Celebrating Life

On my 30th birthday, a certain male in my family bought 30 roses with 30 vases.  I woke up to find them all over the house.  He also made a fantastic chocolate chip cookie cake, since I prefer cookies to cake any day.

Then my family came over and everyone stared at the Patriots contend in the playoffs, cookie cake in hand, while I kept the kids from consuming the rest of the ice cream.

That's probably the birthday memory that makes me chuckle the most, both for its stellar and absurd elements.  You see... I pretty much straight-up _hate_ football... I really wish I didn't.  I want to be happily screaming at a TV like my hubby.  But outside of a personal amazing story about one of the players who wants to win in memory of his mother's cousin's friend or something... I can't care.

In large part, my football apathy probably stems from having no TV growing up and never getting used to hours watching absurdly overpaid guys fight over a ball like squirrels over a nut.

My ignorance of the sport extended into college, when I was invited to a Superbowl Party.  I inhaled my tea laughing.  Laughed harder when I was told that was the name of the final football competition of the year.

"Okay, I know what the World Series is... But football has super BOWLS?  I'd prefer a plate.  That's ridiculous people...  I mean, I know I was homeschooled and all--it's hilarious--but I don't know how you expect me to believe that..."

So, I was like (really) not raised with football.  At all.

But now that I "get it"... I still don't.  I mean, the players aren't even from the region that they are playing for... we're all like "Go Pats!" over here when half of them are from CA... sigh.  And... I've just lost all my male readers... Guys, I'm trying!  I sit through at least 10 minutes of a fourth quarter every season, I do.  Be impressed... (?)

Maybe I just need the right kind of beer and wings?  I will accept recommendations...

Speaking of beer: second standout birthday memory is how I celebrated my 21st birthday at college: no one knew about it, and I went to classes as usual. (I think single girls got the serenades; once you were "dating" that didn't happen). Just before midnight when my birthday ended, my (then) boyfriend (who had been busy all day) showed up with a warm Corona and said,

"Oh yeah: happy birthday!  You can drink this now."  :D

In case my football comments have incensed or alarmed you too much: after a day of commemorating the fallen, today's topic is (actually) on new life: birthday memories.

Given my past experiences and the wisdom gleaned through my advancing years, I now plan my own birthdays.  It takes serious planning to make January happy.  Your presents are wrapped in leftover red and green, everyone is exhausted by Christmas, gloomy about winter, and generally "not feeling it." I thought I had it bad until I met my husband, whose birthday is on a worse day: January 3rd.  Which is "Christmas vacation is over get back to work day" every year.  People born in January should simply move the day to June, there should be a legal way to do that....

Okay, okay... I'm supposed to tell you my favorite birthday memories... I remember my third birthday. (I do!)  My mom is definitely a "party person."  At the time, she had put a large sombrero on the ground and we were doing "The Mexican Hat Dance."  And pin the tail on the donkey.  Cake and ice cream, always with ice cream.

And that's pretty much how I celebrated my birthday, always with a family party, until I went to college.  Christendom had a tradition at the time that ladies were serenaded at midnight on their birthdays.  So the guys would get permission to be out after curfew (yeah, we had curfew), and troupe en masse across to the girls' side of campus and start singing under her dorm window.

As the bookish, fresh out of homeschool freshman that I was, bedtime was at nine.  I was sound asleep when my roommate woke me up in a frenzy of excitement, telling me: "There are ALL THESE BOYS OUT THE WINDOW COME LOOK!"

Confusion turning to alarm, I blanched, grabbed a bathrobe, checked the mirror, and looked two stories down at a crowd of young men singing happy birthday to me.  I just blushed and smiled while my roommate hooted happily.

I'm grinning now thinking about it.

To make up for the dreary month, I now just tell people when my birthday is...  used to think that was obnoxious but now, I mean, let them eat cake, right?  After years of going through my birthday without telling anyone what day it was and, despite myself, drowning a wee bit in self-pity... you know, silence is pointless.  My birthday is January 20, inaugural day.  Mark your calendars: the forecast is for freezing rain and floods of slush, so we're going to meet at Dave and Busters or lazer tag or a spa or something.  :D  You will likely find me wearing my kids' dollar store medallion "Birthday Girl!" and passing out cupcakes.  Cuz that's how I'm gonna roll from here out...

We should all celebrate the day God brought us into the world, with our moms working really hard for that too...  It's a big deal to begin the missions we are given, and that's what we did that day.  I love celebrating birthdays.

And I always give my mom a rose on my birthday.

Me, almost 3, with my mom and rose

Because seriously, I didn't do much back then... Birthdays should totally occur with "Birth-giving" days, giving a nod to the ladies who made the day possible.  For real.

Today I'm blogartying over fellow writer Kimberly Smith, who is graciously hosting this month's challenge here.  To you Kimberly, and everyone whose birthday I've missed:  I'm so glad to be sharing 2013 with you!  May you always know how very precious you are, how much you are loved, and how vitally important your God-given purpose is in this world.  I celebrate you today.

"You are precious and honored in My sight." Isaiah 43:4

Linked to Being a Wordsmith, Found the Marbles, and The Fontenot Four

9/11/01: Gaming, Austria

On September 11th, I was newly married, attending graduate school in Austria.  (Say it three times quickly: "The International Theological Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family.")  Across an ocean, in a different time zone, surrounded by people who were not from the United States.

For us, 9/11 didn't happen till three in the afternoon.

And then the news spread by word of mouth, from weeping Americans and confused Estonians who were eating at the "Johannes Stuberl," the restaurant where the grad students had their meals.  We heard what had happened while walking back from the "Spar," the only grocery store in the village, where we bought the small cartons of milk and tried to find spaghetti sauce without diced carrots in it.
I remember someone saying in halting English, "But Bin Laden... he looked like a holy man..."

Embarrassing as it is to admit, I had to ask my husband what the World Trade Center was again?  Not that I hadn't actually been there.  I just remembered them as "the Twin Towers," the easy way for me to identify Manhattan.  Dan had taken me to NYC a couple of times, and I remembered standing at the foot of the North Tower, a massive structure that shot into the sky.  He promised to take me up there one day to see the awesome restaurant on the top: the Windows on the World.

It was a strange mix of reactions.  Those from the US were dumbstruck, and gathered around the one TV in the monastery we could access at the smoky little restaurant.  Distractedly, I sipped frittatten suppe, beef broth with sliced crepes in it; I couldn't handle the fried pork at the time.  We watched the planes slam into the towers on TV, over and over again, while the German we didn't have a grasp on yet rattled on in the background.  One of the native students was translating as best and as fast he could, but news was coming so slowly... mostly, the reporters were repeating themselves.

We had no newspapers, no cell phones, no nearby or reliable internet: you had to walk several blocks to wait in line for computer access.  Just one crackly television in a foreign tongue.  Not being familiar with the beauty of the German language, it all sounded vaguely Nazi-ish, making reality even more surreal.

I was concerned for my cousin, who was flying to her honeymoon.  But we didn't know anyone who would be at the WTC.   My father-in-law used to work at the Pentagon, and now worked two miles away... later we found out he walked home when he heard what he thought was a bombing.  While we all worried, we had reason to believe our families were safe; and when our calls finally went through, we were proven right.

But we knew our country was under some sort of attack.  Here we were, safe in the mountains of Gaming, in a monastery whose laundry room had actually been converted into a bunker.  We weren't due to be in a plane for months.

Despite our safety, a strong part of us wanted to be "home," going through it with "our people."  To this day, I'm sorry not to have witnessed what people tell me of the country pulling together, the random acts of kindness, mobs of people returning to church, and American flags flying from the antenna of every car.

I went to bed that night, convinced hundreds must simply be trapped.  There was no way thousands could have died like that.  Praying they would be rescued quickly, I retired to the nightmares we all probably had, that night.

But the reality was worse.  As the news dripped to us, painfully slowly, we heard the extent of the carnage, not just in the Towers, but at the Pentagon, and in the planes.  That only a handful of people were rescued from the massive rubble.

In a melting pot of cultures, the reactions to the news were varied.  Some professors canceled classes on the 12th, while others conducted business as usual.  Prayers were said, Masses were offered, services were held.  While most everyone had sympathy, there were a couple who thought that--while what happened to innocent life was wrong--America deserved some comeuppance for always meddling in world affairs.

That was odd to hear at such a time.

We quickly found out who the Americans were among us; we had only been on campus for a couple of weeks, after all.  Mostly they were recognizable from the vague stares and copious tissues near their desks.

Within the week, hubby and I were sought out by the village newspaper reporters.  They interviewed us through an interpreter.

"Ah so...  Sympathies to you.  How do you feel on this?"

Not having had a personal loss, we felt odd speaking on behalf of the country to this little Austrian county.  But my tears were real.  Naturally, we expressed our dismay at the loss of life, our fears for our country, our prayers for the bereaved.

12 years later, our sentiments remain.  Honoring the memory of those lost, praying for those left behind: for our nation, and those nations--like Syria--experiencing their own traumas now.

"He will proclaim peace to the nations." Zechariah 9:10

Linked to Being a Wordsmith and Things I Can't Say

Where I came from

My blog's name is "The Lactating Catholic," aka TLC.  Here is why.  

I've been asked to introduce myself to the newest blog challenge I've gotten into.  Since Conversion Diary has asked me the same question, I'm gonna kill two blogs with one post.  Or whatever.

While a "cradle Catholic," I was raised in a charismatic cultmunity... a word I just made up to describe a community that, in some aspects, resembled a cult.  From the ages of 3 to 13, I spent every Sunday morning at church, and every Sunday afternoon and evening in a church hall listening to "teachings" and "witnesses," wearing skirts, singing praise and worship, and being taught how to be "slain in the spirit" (i.e. falling down while getting prayed over.)  I was surrounded by wonderfully well-meaning people, overcome with zeal for the Lord.

This was not all bad.

If Dora the Explorer was not playing loudly in the background, I could spend several hours detailing the unique petri dish I was grown in, but the long and short of it was--while  I'm glad I'm not wearing a jumper and that I can now socialize with non-community friends today (no, really)--I spent my childhood learning the scriptures and receiving the sacraments.

When my parents decided to seek more normalcy in my early teens, I was homeschooled.  In the 80's. Being the law-abiding citizens that they ever are, and afraid that--despite the legality of what they were doing--we would be "reported for truancy"...I spend the ages of 13 to 18 pretty much at home between the hours of 8 and 3.  Far from the homeschooling popularity of today, we rarely went to the grocery store during the school day for fear we would be asked that dreaded question, "Why aren't you in school, dear?"

I spent my four years of high school at the same wide, wooden desk, looking out the same window. My books were my teachers, and my classmates were penpals (the kind you used a pen to write to).  I wasn't just unsocialized.  I was bored out of my mind.

This was not all bad.

To fill the long days, I went to daily Mass.  I volunteered at every church event that would take me, taught Sunday school, joined the choir, youth ministry, lectored, and (gasp) became a Eucharistic minister--all serving to convince every dear nun I encountered that I was specially made for their own particular order.  I also took extra courses in everything that remotely interested me.  I read the library section by section, shelf by shelf.

When I decided to seek more normalcy, (tee hee) I decided to go to the tiniest, most Catholic college I got a scholarship to because, you see, at this point the nuns had convinced me that I was destined to get in the habit as well.  (As a plug for the ability of homeschoolers to get accepted to college, I did actually have to choose from among several scholarships...)

And for a college, I chose one that was not at all bad!  Christendom College was a wonderful experience for me.  And to the nuns' disappointment, I came home my freshman year with the boyfriend who would be my husband.  Their dismay can be summed up in the hesitant question of dear Sr. Mary my first summer back, "But... weren't you going to Christendom Convent?"

Overall, I feel I have been very blessed on my spiritual journey from the charismatic movement to traditional Catholicism.  I'm so grateful that I learned Bible verses and songs and stories at a young age. It has been wonderful to build on that foundation with the theology classes I got to take in high school, college, and even at the ITI in Austria.  (ITI is very short for "The International Theological Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family.")

The author who has had the greatest impact on my thinking (other than the Bible, as J. Fulwiler asks), the one who--most of what he wrote I want to jump up and say, "Yes, that!!"--is C.S. Lewis.  I did my thesis on him, loving how my English and theology degrees kinda met in his work.

In the end, the shortest summation of my religious beliefs can be summed up in 1 John 4:8.

A typical day for me?  I'm a mom of four girls; the only time I seriously regret this is when we are traveling and have to hit a public restroom, and I watch my husband go to the bathroom all by himself. This blog talks about many "typical days," should you be interested...  Most of them involve cleaning up spills while listening to loud child noises.

My favorite part of each day is sleeping.  Yes, after all this recounting of my spiritual journey and study... I wish that was more profound... :)  But as a mother who spent her teen years in relative silence and her pre-kid years studying, and now having little quiet or time to think... sleeping is blissful. Really.

Right now I have two kids doing this beside me.  This is also blissful.  Here, I'll do a terrible quality selfie of how I finished this post...

Good night for now.  :)

"God is love."  1 John 4:8

(Linked to The Conversion Diary and Being a Wordsmith)

Through a new lens

It's been an odd day.  I woke up to realize my contact lens case had been knocked over, drained and dried overnight.  Went to look for new lenses and realized my spares were in my purse... you know the one I lost on the train?  Yeah.  My glasses were in there too.  I hope the thief has my same prescription.

So spent the morning wearing an old pair of my husband's glasses.  They made things clearer but... weirder. The ground was too close.  I felt short.  Surfaces were oddly convex, doors and counters bending up to meet me. I was getting a headache...

Finally, I talked my doctor's office into giving me a free $20 sample of contacts.  And I arrived home just in time for the delivery.

"Kate, there's a couple boxes on the porch.  Just take what you want and toss the rest."  And with that, my Dad and Mom scooted off to deliver similar boxes to my other siblings.  I also instantly inherited and presently lost most of my grandmother's china, a set which was decimated when my dad picked up the box with a loose bottom, and quartered when it arrived at my door and was placed at the wrong angle.  Still, I have two bowls and seven plates to remember the many dinners at her small apartment with white bread and pre-sliced pats of butter. More than I had before.  :)  Don't have much room here anyway!

Moving away from your family of origin is a longer process than you think.  Had no idea this stuff was still in my parents' basement.  Now that they are in the throes of a cleaning frenzy, I got back all these pieces of my history...

Besides the dishes, I received a box of well-preserved letters, arranged in categories by the organized soul I was as a teen.  Letters I received at Camp Don Bosco as a kid in New Jersey.  Letters I received when I worked summer months away from home at a retreat center near Boston.  Letters from when I was visiting the convent in Nashville and colleges in New Hampshire.  The letters from home as dry as the life of a truly non-socialized homeschool family can be, detailing interesting caterpillars and (literally) what the garden was growing.  (Not that those things were bad; just really wish there had been more to say of that time...) Sweetly colored pictures and notes from my little brothers and sister, for whom I was something of legend: the one who was most grown-up and most independent.  The stuff of my life till I was 18.  And finally, every letter I got my freshmen year in college.

Carefully opening the slightly yellowing pages (how dare they yellow, it's not like I'm really old), I'm trying to comprehend the person I was in the 90's.  Through more mature eyes, I can understand what I'm reading worlds better than I did.  Several pages of handwritten letters from the guy of my dreams who I truly thought didn't like me (even as I read several pages of handwritten letters from him, sigh.)  Letters about scholarships won and lost.  Sketches that obviously had a joke that went with them that is long since forgotten, but still seem vaguely funny somehow. I'm chuckling as I realize my class exchanged Christmas cards and even some Valentines... the one's you buy at the grocery store that rip along perforated edges, even the ones with Minnie Mouse on them.  Gosh we were... young. 

It strikes me that my own kids will likely not have dusty boxes of letters, tangible evidence of the regrets and triumphs of their lives; it will likely all be some sort of digital version...  I wonder what to do with this box. Wasn't exactly emotional in all this process of reviewing a precious piece of past I can't revisit or alter, but I kept rubbing my eyes till I lost the precious contact in one and spent the last half hour doing that awkward eyeball roll you do in the mirror when you are trying to find something stuck in the window of your soul.  

I think there's room for a box of letters in this house, right?  Worse comes to worse, I'll scan 'em into a hard drive or something techy like that.  :)

"Behold, I am doing something new... I will make a way in the wilderness 
and rivers in the desert." 

Isaiah 43:19

Amid eternal snows

I remember.  My dad carefully getting out the radio, fiddling with the antenna, and studiously tuning it to WPRO.  The rapid breathing palpitations of excitement.  "Did you hear it yet Dad?  Did they cancel?!?"  We wanted not one, but two school closings: our own, and Dad's.  He was a teacher.  And it was way cool to have him home.  Also, it doubled our chances of going sledding.

I remember running to the window in the morning, screaming with my siblings, jumping with glee on the couch because it was SNOWING!!! REALLY SNOWING!!  We couldn't wait to go out in it.  We made hot chocolate while we waited, boiled milk in pans and trying not to scald it so you didn't get that gross filmy stuff on top.  We found snowpants, and coats, and complained that we didn't need scarves ("yes you do!!" said mom).  And Mom, Mary stole my favorite gloves!  But we sorted it out quickly, because we needed to go out and "shovel".  We put plastic shopping bags over double socks, slipped on the boots that always seemed to leak, and got out there into wonderland. 

I remember fighting over who got to make the first footprints in the new snow.  I liked to keep some untrodden snow on the lawn, but usually I didn't get my way, even though I was the oldest.  I remember testing the quality of the snow: was it the good snowball packing type, or the sledding type, light and dry and fun to fling in the air.  I remember what it was to be having too much fun to feel cold.  With endless energy and enthusiasm, my brothers, sister, and I shoveled the walk all into an intentional mound, where we would hollow out a fake igloo and tunnels.  We would also shovel the neighbors' walks (yes, they loved us) just so we could bring the snow back to our house, one shovelful at a time, to add to our snow mountain (no, my parents didn't love this as much).  We would hollow it out, make tunnels under the snow, and be out there for hours. 

Funny, but I don't remember the mess.  The stressful search for winter attire before, and matching gloves, and boots that fit.  The melting dirty snow from boots, the wet mittens, the wet scarves, the wet hats, the wet EVERYTHING after coming in.  I don't remember being worried one bit if our snow structure collapsed on us.  I'm sure I would have been convinced that would have been more fun. 

But I bet my mom remembers, because now, when I hear "snowstorm," I sigh.  Not just while anticipating how much work it takes to get four kids to play happily in snow without frostbite.  But the icy steps, and the sloppy roads, and the feeling of being "trapped." 

We're now under a blizzard warning, and I am not as excited as my soul truly wants to be.  I find myself fretting, "What would we do if I had to get a kid to the ER during a blizzard? What if the power goes out and there's no heat?  What if I find out the hard way the mystery as to why I should have stocked up on milk and bread? What if... what if... "  Meanwhile, my kids and even husband walk around with broad smiles, and talk about "Blizzard Nemo."  (Really weather-namer-people?  Nemo??)

I was born in the blizzard of '78.  My family has been in New England for generations.  I was made to love snow!  So I'm trying to change my negative mindset by remembering that snow is fun, and can make cool structures.  To focus simply on "what is": Snow can make you go fast.  Snow is pretty, frosting the trees, sparkling in the sun and the moonlight.  No two of the trillions of snowflakes that will be falling will be the same, each one reflecting a tiny bit of the beauty of an infinitely artistic Creator. 

Wow.

I'm remembering too a poem I learned in college, written by an Irish martyr, Joseph Mary Plunkett.  I was always struck by the poet's ability to see aspects of God in all of Creation.  I still have it framed from where it hung in my dorm room:

I see his blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of his eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.
I see his face in every flower;
The thunder and the singing of the birds
Are but his voice—and carven by his power
Rocks are his written words.
All pathways by his feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree.

Enjoy the white-out!  :) TLC