor she’s seen on TikTok. I asked her if she could help Zeke with his decorating, so she asked him what kind of vibe he was going for. I don’t think vibe means a lot to a seven-year-old, even one as sophisticated as Zeke. He has said he wants to put up some of his drawings on the walls. I suggested getting a white board so he could write down things he needs to do or when certain activities are happening. He said, “maybe YOU need to remember when things are happening, but I don’t.” Perhaps he’s right.
So we’ve been spending a lot of furniture but it’s probably fine because we saved so much on school supplies this year. No need for new backpacks or lunchboxes or pencils or crayons or erasers or glue sticks. Or all those supplies that are communally used in elementary school—tissues, ziploc bags, wipes. We did go to Target and buy some notebooks and folders and post-it notes for each kid. Otherwise we have enough crayons, markers, pencils, and paper for a whole class of kids. We stopped by Zeke’s school today to pick up his new iPad, and we received instructions from Zoe’s school about how to reset hers for the new year.
The thrill of a new school year is tarnished by the fact that the kids aren’t actually going to school. I’ve seen so many first day photos on Facebook of kids at their desks, or in bed with a laptop. Zoe dyed some of her hair pink this afternoon for the occasion. We’ve gotta figure out something to get us excited.
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Seems we’re at a tipping point where more things are broken than not. This is metaphorical and real.
Yes, we have indoor plumbing and three bathrooms, but at any given time two of our toilets are out of order. Restrooms available for paying customers only.
Tripping over piles of dirty laundry and bags of recyclables and items waiting to be repaired or repacked or repurposed, looking for the space to create two classrooms and two offices for the four of us.
Mold is creeping in behind the sink and chunks of the kitchen tile are breaking off (since we had to tear up the floor on top because the kitchen sink leak was worse than we thought) while we procrastinate, waiting for the kitchen fairy godmother to appear and find affordable and aesthetically pleasing countertops and flooring and cabinetry for us that both matches and increases our resale value and she will wave her magic wand and make our kitchen beautiful.
Now every breakdown is weighted down with symbolism. Our country and our world are crumbling as we watch, why should I be any different, says our house in an Eeyore voice.
Of course I know how lucky we are. You need not remind me. But at this moment we are trapped by dark clouds that are not just threatening but delivering on their promised storms and that bright side is just out of reach.
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Some days it is nearly impossible, and other days clearly impossible, not to drown in the catastrophic abyss that is the world right now. This is not news to anyone.
At 3am this morning after I finished my client work, since I had no opportunity to do it during the day, I wrote a list of small wins in my new notebook. I bought this new notebook last night at Target, while in the midst of having a panic attack because of the school supplies. The school supply section at Target has always been beloved by our family. Unlike some parents, I actually love shopping for school supplies. I have since I was a kid and got to pick out a new Trapper Keeper every year. But last night seeing the vast array of products just sent me into a downward spiral because school + Covid-19 + completely inept government response = nothing good. Everything about this situation is heartbreaking and infuriating and all those shiny folders just reminded me of that.
But back to those little victories. Notice how easy it is to get distracted by awfulness? If you haven’t already seen the video of the explosion in Beirut, don’t watch it. Deep breaths. Focus.
So, small wins, right?
- Zeke is taking a sewing class and a magic class now, both of which he is really enjoying and fully showing up for.
After carefully curating his summer of camps back in January and having them all be canceled because of Covid, I haphazardly signed him up for a variety of online classes. I did not put in nearly as much thought or planning into this as I did with the camps, so sometimes I over scheduled him and sometimes I signed him for things that required more involvement from me than I was able to provide. But magic and sewing stuffies have been big hits. And yes, I am still putting in some time buying sewing supplies and helping cut out patterns, but Zeke is getting there and is determined to learn and practice. His current career ambition is to become a costume designer for Marvel. I feel like between his sewing and drawing skills, he is on the right track. He can make costumes for theatre productions in high school or create Halloween costumes for his friends. But I’m getting ahead of myself. - Zoe is learning to use nunchucks in her martial arts class.
I don’t honestly know why they’re using nunchucks, but it’s cool and Zoe was practicing on her own last night, which is always a good thing. I am also just happy that both she and Zeke are back in their martial arts classes at EvolveAll (via Zoom, of course) after taking a brief break. We are all eager to get back to the studio, but in the meantime they are getting exercise and pushing themselves and we still love being part of the EvolveAll community.
3. I finally figured out how to use my AirPods during Zoom meetings. If this doesn’t mean anything to you, don’t worry about it. If you understand, you will appreciate it.
4. The aforementioned Target trip was principally to buy more lightning cable chargers because mine are always being borrowed for other people to charge their devices in other parts of the house and and we all have so many freaking devices now that there are never enough chargers. So I bought some in fun colors and perhaps now no one will steal mine.
5. The pile of super stinky laundry from our Camp Friendship trip is diminishing. It is not yet gone, but it’s more like a speed bump than a mountain.
6. I helped my mom do a hard thing yesterday.
7. I’m taking a surprisingly fun class through church about how parents can be sexuality educators for their own kids.
8. I’m listening to a fantastic book–No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal.
9. We’ve made some delicious dinners lately from Hello Fresh. The kids don’t always eat them, but Randy and I love them and they’re not the same thing we always make and they’re healthy.
10. I am not water soluble! Twice this week I ended up doing a chore outside in the pouring rain and I didn’t melt. It’s always reassuring to note this underrated quality.
More often than not lately our current existence seems untenable. I’m yelling at my kids too much. My house is a disaster area. My husband and I haven’t had a date in eons. But at least I’m not water soluble.
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In my closet hang 21 summer dresses in shades of blue and red and pink with flowers and stripes and paisley patterns. I usually wear them to church on Sundays and to meetings with clients and to plays. I have several pairs of strappy sandals with wedge heels to wear with the dresses. I like the kind of sandals that show off my toes because usually my toenails are painted some vibrant color with an impossible delicate design of daisies or something similar on my big toes, courtesy of the artisans at Nails 2000.
I am so not a girly girl. I hardly wear makeup and I haven’t blow dried my hair in decades and my typical outfit is a t-shirt and jeans–or in recent months–yoga pants. But it’s easy to dress up in the summer and it’s literally cooler. I don’t envy men who feel compelled to wear jackets and ties when it’s 80 degrees.
I suspect that this summer I won’t have any occasion to wear any of my dresses. I watched church this morning in my pajamas. All the concerts and plays have been canceled. All my meetings are online. And it doesn’t really matter what you wear online, as long as you’re clothed.
I recognize that none of this is a serious problem or anything worth complaining about when juxtaposed with the incomprehensible (and inexcusably somewhat preventable) suffering in the world right now. I understand that.
I only mention it because I spent hours cleaning out of closet yesterday and rearranging my clothes by season and seeing all my dresses reminded me all over again of what’s wrong with our world.
Seeing my dresses reminded me that the president told religious congregations to reopen their doors and return to services as usual, inviting their members to get sick and infect others or perhaps die. My church, like many others, has been holding services and offering programming online and will continue to do so indefinitely. In response to the president saying churches are essential, our newly called senior minister (who will join us in August) said to her current congregation, (I’m paraphrasing) you know who’s essential? Our people. That’s why we will not be gathering, because we want our people to stay healthy and alive. My dresses reminded me that the president does not care about people. While the New York Times ran a front page filled with the names of nearly 100,000 Americans who have died from coronavirus, on a weekend where we honor those who have died in military service, the president played golf.
Who knew my dresses were so fraught with meaning?
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Some of the subtle and unsettling changes in daily life that you notice 65 days into quasi-quarantine:
Instead of searching through the piles of clean laundry on the couch looking for some underwear or the pants that still fit, you’re mostly looking for a clean mask that fits.
You don’t realize until nighttime when you’re on a zoom call with friends that you haven’t looked in a mirror all day and had no idea that your hair looked like that.
Instead of showering at your convenience, you have to negotiate shower privileges with your spouse because both of you roll out of bed and start the day without bothering to shower until a) your first zoom call of the day or b) you need to leave the house to go to the grocery store or pickup takeout food.
Even though you can’t see it behind the mask, you still put on lipstick before leaving the house. Some habits stick around.
Instead of attempting to clean the house, you engage in micro cleaning. If one kitchen counter is wiped down, or one table cleared, or one shelf tidied, you count it as a victory. It is impossible to clean the whole house when everyone is in it all the time.
You realize that Target brand toilet paper is actually fine. Even though you’ve always been a toilet paper snob, both a Charmin loyalist and disdainful of Scott, when you found shelves filled with Target brand you snapped it up and have been pleasantly surprised.
You are grateful to three different friends who generously gave you gifts of dish soap. When you ran out, before your friends came to the rescue, you ordered dish soap online. Then it arrived and now you are blessed with dish soap to last for a while, which is good because your family continues to eat and drink with gusto.
You cannot concentrate on anything for mire than 30 seconds except when you are alone, which typically happens only after midnight or before 9am if you are able to wake up at 8. You seldom use these hours wisely, but that’s nothing new. Occasionally you meditate or write, and that has to be good enough.
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The mood swings are killing me. And not my 13-year-old’s mood swings, but mine.
The quasi-quarantine (I acknowledge, as a friend pointed out recently, that we are not actually in quarantine, which is more serious) feels a little to me like what I remember of being drunk. Admittedly it has been decades since I’ve experienced that. Now after having a bottle of hard cider with pizza for dinner I wake up in the middle of the night and have to eat crackers and take Tums. What I mean, though, is that every emotion seems to be magnified times a thousand. For a few days this week I felt like I was trying to swim through molasses. I couldn’t motivate myself to do anything. I was napping even more than usual. I wasn’t showering until 6pm. I was yelling at my kids. After reading news stories about the projected future of this virus and trying to wrap my head around the idea that our lives will never be the same, I was despondent.
Reading, which is usually my refuge, has been doing me a disservice. My default activity was scrolling through Facebook and clicking on articles about epidemiology, the current administration’s irresponsible and deadly response to the virus, the response of white vigilante terrorists to measures designed to save lives, the actions of white vigilante terrorists who killed a black man who was out for a jog, the number of people suffering because they have no jobs and therefore not much food, and the fact that my zip code has the highest concentration of COVID-19 cases in Arlington.
So during the 4am-6am period that I was awake last night, I deleted Facebook from my phone. This is a step I’ve taken many times before, and I always re-install it after a few days. But today was so much better.
Zeke and I made wonderful French toast with the delicious challah bread I picked up yesterday from Great Harvest Bread Company. I had more energy than I’ve had in several days–the molasses was gone–and I coerced my family into helping clean the house. We threw away so much stuff, and organized, and dusted. We have now–over the span of the quasi-quarantine–accumulated four large boxes of things to give away or sell. I am still not sure when I will be able to give these things away or sell them, but at least now they’re in boxes instead of scattered all over the house. We played Jackbox games over Zoom with friends who we used to have dinner with often and friends who live far away who we haven’t seen in a while and we all laughed and laughed and all our kids played too and it was pure joy.
Saying that taking the Facebook app off my phone immediately led to a state of bliss would be an oversimplification. But it helped for sure.
I have a stack of notes I need to write. These blank cards, addressed and stamped but not yet written, had been piling up on my desk since December. Since Randy is now using my desk to work, the notes are now cascading in piles of my stuff on the edge of the dining room table (where Randy’s papers used to live). If you are a member of my extended family and you have not received a Christmas card, Valentine, thank you note, or other expected correspondence from me over the past six months, I apologize. And I promise I will write the cards. But when I think about what I would say, I start to have that molasses feeling again. Looking back on what our lives were like back in December, and January, and even February, my heart hurts. I feel naive. I feel nostalgic. I feel overwhelmed, like I need to sit down because I’m going to faint. Despite the abundance of news and information, there is a distinct lack of clarity and certainty. I still can’t wrap my head around our existence right now. My Dad asked for Washington Nationals face masks and a donation to a food bank for his birthday. My sister and I debated at length how to make it as safe as possible to spend time with our Mom on Mother’s Day. Almost every ordinary activity takes on extraordinary meaning when you have to decide how much danger is inherent in each decision.
I used to be a person who possessed a lot of energy. While I am not quite a sack of potatoes yet, my motor operates at a much slower speed than before. I know this happens to people in their 40s, but I don’t like it. The precipitous decline for me came after Zeke was born. No matter what anyone tells you, having two kids is way harder than having just one. And Zeke’s sleeplessness for the first two years of his life is probably what led to my sleep disorder. Not that I blame him. He’s worth it. 🙂 But this quasi-quarantine is squeezing what energy I have left. Of course there are moments–even hours!–of fun and diversion and creativity and relaxation. But they seem to be bracketed by confusion, doubt, and exhaustion. There’s a heaviness that lingers, a longing for freedom.
Since tomorrow is Mother’s Day, my family decided it would be just like my birthday in that I could make the plan for the day. My aspiration for tomorrow morning is to get myself out of bed and do yoga. I have many yoga teacher friends and so many sources for online classes, but I have not done a single one of them since we’ve been staying home. Partly because there always seems to be something more urgent demanding my attention, and partly because my house bears no resemblance to the clean, peaceful emptiness of a yoga studio. I have never once regretted going to a yoga class, but I have also never succeeded in sticking to a practice at home. I struggle to stick to much of anything sometimes. I know, however, that if I’m going to survive this thing, I need to take better care of myself. Making myself a priority has always been anathema to me. It seems selfish, and to me selfishness is a serious character flaw. Of course I’ve been told by friends, therapists, and many people who love me that I need to put on my own oxygen mask first. I know this is true. It’s just so much easier to do when everyone else is out of the house. I can take fabulous care of myself when I have plenty of time and resources. Learning so many new ways to be is a lot of work. No wonder I’m so moody.
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Commonly asked questions in our house during the past two months of quasi-quarantine.
What is that smell?
What is there to eat?
Where are the clean masks?
Is that smell coming from me?
Can I have some screen time?
Is it Saturday?
Can we go outside?
Can we stay inside?
Can I have a snack?
Have you eaten any food today?
How are you eating all that food?
Are you done working?
Why do I have to do schoolwork?
Why do I need to go to bed?
Does this count as schoolwork?
Can I FaceTime someone?
Can I set up a zoom call?
Do I have to do the zoom call?
Do I have to turn my camera on?
Why is everyone texting me?
Why isn’t anyone texting me?
Why do I need to shower?
Is that safe?
Are you sure?
Why do I need to get dressed?
Are we ever going to be able to _______ again?
It turns out I only know the answers to a few of these questions. Still don’t know what that smell is.
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Zoe and I stayed standing in the waiting room of Patient First tonight, wearing our homemade masks and trying not to touch anything. I sanitized my hands seven times while we were there. The receptionist, nurse, radiologist, and doctor were all wearing masks and safety glasses. It makes you feel a little like you’re interacting with robots or droids. Although the doctor had a stutter, which made him more recognizably human.
We went to urgent care at the recommendation of an unknown doctor with whom Zoe had a free telemedicine appointment tonight, courtesy of our new insurance plan and COVID-19, who suggested an X-ray of Zoe’s thumb and wrist to rule out a fracture. This was a couple hours after Zoe wiped out on her bike. I was taking a nap when Randy called to ask me to come pick Zoe up because she had fallen and hurt herself. I didn’t realize what a mess she was until we got home and I was tending to her wounds in the bathroom and wishing our bathroom was cleaner. I asked Siri to play Taylor Swift and asked Zoe to take deep breaths with me as she was on the verge of hyperventilating. I helped her wash off the scrapes, on her elbow, hands, knee, and hip, sprayed them with hydrogen peroxide, and bandaged to the best of my ability. Randy was my assistant, handing me bandages and medical tape. Turns out we had very little tape on hand, although I think some of it was leftover from when Zeke had surgery as an infant. We threw that one away. I realized I need to freshen up our first aid supplies.
So after Zoe was settled downstairs on the couch, I donned a mask and headed to CVS. I bought a wide variety of sprays, ointments, bandages, and tape because I always overbuy, but especially when I’m anxious. And I bought lemonade and seltzer and some extra Easter candy as a treat, as well as a couple bags of Bugles. Don’t judge.
I came home to the news that Zoe needed to get an x-ray, so I washed my hands 50 more times and helped her change clothes and used the new supplies to re-bandage all her wounds. Then we headed out.
Now we’re safely home and Zoe is feeling much better. Thankfully nothing is broken. The nurse at urgent care carefully removed all the bandages and cleaned everything again and reapplied medicine and put fresh bandages on. She wrapped an ace bandage around Zoe’s hurt hand and wrist.
It’s almost 2am and I’ve just returned from an eerie drive around Arlington in the rain trying to find Zoe a toothbrush because hers had somehow become contaminated and surprisingly we had no extra toothbrushes anywhere in our house. I had to go to four stores until I found one that was open, which ended up being a 7-11. Between Easter Sunday hours and coronavirus hours, everything is closed. And there was no one on the road. I have driven around late at night on my fair share of occasions and there is always at least a little traffic. I think I saw four other cars driving in my 30-minute odyssey.
Our house is a gigantic mess. The dishwasher, washing machine, and dryer are all running right now but there are still dishes filling the sink and piled up on the counter. There are boxes and cans of food piled up on another counter because I didn’t feel like it was safe to put them away yet. There is dirty laundry on the floor by the washing machine and clean laundry piled on the loveseat. There is crap everywhere. I’m wondering where I will get the energy to clean it up. And I do NOT have high standards, but I do need clean clothes to wear and glasses to drink from. I have changed clothes several times today–every time I went outside and came back in. And I have to wash all the masks that all of us wore today. I wore several myself. And regardless of how many times I washed my hands I still feel like those red spiked molecules are lurking.
Zeke is having a rough time. Both of my children have always been unusually emotionally self-aware, but I forget sometimes that he’s not even 7 (at least for a couple more weeks). He has not been acting like himself, and of course I understand why but I’m not sure what to do about it. I know I need to spend more time with him but I’m struggling to figure out what to do with that time that will be helpful to him, and how to avoid getting distracted. I keep thinking he will ask for something if he needs it, but that doesn’t seem to be the case, and I know I can’t expect him to be self-sufficient even when he acts like it.
Last night we had a Zoom Passover Seder and Zeke refused to participate. He wouldn’t even appear on camera. The only thing he was willing to do was nibble matzoh and then find the afikomen. Literally five minutes before the Seder he and his cousin Charlie FaceTimed to practice the four questions and decide who was going to read which questions. But when the time came, Zeke wanted no part of it. I understand on one level that all this behavior is in direct response to the crisis we’re living through, but I am not sure how to help Zeke deal with it.
This morning we watched the UUCA Easter Sunday service on YouTube. It was a moving service with thoughtful and apt reflections about how the times we’re living in are changing us, and how growth can require darkness and patience. Rev. Terasa brought her metaphor to life by making sourdough bread during her sermon. I guess that’s something that video preaching from home enables you to do. In the end, I really wanted some fresh bread. And I really missed my church people. And I stumbled back into the darkness. I saw all these Facebook posts of friends whose families dressed up for Easter even though they weren’t going to church, and took beautiful pictures and hid and found eggs. We didn’t even get around to dyeing eggs. We didn’t have a special meal. I ate a bowl of cereal while I watched church at 10am and then Zoe and I ate macaroni and cheese and peas when we got home from urgent care at 10pm. Today did not speak to me of new beginnings.
To be fair I should acknowledge that yesterday was a better day. Zoe and I went on a four-mile bike ride, which was the most I’ve ridden my bike in years. The weather was beautiful. We passed several people we know while we were out. And as we pedaled past a field, we saw a little girl taking some of her first steps to her dad while her mom took pictures. We cheered for her. I am pretty sure some other good things happened yesterday too, but honestly I don’t even remember. The days are so long now and they bleed into the nights where sometimes we sleep and sometimes we don’t.
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Last Sunday my friend D and I led the service at UUCA, on the theme of Embracing the Mess. D wrote a great scene in which our kids (and one bonus kids) demonstrated how to make a mess and we figured out how to deal with it. This was not much of a stretch for any of us.
If you’d like to watch the service, visit http://www.uucava.org/livestream/ and click on archives and click on the July 14, 2019 service.
Here’s my reflection from Sunday:
One of the reasons I became a Unitarian Universalist after spending many formative years as a Presbyterian was that I wanted more variety than the Bible seemed to offer. When I discovered that UUs looked to many sacred and secular texts as sources of inspiration, I was delighted. As a writer and reader, I love discovering wisdom from new people and places.
That said, I acknowledge that the Bible includes some great stories. They’re not always easy to understand, universal truths are embedded in those parables. My perspective on Jesus is that he was a kind, compassionate, and generous person and a powerful teacher. When I think about embracing the mess, I keep coming back to this story from the book of Luke, chapter 10, verses 38-42.
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Picture the scene. You have an unexpected celebrity guest—plus his entourage—and you’re working frantically in the kitchen to find something suitable to serve. You’re pouring chips and salsa into your best bowls. You’re searching for the corkscrew to open a bottle of sauvignon blanc. You’re preheating the oven to pop in some Trader Joe’s appetizers.
And you’re doing it all by yourself, while your sister is in the other room laughing at your guest’s amusing anecdotes and not lifting a finger to help you. Maybe it’s not your sister, but your significant other or your roommate. Regardless, you’re growing increasingly frustrated at them for having a good time while you’re working your tush off.
I have a question for you. How many of are familiar with the enneagram? How many of you are type 2?
For those of you who don’t know the enneagram, it’s an ancient tool used to help us understand motivations and behaviors. The enneagram can be a useful way to examine the choices we make and help us to become emotionally healthier.
Type 2 is known as the helper or the giver. Martha was likely a type 2. A bunch of guys show up on her doorstep and she immediately gets to work making dinner. There is a need to be met, and she assumes it is her responsibility to meet it. She does not understand why no one else is helping, because it is so obvious to herthat there is work to be done.
I will confess that I am also a type 2. After years of emotional work, however, I would like to think I am a healthy 2. This means I would probably head to the kitchen to get snacks for Jesus and his friends, but then I would order pizza so I could join in the conversation sooner. I might ask the apostles to take everyone’s drink orders.
Unhealthy 2s plow ahead with all the work themselves, becoming increasingly resentful. Healthy 2s will ask for help when they need it, or even decline a request that someone makes of them. My spiritual director calls this “the holy freedom to say no.” The enneagram provides a direction for each type to move toward in order to balance out unhealthy tendencies. For type 2s, we are guided toward 4, known as the romantic or the individualist. I suspect Mary in this story was a 4. When Jesus showed up at her house, she knew exactly what she wanted to do, which was sit and hang out with him. What could possibly be more important?
I can’t count the number of times when I was younger that I cleared the table and started doing dishes when I had friends over just to get the mess out of the way. And then missed out on time I could have spent having fun and laughing with people I loved. The dishes will always be there. I have learned that community, conversation, and connection are much more important.
A couple months ago, a friend of mine from college emailed me to say he and family were going to be in town and wanted to get together. He asked if we wanted to meet at a restaurant, but I suggested they come to our house, knowing it would be more relaxing, and that the kids could play, and we would have more time to talk. He agreed, although he suggested we get takeout and he offered to bring wine and dessert. I ordered dinner from Bangkok 54 and we had a fabulous time, and I did very little work.
Of course, I’m not saying you never have to clean your house, but that embracing the mess provides an opportunity to cultivate both connection and creativity.
How many of you have ever lived in a house overrun by Legos?
This has been my house for the past decade.
We have built Lego sets of a lunar lander, Hogwarts, the Millennium Falcon, the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, countless superheroes and villains and their vehicles, and many more. We have thousands of Legos that have been used to build fabulous creations even more imaginative than the sets you buy at the store. Everyone at our house is a builder, but Zeke in particular is on his way to becoming a master builder. Where I see Legos scattered all over the coffee table and the floor, he sees superhero hideouts and innovative spaceships and cars that can dive and fly and so many technologies that might actually come to fruition someday. I have no doubt that he could become an engineer and design the prototype for an actual car that flies.
Our house is also littered with overflowing bins of art supplies, books piled up next to densely packed bookshelves, and magazines with ideas for making new stuff out of old stuff you have lying around. Sure, sometimes I wish my house looked like something out of a magazine, where you’re sure no one actually lives there because there’s no stuff. But at the same time, I wouldn’t want to give up the time our family spends making art, reading, and creating with everything that surrounds us.
Embracing the mess opens up possibilities and allows for freedom. This can be risky. And liberating.
Both my kids attended AUCP, the phenomenal preschool located here at UUCA. After Zoe graduated and before Zeke started, AUCP launched a program called Timber Tuesday, where, every other week, a class spends the entire three-hour school day in the woods near Long Branch Nature Center. Rain or shine. I have never been an outdoorsy person, and I was skeptical about this at first, but AUCP’s director Susan Parker quickly sold me on the value of spending this time outside. Kids who struggled to conform to classroom expectations thrived outside when given plenty of space to explore. Kids with sensory or motor challenges pushed themselves to climb rocks and touch trees and splash in the creek. As a parent, one of the most important lessons I learned was that it’s ok to get messy. Just bring a change of clothes. Or be prepared to ride home in your underwear.
I remember sometime after I had become a Timber Tuesday convert that my kids and I were out after a rainstorm. Instead of instructing my kids to avoid a puddle, I encouraged them to jump in it. They were astonished.
They have certainly taken that encouragement to heart. Two weeks ago, our family was on vacation in Lewes, Delaware. One evening we went to the beach to watch the sunset. One minute we were walking with our toes in the water, and next thing I knew both of my kids were laughing and splashing, submerged up to their chests in the Delaware Bay, fully clothed. Then we went to get ice cream. Because why not?
You Ask a Lot of Questions 