disorientation: same song, 438th verse

i am trying to recover from the month of may, which was filled to the brim with sickness (all 4 of us), out-of-town company, a new puppy, seth's preschool graduation, wyatt's seventh birthday, end-of-the-school year festivities, and all the usual stuff in between. 

i am also trying to transition into school's-out-summertime, and i feel a little panicky. seth was in preschool five mornings a week this past year, and wyatt was in school all day; that meant i had three glorious hours every weekday morning without someone saying my name over and over again, no constant fighting to referee, no games to invent for bored kids, no endless questions to answer. i had time to breathe, space to simply be, to pursue other pieces of who i am. that is all about to come to a screeching halt.

of course i love my boys. love them to distraction, actually, but i am--for good or ill-not one of those moms who, in the words of a friend, "love the dickens out of being a mom and smile all the ever-lovin time." i wish i were, but it is simply not the case. i love my solitude. i love silence. marrying those things with motherhood is one of the great challenges of my life these days.

as i stand on the verge of summer, i think of the way a theologian (walter brueggemann, i think) described the categories of the psalms: psalms of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. i am diving headlong into a psalm of disorientation, and i don't like it, not one bit. frankly, it feels like a kind of death. 

it is a dying that i have to do, a dying to self, and i am not one to go gently into that good night. but this is the way love works, right? this is one of the greatest lessons motherhood has to offer me: that ultimately i am not my own, that life is not a story about me, that i have to lay down my life, in times and in seasons, in any number of ways, for the sake of another.

it is a struggle, though, which is the understatement of the year. thankfully, i have a couple of other mom friends here who are bumbling along like me. we are going to rage against the dying light together, keep each other's kids and each other company, drink coffee together, and maybe throw back the occasional much-needed margarita.

i have been in similar places before, and the surprising grace of it all is that once i enter into what is, once i let myself sink into the present and all the chaos and beauty it holds, all is well. it really is okay.

now. if i can only remember that.

new addition

meet daisy, the newest member of the collier fam:

daisy is an 8 week old golden retriever/poodle mix, and she is adorable, as you can see. i am going to be the "calm assertive pack leader" that cesar milan, dog whisperer extraordinaire, encourages dog owners to be, despite the fact that i did refer to daisy as "devil dog" in the middle of the night. i didn't say it to her face, of course, just mumbled it as an aside. winn and i aren't getting as much sleep as one might hope. 

this is where motherhood comes in handy, though. if there is one thing i've gleaned from having children (and i do suspect there's more than one thing), but if there is just one thing, it's that this season won't last all that long in the great scheme of things. my children did eventually learn to sleep through the night. they did eventually learn to use the potty appropriately. and i can just repeat the mantra i used when they were toddlers and i was completely strung out: "it won't always be this way. it won't always be this way. it won't always be this way." this works best if you stare out into space with a glazed, catatonic look on your face, repeat the mantra for several minutes, then reward yourself for the good job you're doing with a diet coke and some form of chocolate.

the morning of a new day

have you heard josh garrels' music? if not, today is the day, my friend.

winn and our friend evan introduced me to him on ash wednesday of all days, and his song entitled "zion and babylon" became my soundtrack for lent. have a listen:

lent was a ruthless teacher for me this year, and i have been anticipating easter, hoping for a little light to break through my darkness. easter sunday came and went with no visible change, but over the course of this last week, there has been a shift, the slow dawning of a new day within and without. this brings me back to josh garrels.

his song "decision" has become my easter season soundtrack (i'm a one-song-at-a-time kind of girl). i hit replay over and over, and i turn the volume way up so that the bass is thumping (usually as I pick seth up from preschool and am in a sea of minivans, honda pilots, and suburbans, soccer moms everywhere, everywhere. i am one, too, so i mean no disrespect.) and i sing at the top of my lungs while--i am not ashamed to say--i get my groove on, baby. it's a celebration.

i love these lines especially:

i've been running through the night

towards the light, of the sun

now i'm free

bring a little love for me

i'm a dork and don't know how to post this particular song here, but if you download it from itunes, i think it's a dollar well spent.

repentance

i came across this poem earlier, tucked away in a notebook that holds ideas and words that are precious to me, and it spoke of what repentance might look like for me these days. 

i will not die an unlived life.

i will not live in fear

of falling or catching fire.

i choose to inhabit my days,

to allow my living to open me,

to make me less afraid,

more accessible,

to loosen my heart 

until it becomes a wing,

a torch, a promise.

i choose to risk my significance,

to live so that which came to me as seed

goes to the next as blossom,

and that which came to me as blossom

goes on as fruit.   

~ by dawna markova