What Next??

{on Friday we blizzard. on Monday we flood. can locusts be far behind??

taken from the end of Findlay Street. that's the Red Cross building on the far left, over the river}

6:36 Catch Up

{february 20, 2011 • little tiny signs of spring}

{february 21, 2011 • kinda hard to tell, but these are buttercups, the most diligent, hardest to kill things in our garden!}

{february 22, 2011 • oh what 24 hours can bring. . . loved the shapes in this picture}

{february 23, 2011 • tiny icicles, everywhere. . .}

{february 24, 2011 • if you can't have sun, make your own}

{february 25, 2011 • i don't know what "struck the colors" even means, but i loved the composition of this photo. taken at the warehouse where i clean.}

{february 26, 2011 • ali took this one. this hawk was in our tree, watching our birdfeeder for an easy lunch}

{february 27, 2011 • naptime!}

What Feels A Little Bit Like A Wrap-Up, But Isn't Really

Dumb title to a post, but a good descriptor of where I find myself this weekend.

We survived what might have been the toughest week of our lives together. As the week wore on, Ali began to feel better and I struggled more and more. As she began to climb out of the hole of her sadness it felt as though I fell deeper and deeper. We talked about it and she believes that I held everything together for her and pushed my own feelings away until a time in which she wasn't in such a precarious place.

It could be.

By Friday morning I was in a tough spot. I struggled to get dressed for work and drove through the snowstorm wanting to be anywhere but where I was – physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

And then I listened to the Mumford & Sons album Sigh No More and felt as though I was struck by lightening when I heard Timshel. It felt like divine intervention. It also felt that the snowstorm was also a bit of intervention. My boss took pity on me and sent me home. Ali and I spent the day talking, making lists of our blessings and taking a few tentative steps forward – away from pain and towards life. We talked, laughed, took a nap, bought paint to re-do what might someday be a baby's bedroom, ate sushi and listened to live music with friends.

It was just what we needed.

And then real life came back, just like it always does. Saturday morning found me rotten, horrible sick. At first I thought it was a hangover - I did have two and a half beers {gasp!} on Friday night, but as it has lasted more than 48 hours now, I know I'm not that much of a lightweight. I just figured it was my awful luck until a good friend suggested it might just be my body's reaction to stress. And I think he's probably right. It's gotta leave your body somehow.

So that's where we are. Leaving despair. Driving on towards hope. We're going to give Ali's body a little while to heal. We're giving our spirits some room to breathe. We have to pay off the fertility clinic bills and save enough to purchase some more Donor #11306.

And then we're going to try again.

Anyone for a spaghetti dinner, sperm-buying, fundraising event?? {straight folks have it so easy. . .}

Timshel

Timshel – Hebrew word literally translated "Thou Mayest. . ."; figuratively translated to mean the choice we have between making something devastating work for good or work for evil.

Enough said.

Cold is the water

It freezes your already cold mind

Already cold, cold mind

And death is at your doorstep

And it will steal your innocence

But it will not steal your substance

But you are not alone in this

And you are not alone in this

As brothers we will stand and we'll hold your hand

Hold your hand

And you are the mother

The mother of your baby child

The one to whom you gave life

And you have your choices

And these are what make man great

His ladder to the stars

But you are not alone in this

And you are not alone in this

As brothers we will stand and we'll hold your hand

Hold your hand

But I will tell the night

And Whisper, "Lose your sight"

But I can move the mountains for you

I had heard of Mumford and Sons and people I like, liked it. So I gave it a shot by downloading it last night. I didn't listen to it until I was at work this morning. This song made it hard to breathe. At first. Then I listened again. And again. And again.

It was just what I needed to hear.

Keeping Calm

I've always suspected that most of my genetic heritage hails from some hearty, eastern European peasant stock. My people work hard, work long and die in their own beds in what seems like their hundred and thirties mostly from just being tired. My body is built for endurance not speed, and my emotional repertoire rarely swings outside ordinary limits.

I'm sturdy, dependable woman.

Maybe I hail from the old Motherland of England. . .keeping a stiff upper lip and all. It's that grand old virtue of middle class British folk who are occasionally perceived to be a bit {shall we say it?} reserved.

But right now, for just 15 minutes or so I want to be an African woman who howls out her sorrow. Or I want to be a woman whose lineage descends from Italy, whose blood flows warm and thick with passion and fire. A woman who doesn't give a shit what the neighbors might think and who turns the air blue with her cursing and her tears. Even the words that describe these women's expressions of sorrow sound expressive to my ears – ululating, wailing, keening, lamenting.

It might be what I want, however it's just. not. me.

The most I can muster are six or seven fat tears that flow hotly down my face and land in my bowl as I eat dinner alone.

Randomness

:: In the morning you get dressed. You put on a pair of jeans and a brown sweater. You try to coordinate your socks to your sweater, just in case anyone sees them. You walk out the door thinking you look pretty good, never thinking about what the day might hold. You come in the door that night with everything different. And you don't care at all what you look like. And you want to throw the brown sweater away. It must have bad juju now.

:: It's harder to hold yourself together when people are being kind.

:: I think that I've come the closest I will ever come to knowing what it feels like to be a man.* {keep in mind, i still write this from a woman's brain and experience} When your partner miscarries it's not your body. You aren't experiencing the physical pain any more than you were experiencing the physical pregnancy. You might be having the same emotional pain but someone has to be strong. Someone has to hold it together and listen to the words of the doctor and the hospital. Someone has to call her Mom. Someone has to call her employer. And someone has to be together enough to do it without falling apart.

You can grieve of course. Just do it quietly. And out of the way. At a more convenient time.

And I think that must be what it feels like to be a man some days. {and maybe i'm just full of bullshit. feel free to let me know.}

*please know that nothing A. has said or done has made me feel this way. and maybe that's also what it feels like to be a man. no one ever says "this is what you're supposed to do". . .it's just what you feel is expected. . .

Absence

I've been missing from this space for a few days now. There are several reasons, the first being that it's nearing the end of February and that fact alone makes me struggle mightily every year just to make it until my birthday in the middle of March. I've written posts in my head. I've taken pictures with my phone and with my camera that may or may not ever see the light of day. I've just not had the energy or the inclination to go any farther than that.

The second reason is practical. We haven't had internet or television service in several days. An AT&T guy is coming to the house today to see if he can repair it.

The third reason is personal. We lost the baby yesterday. A few weeks ago I said that we made the decision to be open about our journey towards motherhood because we had both spent most of our lives not talking about things out of fear. I'm still glad we made that decision, even though it means having a difficult conversation over and over again now.

I titled this post absence – explaining mine – and being honest about how we are feeling right now. I awoke in the night to find the bed gently shaking with sobs. The absence of someone we never met is real. The hurt is real. But so is the hope. Spring will eventually come. The internet will eventually return magically through the air to my computer. My brain will bubble again with ideas to be committed to paper. We will most likely begin to save our pennies again to take a few more tentative steps towards motherhood.

But for right now, we will just be still in the absence.

This Morning

{my favorite breakfast – cafe marie's westgate – full of cheese, potatoes and jalapeno peppers. this was before i liberally covered it in hot sauce. . .}

Almost Spring?

{what could be better? a friday afternoon. the sun shining. the garden appearing from its blanket of snow. warm enough to sit on the porch without a jacket. maybe a glass of wine now? that would just cap it off as perfection!}

Frills

{some kind of gorgeous greens in the produce section of the grocery. they look too pretty to actually eat! with all the frills, they looked dressed and ready to go somewhere fun!}

That's Ms. Do-nar To You

We had our first OB-Gyn appointment today. It was with the nurse at the practice where we will be going. Mostly it was just paperwork and talking. As she sat going through the facts on the sheets in her little folder she checked the accuracy of all her information. Names, addresses, emergency contacts, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Then she got to the part about the father and the room got kind of quiet. Her eyes were nervously scanning her sheaf of papers. Finally a look of relief bloomed across her face as she finally found the father's name.

"Oh, here it is! It's. . ."

long pause

"it's. . . Do-nar?" (she dragged out the syllables "doe-naaaaar?")

She looked up, clearly confused.

Ali began to laugh {she couldn't help it}.

"That would be DONOR. . . as in "sperm donor?"

The nurse's face turned red. Both of them started to laugh.

For now, just call me Ms. Do-nar. . .

*the only other interesting thing from this appointment is that on our March 2nd ultrasound we will know exactly how many babies might be hatching in there. . .start prayin' now everybody. . .

Late Winter Afternoon

Just Call Her "Crash"

{delilah – a.k.a. Kukla – got spayed last week. while she was at it, we had the doctor take off her back dewclaws because they were very floppy and loose and we were sure they were going to get ripped off in some kind of doggie wrestling match. her little dewclaw incisions kept bleeding so we put oly's cone on her. she was a train wreck in that thing! she ran into absolutely everything with it and it didn't seem to faze her one bit. tonight she came in from being in the backyard with oly looking like this. . . guess it's one way to get rid of that cone! just call her "crash!"}

The Cathedral of Aldi

A few weeks ago we got a very inexpensive juicer at Kohl's. We didn't pay much for it, but we've fallen in love with morning smoothies made with fresh carrot juice. In fact, carrot juice is the reason we went juicer shopping in the first place. A quart of it costs nearly $6. If you juice it yourself it costs about $1.49. At that rate, our little juicer investment will pay for itself in about three months.

And it was the hunt for inexpensive carrots that first led me to Aldi. {Aldi is a chain of bargain basement grocery stores that stretch from Kansas eastward. They carry "off brands" at very low prices. I used to be far too snooty a grocery shopper to give Aldi the time of day. But a girl will do what a girl has to do for fresh carrot juice!}

So, I've been shopping there for the last three weeks but it was while I was there this past Saturday that I realized that going to Aldi is a little bit like going to church – for those who won't give church the time of day.

First off, going into this store is not for the faint of heart – or for the uninitiated for that matter. Just like going to Catholic Mass or a good old fashioned baptism at a Baptist church, Aldi has some rituals that can be intimidating to a visitor on a weekend morning, beginning with making sure you have a quarter with you if you want to shop with a cart. There are no signs to tell you this. You are left to figure out for yourself that the only way to unlock your cart from all the others is to insert your quarter and pull. The quarter dangles there, locked in it's own little purgatory as you shop. It taunts you with it's nearness, but the only way to get your quarter back is to take your cart back to the line up when you are done buying your food and lock it back in place. When the lock clicks, your quarter pops back out.

The store has only four aisles and like most houses of worship on a Sunday morning, it seems as though everyone knows what's going on except you. The off brand wines are seated next to the gum, that is wedged near the salad dressing. The breakfast cereal is cozied up with the canned beans who have become best friends with the cat treats and taco seasoning. Everything is all mixey-mingley in Aldi and everyone seems to be alright with that. {ok. maybe i'm just wishing there were churches like this?}

Like only a precious few faith communities I've ever experienced, grace abounds at Aldi. If you forget your quarter no one yells at you. They don't laugh at you and make you feel bad for being so dumb or sinful. No one stares or whispers. And, *gasp* they still let you shop there. You simply ask the cashier for one and she lends it to you, without a second thought. And that grace soon spills over to the other shoppers in the store. I have yet to arrive and find the first cart in line without a quarter already there, that some other shopper left for the next patron to find. I kind of doubt that there is a lot of quarter thievery going on at Aldi. It seems like people kind of respect this quiet, pay-it-forward kindness.

After you pay for your groceries you notice the other little Aldi quirk. There are no bags. No plastic, no paper, no nothing. If you haven't brought your own you can wander the store looking for empty boxes on the shelves. If you strike out there, you are kind of out of luck. And perhaps this is what I like most about Aldi – shopping there demands mindfulness. It asks you to pay attention and plan what you are doing. If you don't have bags you must think about how you will transport your purchases to your car. If you remember to bring your reusable bags you feel good and virtuous about your environmental impact and your choices for food.

Aldi asks you to take responsibility for your cart and for your money and for your time.

Those might be the best reasons for going to church too. I don't go because I have nothing else to do. I don't go because all the right people might be watching. I go because I'm hungry. Because it offers a path of responsibility and choice that makes a difference in the world.

Now if only you got your offering back when your car drove off the lot. . . {kidding, kidding}

The Loot

{my Valentine's Day loot – a most adorable little bear that is actually a baby rattle and a miniature box of candy. ali got me the bear. this guy gave me the box of candy – and it almost made me cry. all in all, it was a good day. after coming home from taking some food to R. in arlington, ali and i cooked dinner together which was the highlight of my day. we made veggie stir fry and brown rice. it was good. and i am thankful. happy valentine's day!}

Snowball Softball

{on first, we have "kids need hugs, not drugs"; the right fielder is visible in the distance; everyone had coins for eyes and a carrot nose!}

{the view from behind the catcher, notice the numbers with the catcher being #1 and the batter #10. there is also a home plate in the snow}

{the catcher, up close}

{batter, batter, batter. . .swing!}

{one of the pitcher's arms fell off!}

{someone or a group of very creative someones, obviously as eager for spring as i am, created an entire softball team at Rawson Park here in Findlay. how much fun is that??}

Blue Trinity

{the blue trinity. emptied of itself – slowly being filled with light.}

Trying Too Hard

Yesterday I found myself in Walmart staring hungrily at the dusty pinks and reds of these flowers. Plastic flowers. Really though, any flowers. Anything with color, vitality and life to share. And it made me realize that those synthetic blooms are just a symptom of that old feeling of trying far too hard just to get by.

I look at those plastic flowers and I remember that there is fertile ground in my garden, beneath all that snow. And I remember that there are still fertile words in my heart and in my hands, but they are somehow frozen beneath something that numbs up my soul every February. I had to resist the urge to throw my face into those flowers yesterday, hoping for just a whiff of spring. Mostly though, I held myself back because I knew I would only be filled with disappointment and shame for trying.

And so I do what I always do to make myself feel real – and not plastic like those blooms – I count my blessings. {that's what Christians do when they are sad. we even know a goofy song about it.} Then it happens, just like it always does.

The mystery of those flowers, the mystery of February and of frozen words, frozen hands and frozen hearts is revealed – I don't have to try quite so hard because there is this quiet knowledge that I can do all things because someone bigger than me lives inside me.

I don't understand it. But I will live just for today, trying to. And when the snow melts everything will make sense again. And I won't have to try so hard anymore.

6:36 ~ February 10, 2011

{sometimes having dogs is good. a tub of cooked, brown rice fell out of the refrigerator and spilled all over the kitchen floor. no cleaning tools were required. just a few minutes of smiles.}

6:36 ~ February 9, 2011

{the sermon at church on Sunday challenged each of us to treat ourselves with dignity and kindness and remember that we belong to God. we each received a handout of bible verses that remind us who we are in Christ. i created this word montage from all of those verses to help me remember. when others treat me with less than kindness, as they did today, i will ponder on these things. . .for they are what is real. and true. and good.}

What Is Real

What is real right now. . .

:: the hospital lab confirmed our at-home test results yesterday. we truly are expectant mothers. holy shit.

:: i knew it all had to be real because A. is exhausted. all the time. she has been in bed by 7:30 every night for the last two weeks.

:: she makes me look like a night owl.

:: i'm kind of lonely. i get home at 6:30, make dinner, do the dishes and sit on the couch alone because she's already in bed.

:: on the upside, i get to read. a lot. there's no tv on.

:: i should read and read and read. . .because in eight months my world is never going to be the same. . .and I may not get to read another book for years.

:: it's real.

:: holy shit.

6:36 ~ February 8, 2011

{my afternoon snack – a very pretty pear. it was sitting on my scanner at work. i love the reflection of the color chart that hangs on the wall appearing to sit below my pear. taken with my phone.}

Layers

peeling away the old

can leaving you feeling

open, exposed, raw,

vulnerable.

::

it can also make room

for all that is new and clean

under the ancient ideas

of who you think you are.

::

and who you could possibly be

::

just keep peeling the layers away.

there is new life under all the

broken bits and pieces.

6:36 ~ February 7, 2011

{i was trying to think of a picture that would sum up my day – a car that wouldn't start, in the back of the driveway of course; an ice dam over the back windows of the house resulting in dripping water on the inside of the windows; no ladder to allow me to try to break said ice dam up; a crummy day at work for Ali. you know the kind of day. . . i couldn't think of a proper way to sum it all up until Psalm 30:5 just popped into my head –

"weeping may endure for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning"

i'm counting on it}

To Tell the Truth

Yesterday at church someone asked if everyone knew about the pregnancy or if we were keeping it something of a secret. It's a question we thought pretty hard about in the days leading up to the insemination. And since I've been writing about it here for awhile, we're probably the world's worst secret keepers.

There are certainly pros to keeping quiet about it in the early stages, with the biggest being that it could be devastating to have told everyone and then have something happen to prematurely end a very early pregnancy. Then you gotta "untell."

A. and I never really specifically talked about why we decided to be completely open about our journey but here's what I told the person who asked yesterday – there's so much about being a gay or lesbian couple in a heterosexual world that does not get celebrated that sometimes you just have to make a party where you can.

Most of us can't get married in a way that gives us any rights as a couple. The vast majority of us don't have an anniversary that anyone ever recognizes. Even if being a gay couple doesn't make our friends of family outwardly uncomfortable, we rarely push the envelope enough to completely tell the truth about everything going on in our lives. And we almost never do things to make other people squeamish.

And I guess that's the real reason we told.

Both A. and I – and the vast majority of gay and lesbian people our ages – spent a good part of our lives hiding the truth. We hid out of fear. We hid out of longing for acceptance. We hid because we felt like we had to.

We've spent our lives not telling people things because of fear.

And, for us, when it comes to bringing a baby into the world, we didn't want to let fear have a foothold this early. Sure, something may happen in the early stages of this pregnancy and we will have to spread the word that it's over, even if it breaks our hearts.

But we will do it knowing that we were open and unafraid from day one and that fear didn't win.

6:36 ~ February 6, 2011

{can i just say that i'm getting sick of pictures of snow. . .}

6:36 ~ February 5, 2011

{Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays this courier from the swift completion of his appointed rounds. . .even though it's the tree that almost killed him on Christmas Eve. . .sigh. . .}

6:36 ~ February 4, 2011

{ali bought each of us one of these today. i will have to deal with all the baggage this word can bring – good and bad.}

Looking Up

I am a sun-seeker. I find God in the sky peeling back and when he isn't there it's hard to turn from the curtains framing my view.

Sometimes I just hold the fold of cloth and pray into it, softly, until she appears.

Survival tip for winter melancholy:: Remember to look up. I whisper it to the winter and winter nods her head and – i. look. up.

I walk outside, wrapped in my yellow coat. Snowflakes fall fast and furious. The cold envelops me, wraps me in aliveness and I know in my bones that god holds me here too.

And life returns in fits and starts. And I see the miracles all around me. All because I looked up.

Just One Word

{edited to make this my 6:36 Project picture of the day too. come on. . .how could it not be??}

6:36 ~ February 2, 2011

{when i went home for lunch today this little female dark-eyed junco was sitting on the fence. she was kind of skittish but i was patient. occasionally one picture comes out just right. to me, this is one of them.}

Storm Preparation

Just before the storm was scheduled to hit I went to Arlington to see if R. needed anything. He gets worried about the weather, like most of us are prone to do. When I asked what he needed he said that he was out of toilet paper and that someone told him to be sure and have an extra gallon of milk.

Knowing it was useless to argue with him about the milk (he had about a half gallon) I headed to Arlington's only grocery – the tiny Apple Seed IGA. I could visualize the scene in my head before I got there. . .the milk case would be picked clean and what would I tell R?

Much to my surprise when I arrived, the milk case was fully stocked. There were quite a few folks in line. Slowly, a funny feeling settled over me as I looked around. The twelve other people patiently standing with me all had beverages. They just weren't holding milk jugs.

I looked behind and almost laughed out loud.

There wasn't a can or bottle of beer left in the joint. The beer case was picked clean.

And I thought Arlington was a quiet little town. . .

6:36 ~ February 1, 2011