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27Oct

Does Nike Carry Antihistamines?

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

Five weeks ago, my husband convinced me to start running with him. Something about extra energy, sense of wellbeing, long-term health benefits, chance to wear cute workout clothes, no more excuses now that the girls were in school, yada yada yada. He had me at “extra energy.” It was an incredibly sweet gesture on his part as it meant doing his marathon training early in the morning so he could spend half of his lunch break at the park jogging in slow motion alongside a wife who is allergic to exercise. I think I managed 300 meters the first day before I had to stop and concentrate very, very hard on not dying. (Dan kindly refrained from cracking up.)

In the five weeks since, here is what I have discovered:

  1. My body is deeply committed to opposing this silly running venture. If my right side isn’t stabbing me, my left side takes over. If my sides are playing nice, my knees ache. If my knees are on their best behavior, my head is pretty much guaranteed to start throbbing, and when it goes on coffee break, there’s always a big toe or an eardrum or a spleen willing to act up. See? Allergic.
  2. Likewise, my brain is refusing to compute any information that might make me feel positive about the whole experience.
  3. Like how I’m up from 300 meters to 4 ½ kilometers.
  4. Or how my breaks now consist of walking rather than lying on the ground gasping like a chain-smoking fish.
  5. Or how I don’t need that second coffee every day anymore.
  6. No, my brain keeps up a steady stream of complaints about how hard running is, how painful it is, how intensely unlikeable it is, how I feel like poo, how I feel like I’ve been dipped in lead, how I feel like the slug of the earth, how I feel like biggest failure in world history, how much I want to stop, how much I want to pluck out my sides and cast them from me, how much I want to collapse and sleep forever, and how much I hate everything that ever existed, most of all those athletic wear commercials featuring sexy runners smoothly and effortlessly conquering the pavement.
  7. Something about increased blood flow disables the filter between my brain and my mouth.
  8. My husband deserves to be sainted.
25Oct

In Your Face!

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 6 Comments

The Luna Park below our house resembles a wet dog, and perhaps that’s all the explanation needed about my state of motivation this morning.

We had one of those weekends that feels like seventeen in retrospect. My senses are still full of the happy clamor of house guests, the blur of wildflower lights on the girls’ favorite caterpillarcoaster, and the orchestrated clatter of fifty Perudo dice. We made new friends, including an amazing gal whose background parallels my own, and I wish we had more time together. At the same time, my batteries are so thoroughly drained that the indicator stopped blinking. As much as I don’t want to be a textbook anything, you can find an exact description of me in any psychology manual on the page about introverts. I need frequent breaks, quiet stretches of solitude, and Sunday afternoon naps in order to operate… and yesterday’s nap was trumped by a sick kiddo.

Does Murphy have a law about Monday mornings? Because I woke up this morning to rain, hormones, and an unpleasant substance tracked across the floor that was easily identified once I stepped in it, and I’m thinking Garfield was on to something. Here’s my current workup of a coping strategy: Step 1: Acknowledge that today is out to slay me and will most likely succeed. Step 2: Surrender. Step 3: Go back to bed. Step 4: Wait for someone to bring me a lasagna.

Or alternately, Step 1: Eat chocolate. Step 2: Blog. Step 3: Eat more chocolate. Step 4: Get done what I can get done today and count each accomplishment as a giant “In your face!” to Mondays everywhere.

Including mopping. Sigh.

22Oct

What Fictional Pigs Know About Grace

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 9 Comments

My two-year-old’s face has collapsed on itself and is beginning to leak. “I don’t wanna nap!” she wails for the fortieth time. “I don’t wanna nap! I don’t wanna nap! I dooooon’t waaaaannnnaaa naaaaaaaap!” I notice she hasn’t moved so much as a millimeter toward the sink where I am waiting to brush her teeth.

I sigh and adopt my most motherly tone. “I know you don’t want to nap, but that doesn’t change the fact that you need your teeth brushed. Now please come here.”

She shuffles two steps before howling anew. “I wanna stay up! I wanna stay up! I don’t wanna nap! I’ll be good! I waaaaannnna staaaay uuuup!”

My patience is beginning to look the worse for wear. Through my head marches a ticker-tape parade of all the tasks I need to finish before a meeting tonight, though their footsteps are drowned out by Sophie’s wails, sounding ever more like an untended car alarm. What I want to do is yell at her. Matching her pitch might not be the most mature option, but it would feel awfully satisfying. I should know; I’ve yelled plenty of times before.

What I feel like I should do is force her into compliance. I was taught that children should never get away with disobedience, and I don’t want to set a precedent for bad behavior that will insure her a future as a card-carrying degenerate. I’m worried that I’ve somehow encouraged her current meltdown by being too lax a parent.

I do neither of these things though. I take a deep breath, and the confetti-strewn chaos in my head quiets. A gentle presence shows the shoulds to the door, and I’m able to see my little girl with perspective again. I remember cuddling her in the hospital bed after she was born and free-falling in love. I remember how she bounded out of her classroom at school an hour ago and ran giggling with happiness straight into my arms. I remember her affection, her sparkle, her imagination… and how her world crashes down around her when she’s tired (a trait she inherited from her mother). I remember that she’s only two.

I know exactly what to do. I scoop up my daughter, plant a few kisses, and brush her teeth as her protests subside. Then we snuggle up on my bed to read a pre-nap story. Her choice? “Olivia”—a picture book about an impulsive little pig whose mother has always seemed like a pushover to me. When Olivia replicates a Pollock painting on the living room wall, Mother Pig merely puts her in time-out before drawing her a bath and giving her a delicious supper. I’ve wondered from time to time why the mother didn’t make her scrub the wall or feed her raw brussels sprouts or, at the very least, yell her vocal cords ragged making Olivia feel properly miserable about her mistake.

This time, though, I understand.

When we finish the story, Sophie’s tears have dried. I kiss the ticklish spot below her ear until she bubbles over with laughter, and I tuck her under her covers where she curls around her beloved stuffed dog and closes her eyes. I borrow a line from Olivia’s mother: “You know, you really wear me out. But I love you anyway.” And as I tiptoe out of her room preparing to panic over my unfinished tasks, the leftover grace tiptoes after me.

Napping off a fever

22Oct

Enamoranged

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 7 Comments

I love the spices of October, the layers in her wardrobe, her moonrises and fogbanks, her apple-cheeks and smoky curls. However, my favorite trait of October, the one that endlessly flirts with my imagination and wins me over year after year, is a color.

Orange!

How does October enamor you?

14Oct

Public Controversy Announcement

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 9 Comments

~~ This is a public service announcement. Your regularly scheduled Highland Fling dramatization will return shortly. ~~

I’m a little unsure where to start explaining myself… if I even need to explain myself at all. I’m taking a step that tends to invite controversy; plus, I once told myself I’d never do it. On the other hand, it’s so normal these days that you might not even notice, so I suppose this explaining is mostly for my own benefit. Confused yet?

I began blogging in 2002 when only a handful of my friends had even heard of the term and Blogger logo t-shirts were cool. I wrote through my junior year of college, and blogging can take a lot of credit for my decision to switch to an English degree. I thrived on the creative outlet and daily feedback. Around the time I got married, though, my online persona no longer felt comfortable hanging out in real world. Figuring out how to be a fiancée and then a newlywed while still in college was challenging enough without putting the process on show and tell, so I killed my blog in an alleyway one dark night.

When I officially re-joined the blogosphere four years later after a springtime of reading her and her and her and her, the territory was unfamiliar. It seemed that everyone had a blog; even toddlers I once babysat had Xanga accounts (remember those days?). Women from across the world were converging on Chicago to meet friends in person for the first time, learn how to generate income on their sites, and pick up swag from companies eager to advertise to this powerful new demographic. I saw ads on Dooce’s site and initially thought Good for her! Later, I saw Keri Smith’s purposefully ad-free blog and thought Oh… good for her! At the time (and considering my readership base of approximately one and a half), the ethical side of the debate was more relevant to me than the lucrative side, and I preferred an uncluttered design anyway.

Lately, though, we’ve found ourselves looking for creative ways to make ends meet, and I’ve had trouble justifying this blog to myself. We can’t eat it, we can’t wear it, and it takes time and resources that could be spent elsewhere more effectively. However, I love writing here and reading your words in return. Through this, I am connected to a community across the globe that I am no more willing to abandon than I am the friends I see face-to-face, and the inspiration I find here is invaluable. I’m simply not ready to give this up.

That’s why I’m scooting over to make room for some advertising. I understand that this may not sit well with everyone, but if it means that I can post more regularly, comment more regularly, and remain part of the collective wonderfulness of us… well, I’d take a little controversy over another dark alleyway any day.

1Oct

Injustice, Double-Scooped

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 13 Comments

Here’s my problem with grace.

Terrorists attack New York City, killing thousands of people, and a conservative public figure follows an illogical accusation of feminists, gays, and pagans by saying that the people who died probably deserved it.

Forest fires ravage parts of southern California, and a famous radio and television host tells its victims they had it coming for hating America.

Young men die overseas, and a Baptist pastor brings his extended family to their funerals with signs saying “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and “God Hates Cripple Soldiers.”

A hurricane takes a tremendous number of lives and livelihoods along the Gulf of Mexico, and the founder of a Christian organization blames the destruction on New Orleans’ wickedness.

An earthquake destroys much of the poorest country in the Americas, and a prominent televangelist tells them they brought it on themselves by making a pact with the devil.

A seven-year-old girl is beaten to death by her parents who are steadfastly following a parenting movement, and the author of that movement laughs in response.

A college student subjected to a cruel invasion of privacy ends his life, and it’s only a matter of time before someone issues the first official “good riddance” statement.

There are many, many Christians doing immeasurable good in the world, but it seems like the ones who get the most attention are the ones spewing prejudice, judgment, paranoia, and calls to violence. It makes me so furious I can’t see straight, their bitterness blurring my vision and reflected back at them. I don’t hear a trace of Jesus in what they say, but I’m afraid that their victims do, and the injustice eats me alive.

Enter my problem: The Jesus I know—the one who taught compassion and wonder and unfailing love, who healed heathens and hung out with society’s rejects, who befriended prostitutes, who famously wept at a funeral, whose words still inspire incredible acts of kindness—came to bring a double scoop of grace to people tied up in laws and traditions. He showed that all the religious regulations people tried to follow were tyrants and insatiable ones at that. He came, despite the murderous impulses of near-sighted men, to demonstrate the spacious love just beyond their line of vision.

Which means there is compassion for the Jerry Falwells and the Pat Robertsons of the world too. While the injustice of indiscriminate grace gnaws at me almost as much as Christian hate-rhetoric does, it’s also the main difference between the God they know and the God I am growing to know… and that one difference makes all the difference to me.

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