Getting Out and Coming Back

There’s a rumor of a blizzard across the lower 48, hammering New York City, with cars crashing, police overwhelmed. Up here in Fairbanks, it’s “March” already. Snow-wise. With temps in the thirties and forties the last two days, strong undeniable sunshine, and incredible skiing.

Marin, Annika, Teo and I met up with two mom friends and their kids on Wednesday at Birch Hill. Cooper, John and Teo were on skis. Moms Paula and Nina and I held their hands or called them back, skiing alongside. Paula was also pulling Quinn in a little sled. The sun was warm and lovely after the long dark cold winter. After a half hour, I switched out with Marin, rocking and consoling Annika, while she took the Matteo watch. Out in the world! It felt like a resurrection.

Speaking of resurrection. I’ve been working on an Easter Sunday talk for our local UU Fellowship. I was thinking of doing a straight “In Lieu of Resurrection” topic, which would be about how the friends of Jesus first experienced his death – as death, loss and oppression (by the brutish Roman invaders), and subsequently began to find the courage to realize that his life didn’t disappear with his death. His vision, his kindness, his community, and his story could continue. But only if people – they themselves – refused to cower from the challenges he confronted.

So how can that happen for us, lacking the deceptive “reward” of an afterlife? That would have been the heart of the Sunday “talk,” and the challenge would have been to address where we in our Fellowship find ourselves in the face of “brutish invaders” such as fear-of-terrorism, consuming militarism, anti-immigrant racism, runaway corporate interests, blind consumerism – lots of life-denying challenges. Where is our “resurrection,” as UU’s? Can we learn anything from the metaphors, rituals, and narratives of Christians facing the same “death-dealing?”

When I went to the Religious Exploration meeting on Tuesday, we started talking about making this topic into an intergenerational service. I began to think about it, and realized that the Jewish Passover story, the Christian Easter story, all benefit from the earlier Pagan everlasting-Spring story, not to mention the Buddhist story about discovering and embracing freedom from suffering. Hm.

The Chalice Circle questions for the coming week are about this issue – how we as individuals find resources for transformation. We have talked about our own biographies, our religious stories, the Unitarian story, and how we fit into the Fellowship itself. Now, what do we have to offer? One of the questions goes: “Are there books, authors, poets, friends, teachers, singers, radio stations, plays, communities, times of the year, places in Fairbanks, drives, walks, songs, prayers, memories, or any other "midwives" to the birth, within you, of your healthy, strong and vibrant spirit, "reliable guides" which can bring you to a sense of being deeply connected, exhilarated, at peace with yourself?”

Well, I was feeling pretty bad, personally, about this line of questioning, swirling through my post-Annika life. There was less sleep, no writing, a new exciting job with the UU’s, planning a trip to Tacoma for a UU conference next week, family visiting our little Pepita, changes, distranctions, fun and forgetting. I was going to add, “no exercise,” but we’ve been out on the trails two of the last two days.

And that’s the thing.

After skiing came, surprisingly, writing. A blog entry. After writing came a new sense of self, a confidence. Similar to answered prayer, but different. Interesting how personal this issue of “getting spiritually lost” and “recentering” has been for me the past months, not to mention the last 40 years!

Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad

I heard it on NPR first thing. Something about the Most Depressing Day of the Year. Huh?

Had to look it up, and found something in Time. “Blue Monday,” according to Dr. Cliff Arnell, is the third Monday in January, and it’s depressing because you’re falling off your New Years Resolutions, you’re getting your Christmas Visa Card bill, and , in Alaska, you’re cold and you’re light-deprived.

It was like getting a confirmation. People love diagnoses which explain (put the blame on something) why they’re feeling weird, or feeling pain, or just unhappy.

I myself was trolling for a reason why, this weekend, I couldn’t get my butt out to ski despite balmy (+20's), perfect weather, a supportive wife, a sleeping child. There also was the fact that we all have colds.

So, today Matteo didn’t want to eat. He had me cook up a batch of pancakes for him, and then ate the applesauce and yogurt side dish. We spilled out a puzzle of the planets, but I had to put it back together unassisted. We got out the balls to play on the steps, but he’d only catch the 12 inch ball (the easiest to catch) if I (doing a free throw from the bottom of the stairs) landed it softly in his extended arms. He made no effort for any slightly-off-the-mark shots. Not even my howling with delight at his successes seemed to make an impression.

Then we got ourselves dressed to go outside. We had that big snow, ten inches, on Friday. Well, another 5 inches this morning! Matteo busied himself with his snow shovel, while I busied myself making a run with the plastic sled down the bank onto the driveway. After inviting him to join me in a dozen fun rides, with no interest, I gave it up.

“Want to go skiing.”

“No, I have to shovel.” Hm. Okay.

What else can I do, all dressed up for action? I began to look in the kitchen boxes in the garage for a salt shaker, and a butter dish, which we probably have multiple examples of, but where? I have both on my Value Village list, because it’s probably easier to find it there than in our chaotic box farm.

It didn’t take me long to come to the conclusion not to take them off my VV list. Then the door opened to the garage.

“I’m ready to go skiing.”

Well, okay.

We drove up to Birch Hill. The temp was in the twenties, a strange fog was blowing in, and a woman called out across the parking lot, remarking on how she was seeing the full moon set a half hour ago, and now, whiteout! I got our two pairs of skis out, and the chariot, for him to ride inside when he flags. Remarkably, the trails were already groomed.

Shortly I had him in his skis, and I was getting into skis and belting on the chariot. “My ski is slipping.” I checked what was wrong. The groomed snow was soft enough that when he put weight on the ski, it could extend his ankle to the side. But it was a wide ski, so he could easily counter that by just going forward. He pushed it more to the side, looked at me and said, “I’m findished.”

“Matteo, it’s okay.” I started backing up to get beside him to encourage him. I forgot that I had the chariot trailing behind me. While I was backing up looking ahead, it began to jackknife. Silent as the disaster unfolded, Matteo got pushed right over. As he exploded into tears, I unclicked from everything and picked him back up. I could see it was over.

It took all I could muster not to just pack up and go home. Even NPR was with me on this being a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Why resist the inevitable?

“I want to ride, Papa.” Deep breath. Okay.

The snow was pretty slow. I was the first skier on most of the trails I used. When I got winded, there was the enthusiastic or was it despotic “Papa, GO!” from the rickshaw rider.

I was in a great mood afterwards. Those endorphins. The post office being closed for MLK day, we went back to the Big Brown House, and, though he didn’t want to read picture books, I did. (He wanted to watch Peep DVDs). So, I started reading a really old Dr. Seuss book out loud, and before I was off the first page, Matteo was there by my side.

Then he went down, and I got going on the mish-mash I had in my computer on an 8-week Chalice Circles curriculum Rebecca Clack and I are trying to put together. It wasn’t until later that evening, halfway through the Circle meeting, that I realized I was wrong, as usual.

It had been a wonderful, phenomenal, way good, howlingly awesome day.

Dragging

Something’s not right. I used to be way into skiing. Every noon I’d escape from the Church, drive up to Birch Hill, and ski the White Bear loop, in 45 or 55 minutes, depending on the temperature and the glide, drive back, and dive back into work.

Now we have great snow, as of Thursday morning, when we were blessed with a huge (for us) dump of 10 inches of fresh snow. And, after several weeks of sub-zero temperatures, the temp’s been between 10 and 20 ABOVE. Perfect conditions. But no skiing. Despite being 2 minutes away.

What’s up? Trepidation at the immanent arrival of another baby, God willing? Frustration at the randomness of my life and things? Anxious about the UUFF job I am applying for (Director of Religious Exploration)? Frustrated that I’m not writing?

What is up? If I weren’t a skeptic, I’d say Seasonal Affective Disorder has bitten me in the seat of my pants.

Or that I just can’t get stuff done? Like the UUFF talk two weeks ago, it ate up all my energy for ten days, or the UUFF Chalice Circles plan, it’s big and amorphous and exciting, but seems to throw me off every time I come back to ride it.

There’s always the “alienation” of taking in too much. Like too much news. I don’t suck up as much NPR as I used to. Like if I’m writing, I have no patience for the random world/ national news stuff.

But I do have a weak spot for KCRW’s “Left Right and Center” podcast every week, and there’s another one, “It’s All Politics” by a couple of funny political junkies, I can’t resist. And there’s Friday night on PBS, my hero Bill Moyers “Journal” and his once-sidekick David Brancaccio’s “Now.” And “Washington Week” with Gwen Ifill. Two solid hours. I am not very discerning when it comes to these media options.

But it might just be too much insight, too much opinion.

Certainly the stuff that comes into my e-mail inbox can be overwhelming. There’s Salon.com, which I am very partial to. I pay for it, even. And an array of other news/ opinion sources, maybe a half dozen a day, which, actually, is a lot of scanning, alone, if not reading.

Then there was the onset of DSL in our lives. Marin sealed the deal with ACS (Alaska Communications Systems, our Phone monopoly) early in the week, and there was a notice on our door when I got back from the post office Friday (with a sleeping child and a DSL modem that had come in the mail) which said that we were successfully receiving signal. So I read up and hooked up and downloaded, and all that, and it wasn’t working. Aha. All brain cells came to attention, not on the new snow, or on writing now that Teo was sleeping, but on getting this figured out. In the middle of anything, a new hunch would break out and I’m back on trying another strategy.

It continued after Marin came home, and Teo woke, and then went into dormancy until I came back from the Martin Luther King Breakfast Saturday morning, when I tried out another strategy which didn’t work. Marin got on the phone at 5 pm and spent an hour of her Saturday night jawing with a ACS rep who walked her through stuff that didn’t work. DSL? Fuggedaboudit.

Maybe that’s why vacations are relaxing. Give up shouldering the external world for a week, with all it’s demands and flaws and disappointed hopes, and you get a new lease on life.

But on the other hand, having a distorted view – I hate falling for that. Having an opinion or a viewpoint that’s totally full of poop, or an experience which is radically divergent from “real people’s.” So, bring on the tanking economy, and dysfunctional DSL – this is what we’re facing, right, folks?

Marin just broke in and reminded me that we’re all sick. Wait a second. THAT’S it. Teo is the sickest, Marin’s coughing and wheezing, and I have been waking up feeling infected for a week.

Something indeed isn’t right.

Navigation / Christmas Day 10

I trooped down the stairs at what Teo calls "the brown house," our Birch Hill log home, into the darkness. I’d promised him I’d be back in a minute, after getting out of pajamas and getting into clothes for our MWF swimming gig. I promised him skiing as well, and was putting on the three layers which zero-to-plus-ten-degrees requires when I decided to check the temps.

It was minus 10. Even here on the hill. That meant more like minus 25 down in the hollow. And it also meant, I didn’t want to go skiing. Skate skiing can work down to zero. But it’s really marginal after that. Herringboning uphill isn’t all that much fun, especially with a 50 pound kid carrier dragging behind.

So, a lot less "cross" dressing, that is, dressing for two very different activities on one body in one morning. We were out the door without even any food, since we’d be back in an hour and a half.

But when we got to the pool, the normal ended. Matteo didn’t wait for me to get in the water to clutch my neck, to make us a two-headed buoy bobbing around, cheek to cheek, singing, watching others play, clinging.

Instead, he chose the green noodle marched down the steps into the drink, threw his arms over the noodle (with butt-buoyancy already attached), and launched.

Of course his next move was to grab hold of the side of the pool. But that only lasted about five minutes. I challenged him to "swim" across the pool, "you can tell Mama you swam across ALL BY YOURSELF," and, with no further urging, he did just that.

I was beside myself with joy, relief and pride. Finally! (If you’ve been reading along in the past month, you understand...) My previous frustration instantly vanished. But that was minor in the face of Teo’s disarming grin. I think he didn’t know that he could do it.

He moves by hanging vertically in the water, arms on his noodle, with a ball in one hand and a bucket in the other, not kicking but "walking" with his feet. And between breathing a little harder, he keeps up a patter, "I tell Mama Teo is a BIG BOY. Mama be VERY PROUD. Teo BIG BOY, very BRAVE." It was fetching. Suddenly, we were having a lot of fun, too. Splashing, laughing, going in circles, chasing balls.

When we got back home, there was a message from Marin on the machine. She had an appointment with the gynecologist. She found out that "Pepita" has turned, she/he’s in birth position. Yaay!

The tenth day of Christmas. Ten lords a leaping, five for Matteo’s grin, and five for Pepita’s navigational kicking.

Christmas Comet / Advent Day 22

Advent? Yikes! Christmas is barreling down on us. I woke up this morning in terror, watching the tail of a comet whipping through the front door at mach 10. The explosion that awakened me was the actual comet, splintering our log house, a comet which no one ever saw, by the name of Christmas.

When I caught myself, I realized my brain was making lists. I still want to write a lot to people I love, and haven’t, I still haven’t figured out how to do the gifts that I have for people, I have to do a couple of days full time of work for the UU’s to get credentialed, and I have a sermon at the fellowship in two weeks, and a service this morning to read up on, and a Christmas Eve service we’re prepping this afternoon to read up on...

Waiting. Breathing.

Yesterday the weather was warm enough, like officially minus 8 but actually plus 8 up on the hill, so we took Matteo out skiing. He was all enthusiastic on the stiff, short boards he has, hand-me-down skis. We just strap his Steeger Mukluks in, hand him his beloved brand-new poles, and he’s off, shuffling, in high enthusiasm.

After two trips up the stadium hill, I swooped him up in his chariot, a module on skis which hangs on my hips by aluminum poles, now puffed out with a kid’s down sleeping bag for insulation. Matteo’s angles and chills sank into the spongy womb, we zipped him up, and closed the chassis. Ready for delivery. Marin took off home and I took off up.

We skied trails which took me down the hill in the 3:30 pm twilight. I was surprised and delighted that these weren’t lighted trails. The temperatures fell as I went down, and I could get no glide at all trying to skate ski ourselves out of the colder vale below. But even the trudge was fun. It has been two weeks since the weather was even zero-ish-balmy to do this.

The real gifts are not given, they are not earned, they are received. Life, health, attentiveness. The cold, the sweat, the shortest-day’s descent into darkness, little boy fast asleep in the chariot, head bobbing as I load him into his car seat later. How to learn to see real gifts, to frame life so that gifts can be seen, to open hearts to grace upon grace?

Last year when I couldn’t figure out what to give Marin, I fell back on the "twelve days of Christmas" strategy, which I think should be the norm for every family. The widely acclaimed "Christmas morning" strategy forces you to put everything under the tree, tear it all open, and be done with it. It requires a lot of front end loading, in secret, and the gifts need to be wrapped, that is, they must be physical things, toasters, books, electric ear-and-nose hair removers, stuff.

The "twelve days" strategy is different. It allows for rituals to continue, the daily sitting by the tree, the daily lighting of the candles, the daily singing holding hands, and the daily opening of the presents. And the presents can be gathered, created, and wrapped along the way, allowing almost two weeks of returning to the graced moment of giving and receiving. And the instead of "objects," 12 days allows for "subjects," experiences, promises, and such. Like promising to be the family movie-warrior, getting a family appropriate rental flick the third Friday of the month for the next 12 months, with a bottle of wine, a batch of popcorn, and a mid-movie backrub thrown in. Of course you have to remember it, put it on your calendar, but that beats standing in line at Walmart to buy a plastic and aluminum combo fondue set / deep fryer.

Now I’m showing my hand. This is a great strategy when you’re forty or sixty and you have everything. You cry: "Just what I needed!" Because I need to break into new experiences so I don’t get crotchety. I need to frame what experiences are already open to me so I don’t lose the gift, the gratitude, the grace. "How did you know I needed just that?"

For the hilariously creative tale of a religion-blended family trying to negotiate the best of Christmas without the prevailing religious framing, read "Irving the Snowchicken is Coming to Town." (write me if this doesn't open, I'll send it. It's worth it!)