The Present.

 We took both the boys to swim lessons this morning.  Trying to keep Noah occupied for forty five minutes after his lesson so Ethan could have his was not one of my finer moments as a parent. He simply makes me mad. He's stubborn and loud and unsafe. I find myself just wishing the time away until he's five and can handle himself a little better.
I came home and opened a new book by Kathleen Norris. She is a life saver for me, amongst other honest and funny writers who look at life square in the face and find beauty in the middle of it's ordinariness. Or anger-ness. Or depression-ess. Or whatever it is that fills it, they find beauty there. They remind me to believe, to look for the grace that is available to me at any given place and time, including  a loud swimming pool with an ornery two year old on Saturday morning.
My heart wasn't in a state to find it this morning at the pool, although I'm sure it was there...a prayer away. Where I did find it was out on our patio, four hours later, the fall sun hot on my cheeks despite the light chill in the air. Noah was still down for his nap and Joey and Ethan were in the front. I listened to Ethan's voice, riding his bike, effortlessly happy in the present moment, drifting back to me over the house.
Just minutes before I had forced myself to get out of bed, even though I didn't want to. I wanted to sleep, but even when I tried I couldn't sleep soundly. My heart lately has felt like fingers are squeezing it, making my chest hurt.
I'm not sure what was luring me to stay in that bed, although the one word that came to mind was fear. I am afraid. Afraid to get up and feel the same monotony, the same blahness in every act I do. The children make it worse because not only do I feel nothing when I think I should be enjoying them, guilt follows suit, adding to the onslaught. It's much easier to stay in bed.
Maybe pride, ("I'm not going to be that woman!"), maybe grace; whatever it was something got me to swing my legs out of bed, grab my journal, a pen and Norris' book, and head outside.
Norris writes largely about monastic life and for whatever reason it has always grabbed me, pulled me in. I've never had quite the direct and explainable connection to it like she has, but as I get older I am beginning to see more how the monastic life is so similar to my own. Maybe that's what drew me in even when I couldn't begin to explain it.
Norris writes about the similarities of a monastic vow and a marriage vow, and I am beginning to see how the parallels jump over to parenting as well.
For a large part parenting is repetition, doing the same thing, over and over. Bedtime routines. Morning routines. Reminding them over and over and over again to pick this up or don't spill that or stop saying that! Now! Damn it!
It easily becomes so boring and tedious you just want to jump out the window. This is how I feel most days. And then I read this afternoon, "A generation that cannot endure boredom will be a generation of little men...unduly divorced from the slow processes of nature, in whom every vital impulse withers..." Noah is definitely a "slow process of nature" and I was convicted at how easily "divorced" I become to my children, with their constant demands. My eyes glaze over and my heart feels like a piece of dry wood but I get them dinner! and clean their messes! and sing them songs before kissing them goodnite, almost running out of the room to peace and quiet, only to be left alone with my dry heart.
 It's the dryness, my heart's true state, that's enough to keep me under the covers, wanting to sleep it away on a beautiful three day weekend when Joey is home and we are all in excellent health.
After reading and writing a bit, looking at the sky, really seeing it, for the first time in a while, I could joke with Joey. Laughing almost hurt, but it happened and then I was able to grab my stuff and head inside to my two and five year old, my life, and the present moment in all it's messiness and pain and see the edge of God's arms, open and waiting for me to jump in.