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Ostriches Look Funny: When You Don't Bow You Miss Babies And Other Low To The Ground Things
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I just thought you should know, when I started blogging I was somewhere else.
I was almost lost, and entirely hopeless. In my dark place I learned to write, to live in the neat boarders that come with punctuation marks and paragraphs. I counted the pearlescent lotion bottles on the messy bathroom counter as gifts, and I said thank you for all of the small things, because I could only look at the small things.
The big things were capable of eating me, so I didn't look at them. It was humbling to take notice of the way the birds lived, tiny feathers and twig houses. It was humbling to look at things no one else looks at, but it kept me sane, it kept me grateful.
Things got better, and I got tired of being humble, so I stopped.
I stopped counting the ways that sunlight fell on the carpet, and I raised my head.
I was afraid that all the intentional staring, all the focus on the crisp way an envelope folds, or the spiced dull way a warm coffee tastes, was a mental trick.
Was being grateful only a way for me to keep my sanity in a world of baby spit and anonymity? A way to ignore reality?
I turned 30 and panicked. I'm still here, wearing purple tights and drinking decaf, typing to the rhythm of the washer as I always do, because the dirt never ends. Every ounce of me wants to live bigger, to throw away my pajamas and become a person who is too busy for birds and envelopes and lotion bottles. Instead I'm here with little people and little problems and little sleep. I have a choice to grow discontent and fear for my celebrity, or to open my eyes and find the secrets in Motherhood.
It comes down, as it will again, to the question of purpose. Do I live for a principle or for myself? And then...what if the principle is a Person?
I think I've lost a little of my faith lately, because I stopped bowing my head. Because I started looking in instead of out. It was very stressful to look at life through my self. Flesh is a terrible window, and it's very dark. I'm looking for the old ways again, counting everything a miracle, finding God in the details and watching my chubby infant child testify to the overwhelming importance of the small.
Gratitude for the small:
Three teeth in a baby mouth
flannel pajamas
library books for my Kindle
new toilets
Downton Abbey
paper snowflakes
children songs
loud plastic drums
loud plastic guitars
a quiet life
baby food in a bag
a baby who sits
G.K. Chesterton
