Happy Shrove Tuesday

a lament, some laughter, and a little witchcraft

As we prepare for Lent tomorrow, I find myself caught between so many emotions, so many dreams.

I feel the need to lament and to laugh.

Because sometimes - it seems hard to hold everything at once.

Colossians 1:17 comes to mind, “He is before all things, and him all things hold together.” (NIV).

I remember seeing that in one of the stained glass windows at a tiny chapel at my university.

For weeks like this, I find myself praying, even still, years later

Jesus holds all things together. Hold me together.

Lament for Feeling Inadequate

Inadequate.

Of all the words haunting me - that’s the one that comes back, over and over and over and over again.

It comes nightly, like the chiming of a bedtime bell.

It comes and clings to me, tolling in my mind.

Inadequate.

I can’t do this.

This week - it’s the first word that comes to mind in the morning. Greeting me before the sun peeps in through my window.

I feel it in a thousand tiny, ineffable moments, fleeting and furious.

I feel it when Little Man takes his nightly bath, and I sit on the floor, trying to squat in a way that works with my growing bump. I feel it as he points at his body parts, loudly proclaiming the names of the ones that make him a little boy. I feel it as he demands if mama has these body parts. I feel it when he cries (and maybe I do a little too) when I say that girls don’t.

I feel it as we go to his room to get ready for night-night. I feel it when he, like all toddler boys, wants to wrestle and roughhouse to get out the nightly wiggles before bed. I feel it like a thunderbolt when his 26 lbs of energy collides at full velocity with my bump, knocking all the air out of my lungs. I feel it when he leaps onto my back, throwing his arms around my neck, his legs around my waist, desperate for mama to play t-rex. I feel it when a Braxton Hicks silences me mid story time, and I struggle to catch my breath to finish bedtime routine.

I feel it in the morning when he comes to my room, excited to start his day, but I’m weary with the tossing and turning of the night before, so I just have him crawl into bed with me and watch a tv show so I can rest for another twenty minutes before facing the morning routine.

I feel this inadequacy in my body, in my veins and bones.

I know other single mothers can do this, but I doubt that I can.

I just feel so inadequate, so ill-equipped.

He has needs that should be filled by a daddy, and I feel so inadequate in my attempts to fill those needs.

Little Man becomes more a little boy and less a baby everyday. I love to see his growth and change, I love who he is and who he is becoming.

But in the midst of this love - there is the ache of knowing that he needs, deserves, ought to have something that I can’t provide.

someone who doesn’t exist

To be a single mother is to long for someone who doesn’t exist.

It’s to have the sense when your son wants to wrestle before bed that someone else should be there, should be the one tickling that 26 lb fireball.

It’s to have the sense that you should be looking at the two of them, laughing over how some things never change about boys, heart overflowing.

It’s to have the sense that when your son is pointing at his male body parts and asking about them someone else should be there, guiding and explaining.

It’s to have the sense that you should see your son looking disappointed for a brief moment that mama doesn’t have those parts, but then becoming happy that he and daddy do.

It’s to have the sense when you wake up at 3am and the baby is dancing that someone should be there, even half-asleep and a tad grumpy, to share in your joy and exhaustion.

To be a single mother is to long for someone who doesn’t exist.

Longing for someone who never has existed. Someone who never will exist.

I am grateful, truly grateful for the good male role models Little Man has. I am grateful for how he loves Uncle J and Grandpa Pete. I am grateful for how he adores church, going up to various men and inviting them to play trucks.

I am grateful.

But somedays - it doesn’t feel like enough.

Because none of those men are there at bedtime.

None of those men share in the 3am wakeups.

None of those men are daddy.

And as I look in the mirror, seeing my soft and pregnant and distinctly feminine being looking back - I feel it again - inadequate.

things i try to remember

I try to have courage, to remember all the impossible things, all the things I never thought I could do that I have already done.

I try to have courage, to remember that many good men have grown up with single mothers, becoming emperors and priests, and monks and doctors, and cobblers and kings.

St. Augustine was raised by a single mother.

But that word comes again.

Inadequate.

I try to remember that God is our Heavenly Father, as we pray to him every night.

But heaven feels far away when your baby boy is asking about penises, and you’re trying desperately to answer in a way that won’t shame him or give him a complex, but also won’t lead him to start loudly asking about them in church.

(I feel like the day is coming when he says ‘penis’ in church. He hasn’t yet, but knowing our propensity for chaos, it will probably be Easter or better yet, Good Friday. Let me say this now - dear priests of our church, I’m sorry.)

Oh, single mothers of sons, how did you do it? Not the large navigating of faith and godliness - but how did you handle the quotidian acts of boyhood that beg for a masculine presence? Oh single mothers, who became single while a baby was still in the womb, how did you do it? Not the giving birth - but the small sorrows and joys of the wee hours of pregnancy that you endured alone? How did you survive the longing to place a warm, large, masculine hand on your belly, someone who would share the nightly wonder and worries?

How did you survive the feeling of inadequacy?

How did you survive the ache for someone who doesn’t exist?

How did you survive the talks about penises?

Laughter over the Inability to Name a Car

Back in September, Little Man and I were in a car accident. It totaled my beloved car, part of my grandparents’ estate that was passed down to us.

It was the granny cars of all granny cars. It was a Lincoln MKT. A little older but not often used.

And I adored it.

It was Little Man’s mobile nursery. We nursed in the front seat and the back seat, and even sitting on the back once on a road trip.

It had remote start and heated seats. It felt heavy, like a freight boat, so safe to drive even during the rain.

I have NEVER loved a car like I loved that car.

I named it Peggy Sue. Partly because this was a cute grandma nickname, and partly because Sarah Sue was the name of my grandfather’s dog. If that sounds strange - let me explain. My grandfather, a tough cowboy of a man, adored his wife’s frou-frou Yorkshire Terrier. He might have loved it more than his wife, which isn’t saying that much. He might have loved it more than me, which is saying a little more. He at least frequently called me by the dog’s name, which everyone in my family told me to take as a compliment.

Anyways- Peggy Sue. I have never been much of a car person, but this car was different. There have been exactly two cars I have loved like this.

Besides Peggy Sue - there was Mama’s Golden Chariot. This gold minivan belonged to my dearest college friend, and she used it to drive me and a whole load of freshman girls EVERYWHERE. It was her mom’s car, that she had been loaned to use while her family was stationed overseas.

There were so many adventures in that car.

With my propensity for chaos and storytelling, Mama’s Golden Chariot became a campus legend. Even people who didn’t know me or my friend knew of Mama’s Golden Chariot, the gold minivan that seemed to hold an unlimited supply of cute girls. Once, we were heading out of town for a college group retreat. We stuffed this car with 7 girls, and all their luggage for a two night stay in the middle of nowhere. We arrived at the church parking lot, intending to all pile out to pray, but the leaders (and the sophomore boys) were TERRIFIED that if the door opened we’d all come exploding out, biscuit-can-like. So the rest of the young adult group just circled the minivan to pray before we began the road trip.

Peggy Sue and Mama’s Golden Chariot.

The only two cars that have ever captured my heart.

Insurance totaled Peggy Sue and offered a very low payout. A dear family member had been wanting to upgrade her car, so she offered to sell it to me for a discount, so I could pocket the extra money to put away for when the baby came. It was a good financial move. It was an incredibly generous offer.

The car is reliable, and it will hold two car seats and our puppy. It is serviceable and secure. There is nothing in the world wrong with it.

But it’s not Peggy Sue.

I’ve been driving this car since mid-October, and I still haven’t named it, which is highly unusual for me. But I just can’t seem to find the right moniker.

You see - I feel a bit like Anne when Marilla presented her with her ‘new dresses’ and there wasn’t a puff sleeve in sight. They dresses were all good material but unfashionable. It is hard to love something merely because it is useful when you’re romantic like Anne or me.

But as I walked out of the grocery store yesterday and looked at that car, I felt a strange jolt of tenderness. She was there, she was safe, she was dependable.

There has been much upheaval in the last few months, but this precious car has caused very little of it. Even when I have accidently gotten the car on empty far away from a gas station, she has held out, making it on fumes to the station. I know she had that crack in her windshield, but she held fast in spite of that. It was cracked, and it did have to be replaced, but she still protected us, refusing to allow the crack to become a shatter.

She isn’t Peggy Sue. I don’t suppose I will ever love her like that.

But she is becoming dear in her own way.

I am accepting suggestions for names, but currently, I am thinking of christening her - Marilla.

a little witchcraft

I’m a little crunchy.

By a *little* I mean that I have friends that affectionately tell me that I would probably have been burned at the stake in days of yore. Between my penchant for rescuing stray animals, and my interest in all natural remedies - something would be bound to happen.

“You’d have been the crazy herbalist living in the woods that the monks hated and tried to throw in the pond or burn at the stake. And with your talent for causing chaos, you’d probably escape, making them think you were a witch all the more.”

Actual words by a close friend.

Another friend suggested that I would pose as a man so that I could be one of the monks that became a healer and manuscript illuminator, working devoutly in the abbey. They also conjectured that with my propensity for chaos the ruse would NOT last long and I’d eventually be stoned, burned, or dismembered.

So… it seems like God knew what he was doing when he placed me in this era. Other than that one time my brother set part of my hair on fire and my dad had to leap to put it out, there hasn’t been any near stake experiences.

Yet.

This week - my mom and stepdad were in a car accident. Two deer ran out across the road at night, forcing them into perilous and unavoidable danger. My stepdad is okay, only slightly bruised, but my mom got rather battered. Nothing that should cause lasting damage - but lots of bumps and bruises and broken blood vessels.

Me, being me, went straight from church to her house, toting all the CRUNCHY things and Amazon-ing more. Arnica, Epsom salts, ginger lotion, etc.

Likewise, Little Man had a cold this week. We treated it with Hyland’s Cold & Cough, Chestal Honey, Elderberry Syrup, and Belladonna. We also did some Epsom salt baths and essential oils. Did we use ANY conventional medicine? No, we did not.

Did it occur to me to try any? No, it did not.

And finally, an acquaintance reached out because she is pregnant and down with a cold and knew that I would have non-medicinal treatment options. I sent her a whole list (all ones recommended by my own midwives, of course) of various homeopathic remedies and essential oils and other crunchy treatments.

So yeah -

You have trouble with mastitis? You’d better believe I am sending you organic nipple balm and sunflower lecithin and a pep talk about how incredible you are and your need for good nutrition.

You have a cold? You’d better believe I am showing up with soup, words of encouragement, and if I know you well enough some Oscoillococcinum..

You have trouble sleeping? Let me put a tincture under your tongue, and brew you a cup of herbal tea, and wax poetic about using White Angelica to ward off bad dreams.

One of my goals?

Become even more crunchy.

But I’ve had to learn to give myself some grace in this season. In Dallas, recycling is easy! In rural Texas, it involves a great deal of hard work and transportation, so as much as I love it, I find myself not able to keep up with it very well while tending a toddler and growing a human being.

Would I love to turn my home in a sanctuary of forever-chemical free fabrics? To allow no artificial fragrances or processed food over the threshold?

Yes, I would.

Do I wish that each of Little Man’s toys was handcrafted by some small business and inspired by Montessori or Waldorf principles?

Yes, I would.

Instead - our house is like a parking lot. We have trucks that make every noise imaginable, and books scattered everywhere. My attempts to go more Montessori and use a Pikler triangle was laughable. Instead of climbing it, Little Man uses it as a ramp for his trucks.

laments and laughter

One of the things I am learning in this season is the profundity of grace. How I can lament and laugh in the same day, sometimes, moment by moment.

But how the only way I can do this is to receive. Receive the grace offered to me, receive the kindness shown to me, receive the chaos I’ve brought upon myself, receive the trials that I have encountered.

There is a prayer that I prayed almost everyday of Lent last year, thanks in no small part to the Hallow App.

It’s the line from the Surrender Novena.

“Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything.”

Oh, there are so many things that I don’t want to surrender.

It is hard to surrender to single motherhood, hard to surrender to the pain and the cross that it is.

It is hard to surrender the car I loved, hard to surrender all the ways that I thought my life would look.

It is even hard to surrender my own crunchy ideals at times to better accept the grace I’ve been offered.

It is hard to surrender.

a redbud bloom

But - there is a redbud tree blooming.

Just outside one of my kitchen windows, stands a small and mostly barren tree.

It’s been barren since we moved in last fall. It looks fragile and delicate.

This week, I looked out the window and saw the first few blush and scarlet blossoms. Soon, it will be covered in the blooms, a pinky fire burst of color.

It reminds me that - Jesus holds all things together. He will hold me together.

He will hold us together in suffering and sorrow, amid joy and laughter.

He is present in both lament and laughter.

He is present as we form new memories, find new dreams, like those delicate branches bringing forth life, and he is present as we let go of old dreams, releasing them like dandelions scattered in the wind.

Just like the sunlight coming in each morning, I find myself discovering new dreams, being filled with new hopes, some still too tender and new to write about, some that I’ll share in the coming weeks.

But he is present in each one.