June 29, 2004

I think I've spent most of my life walking back and forth on a rickety vine bridge between love and duty.

And I hate heights.

A week ago, I resigned from my responsibilities as a Presbyterian elder and told the new pastor that I'm going to step away from the church for the foreseeable future. This comes after months of soul-searching and days of working up the nerve to tell the key people at the church about my decision. I was the co-chair of the Nominating Committee (who must now find my replacement), and the co-chair of the Adult Education Commission, which was just ramping up for a huge church-wide campaign to revitalize the spiritual life of every member of the congregation (no pressure there). I was also an active part of the women's retreat committee – a retreat that, ironically, made me tired just thinking about it.

And it's not just that I didn't want to do all of those duties. In the end, I didn't want to do any of it. My theology does not match the church’s doctrine, and maybe that didn’t matter for a while, but it matters now. I can’t get behind all that work when I don’t agree with the reason for it. Presbyterian’s aren’t typically very evangelistic – which suits me fine. But the new pastor believes (and I can see why) that being a Christian means being evangelistic, going out and making disciples of everyone, etc. Well and fine in theory. In practice, I can’t do it. Okay, won’t do it. Choose not to do it.

Does that mean that I’m going to Hell? Is there a Hell? Or a Heaven?
Hmmm...that’s another blog entry all together.

Regardless, I don’t feel that I’m turning my back on God. I feel that I’m turning my face to my own spiritual and psychic needs, and the emotional and physical needs of my family.

The pastor and other people I've spoken to have taken the news graciously and are supportive. I don't expect anyone to show up at my door with a Bible and Holy Water any time soon. And every day, I take off another layer of guilt and let it float into the ether. I feel liberated and energized. It's amazing the toll stress will take on you.

Last night’s writer’s group meeting was good. After the obligatory catch-up period, we wrote. And wrote and wrote.

I also sent 3 poems out to a poetry contest yesterday. Back in the saddle again.

So I had to squeeze the weekend into one day because I worked Saturday. Squeezing the weekend into one day included a very long run, household chores, skipping church, digging more of on the ditch in the front yard, taking the kids on their bikes to the park, grocery shopping, and making sure that the Father of the house got to do pretty much whatever he wanted all day. What he wanted to do is further purging of the contents of the garage.

I'm not sure how D. has gone from being such an avid packrat to someone who throws away everything with abandon. It's almost like a little switch in some gene has been flipped and now he takes things apart and stuffs them in the trash can in a state of manic glee. (I'm anticipating a letter from Empire Waste Management about the weight of our trash can breaking their truck's mechanical arm even though D. assures me this won't happen.)

I am almost there - having fantasies about throwing away the minutes from church session meetings from 9 years ago, for example. But to date, I have only successfully gone through belongings and thrown them out when I'm alone in the house and can concentrate. Apparently, I need silence to properly bid goodbye to old crap.

And time away from work to write a blog entry - this one has taken hours, ten seconds at a time. All for now.

June 15, 2004

Last night, I gave the girls foot massages and painted their toenails while we listened to Welsh harp music with the lights low - although not too low, or I would have ended up painting their feet too. Then we read a short story for Sophie, and continued with Chapter 3 of A Wrinkle In Time for Rachael and me. It was all going very smoothly. They were almost tucked into bed. There was a knock on the door.

It was a friend picking up a book she'd loaned me two years ago. A great book, I'm sure - but in all this time, I'd only read about a paragraph of it, and I handed it back with the relief of someone finally paying a library fine in full.

I could have shown her out and still taken advantage of the peaceful momentum I had going with the whole bed-time thing. But instead, she and I got to talking -- who am I kidding? we always get to talking --- and an hour later, we had almost solved my problem with finding meaning and balance in my life, while meanwhile, the girls had become completely wound up by tickling one another and doing cartwheels and wall-climbing without the appropriate shoes or locking carabiners in the fully lit bedrooms. The only thing they were missing was a brass band.

None of us got to sleep before than 10:30pm. Of course, now my husband (who does, thank you dear, read my blog) knows how negligent I am. But since he (whom I adore) didn't get home until sometime after 2am, I doubt he'll be hunting around too hard looking for that first stone to throw.

Besides, I think the girls had a lot of fun, and I don't have too many footprints to clean off the walls.

I didn't write. I didn't walk on the treadmill. I didn't get a full night's sleep. I didn't figure out the itinerary for my overseas trip. But I almost solved that problem of finding meaning and balance in my life. Wait a minute...balance...children doing jumping jacks at 10pm...there's an irony here, somewhere.

June 14, 2004

It was a good weekend.

We went to Monterey a little later than originally planned, because S. was sick Friday, and it didn't sound like a good idea to spend hours in the car with a feverish "four-and-free-quarters" year old and her bucket. But we left early Saturday, and made good time, and she was well for the whole weekend.

We went to the Aquarium both Sat. and Sunday. We've been members for 11 years now, and still are not sick of it.

We ate at the restaurant at the hotel, and had room service in the morning, and the girls swam in the pool - all compliments of the gift certificates the company had given out as a bonus last year. Very very nice. I even managed a 7 mile run yesterday along the beach. It's not every day that I get to jog down a well-paved path just a few yards from seals and otters.

(Friday I signed up for a half-marathon that I'm far from being ready for. But the run in Monterey was a start.)

Today it's back to the grind but fortunately I really do feel pretty recharged and ready to take on some of it, anyway.

June 10, 2004

A good friend pointed out that I hadn't posted anything here lately. So here.

Two more days until R. gets out of school. I'm more excited about it than she is. I've been counting down daily. Last week, I said, "Just think - Monday's the last Monday!" and she gave me a look and said, "Oh really? Is the world ending? Are there no more Mondays at all?"

We have no one but ourselves to blame for her sarcasm.

Today I have the usual all-consuming day of work, a Kindergarten checkup (and shots) for S., and then Kindergarten orientation that starts half an hour before a Church Elders meeting. At the Elder's meeting, I need to pitch a major church-wide program that would be starting in the Fall. I'll have to explain where the money will come from and who will lead all the aspects of the program.

I don't know yet whether my faith will be strengthened by all of this - because I can't possibly do it alone, and for me to be any kind of effective committee chair practically takes a miracle - or whether I'll just decide that it would be a lot more convenient and less stressful to be agnostic and leave the church entirely. How heretical is that ?

In the meantime, I'm back to writing more poetry more often. I prefer to succeed or fail in more solitary pursuits. Running, writing. No one but myself to blame and no one but myself disappointed if it doesn't work. Or at least I like to think so.

Aha! Just had a thought I should have had long ago. Why I haven't really put a book of poems together yet : it would introduce a whole new level of responsibility and accountability that I haven't had to face before. How cowardly is that?

June 4, 2004

Tuesday night I met a friend at a lounge downtown to hear another friend of hers read poetry. It turns out that I'd seen her friend at church a couple of times. I live in that kind of town. There were seven poets reading, all of them students of Terry Ehret. Terry is Sonoma County's Poet Laureate, and a founding member of Sixteen Rivers Press, which is a poetry collective for women poets in the Bay Area. When I grow up, I want to be a part of Sixteen Rivers.

The poets were good - some of them, including the woman we went to see - were very good. I went home and started work on two new poems and went to sleep far too late for someone who's been battling a head cold for a week. But it felt great to start something new.

Wednesday I squeezed in ballet class for one daughter, open house at the other daughter's school, rehearsal for a gymnastics show for the first daughter, and Japanese class - all within 2 and a half hours while my husband lay at home with a fever until he dragged his darling self out of bed to get the kids so I could learn how to buy sake in the native tongue.

I don't exactly remember yesterday, which may be a good thing.

I'm glad it's Friday.

Michael McNeilley Poem

A poem by the late Michael McNeilley.


morning becomes you

since you have to
start somewhere
honor the morning

choose your ritual
exercise or a cigarette
coffee tea or milk

meditation or simply
time at the window
make it your own

no need to look ahead
empty into the moment
some day the day

will end abruptly you
can count on that
let the morning open

like a crocus through
snow all beginnings
are precious

know the first step
whatever the
direction

you can never be sure
you are headed
the right way

but one step may be
all you have left
make it light

mcn