motherhood, politics, faith & whatnot

1. I love Wife*Swap.
2. “Dancing With the Stars”
3. People/US magazine.

THE CREATION

by: James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938)

AND God stepped out on space,
And He looked around and said,
“I’m lonely —
I’ll make me a world.”

And far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.

Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said, “That’s good!”

Then God reached out and took the light in His hands,
And God rolled the light around in His hands
Until He made the sun;
And He set that sun a-blazing in the heavens.
And the light that was left from making the sun
God gathered it up in a shining ball
And flung it against the darkness,
Spangling the night with the moon and stars.
Then down between
The darkness and the light
He hurled the world;
And God said, “That’s good!”

Then God himself stepped down —
And the sun was on His right hand,
And the moon was on His left;
The stars were clustered about His head,
And the earth was under His feet.
And God walked, and where He trod
His footsteps hollowed the valleys out
And bulged the mountains up.

Then He stopped and looked and saw
That the earth was hot and barren.
So God stepped over to the edge of the world
And He spat out the seven seas;
He batted His eyes, and the lightnings flashed;
He clapped His hands, and the thunders rolled;
And the waters above the earth came down,
The cooling waters came down.

Then the green grass sprouted,
And the little red flowers blossomed,
The pine tree pointed his finger to the sky,
And the oak spread out his arms,
The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground,
And the rivers ran down to the sea;
And God smiled again,
And the rainbow appeared,
And curled itself around His shoulder.

Then God raised His arm and He waved His hand
Over the sea and over the land,
And He said, “Bring forth! Bring forth!”
And quicker than God could drop His hand.
Fishes and fowls
And beasts and birds
Swam the rivers and the seas,
Roamed the forests and the woods,
And split the air with their wings.
And God said, “That’s good!”

Then God walked around,
And God looked around
On all that He had made.
He looked at His sun,
And He looked at His moon,
And He looked at His little stars;
He looked on His world
With all its living things,
And God said, “I’m lonely still.”

Then God sat down
On the side of a hill where He could think;
By a deep, wide river He sat down;
With His head in His hands,
God thought and thought,
Till He thought, “I’ll make me a man!”

Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled Him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of His hand;
This Great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till He shaped it in His own image;

Then into it He blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
Amen. Amen.

Last time you kissed someone:

7:30 p.m. Some night-night kisses for the bambino. But I just kissed DH’s hand, as we are sitting here on the couch, so maybe I should say 10:35.

[2] What color is your mailbox?

Black.

Not really, but still it was kind of interesting. Was watching Wife*Swap tonight. One family calls themselves pirates and the other family is obsessively organized. I mean, bins and labels everywhere, in the pantry, in the underwear drawer, in the medicine cabinet. At my house, I’m not allowed to bring in any more bins, but I pointed out to my husband that if I could only have more bins, we could indeed be organized. Just look at the Fine’s. Heh. This was said after he pointed out that our house is more like the pirate’s house and I smacked him and told him not to make fun of my disability (ADD). (kidding )

Anyway, Tori Baur is the pirate wife on the show and wrote the following in a
blurbabout what it was like to be on Wife Swap:

“As for myself, four years ago I went back to Oregon State University to get my degree in literature. A risky adventure for a middle-aged housewife, but honestly I was fed up with society ascribing my worth as a woman because I stayed home with the kids and cleaned a house. Never mind that I cried and rearranged the furniture every time I watched reruns of Oprah. And ate cartons of Death by Chocolate ice cream in a fit of depression because I could never–never–get my whites as bright as the commercials said they should be. Some women are perfectly happy being tablecloth wives and do a great job taking care of their houses and spouses. I know women who enjoy it and they make it look so easy, and more power to them if that’s what makes them happy. But for women like me, that kind of life is soul-crushing, so I sacrificed a clean and orderly house and well manicured children in exchange for Shakespeare and Coleridge with a little Blackbeard on the side. Our house is messy. Big deal. Mom is happy. Good deal. Besides, writing a twenty-page paper on, “The Modern Literary Influences of Spenser’s Fairie Queen and other Elizabethan Contemporaries” is a hell of a lot easier for me than getting that two-year old spaghetti sauce stain off the kitchen wall.”

I thought the comment about watching re-runs of Oprah and crying while rearranging furniture was really funny, creepily familiar, but funny.

via Jennie and Jana

[1] What is your middle name?

Geggie. Yep. It’s a family name.

I think I might just be over this whole internet message board thing. This isn’t a call for entreaties to stay (although I wouldn’t turn down any love that came my way, if any. heh. ) I’m not really going to go anywhere anyway — I’m just doing some routine naval-gazing, evaluation of stuff in my life. I guess I’m putting it out here, because I’m sure that other people have felt the same way and would love to hear how others think about these things.

I’ve been on a couple of mommy message boards since my first son was a baby, and I’ve gotten to know some great people. I like hearing what people have to say, but maybe it takes too much effort to keep up my end of things. And if I can’t keep up my end of things, then I don’t blame people for not keeping up with me. But I’m tired of posting stuff and not getting responses. Maybe I’m just out of synch with the vibe or what-have-you. It still makes me a little sad, but maybe it just means it’s time for me to do other things.

Anyway, maybe these things have life cycles, and for each person, maybe it’s different. Mothering is one of the most political things I’ve ever been involved in and I’m tired of it, talking about why I do what I do, or whatever. Can one be friends with someone who parents differently than you do? By choosing to do something one way over another when perhaps your friend chooses a different way, are you putting their decision to do it their way down? I know, I know, only we know what’s best for our own children, right, but that’s not really how we operate is it or not always anyway. If my kid stays alive on a diet of mac and cheese, hot dogs, milk and fruit cups, do you look down on me when you insist that most things going in your child’s mouth be organic? How could you not? Inherent in any choice is a dismissal of the alternative, right? I don’t know. But, I’m doing the frickin’ best that I can. Do I love my child less because maybe I’m not making the best diet choices for him? No. Is he going to be less perfect than your child? No. I am not a perfect parent, but noone is. Here are my true confessions about my mommy abilities: I’m not a patient mommy. I yell too much. I let them watch too much TV. They are both circumcised. I dread being with them sometimes. There.

True confessions, anyone?

I think I need some meds again. But at the same time, it’s kind of nice to feel so raw and vulnerable for a change. I’ve never been one of those people who can cry at sweet moments or poignant moments, and it takes a really good movie to make me cry at sad moments, too. I don’t know if it’s really in my disposition to be so stoic; I am quite practiced at stuffing things down, especially sadness and vulnerability. My mother is not a crier. She could hold things inside until she exploded. Not sure what that was about. I do remember her tearing up when we were driving off in our moving truck on the way to Boston. My dad says that he didn’t ever see her cry when her father died.

So, anyway, that’s to say that sometimes it feels good to be living so much on the edge of one’s emotions that the tears spill over so easily. It means that I’m not so clamped down that the gatekeeper in my head is assessing whether each emotional display is OK given who’s around and what’s going on and that I’m not going overboard or something. Heaven forbid, I make anyone uncomfortable by showing what I’m truly feeling.

That’s all to say that I’ve been really touched by several things in the past few weeks. We got to watch Spike*Lee’s movie about New Orleans recently. It took me back to the night right after Katrina moved through last year when I was up late watching the news about the people stranded in the Superdome. I remember not being able to sleeping and crying to Jim, “Why isn’t anyone doing anything? Why isn’t anyone helping these poor people?” While watching “When the Levees Broke”, again, I found myself in tears as this poor man described trying to keep his elderly mother alive in the Superdome, answering her requests for updates about when the buses were coming to get them. Eventually, she died right there and when the buses finally came, her son had no choice but to leave her behind. It was her body in the wheelchair that was pictured so often in the Katrina coverage.

On Monday night (September 11th anniversary), we watched a Front*line piece about how people’s faith was changed by September 11th. It was really fascinating to hear all kinds of people from lots of different faiths, including clergy, rabbis, religion professors, widows, etc. talk about their innermost thoughts about God and their faith after September 11th. There was a widow of a fireman, who spoke heartbrachingly about how after her husband was killed, she couldn’t feel God’s presence anymore. She used to talk to Him throughout her day, saying prayers and what-have-you. But afterwards, she felt lost, abandoned and unable to reconcile her idea of who God is/was with what had happened, as you might imagine you would feel, too if the same thing happened. But I listened to her speak with tears just running down my face. What a dark, dark place so many people had been thrust into, void of comfort and hope.

But it’s not just about pain and loss in this world that somehow echoes deep in my soul — I’ve been caught off guard of late by poignant moments of tenderness, joy and relief. The husband of a dear fellow blogger just returned after 6 months in Iraq. She managed to capture the first moment she saw him with her camera. Her pictures of those first few moments had the tears flowing once again. Thanks for sharing those intimate family moments with us.

Anyway, so yeah, just call me a bit weepy of late.

What makes you cry?

I can’t be around Daniel for five minutes without yelling at him.

I think my friends are getting a divorce. I can’t write the letter to her that I was supposed to. I wanted to be understanding and supportive, but I’m not. I guess it’s good to acknowledge your limits. Bleh.

I hate being made to feel like the side effects to medicine are in my head. I hate having unforeseen side effects to medicine. Do I have an ulcer? What’s wrong with me?

My mood, that is.