Happily Ever After

From September 1997

Ten years ago, I brought a simple band of gold into the jeweler's shop and asked him to engrave it for me.

"I want it to say, 'Once upon a time and happily ever after' and the date '9-12-87.'"

The jeweler cocked one eyebrow and said, "It's just one ring; you can't write a novel on it."

"It's not a novel. It's just the beginning and the end. Can't you print really small?"

"No way. You'll have to come up with something else."

Before we even got to the altar, the reality was that this was a marriage and not a fairy tale. My perception at the time was that "happily ever after" meant that we'd never be unhappy. I took the jeweler's refusal a bit personally. It's a good thing I wasn't superstitious. Ten years and four children later, I've discovered what "happily ever after" really means.

My white knight, it turns out, doesn't ride a white horse. He drives a 1988 black Taurus sedan. It is the "family car" that we bought when we discovered, somewhat unexpectedly, that we were going to have a baby for our first anniversary. It is the car that he tried to convince me not to take to the hospital for that birth. He was afraid I'd get it messy. That car made midnight trips to the hospital a few more times, for a life-threatening infection as a result of chemotherapy, for another birth, and for the first of many childhood asthma attacks. It also has been the chariot to countless Sunday Masses, Saturday soccer games and midnight trips to the grocery store. Now it groans along, needing frequent transfusions of vital fluids in order to reach very local destinations. No white horse, just a trusty old black car.

My white knight, it turns out, doesn't live in a castle. He lives in a four-bedroom house in the suburbs. He works very long hours to pay for the house. There are so many riding toys, basketballs and bikes in the garage that he has never parked his chariot there. There is a swingset in the backyard that he designed and built for his children. Inside, there is happy confusions. Upstairs, there are beds in every room, but the knight often finds himself having a "sleepover" on the floor of the the family room with the young squires. No castle, just a home.

My white knight, it turns out, gets cranky when he's hungry (he reminds us of the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk). And sometimes he gets angry. This was not something I counted on when I went to have the ring engraved. I think I thought that as long as we were in love, there would be no anger, no arguments.

Around the time of our wedding, Carly Simon had a new song entitled "The Stuff that Dreams are Made Of." The tune was catchy and though I cannot even find the album (an antiquated term in these days of CDs), my children have often heard me sing the few phrases that have stayed in my mind over the years. [editor's note: isn't the 21st century grand? I found a YouTube link in 2 seconds flat:-)] I sing this tune when I wipe runny noses and clean dirty diapers, when pots boil over just as the white knight calls to say he'll be late to dinner. I sing it when I'm frustrated because I can't get the real to meet the ideal.

What if the prince on the horse in your fairytale

Is right here in disguise?

And what if the stars you've been reaching so high for

Are shining in his eyes?...

It's the stuff that dreams are made of

It's the slow and steady fire

It's the stuff that dreams are made

It's your heart and soul's desire

I never thought I'd have to reminded that my life is indeed the stuff that dreams are made of.

But I do. Reality is not as sugar-coated as the fairy tales. However the pain in our lives has borne such sweet fruit. The bitterest of arguments have yielded the greatest understanding, the tenderest reconciliation.  Real life is not a fairy tale. There is no fairy godmother; nothing is tied up in a beautiful bow.

Instead, married life is a journey undertaken by two souls. Our destination is heaven. That is our happily ever after. There is always joy, even in the darkest moments, because there is always God. Our marriage is a covenant between Mike, me, and God: a commitment. For better or worse. The joy, the genuine happiness, is in the commitment--God's commitment to us; ours to him; and ours to each other.

What I could not know as a young bride-to-be is that in a covenant marriage, the flushed, giddy, once-upon-a-time romance grows into a deep, abiding, mature love. A love that endures. A love upon which God pours out His riches graces.

On second thought, maybe I did know, deep down inside. I had my husband's ring engraved "Once upon a time and forever" and slipped it on his finger on a beautiful morning ten years ago "as a token of my love and fidelity. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."

The other day, I happened upon an overstuffed envelope filled with old columns. Most of them pre-date my time on the internet. I enjoyed some quiet time, re-acquainting myself with the young wife and mother who wrote those columns. And since I'm in need of a bit of a blogging break, I'm going to share her with you in the next few weeks. I hope you are blessed.

I am happy this week to share this post with my dear friend Ann Voskamp, as part of her June devotion to the Spiritual Practice of Matrimony

Watercolors

 

~Mary Beth

Shattered Time

From February 5, 1998

There have been moments, many moments, when I wished I were living in a monastery. Wouldn’t it be simpler to be more prayerful, more contemplative, more peaceful in the quiet and order of a hermitage instead of being in the midst of unceasing demands of little ones, unwavering deadlines, and the conflicting schedules of a large family?

Strangely enough, as  I leafed through a monastery cookbook looking for a recipe that could easily be quadrupled, I stumbled upon this quote from The Long Rule of St. Basil: “In the midst of our work we can fulfill the duty of prayer, giving thanks to him who has granted strength to our hands for performing our tasks and cleverness to our minds for acquiring knowledge, and for providing the materials.”

This concept appeals to me enormously-- to pray unceasingly through the work of my ordinary days, to consecrate the little things and so to live joyfully in the continual presence of  God. I am not new to the idea of doing more than one things at a time. Early in my mothering adventure, it was an idea suggested to me often. Experienced voices sung the praises of cleaning the bathroom while supervising a child’s bath, making a phone call while emptying the dishwasher, and my favorite, listening to books on tape while doing the housework. I even have a postpartum exercise book that suggests the following:

"Start your plies in the bathroom as you finish you bicep curls—then go to the bathroom. Go to the sink and do the wall push and the tricep extension while continuing to work your legs...Do kinetic pushups standing up. Now do your calf raises while brushing your teeth. Then wash your face and contine with the plies and some kegels. Next turn on the shower and while it’s getting hot, do 25 to 50 controlled crunches. Take a shower.”

One can see how the idea of dovetailing can get out of hand. One morning , as I was brushing my teeth and supervising a youngster in the tub, I tried to answer the phone. It didn’t work. After finishing at the sink, concluding the phone call, toweling and dressing my son, it dawned on me that I might be taking efficiency a bit too far. In my effort to do as much as possible with a day that seemed too short, I was missing opportunities to sanctify the moment.

If we shatter time into tiny fragments we cannot be fully present in it. We cannot be conscious that our work is a prayer and find the sacred in the ordinary. We cannot feel the presence of God. To go even further, if we bustle along at this pace, we are not readily available to the people in our lives either. And, finally, we are the short track to burnout, the inability to see, or hear, or feel, or sense the joy that is abundantly present in every day life. We are simply too tired, too stressed, too preoccupied.

Returning to the ridiculous exercise quote, my most fruitful prayers are ones I pray while walking in the early morning. The rhythm of my feet and the wheels of the stroller in front of me, the quiet of the morning and the sounds of God’s creation in nature all work in harmony to bring together a blending of body and spirit. But this requires full time and attention to my walking meditation. It is entirely different from cramming in as many crunches as possible before the water gets hot.

One of the best ways to experience joy in a house full of kids is to pretend you are a monk. Sanctify your movements. All of them. Slow them down. Be aware of your purpose. Give thanks for your chores. Make them holy. Make them happy.

The other day, I happened upon an overstuffed envelope filled with my old columns. Most of them pre-date my time on the internet. I enjoyed some quiet time, re-acquainting myself with the young wife and mother who wrote those columns. And since I'm in need of a bit of a blogging break, I'm going to share her with you in these few weeks. I hope you are blessed.

Our Centerpiece at Breakfast this Morning

by Mary Beth

 

 

Real Salt Lake won the MLS Cup and so, like other teams who win National Championships, they were invited to the White House. Since we live right by the airport, it wasn't too out of the way for the Cup to come to our house on the way to the President's house. Pretty cool.

Embrace Them

From August 1996

When we finally moved into our new house, I had a goal: complete all the unpacking, hang all the curtains and pictures and be back into our regular schedule within two weeks. Everything was in order; I had a well-considered "to do" list, an abundance of natural energy and a powerful nesting urge, and every good intention to settle my family so that we would all be happier in a home that seemed so far from the familiar.

I hadn't counted on Patrick. Patrick is the most agreeable and articulate toddler I have ever encountered. (I am totally unbiased as I write this.) He is pure joy from morning until night, and then he sleeps a solid ten hours in his own bed without ever needing me. This child has certainly been an easy one. But Patrick has two fears: trucks and strange men.

Five houses on our street are under construction, including the the two next door. Trucks are the only traffic we see in this otherwise empty neighborhood. They pass by our house dozens of times every day and, for the first two weeks, would send Patrick screaming to be held. Upon picking him up, he would cling for dear life for the next hour--or until the next truck. As for strange men, there was the telephone man, the cable man and the countless construction men who would arrive unannounced throughout the day to fix this or that detail. Patrick would not let me put him down. He hadn't read my list and he didn't care about my agenda.

His brothers thought the trucks were "really way cool," and they quickly adapted to the presence of strange men in the house. They also figured that a new house in a new neighborhood should probably have new rules. Sot hey set out to test all the old ones. They seemed to remember so little of our former structure that my husband and I began to wonder if we left our children in Springfield.

Somewhere in the midst of this chaos, I recalled an essay I had read in Discovering Motherhood several years ago. The essayist had a complaint like mine. Her son would not allow her to accomplish anything. he wanted her undivided attention constantly. She swallowed her pride and called he sister-in-law, the mother of four children, for advice. This is the counsel she received:

Embrace him. He is empty and unsure of your permanence, for whatever reason, and the more you resist, the more unsure he gets. The more unsure he gets, the more he will cling. Embrace him every time he wants you to, for as long as he wants you to. Don't let go until he does. Eventually he will.

What wise advice. It applied most obviously to Patrick, still a toddler who was easily held in my arms. But it also applied to the older boys. I needed to remind them again and again that the security  of those rules and routines that had always been a part of their lives still existed. They needed to know that I still cared enough to monitor and restrict as necessary. All three children were begging for me--my time, my attention, my comforting presence. More than boxes unpacked and pictures hung, my children needed to know that I was the same as before, constant, unchanging and always available.

Eventually, I did unpack the pictures; and I marveled at how quickly my children have changed. There isn't a trace of roundness in my once fat babies. Where there used to be a full set of baby teeth, my oldest now sports a gap-toothed smile. And the bald baby has a full head of blond curls. The time to hold them close is short indeed. Once again, I am resolving to cherish this time, to wrap myself around it with all my being, to embrace it. And them.

The other day, I happened upon an overstuffed envelope filled withold columns. Most of them pre-date my time on the internet. I enjoyed some quiet time, re-acquainting myself with the young wife and mother who wrote those columns. And since I'm in need of a bit of a blogging break, I'm going to share her with you in the next few weeks. I hope you are blessed.