Happy Thanksgiving. Let’s not forget why America exists in the first place…because some people are so hard to be around that you have to send them off to the “New World.”
Before I get accused of being the Thanksgiving Grinch…I’m thankful for many things. In particular this year I’m thankful for my little stowaway and her father.
No One Likes A Puritan
I. We celebrate each late November
A date we know we should remember
When persecuted pilgrims sailed
Across the ocean and prevailed
Upon these rocky shores.
Don’t think the story is completed
With tales of corn and natives greeted.
That boat contained some noble envoys
But they were joined by royal killjoys.
No one liked the Puritans.*
II. If you shun your well-dressed neighbor
And never greet or grant them favors,
If you refuse to house-or-dogsit
Your principals may justify it
But no one likes a Puritan.
III. When you say “no” to every party
Especially when the crowd is arty
It’s true you’ll never face temptation…
For fun, or mirth, or celebration.
That’s why folks hate Puritans.
IV. Food and beverages are fun
And, yes, often overdone.
But turning down each scrumptious pleasure
Makes you seem more grim than measured.
It’s tough to be a Puritan.
V. A joke can be both crass and funny
Concerning poop or sex or money.
If you don’t deign to laugh along
Insisting that it would be wrong
No one will like you, Puritan.
VI. While your beliefs may be sincere,
Your values too may be held dear,
It is your right to hold them firm
And not to compromise or squirm.
But people may not like you.
So like the Pilgrims long ago
If your answer’s always “No,”
Don’t be surprised if no one sees
The beauty of your earnesty
And wishes you’d set sail.
Historical Footnote:
* We know that no one liked them, because they were persecuted. People don’t persecute people they like.
Grapefruit harvest has become one of my favorite things about living in the Little House on the Eastside. We have many fruit trees, but the only one, thus far to produce to it’s full potential in both taste and quantity is the faithful grapefruit tree.
The meyer lemon tree is a phoenix, which is finally producing after we thought it died in 2011. Verdict is still out on the quality. The pear tree produces plenty of fruit, edible only by Florence, who also eats plastic, wood, and probably metal. The pomegranate bush produced exactly three of the saddest fruits I have ever seen. Our fig tree is really only a fig tree in theory. The loquat tree produces plenty, but who needs that many loquats? The tangerine tree, usually pretty reliable, if extremely tart, is taking the year off, and our pecan trees barely survived the drought, so we’re not asking much.
Last year, we harvested in early December in running shorts, sweaty and itchy as we climbed ladders and picked through the highest branches.
This year, the harvest came early, as I looked at the forecast and saw a freeze approaching. So I bundled up and headed to the orchard to see what I could salvage. It was 2 hours before we needed to leave for church, which is when all worthwhile projects are hatched.
Here’s how it all went.
2:50 pm: Upon inspection, Bekah determines that the meyer lemons were in fact, not ripe. Ripe meyer lemons are bright orange, and these are still a little yellow. However, while examining the lemons she did find this amazing creature.
3:05 After filling 4 grocery bags from just the low-hanging grapefruit, Bekah goes inside and fetches the little step-ladder to get the next level. Lewis is nowhere to be found, and thus the plan goes forward half-baked and without precaution.
3:10 A shrubby anacua and several hackberry saplings present an obstacle. [note: I’m not opposed to “trash trees” the way that some people are. True they will take over your back yard as aggressively as bamboo, and they are nearly impossible to kill…but they are native, the birds love them, and they aren’t ugly…well, okay, they aren’t too ugly.]
The shrubby anacua, seen in the photo from last year, was particularly obnoxious in dominating the space beneath and around 3 branches full of plump grapefruit. It had to go.
3:15– Bekah enters the house where Lewis is now working.
“Do we have a saw?”
“I’m sure we do…why?” (Lewis tries to keep the panic from showing on his face)
“I need to get rid of a hackberry tree.”
Bekah goes to the laundry room and finds the handsaw, instantly thankful for the Great Organizing Binge of 2012. Lewis gives some instruction on how to use the handsaw, which Bekah pretends to understand before she returns to the orchard and begins sawing down little hackberry saplings scattered beneath the grapefruit tree.
3:29: It becomes clear that the handsaw is not going to be enough to bring down the shrubby anacua in any timely fashion. Or maybe ever. Don’t let “shrubby” fool you. It’s a fairly mature tree, it just has leaves all the way to the ground, because it came of age during a drought. Don’t feel sorry for it though. It was a bully shrub tree.
3:30: Bekah goes to the garage to find the ax. The ax came with the house, along with several other ancient tools. It’s approximately 1.5 million years old, and the origin of the old phrase, “fly off the handle.”
3:40: Tired from swinging the ax, Bekah alternates between handsawing the tiny hackberry trees all over the yard out of spite, and returning to the shrub, which has proven harder to kill than she’d anticipated. That’s the thing about South Texas natives (plants, animals, and humans), they are built to survive forces far more lethal than a pregnant woman with a dull, million-year-old hand tool that falls apart every few minutes.
The tiny hackberry saplings prove more rewarding.
3:50: Bekah marches back in the house, sticks and leaves in her hair. Lewis, no longer masking his concern, silently braces himself for news of disaster, but wisely resists the urge to intervene.
“Isn’t brush collection day coming soon?” she asks.
“Yyyeesss….” Lewis says.
“Oh good.”
Lewis is tempted to check on the situation, but knows that not knowing is sometimes the better option.
Florence follows Bekah back outside and proceeds to wretch throughout the remainder of the project. Who knows what she ate.
Bekah returns to the ax, only to realize that the shrub is so intertwined with its little sister shrub that the only way to fell the first one is to go for both simultaneously. Another brilliant survival move by the anacua, and nascent illustration on the importance of community…or the bond of marriage…or something.
3:55– Bekah puts the head of the ax back on the handle for the final time, checks to make sure that Florence is not within range should it go flying, and keeps chopping.
4:00: Bekah finally topples both anacuas, does a celebratory dance, and realizes that she cannot lift the fallen shrub trees over the antique washing machine, that is for some reason a fixture in the back yard. She will need to do this in order to drag it to the sidewalk for brush collection day.
4:01: Bekah goes inside, asks Lewis for help. Lewis looks openly relieved to be invited to supervise this unplanned project…and he didn’t even know about the ax.
4:02: Lewis is left outside to finish the job of hauling and chopping the shrub trees into manageable pieces, because, as Bekah says, “The baby and I are tired now. We’re going inside.”
4:05: Bekah remembers that the entire point of cutting down the anacua and hackberries was to get to some of the best grapefruit. However, she’s already started a hot shower and peeled off her wet outer layers, and the grapefruit will have to wait until tomorrow.
We were watching “Lars and the Real Girl” a few weeks ago, and there’s a scene in which Lars asks his brother what it means to be a “man.” His brother answers that being faithful and taking care of the people you love is what makes a man (in more appropriately manly words).
It’s not just age.
Today, 33 years ago, the world got a little bit better, because Lewis Maverick McNeel was born. I wasn’t around to notice, but I’m sure that if I had been, I would have woken up a little happier without even knowing why. I think I’d have felt it.
I’ve gotten to celebrate the last three of those with this guy.
Every year I feel like there’s not really a gift to sum up how happy I am that he’s in the world.
His birthdays have included surprise parties, flamenco dancers, five course meals…still, nothing really communicates just how happy I am that he was born.
But this one is different. This time, I am absolutely positive that the events of his birthday will show Lewis how and why I am so very thankful for him…
Today is so full of semi-birthday semi-fun that the only time he could go to CrossFit was at 6:30 am.
While he was gone (and I was just waking up), sensing the occasion, Florence decided to make a present on the floor. I could not leave the bedroom without gagging so hard my eyes watered, and so the present was there waiting when he got home. (Though, I will say that when I fled the stench, I fled to Bakery Lorraine to get him some breakfast).
The shower curtain got so excited that it fell down.
“Birthday lunch” was planned exactly 15 minutes in advance.
And his birthday night will begin with an elementary school choir concert.
Lewis diligently went to work out at 6:30 am. He came home and cleaned up the poop. He doesn’t know about the shower curtain yet…but usually when it falls down, he just gets out the ladder and hangs it right back up. He let me change the time of his impromptu lunch 2 different times, without letting on if it threw of his schedule. And he’s happily dressed to impress for the elementary choir event. Which he’s going to for our growing-up flower girl, whom he’s come to love like part of the family.
So today, more than any other birthday, I can look at everything that’s happened and say, “This, this, Lewis McNeel, is why your birthday deserves to be celebrated. You are patient, kind, dutiful, loving, strong, and capable. And you have a somewhat compromised sense of smell, which is really helpful when the house smells of dog sh**.”
You, Lewis McNeel, are a man, and we, your whole little family, are very very thankful for each of your 33 years.
When I was really little, my new-Christian-mom and I listened to a lot of praise music in the car. Most of her favorite stories about me come from these times.
Once, when I was about 3 or 4, we were listening to a song called “Our God Reigns.” I was singing along contentedly, and then stopped and looked concerned.
“You know, Mommy, sometimes our God sunshines too.”
It’s a cute story, and I was probably just talking about the weather, but it’s also telling about something that would continue into adulthood.
The tradition I grew up in, the Reformed nuevo-puritans, is not about a sunshiney God. Their God thunders, really.
He loves you…in spite of how totally wretched you are.
All biblically accurate. That’s the kicker. God has this dark and stormy side. And we love that side. It’s the side that stands up for the oppressed and has the final say against injustice! We’re sinners too, and God sees that. But one true thing does not a whole self nourish.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk about sin and idolotry. It was that I wanted to talk about something else sometimes. Just sometimes. I wanted some hope.
My spine hurt from the constant game of limbo. How low can your self-esteem go? It’s not low enough until you feel like a worm.
And that mentality had a way of working itself into every area of life. Marriage between two Wormy Sinners is a bloodbath. Wormy Sinner Parents raising Wormy Sinner Children was a jungle fight. Wormy Sinner Communities are messes. Sure does make you want to be in that club, huh? Don’t you want to be reminded what a Wormy Sinner you are in all of life’s most happy moments?
But in my head, there’s a well-trained voice that says, “That’s correct. That’s accurate.”
Maybe so. But knowing myself, and my tendency to obsess…what do I want to obsess on? God’s goodness or my badness? (Spare me the theology talk about how it’s our badness that show us how good he is and vice versa.)
So (among other reasons) I gave myself some distance from the I-am-a-Worm Club.
It might take me the rest of my life to really believe that God sunshines, and that I can just bask in that without self-flagellating. It may take the rest of my life, but I’m going to do it. With the help some good, honest “God loves you” preaching. I’ve needed it.
But recently, I really missed the nuevo-puritan’s revamped hymnal, so I bought some CDs and revisited the days when I used to listen to worship music in the car. I had to laugh though. Even the titles of the praise music reveal a slight preference for “hard truths.” There are a lot of titles like “Come and Mourn,” “Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted,” and “Come Ye Sinner Poor and Wretched.” Not all, just more than you’d expect.
In the end, the nuevo-puritan revamped hymnal has not left me high and dry. If I had to pick an anthem for my slow and halting return to the disciplines of grace, it would have to be this more eloquent expression of my childhood assertion that God sunshines:
Sometimes a light surprises
The Christian while he sings;
It is the Lord who rises
With healing in His wings;
When comforts are declining,
He grants the soul again
A season of clear shining,
To cheer it after rain.
In which Florence loses control of her destructive behavior.
(read in the voice of Florence, which sounds uncannily like a 14-year-old Claire Danes)
Sometimes…I just…destroy things.
I thought I had it under control. Chew on some socks or underwear occasionally…and I’ve been working my way through the rug for months. And there was the blue pen incident (which was blown way out of proportion by the humans). But it wasn’t, like, a daily compulsion or anything.
But then, like…a switch flipped? I dunno. I just really…need…to destroy things.
And it used to just be stuff left on the floor or dangling off of chairs.
But now…it’s just all right there…on the table…on Bekah’s desk…it’s just there. Calling me to tear it to shreds.
There’s the sod in the back yard…
Credit cards…
Sunglasses,,,
Post-it notes, but only the ones with phone numbers and notes on them from Bekah’s office…
And whatever Lewis was working on all night at the dining room table…
And the weird thing is, even when they discipline me, and shove it in my nose. I just don’t even care. My tail wags and I sort of just like the attention.
Bekah and Lewis were convinced that I just needed better toys.
But something happens at 6:30 in the morning…when I’ve been crying for 30 minutes because they think they can just feed me and let me out to pee and then go back to bed…and I get this rage. I don’t want their stupid toys. I don’t want to be placated. I want to be PLAYED WITH. And then I black out. When I come to, there’s plastic and paper everywhere…
I wake up ravenous.Yesterday morning I had to be out the door by 6:30 am. So I grabbed a chewy granola bar to take the edge off, telling myself I’d have a tiny, nutritious snack when I got back home around 8 am. Okay, tiny or nutritious. You can’t have it all.
I came home, considered my options, and went for two hard-boiled eggs. I don’t like hard boiled yolk, so it would be just the whites. What is that, like 60 calories total?
Juuuust as I dropped the eggs into the boiling water, I realized that at my current hunger register, two egg whites would hold me over for approximately 45 seconds.
But two poached eggs…now that sounded more amenable my hormone-addled brain.
Snatch eggs from boiling water (with fingers). Add vinegar and salt to boiling water (don’t measure, just pour). Crack eggs into cup and lower into the water, and voila! Poached eggs.
But poached eggs by themselves? How will I sop up the yolk? (Never mind that the yolk was not entirely runny, thanks to the eggs’ brief dip into boiling water back when they were to be hardboiled)
Better add toast…umm, er, make it two pieces, one for each egg.
Mmm…doesn’t the smell of toast always make you want tomatoes? (Probably not…unless you are very British or pregnant with a constant craving for tomatoes.)
Tomatoes, poached egg, and toast. What’s missing? Of course, Parmesan! Finely grated Parmesan – the strangest impulse buy I’ve ever made at Central Market. Yep, sprinkle that on top.
Now that is what I call…SECOND BREAKFAST!
As I get rounder, I have to wonder…am I going to have a baby? Or is Gandalf going to show up at my door on March 16 and send me off to Mordor?
Usually I’m a Cinderella/fairytale/rascal pumpkin kind of girl. I like the magical harvest look more than the Halloween look.
But this year, thanks to my cousins, Lewis and I made a valiant attempt at having a jack-o-lantern on our porch. Jack-o-lantern may be a deceptive term. Why would we do something traditional, when we can have “that pumpkin.”
I love my cousins. I love having people in my family with whom I can share faith, family lore, and traditions. Like pumpkin carving. If you could look back at the Stolhandske/Dahlberg family home videos you would year after year of intense little boys laying into the piñatas with perfect batting stances and determined grimaces.
When I hear that we’re having a “pumpkin carving contest,” that’s the image that pops up in my mind. A colorful paper-mache star swinging wildly while parents clear the other kids from the vacinity.
Fortunately my cousins married the right women.
After a lovely evening of backstrap, beer, and strategy…
There was cleverness to go around, and Lewis’s brilliant move of using a drill to create an avant garde design, a la West Elm, was a hit. It was not however, structurally sound, and we may have done too thorough a job, scraping out the innards.
The pumpkin lived on our porch for exactly 12 days, slowly deteriorating into something truly ghoulish. So Happy Halloween, jack-o-lantern. Thanks for hanging in there. I’ll put you out of your misery tomorrow.
So…three years of marriage, and still I have not experienced the bloodbath I’d been afraid of before I got married. Lewis and I have yet to go to bed angry. I’ve never wished he would just go away. I’m not bragging. I’m the girl who had a panic attack two weeks before her wedding because she was afraid that marriage was going to be a 50+ year battle with untold casualties. No bragging rights here.
I’m saying that marriage has been wonderful beyond my expectations.
But now…a baby on the way. And the voices are back, telling me life is about to get really, really hard. So many were these voices that I put off getting pregnant for as long as I could without pushing poor Lewis over the edge. We are happy. We have balance…why upset it? Why invite what, according to a lot of people I know, is the most emotionally draining and difficult thing they have ever done?
Because it’s time to believe that God makes all things new.
People love to tell you how you’re going to mess up your kids, just like your parents messed you up. They like to tell you how you bring all of your baggage into parenting. They want it to be freeing, to tell you that you don’t have to be perfect, because nobody is perfect. They want it to remind you that you need grace as a parent.
I get that, and I appreciate it.
And it’s true that we’re born sinners. Sure thing. Got it. My children will not be perfect. I will not be perfect.
BUT, here’s the deal: New life. What could be more of a picture of God’s grace that is new every morning than an actual. NEW. LIFE.
This baby will not come out cynical and jaded. She will not have years of baggage yet. She will be fresh and new, and her experience of the world, the church, and family will be her very own.
This baby, to me, is a celebration of hope. When I feel like so much has been ruined or twisted or corrupted, an entire new person will exist in the world who knows nothing of that. And maybe she will experience her own pains, but she will also have her own joys and see God’s faithfulness to her in her own life.
I’m sure that when she’s two and rolling on the floor screaming…or thirteen and rolling on the floor screaming, I will be glad for the wisdom that prepared me for her humanity. I’m sure I will be glad that someone warned me that I can’t be the perfect parent. Lewis and I are both first children, and we’re having our first child. We will win the award for most neurotic house on the block.
BUT, that is not what sets me free. That is not what makes me feel new and good. What gives me hope is that God makes all things new. And there is something new happening here (between my abs and my bladder) and it has the potential to be good. Not the kind of good that doesn’t need Jesus, but the kind of good that brings him glory. This little girl has her own story, and Jesus loves her. And I have every reason to believe that her difficult toddler/teenage years are nothing in comparison to the person God is already making her to be.
Please please please don’t take this little poem too seriously…I really really really don’t intend to start a conversation on how it’s never best to lie, how you would tell the truth even if it hurt someone in the short term, the exact nature of a lie, etc. It’s just some late night musings on the times when you realize that, “yes, the whole polite world expects me NOT to say exactly what I’m thinking at this moment.”
Of course, if you are now wondering if you are the extended family, neighbor, or friend who was lied to, the answer is most certainly, “of course not.”
Usually mine and Lewis’s vacations are less like a relaxing getaway and more like well-structured 240-hour game show to see how much we can possibly hike, eat, swim, explore and experience before a buzzer goes off and we’re sent home.
We like to go places we haven’t gone before. Which means we’re on a mission to see as much as we can before we leave.
But this time, we were tired. Work had run us both ragged and I was spacey and tired from all the baby growing I’ve been doing. So we were looking to really VACATE. We wanted to sleep in, go slow, and make very few decisions of importance.
So where better than Sicily, where our main objective was to spend quality time with our friends the Garber family? We took in some sights, hiked around a little on Mt. Etna, and ate some gelato (and discovered granita, which is even better!) but the pressure was off, because the whole point of choosing Sicily was to see our friends, and that mission was well-accomplished. We even got in a game of Settlers of Catan.
Some highlights:
Hiking on Mt. Etna with Elliott. The volcanic tuff trails and evergreens winding up the side of the volcano seem a world away from the olive groves of the Sicilian countryside. And with the fog rolling in, the whole place felt almost isolated and private. Even with a merry band of German trekkers right behind us.
The friends we made in Agrigento, on our two night stay at a quirky little B&B overlooking the Greek ruins.
Lewis fulfilled a lifelong dream of driving in Europe. And we had all the classic experiences. Driving the wrong way down a oneway street, circling endlessly on the roundabout while we figured out where we wanted to go, and wedging ourselves into the tiniest of tiny spaces. The locals seemed entirely unphased by this. I think that’s what Itallians really have in their favor. In a country where “parking space” refers to any place you leave your car (sidewalk, middle of the road, whatever), people are super laid back about flustered tourists running stop signs and breaking other road “rules.”
The stunning views.
Scala dei turchi. If ever you find yourself on the Mediterranean, this is really worth a stop. On our entire trip, this was the most spectacular thing I saw.
Our romantic dinner in Agrigento. It was preceded by a high-stakes parking predicament and followed by a dash through a movie shoot. We stopped and ogled with the crowd as a car full of classic Italian hooligans drove up to a storefront and assumed gangland stance (or at least the Hot Cops version of such) over and over and over. If it was menacing they were going for, they were missing it by a mile. If it was entertaining they were trying to achieve, they hit the nail on the head every time.
The medieval trumpeters rehearsing outside the Garbers fantastic hillside home across the street from the castle. Yep. You read all of that correctly.
Taormina. A lovely day in a picturesque world.
The antique market in Catania, which was really more like a citywide garage sale. Becca Garber perused antique toys, and I got some Italian leather shoes for 2 Euro. Happy Leather Anniversary to me! I also enjoyed the chaos and junk tables slowly close in around Lewis until I could tell that even if we’d stumbled upon a work of early Renaissance high art, he would not have been able to see it for all the rotary phone parts and doll clothes.
Gil and Lena Garber. Lena won over “That Man” to the world of little girls. Good thing too…