Time to nerd out

So the title of this blog is "Any Fruit Will Do."

A couple of years ago, I took an advanced grammar class in grad school. We basically had to spend the entire semester doing a research paper on a particular kind of grammar. Knowing that I'd be spending so much time with this project, I wanted to pick something I am interested in. Thus, I chose food. The grammar of food? Yes.

Recipes. I spent months studying the grammar of recipes from the 18th century up until Jamie Oliver. And it was awesome. The more I read recipes, the more I realized something fascinating: the grammar of recipes was distinctly feminine.

The recipes from the 18th century were short and skeletal. They were written by women who had little time and probably did not have those little recipe cards. The 18th century recipes were loose, in that they left room for the changing seasons and for the creativity of the cook. They were short enough to be carried along by a memory, and they assumed the reader had all of the knowledge she needed to complete the scarce recipe without too much detail. There were no measurements and, oftentimes, there were no exact ingredients. One of the recipes was for "Fruit Biscuits," and the first line was "Any fruit will do." It is a recipe for any season, a recipe that allows the cook to use her own creativity, to be resourceful, inventive, and economical... or not.

Modern day recipes are much different. They show great distance between the writer of the recipe and her audience. They are full of detail and exact measurements. They are to be written down (or printed) and come with all kinds of pictures, catering to their audience.

So that was my 25 page grammar research project in a nutshell. I could go on, but I think most of you probably (really) don't care. All that to say, that project is one of my most favorite papers I have ever created. I was inspired by the grammar of the 18th century recipe writers and the respect they had for food, the seasons, and each other. Papers like that inspired me to write and keep writing. Not all of it was fun, but I hope to continue to research that topic and to publish it in a journal one day. Nerd goal of my life.

Ok - so what do normal people talk about? Normal girl to normal girl? Summer and nail polish? I am ready for this rain to end and the warmth to begin!

How God Shows Grace: What You Don't Know About My Daughter

A few weeks after I got pregnant, I came outside into the cool morning air and looked down at my feet. Just in front of my toes was a tiny pink moth. It's a girl. Something inside of me knew. I'm sure every mother thinks that her baby is going to be special. 


I don't think the sadness, the pain, the self-inflicted drama, the bad choices, and the bad places that Preston and I were both in when we met can ever be adequately put into words. Let's just say that while he was on his way out of a very dark hole, and I was tumbling my way on in, we ran into each other - hard - and God made it stick.


On Thursday, May 26th, Preston and I got married in a little wooden court room downtown Lynchburg. The man who officiated our legal marriage was a sweet old man with a yellow tie. He seemed genuinely happy for us, and he loved our crazy hair. We cried and then ate some good food, happy to be together. 


A few days later we got an unexpected offer for a free honeymoon time in South Carolina. We got tan, rode bikes on the beach, watched an alligator not eat a bird, ate great seafood, and sung some really bad karaoke together. Also, I got pregnant (though I didn't know it yet).

A few days after we got back from South Carolina, I had a terrible fever that lasted all day and deep into the night. As I fell in and out of sleep, I had intense dreams about angels coming to my apartment with flaming swords and killing thousands of shadows. I dreamt they flew around Preston and I as we slept, and they literally slew the darkness around us. I woke up hyperventilating, my fever reaching 106,  and was rushed to the emergency room. I barely remember anything about that night except for my dream, the angels were there, and then I woke up to the face of a paramedic in the back of an ambulance. "You're going to be ok," he told me. Preston sat at the foot of my hospital bed and read an emergency room copy of the Bible. Later, when my fever hadn't broken, he crawled into the bed next to me and cried. We prayed. My fever broke. The doctor came in and sent me home. They couldn't find anything wrong.

A few weeks later, I believe it was June 21st, I woke up at 5 am and knew that I was pregnant. 3 pregnancy tests made it official. Preston and I were going to have a ... baby.


Emilia was with me at our ceremonial wedding on July 2nd. People who didn't know we were already married judged me. People who knew I was married judged me. People said mean things, sad things, and I was terrified. People said nice, beautiful things (people like my Dad, whose opinion really matters), and I was terrified. A life, inside of me? I knew that I couldn't do it. I knew that I didn't deserve it. I had walked so many steps toward God, and then ran thousands of steps away. To watch people I love so dearly suffer -- it only pushed me farther to the edge. How can God be good? He doesn't love me. I am angry. I am unloved. This was my worldview, and I was wrong. On July 2nd, though, everything began to change.

A cardinal flew by. I began to pray. Happy to be married, to cook for two, I prayed. Preston and I fought. I prayed. I watched my belly begin to swell, ever so slightly. I prayed. Mostly this praying consisted of me, on the floor, crying my eyes out. Sometimes I would say "God help me," "Lead me in the paths you have set for me," "I'm sorry," or "Jesus." We went to a good church. We prayed. We took communion several times. My stomach continued to grow. And then, one day, I understood. 26 years of God chipping away at the scales over my eyes and the cement walls around my heart, it broke through:

The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.


I once was angry; now I'm loved.


I had dipped my toes into the very edge of the idea of getting re-baptized (I had been at the age of 9). But I knew what that meant, so I didn't. Then, in November of 2011, Preston and I both signed up to do it. It was very un-glamorous. Since I was 7 months pregnant, I basically wore a full black body suit. I climbed clumsily into the tub. Emilia and I together in the baptism pool, I will never forget the feel of the water rushing over my face as they lifted me up. 


A few months later Emilia was supposed to come. She didn't. I told the doctors that I thought my water broke, but they sent me home. Three times. The day before she was delivered, I only felt her move once. I didn't know what to do. Afraid to be sent home again, I decided to wait until the next morning, when I knew I had a scheduled ultrasound.


Preston and I stared at the ultrasound screen, watching our baby's heart beating. "Her heart rate is a little low." The ultrasound technician murmured too slowly to herself. She pulled up the screen to check my amniotic fluid. There was none. Without a word, she lept out of the room to get my doctor.


He came in, calm, and told me to go to the emergency room. "You will have your baby today," he said. I was crying. "Should I go home and get my bag?" "No," he answered too quickly.


At the hospital I was changed into a shapeless green gown. My arms were pricked with needles and IVs of antibiotics. I was strapped down with monitors and given an amnio-infusion. They induced labor and my contractions began. A nurse stayed constantly by my side, watching colored lines on a screen: red, blue, and green. That was my baby. I couldn't read it. "Is she ok?" I asked the nurse, tears pooling in the corners of my eyes. "She bears watching." "Is she ok?" I asked the nurse. "She doesn't seem to like this." "Is she ok?" I asked the nurse. "She bears watching." This happened all night. 


My family members were pacing and praying. My grandpa, who can barely walk, who is quickly becoming a shadow of his former self, sat at a kitchen table and prayed. We thought of Bronson, and how his birth had started this same way. My brother, un-willing to let himself go unheard demanded that my mother began throwing things around the room and tearing wires off the wall until the doctor gave me a c-section. "Don't let them make that baby wait too long," he demanded. His love still makes my eyes burn with tears of gratitude. In the hallway, my mom demanded the nurse call the (very) overly busy doctor back into the room. 


"Yea..." my young female doctor said slowly, "we are going to start your section, ok? I don't like the look of her decels." My body, which had been shaking violently from the epidural, continued to vibrate and shiver. "Ok," I said. My mother came and pressed her body on top of mine, holding back tears, she asked me "Are you cold?" She was trying to get me to stop shivering. I remember other family members coming over to me, my sister, my brother in law, their faces peered down at me. I was leaving the room in my mind. I closed my eyes and began to pray. I knew that something was very wrong inside of my stomach. At that moment, I knew.


The doctor came in and noticed a huge pool of meconium. She began to order the NICU down to my operating room and gave scrubs to my husband. She called the anesthesiologist back. I closed my eyes again and began to pray. I know that all kinds of medicines were in my body, but no one -- ever again -- can tell me that God is not there and that He is not good.


As I prayed, I saw 4 angels around my hospital bed. I didn't see see them with my eyes, which were closed, but they were there. I perceived them in a way that I had when I lay in a feverish sweat upon first getting pregnant. God was there too, and He told me "Do not be afraid." At that moment, my body, which had been shaking for hours, went completely still. I took deep breaths through the oxygen mask. They wheeled me into the operating room. 


With my arms strapped down, outstretched on either side, they put the fetal monitor back on -- Emilia was now in official distress. The operation was supposed to last an hour. I heard my doctor tell her nurses they had 15 minutes. The screen went up and they began to cut. 


"Get my damn husband," I yelled. 


After a few minutes he came in, saw my stomach, and his face went pale. He knelt beside me and we continued to pray. As I felt them tug and pull and push inside of me, cutting me open and re-arranging my insides, I remembered that it was Lent. I could think of nothing better to give up for Lent than what I was doing -- laying there cut open, with my arms outstretched. Ironically, I began to thank God for the opportunity to be in that position. 


Somehow, at that moment, Emilia got stuck and they couldn't get her out. My doctor, being a young female, was upset. Her voice and the words she spoke to her nurses gave away too much. If they didn't get Emilia out within seconds, she would be lost.


Preston began weeping, and I think I did too. We only said "Jesus" over and over. I don't know how long it was, but eventually - we heard her cry. One strong little chirp and then the NICU started to suck the meconium out of her lungs. That one little peep was all we needed. Thank you God.


Preston says they brought Emilia over to me, so I could see her, but I don't remember a thing. He went with her as she was to be cleaned. They stitched me up, for what seems now like it was hours, and then wheeled me somewhere, behind some curtain, and "monitored" me. The woman who was to check my uterus by pressing on my minutes-fresh stitches did not know there was a kink in my morphine line. All I remember is crying out the word "unbearable." My arms were still outstretched. 


Hours later I was able to hold Emilia. Weeping over her perfectly fine, perfectly beautiful body with my husband at my side, my whole being was overwhelmed with Grace. I got everything I asked for when I signed up for that Baptism, and God got my abs for lent.


Emilia Kelen Lund left the hospital at 7 pounds even. Within one month, she put on 4 pounds, and she has caused us many sleepless nights, and even more smiles. We thank God for our baby girl, who still has so much to teach us.

A lost note to self from a lost place

[Healing] Even though I had lost everything, the next morning still came, and there were eggs. Salted eggs and coffee. And later that day there were beautiful people in the chairs next to me. [Quiet]

You will find your place when you sit still enough to see, when you sit so still the moon can’t find you, when you notice the sweetness of the sidewalk and the stupid cat, when you see the people around you so closely you hear their hearts breaking and the words that they are saying, when you pause to hold their hands, to wash their feet, and pass one minute at a time. 

You will find your place when you let go just long enough to let the place you’re in hold you. Let it cultivate your heart. Even if it’s just one small plant.

For John, Who Begs Me Not To Enquire Further; By Anne Sexton

Not that it was beautiful,
but that, in the end, there was
a certain sense of order there;
something worth learning
in that narrow diary of my mind,
in the commonplaces of the asylum
where the cracked mirror
or my own selfish death
outstared me.
And if I tried
to give you something else,
something outside of myself,
you would not know
that the worst of anyone
can be, finally,
an accident of hope.
I tapped my own head;
it was a glass, an inverted bowl.
It is a small thing
to rage in your own bowl.
At first it was private.
Then it was more than myself;
it was you, or your house
or your kitchen.
And if you turn away
because there is no lesson here
I will hold my awkward bowl,
with all its cracked stars shining
like a complicated lie,
and fasten a new skin around it
as if I were dressing an orange
or a strange sun.
Not that it was beautiful,
but that I found some order there.
There ought to be something special
for someone
in this kind of hope.
This is something I would never find
in a lovelier place, my dear,
although your fear is anyone's fear,
like an invisible veil between us all…
and sometimes in private,
my kitchen, your kitchen,
my face, your face. 

pain

"These are not the ways you would have chosen to become more than you were, but they worked."


-- B. Taylor

Special Needs: A Self-Concious Guest

The fall of 2010 would have been my ultimate un-doing, if I had not met my now- husband.  OK, that statement is a bit over-dramatic, but really, it was a bad time.

My apparently rapid descent unnerved some of my closest friends, and most of us were not speaking for one reason or another. I quit my job and moved back to Cleveland (home). I began applying to schools and filling my spare time with water aerobics classes. Like I said, it was a bad time (but who knew water aerobics was so efficient?! For real... my abs thank you, 64 year old water aerobics instructor).

Anyways, back to me, cold and lonely in Cleveland while my fiance was in Va, finishing his school year. One night, my mom asked me to help her at the place she volunteers. This place happens to be our church, Grace, and the volunteering involved watching special needs kids for 4 hours on a Saturday night. Or at least that's what I thought it would be. "Maybe if I go help out these kids, I will feel better about how horrible I am. Plus, they probably really do need my help."

So, I pulled my hair back, put on a big comfy sweatshirt, leggings, and some boots, and out into the Cleveland snow I went. Lisa (my mom), and I drove to the church. The car was quiet and the windshield wipers struggled to keep the sleet from blocking our view. I felt lonely. My heart tightened in my chest as I fought back tears. I thought about the past few months and all of the people I'd dissapointed. I hated me. I wanted to stop messing up. I was alone in my head with my narcissist thoughts. Yet for some reason, I couldn't figure out why, for the first time in my life, I couldn't read, work, exercise, or laugh this pain away. I was blind.

I'd always believed in God, but I wasn't acting like I did. Most of the time when I prayed, it felt insincere, or, at worst, hurried role-play. Now, for the first time in my spiritual life, when I prayed - there was complete silence. A shut door. God had enough of me, finally. With these thoughts, I stepped into the church.

That night I was assigned to a small girl with a gene-deficiency named Alayna. She was tiny for her age, and upon first glance, she looked like a normal, little, blonde-haired, blue-eyed little girl. She couldn't speak much, but when she did, she would find one thing to focus on and repeat that word or small phrase for an hour or so until she found a new focus. Upon meeting me, she was shy. After I spoke with her dad for a few minutes, she came out from behind his leg and pointed at the cardinal tattoo on my arm and squeaked: "Red bird." I smiled at her and she smiled back. I had a new friend.

That night we watched a magician, I helped her open a juice box, encouraged her to ask for the pink cupcake on her own, and introduced her to other little kids. We played kickball, and when it was our turn to kick, the ball went flying and she clung to the front of me like a little monkey with her legs wrapped around my waist and screamed shrilly as I ran the bases.

Later that night, we went downstairs for music time. The coordinator went around handing out simple instruments to all the kids. The music started and, at first, most of the kids were shy. Then, the zoo broke loose. First two of the older kids went up front. They were both chunky boys, around age 14 or 15, one black and one white. They held hands and jumped up and down. Soon they had to break their grasp of friendship, as the white boy, with his cheeks completely flushed to red, bent down and slapped the floor and then jumped to the ceiling, wailing with the music. Every time he bent to slap the floor, his neon blue jogging pants slid down and his belly popped out, but he didn't care. He just kept dancing and whooping "Praise the Lord." The taller, thinner, black boy walked around the front of the room just shaking his head back and forth, humming and repeating "That's right... that's right."

Alayna perched timidly on the edge of my knees. For about 30 minutes, she had been repeating the words over and over "my church, my church." I don't know what brought that phrase to her mind, but I just shook my head at her and said, "That's right, Alayna. Your church." I felt like I was saying something really true.

Finally, Alayna mustered the courage to get up, and she walked to the stage, through the chaos, and stood perfectly still with her hand to her mouth, wide eyes sloped up at the guitar player.

Alone, I was left to inspect the rest of the crowd. I hadn't been singing, and I still wasn't, but I smiled. I looked down to the floor and saw a little boy with blonde hair and big, broken and taped glasses sitting at my feet. His left arm hung limp and heavy to the ground like a dead weight. For a moment, he seemed perplexed about how to join the fun. His eyes scanned the floor. I wanted to hand him an instrument, but I couldn't see anything that looked like he'd be able to play. "Oh no, I thought. How do I help this kid?" But before I could feel bad for one more second, he figured it out on his own. The little boy put his fingers to his lips and made a loud buzzing noise, slapping his lips up and down with his own little hand. Spit went flying, his cheeks got red, and he buzzed away, praising God.

I blinked back tears and watched in wonder. "And I thought that I was coming here to help them...." my mind hummed.

In that moment, I think I began to see a bit more clearly.

Preston always tells me that suffering isn't a bad thing.
That night I watched disabled and autistic children praising God of their own accord. These are kids who we see to be suffering. But what I saw that night was not suffering, it was a room full of children completely unaware of themselves, eyes open to the beauty before them. What a blessing.

I love you Bronny!

Son of a ... : Thoughts on Becoming a Mother

I woke up at 5 a.m. in the cold dark. My husband of less than a month lay next to me. I shook him until he (kind of) woke up. "I think I'm pregnant." I whispered in fear. Preston didn't open his eyes. "Go back to bed" is all he had to say. Clearly the news didn't send 35, 567, 896 thoughts racing through his brain like it did mine. "Crap."

The next day I drove to Walgreens and bought a 5 pack pregnancy test. I came home and took 3, resolving to take the other 2 the following day, just in case. I peed. A minute or so later I realized that my life would be very different from then on.

I slowly walked out to the living room in my underwear, as I was too stunned to pull up my pants, I guess. Preston didn't even look up from Youtube. He had no idea what was coming. My hand was shaking and I was nervous to say anything out loud. I set the 3 positive pregnancy tests in front of him on the table. He looked up. He smiled. I fell on the ground, dramatically, and started crying. "I don't want to get fat!" I wailed. It was a shallow moment.

The 3 weeks that followed held a mixed bag of emotions for me. I love life, but life inside of me? I thought of the mood swings, morning sickness, and time spent babysitting. I thought of my older sister's crying kids and how I never got work done at her house. I thought of how my little sister's words, prophesying that I would be a terrible mother. I cried. Alot. I told my mom. She cried. I made Preston tell my dad. They were both very happy. Maybe my mother, who had 3 c-sections, understood a bit more what might be going through my head.

It wasn't until nearly a month after I found out I was going to become a mother that I had my first true moment of acceptance and peace. I went with my husband to visit his grandma. She has a few dogs at her house and she needed help filling their gigantic communal dog bowl. While Preston was retrieving the small-house sized dog-food bag, I walked around the yard and watched a new born puppy running around through the grass. I couldn't tell which dog was his mother, but he looked like he needed assistance. It was a hot day in July and the Virginia sun was unforgiving. The puppy's nose was dry and he hid in the shadows. I could tell he needed help. *Maternal instinct go.*

I went over to the puppy and picked him up. I stood with him for a moment in the shade and felt his heart racing. I pulled him away for a minute and studied his face. His entire face was caked with dry, red Virginia clay and his mouth was dry. His eyes looked at me wide, full, dark, and dumb. I took him around to the side of the house. I found a small water spicket and turned it on until cold water gushed out into a little tin pan. I put the puppy down and, in-between his hurried sips of water, I started to wash his little chin. He drank too fast and choked on the water. I patted his back and coaxed him back to the water. While he drank, I wiped cool water all over his forehead in an attempt to cool his little body down. A few minutes later, hydrated, clean, and comfortable, the puppy looked up at me, and I think he smiled. Probably not, but maybe. I don't know why, but as I looked down at him, I felt something in my heart move. I mean I have always loved dogs, so it wasn't this newfound love of animals. It definitely wasn't a newfound love of puppies. It was just a small movement. Like a little piece of my heart moved and told my head that it was ok to accept the fact that I was going to be a mother. It was time. That was it.

Over the next few hours, the little puppy followed me everywhere I went. I helped him find the food, and I pulled trash from the yard out of his mouth. When Preston and I got ready to leave, he followed me to the car and sat in the grass, looking at me with his head to the side, puzzled at where I could be going. As our car reached the end of the long gravel driveway, I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw the puppy trotting slowly behind us, eagerly peering into our car. I looked over at Preston, who was watching me watch the puppy in the mirror. He smiled at me and put his hand over mine. I smiled back at him and felt glad to have his baby growing inside of me.