PB&J

Life's Little Instruction Book says to put the jelly on first. That way you don't get the peanut butter traces in the jelly (and the jelly just slips off the knife so it's clean for the peanut-buttering step). It makes perfect sense, but it feels so wrong.

Speaking of Chores

Erin has a great post today linking to an L.A. Times article about some Christians trying to live a simplified, hospitable lifestyle in a communal living arrangement (several families in a house, sharing chores, pooling finances, living without excess, opening the house to the needy). The article offers readers the opportunity to comment, and many have done so, mainly to scold, criticize, or express skepticism of the motives of the subjects of the article.

Personally, I was pretty troubled by the attitudes expressed in these comments. The readers seemed personally threatened, angry, and even defensive--just because some other people had made different lifestyle choices, as if this alternative lifestyle offered some implicit criticism of their own. The people in the article never stated that everyone should live as they did, nor even that they thought they should live this way their whole lives--only that they wanted to try a one-year experiment.

But the readers of the article--whew! They're vicious. One man wrote, "God . . . [is] probably wondering what it was you did with that beautiful thing he gave you called your BRAIN. Your poor children. I hope they don't grow up to be one more damaged soul in this wolrd [sic] someday because some stranger you let live in your house molested them." Somehow, it sounds like he's hoping for the opposite--to be proven right by the community's disastrous failure.

I'm not looking to move into a communal arrangement, but I can certainly see some real value in doing so. I lived with two other women when I was in seminary, and although our intentions were nowhere near as radical as those of the people in the article, we lived a simple life out of necessity (grad student poverty--I think I used to make about $650/month), enjoyed sharing in and contributing to the hospitable culture of the seminary folks, and had to negotiate many of the same questions about how to share space, chores, and values.

What strikes me as amusing--and irritating--is that many of the comments on the article insisted that such living was unrealistic and impractical, particularly if you have a family. Hello? Isn't marriage a much less realistic and practical endeavour? After all, it's not a yearlong or at-will commitment, and it's not to a whole group of folks who might as a whole be able to come up with solutions. The article pointed out repeatedly (as evidence of the community's problems) how many tears some of the women had shed over their frustrations at "who had scratched the coffee table" or whose turn it was to mop the floor or cook dinner. It's ridiculous--not those women's concerns, but rather the readers' insistence that such concerns are unique to this kind of communal living arrangement and unlike common family life.

Next to Godliness

Sam thinks we should get somebody to clean the house. I don't take this too personally--it's a commentary less on the cleanliness of our house than on the amount of time it takes to keep it more-or-less that way. His point is that then we'd have more time for completing renovation & moving-in projects, like organizing the stuff in the basement, getting curtains hemmed and hung, assembling furniture, etc. We both feel a crushing sense of urgency to get this stuff done so we can have even just a few weeks of settled time in the house with just the two of us.

The thing is, I like the process of cleaning. At least, I find it therapeutic, and I like the satisfaction of having cleaned. I just don't enjoy doing it when I'm exhausted after a long workday, or squeezing it in on a Saturday around grading/reading for class/church media stuff, which is too often the way it works out.

But more than that, I think my objection comes from something in me that says that "clean up after yourself" is one of the basic rules of life. It seems like one of those things that somehow keeps your sense of your own place in the world in check. Not that I think that having someone else clean is bad per se (I certainly wouldn't judge anybody else for doing so), but I feel a nineteenth-century suspicion that it could lead to bad things, like a desire for other people to just take care of one's mess and a lack of concern for the consequences of one's actions.

My mother, whose house is immaculate at all times, did it all herself--cleaned the bathrooms on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and vacummed and dusted various rooms so attentively that I didn't actually know dust collected until I went to college. I always suspected that that was where I inherited the unspoken assumption that housework=virtue. And it's true that when I sheepishly told her Sam wanted to get someone to clean, she eyed me suspiciously. But the words that came out of her mouth were: "Huh. Get him to put that in writing."

Peeps

Like many Americans, I prefer my Peeps slightly hardened. My parents gave me the lovely Christmas gift of some snowman Peeps and some Christmas tree Peeps, and I have been allowing my Peeps to "cure" since the holidays. No special treatment required--just a resting period in their regular packaging. As of this morning, they've reached the perfect density.

Thus, I was surprised to note that the expiration date on my Peeps is July of 2009! That is very optimistic, I think, even when allowing for the ultra-dessicating conditions of winter heating systems in my region of the country! It must be a project for these people.

Fasting and Slowing

I'm in a class at church where we're reading a book together and working through a devotional guide, with daily questions and reflections, etc. One of the practices that's encouraged is to try fasting--whether from food altogether for one day a week, or from one or two meals, or something like that. The idea in this, as in all fasting, is to dedicate the time to the nurture of the spirit and a focus on God, and perhaps to remind the body that it and its demands don't always rule.

Those who can't participate for whatever reason are invited to try fasting from something in particular rather than from all food; in the Bible, Daniel fasts by eating only vegetables for example, so it's based on that idea. Sometimes people give up caffeine, or sugar, or coffee, or things like that. The problem is that these days my diet is restricted enough that there's basically very little left--no caffeine (never a fan anyway), no cold lunchmeat, no soft cheeses, not too much sugar, limited seafood choices. I don't hold absolutely to those rules since I think they're a little paranoid, but a "fast" wouldn't make much of a difference.

So the other option on the table, so to speak, is to a non-food-related fast, where you give up something else: cigarettes, the Internet, television, etc. I tried the Internet last week but found it virtually impossible, not only because everyone's blogs are so diverting, but also because work requires me to look up a lot of information in a given day. And I haven't had time for much t.v. anyway lately, and I don't smoke.

I considered giving up driving to school in the mornings and walking instead. This was successful for three days, until I wiped out on the ice. It was my third fall in the past week--the other two little tumbles or trips were down a few stairs (not as bad as it sounds, but not my most graceful moment) and in the shower (also not as bad as it sounds--more just a clumsy scramble). No harm done, but my otherwise-indulgent husband made me promise to drive until the ice is gone from the sidewalks, gently pointing out that my perpetual clumsiness is compounded by my present ungainliness.

So, in the absence of any good ideas from you all, no fasting or even pseudo-fasting for me. I don't think I really believe in the giving up of other things as fasts exactly anyway . . . they're little sacrifices and/or disciplines, and possibly useful for their own reasons, but since fasting seems rather mysterious to me in how it works, I don't feel confident switching around the rules. I don't know--has anybody ever had a really good non-food-related fast?

The Pursuit of Happiness

Working at a college, Sam and I encounter the "products" of many different approaches to parenting. Some of the students we work with are so conscientious, thoughtful, interesting, talented, hardworking, original, fun, and earnest that your desire for life to treat them well could just about break your heart. Then there are a few that are spoiled, lazy, entitled, or disrespectful, and they break your heart in a different way. The parents of both kinds of students, inasmuch as I've dealt with them, seem equally convinced that they've done the best by their children that they could.

I think a big difference between the two kinds of students we see are those whose parents raise them to be "good" and those who raise them to be happy. Both sets of parents probably want their children to be both good and happy, but the difference seems to be which priority they set. Ironically, the students who are trying to be and do good seem much happier than the students who mainly want to be happy. That latter group of students often seems frustrated that the rest of the world is not willing to accommodate their expectations for their own happiness and ease.

So, I don't know. I want my baby to be happy--but I really want her to be good. For me, as I think about it, for her to be good doesn't mean being accommodating or goody-goody or self-righteous . . . I think it means having and following the internal desire to please God, nurturing the ability to listen to and courageously follow one's conscience. Maybe faith is believing that a certain kind of goodness, however inconvenient or difficult to live out, will bring authentic happiness.

And anyway, sometimes I think happiness is one of those things that you really only experience when you are focused on something else. It's like something you can see most clearly out of your peripheral vision--something that, when you turn to look at it, slips out of view, until you focus again on what's big or really present in your line of sight, and then, there it is again, the corona around all that you see.

Airports and Hospitals

When I was very little, I told my grandfather one day that I had figured out where babies came from. As he tells it, he warily allowed me to continue and was relieved when I announced, "They come from hospitals or airports, like me!"

Having been adopted, I spent the first four, morning-sick months of pregnancy miserably wondering, "Why does anyone do this?" I remember looking around at people at church one Sunday and thinking, "I can't believe someone went through this to bring every single one of these people into the world." To me, even with all the protracted uncertainties that can come from adoption, it seemed like a much, much preferable option: fill out some forms, chat with some social workers, and drive to the airport. My whole family still remembers the sunset over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge heading through New York on the beautiful September day my sister arrived at JFK. And she even came potty-trained.

Now that the first trimester is over, pregnancy is much more rewarding--it's really fun to feel the baby wiggling around, as she does a lot of the time now. It's gotten a little weird because she's now big enough and strong enough that when she moves, you can see it through my shirt (if you are looking for it--thankfully I don't think passersby could tell), which just brings home the whole Alien quality of the experience. But it's amazing to think that we've made this person, kind of out of nothing.

Still, one thing I'm even more convinced of is the absolute authenticity of the bonding process that comes through adoption--that it's equally as comprehensive and deep as that which comes through nurturing a baby inside your body. Maybe it's hard for people to imagine who haven't experienced it. I remember a classmate (even at my ultra-P.C. college!) saying that adoptive bonds simply couldn't be as strong as the bonds in his family because he could look at his family members and say, "This is where I get my hair," or "I get my nose from my mom."

What he didn't realize, I think, is that adoptees still feel that way--and anyway, it's kind of a silly argument because nobody would propose that people who don't look like their families don't bond with them as well. In my case, my sister and I have the same sense of humor. I get my recipe for pasta and my commitment to moderation from my mom; I get my respect for handiness around the house from my dad. I get my practicality and any sense of organization from my whole family. Given how scatterbrained I am, the discipline that I grew up with is probably the only thing that has given me any hope of surviving in this world.

I'm excited about meeting our baby because I'm intensely curious about what she'll look like--she'll be the only person I'm genetically related to (that I know), after all. Plus she'll be Amerasian, so it's harder to predict. As Sam points out, there aren't many Korean hillbillies out there (an advantage, we learned, when it comes to genetic disorders. We were at high risk for nothing). I feel certain that when she's born, I'll love her--I already do--in a way that I don't love anyone else. But my family has a snapshot of my mom, taken the moment they put me into her arms at the airport, and based on the euphoria of her expression, I can't imagine that she felt much differently.

Of course, her hair looked a lot better than I'm sure mine will (adjusting for the styles of the 70s), which just brings me back to my earlier point.

Pain Tolerance

Tonight at our first childbirth class, we had to squeeze, as tightly as possible, a rubber glove filled with ice for one minute. It's surprisingly painful--your hand starts to ache after a few seconds, then as you continue squeezing, the ache turns to an agony of "when will this be over." My husband lasted only 20 seconds. The baby is lucky she doesn't have to exit HIS body.

Pet-Love

Sometimes people say that they like having pets because their pets give them unconditional love. In the case of my cat, I must disagree. Holly Golightly's love is quite conditional, but that's the joy of it. She requires certain things--regular food and water, petting and affection, and the occasional bonus of a mouse toy or a brushing session--but those few conditions, when met, ensure her absolute loyalty and very gratifying devotion.

Just now, I came into the room to work, and she was already stretched out on the armrest of the sofa, dozing. But when I sat down at the computer, she moved over to sit next to me. She didn't want anything except to be near. She even started purring just because I was there. Where else is one's presence so purely enjoyed? Maybe this sense of being so deeply appreciated is even akin to what God likes when we worship him just by enjoying the feeling of being near him!

Holly's love is all the more to be valued because it comes from her own free will. She is dignified and self-possessed, no needy, co-dependent, slurpy dog with her tongue hanging out, begging for any table scrap, panting while she seeks gratification from some stranger's shin . . .

No, I know not all dogs are like that--I'm sure your dog is different. But it's a very special thing to be loved and chosen by a kitty.

Irresolution

JS asked me yesterday if I had made any resolutions. I had to think for a moment: "I guess not." (She, characteristically, has a whole list.) But actually, I had made one, just forgotten about it. I hadn't thought of it as New Year's Resolution, which might have helped me remember it on the key day, but I would like to be better about writing in my journal every day.

Naturally, I forgot to write on January 1, but I did get to it this morning. I don't know why I want to do this. It seems especially silly because I currently have a big box of old journals that I need to either store or toss, and I can't decide which to do. It would be too laborious to go through them to make individual decisions. I had an arrangement with my parents that if anything ever happened to me, my journals and all their mortifying secrets should be burned, unread. I don't worry about Sam reading them because 1) he prefers to live in the present and 2) he would largely find them unbearably tedious. But I wouldn't really want a child of mine to find them in the future either. Lots of times, my journals were places to work out confusion, so they're probably somewhat darker than my whole personality--during happy times, I've noticed that I write very little. So, have they served their purpose and should they go, or do they provide some record of something that I'll want? It's really only for me; I think posterity would have to have about the same opinion as Sam.