Unfolding the day

The world is under blankets of new snow, hushed and howling at the same time this morning. I sleep in, deep sleep, wrapped in down with my warm little son. I wake up to kids already crying, sugar crashing off their Oreo breakfast, dressed in swimsuits (don't ask!) and shivering in the 60 degree house. My eldest is outside, walking our dog in the drifts, the peacemaker absent and chaos breaking loose through the house. We found out yesterday our 9 year old dog has cancer, and she is taking it hardest at 8 years old. She can't remember a time without this black dog who disappears in the dark and still snorts around the snowbanks like a puppy.

Noon comes and goes. The kids snack on chocolate grahams and bananas, and I share coffee with my sister  from next door. The snow flakes are still falling, so infinitesimally tiny it is hard to imagine each is a unique crystal with six sides. The furnace burns hot to heat the house to 64 degrees, and the kids get back in their swimsuits to have a "diving" competition off the queen bed in the warmer air.

The days unpack themselves like a string of small gifts, the ribbons cut, the paper crinkled. The dog sits warm in her corner, stuffed with treats borne of the children's grief. My husband calls from the heart cath lab, on call today, the shovelers already crowding the ER. He'll be late getting home. My first day alone with my children, and it promises to be a long one.

I sit in the middle of my messy bedroom, look out the door at the messy dining room. There isn't a clean corner in the house. Three years into cancer, one full of depression, and I don't see messes anymore. I see piles of discarded delight - the art corner strewn with drawings and paintings, crayons and safety scissors. The living room full of Christmas still. Laundry clean and folded, piled in the baskets. Dishes dirtied attest to our wealth of food.

Awake my soul to live this moment
Awake my soul,
give thanks and hold it dear now
God is here now
Awake my soul

Hush away the hurry
Put to rest the worry
Come to quell and quiet me 
In this moment given 
Slow and fully live it 
Drink up all the passing peace
~Shaun Groves, Awake My Soul~

Novemberish

 The weekend dissolves into a chaos of sleep and awake, night shifts wrecking havoc on my already Novemberish brain. The house a pigsty of dirty dishes and laundry, summer clothes and shoes yet to be packed away, a sheet music scattered living room and clothes-riddled bedroom. I feel my failures deep and sure, the housewife that never can be found in November, when the seasons hush and slow to winter's lone-harp song, and my body slows with it, always sensitive to cancer meds in this fresh winter. I bog down into low thyroid days, when all I do is sleep or dream of sleep. The children call me Mama Bear, hibernating for the winter, and I wonder why my cubs don't climb into the den for a long winter's nap like the black bear in the woods.

On Saturday, we are up late to cheer my hockey team on at an important semi-final in a tournament, and I sit with hockey moms who are still perfectly coiffed at 10 p.m., talking about how much housework they got done between games today, each mom one-upping the last with her beauty and time efficiency. I feel the prickles of my newly growing hair like a crown of shame, think about all I have not managed to do this weekend, and realize this is what Joy is after: life unmasked in the blogosphere, where we let our imperfections be part of our beauty and don't hide in the dark when life doesn't go as planned. I slide on thankfulness like a warm coat, and insulate myself from the tyranny of this perfectionist motherhood. My husband smiles down at me, sensing my soul rest, his brown curls unruly under his wool cap, our children running amok up and down a ramp to the men's bathrooms, burning off late night energy.

I wake up Sunday to a road too icy to trek to church, even in all-wheel drive. Slide under the down comforter and praise for a few more hours rest. In the sunlight, the world is frosted with snow, a wonderland of crystalline beauty, in all our yards autumn messiness. The children track mud and snow into the house and there is a small snowboot track on my sheet music still scattered on the front room floor.

I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about how He loves. ~John Mark McMillan

Instead of sliding down into the nothingness that perfectionist thinking breeds, I count my blessings at Sunday's end,

...the white glare of snow making sunshine bright and world clean
...hair growing back, black and plentiful
...music from The Story blaring through speakers
...safety on icy roads
...moments with my dear aunt and uncle
...Sunday dinner with Grandma and Grandpa, gales of giggles echoing
...sleep, sleep and more sleep
...another week of night shifts winking at me
...down comforters and warm husband