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Sunday
Jan282007
A sea of pink-tipped clouds...
January 28, 2007
Today I flew to Chicago, by myself, happy and sad at the same time. I know I should relish every drop of solitude that I can get to trickle out of the bottom of the cup, but one of the paradoxes of being a mother, I've found, is that you desperately need alone time, but desperately miss your kids when you get it. It is a life vocation, comparable to nothing else, because it is a type of work that is encompassed by love and worry, a type of work that can never be banished from your mind. Sometimes I feel that I will never relax again. Talking this week with another mother friend whose children are adults, I realized that the fears with small children over choking and sickness are replaced with other fears as time goes on.
All to say that I have to learn to trust God more.Â
And despite saying this, I will not deny that there was a complete ease about checking in today, a simplicity that was precious, like water in the desert, despite being picked “randomly†(as always) for a special extra security check, and despite having my cream-top yogurt and Mango and Antioxidants drink taken away from me. Flying has become like paying to be arrested, I thought, as I was standing in a machine that blew air at me to make sure that I didn’t have any hidden weapons or drugs on my person. I can’t believe they took my yogurt away. When our kids are grown up we’ll be telling them, “I remember the days when they gave us food on the airplane… and- oh yes, the days when we were allowed to wear our own clothing, now we have to wear specially manufactured uniforms.†It’s funny, though, flying without my kids. It’s not as if they aren’t completely well-behaved in an airport—they’re great—it’s just that it takes so little effort to move my own gangly body through the line, down the hallway, into the seat. It’s amazing. It's nothing like the effort it takes me to wrestle little people into car seats, just to go to the store.  And yet every so often I found myself peeking up over the seats at the kids sitting three rows down because aren’t they magical? Kids are just the most amazing small creatures, and even when I’m exhausted because all of mine are sick I am watching someone else’s, missing YaYa’s hand on my cheek.
Anyways. I sat on the airplane and read my new book, “Freddy and Fredericka†by Mark Helprin, which so far I am delighted with, and looked out the window. For some reason my mind allowed me to have a little glimpse of pure observation, and as we were heading up above the clouds, I thought, I can’t believe I can fly. Really, we can be above the clouds, looking down at the mountains around Tahoe, catching sight of a frozen lake, marveling at a seemingly endless view of farms in a perfect grid, an ocean of clouds, the sun setting over Lake Michigan. We can FLY. I can be in Chicago, coming from San Francisco, in four hours.Â
My friend Renee and I stayed the night in San Francisco, after she drove me down to the City yesterday, and along the way we ended up, at the end of a search for Wonton Soup, in one of the gaudier, junkier Chinese restaurants that I have ever seen, with its aquariums of dirty crabs and lobsters. (The wonton soup was Renee’s craving, not mine, although I have somehow transferred my pregnancy cravings of previous pregnancies onto my single, non-pregnant friend, and by saying that, I don’t mean to imply in any way that I am pregnant or will be soon, I'm not and I won't.)
We also stopped for coffee (at which point I got hopped up on a decaf Americano) and also for a hunt for a book for me to read on the plane, a long search at the end of which I picked out the book I had been intending to buy all along. I am a queen of wasting time in a bookstore, and I needed to make sure that there was nothing else I wanted more. I mean, I couldn't let it go, like, I have to be totally positively sure that I want THIS book more than ANY other book in the store at this precise moment. What if I'm not in the mood to read this? I have a lot of that with novels. If I'm feeling insecure about my mothering I don't want to read a book about a woman who breaks down and abuses her children. If my husband is away, I don't want to read a book about someone's husband being killed. After I watched The Story of Us, with Michelle Pfeiffer and Bruce Willis, I cried for a long time, and it took Chinua forever to convince me that we aren't them. Oh yes, right. Fiction, what a concept.Â
This trip to Chicago was a sudden decision, and was the only response I could think of giving to a friend’s deep hurt and crisis. I should just go and be there, I thought, and not surprisingly, Chinua said it before I did. I'll only be gone a few days, and a friend helped with part of the ticket.  This is what I love about a community that stretches across the country, that we can say, “I’m here,†even when we can’t be there all the time, that we can imperfectly love each other. It’s got to mean something, this stumbling love we share. God has not given us any small task in commanding us to love Him and love one another, but the gifts He gives are more than enough to make it happen.Â
I love my friend, the one that I am going to see. She has amazed me so many times, and I think she is still like an unlocked door. We have barely seen the beginnings of the beauty that will come from within her. And she is hurt, and all I can do is say, “I’ll come over.†It feels so small. I begin to wonder, lately, in the midst of so many crises, what it takes to get through.
It’s kind of like flying, I think. Everybody thinks you have weapons in your toothpaste, and they take away your yogurt and your lip balm, we have to be in this climate-controlled chamber in order to survive, and it’s not exactly effortless, but we’re flying. It's a miracle. We’re getting there.
All to say that I have to learn to trust God more.Â
And despite saying this, I will not deny that there was a complete ease about checking in today, a simplicity that was precious, like water in the desert, despite being picked “randomly†(as always) for a special extra security check, and despite having my cream-top yogurt and Mango and Antioxidants drink taken away from me. Flying has become like paying to be arrested, I thought, as I was standing in a machine that blew air at me to make sure that I didn’t have any hidden weapons or drugs on my person. I can’t believe they took my yogurt away. When our kids are grown up we’ll be telling them, “I remember the days when they gave us food on the airplane… and- oh yes, the days when we were allowed to wear our own clothing, now we have to wear specially manufactured uniforms.†It’s funny, though, flying without my kids. It’s not as if they aren’t completely well-behaved in an airport—they’re great—it’s just that it takes so little effort to move my own gangly body through the line, down the hallway, into the seat. It’s amazing. It's nothing like the effort it takes me to wrestle little people into car seats, just to go to the store.  And yet every so often I found myself peeking up over the seats at the kids sitting three rows down because aren’t they magical? Kids are just the most amazing small creatures, and even when I’m exhausted because all of mine are sick I am watching someone else’s, missing YaYa’s hand on my cheek.
Anyways. I sat on the airplane and read my new book, “Freddy and Fredericka†by Mark Helprin, which so far I am delighted with, and looked out the window. For some reason my mind allowed me to have a little glimpse of pure observation, and as we were heading up above the clouds, I thought, I can’t believe I can fly. Really, we can be above the clouds, looking down at the mountains around Tahoe, catching sight of a frozen lake, marveling at a seemingly endless view of farms in a perfect grid, an ocean of clouds, the sun setting over Lake Michigan. We can FLY. I can be in Chicago, coming from San Francisco, in four hours.Â
My friend Renee and I stayed the night in San Francisco, after she drove me down to the City yesterday, and along the way we ended up, at the end of a search for Wonton Soup, in one of the gaudier, junkier Chinese restaurants that I have ever seen, with its aquariums of dirty crabs and lobsters. (The wonton soup was Renee’s craving, not mine, although I have somehow transferred my pregnancy cravings of previous pregnancies onto my single, non-pregnant friend, and by saying that, I don’t mean to imply in any way that I am pregnant or will be soon, I'm not and I won't.)
We also stopped for coffee (at which point I got hopped up on a decaf Americano) and also for a hunt for a book for me to read on the plane, a long search at the end of which I picked out the book I had been intending to buy all along. I am a queen of wasting time in a bookstore, and I needed to make sure that there was nothing else I wanted more. I mean, I couldn't let it go, like, I have to be totally positively sure that I want THIS book more than ANY other book in the store at this precise moment. What if I'm not in the mood to read this? I have a lot of that with novels. If I'm feeling insecure about my mothering I don't want to read a book about a woman who breaks down and abuses her children. If my husband is away, I don't want to read a book about someone's husband being killed. After I watched The Story of Us, with Michelle Pfeiffer and Bruce Willis, I cried for a long time, and it took Chinua forever to convince me that we aren't them. Oh yes, right. Fiction, what a concept.Â
This trip to Chicago was a sudden decision, and was the only response I could think of giving to a friend’s deep hurt and crisis. I should just go and be there, I thought, and not surprisingly, Chinua said it before I did. I'll only be gone a few days, and a friend helped with part of the ticket.  This is what I love about a community that stretches across the country, that we can say, “I’m here,†even when we can’t be there all the time, that we can imperfectly love each other. It’s got to mean something, this stumbling love we share. God has not given us any small task in commanding us to love Him and love one another, but the gifts He gives are more than enough to make it happen.Â
I love my friend, the one that I am going to see. She has amazed me so many times, and I think she is still like an unlocked door. We have barely seen the beginnings of the beauty that will come from within her. And she is hurt, and all I can do is say, “I’ll come over.†It feels so small. I begin to wonder, lately, in the midst of so many crises, what it takes to get through.
It’s kind of like flying, I think. Everybody thinks you have weapons in your toothpaste, and they take away your yogurt and your lip balm, we have to be in this climate-controlled chamber in order to survive, and it’s not exactly effortless, but we’re flying. It's a miracle. We’re getting there.
Reader Comments (11)
I remember this one flight I was on. I was chosen for a random search at the security gate. I was holding my daughter (she was just barely crawling), our backpack, trying to get my shoes off, when they asked me to also remove my belt.
What?!
The security officer asked what she could do to help me and I said the only thing that would help is if she could hold my daughter for a second while I tried to get my belt off. She said she couldn't. I said nevermind then, because that's the only thing that could have helped.
Hope you enjoy this time away with your friend, and that you can be a blessing from God for her.
"I begin to wonder, lately, in the midst of so many crises, what it takes to get through."
One thing I have learned from the response to this issue that my mother has had, that is not to pretend the crisis is happening. To be there like you are for your friend. Pretending that it isn't happening just ends up making you alone.
I'm feeling a little guilty at the moment because I didn't try hard enough to get a hold of one of my friends. She was 91 and my friend since I was a baby. She passed away 1 1/2 years ago and I didn't know until the Christmas card came back. I was too busy with my own crisis last year to know something was wrong.
You are a wonderful young woman.
I had to laugh reading about how you identify with the characters whether in a book or a movie, because I am always getting in trouble for how deep into the "fiction" I get, either I'm saying - oh that poor thing, oh I feel so badly for them, or getting angry at some jerk in a show. My SH tells me "It's just fiction", and I can settle down.
In the midst of all that's happening, take some time and enjoy yourself - it sounds like you have been already, enjoying the flight, the clouds, the frozen lake beneath you.
It's such a chore though to get to the airport..... you live so far away from SF.
Your kids love you and they'll be waiting for you, and your husband loves you and he'll be waiting too. That's the best part.
I identify with the bookstore thing. I am consumed with the variety of choices and usually end up buying something I could have picked up at my local grocery store. How wonderful to have friends come to be with you in your pain...to be Hands and Feet in the moment. "I'll pray for you", can sound so trite to the hurting and broken when what's needed is an embrace or a friend willing to sit and cry with you. Hope there's peace and comfort for her today.
Not only can I relate to the whole me-time vs. mama-time thing, but your comment ("It’s got to mean something, this stumbling love we share. God has not given us any small task in commanding us to love Him and love one another, but the gifts He gives are more than enough to make it happen") is a concept I've grappled with more than once this weekend. (Loving God and our neighbor was the topic our priest chose for his homily yesterday, too, so I think God may be trying to tell me something here!) Suffice it to say, your words summed things up very nicely for me, and brought me great comfort this cold Sunday night. :) I'm sure you'll bring comfort to your Chicago friend as well. Have a safe trip home!
i love you and miss you. while driving to garberville, i stopped and watched a sunset, the kids sleep behind me in the van. finally a break. it was very very quiet. redwoods and i drank in the light.
a lost turn in highway 271, curled and fading like spent twine, a mountainside somewhere near the top, i thought if i could get higher i could get closer to beauty somehow. of course the sun still set, not out of spite, but in the purposeful way that everything lovely leaves the world. So sweet and ephemeral. the kids still woke up and needed food and diapers and company and help with everything. i am amazed that you do this every day.
i imagined myself singing "heart like a jar of fireflies" to you at my next concert. you were watching me with just a hint of shyness, but radiant, drinking it in. i sang it perfectly, not like when i botched it on your birthday. every chord had strange powers. it was a nice daydream.
chin
you are blessed to have such loving family, thoughtful friends, and strong faith,
what sweet words of life,courage,trust and love,
i feel honoured to share your journey by reading of your travels... i wonder, where is lake taho and michigan? like from Vancouver to prince george? i wish you a safe journey and peaceful moments,
i always come home to my children feeling refreshed and ready for caring when i have had a breather from their cushy momma on demand bubble...it's strengthening,
THey love dad thyme, and it is great that chinua is honouring your ability and to serve endlessly,
i pray for you and your friend to have a healing and majikal thyme together,
jah bless!
ps, i recently had to attend my aunt's funeral last monday, on the spur, and i too recieved her christmas card in the mail, ---on the day she died, it took some thyme to accept that it was god's will we did not share more thyme,
it left me feeling very greatfull for the many opportunities we are given to share love and friendship to the ones we love,
:) sisters unite!
WOW, profound post. Loved it. Just lurking, had to comment.
I love this post. I know that I'm commenting several days later but I still wanted you to know.
I have flowen many times in the last five years. Most of them with my three children but a few without. I'm always patient when I go through security but it can be trying. The few times that I did not have my children with me, I was amazed at how easy it was to go through the checkpoint without having to remove things from the children.
I am always amazed that I am flying. People would complain about the long flight from Washington to Pennsylvania but I had to stop everytime and just be amazed at the fact that we could go so far in a day. It is amazing to me.
I appraciated flying even more this last holiday when all five of us drove in our little car for over 24 hours. The children were great but I missed the flying.
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