Interior Life

I'll start here since it's the most important of my New Year projects and the most vague.

I've spent the last year learning about and trying to improve the practical aspects of my vocation. I call the year a complete success not because I am suddenly the world's best wife, mother, and homemaker but because I kept the theme of "vocation" as a consistent background for most of the year. This blog is one of the fruits of that theme as is a marginally more well-ordered home. I have a long way to go in terms of living up to my own homemaking ideals but I think it's depressing to keep at something in such a focused way so I'm moving on and I trust that, as in high school math, some of the lessons of the last year will start to click sometime this summer.

So--interior life. This last year was a mostly practical project: figuring out how to order and accomplish all the little tasks of my life. Great strides were made but now I see myself running up against the monotony of it all. I'm at home with two small children. Someone asked me this Christmas what I do besides take care of my kids. Fighting back snarkiness I replied, "I do a lot of laundry. I cook dinner. I pick up a lot of toys . . ." I also read a lot of picture books, do a lot of dishes, cook breakfast and lunch, and, well, I don't think I have any readers who aren't familiar with my job description so I'll stop there. It's a wonderful, beautiful vocation. I don't have any hangups about it. I don't wish I were working. I don't wish I could earn money from home. I don't wish I'd finished my master's degree. I don't wish I'd waited longer to get married. I have no regrets about the life I am living. In my moments of reason and consolation, when I can step back and look at the big picture I can think wonderful thoughts and look forward to a glorious future full of children, grandchildren, home education, housekeeping routines. The works. I love it. I have no problem with the big picture "this is worth it" stuff.

My trouble is in the moment. It's 5:30. Dinner just got started. Both kids are screaming. I'm having a blood sugar crash. The pile of dirty dishes are preventing me from washing the lettuce leaves. I just remembered that my co-op order was due last night and that Eric needed to eat by 5:45 this evening because of a meeting. That's where I fail. I yell at the kids, think mean thoughts about my husband and completely despair. It all just seems like one damn thing after another.

Earlier in the day I survey the wreckage of the moment and think, "I'll just see if any of my favorite bloggers have posted in the last fifteen minutes." I escape from the craziness instead of embracing it. A confessor said to me recently, "You are acting like a person at a cocktail party who, instead of focusing on the person she is with is constantly looking over her shoulder to see if anyone better has come into the room. Except you are doing it to God. He's here in the midst of it all and you are missing it." (Don't you all wish you had my confessor?)

He was right. In the moment to moment living of my vocation I don't have much of a well from which to draw when the frustration and stress and despair threaten to overwhelm me--and they threaten almost every day! I don't have much of an interior life.

This next year I want to work slowly on developing an interior life. A constant awareness of God's presence. An attitude of gratitude. An acceptance and offering up of suffering. An ongoing dialogue with the Lord because no one better is coming to our cocktail party.

I don't have the year mapped out in its entirety. That approach doesn't work for me. But I have thought through the first few steps.

First, I want to work on cultivating gratitude. My goal is to make seven Acts of Gratitude throughout the day. I don't have a formal, written Act for this purpose. I try to incline my heart towards God and thank him for something specific. I need to connect these Acts to different points in my day and right now I'm working towards: upon waking, before my first sip of coffee, after Margaret goes down for a nap, noon, at teatime, after Margaret falls asleep at night, and before I fall asleep at night. Right now I'm hitting about two of these each day but I'm hoping that as the habit develops in one spot it will help out the other spots. This is my main goal for January.

I also have a few books lined up. The first will be Robert Sokolowski's The God of Faith and Reason. Eric has been privileged to take every class offered by Sokolowski during his time here in Washington and I'm looking forward to sharing in his wisdom. Next I'll read Story of a Soul for the third or fourth time. I never fail to take something new from St. Therese. Eric tentatively suggested Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind but I haven't decided about that, yet. I've also taken Josemaria's The Way off our shelf and I'm experimenting with just leaving it out to pick up whenever I have a minute. We have all three of his collected thoughts in one volume--so that's about 3000 points for meditation. Eric has used this as spiritual reading, but I'd rather have the points season my day throughout the year. We'll see if I can stay faithful to actually picking up the book.

So there is the beginning of my spiritual project for the year. I don't know what success will look like. Ideally, I'll be a saint but, more practically, I will be more aware of each little thing in my day and try to more consciously do it all for the love of Jesus. But, really, if I'm still thinking about interior life ten months from now, I will count the year a success.

Fresh starts, goals, resolutions . . .

I have a hard time with the resolutions, fresh starts, and decluttering bonanzas that start on January 1. I still want to be in Christmas mode. Ist't it still Christmas? That's a funny question, actually. We had a good friend here this morning, a recent convert, who was asking us to explain Christmas. There is the Feast of the Nativity, of course, on December 25. Then every day until January 1 (the Feast of Mary, Mother of God) is a solemnity within the Octave of Christmas--so every day is Christmas, liturgically. But then from Mary, Mother of God to Epiphany we're still in the "Twelve Days" of Christmas and some cultures don't even celebrate Christmas until January 6th, anyway. Epiphany is further complicated by the American bishops transferring it to a Sunday so that we celebrate it anywhere from January 2-8. Confused, yet? And THEN it's still the Christmas season until the Baptism of the Lord which is the Sunday after Epiphany, except when we skip that feast because Epiphany is celebrated after January 6. This time of year is when all the liturgical junkies get their kicks.

I would really rather think about New Year's with the start of Ordinary Time. I feel like we're still waiting for Christmas around here. It was very lovely to see our families this year but we weren't able to do really any of the things that have come to signify Christmas for us. We're planning a small Epiphany celebration and thinking about prospects for long term traditions if we end up moving to Texas or something.

But 2008 arrived despite my grumblings about Christmas in our culture and I have given some thought to goals and resolutions and such. I hope to write at a bit more length on each of these very soon but here is my summary, just to get myself started.

Each year I take a word or phrase as a theme for the year to help organize my prayer, spiritual reading and journaling/blogging. Last year was "vocation" and I'm quite happy with the "results." This year my theme is "interior life." More later--probably more than you care to hear, but this blog is about me, after all.

In addition I've decided to identify some projects to work on myself and inflict on my family. I don't really want to call these goals or resolutions because I can't identify any measurable end result. These are things I want to work on, learn about, and try to improve. Warning: they sound shallow at first but I'll defend them later. Three projects: etiquette, personal style and appearance, beauty in the home.

Let the gifting begin . . .

The gifting has already begun, in fact. We try to wait until Christmas before giving anything ourselves, but a few have bestowed lovely offerings on us and our children already and I do think it polite to open a gift when the giver is present. My dad, who likes to play up the scrooge thing but is a very generous giver, doesn't believe in surprises and shipped us a couple of boxes from Amazon as well. Our kids get so overwhelmed by all the gift opening that I opened the Amazon packages early, removed an item or two that would be meaningful to unwrap and shelved the rest of the items for a rainy day. I even shelved my own gift in anticipation of our long car trip tomorrow.

Speaking of which, I really shouldn't be blogging this evening because we're leaving in the morning for a trip that will encompass twelve days, five abodes, and about thirty-five of our closest relatives and friends. All this visiting during this, our leanest year yet, stretched my gift-giving muscles a bit. I wish I could say that I took a handmade pledge and that I just love handcrafting gifts for people, but I really don't. I'm not crafty and I get frustrated very easily. But, I think I'll call this year a success in that department, anyway, and if the recipients are duly pleased, I may ramp up my efforts next year with some advanced planning.

My gourmet spice mixes were easy enough to mix once I got my bulk order in from the co-op. Robyn was here this week and managed to show even me how to make nice looking labels for the tops of the canning jars. She came well-armed with tools and supplies and I think the results are great. Even Eric was pleased. Each of nine family members will receive four mixes.

Other than those nine family members our gift list is pretty short but I did manage to get together a hefty box of cookies and fudge for a dear friend--a priest whose parishoners really should take better care of him.

Our immediate family has decided to have our own small celebration for Epiphany and exchange gifts then. This saves a good deal of time in wrapping things for Eric and Margaret tonight. I also don't feel as guilty about not even having a gift for Joseph, yet. And I'll have time to finish Margaret's doll.

This is the project that might really sell me on handcrafts. I more or less made up this pattern, the hair, and the stuffing material. I've never made a doll (or anything else) before, but I love how this has turned out. Here she sits, posing with the piece of fabric that will one day turn into a dress for her. The hair is not sewn down and Joseph is quite disturbed at the lack of face, but I think I'll have plenty of time to finish it between the end of our trip and Epiphany and I think the kids will benefit from having their gifts spread out a bit. It is really hard to make this lovable little thing, though, and not be able to bestow it immediately on my lovable little daughter.

I doubt that I'll blog before the New Year. A blessed Advent and Merry Christmas to you all!

I better have something to blog about today

because tomorrow the founder and one-time president of the Lyndon Institute branch of the Future Homemakers of America is coming to stay at my house for a few days. Just because she is bringing her son (nickname: "Havoc") is no excuse to shirk. I'm pretty sure Margaret can give him a run for his money. Joseph's favorite question these days (while laughing hysterically), "Mommy, is Margie wreaking havoc again?"

Better get to work.

Let the bragging begin . . .

I have doubts that anyone is really that interested in my closets, especially since I don't have a camera to illustrate the amazing transformation our apartment has undergone in the last two days. But I know from many years of living with myself that one of these days I will contemplate some afternoon project--writing a full-length novel, for example--and doubt my ability to be that productive. So this trumpeting of accomplishments is really for my own future memory-jogging.

Yesterday I reorganized all my kitchen cabinets and "found" an entire shelf. I filled this with all the canned goods from the "pantry" closet near the front door. Coincidentally, we also discovered that that kitchen cabinet was falling off the wall. Eric called our landlord who implied that maybe it was our fault that the cupboard was falling down because we were, um, storing food in it. He also suggested that maybe we could just consult with friends and fix it ourselves. Why are we renting, again? Eric did fix it himself, actually.

Today I completely emptied everything else from the front closet, found new spots for it all, cleaned that closet and refilled it with a double stroller, a guitar, a yoga mat, an ironing board, and a basket of winter accessories, all of which were cluttering our main living space. Then I went to the laundry closet, pulled everything out of it, pulled out the bookcase serving as shelving in there, cleaned out the closet, put the pantry shelves in the empty closet, refilled the closet (it holds more, now) and dragged the empty bookcase down to Joseph's room. I put the empty bookcase in an under-utilized corner and filled it with fiction books from the other rooms of the house. I used the new empty spots that formerly held works of fiction to shelve all the double-stacked books in the living room. Then I reorganized all of Joseph's toys.

Basically I found an entire closet and an entire bookshelf today and put them to excellent use. And I did all this between 2:00 and 6:00 and had a 14-month old on my back almost the entire time.

I have discovered an important thing about myself. Rest is not all that restorative for me. So often I finish some tiny project, like changing a diaper, and think, "Now I deserve a break!" I usually read a blog or write an e-mail. Sometimes I look at a book or magazine. But I never feel rested after my "break." My breaks do not refresh me; they do not renew my energy for the further tasks at hand. Work refreshes me. I conceived of this huge project just a couple of nights ago. Several minor problems that had been lurking on the periphery of my brain suddenly coalesced into a complete solution. Eric was skeptical and he had every right to be. Usually I approach projects like this one step at a time. But chipping away at closet reorganization one step at at time would have created so much sustained chaos that I would have gone crazy and given up and felt depressed. Instead I just worked. I never stopped moving this afternoon. I feel tired, to be sure, but I haven't felt this good about life in months.

I have some idea of trying to adapt this new insight to smaller things. After all, I only have so many closets. Sometimes I don't need a break, I just need an accomplishment. A mother's life is full of repetition and maintenance. There is joy to be found there, and much meat for reflection, but it can get wearying and sometimes I need a little shot in the arm of accomplishment. I'm going to try looking at my running to-do list from now on when I need a "break" because there is usually something there that can be finished in five minutes or less and that's what I really need most of the time.

Lest you think . .

That I went on retreat permanently. I am back. It was wonderful. The last night of my retreat I had a vision. A vision for a total apartment closet-reorganization project. This was the sort of project that promised so many dramatic improvements to our living situation that I had to act on it immediately. So I've been busy doing that and our camera is broken so I have no motivation to blog because I can't even show you the closet projects. I will take up bragging, I mean writing, again soon.

Mixed blessings . . .

I was on my way out this evening. Alone. My first evening out with no kids in 14 months. Margaret was asleep and Eric has built up a strong track record the last couple of weeks getting her back to sleep peacefully at that 10:00 waking. I was about five minutes from my destination when the cell phone rang. Margaret was awake and inconsolable. I came back home. Part of me, really, wanted to cry. I was headed to a fantastic book group with a great group of Catholic women and we were planning to discuss one of my absolute favorite books, Brideshead Revisited. At least the promise of the book group gave me a good excuse to read this for the third time. But the other part of me felt good coming back home and snuggling in with my traumatized daughter. I don't know quite why she is so very attached to me but she is. I'm her mother and she wants her mother and I really adore this little girl. I'm even starting to feel sad at how fast she's growing up. There won't be too many more snuggly nights in the grand scheme of things.

We've had quite a rough start to Advent. I haven't written in a few days because I couldn't figure out what and how to write. Sorry to be vague. Please pray for our family and our parish. In the meantime, I'm going on retreat!

Before I had kids I was very blessed to be able to make an annual retreat. I was able to go twice to a house of cloistered nuns in the city. It was completely wonderful and I really miss those sisters. The beauty of a two or three day individual retreat is the descent into silence. You arrive at this house of silence and its all very novel and enchanting. Maybe the whole first day is like this. Then the second day arrives and you are still alone and it is still silent (these particular sisters did pray in the chapel seven times a day and had Mass, but still). Sometime late in that second day you crash and I think I think I might have cried once or twice at that point. Then you get over it and embrace the silence and then the blessings start to flow. Then the retreat ends and you need to go back to the noisy world outside. But that occasional descent into silence is so valuable.

That sort of retreat is impossible for most parents. I certainly can't leave Margaret and I'm not sure I want to leave Joseph for three days. I make a Holy Hour every week but it's all too short. This year I felt like I really needed something approximating a retreat. Eric and I talked about it and I asked for ideas at 4Real and someone suggested to me a novena of Holy Hours.

A novena, for my non-Catholic readers, is nine days of prayer for a particular intention or to cultivate a particular devotion. The original novena was the nine days prayer of the Apostles between Ascension and Pentecost. You can find a novena for almost any saint, now, and traditionally, a novena is said for the nine days preceding the feast day of the saint you are honoring. Many families are saying a novena now to Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception (feast day this Saturday). I will be making my novena of holy hours for Our Lady of Guadalupe. Mary, under this title, has been very good to our family. Every time we have had a grave request we have said a 54 Day Novena (which is just six novenas in a row) to Our Lady of Guadalupe. We intended to start this 27 days before the feast for Eric's job hunt but, ironically, he was away at interviews and we forgot. In place of that we are praying the "novena" to St. Andrew until Christmas fifteen times a day. I will follow the custom of the other 4Real bloggers and put the prayer in my sidebar. It is quite beautiful and makes for a lovely Advent devotion even if you don't have a special petition on your heart.

Anyway, Our Lady of Guadalupe has given us a couple of children and a couple of good jobs so far, so I wanted to honor her in my retreat. The Madonna House near our parish is allowing me to use their chapel for one hour each evening starting tomorrow for an hour of silence and prayer. It is my hope that doing this nightly for nine nights will help me approach that descent into silence that I so miss. I don't have a particular plan for the time. I will take my journal, as usual, to help focus my prayer and I am really looking forward to it.

I wanted to do something for all the other 23 hours of my day to remind me that I am "on retreat." Fasting came to mind immediately but that isn't really a workable option. I would just be punishing my family. I need to eat about six times a day just to function (I am still providing almost all the nourishment for a certain hungry little girl). I've decided to do something much more difficult: fast from the computer. I still need to use my e-mail for a bit of household business, but no blogs, no forums. I think this sort of a fast will really promote the peaceful, reflective, family-centered atmosphere I'm trying to create this Advent.

So, remember me in your prayers these nine days. I certainly intend to offer some prayer time for my friends, those I know in person, and those who have been a source of encouragement to me in the online community.

A blessed Advent to you all!