Moments

Sunday nights can be difficult for me. Actually, Sunday night starts sometime during Sunday afternoon, when my defenses are low and my kitchen feels a little too chaotic because we left our coffee mugs and breakfast dishes strewn across the counter before we left for church and didn't have time to clean it all up before our children begin clamoring for lunch. And then I think about everything that needs to happen before we dive back into our weekday morning routines: the diapers need to be washed, the kids' clothes need to be removed from the dryer and put away, the kitchen needs to have some kind of semblance of order restored to it, groceries need to be purchased, meals need to be planned, lessons need to be planned, papers need to be graded.

It all adds up to this: I really just want to take a nap. It doesn't matter how rested I am; as soon as I nurse Isaac down for his afternoon nap, all I want to do is curl up on the couch in the semi-darkness of the living room, listen to the soothing hum of the dishwasher, and take a break from my own head.

"I just want, like, a little power nap," I say to Matt.

"Which means what, exactly?" he asks.

"Wake me up in twenty minutes."

"But you really want an hour."

"Maybe thirty minutes."

"Thirty for real? Or are you going to argue with me when I come and wake you up in thirty minutes?"

"Well...I might not fall asleep right away."

"So I'll come and get you up in an hour, then."

(We have some variation of this conversation almost every time I try to take a nap. This hasn't changed in over eight years of marriage.)

I'm in a pretty good headspace today, though. Part of it is probably due to the nap, which was delicious (and more than makes up for the fact that it's been awhile since I've had a good one; I desperately wanted one last Sunday, but my children didn't cooperate, and that affected my attitude more than I wanted it to). And part of it is that I was determined to compartmentalize the things that were stressing me out -- just put them down for awhile. I left all of my grading at school, had a great and productive after-school/evening lesson-planning session with my friend Becca on Friday (with sushi!), and had a pretty peaceful weekend. Not necessarily in the sense that we weren't doing things -- yesterday we were on-the-go for most of the day -- but in the sense that I was happy to just be. Things were good.

Yesterday afternoon I headed down to Tacoma with the kiddos for a play date with Patti and our friends Kathy and Alisia and Alisia's beautiful daughter Anaiyah. Anaiyah was born about five weeks before Isaac at the Lakeside Birth Center, and Patti was Alisia's doula as well -- yet another way in which that evening in September of 2009 when we decided to have Patti at our birth continues to bless our lives; we never could have anticipated the connections and friendships that have grown up out of that moment. Anyway, the afternoon was so great -- Suzannah played hard, and Isaac and Anaiyah were adorable together, and we all laughed and talked and enjoyed a few great hours before I realized that it was getting dark and Isaac was falling asleep in Alisia's arms. I left feeling so centered, refreshed, recharged.

This morning we all slept a little late; Suzannah seemed to be feeling a little under-the-weather and I wasn't sure we'd be up for church with her or not. But she seemed cheerful and eager for Sunday School when she woke up, so we headed on in. Sometimes going to church feels a little like writing practice or working out; I often don't really feel like it, but then I do it anyway, and I am never, ever sorry. Today during communion I found myself thinking about Lauren F. Winner's memoir, Girl Meets God, her story of her conversion from Judaism to Christianity. She writes:

I have never, not once, felt anything at the Eucharist. Not a thing. I have never felt stirred, or joyful, or peaceful, or sad. I have never felt closeness. I have never felt God at the communion rail. Steven once sad that after receiving communion, he felt woozy, as if he'd drunk two bottles of magic wine, not just one tiny sip; but I have never felt woozy.

I keep hoping one day that God will give me some feeling at communion. In the meantime, I figure He is helping me become something else. He is calling me to know Him in the Eucharist even though I don't feel Him there. He is calling me to a place where He is truer than everything else, truer even than how I feel.

I don't know if I always feel something at communion, either, but it seems I'm less likely if I try to conjure it. And then sometimes I'm moved to tears, and I couldn't begin to explain exactly why. I just continue to show up, and trust that God will meet me there. Today, though, I did feel peaceful. And stirred, I suppose. Mostly, I felt the unmistakable sense that I was home, and that everything was okay.

When I was younger, I had this very generic prayer that would run through my head all the time: Please, God, just let everything be okay. It wasn't exactly the same thing as "praying without ceasing," but at a certain time in my life it was about as close as I came. And then, maybe on the flip side of that, I remember very specific moments in which I have felt that everything would, in fact, be okay. Or that I was okay in that moment, and that was enough. It was almost like hearing a whisper in my ear, the actual words: Everything is okay. It's what I felt this morning, just sitting there, just being.

I felt it again later, after my delicious afternoon nap, after I'd committed to a run, after I'd gone back and forth between I don't feel like it and Okay, fine and resigned myself to lacing up my running shoes and allowing my husband to prod me out the door: It's not that cold, it's not raining, you'll feel really good after you do it.

I feel the need to mention that while I have a gym membership, I've found that running outside is so, so much better -- and that's where I run these days, unless it is raining or icy or otherwise really awful. Running inside, on a treadmill in a row of treadmills in a windowless room, conjures up creepy mental images for me: A hidden video camera, perhaps, and someone taking notes like, Subject A kept a steady pace for the first mile but began to falter halfway through mile 2. I probably run faster, because when I run inside I'm all about improving my 5k time, but I just get so bored and antsy. When I hit the 3.1-mile mark sometimes I force myself to run a little longer, but mostly I can't wait to be done. When I'm outside, breathing fresh air, smelling the sweet damp earth, crunching through pine needles and leaves, smiling at people walking their dogs and sort of just -- enjoying being a part of this great pulsing world, sometimes I feel like I could just keep running forever. I almost always do at least three-and-a-half miles; sometimes I do more. I get into my zone pretty quickly when I'm running outside, but I don't always experience the kind of peace I experienced this morning. Sometimes when I'm running I'm working things out in my head, or indulging in my usual delusional fantasies in which I'm amazing. This afternoon, though, I wasn't thinking about anything. I was just moving, just breathing the sweet rain-scented air. Everything was okay. And I'm not even sure it had anything to do with the fresh air, or the way the evening light was fading, or the way I felt as I approached my street at the end of my run.

I can never explain these moments, nor can I will them to appear. They merely happen, like little gifts of undeserved grace.