Unsolicited Advice for Mothers-in-Law

Long have I threatened to transform my experience with my mother-in-law into a book about how to be a good-mother-in-law, but, in the absence (at least for now) of publishing companies beating down my proverbial door, I suppose a blog entry will have to suffice. The mother-in-law / daughter-in-law relationship is, by far, the most difficult of family relationships. While the impending visit of a woman's mother inspires smiles and empathetic warmth from friends, the visit of a mother-in-law creates entirely different sentiments among a woman's circle of rapport. If you should ever need any sympathy at the playground on a bad day, if you search for common ground in relating to new friends, if you need wisdom and new battle strategies for the ongoing war against your husband's mother, just shrug your shoulders, scowl and mention an upcoming visit from your husbands mother-- "Well, my mother-in-law. . ." At the conclusion of this phrase, you will garner as much support and empathy and strategy as you could hope for, precisely because so many women experience the turmoil of a tempestuous relationship with the mother of their beloved and can thus empathize with fellow sufferers.


And, yet there are still a few mothers-in-laws who do not fit the terrible (but generally true) stereotype that mothers-in-law have earned for themselves over millennia, mothers-in-law that defy reasonable expectation. Though it will not gain friends for me to say it, my mother-in-law shines like a diamond among mothers of husbands. So extraordinary is she that, now that I live in Australia, my close friends back in Texas regularly borrow her and then remind me of just how lucky I am.



And yet, it is not luck. She is the admiring mother of three boys, the youngest of which has been surrendered to me. I have a very strong personality (this may be well be understatement); I have strong opinions; and I am not afraid of conflict. If ever someone was prone to a tempestuous relationship with a MIL, it is I. And yet, our relationship, though imperfect, is one characterized by the tone she set early on--one of mutual respect and affection. Much of the warmth and openness of our relationship is the fruit of the seeds she has industriously and intentionally sown into our twelve-year relationship as the wiser and more mature woman. (She would never say that, because she is very humble, but it is true. She would also never dare to give direct and unsolicited advice written from her own life and experience to her poorly-behaved peers or anyone else who will read it, but, luckily enough for you, I do not share her reserve). I am the unashamed beneficiary of a wise and kind mother in law. These are the things she does that make loving her so easy.



1. She looks for the good, and encourages me in it. My MIL thinks I am a good cook, a loving wife, thoughtful parent, and a dedicated bargain shopper, and she makes a point of complimenting at least these four aspects of my life when she talks to me or visits. I am quite sure I do things she doesn't particularly like as well, but when I think of her opinion of me, I hear, in my mind, her approval in specific and consistent areas. Although I don't require her approval, it is a nice gift from the mother of my husband, and my perception of her approval makes it easy for me to enjoy being around her.



2. She respects my opinions, and yes, quirks. I am nothing if not opinionated and quirky. I have specific reasons for nearly all of the things I do, and although my MIL may not always agree with my reasons, she does her best to respect my preferences. I remember her discipline in this aspect of our relationship most clearly when the world's most important baby was born--that would be Jordan, my oldest. Jordan was never allowed to cry at all--not for the first nine months, and although my MIL watched in wonder as I wore my self out, my MIL kept her immense store of wisdom from three such experiences from utterance and ensured that my unreasonable rules for my colicky infant were followed to the letter in my house and in hers. Now that my children are older, though she has her own style of managing them, she makes a point of respecting my thoughts and ground-rules and of enforcing them to the best of her understanding and ability.


3. She takes an interest in my interests. Some interests, like cooking and gardening are shared interests, but some of my life is interesting to my MIL only because she is purposeful. Since I have only one crazy little brother, and no sisters, my friends have always been a huge part of my life. My MIL has kept track not only of my brother, but of about fifteen different close friends of mine for the past twelve years. I thought it was nice of her, but I really noticed her care when I heard her talking with my sisters-in-law. They also have similar sets of friends, and she knows all of their friends too. That means that my mother-in-law is mentally keeping track of not only my crazy brother and the sisters of my two sisters-in-law, but at least forty vicarious girlfriends in their thirties that are special to her only because they are special to the wives of her sons. Astounding!


4. When she visits my home, or when I visit hers, she asks how she can help, and then she does ONLY that. Sometimes, with MIL's, help is not always help; it can be passive criticism. I think my MIL understands this very well, and so she has articulated time and time again, "Well, Elissa, I would love to help you. You just think about what I can do to help, and let me know (this is said with a warm smile)." She does not start in on my messy house if she has come to play with the girls outside. She does not sweep my dirty floor if I have asked for help with cooking dinner. If she thinks of something else she might do to help, she asks first, and then respects my answer, especially if it is a "no," because she is truly interested in doing whatever would be helpful to me.

5. Most importantly, when my husband began to make me family, his mother followed suit, and she determined to love me like she loves her own son. It must be very difficult indeed to add someone to your family when her selection has been out of your control, but the value of loving such a one cannot be overstated. My mother in law loves me like I am her own daughter. I know because she has told me time and again in cards and in words and, most importantly, in actions like the ones described above. Because she loves me, she has become my very close friend and confidant, my ally in the occasional marital conflict with her son, and my sounding board for every endeavor I attempt, intellectual, emotional, spiritual. Because she loves me, I take her opinions to heart. Because she loves me, I listen to her advice on parenting or her gentle criticism, or her counterpoint to whatever my flavor-of-the-month-opinion happens to be.

When someone loves you, when all the things they do are a result of that love and when the things they don't do are restrained by love, it is easy to respond in kind, even if that person is your mother-in-law. Power to change a relationship (or to start a relationship, or start a relationship anew) is not found in demanding one's own way, but in surrendering to serve the other person in love. So, mothers-in-law out there, and mothers-in-law-to-be (like me) take seriously the lessons my mother-in-law teaches with her life, and dare to love first. Real, sincere, honest-to-goodness, true love is almost irresistible, even in the hands of the mother of one's husband. Love is the key that unlocks potentially difficult relationships because love alone covers over the multitude of sins that are part of being human. Though healthy boundaries and pop psychology will fail you, love never will; and, if the life of my mother-in-law is any proof, real love really can conquer all--even a the heart of a quirky, overly-opinionated wife of a beloved youngest son. Thanks for loving me first, Ferne.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

1 Peter 4:8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

Replacing Counterfit Romance

I watch rubbish. I'll admit it. In spite of my husband's gentle protestations and overt head-shakings, I have been watching reality t.v. at it's craziest. I hate the reality t.v. show "the Bachelor" because it takes women back at least a thousand years to the idea of a harem, but, to my surprise, I love "the Bachelorette"--the same concept reversed. The bachelorette, Alli, is direct and sweet and cute--very likable. She travels the world looking for love with any one of a bunch of guys that have to beat each other out to win her affections. "The Bachelorette" centers around a woman's idea of romance--travel, fantastic once-in-a-lifetime experiences, great food, and all the emotions (from the guys) out on display for her enjoyment and evaluation. But, in watching all of the wonderful places Alli travels with her slick and polished suitors, I have found myself thinking a lot about romance--about what it is, and what it is not.

Alli's t.v. romance involves a bunch of elite experiences and beautiful backgrounds. If you took away Alli and her male harem, though, I would still enjoy seeing New York, Iceland, Las Vegas, and Turkey, and exotic islands of various types as interesting international destinations. I would still enjoy a tour of a luxurious penthouse suite, the taste of a Maine lobster dinner, the feel of a natural volcanic hot baths, a behind-the-scenes look at a Broadway musical. Those places and experiences are beautiful and interesting, but they are simply experiences that money can buy. They cannot be a component of real romance because if romance can be bought, then it can end when money runs out.

Although Greg is slowly draining the extraneous drama out of me, day by day and month by month, and year by year (by the way, thank you, honey!), I guess I do still enjoy a little vicarious interpersonal drama--another important component of t.v. romance. It is interesting to see what cute Alli thinks and why, and what the guys on the show are thinking and doing and saying to her and to each other; but beating out a romantic competitor and bearing your heart when you are first getting to know someone is not true love or real romance, any more than a great place or "one of" experience is.

No, ladies, real romance is far larger and far better than lines of slick suitors, ritzy restaurants, and dazzling destinations, (and I ought to know. . .um, at least about the destinations.) Real romance something entirely different and more important than heart-warming drama. It is what we as wives often miss in the midst of pining for expensive gifts and experiences, evaluating of our own needs and love languages, or "communicating " our feelings ( AKA complaining). It is what we overlook while we are working, or chasing naughty toddlers covered in sticky substances or dealing with all the little everyday crises that make up the kind of real life that television producers aren't interested in. It is what we wives take for granted and can't live without.

Real romance happens, not on t.v. or on rare, exotic holidays, but in the familiar, mundane parts of everyday life. You can see it in the faithfulness of a man working day after day, year after year, some years at a job he doesn't like, to pay the bills and buy the groceries. It is the in diligence of working toward diplomas and degrees and certifications now instead of later so that he won't miss time with you and the kids when they are older--when the kids will remember his absence more distinctly. It's found in the perseverence of working long hours in an unstable economy to make sure that he has value when the company decides to restructure. It's in playing sports more infrequently than he would like to and using family money for family things instead of the latest and greatest new golf club or technological gadget. It's in forcing himself to talk and let you into his world when his word quota had been used up at work six hours ago. It's in living out kindness and gentleness toward you and the kids when he has had to aggressively direct difficult and disagreeable people all day. It's in doing dishes and putting kids to bed when all he wants to do is sit and relax in front of a sports show with a cold drink. It's in still being attracted to his own wife after mulitple kids have made their marks on her body and baby weight has overstayed its welcome.

I have never been on a reality t.v. show, and, truth be told, my life might not be that interesting to watch, but I know what romance is. My mother and mother-in-law have lived it for more than seventy-five years combined. I have watched my friends and mentors partake of its grace. I live in the light of its beauty every single day. Real romance is the thousand little sacrificial gifts that a man who loves you gives you every day without even thinking about it. So, wives of good men, in the midst of the mundane, refuse to buy what they sell on t.v., and instead make the time to see what is likely before you. Maybe you'll find, like I did, that real romance is closer than you think.

Girl with the Turquoise Hair and the Woman at Peace

I will remember that night, about a decade and a half ago, in Cafe Europa especially, because of the girl with the turquoise hair. She strode confidently into the cafe with her boyfriend. She was about the same age as I was then, maybe a little older. She was dressed in full 90's grunge, in mostly dark colors, her favorite knee-high black Doc Martins partially unlaced on her slender legs. She wore a little makeup, but not much; though the thing I noticed most in her appearance was her hair. She had bravely dyed it black and bobbed right about ear length, and, in the front, one single lock of turquoise hair on either side framed her face. She stood there, waiting at the counter to order. She didn't look around. She didn't fidget. She didn't care what anyone thought of her clothes, her hair, her choice of hot chocolate instead of coffee, her skinny waif of a boyfriend. She stood in peace while the world whirled around her, and to me, she was beautiful.


On the same night the girl with the turquoise hair was ordering hot chocolate, in the same cafe, six or seven teenage girls pondered life together over dessert at a corner table, and I was one of them. My friends and I were trying to be grown up. We had gone to see some independent flick, maybe something like Cold Comfort Farm. I was a part of the good girl / intellectual crowd. I was the type that attempts to develop a taste for coffee, the one who evaluates her own paradigms thoughtfully, and dreams about her distant future before hurrying off to make curfew. I'm pretty sure I was drinking cafe' glace', which is a poser's drink any day, as "liking coffee" doesn't really count when it's poured over a mug packed with ice cream. I remember my friends and I talking about where we would each go to university, about which of our guy friends would ask each of us to the next school dance, about the teachers we had crushes on, and how to date them after graduation(--well, maybe that was just me--what was the school thinking in hiring so many cute 23-year old men?). We shared our theories about faith and marriage, and imagined where we would live in five or six years when we were officially "grown up". We were old enough to drive cars, but not very old. I count my high school years among my happiest growing-up-years. I had good, loyal friends, friends that still know me and love me, friends that were a really positive support group for me as I broke away from my parents and toward being my own person.


Like many in their late teen years, I was struggling toward what I wanted to be, living my life in contradictions. I was loud and opinionated, but still unsure of myself. I appreciated the kindness of others, but was not habitually kind, especially to those weaker than myself. I loved sports, but worried about my makeup as much as my skill on the court. My faith in the God was real but still shallow and untested, resting on the foundations of my parents' faith. I was consumed with what everyone else thought of me, though determined to blaze my own trails.

Since seeing the girl in the Cafe Europa, I have grown up. I have been to university. I'm married with kids, and I have even moved overseas from where "home" was. I have been busy with all the good little bits that make up life, but even as a grown up, I hadn't out grown the like of turquoise hair, or the fear of what people would think of me if I had it. I have always found good reasons to keep my hair in its natural state. I thought I needed to look more traditional at Texas A & M, the conservative state university I attended, if I was going to be a proper Christian, or if I was going to attract the right kind of "Mr. Right". After university and marriage, I needed turquoise-less hair if I was going to get a good job. After kids, I was sure that people with turquoise hair couldn't make "normal" friends like I wanted to make. And the list goes on, each "reason" lived out under the yoke of slavery to the opinions of others.

. . .until Australia. If you know me, or if you have read much of my blog, you will probably know that one of my favorite parts of living in Oz has been the growth. Living here is refining who I am on the inside, revealing what in me is false, what is culturally American, and what is conviction. Solitude, which I have heretofore avoided, has become my friend, and meditation and gratitude are very slowly growing into disciplines in my life. Though the inside of me is growing deeper, on the outside, I am perpetually an opinionated and uber-honest American who wears biking clothing and cycles around my suburb, sweating profusely while attempting to corral a herd of kids that bear my image. Oh, and I am unemployed--at least not employed at a job that pays cash. So, I guess if there was ever a time when I could gather the courage to dye my hair turquoise, it would be the time when I am starting my life over as an unemployed alien, without motorized transportation, living in a foreign country among people I have never known before--in a word--NOW.

So I did it. The first iteration of my being "the girl with the turquoise hair" was more like being the girl with sea foam green hair, and my streak has variated between that and royal blue. Greg kept chuckling and smirking and shaking his head--every single time my hair was pulled back. He called my turquoise streak my Avatar hair, and wondered both silently and out loud what I could have been thinking. My girls were delighted because they suspected I might be turning into a mermaid, and were pretty sure they could keep me like a pet in the bathtub, if ever my transformation became complete. After the dye job had been perfected, I smiled every time I looked in the mirror, for a while. I kept my turquoise for a few months and enjoyed it thoroughly, especially since I had waited so long to do it, but in the end, the hair itself was anti-climactic. I dyed it back to the midnight auburn it has always been. I guess it wasn't really the hair that I liked on the girl in the Cafe.

No, it wasn't her hair made her special, and I saw that clearly in my mind's eye after I had reproduced a part of the picture in my memory on myself in the present. It wasn't blue dye, but courage that mattered, and growing that sort of courage marks the beginning of an era in me--the era in which my life begins to be lived, not in slavery to the opinions of others, but at peace with myself and God, who made my intrinsic strengths and bents and is making the inside of me more beautiful as I let Him. So, on the far side of the world, on a good day, (though not every day,) I am learning to stand still, to cease fidgeting, to stop looking around to see what people think of my hair, my hot chocolate, my kids, my convictions. Let the world whirl and even storm around me. I have already been the girl with the turquoise hair, and bit by bit, slowly, in fits and starts, I am becoming the woman with the courage to stand at peace.

Fighting Terrorism at Home and Abroad--Toddlers

George Bush has become one of the most polarizing figures in the years since 911, but no matter what you think of his goals or methods in " the Global War on Terror," no one can deny he spent most of his time as the President of the United States, especially after 911, fighting terrorism at home and abroad. Although I enjoy considerably greater popularity abroad than old "W", as we call him in Texas, I do have a lot in common with the forty-third president of the USA. I too am from Texas, and I too have spent the last eight years fighting terrorism at home and abroad with what we Texans call "Texas Justice." I guess the main difference between W and I (besides my incredibly high popularity rating abroad) is that the opponents in my war are much fiercer than the jihadists that threaten western society. If my opponent went head to head with Osama Bin Ladin, I think the Global war on Terror could be ended in about fifteen minutes. Who is this fierce opponent, you ask? What could strike fear into a hate-hardened, fanatical, would-be martyr in a thousand-year religious war? Good question! Read on.

A few days ago I went to the grocery store. I had the car, so I took Micah Jade, my constant companion, with me to acquire the groceries that our family would need in the following week. Micah Jade wore in a cute, little, pink dress, her short, honey-colored curls framing her smiley impish face. She looked adorable; I should emphasize the word "looked". As I was checking out, Micah Jade began to play on the chrome grocery gate. I was busy trying to pay, so I did not notice her mischief until she began to bang the gate against its post again and again. Clank! Clank! Clank! I turned to correct her, calmly requiring that she cease and desist the loud banging. For a moment, she looked like she was going consent, but only for a moment.

As I turned back around to the credit card machine, I heard MJ say, abruptly, in a forceful voice, not unlike the voice of Cookie Monster, "NOOO, ya don't tell MEEEE what to DOOOOOO!" The challenge was thrown down, right there in the grocery store. MJ was confident that I was not going to make her mind with an audience of fifty people. Like the jihadists, her main weapon of choice is not force, but fear. At two and a half, she had weighed the shop and the people and had sized me up, in an instant determining that I was not brave enough to take her rebellious self down.


But what MJ didn't know was that I had been fighting terrorism at home for half a decade before she even came along. I had tamed two terrorists, even before she existed. She thought she could take the battle abroad to the grocery store and win it there, because she thought I would be afraid of what that store full of strangers would think of me and of her, but little MJ had made a serious miscalculation.


In an instant I snatched her naughtiness up and over my shoulder, and in the time that it took me to flip her over my shoulder, she commenced shrieking like a banshee. I frantically punched in my pin number in the credit card machine, flung the groceries into the cart, and hastily bid the cashier goodbye, as MJ, still screaming, began to kick the air in front of me. All 100 eyes were upon us, and the people within six meters of us began to put their fingers into their ears to protect their hearing. As we walked out of the store, the horror of the situation overcame me and I began to laugh out loud, my mad cackling adding to the audio-mayhem created by MJ's super-human lungs. All the way to the car, she continued to belt out high-pitched screams, the kind of screams that Jamie Lee Curtis screamed in those 80's Wes Craven films.


I held my naughty, air-kicking toddler over my shoulder and I pushed the trolley to my car in the parking lot with one hand, walking with ease through the channel through people and cars that we had cut with our sound waves. When we reached the car, MJ received a well-needed disciplining, and a short speech on obedience before I buckled her in her car seat and closed her in the car alone. Her rebellion lasted about a minute more, but she was only able to deafen herself, since the car could now contain her voice. After that, she found her thumb, and calmed herself down on the five minute ride home. By the time we arrived home, she was back to Dr. Jekyll, and her Mr. Hyde personality stowed away for another day. She was smiling and laughing like the cute little toddler she appears to be.

Toddlers are amazing creatures. They paint with poo and eat dog food, at least MJ does. They routinely bite and hit beloved family members and close friends, even while kissing and cuddling. They are unashamed to be naked in public, and occasionally refuse to brush their teeth, despite having dog-food-breath (again MJ). The average toddler will proudly proclaim his toilet habits and demand lollies for not making a mess in his own pants. I love to watch toddlers as they discover the world. Each one is as unique as a snowflake, flawlessly designed to hold within herself every bit of potential wrapped up in a single life. Toddlers are equal parts sweetness and raw ambition, both adorable and insufferable, simultaneously. Toddlers are so much more exciting to me than infants; but, in my experience with my children and the children of my family members and friends, I have continually found that toddlers are terrorists almost by definition. They are hell-bent on imposing their vision of reality on the world and will use fear to accomplish their sinister goal, (though a world where the loving rule of a parent is replaced by the anarchy of toddler is a scary place, especially for the toddler herself.)


The prevailing wind of popular parent psychology, the stuff you read in the magazines and most popular books, seems to declare that if you just wait out the toddler years and accommodate or ignore tantrums thrown in selfishness for a few years, that a sweet school-age child will emerge, magically reformed and reasonable, just by aging; but I don't believe it for a second. I guess I know too many people that have never outgrown selfishness, people who have never learned to care for the good of others or to submit to any authority outside themselves. No, character is not reformed by time, but by consistent and kind intervention, starting during the toddler years.


The cost of refusing to confront terrorism in someone I love is too great to postpone or ignore. A little child who pouts when she doesn't get her way can be funny and outrageously cute, but a pouting adult is intolerable. In life, we don't always get to drink from the pink cup. Sometimes we are lucky to have a cup at all, even a blue one or (horror of horrors!) an orange one. Often in life, we don't get another ice cream cup if we throw ours on the ground--on purpose. Sadly, in real life, throwing tantrums sometimes means the loss of a relationship, and as adults, we all experience the lasting consequences of our own poor choices, even when we are sorry afterwards. Though toddlers don't yet know it, a life, well-lived, is not about making the world conform to one's self, but in loving others, in living out honesty, thankfulness and kindness. For me, the most important parts of parenting (though also the most difficult parts) are teaching global truths in the mundane moments of everyday life.

It is such a huge task to be responsible for the developmental years of someone I love, and I guess that is why I think a lot about what I am working toward, while I am in the thick of grocery store tantrums and playground assaults on friends. I'm sure I'm not a perfect parent. Anyone who knows me could tell you that. I get frustrated sometimes, and often I am not as consistent as I should be, but I know what I am working toward and what is not important to me. I am not interested in having the best behaved children on the playground. I don't aim to make friends of my children; (Why would anyone want to have friends that are two or six or eight years old?) I may not always find agreement in parenting with my peers, with the current mags, or with my children's school; but if I am parenting for the good of my children, worrying about those things is not worth my time. No, I care most about my girls, about encouraging their inherent strengths, and about confronting and disciplining ugliness in their hearts every single time that I see it, so that they grow integrity and character instead of selfishness, pride, and deceit. I care about building their trust in my love and protection until the time when they can see clearly to make their own wise choices, until the time when they are ready to take from me, the responsibility for their lives.

I don't know how much progress George Bush made in the "Global War on Terror" during his eight years as president. I guess time will tell, but no matter what happens on a global scale, in my own little corner of the world, even after the eight years I have already served, I know that I will continue to fight my micro-war on terror both at home and abroad in the hopes that one day soon, I will make enough progress with MJ for the folks at the grocery store not to have to endure the ear-piercing shrieks of a terrible tantrum from my toddler. I'll keep on bringing "Texas Justice" to MJ, like I have to Jordan and Meryl before her, because it is in the best interest of building her character that I win my authority-war with her. Judging from my battles with other temporary terrorists in my family, I think I probably only have eight months or so left between now and the time when I can declare a tentative victory. In the time between now and victory, though, if any of you counter-terrorism-agent-types need help in breaking Osama, please shoot me a facebook message. My resolve is sure, my cause is just, and thus, MJ's days as a terrorist are numbered.

Surrendering to the Rain

The air was hot with sunshine and heavy with humidity, and biking to school on this particular day had felt a lot like riding through a warm sponge. The kids were safely in their classes after morning drop-off, and I had stopped to talk to my friend before tackling what I though would be another parching drive home. We were deep in conversation, talking about things that mattered, about the baby she is expecting soon and about our faraway families, about our kids and our hopes. It was the kind of conversation that I'll probably look back on as being important in our friendship, one that was honest and caring on both sides. It was the type of connection in friendship that makes time seem to slow for a few minutes.

Suddenly, without any consideration for our friendship moment, a cool wind blew in, and the clouds, which were approaching above the gentle, green mountains to the south, loomed large and charcoal gray. My friend and I were both car-less, and the storm was coming fast. We said our goodbyes and both took off. She hoofed it to the train station, harbouring the hope that she would be sitting under the shelter on the platform during the downpour, and I buckled little MJ into the trailer and started my 4k ride back to my house.

Since I have been biking, and outdoors so much more, I am noticing how I am much more affected by the weather than I used to be. I tend to dread biking on super-hot days, or rainy days because of how the heat or rain interferes with my plans to be comfortable. If I let my moods be determined by how I feel about the weather and how it affects my bike ride, (which usually consumes about an hour and a half or more each day), the weather could totally and completely predict my mood. But, I said, "If."

I peddled hard against the wind up the hill to the train station, and past the tracks down the big hill on Blaker street, towing Micah Jade behind me, but I couldn't outrun the rain. In my mind, I guess I'm Lance Armstrong, but my body? Well, my body is just me, no traces of Lance anywhere that I can find. I'm just not fast enough to outrun weather. The rain came down through the warm air and splashed in big cool drops on my hot skin. I had traveled about 1.5 k when I finally came to terms with the fact that there was just no way for me to make it home dry. So there I was, biking in the rain with a habitually ornery toddler in tow. I stopped to tell her that the rain was going to cool us off, and that we would be home soon. Surprisingly MJ, who has no qualms about screaming in the trailer all the way home, or really anywhere, seemed, after receiving my explanation, surprisingly willing to bounce along behind me in the rain without a single sound.

The explanation I had given to MJ soaked into me as well, and as I wrapped my mind around the fact that I would be riding in the rain, the expectation of comfort washed off of me with the heat. I rode the narrow streets with little, wooden postwar houses on stilts and the rain poured down on me. I crossed the big road, and then passed the other elementary school on my way to the greenbelt. Everywhere I looked, the rain drops were drop-drop-dropping on the hot, black bitumen (asphalt) of the road, and on the warm, gray sidewalk in front of me. The air that had been yellow with Sunshine and humidity was now cool blue-gray with rain.

While I continued my journey, the rain came down so hard and in such intensity that the water rushed through the vents on my helmet into my hair. By the time I reached what is my favorite part of my ride in any weather, I was completely drenched and totally refreshed. As I rode past the duck pond, I heard the memory of my children yelling, "sorry duckies, no bread right now. Maybe later." The ducks quacked noisily above the pitter-patter, and turtles poked their heads out of the water to see what the commotion was all about. The bull rushes swayed in the gentle breeze, bowing to the rain, and at the dam, cheerful muddy water peacefully trickled over into the creek, making its way from my house to the Pacific. The mountains that encircle my neighborhood rose protectively before me, the rain quenching the dry, green thirst of their gum trees. As I made the last turn toward my home, I listened to the wind; I listened to the trees dancing happily around me, to the ducks and the bull rushes, to the constant, rhythmic peddling of my bike, to the sound of the raindrops on my skin and on the road; and I cherished the memory of the morning when I surrendered to the rain.

Hospitals and Home

The bright, white lights overhead began to spin, and the room swirled pieces of Greg, real estate agent, and unfamiliar house as I lost consciousness. I was sitting on the kitchen counter of a rent house we were inspecting, when I blacked out. Greg caught me just in time to save me from a head-first collision with the hard, gray tiles underfoot. I came to, in a cold sweat, on the floor, feeling disoriented and wondering what in the world had happened. When I looked up, I saw Greg's kind eyes filled with worry, and I tried, for his sake, to answer his first aid questions coherently.

Greg sped the kids to our friends' house and rushed me to the big public hospital close to his work. I spent the next two days on painkillers, recovering from a mystery illness. Greg stayed with me as much as he could, but he had three little girls and work to balance with my hospital stay, so I mainly rested while he ran himself ragged taking care of both his responsibilities and mine. Doctors came and went from my curtain with puzzled faces until finally, a young female doctor and her supervisor pegged my diagnosis, and, after my sixth round of antibiotics, the pain and infection in my kidneys started to subside. After the mystery was solved, "Froggie" the nurse (yes, he did look like a big frog) wheeled me to the long-stay emergency unit. As the pain in my body abated, my mind cleared enough for me to hear the conversations around me in my new, shared room.

The nurse walked in and I heard him address the elderly Indian man in the bed next to me, "Good morning. It's time for a bath!" "No," the man calmly answered in a thick accent. Apparently, judging by the aroma of the man, he was not used to morning baths, or maybe regular baths at all. He was in pain, and being sent home anyway, but not before he scented his sheets and the room he shared with me and two other patients with the pungent smell of curry and body odor.

The Indian man was old and frail, and I liked him at once. He didn't speak much English, not enough to really describe his pains adequately, but certainly enough to evade a bath. When the social worker came to see about how to get him home, she discovered that he had no one to pick him up, so she offered him bus fare. He wasn't satisfied with the offer and began to bargain with her, third-world style. I think she was caught completely off-guard by eastern bartering techniques, so eventually, the little Indian man went home in just the cab that he wanted. ( I think his bargaining chip was the threat of staying long enough to scent not just the long-stay emergency ward, but the whole first floor.) I wondered why he had no one to pick him up, and what kind of home received him from his cab.

After the Indian man left, and after the linens were changed and disinfected, a woman came to stay for a few hours. The middle-aged, soft-spoken woman had been battered by her husband after she drank too much the night before. The kind staff at the hospital had bandaged her cuts, but nothing they could do in the emergency room could heal a heart damaged by 18 years of marriage to an abusive bully, or a mind distressed by the alcohol she used to escape from him. She laid in the bed, weighing, out-loud with the social worker on duty, her options upon leaving. She didn't want to go home to her husband, but the prospect of starting again at a women's shelter, without the help of the family who had disowned years before, frightened her. She was trapped between two terrible options, and she didn't know where to go when she went "home". I fell asleep before she left, so I don't know what option she chose, whether she decided that home would be the terror she knew, or the fright of the unfamiliar.

After the Indian man and the battered woman left, it was my turn. I didn't feel completely well, but I was going home anyway. I called Greg from the hospital phone and twenty minutes later, our white Prado bounced into the drive as and he and a carload of little girls excitedly awaited "mommy". I stiffly walked down the sterile, still, green halls to the fresh, windy air of the circle drive and slowly climbed into the car while the noise of elation and the smell of crackers and lip gloss enveloped me.

I sometimes I take for granted what I have in Greg and in my girls, but I shouldn't. I have a man who will catch me before I hit the floor, a man who can carry both his responsibilities and mine, a man with kind eyes who would never hurt me. I have a home filled with estrogen and drama, with costumes and crumbs, with three little glittery girls that missed me desperately while I was gone. I was still pretty sick when I left; I was still in a lot of pain; but unlike some of my roommates at the hospital, I had family to meet me in the windy circle drive and love to welcome me back to my life. Let me never forget the blessings of my home.

February Resolution Rebellion and Grace

I hate New Year's resolutions, and thus, in my February Resolution Rebellion, I hereby resolve no longer make them, mostly because I cannot keep any type of resolution for any length of time. I have quit exercise regimens, diets, organizational schemes, and all the other normal resolutions that everyone else makes and then fails to keep. Since I am a recovering perfectionist, though, not only do I fail at keeping my own unrealistic expectations for the year, but then, after I failing, I replay my failures and avoid attempting worthwhile projects and goals altogether for the rest of the year.


Since I have resolved no longer to make resolutions, and since I am a type-A kind of a girl, I think I will write out some of my flexible goals for the year, knowing that if I fail one day, I can just keep working toward something worthwhile. The goals, therefore, are about moving directionally, and less about finishing accomplishments.


Elissa's 2010 directional goals

1. to make this year the "year of the friend." I have always loved those charts with birth years at Chinese restaurants, mostly because I love the tiny pictures (I might not like it so well if I was a rat instead of a horse). The Chinese feel perfectly free to define each birth year by different sets of characteristics. If my last year had to be categorized, it have been "the year of constant and earthshaking change." As far as I can tell, this year, I will not live in four different houses (last year's record), and I will neither move across an ocean or across a continent; so, this year, I intend to make relationships my priority.

Having been in Oz for a year, and in Brisbane for six months, I am nearing mastery on most of the small tasks that consumed the majority of my time during my "year of change". I am over the initial loneliness and the culture shock ( though I still have my moments). I can now locate cocoa powder and Copha (a Crisco substitute for you Yanks), and I have very few problems driving on the left side of the road--Greg would beg to differ, but he makes me nervous and I drive poorly when he is in the car. Being mostly settled in culture and location, it is now time to focus on building lasting friendships, because having friends with whom to share life makes the good things better and the hard stuff easier.

I guess I have been thinking about investing more in my friendships here because Greg and I are planning a trip back to the states. In ten months I will again set foot on American soil to enjoy time with my family and my old friends. In my home-comimg fantasies, everyone I love is waiting outside of customs with signs and tears; they have all been waiting and pining outside the airport for years in my absence (w0uldn't it be nice to be missed that much?) But, in reality, all my friends stateside are normal and healthy enough not to let their lives stop just because I have moved away. The friendships that count stateside are lifetime friendships, whose love will weather the separation. If I were to spend this year pining for "home," family, and my dear old friends in a fantasy world that does not exist, many months would be wasted, and I would be very sorry to return Oz this time next year, having squandered time that could have been invested in relationships here. No, instead, I am determined to make this year count. I belong here, for the time being, in Australia, so making good friends here is really just another way of making Australia my home.

2. to refrain from being perpetually busy with good things--to be un-busy. I think women in general and Christian women in particular are powerfully afflicted with business. I, myself, have been busy for most of my adult life, trying to cram too much stuff into too little time, trying to do all the things that might go undone if I didn't attempt them. I suppose some women can maintain busy schedules without neglecting their families, but I am not one of those women. No, when I get too busy, I am not kind or attentive enough to the people that matter most to me, and that is just plain wrong.


I recognize that in some seasons, busyness is unavoidable, but generally, I have a choice about whether or not I am going to place stress on myself by trying to book too much in, even, or maybe especially "good" activities like volunteering at school or helping at church. I want this year to be about relationships, and that means leaving "blank" time to chat over a cuppa (cup of coffee or tea), or days where nothing is scheduled so that I can have friends over. Unbusyness means saying "No" even when I feel obligated to answer otherwise. Unbusyness clears my schedule and my mind so that I have time for people.


3. To keep reading through the Bible. I am a hard-core Christian, the kind that believes that God has a plan for the universe, the earth, and our individual lives in particular, the kind that believes in redemption and miracles and that God might actually care to know me personally(and everyone else too). I see the Bible, not as a rule book, but as a (very long) memo from God to me, and reading it as a way to know and experience all that God is.


About ten years ago, I started to read through the bible on one of those horrible "Through-the-Bible-in-a-Year" reading plans. I have quit the plan about six times in six of the last years feeling terribly defeated. I think it is intellectually dishonest to say I believe the Bible without having read all of it, but I honestly cannot keep up with a super-intense reading plan while changing diapers, cooking dinners, and generally trying to be a loving wife and mother. I know those plans work for some super-structured folks, but the "one-year-plan" has far too little grace in it for an artsy girl like me.



So, I am coming up with the "ten-ish-year-Bible-reading-plan." I'm about halfway through the Good Book, so maybe this year I will make it through the hard-to-understand books to the books I like most, the ones where Jesus does away with rule-keeping legalism (like trying to read a very deep two thousand page book in a year) and rewards those who come in faith. If I finish the Bible this year, I will be stoked, but I am calling my plan the "ten-ish-year-plan" just in case I need a little more grace, like I usually do.


At the end of the year, I hope I will have spent my time wisely, investing in the people that live their lives around me. I hope I will have friends in Australia that I will miss and that will miss me when I go to the states for the holidays. I hope I live the year set free from busyness, leaving most of the busywork around Mitchelton for people that get can manage busyness and family commitments. I hope I will know the character of God better because I have finished his memo by the end of the year, but, these are my "directional goals" not resolutions. Maybe this year, unlike years past, when I fail, I can just keep on plugging without giving up. Maybe this year will finally be the year when I get a firm handle on handing out grace to the person I know who needs it most--myself.