On Kissing

I know.

I know.

I promised a story about my Christmas angel today.  It is still unwritten.  Or rather only written in my heart because instead I am busy putting Valentine scrapbook packets together for the 3rd grade party.  And this weekend we have been busy rehearsing The 10 Virgins which I am acting in; oh, and Mr. Wicke and I had a hot date on Friday night, so I had to get my nails and toes done--in red, of course--'cause you have to look good for your Mr.

So, despite my best efforts, I haven't had time to sit down and write.

But...

in the little time I do have, I will just say, on this Valentine's Day, that I want to be kissed like this:

Photo: Alfred Eisenstaedt /Time; Life Pictures/Getty Images/Time

I think every girl, at least once in her life, wants to be kissed like this.  No wonder this kissing couple is famous.  He seems absolutely overcome and she a bit taken by surprised.  Look at that hand on her waist, that arm wrapped around her back.  Wowsy.  The testosterone makes me a little dizzy even from this distance.  That's some good kissing.

Are you listening, Mr. Wicke? 

When you get home, we can give it a try in our driveway. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Jen, Jen, Jen...

I just want to say that I had this idea before Bill O'Reilly.  I did.  When I was reading "The People" (which I like to call it because I think it's sorta' funny) and I read Jennifer Aniston's comments about how lucky we are that we don't have to wait to find a man to settle down with before we had kids, well...something screeched in my brain.  I don't know about all this "destructive to society" stuff.  I'll leave that to the social commentators.  I'm just a mom.  And all I know, as a mom, is that she doesn't really know what the hell she's talking about.

Before promoting the glories of single momhood, she might want to talk to some real moms.  I bet they have a lot to say about the subject.

Here's one example, a letter I wrote to Mr. Wicke this last Valentine's Day:

Dear Valentine,

Do you know what was really romantic? When this harried mom was at the health clinic with our two very sick kiddos, one in tears after waiting for two hours, a baby melting down with a goose egg to boot, and when I really had reached my limit and was grasping the fraying last end of my rope, I called you, and you came. You came quickly. And you took the children, with a smile even. And after I had finally gotten the prescriptions filled and come home, you were feeding them soup, and the baby was asleep, and you weren't even perturbed that Griffin had thrown up in the car all over himself.

THAT was really romantic.

You know why? Because it made me think again that I can't imagine raising these little ones with anyone but you.

Forever,

Your Mrs.

In a million years, I would never want to do this alone.  I thank God every day that I have a partner in this deep and heavy work.  24/7, 365.  A sperm donor just doesn't keep those hours.

Choosing Motherhood (part 2 of a 3 part essay)

Choosing.  The older I get, the more I think that choosing is one of the trickiest part of living.  Here's why:  The most important choices we have to make are made when we have the least amount of experience to make them.  That's another reason why Gilbert's philosophy bothers me.  It just seems a little short sighted. 

See, I had a grandmother, as well.  Two to be exact.  Like Gilbert's grandmother, my Grandma Doty cut up a lot of things, too: Scraps of fabric were made into quilts for beds; old clothes were revamped and resized as needed; cardboard was cut to shelter feet where soles of shoes had worn through.  It was the depression.  It was hard, and it was heavy, but it would be a great assumption on my part to say that she was unhappy.  I was a spectator of her later years.  Much of her life is a mystery to me, and so I wonder:  Is Ms. Gilbert's grandmother's unhappiness a fact?  Or is it her own personal bias talking? 

Perhaps it is just as possible that her grandmother, thinking she would never have the chance to marry and have children, was deeply fulfilled.  Maybe not in the way of foreign travel or exotic foods--those things that Ms. Gilbert values--but maybe in the way of a warm hearth, and Sunday dinners, and kisses goodnight.  I'm sure she wasn't happy all the time, but who is?  I can also safely say that I'm sure she wasn't unhappy all the time either.  And, besides that, who's to say that "happy" is the great guidepost of life, anyway?

Sometimes, what will make us happy in the short run, will not be what's best for us long term.  The question is:  How are we to know that when our experience is so limited?

One of the reasons I am devoutly religious is that it gives me perspective outside of myself through thousands of years of discovery regarding the human soul.  It is not possible for me to live long enough or to conduct enough personal experiments to attain the wisdom I find in religious tenet, and I find it interesting that almost every religious theory has some basic belief in sacrifice or selflessness.  In some way, they all teach that in living for something beyond ourselves our lives will be more meaningful and satisfying--a long term result that often has difficult beginnings.  It isn't easy to give up some of the things I want.  It isn't easy to consider someone else all the time.  It isn't easy to compromise.  What is easy is doing exactly what I want, when I want to do it. 

That seems to be the road Elizabeth Gilbert chose in her book, and you know what?  I'm okay with that.  It's her choice, and I don't have to agree with it.  But what bothers me is the thousands of women she has influenced in both obvious and subtle ways.  She writes a book about her perspective--her truth--and we laugh along with her and nod our heads and get all excited about girl power, and it changes us a bit.  After reading it, how does a girl view motherhood?  How does a young mother feel about her new calling?  Do I, as a mother, consider my life wasted because it doesn't drip with excitement and self exploration?

Elizabeth Gilbert can write what she wants; I just want to be a voice for motherhood.  I believe in it.  We need good, devoted, intentional mothers because the world of tomorrow is riding on the backs of the moms today.  For the most part we are not glamorous; we are not famous; but we are, simply, the life-blood of the future. 

Look, I learned something from my grandma, too, and it is this:  At the end of the very long road of her 102 years, it was not the places she had been or the things that she had done that gave her life meaning.  No.  It was her children, her grandchildren, and her great grandchildren that meant the most.  She was surrounded and lifted up in our love, and while achievements will be forgotten, books will disinegrate, and careers will be ignored, my grandmother has left a living legacy that will never disappear.

Those are long-term results.  One's that aren't always evident in the short run of diaper changes, tantrums, or account balances.  I don't know if Ms. Gilbert is living with the end in mind, but I'm trying to.  Choices are a tricky thing.  Let's at least choose thoughtfully.

Cutting Up Coats: Motherhood and Sacrifice (part 1 of a 3 part essay)

I was excited to find out I was pregnant with our third child...mostly.  But about every couple of weeks there would be moments when I would panic.  Heart palpitations, sweaty pits and palms, queasy stomach--I mean real, physical panic, and I'd think to myself, "What am I doing?"

Things had just started getting easier.  Mr. Wicke and I were just now able to take a Sunday afternoon nap again.  After seven years it felt like such an indulgence.  And speaking of sleep, the children no longer woke us up on Saturday morning.  I no longer had to scrub scribbles off walls or clean urine off couches.  Things weren't getting broken as often anymore.  Mostly they had learned to keep their mitts off of my stuff.  No one had cut their own hair in years.  They could shower and bathe themselves.  They carried their own dishes to the sink and put away their own clothes.  They dressed themselves!  I mean the list of luxeries of a life with older kids just goes on and on.  Things were a getting easier, and now what had I done???  Had I honestly gone and got myself pregnant?  With a baby??  What was I doing???

This time around was much different than when we were expecting our first baby and even our second because now I wasn't naive.  I'd been to the rodeo a couple of times, so to speak, and that bull is one tough ride!  Parenthood will wring the selfishness out of you better than anything else.  So you see, I can understand why people shrink in the face of procreation.  Especially when one looks at all she would have to give up. 

Elizabeth Gilbert, I think, looks at it that way. In her book Eat, Pray, Love she tells a story about her grandmother, who, born with a cleft palate, imagined herself unmarriageble and so got an education, worked, and lived independently.  One of her personal rewards was buying a beloved fur-trimmed, wine-colored coat for $20.00.  Later, when she does marry and has her first child, a daughter, she cuts the coat up to use for the baby.  Gilbert seems to use this as an argument against motherhood.

She says, "That's the story of motherhood, in a large way. You take the thing that is most precious to you, and you cut it up and give it to somebody else who you love more than you love the thing. And we tend to idealize that, and I'm not sure we should. Because the sacrifice that it symbolizes is also huge. Her marriage and her seven children, in a life of constant struggle and deprivation — it was heavy.  And that beautiful mind, that beautiful intellect, that exquisite sense of curiosity and exploration, was gone."

I can sorta' relate to that in my pregnancy-induced, panicky state of mind.  There was some stuff I was going to have to give up.  Getting back in the classroom?  Delayed another six years, at least.  Traveling to Europe?  Gonna' have to wait.  Shoot, traveling across town was going to be a little tricky again.  Some of the things I wanted were going to have to be sacrificed.  Sometimes, when that was my focus, it did feel a little heavy.

But then a funny thing happened.  The baby was actually born.  And when they put him in my arms, I did exactly what I had done with my other two:  I wept.  That moment, connecting with a brand new living soul, is the closest I will ever come in my human existence to heaven.  In that sacred space, where love and joy, gratitude and humility, light and limitless potential entertwine, things become very clear:  None of that other stuff even matters.  It is this new understanding that allows us to do crazy-fool things like cut up coats and give up careers; not for some self-martyring notion that it is what one must do, but because those things no longer hold the value they once did.

Believe it or not, there was a time when I could not imagine my life without theater.  Acting, singing, entertaining--I loved it!  I was good at it.  To me, it felt like flying.  And a lot of my twenties was spent revolving around that world.  Then the kids came, and they became the sun and the center of my universe.  I was surprised to find that I didn't like to be away from them every night for large chunks of time.  I missed them.  It made me feel disconnected from my life.  It gave me stress.  I don't do much acting anymore.  Some people call that a waste of talent.  Some people call that giving up.  I just call it being happy.

Those kinds of choices may be hard for some people to understand because they can only be judged by experience; one sadly, that Ms. Gilbert has chosen to never have.  Just as I finished reading her interview, my son began to awake from his morning nap.  Hearing him call for me, I made my way to his room, her description of contant struggle, deprivation, and sacrifice still simmering in my brain.  As I opened the door he turned to me, eyes lighting up in joyful recognition, his chubby arms reaching out for me.  I lifted him from the crib, pressed his soft, warm cheek to mine as he put his arms around my neck, and I whispered in his ear, "You are my trip to India.  You, my darling boy, are my ride on an elephant."

If, in fact, I never do those things, I will not consider my life poorer because of it.  What is sacrifice after all?  It is to give up something valuable for something else.  That something would have to be esteemed as something even better, would it not?  Heavier? Maybe, but what of value in this life is not heavy? Perhaps the weight of our life should be a measure of its depth.  And if to love and to be loved, to feel that one really matters, is the desire of every human soul, I feel I have chosen the better part.

(More to come...)

Not the the Sharpest Tool in the Shed

Alright, was anyone else so embarrassed for Paula on American Idol last night that they had to fast forward? I did. Couldn't take it. If you missed it the first time you can see it here. I'll close my eyes if you don't mind.