A hardening

As I sit at my desk, looking out at the snow through transluscent drapes, I wonder, what is going on with me? And the greater question, what has taken place in my heart the past year. I know that now I am a harder, colder less contented version of myself. As I approach the New Year I feel I am entering in as an empty vessel; gutted, hungry and dazed.

Sometimes I am for certain the reality of child neglect and abuse has done it to me, is the cause of my hardness. Afterall, I’ve been shielded from it all these years. These boys, the boys I live and work with and call “my boys” are aflame with injustices done to them, hard scars on their hearts, keeping them from an outpouring of love, affection, belief in a cause, innocence, good will. Like a hot fire, I am so close to the flame, I feel I am being burned myself.

Belief in a cause, in a person, I once took such impulse for granted. But now I know- it’s hard to believe in anything when your mom tells you she’ll send you an ipod in the mail for Christmas, you wait well into February, and instead you get toilet paper in March.

Here, there is a sadness. It’s Christmas, and many will not be going home. They will be at a group home for Christmas, with their family teachers. They call and ask anyone– aunts, uncles, grandparents: “can I come for Christmas?” And there is silence on the other end of the line. After a while of asking, they get an answer, they hang up. They come to us from the phone, yes, they can go with grandpa, as long as they, the child, can fork out the gas money- grandpa aint no money bags.

We will be leaving to come home to California days before Christmas. In time to wrap beautiful packages for the two caring families we have there. And they will be waiting for us, waiting with open arms, while “my boys” silently open donated packages marked “boy” on the side in permanent marker.

On the move

I’m restless by nature.

Charles used to get offended, and rightfully so, when I insisted on folding clothes, making the bed, or scrubbing the toilet during our “talks.” When we were first dating and enjoying those long phone calls where you find a way to sorta say how you really feel and stretch thirty minutes worth of conversation over the course of two hours, I would place the phone between cheek and shoulder and sort pots and pans, clean the fridge, sweep up the bathroom floor. He would ask, listening to the strange noises on the other end, often times my heavy breathing, ”what are you DOING?” I tried once to sit on the couch, holding the phone up to my ear with my hand.  That worked. For five minutes, and then I was up trying to find my red shoes possibly lodged in the back of my closet. You can only imagine how our talks worked out when we got married and were living in a studio apartment with one couch. I took up simple pacing. It wasn’t good. I know how rude it is of me to expect someone be okay with the fact that when you start talking, I start moving away or do something distracting with my hands. But once I just broke down and told my sweet, sensitive husband, “I just can’t help it,” and kinda cried when I said it, he gave me a long hug and ever since we’ve been fine– Charles sits on the couch, talking away and calls out to me from whatever room I might be busying my hands in.

I think about this little understanding we’ve come to, and although it’s trite, it speaks for something. I think what I’ve always wanted is a partner who will meet me more than halfway, at certain necessary junctures, understanding and loving my weakness.

A covering

“I’ll have to sit with you while you read it,”

He tore open the letter. I could see by his face his mind was telling himself not to rush. You can’t rush letters like this.

I knew his dad wouldn’t be out for fourteen more years, on good behavior no less. But letters from jail, no matter what darkness they are tinged with, are always good omens. They are positive reminders that parents think about their children, even in locked up places far away; that a blood connection cannot forget and does not easily exhaust. Bad parents writing letters from jail. I watched a fifteen year old young man read a letter from his father whom he hasn’t heard from in years, a letter stamped by a penitentiary, a scar on the memory of one’s only link to family legacy. and the only emotion I could muster was guilt for my own hopeful fifteen year old circumstances: I was getting my drivers permit, going to movies, taking beach trips with my family. My birthday could not be forgotten, I was able to choose who I was and where I was going– all identities wrapped up in the clothes on my back, the brand of book bag I carried, the colleges I thought I might attend.

These developing lives, the young men in this home, face the odds. Often weak in my empathy, I marvel at their bravery to face each day, to wake up in the morning. Generations of poor choices, a forefather’s bad seed, rest heavy on their hearts. What does it feel like to have a bad daddy? Boys continue to brag about their fathers at dinner. Who has the strongest father, who has the fastest father. But these fathers are locked up, or on the streets chained to chemicals they can’t kick. A boy wants to see the good in his father because a boy was made to idolize the one man who represents his eternal hero, cosmically assigned caretaker. and I can see it at birthday time, because all we really want on our birthday is mom and dad, sister and brother. We want to be celebrated within a connection deeper than circumstance, deeper than choice even. We want to know that we were loved just for coming into this world, an absolute affirmation of ourselves.

So, for these heavy hearts, I give my time, my labor, my attetion and my rich, chocolatey birthday cakes, hoping the imitation will satiate and the feeling of family might carry over.

De forsaken

 I placed my burdens on the waters of Lake Michigan and then watch them sink, down, down, 

off my weary shoulders

and out of sight.

I am free. I am compact in his care.

What comes around

“That was a sad movie,” he said motioning to the screen, “it reminded me of my life.”

I cancelled everything tonight to write. I know I need to.

I’ve been speechless, due to change. I suppose

On a recent trip back to California I made light of my life at a residential education facility in the midwest: “I’m so jaded now,” I joked with a laugh.

And maybe I am jaded. But that is just a word and a word cannot describe this transformation.

I came home, I felt, an empty shell of a person. I’ve poured myself out, with determination it was. There are no regrets. But I am all out… I have not even the energy to describe what it is I do on a day-to-day basis. Oh? You say I’m a long-term babysitter? Okay then, that’s what I am. It’s exhausting to think of describing the depth of relationship, the extent of pain, the darkness of grief when a teenage boy tells you why he hoards food in his nightstand. The tears in my heart. My soul has never ached so for what’s been lost. Real childhoods, lost in a sea of neglect, anger, resentment, abuse.

I’ve come to a place where I no longer know how to pray. I know simple utterances: Please, God, please.

Humbled in my understanding, humbled in my little faith I lie flat in a grave of privilege and optimism. The words to say, they do not count. The good intentions, they do not feed. The ministry, only that of actions and silent prayer. We, Charles and I, are not here to save, do carry the staff and pave the way, but to burry ourselves, our good intentions and to fall at the mercy of God who might use our hands.

These private highs

I am a stranger in a new land. I live in the midwest suburbs and call them home. This place, this 1,000 acre bounty is where I live. I scarely have internalized that fact. I can barely come to terms with the terrible truth that the nearest coffee house is a 30 minute round trip.

Here, away from my family and friends, I have plenty of solitude. Oh how I took for granted the comfort and stability of being known and loved. In California I had it pretty kush- showing up at work, excited to see my friends who just so happened to be coworkers. Always had something to do on any given Saturday night– maybe a party, a night out with friends. Friends, dear friends. People I wasn’t constantly editing myself around, constantly wondering what I was sounding like… to whom I could just be and let slip and fall apart on occasion. They stood still and waited, they held me together, they chipped away at me softly, with love.

 Maybe the real process is me learning to just be around anyone,  friend or foe, stranger or kindred. I am. I will be. See me.

What a spiritual blessing it is to love and be loved. I’ve been transplated and now I am doing the hard of work of putting down roots. I am learning to love a new world of people. Trust, relationship, community is built slowly with each act, with each listen.

So I am building myself up to withstand a long winter of a little less social comfort. On my long runs along the river alone I am more aken to hear the voice of God, lathering my fragile heart, pouring on thick his purpose, his calling for me here. His voice is milk and honey; how I could get through each day without such affirmation, I don’t know. His voice stops my heart in the private highs of long runs and sunset walks to the lake.

Charles and I have turned a little more inward. Sheltering ourselves from the storm of change– which seems to be blowing all around us. In such uncharted territory it makes it easier to wake up and start a fresh day knowing that my husband will be working with me. The what-ifs I asked myself in anticipation are answered with, ”He will be there.” The days are long, filled with the ups and downs of unexplicable joy and ardent frustration. Without Charles, I’d simply be riding wave after wave of emtion, lost at sea. He is my anchor and voice of reason. When entering a room of strangers he lets me walk behind him. When dealing with an angry youth, he stands in my defense. His mere presence is my calm. He models care for boys who have never had fathers. “Thank you for making this dinner,” he says and each one of the boys follows with their own compliment. I blush. He puts a hand on my back. I am safe and sound.

Goodbye School

Goodbye Arcadia Christian School.

It’s been an unbelievable four years. 

You taught me to glorify God in my teaching, to love beyond my limits.

http://teacherweb.com/CA/ArcadiaChristianSchool/MrsMounday/faq1.aspx

Make a run for it.

I spend my evenings after work running up the hills by my house. It’s the best release I can find. I’ve been running since I was in highschool. Somtimes I take breaks, like six-month breaks, but I always come back.

Music helps me open up on the road. I don’t need fast music, just good music. My first soundtracked run was thanks to my mom who bought me a tunebelt  (below). I would record music from the radio on a blank tape and create the perfect running mix for my portable cassette plater.

Eventually I graduated to a skip-free CD player. I still have it.

Now I run with my ipod, around my arm. Snazzy. A big, foam tunebelt wrapped around your waste can really slow you down.

After all these years, I’ve created an unofficial soundtrack to my running endeavors.

top running albums

1. Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Stadium Arcadium
2. Rilo Kiley, More Adventurous
3. Santana, Greatest Hits
4. The Shins, Wincing the Night Away
5. Travis, The Boy with no Name
6. Ben Harper, Both Sides of the Gun (disc 2)
7. Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head
8. The Decemberists, Hazards of Love
9. Loch Lommond, Paper the Walls
10. Ryan Adams, Easy Tiger

 

top running singles

1. “You are the Best Thing”, Ray Lamontagne
2. “Rain Down”, Phil Collins
3. “Just What I Needed”, The Cars
4. “Run”, Collective Soul
5. “Linger”, The Cranberries
6. “Lo Que Paso, Paso”, Daddy Yankee
7. “Rafe”, Fauxliage
8. “Magic Man”, Heart
9. “American Woman”, Lenny Kravitz
10. “Love Like a Bomb”, Oasis
11. “Can’t Stand Loosing You”, Sting & The Police
12. “Hips Don’t Lie”, Shakira
13. “Abracadabra”, Steve Miller Band
14. “Garden Grove”, Sublime
15. “Africa”, Toto
16. “Handshake Drugs”, Wilco

We can do this.

And… we’re moving. MOVING, moving.

As we prepare to go cross country, many emotions come to the surface

excitement

anxiety

guilt

gratitude

I’ve been going through life robotically; in a deep fog of what I imagine next to be. Last week I was trapped in my classroom through all breaks, barred from the outdoors on behalf of the rain, breathing shared air by twenty or so kids. Where am I? In my head. I am wondering, “really?”

And I know many people have moved and even more have traveled. We entrusted ourselves to God when Charles lost his job, refusing to see it as anything less than opportunity. So why then am I so surprised? Why do I hold my breath? If anything I should take a running start to the edge, ready more than anything for the wind to collect in my sails, to carry me onward and upward as I smile into what lies before.