When We Stop

This past month, my writing's taken it on the chin.  This past month, I spent getting used to teaching.  There are only so many hours, so much energy, and so much will in any given day, and I've found my Saturdays to be the day I crash.  I sleep.  I nap.  I eat.  I nap again. It has become a predictable pattern which I realized in part, was designed to keep me from allowing myself to be anything but busy.  Busy even when resting, so that I wouldn't have time to reflect or feel, because it's how I handle stress.  I work harder.   I get busier with life.  I throw myself into new projects in an attempt to overwhelm myself so I won't have the luxury of wallowing in anything I can't solve. 

It's how I handle grief. It's how I manage fear.  I know because I remember volunteering to manage the Fall Carnival when I received the diagnosis of my son's Down Syndrome and heart condition.  Occasionally, my family recognizes before I do something and tells me, "Under no circumstances are you to volunteer..."  and I've learned when what I'm doing, I'm doing to avoid thinking about something else.   Even writing can be a means of avoidance of problems I either don't want to face or am tired of facing.

So I let myself not write, so as to better face what we've been facing. The tectonic shift in family life to being mostly teens is tough. We lived with toddlers as the primary driving force for roughly eighteen years.  The switch to school age and up wasn't noticeable at first, and then it became decidedly older in what felt like overnight.     That change has been something not always either fun to write about, or something that should be shared.  Adolescence has its awkward ugly moments, and those are best remembered as moments of growing up, rather than secured and documented in Internet amber.   I've tried hard to only showcase my children when I am the source of the joke, or when their antics reveal hope and joy.  Not everything in life is grist for the mill, because lives are not to be used, but to be shared. 

However, I missed writing because it often leads me to think about things more deeply than I would otherwise. It helps me find patterns and see where I need to go and what I need to do.  It's a bit like crying and laughing.  Sometimes, tears allow us to get through what cannot be borne any other way. Sometimes, laughter is the same thing, and for me, sometimes writing works that way too.   It is how I process both tears of sorrow and joy.  Writing is not my job, it's part of my vocation, just as surely as being a mom is not a job, but my vocation, and being a wife is not a job, but my vocation.  It's all part of both who I am and what I do, and the why I do what I do. 

So how do I write about these people becoming adults without exploiting or exposing them?  By remembering, at the end of the day, I have one goal, to get them to the end of the day hopefully with a "Thanks Mom." or a hug.  It means I don't correct the grammar when a kid texts back to my "Love you," "Love you to." even though it drives me nuts.   It means I repeat "They are children. They are children. They are children." when I discover a mess, but also summon them to clean it because, they live here and should.   It means remembering, parenting is a vocation, which means it's never done, and it's never over.  It merely has seasons.   Keep at it.   This is a marathon, and you're not finished because even should you die, you still have the job of praying for them until they're all home at the end of the day. 

I'll keep at it.  Thanks for reading, even when I stop.  It just means, all the words get log jammed in my brain until I start up again. 

Sometimes We All Need Reminders

Woke up in the middle of the night feeling like I'd somehow flunked a quiz.  Writing/publishing's been slow. Weight's remained steady despite exercise (Consistently) since July 4th.  In short, life felt rather like a dog day of summer.  I'd fallen asleep after rereading "A Horse and His Boy," by C.S. Lewis, and in that early hour of the morning, the chastening of Bree, the War Horse struck home.

Aslan appears.  "Now, Bree," he said, "you poor, proud, frightened Horse, draw near. Nearer still, my son.  Do not dare not to dare.  Touch me. Smell me. Here are my paws. Here is my tail. These are my whiskers.  I am a true Beast."

"Aslan," said Bree in a shaken voice, "I'm afraid I must be rather a fool."
"Happy the Horse who knows that while he is still young. Or the Human either."

Bree needed to learn what the hermit told him, but resisted until Aslan appeared.  "My good horse," said the Hermit, who approached them unnoticed because his bare feet made so little noise on that sweet, dewy grass. "My good Horse, you've lost nothing but your self-conceit. No, no, cousin. Don't put back your ears and shake your mane at me. If you are really humbled as you sounded a minute ago, you must listen to sense. You're not quite the great horse you'd come to think."  I thought about my frustration with not getting published or the job I wanted, and the wise words of a friend, about being willing to trust the right position would be there, and not wanting to surrender that bit of the ego.  To which God simply asks, "Why not?"

Sometimes, my self worth gets tied up in my weight, my accomplishments, or even asserting having ten children.  None of these are in any way related to anything other than what I've done or not done.  They have only so much merit as facts about me, for the having and the doing and the weighing are not where the worth lies, however often I misjudge myself.

I thought of our kids.  I love our children not for their ability to run a 5K or grades or even their obedience (when it happens).  I love them because they are.  Just so, my husband loved me long before any of this part of our lives happened and I him, and my parents, before I could do squat.  Love doesn't require us to do, but to be.  God loves us and we can do quite literally nothing without Him, and nothing "for" Him, but to love Him back.  We can only respond to God's love with our own imitation of His generosity and selflessness, with all that we allow ourselves to surrender. 

This morning, in my Facebook feed, a friend posted a quote, "Be so good, they can't ignore you." by Steve Martin.  I thought about that quote and while it's true that one must persist and keep honing one's craft no matter what, it is a calling to be good so as to be noticed and I believed in that moment, that's exactly what in some cases (not always and not all), I'd done.   At which point, the words of the Hermit to Bree hit home once more, after acknowledging he's braver and cleverer than the non-talking horses he's lived with; "It doesn't follow that you'll be anyone very special in Narnia. But, as long as you know you're nobody very special, you'll be a very decent sort of Horse."  and Bree still struggles before making it to Narnia with whether horses who talk, do horsey things like roll in the grass.  For him, pride is a constant thorn, because he wants to be special and he's used to thinking of himself that way.   He's used to valuing himself for how he is viewed, and for what he's done.

He rolls in the grass before he gets there, just to make sure he gets one last chance to enjoy himself before getting to Narnia.  While C.S. Lewis doesn't mention it, as he's wrapping up the story, we can know, in Narnia, Bree probably rolled with abandon, because he's finally surrendered that self-conceit. 

I'd made my list of things to do for the day.  I added confession.  Why?  Because that's how I roll. 

Horseradish Sauce

This weekend, I traveled to Buffalo to witness my Godson's wedding.  I ate well.  It was an odd experience, being sans children.  You would think having time without household chores or people to serve, I'd have written something but alas, I discovered, my time management skills are worse than I thought, for I am a sufficient reason to not get to the keyboard.

While at the hotel, the Taste of Buffalo filled the street outside the lobby.  I enjoyed wine ice cream and fried risotto and even took a turn at Karaoke.  Mercifully, the video my mom took is too long to upload so my teens won't have to suffer having their mom's warbling preserved forever in internet amber.    It's good to know it's there though, sort of like a plausible threat of mutually assured destruction.  They don't want it out. I don't want it out. They behave, I retain a hint of dignity online, if not in reality.  

During the course of the weekend, I spent a lot of time thinking about having ten kids, raising them, and the ups and downs of it all.   Someone at the reception asked if I'd wanted ten kids and if I'd considered how much work it would be before beginning this journey.   I admit, sometimes the bills, fights, messes, assignments, schedules and demands for regular meals can overwhelm.  

I finished the trip with a dinner at the Anchor Bar annex at the airport.  I ate wings and Beef on Weck, which if you don't know, is a Buffalo specialty.  It is thinly sliced roast beef au jus on a crusty roll studded with kosher salt and caraway seeds. A thin layer of horseradish sauce is considered a must.   One would never think, you know what I want?  Horseradish sauce. If one considers horseradish sauce alone, one would never consume it. It's bitter, it leaves a bite on your tongue.  Why would you agree to have horseradish sauce?  However the whole sandwich rocks and I'm only sorry it isn't something that's caught on anywhere else but Buffalo.

Considering only all the labor and trials and scourges of having ten kids is rather like eating horseradish sauce alone.   Who wants to go to the DMV 20 times in one's life?  Who wants to fold 100 socks a week?  Who wants to do dishes for 33 every day if you count all the meals?  Who wants to drive a 12 passenger van?  Who wants to read aloud the Harry Potter series 7 times thus far, and try to must all the energy you had at the first go around?  Who wants to hear 10 "Hey Mom, guess what I dreamed last night?" summaries at breakfast?  Or change diapers for 23 years?  Or solve fights seemingly to the death between a five year old and her older sister over an invisible cat?  Alone, it's untenable, there's just no way, it's too much work, too hard, too expensive, too protracted, too much too much too much.

Absent love, it's overwhelming and at times, it even has a bite.

However...when it is spread over the whole of life, these trials augment everything else.  The sufferings of parenting, they fade like labor pains, even the big ones like teens rebelling or toddlers potty training. The bite doesn't remain, only the flavor, and the whole family, is one I'd order again in a heartbeat, horseradish sauce and all.   They are a feast set for me.  

I ate Charlie the Butcher's Beef on Weck too. Very tasty!

Bon Appetite.

Reflections on the Retiring of Pope Benedict XVIth

Yesterday, I was sad.  I felt thrown back to sophomore year in high school. I'd heard endlessly about how great the English class was junior year for those who got in the honor's class.  I worked hard to get a coveted spot.  Next year, the teacher who made the class so awesome, retired.  And here is the me, stuck in a harder class than perhaps I am capable of managing, wondering what to do. 

Then as now, the reality is the subject should be the focus, not the faculty.  Pope Benedict XVIth knows this and dimly, back then, I did too.  I still missed the teacher I'd heard all the great stories about, I still wished I could have had a chance to experience his class. But I did fall in love with the subject and that is what mattered. We did get to experience Pope Benedict's class, he is still pointing even in retirement away from himself, to the true subject of His life, of all of our lives, to that which matters.

 In this year of Faith, the Pope gives us by his decision, a lesson in the lost art of discernment; seeking the quiet of mind to listen to God.  Not something we're used to in this day and age of checking email and cell phones and 24-7 news crawl across the bottom of a screen.  We do not seek silence or allow for the quiet of the natural world in our every day life.  Even those out running, are plugged in to earphones.  We keep ourselves constantly carbonated caffinated stimulated distracted and multi-tasked, we never have time to simply pray.  We never have time to stop and give God more than a twitter's worth of time.  That level of business leads to being anxious about many things. 

I think, we are frightened by the change that allowing God in, even for a second, would bring to our lives.  Hearing and obeying the command to go out into the deep to lower our nets, we would return to the shore changed forever.  We would stop and fall on our knees, like the shepherds, like the Kings, like Peter. 

So I am still sad, because I have loved this pope.  I saw him celebrate mass in Washington DC.  I've read some of his writings and found them clear, thoughtful, moving and grace saturated.  The years have not been kind and neither has the world.  Part of me wants an Ironman Pope, but there are plenty of great players in Cooperstown who aren't Cal Ripken.  Pope Benedict's ministry was always more to pull us to be internal, to compel us to contemplate, to pray.  Retiring to pray, he surrenders the chair of Peter, the power, trappings, prestige, pulpit, all of it, because all of it is not what he is about, he is about prayer, about seeking a deeper relationship with Christ for himself and for all of us.  We cannot do that if we are so busy with our lives, we will not stop, even if our jobs in our lives, are about the business of the Church.  However in the end, I'm okay with this ending, because it points to where our eyes should be, on only God. 

Poster Children for NFP*

(Originally Run on  7/26/09...in honor of NFP week).

Showing up for mass on time and worried that I didn't look at the schedule to see if three of the oldest kids need to serve, we huddled guiltily in the back of the church. Some of the ushers know that this is our habit, to send the oldest five upstairs to watch the mass and for my husband and me to wrestle with the "non sentient" crowd unobserved by the majority of the parishioners.

Occasionally we get a pushy mass attendant who will repeatedly try to insist that we take the two, three, five year old and 9 month old to sit at the front of the church. Usually, the two, three year or nine month old will dissuade said usher with a few well placed random happy screams.

At the back of the church there are folding chairs for the stragglers and for us, and a table where one can pick up handy literature on the needs of the food pantry, materials concerning pending legislation that will affect Catholic schools or the Church, teachings on Abortion, flyers for CYO and for retreats, and now, a giant poster covered with sunflowers advertising Natural Family Planning. Sitting with nine children in the back, it was hard not to giggle with the backdrop.

Still, upon reflection, I came to understand that we are NFP poster children. Only if the goal is to have no children, are we not. The fact that we have nine is more a tribute to my stellar book keeping skills and our great love, than the efficiency or effectiveness of NFP. If you succeed in keeping your family small using this method, it is because you have practiced the virtues of obedience and patience and sacrifice --all beautiful virtues which God loves. You have followed God's plan. If you sometimes ignore, forget, or willfully chose to ignore the times when one must abstain to avoid conception, you have abandoned yourself to life, to love, to a future of hope, and allowed yourself to be used in the great first gift of creation, also virtues that God loves. Either way, NFP places you firmly on the path to God.

And the bonus of all this, a man with his young daughter came by and walked in our midst to the table. He took up a flyer for the next session teaching NFP. Whether he did it out of desire for the massive number of sunflowers we had surrounding us or not, it didn't matter.

The usher came by right after that moment, and gave me a wink.

P.S. It wasn't our week to serve, or at least, it wasn't our week to have kids on the altar up front.

Embracing an Advanced Degree in Motherhood

Back when I first started staying home as a mom, I had great ambitions and most of them, amounted to silliness and ego.  I was going to read a book once a week, learn a foreign language by having the tapes on in the background while I cooked; and the food would be eventually, gourmet.  I dutifully watched Great Chefs of New Orleans and the Frugal Gourmet (They were my equivalent of the Food Network at the time) and took notes.

I nearly spent us into oblivion in my first four months of being at home because I bought exotic ingredients and used my cooking obsession to fill the void; all the time feeling terribly guilty that I wasn't doing enough with my son such that at one point, I sat reading aloud the cookbook to him in a sing song voice because he was up.  I didn't know how to be and enjoy motherhood yet.

I simply had all the impossible standards and invisible voices of years of being taught that I needed to be more than by the magazines and popular culture.  My mom had never demanded perfection, and she had loved us well; it was me getting stuck in the amber of pride.  I was just a stay at home mom.

Well that wouldn't do. 

That wouldn't do at all.  So I tried cooking....but that particular kind of crazy caused me to 1) spend money 2) gain weight and 3) make a general mess of the apartment kitchen which was not suited to the abuse I gave it. So, did I stop, reflect and change course?  Well, sort of.  I stopped.  I more changed color than course.  I started exercising at the gym and that became my devotion for the day, plus I started studying for the GRE.  Yes. I was living the dream.  I had it all.  I went to the gym, dropped my son off at the child care room, hopped on the treadmill with my practice book, number two pencils and my walkman playing classical music to drown everything else out, and I would take two tests while I marched. 

The flailing to "drown everything else out" was the same, it was just the focus that had changed.  I'm a stay at home mom....and I'm a graduate student studying blah blah blah.  Fortunately, a job forced us to relocate and while I attempted the madness again and again and again, by the time my daughter came around, even I had to recognize to some dull extent, this wasn't working.  The dream wasn't bad, it was simply misplaced, out of order, not what should be first.  Like Martha with Jesus in her house, I wasn't paying attention to the gifts I'd received, but more focused on an impossible ideal; a perfect Sherry as versus a perfected Sherry. 

I still labored with these annoyingly stupid thoughts.

If I had the Ph.D. I would be smart.
If I had the title, people would respect me.
If I did these things, I would be accomplished.

Earth to Sherry, Heaven to Sherry, this is not what I want from you.  God sent a third child.

And it was nuts. Sitting in the delivery room, hooked up to an iv and monitors, talking on the phone to my team about a paper on teaming based on qualitative research about schools and trying to explain my thoughts in between contractions...it suddenly dawned on my brain...this is a special kind of crazy...and not the good kind.

So with her, I started to surrender.  It was small at first and I had lots of set backs.  I tried being Parish Council, (4th child) (after all, I have this free time because I'm not in school anymore) and Development Director (5-6th) (done with Parish Council and I need to do something) and being a writer. (7th to present)  All three were great, all three were also for other reasons,to serve because I was asked, to organize things because it was part of getting my children into Catholic school, to share stories, to make money, to have a little something for me, there were good, bad, mixed and pure motives in everything, like there always are for all of us.  But the extra always came first up until Paul.  Then I had to wrestle with the now of saying, "I'm a mom of ten." because the operative word should be Mom, not the number.  And that's hard because 1) it's a reality 2) I'm proud of them all, and 3) I'm a bit of a show off.  I'm always looking for an excuse not to do the one thing God asks and has asked in spades. 

But one of my children is starting adulthood, he's preparing for college and that, contrasted with holding an 8 month old daughter, brought back into sharp relief the time span that had transpired.   The old demons that had been fought so often, made an attempt to bite me ...if they can't have me, they'll at least make me sting a bit....

So Sherry, got that degree yet? (No but some day). What about learning that language? (Ha!)  How many books do you read a year (4-7)...but I buy more than I ever read. Learn a new piano piece in the past year (No). Gourmet cooking? nope, love eating it, don't have the precision or the time for it. How's that book coming?  (Slowly).  They've needled me into momentarily looking at the 18 years like time squandered, lost, flung away carelessly on computer, on eating badly, and laundry.  The maw of despair is always there trying to make me under value love, undervalue teeth brushed, baths given, stories read, beds made, meals and errands and the daily feeding, dressing and cleaning of children; like 18 credit hours somehow carry more weight than 18 years of care.

But God orders all things and knew the demons would be there lurking, waiting to bite me today; so the Gospel was Gospel Mt 15:21-28.

At that time, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.

And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out,
"Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David!
My daughter is tormented by a demon."
But Jesus did not say a word in answer to her.
Jesus' disciples came and asked him,
"Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us."
He said in reply,
"I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
But the woman came and did Jesus homage, saying, "Lord, help me."
He said in reply,
"It is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs."
She said, "Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps
that fall from the table of their masters."
Then Jesus said to her in reply,
"O woman, great is your faith!
Let it be done for you as you wish."
And the woman's daughter was healed from that hour.

and the Holy Spirit prompted me to click on Fr. Barron's Word on Fire for a precursor understanding while I fixed breakfast for the youngest six.
http://www.wordonfire.org/WOF-Radio/Sermons/Sermon-Archive-for-2011/Sermon-553-Strength-Through-Resistance-20th.aspx

And the 18 years suddenly felt like training for the Olympics or like being forged.  If a sword in the making could know what it was to become, would it welcome the blows? Embracing a vocation requires knowledge and awareness (I know what I am about to do and am prepared to do this), and volition (I will do this even when I'm not feeling it) and obedience (I submit forever).

You live out a vocation not when it is without thought, effort or struggle, but when the fruits are not yours first and your thoughts are not either. I was feeling fairly rapturous about it all and then I realized, I was being forged into being a better mom.   Would I ever get there?

Then, I remembered, I'd received a gift this week.  Words spoken to me at a meeting regarding my son's placement in school this coming year.  We were discussing his verbal skills and I was explaining I didn't think he needed socialization so much as language; that home life had acclimated him to being around others from the get go.  I joked that having always had a baby or toddler in my life for the past 18 years, I was something of an expert on this area of development.  The woman across the table looked at me with a wide smile and said, "You have a Ph.D. in child development from the school of hard knocks."  She did not know I'd sought an advanced degree, she was simply having a bit of fun.  But those words in that moment, felt like I'd crossed the stage and shaken a hand.

And just as Heaven is when we begin to really love as versus the imperfect love we render here, so also the degree was merely a starting point.  A sword, a book, a brain grows dusty if it is not used.  It must be used to be of value.  The training would go on, but even as it did, now was time to get to work.  And the blows of training will still sting, the imperfections still prickle, but at 18 years, with 18 more to go to see the latest to the same point my oldest is now, I was no where near ready, it's just now, I know I'm only less unready.

What Do I Do Now?

Here I am, my children all safely tucked away in beds 2,100 miles away from me.  My husband took them to visit his folks while I flew to Texas to see my parents and one of my brothers and my sister, her husband and their almost one year old daughter.   I am here and I do not have a role.  I cannot Martha my way around the room because there is nothing to Martha. 

What I have discovered is I would make a boring batchellorette.  I read the paper.  I write little.  I eat too much and I exercise.  Time unfolds at a snails pace with nary a rushed moment and I'm groping for ways to fill the minutes. It is odd to have no job.  The quiet of my own mind is more than I've come to be accustomed to in 17 years of parenting.  It's like I'm a Supreme Pizza that forgot all the toppings or the one pin left standing after a failed spare.  I am glad to be with these people I love fiercely.  I'm grateful for the trip and for this time.

I also feel fully aware of how whittled down my own life becomes in the absence of my children. But, as my sage brother pointed out, when I return, it will be to launch back into school after spring break.  Thinking about the bills and the projects coming due, the laundry that will await me and suddenly, I guess I will just savor this spare time a bit more.  It will probably make the time seem to fly by faster as a result.

But this is Martha being told to sit and Mary.  It is a lot more difficult than one would suspect. It will be a bear to one day retire.

Hospitably Yours

I have to tell you, right now, watching my kid breathe in and out, watching his numbers dip and rise in some cases more impressively than the stock market, I've temporarily lost my humor writing mojo.

I've tried writing six different pieces, a top ten list, a satire, a riff on hospital food, a letter to the editor, multiple pre-holiday bits. Most of it sounds forced to me, ergo, it would not be the right tone, or worse, it would not be funny.

Instead of telling stories, this past week, I've been hearing them.

On Monday, I took a walk to clear my head. I got into a conversation with a woman pushing a tiny but not chihuahua dog wrapped in a blanket in a real baby stroller.

Normally, my mind would reel with such made for blog material, but instead I engaged the woman in conversation. She was a former dancer, had lived in Afghanistan and her husband was an actor. She admitted sheepishly that she probably spoils her dog, but he's too little to keep up with her when she roller blades and she worries he'll get run over by a bicyclist or a car in DC, so this is how she protects him. She lamented the lack of energy for dance in Washington and thanked me for listening.

Then, there's last Friday, when I took a cab to my husband's office to get paperwork and hand off laundry. The man who drove my cab told me the story of his having grown up in DC, of being the oldest of nine and partially raised by his aunts. He explained that he was a poet and gave me a copy of his collection. It was pretty good stuff. The sparse prose had an airy and emotional tonal quality like a musical pulse.

Last night, when I was rechecking Paul into the hospital, a beautiful tall African American woman with red eyes watched as I gave Paul's history. She asked his name, his full name. "Catholic?" she asked. "Yes." "Me too." She told me how she took her kids to the Basilica because it was the one church they loved. How she'd promise them breakfast if they all went. I told her we bribe our kids with donuts or bagels too for good behavior.

Then she started to get a bit teary eyed and told me how her son broke his arm so badly, they had to sedate him for the x-ray. She told me this was the fourth time he'd been injured playing football, and that she was more worried about his head. She was alone.

I think she noticed that I noticed because she then added, "My husband left me this week." I didn't think I had heard her correctly. She repeated herself. "I'm so sorry." I started. She shook her head. "No. No. It's a good thing. It's a good thing." He had been on disability and didn't work, and it had become more and more difficult coming home to hear she wasn't doing enough. She told me she was glad he was gone. We agreed to pray for each other, and I managed to eek out three decades that night before getting distracted by medical reports and sleep.

The point of all these stories to me anyway, was to remind me to stay generous of heart and spirit and humble. We cannot know the life stories of those we write off at first glance. The doctor who treated Paul at HSC and held him through the night when I slept was the father of many, and a veteran, a survivor of bullets and bombs.

Taking my son from me and instructing me to trust him while I slept, he said, "I know how precious life is."

The nurse who brought Paul his medicines was the youngest of nine from a family in the Phillipenes. He was happy to have been assigned Paul.

All of our lives mirror the Joyful, Luminous, and Sorrowful mysteries if we let them. All of our lives have the capacity to teach others the graces and meanings of those mysteries by example. Only by listening and watching and really being open, do we have the opportunity to enter into the Glorious. Paul has been a vehicle for others to speak, and for his mother, to listen.

What I Should Have Said

Homilies are a time for the parish to connect with the Pastoral leader. On a college campus, the priest presiding over a mass has the once a week opportunity to instruct young adults on how to conduct themselves the other six days of the week, such that they live lives of moral clarity and value.

The priest at my campus took his job seriously. He worried about being accessible to the infinitely distractible 18-21 year olds who were newly away from home. Diligently, he sought inspiration from the world around him, to link scriptural passages to modern day life; to make the muddled brains of possibly beer fogged co-eds see the relevance of God’s spoken word to life in the 21st century.

Because the mass was held just five doors down from my room, it was ridiculously easy for me to make it on time, and to celebrate with more than a plurality of people I liked. It seemed an ideal arrangement.

The first week. After reading the Gospel, our priest, Fr. T. started talking about walking about the Notre Dame campus and approaching the Athletic Convention Center, affectionately known as the ACC. A concert was planned for that Saturday and he had watched the workmen unloading speakers and lights and staging equipment.

“You know…, Life’s kind of like that, we are preparing for the big event. And all of our preparations lead up to that moment.”

“Okay. Yeah…” I went back to my room and diligently checked off in my head…went to mass, fulfilled weekly obligation.

The next week. I just had to give this mass a chance I told myself. There were people here who I knew had rock solid faith lives. We were at a university dedicated to Our Lady for crying out loud.

The homily began. “I was walking along the campus the other day. I saw a car packed up with suitcases.”

I waited for the line of relevance between the Gospel and the sermon. “…You know, life’s kind of like that. We pack up our stuff and carry it around with us, like that overloaded Volkswagen beetle.”

The image of our sins being loaded into a car for our cosmic road trip through life…it was a bit of a stretch. Maybe homilies weren’t his strong suit I told myself. To be fair, I’d give it a month.

The next week. Some liturgy students thought that perhaps we needed some jazzing up of the mass and so they tried “Clown ministry.” When the girl welcomed us to mass wearing a red rubber nose, it took restraint not to physically recoil.

When the priest tried to explain that her attire was a sign of her faith and willingness to be a fool for Christ, I struggled morally to keep from screaming. But my friends were here and singing in the mass so I told myself, the liturgy is the liturgy and “This I Believe,” and that the Eucharist mattered more than any of the window dressing. I also wondered if I had to go to confession for the mocking commentary that kept popping into my head.

Three weeks had been, while memorable and I will grant, the homilies have stuck with me now for 24 YEARS, like subsisting on Dominos Pizzas spiritually speaking. The priest even had me doing it…equating everything in my entire college experience with spiritual merit, real or otherwise.

This time, I dragged my non-church going at the time boyfriend (now husband who makes sure we get there on time no matter what and even use the envelopes that match the actual date) as an independent observer to determine if I was being overly critical. I prayed desperately there would be no people wearing extraordinarily oversized red shoes and ball noses to greet us.

Mass began with a Latin hymn this time, and I wondered if the ultra traditional beginning was in response to perhaps congregational psychological distress over the inclusion of circus attire for ushers. Maybe the priest was trying a potpourri approach to liturgy, trying to hit all different levels of spirituality by having each Sunday a different style of mass. My brain came up with multiple explanations to mollify and explain away the first three weeks. I convinced myself it was all a hyper over reaction in my head.

Until the homily.

“I was walking on campus the other day…”

Oh no.

“And I saw a little squirrel.”

No. No. Please no.

“And I had a few peanuts in my pocket.”

Bring back the clowns…trapeze artists…Volkswagens…anything…

“And the squirrel was hesitant. He came forward a bit, and then he held back. You know…we’re kind of like that. Life’s kind of like that. Life’s kind of like that squirrel…”

I know I stayed for the rest of the mass. I even shook his hand at the end and thanked him for saying mass. But I went to a different liturgy from then on, opting to frontload by taking care of it on Saturday night after football games or putting it off until 10pm on Sunday when I’d need a study break.

Two dozen years later, I finally know what I should have said at the end of the mass to Fr. T.

“Have you considered taking a road trip?”

The Twelve Days of Adkins

Reflections on My ongoing Adkins Experience. A Dieter's Diary and attempt to twist reality to fit a theme...more or less.

Day 1 On the first day of Adkins, here's what I had to eat...well, it wasn't a partridge in a pear tree, but it was chicken and salad. Yum. Yum. Telling myself not to eat a Dove Bar, french fries, strawberries or ice cream all the time. By the end of the day, I’m snappish, Husband asks about biology. Snarl “No” and go to fume while munching a piece of cheddar. I feel stale already.

Day 2 Huzzah, I lost three pounds. By my calculations, I’ll be at my desired weight at current course and speed in ten days. Bring on those two turtle doves! Suddenly, No Carb conversion diet seems completely reasonable and of course I’ll stick with it.

Day 3 What gives? I only lost a pound? Did I eat any carbs yesterday? Okay, I forgot and drank six ounces of milk but that’s not like seriously going to keep me from losing is it? That’s so unfair. Resolve to stick with it, after all, I’m on day 3 and I’ve lost four, so I’m one up on the day. Three French hens please. Begin to see how ubiquitous carbo snacks have become in everyday life. I can’t buy a stamp without passing a candy bar!

Day 4 Now taking to weighing twice a day. Did I lose weight yet? Did I lose weight yet? Severe frustration at self for accidentally popping a strawberry, I actually spit it out. Baked four calling birds yesterday to allow for easy snacks today. Wonder if it is worth it.

Day 5 Five pounds are gone! But the days of meats greens…meat…greens…switching to seafood to have variety. Had to order at the golden arches today...that was...difficult. Desperately want to break a new barrier but have stopped talking about diet for fear someone will ask “How much did you lose?” and begin telling me how they dropped 25 the first week. Lost one more pound, somehow feel cheated.

Day 6 I miss orange juice. Very tired of the six geese a laying eggs for breakfast. Reflect on reality that if I had lost one pound each day, I would have been far more satisfied with the diet than losing three, one and then nothing and then one again. Also worry about catching scurvy. Consider branding the diet man a hack, but afraid to stop for fear five pounds are just waiting to hop back on my hips.

Day 7 Breath smells permanently faintly of cheese. Burps have a meaty aftertaste. Now brushing teeth after every meal and snack. Ate the swimming swans today..well not really, but man oh man am I sick of chicken and tuna salad. Staring longingly at children’s lunches, a carb fest of refined sugar –an apple, white bread peanut butter and jelly sandwich and chocolate milk. Begin trolling diet aisles for the pseudo chocolate bars that will substitute for Chocolate. Can’t find any that fit in the diet in this part of the regimen. Nuts.

Day 8 Okay. Seem to have plateaued diet wise. Now considering the radical concept of going to the gym. The gym had an ocatave of women from the La Leche league holding a get in shape membership drive for post partum women. I had actually packed gym clothes in a tote and put them in the back of the car, complete with walkman, but I didn't want to run the gauntlet of eight maids a miling with my crew toting bottles. Went home and did push ups.

Day 9 Considering switching to South beach. Diet Coke isn't even sending me anymore. Even forbidden grapefruit looks so good, it’s scary. Lost one pound. Becoming annoyed. This diet feels dial up, not broadband. Unfortunately, I have trained family to squawk if I weaken, so nine pipers pipe up if I try to cheat.

Day 10 Have decided Low Carb plans are Man diets. Begin promising God to stick to exercise regimen if someone will give me half a blueberry. What’s for breakfast? Eggs. What’s for lunch? Salad and Meat. What’s for dinner, Salad and More Meat. Log on to website for testimonials to keep me in lockstep with the routine. Ten emails later, I'm sufficiently bolstered to march on. Ten drummers keeping me in lock step.

Day 11 Reflecting on the diet rules and their implications. What exactly is a carb? I mean how is it defined –how are foods divided such that one can portion a candy bar in small pieces and get only seven carbs as versus the entire 17 in the goodie. How many carbs in an onz of milk? Some french bread? Banannas? Maple Syrup? Chocolate Five Star Bars? Ice Cream? Pasta Alfredo? Salt and Vinegar Chips, cold cereal for crying out loud!

Not that I’m considering eating any of these things.

They’re for a friend. This lady's dancing with the idea of reintroducing carbs, but my brain has already figured out how I could eat the bad stuff...nah nah nah...can't hear me..not listening...going to stay on the diet...where's my cheese stick. I love cheese sticks....and shrimp coctail at ten in the morning...wondering if we can fiscally afford to keep me on a diet.

Day 12 What?
It's just steak for breakfast.
I couldn't take one more day of eggs. No I will not share.
You guys get to eat pancakes and toast and bagels and oatmeal and cantelope and blackberries, milk, doughnuts and apple juice.

I am offered every possible carb sin, as half the family still likes the idea of being food police, and the other half is ready to sell out for a few pieces of sirloin. There are Lords a leaping as a I cut up my breakfast and portion it out to the assorted heathens. Pieces of appeasement to achieve morning peace. Guess I'll have some more eggs.

There is a dietary mutiny afoot.
Shouldn't have lorded that fact over them.(Sigh).

I made it.

I'm not sure what was harder, sticking to the diet the first three weeks or sticking all of this into my preselected format.

Tune in next time when I try once more to mix two or even three improbable things, from History, Philosophy, English Literature and domestic family life, politics and religion, all for the sole purpose of creating humor and insight...alright, and maybe losing a few more pounds.