Lent

I took Elliott along for his first Ash Wednesday mass last night.  I haven't taken him to church in over a year, so I was expecting it to be a total disaster. However, it went surprisingly well, thanks to all the singing.  He asked for a communion wafer and clapped after all the hymns, deftly charming all the little old ladies within earshot of our pew. He did get a bit antsy after communion, so I told him we'd leave right after we got our ashes and he yelled out, while the church was perfectly silent, "OUR ASSES?!".

I'm still counting it as a success.

When I was in RCIA, our class leader told us Lent isn't so much about self-denial as it is about re-focusing our energy and time. I guess, since I like to make things difficult for myself, I can't just give up wine or sugar or cheese. That would be too easy, right?

Unsurprisingly, as of this morning, I still hadn't decided what to give up in order to make space for contemplation and reflection, and, you know, Jesus. When I got to work, I deleted all the social media apps off my phone (after sharing a Genius video breaking down "Formation"), so I guess I'll be giving up Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I got rid of all my games a couple of weeks ago when I found myself furiously switching between Candy Crush and Bubble Witch at three in the morning. So yes, giving up social media is kind of easy because, after all, we were all living just fine without it less than a decade ago; but I'm upping the difficulty level by using that freed up time not to binge watch The X-Files, but to do some mindful improvement on myself.

I'll let you know how it goes.

P.S. Do blogs count as social media?

First Everything

It was a long weekend of firsts. My son turned one on Thursday. We had a party in the park for him on Saturday. On Sunday, I went to the emergency room (for the second time in my life) and received eight stitches (the final first). Here's how it all happened.

All three of us woke up on Thursday morning, business as usual. I got Elliott up and into his highchair, with a bib and a sippy cup of fresh milk. Instead of reaching into the freezer for the usual whole wheat waffle, I reached into the fridge and retrieved a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting, made the night before from a box purchased at the corner store. I cut a small square out of the cake and placed it on Elliott's highchair tray while Lane began filming on his iPhone. At first, Elliott just wanted to feel the cake, squishing it between his fingers, smearing it across the tray, and then inspecting the results. Despite it being his first ever birthday celebration, it was a weekday and we had to get off to work and daycare, so I grabbed a bit and offered it to him. He took a big bite and a pause to evaluate the new food, then happily shook his head and looked to me for more. I gave him the rest of the piece in my hand and he grabbed the remaining chunks off his tray and horfed them down in two fell swoops. Happy birthday! Lane gave him a thorough wipe cleansing and we proceeded on through our morning routine.

On Saturday morning, we rose with celebration in mind again. We did some housecleaning and then delved into preparing to host our first birthday party as parents. There was a lot of chopping and slicing of vegetables and putting them into Tupperware tubs for transport to the park. I baked another cake from a box (this time from Target rather than the corner store, which was out of Funfetti mix) and managed to time it so that I was frosting a cool cake and not making a mess trying to apply the stuff to warm layers and also not crying. I decorated the cake with sprinkles and candles and a few small plastic animals. Lane drove over to Nob Hill to pick up the balloons I ordered while I finished some final preparations and got Elliott and myself dressed. The morning was not without its challenges, especially because Lane and I were on completely different clocks and while I was feeling the pressure of the ticking clock, he was intending to make a trip to the hardware store for supplies to fix a wonky cabinet door. So there was some tension and even a few poisonous glares, but once we got to the park and people started arriving, we were back to normal. Elliott, naturally, fell asleep in his stroller on the three-block walk to the park. We let him sleep for half an hour and then cruelly gave into temptation and picked him up when his eyes fluttered awake in what was probably just a break in his sleep cycle. He sat silent and stone-faced for a good 40 minutes in my mother's lap, wearing a green felt crown decorated with his name and animal buttons. He ate a few crackers and a piece of celery and perked up. More baby friends arrived and he kissed them and stole their crackers and chatted with everyone. The wind picked up as it does on San Francisco afternoons, so we did our best with the candles. There was enough cake for everyone and folks began to make their exits as the temperature cooled. We stayed another hour catching up with friends before packing up the Tupperware tubs and the wrapped gifts. Our punishment for interrupting Elliott's nap was a one-year-old boy who partied until ten o'clock that night. 

So, Sunday and stitches. Everything was going great. I went to my RCIA class, met a few new people from the parish and successfully completed the Rite of Sending without saying the wrong thing or tripping in front of the entire church. We all were to meet at St. Mary's Cathedral at 3:30 for the Rite of Election that officially launches us into preparation for baptism/communion/confirmation at Easter Vigil. I couldn't find something to wear that was simultaneously understated chic and flattering on my once-again round postpartum belly (must be all that cake). I was also hungry, running late and nervous about the Rite. And I could not find my fucking keys. I looked everywhere I could have put them and then started sliding magazines and old New York Times Business sections off the coffee table. Then I pulled out couch cushions, dumped out toy baskets and got down on my hands and knees to see if they had been flung under the couch. They had not. I put Elliott in his Pack 'n Play because he was feeling my frustration and anxiety and getting a little overwhelmed too. My searching became more manic and I threw a throw pillow at the bookshelf. I finally lost it and kicked the nearest soft thing -- a paper grocery bag full of old newspapers for recycling. But the bag was not full of just newspaper and I discovered this as I pulled my left foot away, screamed and began bleeding all over the kitchen floor. I grabbed a towel, applied pressure and tried to find the house phone. I couldn't and momentarily panicked until I found my iPhone and called the emergencies-only number at the restaurant. By some divine intervention, Lane picked up and I sobbed into the phone that I had hurt myself terribly and that he needed to come home NOW. He said he'd grab a cab and be there as soon as he could. I texted folks from church who were anticipating my arrival at the cathedral and received words of comfort and offers of prayers. I called Lane again because Elliott was scream-crying and I couldn't lift him out of his playpen and I was scared and still bleeding. He made it home ten minutes later, assessed my injury, then washed it and wrapped it in gauze, a clean kitchen towel and electrical tape. We drove up to the ER at UCSF where I was triaged, x-rayed, cleaned, irrigated, numbed and stitched up. Lane drove us home, put Elliott to bed, made sure I had what I needed and went back to the restaurant. I looked at the bag I had kicked and saw a bent and broken curtain rod sticking out of the bottom, right where I had aimed my left foot. Lane had replaced it on Saturday in his home improvement offensive and it is what sliced into my foot, deep enough to reveal tendon. I shuddered, wiped up my blood with baby wipes and went to bed. Just as I was stepping gingerly up into bed, I saw my keys on the floor, partially hidden by a muslin baby blanket.

I read Joan Didion until I fell asleep with my foot propped up on a throw pillow and called an end to the weekend.

Fresh Start

Russian River
Image credit: Poem Sweet Poem

For the next 40 days, I'm making an effort to be more mindful, more quiet and less distracted. I'm giving up Facebook and Instagram so that I can spend more time in the present. I'm going to really, really try to be more forgiving. And I am going to find joy in simple things like an afternoon in the park or laughing at Elliott's incoherent babbling with Lane for five minutes before I run off to work.

I see Lent not as a period of deprivation or extreme sacrifice, but of re-centering and proactive thought. It's a time to give one's self space for mindfulness and reflection. To that end, I will be getting in 20 minutes of yoga practice everyday, because I know that no matter how tired, cranky or slovenly I am, I always feel fucking amazing after just a little bit of stretching.

Peace.

Do not let your heart be disturbed.

Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Annunciation, 1898.

Mary, girl, I get you. I learned a lot about you this weekend and just wanted to share these words that another shared with me. These words were spoken by the Virgin of Guadalupe to Juan Diego when she appeared to him at Tepeyac:

Listen! Put it into your heart, my dearest son, that the thing that disturbs you, the thing that afflicts you, is really nothing. Do not let your heart be disturbed. Am I not here, I who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and my protection? Am I not the Source of your joy? Are you not in the hollow of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Do you need anything more? Let nothing else worry or disturb you.

I found a little bit of the respite I was looking for last week during my RCIA class on Sunday morning. It's still hard to focus on letting things go and quieting my brain and my heart. I find that visualizing that nervous energy falling away and just being in the shadow is starting to work.

Silence

In my quest to discover my dormant spirituality, Anthony de Mello's book Sadhana was recommended to me. I requested it from the library last week and it has been sitting on my nightstand, underneath all the other books I brought home after the LSAT. I picked it up last night, taking advantage of a wiped out baby and a clean apartment. I've attempted various forms of meditation -- guided and alone, guided in a group and regular old empty-the-mind contemplation on my own -- and it's never quite stuck. I think my biggest issue is not letting go and trying so hard to make the inner silence happen, which just invites the cacophony of thoughts to take over. And, like everyone else in my generation, I struggle with a short attention span. When I relax and just let my mind go, I immediately think of like nine other things I could/should be doing, focusing in on one until I can't resist it, give up on meditating and go do the other thing.

I'm not saying this book or the particular path I am on right now is what has changed things for me in terms of being able to listen to myself, but it feels right in this moment. I worked through the first exercise last night, which was just practicing being silent and listening to what your mind does when it's allowed to wander, but not reel. The book suggests writing down what you feel and think while doing the exercises, which I have never thought to do before, and I think writing down my experience really helped crystallize my quiet thoughts. Things have been a little challenging as a family lately and L and I haven't had much time to spend together, awake and talking. Being silent for just ten minutes last night gave me a little reprieve to feel vulnerable and admit to myself that I need a little relief, comfort, someone or something to catch me, even for just a little while. Life in San Francisco is becoming totally overwhelming and both of us feel that it's not really worth the strife and the stress to be here anymore. Gentrification is pushing us, a middle-class working family, out of the city because we frankly can't afford to do much outside of making sure our basic needs are met. The current tech bubble is turning the city in a land of so many haves, people who don't blink at hyper-inflated rental prices and are blind to the effects of gentrification. We both loved this city so much, and while the effects of gentrification are certainly not the root of our troubles, it has changed and doesn't feel like home anymore. The stress of everyday living in a place where we don't feel happy is exhausting.

This post went off on a really weird tangent, so I'll just end it with this observation:  Even when things are shitty and you are exhausted from just being alive, it is wise to take some time and space to listen to yourself.