We live our lives in layers

We live our lives in layers.

I walked through the airport a few weeks ago all layered up.  Phone in hand, I was walking with a purpose, eyes open and unseeing.  I was going on a trip to take a breath.  To slow down.  I was getting away with plans to fall in love with life again.  I wanted to have an affair with the present.  I wanted it to sweep me off my feet and learn to lay in its embrace.

I meant to pack ever so simply--sundresses only.  But somehow I arrived at the airport with 3 oversized bags full of clothes for every occasion, a laptop, camera, phone and over a DOZEN books.  How embarrassing.  How does this happen?  How do my decisions get so blurry?  How do my intentions get so buried?  Here I was--taking a just me trip to Florida to see friends who always fill my cup.  I was on my way to see big water on beaches that would open me up.  But standing there on the sidewalk outside the airport struggling with my bags--I realized that in order to craft the kind of trip I truly wanted, I'd have to leave my cozy layers behind.  I'd have to meet the eyes of the people around me.  I had to choose right then to turn with curiousity when someone spoke my name.  I must shrug the hurry and hustle off my shoulders and let my bare skin taste everything around me.  Inspiration had to start here--now--or it never would.  The problem is, wherever I go--I take me along.  My comfy layers were sure to follow me to Florida if I wasn't careful.  I had to check the self protection right there if I wanted to come home any different.  Slowly I could feel the layers fall away.  I checked my bag and got a little lighter.  I put my phone down and almost floated away.  I stood in line--eyes wide open, face vulnerable and I dared to look and see the people next to me.

Just then I noticed the woman in line just ahead of me.  Her name was Pamela and she had very wrinkly elbows.  I wondered when my elbows would begin to wrinkle and then I wondered about how wisely I was spending the time I have in my skin. I wouldn't have seen her and wondered anything if I had fallen into my phone, like the rabbit hole it is.

I headed into meet the TSA and all the time resisted the urge to hurry because honestly--I had plenty of time.  I generally have plenty of time.  Hurry isn't always necessary.  But it's contagious and we pass it on to one another.   I had to keep myself from pushing to the front of the lines out of ugly habit. Why do line's encourage impatience?  So I let people go ahead and noted the surprise on their faces.  Eye contact was rare-all eyes were down on devices.  What are we all afraid of?  A few minutes of silence and still?  Maybe this is just the medicine we need.  I resisted the stubborn urge to take my phone out to steal a look--my fingers needed a hit.  "Hi, I'm Lexi and I'm an i-phone junky."  Instead of giving in to the phone on fire in my bag--when people talked to me--I talked back to them.  I smiled at the people waiting with me.  Without a busy baby in my arms the whole wide world looked brand new.  I missed my baby boy at home and borrowed his eyes for just a minute.  I bet this is how he sees every day--big and wild and inviting.

I noticed how much margin was mine.  I was wealthy in time and the feeling sent a shiver up my spine.

With my new perspective I was overwhelmed with how crazy/fun people were to look at.  My flowy green pants and turquoise jewelry took their place in the collage of clothes.  Most people seemed to be dressed for success and marathons.  There were tall girls waiting to board in sports gear layered under backpacks and tiny girls sporting poms and hair bows.  I saw so many immaculate men with important looking watches.  There was an unshaven man to my left with crazy hair, hidden in a hoodie.  I walked and looked and tried not to gape.  There were moms in heels.  Moms in crocs.  Moms in ponytails and suit jackets.  So many freckles.  All these lives I'll never know.  So much story.  Normally right this minute I'd be a million miles from here, lost in my phone-settling safely into social media--immune to the present, just scrolling through pictures and looking at interesting things far away when there were interesting things right there in front of me.

A little boy tugged on his mommas arm to tell her how long his device would stay charged.  He was proud to know the information down to the minute.  I felt sad for him because maybe he was meant to know other things in that intimate way.  Say the same smart sandy haired boy was watching for the very minute the apricot tree in his backyard bloomed.  What if he memorized how many days there was between bloom and leaf--what would a shift like this mean to the world?  Perhaps if his mind (and mine) had more time to wonder--instead of being dazzled by battery life or mindcraft--he would know what it means for spring when the buzzard flies overhead.  Maybe he would have a knack for finding morel mushrooms?  Instead he fills his little head with how many minutes he can look into a little black square and be entertained.  We all do.  And we've named it progress.

I saw a little brown boy with curly hair--looking as near to perfect as I've ever seen.  Our eyes met because I was staring.  He startled me with a cheery hello.  We were two of the few with our eyes up.  I smiled my hi and looked away.  My hope was restored in humanity.  One polite child and I felt like we'd all be okay.  My eyes flitted from person to person--taking it all in.  I wondered if people have any idea how beautiful they are.  They are breathtaking.  I had the urge to tell them.  Without my layers on, I could feel all the energy swirling and I could see their soul sparks.  Suddenly the whole room was a firecracker--full of human spark and flash.  Big bursts and small ones.  I wish I had the kind of time to tell each person what I saw in them that day.  I realized that this was really weird thought and yet--I kinda wished I knew what people saw when they looked at me.  I saw sadness in shoulders.  I saw hurry in feet.  I saw so many restless eyes and painted lips.  I saw quick smiles transform faces.  Smiles are a happy kind of epidemic that spreads to all that make eye contact.  I caught one and was infected.  I saw furrowed eyebrows and fluttering lashes.  When the lonely brown gentleman raised his eyes to meet mine I got a little jolt and thought, "Oh!  Well, there ya are!"  It's totally wild how no one looks the same--though we all seem to be trying to match the names of our purses and the roll of our jeans.

We live bundled up in layers for storms that never come at all.  There are few things on this earth more ridiculous than a snowsuit in summer.  But we layer up anyway--living our lives for just in cases.  We only slip our layers off every once in awhile--if we must.  Otherwise, we walk through airports and work spaces and coffee shops--never making contact.  Our phones and screens and TVs insulate us and slip over our eyes so we can't see.  Numb is blind--so we are insulated from pain and joy alike.  We are so busy.  busy.  busy.  TV, music, social media, text, emails-- these things swallow our days.  Whatever happened to tinkering and thinking? Netflix steals our hours and somehow makes us believe our moments are scarce and not our own.  So we rush around and order our groceries and subscribe to everything that promises faster.

As I lost my layers my eyes were wide in seeing.  My ears were perked in listening.  With my insulation gone, I could feel the spark or chill of all the souls I passed.  I felt the warmth coming off of some people--pulling me in and I felt the frosty air blow off some too.  I wondered which was me...

I resolved to take a chance and do my entire trip--6 days, layer free--vulnerable to whatever the present held for me.  6 days sounded like the perfect amount of time to erase the idea of interruption.  Joy, pain, action, empathy, or otherwise--I decided I would just take it as it came.  It would be a hard and holy work--shedding my self protection.  What if an unexpected storm blew my way?  Maybe I'd freeze....or maybe I'd just feel.

Story & Song

I'm currently in the trenches of parenting--making memories...and mistakes.  I have a sense that we are currently living the "good old days" with all three kids still at home.  Our unique age spread means we are changing diapers, doing homecoming hair and forgetting to bring the soccer snacks--sometimes all in one day.

Perspective is not easy to find when one is knee deep in the thick of it.

Earlier this week I heard an amazing story of an African tribe--still alive.  Strangely, in the Himba tribe, they count the birth date of the children, not from the day they are born or concieved but from the very day the mother decides to have the child.

So when a Himba woman decides to have a child, she goes off and sits under a tree by herself and listens until she can hear the song of the child who wants to come.

After she's heard the song of this child, she returns to the man who will be the child's father, and teaches him the song.

When they concieve the child, they sing the song of the child as a way of inviting the child to them.

When the mother becomes pregnant, she teaches that child's song to the midwies and the old women of the village so that when the child is born, the old women and the people gather around the baby and sing the song to welcome the child to the earth.

As the child grows, the other villagers are taught the child's song.  If the child falls or gets hurt, someone picks up the child and sings his song to him.  When the child does something wonderful, or goes through the rites of puberty--as a way of honoring them-- the people of the village sing his song to him.

In the Himba marriage ceremony, the bride and groom's songs are sung, together.

In the Himba tribe there is one other occasion when the child's song is is sung.  If someone in the Himba tribe commits a crime or does something at odds with the Himba social norms, the villagers call him or her into the center of the village and the community forms a circle around the tribesperson.  Then they sing their birth song to them.  The Himba views correction not as a punishment, but as love and remembrance of identity.  They believe when you remember your own song, you will have no desire or need to do anything that would hurt another. 

And finally--when the someone from the Himba tribe is lying on their bed, ready to die, all the villagers that know their song come and sing, for the last time, that person's song.   

This faraway story captured my heart.

I can't stop thinking about it.

Me and mine are ever so different from the Himba tribe but in some ways we are surprisingly the same.  As I thought more about my own tribe and my brand of motherhood, my heart was filled with hallulujah.

In the literal sense, each of my babies have a 'welcome to the world' song.  We've swaddled them in song since the first day of their lives.  (I made Eric pack our cd player and I was the new mother playing music in the hospital room).  Jaeda's song was Ella Fitzgerald's Blue Skies and Rhett's was Sweet Sweet Baby by Michelle Featherstone and from day one Sully's song has been Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley.  We've sung these songs over them to calm and comfort them.  From the very start, music has filled our home because, music changes everything.

Somewhere along the way our babies started singing back to us.  They each came with a specific song to sing to the world around them.  A song of laughter and fun and spirited giggles.  A song of humor and stubbornness and story.  As their momma, I learned their music and celebrated the good and saw the bad.  I memorized their strengths and took a long look at their weaknesses.

My Jaeda-girl's song is strong.  Opinionated.  She loves hard and loyaly and feels everything ever so intensely.  She is insightful and full of art and music and written words.  She wrestles with fear and other people's harsh judgements.  She is a creator and justice seeker.

My Wonderboy sings a joyful song.  He is a happy-ness bringer.  Wherever he goes he spills words and ideas and wonder.  He is grateful and sunny and curious.  He consumes knowledge and loves a challenge.  He is relentless but vulnerable to the sting of angry words.  He can be proud and over-honest.  He struggles when the spotlight isn't turned on him.

My Lionman is still teaching us his song.  But oh does he ROAR!  He is an ever-moving, ever-chasing, ever-learning little moonbeam.  I have still have so much to learn about each of them.  And yet everything they have shown me, I have memorized.

The right song changes everything.  Music is powerful.  The music they make is my favorite.

We are not the Himba tribe but none-the-less, I see pieces and parts of the Himba's song-centric parenting echoed in our lives.

Once when Jaeda was struggling hard with a cross-country move, we declared one Saturday Jaeda day.  We looked through pictures of her as a baby and a child and told stories about her and ate all her favoirtes.  We reminded her who she was.  Once she remembered, nothing looked as scary.  Not even a new school in a new state.

When our baby Sully arrived we noticed our Wonderboy went a little quiet.  When Wonderboy gets quiet something is deeply wrong.  We know this because we know him.  A Wonderboy day was in order.  A day where we looked at his baby pictures and watched his home videos and remembered him in a hundred tiny ways all day.

A particuarly Himba-like part of our parenting has always included introducing our kids to people who learned them.
People who love them.
People who know them.
People who call them back to themselves when they get lost.
People who call them up to more when they lose heart.
These people SEE them.
These people love us all boldly enough to speak into our lives and say, "You look like yourself, but you are acting like someone else."
This is our tribe.

We are ever adding to the tribe.  One's tribe never stops growing.  We have recently found lost parts of our tribe in our new little midwest town.  I cannot tell you how good it feels to sit across from someone who snuggles your baby, laughs at your wordy 10 year old and truly and completely SEES your teenager (and loves them still).  These newfound tribeswomen are people who are an important part of our everydays.  They say 'me too' when tears fall over teen age mistakes.  These Monday morning and Tuesday afternoon friends are the ones who take turns chasing the baby when I've grown tired--they are the same ones who celebrate my ten year old's triumphs.  These are our people.  We are learning their songs and we sing them ours. 

Story stirs me.

The Himba story shook me.  And made me want to be more.  Made me want to lean in and listen to the songs around me...my kids and everyone else's too.  This story gave me the gift of new sight.  Perspective.

In times of celebration and in times of turmoil I want to help my kids recall their song and themselves.

I want to practice remembering my own music when it's tempting to forget.

I want to be firmly planted in a tribe that loves each other like the Himba--constantly calling each other up to who we are born to be.

I want to take this story with me and bury it deep into my everyday.  I want to plant some Himba wisdom in my life and stand back and see how it grows.

shelter

I have mirrors hanging in my house and poetry written on my windows,

both for the same reason--

so I can see myself.

Yesterday on the largest window in my home, 

I scribbled the words,


"I felt it shelter to speak to you".  

--Emily Dickinson


I left Emily's words there, 

to better see 

me.


I mostly see the absence of myself in Emily's words on my window each time I walk past.  

Truth is: I am rarely the shelter and am often the tempest.

I am the storm instead of the safe place.

Often I bring honesty and opinion and forget to bring subtilty and tenderness.

I live my life with an umph and urgency that doesn't leave alot of space for others.

But I so want to be a shelter...


The whole wide world is wild and a bit rowdy.

Crazy things happen everyday.

Big bursts and small ones.

Lives are changed and lunches made.

Self control is lost and so are keys.

I want to be a shelter from it all.  

For my kids and my partner.

For my friends and neighbors.

For my sisters and my people  (and also anyone who needs it.)

But it's beyond me.


A shelter doesn't just magically come into existence.

Someone has to build it.

Someone strong.

I happen to know a builder.

He's been offering for awhile to take me and make me something new.

He wants to redeem all my pieces and parts and make me into something that can somehow be used...

He looks at me with some imagination.

He sees the unique parts that only belong to me...the beautiful ones I try to cling to.  

He sees all my lost and broken bits... and He thinks he can use those too.

He longs to make a shelter out of me--

a shelter for not only my children but also the cast-offs that no one wants to claim.

He wants to come in and take my crazy and make me cozy.

He wants to make me both a home for my own and those who've never known home.

Right now I look more like a junkyard of stray dreams and half-started things.  

I am all and sundry. 

Odds and ends.

I'm a wistful pile of rubble.

The Creator-God promises He can move in and make sense of it all.  


So much for making something of myself...

I'm quite relieved to find I'm not alone at this work.

I often get confused and think the point is to become more like me

when this whole life is about looking more like Him.  

Shelter.

Helper.

Home.

At the table

The new year lays before me like untrodden snow.

To take the first step is to mar the untouched thing.

Beginning feels holy and important.

I sidestep the starting and chase down distraction.

I begin gathering my home.

I spend my January reading other people's books instead of writing my own...

I cross the cold days off the calendar one by one and trade them for a clean house and folded laundry.

I rearrange furniture until I'm satisfied (I'm never satisfied) and then Feburary 1st arrives and shakes me awake.

2018's chapter one is already done.

It's past time to begin.

Better now than then never.

It's okay if the first few steps are shaky.

(Shaky steps take you where you need to go too.)

This year will be the year that I claim my spot at the table.  If there is no room I will pull up a chair.  I will show up nervous and awkward and without any answers.  Bringing only what I've got.

Me.

I have ideas.

I bring creativity.

I can tie words around just about any old thing.

I can't show up emptyhanded (and my guess is neither can you).

I always show up with enthusiasm and hardwork.

Empathy is my specialty and making something of nothing is my favorite recipe.

This is the year I will show up with what I have and share what I've been given: the gifts I was born into (my inheritance).

Why is it so hard to believe there is a place for (even) me at the table?

Why does my 35 year old voice shake when I join the conversation?

If all of life is a long table--I want to learn to make place cards for every single of us so not one person will live another day doubting whether or not they belong.

Place cards are my favorite.  They have the most delicate way of saying YOU ARE WANTED.

When I see my name written on a tiny bit of paper in front of a chair my heart thrills just a little and only then do I stop wondering if what I have to bring is essential AND JUST SIT DOWN.

If there is room for me and my mess at this table then there is room for you and yours.

You & me...We belong here.

I'm bringing me (and that's enough).