Chess

"Look, I can take two of your pieces," Joe says. A leisure Sunday afternoon, Joe and I play chess. The big brown table a fortress beneath us, I lean, lean an elbow out to the middle.

"Huh," I say my bishop and rook now both kitty-corner to his pawn. "I guess your right," I say.

"Only gonna be able to move one of them," he says.

"Huh," I say. A little bit of knowledge and suddenly strategy arises from nothing. The awakening of the mind is such a grand affair. And in this case it cost me my bishop. Brilliant.

Gratitude:

6533. Resurrection Day came again with all the celebration and humility that it brings.

6534. Joe turned SIX. I relish his generous spirit.

6535. Coleslaw, the best coleslaw, the world over -- red cabbage, sweet onion, fists of basil, and lemon avocado mayo dressing. We eat it with pulled pork. Then the pulled pork runs out so we start eating it on nachos. Then the nachos run out so it's just chips and still transcendent.

6536. Fresh groceries, the kind that fill up a paper sack and they have to double bag it. Lemons and cabbage and basil and mustard and ginger ale and cheddar and oranges and a mechanical pencil and lead. Perfection.

6537. The children have another art lesson and continue to progress in their artwork.

6538. The older four kids join a Toastmasters club. The first meeting leaves them chattering with excitement.

6539. Two beautiful baby wraps come to live at our house.

6540. I make elderberry syrup and turmeric golden milk from scratch.

6541. Craig and I squeeze in a date. We arrive at the movie theatre to find the film started 30 minutes ago. We have a mid-afternoon lunch together instead.

6542. The days gradually grow warmer if still wet. Signs of spring appear. Tiny green cotyledons poke through the ground and begin the new cycle of gardening. The yearly liturgy of seasons lulls us with it's familiar face.

Eraser

"Hey, what is this?" I say. I pluck a white cube-ish eraser, pea-sized from a pile in Lucy's pencil box.

"Oh," Jack says, nose, for the moment, no longer in his math book.

"What?" I say. "What is it?"

"I think that's the eraser that Lucy put in the vice," he says.

"What?" I say.

"She thought it would just compact and then go back, but it broke into a million of pieces."

"Ahhhhh," I say. "Huh." And so it is, another mystery solved. I nod, then shake my head. "Makes sense," I say. Sense, that pile of eraser pieces, saved in a pencil box, that's usually how it finds me too. And good Lord, who knew it would crush like that?

Gratitude:

6526. The children recover from a bout of croup.

6527. Jack and Joe continue to learn endurance, preserving, and resilience through wrestling.

6528. Chicken soup with rice made from scratch.

6529. News of dear friends pregnant.

6530. I pass notes with a dear friend from decades past.

6531. The greenhouse plants continue to get stronger and bigger.

6532. We visit long over Sunday dinner and enjoy the voices of all the children.

Dinner Guests

"Every time we have people over it's like we clean, clean, clean and organize and everything just spills out into a huge mess," I say.

"Yeah," Jack says.

From the passenger seat, he nods, sunlight skittering off the suburban hood into our eyes, the both of us picturing a blooming spectacle of crumpled laundry, toys and miscellaneous paper, pencils, pennies, socks, and sand pulled from the closets and beneath the beds, a fragile castle of organization toppled out the doorway, down the hall and yawning into the living room.

"It's like we pulllllllll eeeeeeeverything out and it's this gigantic mess and then we bring it up, up, up to a higher level," I say.

"Yup," he says.

"And then we just do it again next time," I say.

"Until one day we are just dusting the furniture before people come," he says.

"Hah," I say, "YES," the mirth of that faraway moment, gut splitting hilarity spilled across the front seat. "Yes," I say, the new Jerusalem of entertaining. Once again the bond of work shared draws us closer.

Gratitude:

6498. Dear friends come and surround us with fellowship. Everyone settles into the gentle pace of serving food, mouthfuls of soup swallowed between pulling oceans of conversation, reclining and the leisure of many elbows around a small table. All the while, the tidiness of a home cared for disappears, shrunk down to the simple goodness of air.

6499. A dear friend turns 30. A surprise party, all the children help, prepare cards, decorate. Such nourishing work, our hands made stronger, our friendships deeper.

6500. Thrifting provides new sweaters with tiny holes we sew up and a set of small mason jars, glasses for the children.

6501. Jack flips pancakes for the whole crew Saturday morning so for once Craig can lean an elbow on the island and visit with the children over pancake breakfast.

6502. We stay long after church to play with friends and visit. The goodness of life passes between us.

6503. A simple exchange and we finally have the perfect teapot, the kind that can manage a tiny trickle of water into a pour-over coffee stand.

6504. The children continue to practice their art lessons.

6505. A dear weaver from the US shows me great kindness. I take note of how kindness gives birth to kindness, the momentum always to become how we've been treated, every act a pebble in a pond.

6506. Sunday unfolds as if it were many hours longer that the usual 24 with children slipping into bed early and the week taking flight on the quiet wings of rest.

When We Got There

"And when we got there," Jack says, "he was showing me around the house, even though I've already see it before."

He chomps oatmeal, late night fuel after an evening with friends. I lean on the kitchen island.

"Yeah?" I say.

"I think he was trying to get out of doing the cleaning chores," Jack says, "'cause, yeah."

"Been there, done that?" I say, a grin ticklish at the corner of my mouth.

"Yeah," he smiles, a nod wagging his head.

"Hah," I say.

"It's easiest to see your own problems in someone else," he says.

"Yep," I say. So true. I'm an expert on those ones.

Gratitude:

6491. A loom. A hand loom. Wow, what a gift. A dearest friend gifts us a beautiful loom already warped and ready for weaving. Jane spends hours coaxing weft into warp, humbled and filled with resplendent joy at the gift.

6492. Another dear friend passes on a treasure trove of homeschool supplies. She and family drop by one day unannounced, the house asunder with the spindrift of life and school and remodeling, a spectacle.  But everyone just grins and visits and embraces the humanity of it.

6493. A beautiful teapot, the whistling kind with a narrow spout and shiny silver belly sits on our range, queen of the pour over coffee, queen of my morning breakfast.

6494. Craig takes Jane, Lucy, Myra, and Betsy to a father/daughter dance. The boys and I leisure the evening away with another family attending the dance.

6495. Jack greets me Sunday morning, another corner of the house organized and beautified.

6496. I cuddle with Myra before bed this evening, the tiredness of the week melting into the couch.

6497. I picture school with the kids tomorrow and joy fills me. So many small disciplines and I get to share in the formation of them. Like the comforting rhythm of a morning run, I set my heart to their pulse.

Fajita Soup

"Did Dad tell you to buy that?" Joe says.

A four gallon kettle of soup bubbling on the stovetop, I chug-a-lug frozen corn straight from the package into the pot.

"No," I say. "I knew to buy it -- to put in the soup."

"'Cause you have a mind of your own," he says.

"Yup," I say, a chuckle held steady with the corn.

"You DO," he says again.

"Um hm," I pinch off the corn bag to save half for later, then muscle a too short spatula through the gruel, the corn slowly spiraling into the soup.

"But Jane's hair really DOES have a mind of IT'S own," Joe says.

"Hah," I say. "It DOES." I pause to gaze past the kettle's rim. We smile and nod. He rhymes ideas, one thing like another, like another, and another. And I make soup. Thus we build the foundation of so many days.

Gratitude:

6485. Jack and Lucy tidy the family room and organize the library before I'm up and out of bed Sunday morning.

6486. We study the habits of tidy people and begin to map out some grounding principles.

6487. Betsy turns THREE. The day unfolds like a gigantic promotion. Every meal, every gift, every hug/smile/kiss, that shiny red birthday plate, her grin spreads as wide as the horizon.

6487. We celebrate Craig's birthday complete with homemade pizza and chocolate bundt cake made by the children, then followed by documentary night. Feature film: Army Ants.

6488. Jack and Lucy read obsessively on gardens, and every tangental topic, preparation for our annual plant sale.

6489. Life takes on the quiet stride of late winter. These are the work days, the gentle repetition of days that spell out the mindset for the year. Habits gestate right beneath our noses and learning gathers into more learning and effortless thought until it is a cornerstone we're standing on instead of some far off goal.

6490. And thus, we're poised to leap, clothed in habits made stronger by practice.

Betsy

"Mom," Betsy says.

She nudges a metal stool next to mine and climbs up. I sip coffee. She pushes a saucer to the side. Crumbs capsize the edge. I purse my lips, smile subterraneous.

"Hi, Mom," she says.

"Hi." We share elbow room. I read my Bible. She nibbles crumbs.

Then she's down, and I'm turning through my Bible.

"Mom," she says again, ascending the metal stool.

"Hmm," I say, trying to finish one more sentence. She's up, a gold package in hand, much tape used in wrapping.

"Mom, can you write on this?" she says.

"What do you want me to write?" I peel my eyes away.

"For BETSY," she says.

"Oh," I say. We stare at the package, bigger than an egg, smaller than a teapot. "Hmm," I say.

"It's mine," she says.

"Oh," I say. Conversations spelling out her soon birthday play fast forward through my mind. "Ohhhh," I say. "Hmm, I see."

Felicity blooms across her face. And I scrawl BETSY across the top of the gold package.

Gratitude:

6467. Fresh measuring cups.

6468. Spices and fancy Hawaiian salt.

6469. A visiting baby wrap made of silk and sparkles.

6470. Betsy sidles up to me at breakfast, pets my well worn sweater and fondles one of the many "pills" on it. "I like the bugs on this," she says.

6470. Craig organizes our closet and room.

6471. A teapot big enough to boil water for many.

6472. Puritan prayers, a book of them. I read them like manna from heaven. No words can describe their nourishment.

6473. The children continue to learn and grow together.

6474. We continue to organize our home.

6475. Sunday finds me stilled with peace.

Jack

"Yeah," Jack says, "they have bat dung in this one."

"Huh," I say. Me knitting on the couch, leg elevated, Jack attends to my every need, vein surgery finally complete. He pages through a garden magazine.

"It's apparently extremely fertile," he says.

"Like for fertilizer?" I say.

"Yeah," he says. He looks up from the wholesale supply catalogue, "It's extremely fertile." His face leaned out, the remnants of summer freckles still dabbled over the bridge of his nose, all long limbs and angled elbows, he's suddenly a flash of manhood.

"Huh," I say. He smooths a crinkled page, eyes combing the details. I nod, precision and facts a mantle he wears easily.

I soak it in. The straight back and clear eyes, the leisured reading. It's the tic-tic of moments waiting for my leg to heal, and it's the rare and rarer each day, slow moments, the ones you remember 50 years from now. I memorize his countenance and how things are easy between us. And then suddenly I've mentioned hot chocolate and he's loped downstairs to froth up my sixth or eighth cup in two days.

This. These are the days.

Grampa passed away this week. Grief. Such grief. Whole horizons of moments with him gathered up, the memories like these, now, that's what we have left. These best moments, I don't want to miss any of them.





Gratitude:

6446. Grampa. A man who live a good life and left a long legacy. A real class act.

6447. I have a fifth vein surgery. Craig pushes forward on the kitchen remodel so we have running water upstairs. And yet I see the best of memories unfold right in front of me despite the mess, irrespective of inconvenience, oblivious to background and expectation. There. The moment right in front of me. This is the gift of life that one day when the papers, and laundry, socks and hangers, miscellaneous yarn and shoes and child spindrift are all put away I might be full. Full and grateful. Everything else is just props.

Get Out Here

"Get out here, everyone. Children, everyone come out here," I say. There in my PJs I stand, wool sweater and stripy pants.

Seven thirty and the cogs of the house in motion, children patter down the hallway; two pad up from downstairs.

"Did you not see that my door was closed?" I say.

"Um," Lucy says. Blank stares, nod, almost-nod.

"Yeah?" Myra chirps.

"I had a very hard time falling asleep last night," I say. "Now I almost have a headache. I woke up at 6:30 and thought, Oh good, I can get a little bit more sleep, and I bet I'll be ok. But I couldn't fall asleep with all the noise."

"Oh," they say, "oh."

"Yup," I nod, my eyebrows practically pinned on the ceiling.

"I told the other kids to be quiet," Lucy says.

"And then you were SINGING right outside my door," I say.

"Oh," she says.

"Lucy did clean up the end of the hall," Jane offers. Lucy, a half-smile under furrowed brows, diminutive mock-ups of my staccato-ed brows, shrugs.

"I've been trying to do an extra chore in the mornings to help out," she says, half-shrug.

"Mmm," I say. "That IS nice, Lucy." An appreciative-but-no-thanks-necessary smile, she shrugs again. "Thanks," I say.

"Sure," she says.

Then it's lunch, we're gathered at the old black table.

"I think I need to start practicing piano for longer," Lucy says.

"Oh?" I say.

"Yeah, I have so many songs I'm working on I just don't feel like I can get to them all in half an hour."

"Huh," I say.

"I think I need like maybe 40 minutes," she says.

"That is a very good idea."

And so it is, the arms of time enfold these children and begin to turn from children to something more than a child but not yet adult. I see the teen years will be something altogether different than the expected teenage-ness, something more like the balancing of a scale than the pushing of a bird out of the nest.





Gratitude:

6414. Brisket. Warm, falling apart, crockpot brisket. Meat cascading into soft bread and falling into our mouths like manna. Brisket.

6415. Craig gets the new-old-fashioned farm sing set in place, our rapturous eyes blinking happiness.

6416. Shortbread cookies, the toasted almost black kind.

6417. Craig travels to a conference and back. The kids and I continue the daily routines, the school day blended to real life, and our symphony of life carries on as if our beloved tempos could carry the whole endeavor.

6418. Craig returns home safely and carries on the continuing saga of kitchen remodel as if it were the work he'd been born to do. Adoring eyes watch his every move.

6419. His beard grows long enough to be silky soft.

6420. A dear friend offers to send a lovely wrap for me to try.

6421. Another friend receives terrible news and then horrible news on top of that. The burden is Christlike paradox of both unbearable and weightless. I pray for her trials.

6422. Sad tragedy of a third friend leaves me breathless. I throw myself on the mercy of God. I long for the day when all wrongs are made right. And I feel so grateful for his presence with me now.

6423. I find playing piano more sweet than ever.

6424. Lucy discovers nourishment in music. She plays piano, and it's there. She sings, and it's there. She raises her hands in worship, tender affection of Christ, and it's there. Something sacred lingers, the kind of something that seems too delicate for direct gaze. I hold it in my peripheral and try not to look, all the while staring long and sharing in her nourishment.

6425. Craig buys me barbecue chips. Swoon.

6426. Joe and Betsy help me finish some old chocolate from last Christmas. Joe concludes it's the sickness-curing kind of chocolate.

6427. We settle again into the daily routines like the comfort of favorite clothes. We let the familiar creases pull us down the familiar paths, all the while taken by the loveliness of being together. Minus all the regular struggles, of course. That's still there. But it just seems smaller and smaller each day, it's importance fading like babyhood.

Petals

"Seems people are like, I just really want to change the world," Jane says. She leans an elbow on the back of our 1990's black pick-up truck.

"Yep," I nod. Fall leaves stir in the breeze. We linger, a morning run fresh in our breath.

"But if you reeeeally want to change the world," she says, "you have to be a servant. Seriously, a SERVANT."

"Yes," I say. I watch her talk with her hands, emphasis drawn between her palms.

"'Cause if you aren't serving, you might get glory for yourself, but you aren't even going to get ANY glory for God."

"Yep," I say, autumn astir, we breathe and parse out petals of discovery.


****

"I really like that they are frank," Jane says, our friends, frank people, unusual these days.

"Yeah?" I say. Bedtime, we visit at the end of the hallway. Jammie-clad, we speak in whispers then lapse into full voice as conversation turns and we forget that the little children might wake.

"It's like they aren't afraid of looking stupid," she says.

"I know," I say. "Seems like when people are afraid of looking stupid, everyone looks at them and are like, Oh, well, that DOES look kind of weird. But then someone else will do the same exact thing without even giving a care and everyone will just be like, Well I guess that's fine."

"YES," she says. "It seems like if you do things with a certain amount of confidence," she traces the air, "you can do the most outrageous thing and people are like, Oh, well, I'll take that into consideration."

"Yes," I say. "It's so crazy."

Conversation orbits, twists, interlaces pearls of events, the morning run or bedtime jammies. The events all hang on it's silken string, whole universes. Gravity undone, we don't clatter to the ground.

Gratitude:

6403. We attend a Bible conference with the kids.

6404. We continue to putter ahead on the kitchen remodel. Endurance, we remind ourselves, is not a trait easily won.

6405. Thrifted cashmere. I invent a pattern and make a dozen woolen pants from the thrifted sweaters.

6406. Libby invites the whole sister-in-law clan over for a Tuesday afternoon. Seventeen kids, three adults, everyone heaves a collective sigh of enjoyment.

6407. Jack joins Craig on a work related trip, the men off traveling together.

6408. Craig's dad brings us a roasted chicken.

6409. The kids join me visiting a dear friend. We commune with an afternoon of waffles and tea. She sends me home with homemade Indian food. Bliss. Manna, both the conversation and the food.

6410. We listen to a book on tape all week with the kids, all of us hurrying to finish our work so we can shore up and slip into the reverie of a good story together.

6411. Shoulder to shoulder we work to make good habits in the midst of so many household and cooking inconveniences. Though hand washing and drying dishes, I hear Lucy humming a hymn one night, and the next, a whole smattering of children chattering away as they care for dinner dishes in the basement utility sink.

6412. Craig grows a beard.

6413. I work to find the good things right where I am at. Like low hanging fruit, they are right there in front of my face if only I will open my eyes to see them. I feel foolish for my angst and discontent, and in response, happy. Gratitude begets strength, endurance, fortitude -- happiness the invisible shadow trailing behind them all.

Thin

"After eating a bowl of oats, three cookies, and some apples, it feels good to eat some actual REAL food," Myra says.

She wolfs a mounding spoon of rice to her mouth. I stir a bowl of creamy tomato soup, electric burner clicking with effort, the makeshift bathroom/kitchen a card house around us.

"Yeah?" I say.

"Yeah. It's just so. good," she says another bite bulging in her cheek.

Rice. So. Good. Nourishment. I scoop a sticky mound into my bowl and cover it with tomato soup. We lean over a rustic cutting board and spoon rice and soup as if it were life itself.



****

"It's like it was actual worship," Lucy says.

There, in the front seat of the suburban we wind up an afternoon date. It's the traveling cafe, suburban front seat. I buy chocolate. We climb in the front, crank the heat, and watch rain splatter the windshield, conversation and chocolate between us.

"Yeah?" I say.

"Yeah," she says, "actual worship. 'Cause sometimes in children's church they are like, Come on sing LOUDER," she claps her hands and raises eyebrows in time with sing LOUDER. An overly sweet smile alit on her face.

"Huh," I say.

"That DOESN'T mean it's worship," she says.

"Yep." We nod, the crinkling of foil, the dull crack of chocolate fractured and pulled out of the wrapper.

"It's like the other night when we were at that worship time; there, it actually was worship."

"Huh," I say.

I picture us there, the whole row of us, back of the sanctuary, music unfurling. I sang with my eyes closed. I'd peeked to count my chicks, gathered Betsy to our row and slipped back into worship, with images of Jack raising his hands, earnest, serious, Joe at half-mast and the other in various stages of mimicry, solemn, careful imitation.

"You're right," I say. "That was actually worship. I love that you can see that." Again, we nod, small agreements like tokens of affection.

I replay this discovery, the dumbing down of spirituality makes it small and tiny, thin in the eyes of this nine-year-old, pretend. Then there we are at the back of the church just standing there singing, just the naked effort to sing to God and suddenly, she sees it. Worship. Naked adoration, unmistakable.

Gratitude:

6381. Lucy begins to understand worship.

6382. Jack bakes cornbread. Lucy invents a cranberry bread recipe. And the two of them bake enough ginger snaps to make a tower.

6383. Jane begins to gain traction with another level of her math.

6384. Myra takes off with reading carrying a book like a cowboy with a pistol all the time now.

6385. Joe and Betsy try to copy her achievement by "reading" the pictures in books.

6386. I catch coffee with a dear friend, and we spill our souls, puddles of connection, meaning, and encouragement. Peace and courage ensue.

6387. Even amidst a week of out of town engagements, the pressure and chaos of regular life, and bone-weary tiredness, Mom and I eek out an afternoon of errands and a continuing river of conversation and connection.

6388. We begin a new journal/devotional as a family.

6389. We make the first hot chocolate of the season, a whole pot of it on the little electric burner. Milk, chocolate, and sugar, just simple.

6390. I find the joy of a new friendship, visiting over motherhood, life, and baby wraps.

6390. The kids begin to navigate the waters of what it means to "leave someone out'' when kids are playing. Everyone senses my complete intolerance of this.

6391. I continue to knit an ochre sweater for George.

6392. He begins to favor certain toys and scream displeasure if they are taken away. I smile at his resolve. Training the will is so much easier than teaching a passive child to have initiative. Oh joy, no lack of initiative.

6393. Betsy and I fall into the arms of our big wooden bed and sleep away Sunday afternoon.

6394. I begin to gestate the idea that the goodness of my soul must put down roots and thrive when things are hard. Isn't that the true measure of strength, the moment of adversity?

6395. I set my mind to see adversity as the moment when things become as they really are. The gift of unveiling.

6396. Every single day our moments are mingled with conversation after conversation, human lives intertwined. All these children and it's a symphony of becoming. Every move affects someone else. Joy and adversity hold hands.