Kronos Quartet

Here's my first experiment with the new grooveshark widget. Kronos Quartet's Kronos Caravan. The mood is akin to Sketches of Spain and Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire. I hope you like it.

My Sweet Seraphim (It’s Time to Go)

Life has turned so quickly into death
and left its cobwebs dangling down.
All that's left of our baby
Is an empty space on the ultrasound.

My God, why do aches and pains
and hollow spaces in wombs exist?

Blood, like a desperate shop owner,
Continually reminds us of mortality,
Not-so-gently entreating its patrons,
"It's time to go. . .
5 minutes 'til close".

And that damn door
Is locked on the other side

All this striving,
Running into the wind
With deployed parachutes
Strapped to our backs.

We’ll probably never make it.
We're getting nowhere.

The dull soreness (much like a toothache)
Has become commonplace.

And forgetful minds
Retrace their steps
To the place where the living
And the dead all forget.

The place where the body
And soul linger on
In a dance just as smooth
As haze and sunlight at dawn.

We approach the edge
Then draw back our limbs.

And the earth stops spinning
For a moment, for a kiss.

So everyone must taste the lips of death
And live

When You Wake Up

I feel as if I'm slowly waking up from a horrible nightmare. The kind in which you can't move when something is chasing you. The kind in which you scream at the top of your lungs, yet no sound is heard. The kind that is real.

On September 5th I took a pregnancy test. It was positive. I rejoiced! My husband and I shared a secret moment of happiness and joy while our sister-in-law and niece and nephew played in our living room. We spent the day with my husband's family and passed secret "We're having a baby!" glances at one another throughout our time together. We were happy.

A couple of days later the spotting started. I immediately called my mother who told me to calm down. It was probably nothing. It would go away. It did go away. Worries gave way to more rejoicing. We told our daughter, "You are going to be a big sister!"

This is where dates and times begin to run together. I only remember the bleeding. The sinking feeling. Knowing that my baby left me. We had so many appointments that week. But I didn't need the radiologist to tell me. Or the midwife. Or the doctor. I knew. My baby was gone and all I felt was empty.

Today is the beginning of a long road of grief, anger, worry, sadness, joy and....who knows what else. I've felt numb for weeks. It's been difficult for me to even face the reality of this. But I need to start somewhere. Right now my emotions are too raw. Just the simple question, "How are you?" puts me in tears. The world is moving so quickly and all I want to do is sit still. People (with wonderful intentions) ask when we will be able to try again. All I want to say to them is "Please, don't rush me. I'm not ready".

Last week my husband and I sat on the couch, trying to grasp what happened. Asking the whys and not hearing the answers. Or being too afraid to hear the answers. We decided to name the baby. The name Seraphim popped into my head. As I pondered that thought my husband spoke, "Seraphim is a good Saint name".

Seraphim. It's perfect.

Summer Musings

Here are a couple snapshots from the summer that I started to write but never finished. This summer has been amazing. Lots of long walks, bike rides, playground visits, late nights and afternoon naps. It's also produced its fair share of sore muscles, sweat, blood and tears. This is how it looked:



Musing #1

Yesterday I filled my coffee mug too full and spilled all over the cupboards, counter top and the front of my shorts. Fortunately, it had cooled down a little before I poured it and did not soak all the way to my skin. I got lucky.

A family member of mine who shall remain nameless suffered a similarly embarrassing (but more amusing) moment. An abundance of day-old Panera bread rained on us like manna this past Sunday evening. We (my wife, family member and me) were enjoying the spoils of this manna and an interesting conversation about the Virgin Mary. This was all happening as we cleaned the house, sweeping and wiping down counter tops. Needless to say, my wife was not too thrilled about the crumbs produced by said flour-based edibles and had given my family member a large plate to catch any stray morsels. Even so, my family member (we’ll call him or her Cheechakos for the sake of this story), continued to spill tidbits of baked goodness on the kitchen floor. One large chunk of the sourdough loaf Cheechakos was enjoying tumbled from his or her hand to the edge of the stove and thudded quietly on the linoleum. Cheechakos set the plate with the larger portion of the loaf on top of the stove and proceeded to pick up the lesser (but still substantial) piece from the ground. As Cheechakos bent at the waist and slightly at the knees, his or her midriff grazed the edge of the plate and knocked the remainder of the loaf off of its resting spot on the cool surface of the front burner onto our poor protagonist’s back and then onto the floor.

We all mess up sometimes.



Musing #2



After a walk to the playground this week with my wife’s family, we ran into some friends from my brother-in-law’s church. We all gathered in a circle around my daughter in her stroller holding a small purple flower and an orange lily. We talked for a while, and then my daughter did something that really struck me. She started to hold her flowers out to each person individually so that they could smell the sweetness she had latched onto. She wasn’t shy about it at all. These little flowers she had crushed in her hands were drooping and wilted, but she held them out like they were the sweetest spices or perfume.

Is this not what we ought to do with our prayers and our lives unto God? Is this not how I ought to behave with my family, friends, co-workers, church members, and even enemies? An unabashed yet humble offering of myself, vulnerability. My life has been bruised and crushed. Some of these bruises are self-inflicted. I’m afraid of dying, but even more afraid of living.

In the words of a song I love, the singer asks with a downtrodden tone, “Grape on the vine, why not be crushed to make wine?” This calls to mind the Gospel reading where Christ says when a crowd has gathered around him and more are looking for him, “…unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

Why not admit our brokenness and with a humble, confessing heart offer it up with boldness? There is nothing so sad as loneliness, especially in a world so full of people, in a world that I think seems to be filled with the glory of God, albeit with a heavy dose of evil. So, why be an island in this vast, fertile prairie? Why give in to the temptation to withdraw from people, from God. We all need healthy doses of silence sometimes, but depression and solitude need not accompany them.

8 Things I Will Probably Never Be Able to Do

I WILL PROBABLY NEVER BE ABLE TO:

1) Read enough books to exhaust my mind or reach an end of all there might be to say on any subject or person, epecially God.

2) Speak more than two languages anywhere close to what could be called fluently.

3) Play any instrument in a way that could be deemed virtuousic.

4) Play a sport professionally.

5) Construct a habitable building by myself.

6) Do even routine car repairs completely on my own.

7) Balance a budget correctly.

8) Say "no" to peanut butter and chocolate.

The idea for making a list-blog is completely hijacked from one of my wife's previous posts. I will shamelessly admit that. (I really don't think originality is all it's cracked up to be.)

I start this strain of posts to remind myself of my limitations. As much as I want to ingrain in our daughter a sense of go-get-em, you-can-do-it, boldness and audacity, I also want her to have the humility to slow down, to ponder, and maybe even to pray; to know that life is vivacious, thrilling, spontaneous and exciting but also to know how near we all live to death, and how often we must all endure heartbreak, defeat and boredom.

I challenge the notion that my role as husband and father is primarily to meet all my family member's needs, to make sure that everyone is happy, well-fed, and decked out in the coolest clothes (with all the right, non-pink colors!).

I will probably accidentally sneeze on my wife's arm and hurt her in unspeakable ways. Zee, I will probably accidentally smack your head against the hook on the bathroom door at the Henry Doorly Zoo again, like I did yesterday.

Before I get all bent out of shape listing my failures, I'd like to note that this is one of the most important things I believe marriage and parenting are supposed to do to you: hold up a big, clear mirror to all those thoughts, words and behaviors that are the ugliest in you.

I intend to start keeping track of these things and blogging about them when it's appropriate. Who knows, maybe there's someone out there who is as imperfect as me and will be able to relate. Who knows?

Trucks and Dressing my Daughter in Blues and Browns

From the day we found out the gender of our daughter I feared the masses of pink that would be entering our home. Don't get me wrong, I love pink. Hot pink to be specific. However, I really wanted our daughter's wardrobe to consist of more than pale pink, dark pink, pepto pink, etc.

So after we found out the gender of our daughter one of my very first clothing purchases was a blue dress. Yes, blue. She looked adorable in it. I also bought her a brown blanket because we decided to paint her room blue. Shortly after she was born we were out and about and the Z was wearing her blue dress and was wrapped in her brown blanket. A woman walked up to us and said, "Oh! What an adorable little boy!". I quickly corrected her, "Actually, she's a girl." This woman promptly scolded us for dressing her in blue. "Well, you shouldn't dress her in blue if she's a girl.". I had two reactions to this. First off, lady, this is MY baby. I'll dress her in whatever I want! Secondly, why does blue automatically mean boy? Dressing my baby girl in blue and brown and other "manly" colors doesn't make her any less a girl. It doesn't change her physical anatomy. So why does it matter?

The past couple of days my daughter has been very interested in the construction work being done at the end of our block. There are several trucks, diggers, etc. working hard digging up cement and dumping it into other trucks. This process fascinates her. She woke up this morning excitedly saying, "Trucks! Trucks!" She was so eager to go watch the trucks work that she barely ate breakfast. This is a big deal. This girl loves her bananas. But her plate remained 3/4ths full of sliced banana while she repeatedly demanded to see the trucks. So off we went. We spent almost an hour watching the trucks work. We counted them over and over in English and Spanish. And when it was time to go she was in tears. I convinced her the trucks were taking a nap :)

Once she laid down for her nap, I began searching the internet for toy trucks. And I came across this http://www.dinosaursandrobots.com/2008/11/kustom-tonka-variations-pink-woodie.html
Seriously?! Are we so afraid that playing with a dump truck will make our girls think they are boys that we have to paint them pink?

I know that there are differences between boys and girls. Trust me, I know! But I do not want to limit my daughter to pink and purple, to tea cups and tiaras. I want her to play with whatever she wants to play with (safe toys of course!) and know that when she grows up she can be an engineer or a construction worker if she wants to be. Why does she need to be limited to "girl" clothes and toys? Especially now as she is becoming more and more independent and opinionated. I don't want say to her, "No sweetie, you can't play with that, those are boy's toys..."

So for now, I will continue to dress the Z in brown shirts and blue dresses. And I'll buy her a dump truck. But it will NOT be pink.

p.s. this post was partly inspired by recent truck watching but also inspired by this one http://pacingthepanicroom.blogspot.com/2009/07/slap-fighting-pink-posse.html
this is a great blog from a dad's point of view about marriage, family building and everything else.

Summer and Senses

One of the best summer memories I have is of a family get-together we had out on our farm in the Bohemian Alps. We made homemade ice cream, played kick-the-can and watched bugs swarm around the telephone pole lampposts that were on either side of the sloping path that lead from our house to the chicken coop and to the barn.

I can still hear the sounds of the locusts and giggling friends, feel the sweat on my forehead, taste the ice cream and smell the fresh, country air and the scent of freshly-mowed grass (maybe that's because I just mowed the lawn).

Our five senses help us to remember moments. They're like little Polaroid cameras that take small snapshots of our lives as, with all our being, we try to hold on to some sense of permanence (or at least stability).

Unfortunately, our senses record the bad stuff, too. The smell of a hospital room, the taste of liver and onions, the feel of bugs crawling on our skin, the ringing sound of firecrackers going off a couple feet away from our ears, and the sight of someone younger than us in a casket. . .

It is on the inside where these memories remain. In Hebrew, the word nephesh pretty much sums it up. In English, the closest word would be being. There's something in the very fiber of who we are that is changed by what we experience. There are scars left on our nepheshes (not a word, tecnically) that time will not heal.

When and if I pray each morning, I take a moment to examine my senses and to consider that I am in the presence of God. This seems easy on the surface. Most meditation focuses on breathing or chanting to push all thoughts aside. Prayer leads me to see myself as I am, to be quiet, and to remember God.

For Orthodox Christians, the prayer that is uttered most frequently during Lent contains the phrase "grant me to know my own sins and not to judge my brethren". Hard as it is to acknowledge all the memories I have and how they've shaped my being, it is doubly hard to know how I have hurt others and myself. It is triply hard to know those things and not to judge others based on some standard I have for my own life.

Last night, at about 2:30 a.m., our neighbor from across the street decided to set off a firecracker that shook our house and most of the houses on our block. Within seconds, I was out of bed, pulling shorts and a shirt on and heading out the front door to have a little talk with this guy. I had no idea what I was going to say.

To cut the story short, I received no apology, not even an admission of guilt from my inconsiderate neighbor, and he and his buddies carried on a little less noisily, for all I know, the rest of the night. As I headed back inside to go back to bed, I thought of all the things I might have said. I thought of cursing this man up and down, of getting some sort of revenge, of mostly just giving him a good talking-to.

Each day I pray that God will help me to "love my neighbors and my enemies" as He has loved me. It's strange when our neighbors turn into potential enemies. It's even stranger to treat everyone as a brother, sister, father or mother regardless of what they do.

My sense of hearing will not quickly forget what happened last night, but I can choose to forgive my neighbor and ask for forgiveness from God for the anger I harbored toward him. I can choose to die to myself so that Christ can live in me. But I can only do this as I continue to pray and examine myself, all my senses, asking that God would "enlighten my mind and guard all my senses".

Now it's time for a summer Saturday afternoon nap. I forgot to mention that getting plenty of sleep refreshes the senses and makes forgiving just a little bit easier. Maybe I'll wear earplugs this time.