Light and Momentary

Requiem

Almost 90 years ago a baby girl was born. She grew up and got married and became the mother of a large family. (Not large like mine. Large like way into double digits.) She had grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She got sick. They told her the end was coming. She said, "Oh, I don't want to leave my husband all alone." She held on.

In late October her husband died. Two weeks later she joined him in death. I sang for her funeral this morning and watched as the family processed in (and processed in, and kept processing in) to fill more than half of the center section of pews. I thought about the Proverbs 31 lady, whose children rise up and call her blessed.

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace.

Seven Quick Takes: Still More Grading Edition

1. All right, you guys, I'm doing that thing again where I divvy up my work and write quick takes between allotments. Check back later for the full version of this post -- you know you don't want to miss a single paragraph of the random-fest that is a Light & Momentary 7QT post. For now I'll leave you with this video, which I am lifting from Bonnie Engstrom.
 

2. Oh, man, the trouble with doing it this way is that I come back to my "Edit Post" screen with my head full of work. Do you care about the rampant misuse of punctuation in the papers I am grading? Not so much, huh? So here's a cute little girl story instead. We were driving last week, just the two of us, and she was telling me that she was something I couldn't quite understand. "You're a goat?" I asked, puzzled. "You're a ghost?" Finally it connected: she was saying "I'm a girl." She continued: "You're a girl, too, Mama?" Then, assuredly, "We are girls together." You and me against the Y chromosomes, baby.

3. My husband is sick. He came home from work early and took a nap. In most families this would be a not-very-remarkable occurrence, but Elwood has the Titanium Immune System. The last time he missed work because of illness was in 1999. That's a little crazy, isn't it, that he hasn't been sick in this entire millennium? Here's hoping he's better soon. Stella has had a stomach bug that's left her weary and passive. I was expecting the boys to get it (and me, because if there's a stomach bug going around I am the person most likley to get it), but instead it's Elwood. Of course, his idea of getting a stomach bug is feeling vaguely nauseated and needing a nap. In some circles that doesn't really count as getting a stomach bug, she said with the merest whiff of bitterness.

3.5. "Can you be quiet, guys? Dad is sick and taking a nap."

    Joe: "Dad is sick? For, like, the first time in the history of the world?"

    "No, just for the first time in the history of your life."

4. So for dinner I thought I'd make macaroni and cheese. Except then I thought I'd cook a bunch of kale in the pasta water and blend it up with the milk so we had veggie-fied cheese sauce. And then I thought I'd serve pickled radishes on the side since I have so many radishes to use up.

What could possibly go wrong?

 5. I am back after dinner and do you know, they actually ate it. It was very very green, deeply green like a -- well, like a bunch of kale. But because I'd blended up the kale with the milk it was more like having deep-toned spinach pasta, as if spinach pasta came from a planet where lying out in the sun turned it darker green, than like serving an entire bunch of kale for dinner and expecting them to eat it. I told them it was macaroni and I topped it with a layer of cheese that turned brown and crusty in spots in the oven.

In a dark moment I might wonder if they'll bring that up with their therapists in fifteen years' time. "And then one night she brought out this beautiful dish of oozy melty crispy macaroni and cheese but when she scooped up my serving it was...forest green. Perhaps she meant well but she was painfully obsessed with vegetables."

6. I went out for a run in our brief spell of sunshine yesterday, and the first song I listened to was Matt Nathanson's Faster. That one always gets my feet moving, but it's probably better if I play it a little later in the run. Yesterday I wondered why I was so tired already by the time it ended -- probably because I was speeding up every time he sang the word faster. Which is a lot of times.

7. I am going from the sublime-ish to the profane-ish, sharing a JP2 video in the first take and a Matt Nathanson video in the seventh.  

More quick takes at Jen's.

Who stops his ears

Eight years ago I held a small body in the palm of my hand, the baby I miscarried near the end of my first trimester. Last week I was grading projects in which my students described congenital anomalies and to my surprise I found myself leaking slow tears into the keyboard. I was remembering that little body, delicate and still. His tiny ears were set low on his face, right down at the angle of his jaw. This is a marker for a bunch of bad things: chromosomal anomalies, various syndromes, teratogen exposure.

I was so sad -- so sad. We named him Dominic. Our priest came and blessed a little patch of ground next to our apartment for the burial. I will never stop missing him.

In the brouhaha over the election he seems to me like an emblem for what's wrong with American politics. One side argues that the continued existence of babies like Dominic should be at their mothers' discretion. The other side thinks that they ought to be born, but insists that the idea of communal responsibility for their complex medical and developmental needs will lead us straight to godless government and financial ruin.

I am so tired -- so far beyond tired, actually -- of hearing that I should go along with one of these errors for the greater good.

Heather King's writings on the American political system have spoken to my heart. I have been studiously avoiding political links on Facebook all through the election season, but what did I do on Sunday night? I shared a link to her recent post. Some part of me said, "Hey! Let's offend everybody, all at one time, by sharing a link that compares Obama and Romney to Hitler and Goebbels!"

Monday morning I woke up and said, "What was I thinking?" I deleted the link. Somehow, though, it was still floating around FB later that day. My friend Patrick saw it and declared King's thoughts on contraception "one of the most disturbing things [he'd] ever read." (With his permission, I'm pasting his whole comment down below in the comments on this post.)

The idea of contraception as morally problematic is regarded as a wacky one these days, the furthest purlieu of the bleak hinterlands inhabited by hardcore fanatics. It attracts derision and disbelief. In the first year that I was blogging I wrote about controversial things like abortion and Church teaching on contraception. Is it sensible or cynical that I don't touch those topics these days? I can't say for sure. What I know is that if you spend your twenties and thirties saying "Yes! I will be open to life!" you'll probably be too busy in your forties to argue about it online.

So I'm not really interested in arguing. I am only here to say that I am grateful for the Church that challenges me to say yes: yes to serving the least of these, yes to growing in the greatest of these. Yes to the crazy idea that fertility is a gift to be welcomed and not a scourge to be subdued. In the comments on that Shirt of Flame post Heather King responded to a man whose reaction was much like my friend Patrick's. She said, "when sex isn't open to life, something gets torn, something gets divided."

In my twenties I used to say that it damages the integrity of the sexual act, this idea that we can separate unitive and procreative purposes like bits of velcro. I used to talk about how empowering I found NFP. I used to say, a little smugly, "Humans are not baboons, with uncontrollable urges driven by estrus." I don't say those things these days -- in part because I'm rarely trying to persuade anybody these days and smug is something I try hard to avoid, and in part because NFP is harder in my forties than it was in my twenties and thirties. 

I have learned, though, that things worth doing are often hard things. My finding them difficult doesn't mean I have the freedom to give up on them. I don't say that lightly or smugly; I say it a little wearily. When I write about my Dominic I am keenly aware that it is easy to love the remembered baby and to mourn what might have been. I can only guess, from years of working with disabled people, at the difficulties of the might-have-been scenario. I have seen enough of those difficulties not to trivialize them.

At the same time, I have seen enough of difficulty to say that fear of difficulty should not be a barrier to doing God's will. As my spiritual director reminded me this evening, we don't count the thorns when we look at a rosebush. Life's not about the thorns. Instead it's about Jesus, who calls us and equips us to offer the greatest of these to the least of these. Jesus, who did not wave a magic wand to eliminate suffering but instead suffered with us. Jesus who is with us in the mucky mess, mysteriously enlarging our capacity for love and trust. Jesus, bigger than the brokenness and surely, mercifully, eternally, bigger than this broken political system.

Nostalgic for 2004

I am working on a hard post, and realizing that most of my hard posts never see the light of day. I wrestle with them for a while and then leave them to molder in my drafts folder. In a recent search of my drafts folder I rediscovered a post I wrote about the 2008 election next to a post I wrote about the Affordable Care Act. I used to publish hard-to-write posts, mostly back in 2004 and 2005. Remember when people would read a 2000-word blog post and follow the comments for days afterward? Me too.

I am thinking that internet arguments are more likely to entrench people further into their existing positions than to broaden their views of the world. This is a depressing thought. What do you think? Is it true or am I being overly gloomy? I have received some lovely emails and comments over the years, with people saying, "I'm so glad you wrote about this -- I never would have considered [blah blah blah] but it makes sense to me now." Those are a rarity, however. I reread some of my more controversial old posts and I was surprised anew at the heated disagreements among people who mostly agreed with each other.

Today I did an internet search for someone who used to comment on my old blog all the time. She popped right up: she has gone from a homeschooling Catholic (someone who argued passionately against contraception on an old post of mine) to a no-longer-homeschooling Wiccan. She said that a catalyst in her decision to leave the Church was the finger-pointy reaction of the Catholics in her corner of the blogosphere to a particularly difficult set of circumstances she had to face about 7 years ago.

This discourages me.

Anyway. I think I'll suck it up and finish my hard post tomorrow. First I'll have to make a firm resolve: bedtime trumps comment wars.

Calling the Chiropractor

Remember how I was going to stay away from Facebook for a few days? Couldn't do it. I am watching reactions to the election returns and boy is it giving me whiplash. It's a little crazy, how deep the divisions run. Good night, all. Whatever your views on the events of the evening, we can all agree on the goodness of a season with no automated calls from politicians.

Election Eve

Oh, I will be so glad when it's over! I should probably stay away from Facebook for the next few days, because one side will be gloating and the other will be predicting the End of America.

What's your prediction? And who's your favorite third-party candidate?

Untitled

I'm glad you guys enjoyed my whiskey-fueled post from last night. :-) I re-published a really old post from my first blog that tells more of the story. We didn't start dating right after Casablanca. We did a lot of fun stuff together that first fall, almost always in groups. Elwood loves to get people together to do interesting things and I was a frequent tagger-along, but I assumed I wasn't smart enough or cool enough for him to be romantically interested in me. I dated someone else for a couple of months; Elwood and I started dating very shortly after Steve and I broke up.

Tonight, quickly, I am posting about greens. And radishes. I love the idea of our CSA -- eating seasonally, eating locally grown organic vegetables, supporting a small business here in my own area code. It all sounds good. But the reality of using a CSA share with picky children in the picture has not been so rosy. We've eaten almost of all of the food we've received. It hasn't been easy. Especially here in the fall, when the drought has eased and the shares are bigger, we are drowning in greens and radishes and turnips.

I have some good tricks for using up greens. If I steam-saute a batch of them one night, the big people will eat some while they're fresh and everyone will eat them the next night in quiche. If I get the greens/potato balance right, everyone will eat greens pureed into potato soup -- especially if I make rolls for dipping. Gumbo is another option, although it's really labor-intensive.

It's certainly easier to steam a head of broccoli.

A disadvantage to a CSA is that the stuff that's in season for the farmers in your area is also the stuff that's likely to be thriving in a home vegetable garden. My greens problem has been amplified by the fact that I have chard and collards growing well in my own little garden in addition to the funky greens coming my way in abundance every Tuesday.

Oh my GOODNESS, talk about your first-world problems. Oh, dear, I have too many beautiful organic vegetables to feed my family. Help me, I have a surfeit of arugula.

Still, I think we'll all be a little relieved when the CSA deliveries are over. I am sure the boys would vote unanimously not to do it again next year -- they'd say that grocery story veggies win hands down. And I'm not sure how much energy I want to expend trying to encourage my little mainstreamivores to be locavores.

PS Do you have any radish recipes? Lay them on me.

This post brought to you by the Laphroaig distillery

Elwood and I went on a Date tonight. Perhaps in another season of our lives this would not have qualified as a capital-D Date, but when you have five kids you take what you can get. We saw Casablanca at our neighborhood theatre, and then we went for a drink at the bar down the street. The bartender remembered me from August, and remembered that I like Laphroaig, and even remembered that I like it neat. So I left her a big tip, and also, because I am the Queen or perhaps the Empress of Lightweights, I am now writing a post that may be a bit different from my usual.

The only time I'd seen Casablanca was in 1987, in the fall during my freshman year of college. It was one of those don't-know-what-you've-got-'til-it's-gone kinds of things -- there was a student organization that sponsored movies most nights of the week. We could see all kinds of cool things on the big screen for peanuts, though I rarely took advantage of the opportunity. Elwood tried to get a group together to see Casablanca, but it wound up being just three of us: him and me and another freshman named Marjorie.

Now I don't think I've posted about this before, but I had a giant colossal RIDICULOUS crush on Elwood that started about five minutes after I met him. This was a PREPOSTEROUS crush, a crush so memorable that it merits all of those capital letters. I did not think he would ever be interested in a frizzy-haired and rather awkward girl from southern West Virginia. In fact, I was pretty sure he liked Marjorie, the other freshman, and I spent the evening tormenting myself with the ways in which she surpassed my shortcomings. (Neat hair? Check. Disinclined to shoehorn another foot into her mouth every three minutes until you began to wonder if she had cephalopod ancestry? Check.)

The first time around I found Casablanca very confusing, perhaps because my southern West Virginia education meant that I was alarmingly vague about the Vichy regime, but I remember Ingrid Bergman's first entrance with painful clarity. In 1987 I wasn't entirely convinced that Ingrid Bergman was a separate person from Ingmar Bergman, but Elwood knew the difference all right. "She," Elwood murmured emphatically, "is hot."

I knew he'd never think that about me.

It was a little strange to see it again 25 years later. It is, of course, much more fun to watch a movie when you know what's going on. I never cry at movies but tears were streaming down my face during the scene where Victor Laszlo leads the Marseillaise -- all of them on their feet, drowning out the (boo! hiss!) Germans. "It's pretty corny," Elwood said afterward, and I leapt instantly to its defense. "No," I said, "Bogart does the hard-boiled thing so convincingly for the first half of the movie that you have no idea where he's going if you see that film in 1942. That ending is a total surprise in 1942 -- not hokey at all."

I am wondering what my 1987 self would think about her 2012 life. I think she would be more surprised by the middle of the Jamie-Elwood story than by the ending of Casablanca: I had no idea that Casablanca was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. If you had told me then that Elwood and I would be married with five kids, that we would live in this snug yellow house in this particular town -- I don't think I would have believed you for a minute. I was thinking tonight about our July anniversary, when he pulled me in close and said, "You are seriously the best thing that ever happened to me" -- and in that context I didn't mind at all that he still thinks Ingrid Bergman is pretty easy on the eyes.

Publish or...

I submitted a manuscript today, not very optimistically.

After I finished my PhD I was raring to go. I whipped my early research project into manuscript form at the beginning of my postdoc, and sent it off with high hopes. I got encouraging reviews that asked me to resubmit in a different format for the same reviewers, and so it was a rude shock when the revision was rejected. My advisor said, "That is a sign of a mismanaged review," but it didn't really make me feel any better. It still kind of smarts, actually.

A little more cautiously, I got the major findings from my dissertation into manuscript form and started working on the secondary paper. I had opinionated co-authors for this one and the edits were painful, but I sent it off to be considered for a special issue of a European journal that seemed like a great fit. Six months later (six! months!) I heard back: one positive review, one not-so-positive review, and an associate editor who wanted me to use a completely inappropriate statistical approach. My co-authors and I agreed that we should withdraw it, incorporate some of the feedback, and resubmit to a US-based journal with stats-savvy editors and more reasonable turnaround times.

Over the summer I sent my early research project to a big-name journal, knowing that it rejected >90% of submissions. I got one really useful review -- and a rejection.

Gosh, I am a little embarrassed to post this. Rejected! Withdrawn! Rejected!

Today I sent off my revised dissertation manuscript. I am braced for the worst. I am going to aim low with my early research project, revising it lightly and sending it off to a journal with a much higher acceptance rate. Then I'll dust off that secondary dissertation paper, trying to figure out exactly where I left things 15 months ago, when my first semester of teaching derailed my writing efforts.

I could use a little optimism, but I don't seem to have any on tap just now.

Old School

Are you ready to blog like it's 2004? November is upon us, and that means NaBloPoMo. I was going to write a kickoff post about the dead squirrel we saw today, artfully weaving in themes of Death and Loss and Autumnal Fading, but it is not happening tonight. I fell asleep in wiggly Stella's bed (awake since 5 = un-peppy version of myself) and artful is beyond me. Gross, however, I can do: its eyes had been plucked out. Crows, do you figure?

You know you want 29 more posts from me after an awesome start like this!