For Collyn and Marinne

Yesterday, Paul yelled from the front door, Hey come look at these purple flowers! I think your lilac bush is blooming! Lilacs? In mid-September? Nah.

But the picture above is visual proof of something quite unexpected: the lilacs are blooming amidst brown, curled-up leaves and the onset of fall. Honestly, for a moment we couldn’t trust our eyes, so Paul grabbed the branch, bent it towards us, and we sniffed. Sure enough, the sweet scent of lilacs confirmed what we thought we were seeing.

In the Sanctuary of the Unexpected, lilacs bloom in September. From afar, they tease you with a hint of violet. And then, upon approach, they shout Surprise! And you are–gloriously, gleefully–surprised. For who could imagine such an unexpected gift on a gray day?

As the mother of four–two adopted and two birth children–I have been schooled in the unexpected. The dry bones of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches shoved under beds and left to atrophy, the outfits-we-chose-on-our own (such medleys of colors and textures your eyes have never seen!), and the spontaneous and wholly unfiltered remarks: Where are his teeth? Why does she have blue hair? How can he walk with pants like that?

Indeed, when it comes to my children, I have been schooled and re-schooled in the unexpected. But there is another room in the Sanctuary of the Unexpected, a lovely, private room in which you stash away your children’s unexpected words, deeds, and sentiments, so that you may take them out on another day and experience the wonder all over again.

At age 19, my daughter, Marinne, committed to the Air Force. After months of deliberating, she made up her mind, contacted the recruiter, and began preparing for her new life. On the day she left for basic training, her father and I took her to meet the bus that would carry her from rural Iowa to Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas. Shouldering her gear, she hugged us, reminded us that she would have little contact with us for some time, and walked to the bus.

How did that 95 pound young woman walk with such resolve? From what deep well did she draw that strength? Who was this person? In the Sanctuary of the Unexpected, your daughter becomes a woman before your very eyes as she climbs the steps to a bus. And amidst your tears, you are astonished at the incredible life you have born and now release. Weeks later when she graduates, you enter that private room in the Sanctuary of the Unexpected and line the mantle with photographs of your daughter in uniform, standing resolute among fellow airmen. And when she goes on to carve a life for herself in Montana, hundreds of miles away from her home, you add photographs of her new family and home. Unexpected, but magnificent nonetheless.

The other evening, my daughter, Collyn, was sharing a story of one of her student’s responses to a writing assignment she had given. As she talked, I was taken aback at the words she was using to describe what had happened and how she had responded. In the Sanctuary of the Unexpected, you may be amazed at the power and beauty of genetic transfer. How did she think to assign this? From where did that sensitive, insightful response to student work come? And the sheer joy that oozed from each word and shone from her eyes? I heard my father’s words and felt his very presence as she spoke. From my father, the teacher, to his daughter, the teacher, to his granddaughter, the teacher, the transfer of word-love continues. In the Sanctuary of the Unexpected, these moments are treasure-worthy. In your private room, you record them in a leather-bound journal with handmade paper, for such moments deserve no less.

Perhaps the best thing about the Sanctuary of the Unexpected is that you simply cannot predict what will happen next. Just when you think you have stowed away enough treasures for a lifetime, someone or something shouts Surprise! And like the birthday girl who has flung open the door to her own surprise party, your jaw drops, you instantly lose your bearing, and you give yourself fully to the unexpected.

I admit that as a grandmother, I do really (REALLY) like the unexpected, unfiltered remarks from my grandchildren. Just yesterday, Gracyn asked me if I ever gave cowboy handshakes. Cowboy handshakes? I asked. Yes, you know the kind where you spit in your hand and then shake. I like to keep my salivas (plural) in my own mouth, don’t you? Smiling behind my eyes (only), I said, Yes, I like to keep my salivas in my own mouth, too. 

Still, I count my blessings when I can enter that private sanctuary where I have stored lovely unexpected words and deeds. My daughters, Marinne and Collyn, have given me so many of these. And I expect that in the ordinary days to follow, I will once again hear the words and see the acts that announce Surprise! The Sanctuary of the Unexpected is like this, and I invite you to enter. Daily.

    For Megan, Quinn, Laura and Ben                  

“Adopted.
Big Deal; so was Superman”
–Chris Crutcher, Whale Talk

The Sanctuary of Adoption boasts some famous figures: Superman, Moses, and hundreds of thousands of Cabbage Patch boys and girls. And then there are the adoptees of the REALLY special sort. Being the mother of two of these, I can testify to all that makes them special.

If the Sanctuary of Adoption is grace-filled, however, the infertility that frequently precedes it is not. Basal thermometers, ovulation charts, painstakingly plotted months that look more like a child’s drawing of the Sawtooth Mountains than ovulation’s slow curve-small dip-then spike pattern.  Agonizing hours in doctors’ waiting rooms surrounded by pregnant women–some who, regrettably, whine to anyone who will listen: I just don’t know what I’m going to do with another one . . . Just when I thought I would have some time to myself . . .  And even more agonizing moments during which you bite your tongue, lest you offer to mother these babies.

In his poem, “Elegy for a Still-Born Child”, Seamus Heaney writes:

Birth of death, exhumation for burial,

A wreath of small clothes, a memorial pram,                                                                 And parents reaching for a phantom limb.  

Infertility is surely a still-born place. Dreams live only to die, and day after day, you reach for the phantom limb of the son or daughter whose ethereal shape shimmers briefly, then vanishes into the shadows.

After suffering through years of infertility, adoption threw my husband and me a life-line: the prospect of parenthood. It was this prospect that buoyed us through months of home studies, paperwork, and waiting. Although cautiously optimistic, our caseworkers ended most conversations with gentle warnings: I don’t need to remind you that this can all fall through. Still, our hope was stronger than our fear.  In hope, we measured our days with preparations: assembling the crib, buying blankets, sleepers, bottles, and diapers. In hope, we prepared as if, one day, we would bring home a son or daughter to fill our empty cradle and arms.

Miles away in other homes, two mothers gave birth–one to a daughter and one to a son. In sacrificial love, these birth mothers and fathers offered up their babies so that we might parent. And humbly, gratefully, joyously, we accepted the gifts of their love and labor.

Tragically, we live in a world in which adoption has often been silenced or criticized. How could she give her baby away? Poor kid, how can he survive not knowing who his real mother and father are? With all the government aid available, why didn’t she keep her baby? In forty years of teaching–and countless pregnant students–I have only had one young woman who chose adoption. Ridiculed and misunderstood by her peers, she stayed the course, choosing a life she believed best for her child. Her selfless choice was a gift to her son and to his adoptive parents who, like us, were wholly at the mercy of a loving birth mother and father.

In a poem my father wrote for my niece, Aanya, he writes:

In the fury of this world                                                                                                       there is no stronger verb

than love. It is the root                                                                                                               which lives through drought.

Aanya, my small noun,                                                                                                                 may you find it out. 

Adoption is a strong verb of love. It is, indeed, the root through which drought lives. This root penetrated the dry ground of our childlessness and brought forth life. And love, much love.

And our children, small nouns in the fury of this world have been beneficiaries of a love stronger than circumstance or genes. They are loved by birth and adoptive parents whose roots entwine in a family braid that spans miles and years. Our wish for them? That they find it out, that they return again and again to this root, and that they find strength in the strongest verb of all: love.

In truth, the Sanctuary of Adoption is a universal and inclusive one. It matters not whether we having living or loving mothers and fathers, for we have been chosen, predestined as children of God. In Ephesians 1:4-6, we read:

For He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His presence. In love He predestined us for adoption as His sons through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the Beloved One.

As a writing teacher, I have read too many painful student narratives of neglect, abandonment or rejection. As words of loss spill out upon the page, I have shared the orphan’s plight. Without a living or loving parent, the orphan cowers or rails against the fury of this world. With no one to model the strong verb of love, the orphan seeks a weaker version, often in all the wrong places and from all the wrong sources.

In the Sanctuary of Adoption, though, all are loved and claimed by the Father: the orphan, the childless, the broken and hopeless, the seeking and yearning, the faithful and faithless.

My wish for all who have yet to enter the Sanctuary of Adoption? May you find it out. It is only a prayer away.

Disclaimer to family and friends who may be alarmed enough to call me: Don’t call. I have learned my lesson. Enough said.

The other day I set my alarm for 5:30, so I could walk early. As I left the house and the crescent of light that spread from the light pole in our yard, I realized that it was dark. Really, really dark. Can’t-see-your-feet-or-where-your- feet-are-going kind of dark.

But the sun will be coming up soon. If I can just make it for a half mile or so, I’ll be good. But a half mile in, there was no sign of the sun, and I had drifted off the road several times, shuffling through the dew-drenched grass until I found my way back to pavement.

And then I heard a crashing sound in the field to my right. A deer? Something more predatory?  It was then that I started clapping maniacally as I walked, hoping that whatever was out there would take notice: Hey, I am walking here. And I’m handicapped because, unlike you, I have no night vision. Can you give a sister a break?

In the distance, a glow of headlights cheered me. But as the truck approached, I realized that, ironically, I was more handicapped than when I was in the dark. Blinded by the light, momentarily I had absolutely no idea where I was or in what direction I was moving. As the truck passed me, I also felt the sting of humiliation. That guy probably thinks I’m an idiot (which I am) to be out here in the dark without reflective gear or a head lamp. I really hope that I don’t know him or her. 

Then a jewel of light appeared in front of me: a light pole at the entrance of a gravel driveway. Confidently, I steered my course towards the light. And then, once there, I spotted another light in the distance and found my old walking rhythm as it drew me on.

In the sanctuary of light, you may be blessed with the smallest points of light, which like a luminary compass, show you the way. In her poem,   “Insomniac,” Sylvia Plath writes:

The night sky is only a sort of carbon paper,
Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars
Letting in the light, peephole after peephole—

Letting in the light, peephole after peephole. At times, we may find ourselves slogging our way through the dark night, our eyes desperately searching the blueblack before us for one small peephole, some pin prick in the all-consuming absence of light. Often a single peephole is enough to sustain us. How far that little candle throws its beams! [William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice].

For much of my life, when two roads diverged in the woods, I took the path of the tangible light poles, forsaking the spiritual ones. I marched–and sometimes crawled–onward towards people, places, and positions that, I believed, were the truest lights. In these people, places, and positions, I believed I would find all that I was looking for: comfort, affirmation, and wisdom. When my marching song should have been Onward, Christian Soldier, it was actually more a weak version of Carry On, My Wayward Son. 

Until I moved towards a light that was, in the end, no light at all. Plunged into darkness, there was little comfort to be found in people, places, or positions. Broken and in the absence of tangible light, I finally turned to God.

Finally–such a woeful, pathetic word. Even as I write, I am acutely aware of how cliched and time-worn my story is. False lights glitter all too brightly, their promises all too familiar. Like the children of Israel, I had accumulated years of idols. I had filled the shelves of my life with false gold and artificial light.

Broken–such a necessary, life-saving word in the sanctuary of light. In Matthew 16: 24-26, we read:

Then Jesus told His disciples, If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

Paradoxically, the sanctuary of light requires losing yourself, your life, and your former lights. Aristotle claimed that nature abhors a vacuum. Clearly, Jesus would agree. In the absence of false light, in the vacuum created by loss, true and living light abounds. The dark night of the soul need not last forever. If one will but seek the source of the real light.

In his letters, J. R. R. Tolkien writes:

I perceived or thought of the Light of God and in it suspended one small mote (or millions of motes to only one of which was my small mind directed), glittering white because of the individual ray from the Light which both held and lit it…And the ray was the Guardian Angel of the mote: not a thing interposed between God and the creature, but God’s very attention itself, personalized…This is a finite parallel to the Infinite. As the love of the Father and Son (who are infinite and equal) is a Person, so the love and attention of the Light to the Mote is a person (that is both with us and in Heaven): finite but divine, i.e. angelic.

The splendor of the sanctuary of light is revealed in Tolkien’s description of Jesus as the Light and of each of us as one small mote to which all love and attention is directed. If losing my life ensures that I may be this one small mote, then today, I will once again lose my life. For this losing is a daily, willful act. And this is good news for those like me, who, in spite of best intentions, in spite of past experience, and in spite of wisdom, find themselves veering weakly towards false lights.

I don’t plan to walk again in utter darkness–down the old highway or through the remainder of my life–without a headlamp and Jesus. Both are necessary; both are life-saving.

One is the loneliest number
One is the loneliest number
One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do                                                           Harry Nilsson, One, 1968

I remember lying awake during my middle and high school years, surrounded by my sleeping family yet utterly alone. In the middle of the night, I let my teenage angst suck me into a dark and solitary insomnia. Certainly no one but me has ever worried so well. Certainly no one but me has ever said, done, or thought such regrettable things. Oh, one is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do!

Those who enter the sanctuary of solitary understand, far too well, what it means to face the music. Stripped of pretenses and without backup, they enter the back alleys and abandoned buildings of those sketchier, less traveled regions of the soul. Foolish at times, courageous at others, they stand alone. For better or for worse.

There is something tragically solitary about an individual eating alone in a restaurant. While others are thick in conversation and fellowship, he or she eats in silence. I realize that one is always connected in this era of smart phones. Still, however compelling digital connections may be, they pale in comparison to personal connections. An emoji smile packs one millionth of the brilliance that a real one does.

Although solitary may wear the drab cloak of angst and loneliness, it may also burst onto the scene–unexpectedly, magnificently, all sequins and shine. Look at me, it announces. Just look at me. 

Walking along the old highway today, my eyes swept the roadside, now mostly green and bronze as summer gives way to autumn. Until I spotted a small patch of wild chicory. The recent rain offered one last periwinkle blooming. In the middle of this blue, however, was a solitary white blossom. A white chicory in all its solitary glory! Look at me, just look at me. 

There is an intimacy in the sanctuary of solitary that pulls you decisively in, inquiring: Has anyone else seen this? Are you the first, the last, the only to witness this? And as the unlikely, yet fortunate, witness to this solitary enigma, you revel in its oneness.

Because solitary is often by design. Seeing the white chicory blossom, I could not help but recall Robert Frost’s poem, “Design”:

 I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,

On a white heal-all, holding up a moth

Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth–

Assorted characters of death and blight

Mixed ready to begin the morning right,

Like the ingredients of a witches’ broth–

A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,

And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,

The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?

What brought the kindred spider to that height,

Then steered the white moth thither in the night?

What but design of darkness to appall?–

If design govern in a thing so small.

What had that flower to do with being white? The Designer does, indeed, govern in things so small. And this governance may provoke both darkness and delight. Yet even if something is terribly, darkly solitary, a dimpled spider, fat and white, it is something to behold.

In Walden, Henry David Thoreau writes, I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. He continues to expound upon solitude in his journal (February 8, 1857):

You think that I am impoverishing myself withdrawing from men, but in my solitude I have woven for myself a silken web or chrysalis, and nymph-like, shall ere long burst forth a more perfect creature, fitted for a higher society.

The sanctuary of solitary may be exactly as Thoreau describes: a silken web or chrysalis from which those who give themselves to solitude may ultimately burst forth a more perfect creature[s]. Like Thoreau, I have rarely felt impoverished in solitude. Rather, I emerge from it better fitted for a higher society.

The unique nature of solitary couples with the solo nature of solitude, and this is–quite literally–a marriage made in heaven: a sanctuary whose intimacy offers soul-searching, wonder-witnessing, and general people-perfecting.

In his book, The Eternal Now, theologian Paul Tillich writes:

Our language has widely sensed the two sides of being alone. It has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone.

In the sanctuary of solitary, One is not always the loneliest number; it just may be the most glorious number.

Sky-blue-pink, my granddad said as we looked at the sky. That’s what I call it. We stood at the edge of a sandpit, ready for a morning of fishing. Or rock-skipping, frog-scaring, and snail-hunting, for which my sisters and I were much better suited. In the sanctuary of sky-blue-pink, however, you can cast twenty times, lose twenty crawdads, and your granddad still smiles and baits your hook again.

At dawn, the night dissolves into a mottled mixture of lavender and gray at the tree line, and then lightens into ribbons of rose and cerulean. This is the sanctuary of sky-blue-pink. It brings with it promise. Promise of a new day, new challenges and risks, new gifts and blessings.

As I walk at dawn, there are moments during which I feel suspended in time, the day momentarily delayed, and the sanctuary of sky-blue-pink envelops me. It takes me back to pre-dawn moments, an empty bottle on the end table beside me and the colors of dawn sliding through the window before me. Having risen in the dark for an early feeding, I hold my babies snuggly against my chest, their pink baby hands, curled like sleeping snails and nestled in the hollows beneath my shoulder blades. When you hold a sleeping baby, time stands still. There is nothing else you can do but give into the rhythmic breath of sleep, and there is nowhere else you would rather be.

I remember this sky-blue-pink feeling wash utterly through me. And I recall fearing that I may, someday, forget these moments and how these pigments of love’s colors are particularly lovely when your arms are wrapped around a baby at daybreak.

The sanctuary of sky-blue-pink is a watercolor sanctuary. Oils and acrylic paints, in all their opaqueness, have no place here. This is a place for fluid sweeps that saturate the sky and then run into the horizon leaving translucent pools of new color, one hue dissolving into another and then another. This is a place where less is more.

In her poem, “One or Two Things,” Mary Oliver writes:

For years and years I struggled                                                                                             just to love my life. And then

the butterfly                                                                                                                                     rose, weightless, in the wind.

“Don’t love your life                                                                                                                   too much,” it said,

and vanished                                                                                                                             into the world.

Mary Oliver understands the weightless nature of the sanctuary of sky-blue-pink, how it cannot be held or bound, how you cannot love it too much. Less is more. You love it for its brevity and beauty. You love it when it vanishes and even more when it returns.

My granddad was not really a man of words, and yet he got it so right with sky-blue-pink. Fifty some years later, this sanctuary is just as good as it was when I was dipping my hand into the crawdad bucket, the promise of a morning at the water’s edge, and the Nebraska sky awash with sky-blue-pink.

for Griffin

Yesterday was a first: Gracyn passed on coming over to my house. She passed–politely but decisively! She was packing her bag for a sleepover with her cousin and had her sites fixed firmly on this upcoming event.

But not to worry: in my sanctuary of double-delight, there’s Griffin, age three, who never passes. Because coming to my house is tantamount to visiting Disney Land. Because coming to my house involves creating a motor village that stretches the length and width of the dining room. Because coming to my house involves Tootsie Pops that you can throw away after two licks if you find you don’t really fancy that flavor today. Because coming to my house involves sacred one-on-one time that grandmas who have retired from teaching can freely give.

I have to admit that when Griff wanted to play doll house with the Fisher Price and Dora the Explorer families, I thought, Well, o.k., this is familiar territory. Gracyn and I have had a countless rounds of doll house narratives. I’m good to go. Only I was not. Not really, that is. When Griff picked up Dora’s magic mirror and proceeded to use it as a laser gun to pick off Dora’s grandma (why does the grandma have to go first???) and several of the girls, I knew I was going to have to get with the new story, or all of my people would be summarily wiped out.

I tried a climatic turn: Let’s say the naughty guy with the laser gun is really our friend. . . One more girl got zapped. I mean, he’s really not a bad guy–just a lonely guy. . . The father got zapped, then zapped again to make sure he was truly down. In a desperate attempt to turn the story, I tried again: Hey, do you want to come to our picnic? Zap, zap, zap. At this point, I’m out of people, and the only guy standing is the one with the magic mirror-turned laser.

Quickly I determined that the sanctuary of double-delight would require a new perspective, a definitely more male perspective. We turned to trains, trucks and cars, and the result: crashes, spectacular crashes with even more spectacular sound effects. Which Griffin has perfected after hours of play. The boy can make a motor sound, lips perpetually buzzing, for up to thirty minutes without taking a breath, I swear!

Read books, Nanny? Griffin opened the book cabinet and brought a handful of his favorites to the couch. Hallelujah, I know how to do this. And it’s a resting activity (vs. the aerobic doll house/motor vehicle activities)!  In the sanctuary of double-delight, you must be prepared for new perspectives and new play-taking risks. But, blessedly, you must also be prepared for the same all-encompassing joy to spread through you when your grandson presses himself against your side, his small hand resting on your forearm, guiding you as you turn the pages, his breathing slower now as his eyes take in each object on each page. Then he says, Oh no! He’s sad, Nanny. The dog wants to go with them. And you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that in spite of his recent three-year male bravado, he shares his sister’s sensitivity and keen insights. Griffin sees with his eyes and with his heart.

Double-delight, via Griffin, comes with laughter of the Glorious (capital G) sort.

Griff can go from contemplative to raucous, belly-shaking, contagious laughter in a split second. The boy can really laugh. In the sanctuary of double-delight, laughter of this magnitude is always welcome.

And just in case you need more than visual proof, check out this video of Griffin in the throes of laughter. Viewer discretion advised: Be prepared to split a gut–or at least crack a big smile.

https://www.facebook.com/100005494067014/videos/vb.100005494067014/390420977817701/?type=2

And genuine double-delight? When your granddaughter cannot help but join in, laughing at her brother and validating a moment of simple joy.

Just when you think you cannot take any more delight, Griff walks into our house, announces I’m here, Nanny! sits on the bottom step to take off his shoes, and marches right to the candy bowl to pluck a handful of Tootsie Rolls, and plops himself on the couch. I look outside to see his motorized John Deere tractor parked by the front porch.

Griff, does your mommy know you’re here? Chewing, chocolate oozing from the corners of his mouth, he bares his brown teeth and says, I really love you, Nanny. In the sanctuary of double-delight, verbal deflection of this kind is not only excusable, it is encouraged.

Because I plan to be a life-time member of this sanctuary, I can see that I’m going to have to do all that’s in my power to literally keep up with Griffin. I have a plan, though: the next time we play doll house, I’m calling dibs on the magic mirror/laser gun.

Watch out, Griff–you have met your match!

For fellow make-believers extraordinaire: Susan and Beth

First of all, let me set the record straight: the sanctuary of make-believe is not an exclusive one. Children of all ages, sizes and shapes may enter. This is great news for a 61 year-old child who has a life-time membership to this sanctuary. Great news, indeed.

From my earliest memories, I was a make-believer. Give me a Barbie, a stuffed animal–heck, give me a stick or rock–and I will find its story. My sisters and I propped up an old wooden crate by the fence at the side of our yard, attached a piece of rope for reins, and christened it Jumbo, the elephant. We had just seen The Greatest Show on Earth,  and my dad had graciously gifted us with an old pigeon crate. For days, we our rode that thing until we moved on to a new story. Imagine the looks of college students passing by on their way to class as three girls frantically whipped the side of the crate with sticks, yelling, Go Jumbo, Go!

In high school, I carried the sanctuary of make-believe with me, initiating willing friends (you know who you are). We dared each other to take our world into the real world. Having located several yards with an abundance of lawn ornaments, we sent willing make-believers–one at a time, mind you–into these yards to talk to and to pet plaster deer, burros, and dogs. Waiting in the get-away car, we howled as motorists and neighbors looked on, some in confusion and others in delight. The night we found a yard with Snow White and all of the Seven Dwarfs? The gates to the sanctuary of make-believe opened with fireworks and trumpet fanfare!

The sanctuary of make-believe can be a solitary venture, but I’m hear to confess that it is best when shared. My make-believe venture into the world of Olympic curling has been shared, and re-shared with students, family, friends, and colleagues. In short, this story has legs! Just when it appears to be waning, a fellow make-believer will shock it into life again, propelling it to the foreground.

Just this morning when I was sweeping my kitchen (wait for the irony of this action), I heard my phone ping and saw that I had been tagged in a Facebook post. I dumped my dustpan in the garbage and went to check this out. When I read the post, I realized that I had hit paydirt: my curling story, once only a solitary figment of my imagination, had gone viral! Well, maybe not viral–exaggeration is actually permissible and encouraged in the sanctuary of make-believe–but it made the internet. For proof of this, check out the following link (if you, too, are willing to enter this make-believe sanctuary):

http://ecjanzen7.wixsite.com/mysite/single-post/2016/09/02/From-Teaching-to-The-Olympics

The fellow make-believers who shocked this story into life again had also sent me a letter last spring, weeks before I retired, delivered by the high school principal himself. In this letter, with an official-looking American Curling Federation logo, I learned that I finally had been accepted to the Olympic Curling Team and would be preparing for the 2018 Seoul Olympics. As I read the letter aloud to my students, most looked on with mild amusement. If I had had time to train them better, I could have worked them into genuine amusement, maybe even outright laughter. But alas, I retired.

Because my friends had breathed new life into the curling story, I rushed to Walmart to buy a t-shirt, stencils and puff paint. That evening, I recreated the logo from my curling letter, and made myself an official-looking training shirt. The next day, I wore it to school. When I made my way to the classrooms of my fellow make-believers, I was stopped by others who asked about my shirt. Oh this? I said. This is proof that I am officially training for the Seoul Olympics as a U.S. Curler. It’s legit. They’re calling me up.

And when I finally approached my fellow make-believers? They gasped, they oohed and aahed, they offered congratulations for a life-long dream now realized. They offered support, insisted that I would have a large home fan-base, and pledged to pass on the great news. They played along. And in the sanctuary of make-believe, it just does not get much better than this.

So here’s to the sanctuary of make-believe! May it live long, and its players live well! For those who are willing to enter, it offers treasures of inestimable worth and cheap, but wholesome, entertainment.

Looking ahead, I’m hoping for a significant fan-base as I prepare for my Olympic debut. If you can help me out, my curling trainers and I would really appreciate it.

Oh, and I’m looking for some gently-used teflon-soled curling shoes. If any of you happen to have a pair that you’re no longer using, message me: I will pay top dollar.

For Gracyn

Disclaimer: It goes without saying that ALL grandmas will argue–vehemently–that their grandchildren are the most brilliant, attractive, talented human beings on the planet. Today, however, with the limited power of my pen, I pay special tribute to my delightful granddaughter, Gracyn. 

In the sanctuary of delight, Gracyn is Delightful (with a capital D). If delight were being debuted as one of Crayola’s new crayons, it would be named Gracyn’s Eyes. For beneath these cornflower blue eyes–rimmed with blond eyelashes so long and lush that they curl back against the eyelids above them–lies a mystical cauldron that perpetually churns, stews and brews. Until, having reached the boiling point, a single bubble breaks the surface. Fragile at first, its translucent surface wobbly at take-off, it gains speed and purpose in flight. And then it bursts into words and images and perceptions that are, quite simply, delightful.

Recently Gracyn brought their dog Gus over to visit our dog. As we were walking back she said, “You know, they have different barks, but their breath voices are the same.” “Breath voices?” I asked. Then she panted to demonstrate. “Oh, breath voices,” I said. In the sanctuary of delight, panting just does not cut it. But breath voices? Oh yeah, baby.

A few years ago when we were playing wedding with our mermaid dolls (Gracyn was the bride, of course, and I was the bridesmaid–always the bridesmaid, never the bride), Gracyn announced, “Get ready for the wedding. Bridesmaid, wash your hands. I mean, really, they smell like chocolate feet.” Chocolate feet? Again, Gracyn’s use of language delights even the most literal among us.

A year ago my husband, Paul, and Gracyn had drawn pictures, and he had just finished telling the story that went along with his drawing. To which Gracyn commented,  That’s pretty good, Papa, but you need to elaborate more.  In the sanctuary of delight, elaboration is always a good idea. Through elaboration, the delightful understand that new details, new images, new insights emerge, often and best, through invented language and fresh perspectives.

A couple of Christmases ago, Gracyn was helping me wrap presents, writing names on the gift tags and taping as we wrapped. I forgot and wrote Quinn’s name on a gift tag. When she saw this, she gasped, “Grandma, look at your N! You just need to take your time and draw this line all the way up.” I nodded in silence, which prompted her to add, “but all your other letters are goodly.” Goodly? I would bet that even Charles Dickens himself would be delighted enough to make Gracyn a character in his next tale.

One evening as Gracyn was about to get on her swingset, she looked down into the grass and gasped, “What’s that!” Upon looking closely (really, really closely), I discovered a small beetle making its way across the yard. I told her that it was only a bug (a very, very, very small bug), and looking relieved, she said, “Oh, just a bug. I thought it might be a shrinkened chicken.” A shrinkened chicken? Those who live in the sanctuary of delight will never see just a bug when they can see something straight out of a roadside freakshow. Ladies and gentlemen, step right up and see the world’s smallest shrinkened chicken, right here in rural Iowa!

Once when her parents, Gracyn and her brother, Griffin, stopped by after grocery shopping, Gracyn asked if she could stay for awhile by herself. When I said yes, she grabbed a book off the shelf, stood in front of her parents and brother and pronounced, “The Big Book of Leaving says that you must leave. Now. The Big Book of Leaving says so, so get going.” Delight often requires the language of resourcefulness. So if you need a Big Book of Leaving, a Big Book of Staying, A Big Book of Living or Loving, or whatever, delight is your go-to sanctuary.

When she was four years old, Gracyn and I were playing dollhouse with the Fisher Price people, Dora and friends, and some Dollar Store”girls”. Of course, I had to be the father (and grandfather–I always get the boy roles!) When one of the girls got blown to the top of Dora’s Magic Castle by a tornado, I got the father ready to rescue her. But not so fast, for Gracyn said, “Pretend like the father is afraid of heights and he can’t go up there.” Plan B: “O.K. should he call the police?” Gracyn: “Pretend like he can’t find a phone.” Plan C: Just wait for Gracyn to script my next move. Delightful is being one narrative step ahead of your grandma, surprising her with unexpected climatic turns, prolonging the climax, and always, always, suspending the denouement (which signals the end of the story and, inevitably, time to go home).

During our conversation while driving to church one day, I asked Gracyn if she had seen some beautiful prom dresses the day before when she attended the Davis County promenade with her mom. Gracyn responded that she liked the jeweled dress the best. But then she said, “Wait, grandma, did you say “promenADE?” It’s “promeNOD” Grandma. You don’t say promenADE. You know that, don’t you?” For those who live in the sanctuary of delight, failing to recognize a French word for all its lyrical beauty is a real faux pas (pronounced with proper French vowels, thank you very much!)

When I bought a new box shredder to shred my zucchini for bread and removed it from the sack, Gracyn exclaimed, “Wow, Grandma! You actually got a cowbell!” Seeing something cool (like a cowbell) in the guise of something truly uncool (like a box shredder) is an attribute of the most delightful. And believing that your grandma was going to play the cowbell–preferably in some cool band with real musicians–now that is DELIGHTFUL!

Weeks before her brother, Griffin, was born, Gracyn said to her mother, “Well, I certainly hope when your baby pops out that he doesn’t hit the ceiling!” But later in a car conversation with me, she said,   “Grandma, we will write on a cloud, ‘Griffin is born!‘ Then it will go up to heaven, Jesus will see it, and He’ll know that my baby is born.” From the ridiculous to the sublime–this all matters, and matters deeply–in the sanctuary of delight.

The best thing, bar none, about the sanctuary of delight is the unspoken invitation to enter. So when my granddaughter asked me to jump off of her potty chair, juggling a handful of toys, yelling, “Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, the Amazing Nanny!” I did it, several times actually, to get it just right.

In the sanctuary of delight, it is always best to have a friend (or several). So when Gracyn announced to her Sunday School class that she and I were “BFF”, I didn’t think it could get much better than this. Only it has. Everyday, Gracyn’s bubbles break the surface of all that is ordinary and routine with ever more delight.

Final disclaimer: And just in case you are not yet a believer, check out my daughter’s vimeo tribute to her delightful daughter and my BFF, Gracyn. 

Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence                                                                                                     Paul Simon, The Sounds of Silence (1964)

Since adolescence, I have been a fan of Simon and Garfunkel. Sitting in my basement, the family record player my only companion, I sang with teenage gusto, belting out Cecilia, I am a Rock, Scarborough Fair, Bridge Over Troubled Water, and–of course–The Sound of Silence.

At 13, what did I know about darkness or the sound of silence? Nada. My life was filled with the near constant chatter of other teenage girls–and occasionally, blessedly, teenage boys–the family dinner table talk, the top 40 from the local radio station, and tunes from the few albums my sisters and I bought with our collective allowances. I knew nothing of the darkness of silence in Paul Simon’s lyrics; yet as I sang, his words committed to memory, I came to believe that I did.

At 61, I can honestly say that I can sing Simon’s words with more genuine understanding. Like most, I can say hello darkness, my old friend and mean it. Like most, I can speak personally of the moments, the days, the months that I have lived within and through the sound of silence. 

About a quarter mile down the old highway this morning, I realized that the summer songs of the cardinals, the buntings, the finches and orioles were missing. In their place, crickets–and a far-off raw cry from a crow. Against this background of white noise, I found myself turning inward when–in weeks past–I looked outward and upward, searching the ditches, the cottonwoods, and the sky for songbirds. With no flashes of color or sweet melodies to pull me outward, I turned in. Soon, I realized that I had walked a mile, lost in thought and crickets, and had not seen a thing.

In the sanctuary of silence, there is often that inward pull, that dive into the subterranean nether world of self. Robert Frost writes of this in his poem, “Desert Places”:

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars – on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.  

The first real time that I experienced my own desert places was during the summer of my freshman year of college when I was cleaning motel rooms for summer employment. At first, I reveled in the silence of my days. (Remember, this was before walkmans, iPods, smart phones–before Pandora, for heaven’s sake!) Armed with Lime Away and Comet, I scrubbed showers and sinks, losing myself in visions of future love and life. With each new room, I rewound the vision and began again, with new and better love and life. Who pays people for reveries like this? I marveled.

Until the day I stooped to pick up a mound of damp towels and was surprised by silence. Momentarily dizzy and disoriented, I felt myself slipping into a kind of cognitive quicksand that engulfed me, stretching endlessly into shadow. As I threw back the shower curtain to clean, I shook my head, hoping that this simple physical act would return me to solid ground.

And then I understood: for weeks I had been cocooned in daydreams, each more sparkling than the last, each packed with brilliant possibilities, but no longer. That day, I entered my own desert places. The daydreams gone, day-terrors rushed in. Armed with guilt and worry, I began to scour the dark corners of my soul.  I could not stop thinking, worrying, sinking.   Hello darkness, my old friend. 

Years later when I had accepted a new college teaching position, I moved during the summer, believing that I would be able to organize my new office and make some faculty connections before the fall semester. I quickly realized, however, that this was not going to happen until much later in the summer. So, I was stuck in my apartment, in a new town, with literally no one I knew except for those who had interviewed me. For three weeks, I did not speak to a soul face-to-face. Given my limited budget (and before cell phones), I made one phone call a week to my parents, and then I lived in silence.

Until the day when, girded with resolve and sickened by my own thoughts, I set out on a walk, determined to speak with someone, anyone who appeared at least half-way approachable. In these days, this was completely out of character for me and took me far beyond the boundaries of my comfort zone. Still, I found a college student walking along the same path and spoke to him. Three weeks of silence ended with that simple hello. We walked and talked, ultimately becoming friends.

In my youth, I was naive to think that silence would always present pleasant places for visions and revisions. It was inevitable that, one day, I would find my own desert places in silence. Through age and maturity, I have come to regard silence as much more of a sanctuary than a desert place. With soulful conditioning, I have trained myself to steer clear of the quicksands of all-consuming guilt and worry. Most days, that is. I would be lying if I claimed total absolution from darkness.

Still, as I walked this morning, I found words flooding the void that songbirds had recently filled. I wrote as I walked, I shaped–and reshaped–new ideas. I recalled the words my granddaughter had spoken to me last night. I mentally sang the lyrics of a new song I have come to love. Hello silence, my new friend. 

It goes without saying that the sanctuary of silence takes conditioning. You have to build up to it, giving yourself permission to retreat to the safety of sound when you find yourself without a lifeline. There are no purple hearts in the sanctuary of silence, but I think there should be.

When I see someone sitting in a waiting room or airport terminal sans ear buds or smart phone, someone just sitting and looking on at the life around them, I want to approach them with a medal of commendation and welcome them, brothers and sisters alike, into the sanctuary of silence.

Girl in Bambur

Even at 10 years of age,                                                                                                           she wears her perseverance                                                                                                   like a woman:                                                                                                                           jaw set,                                                                                                                                           bare-shouldered,                                                                                                                       arms akimbo.    

If she were older,                                                                                                                         an ebony man–                                                                                                                   caught in the fine fire of her eyes–                                                                                         might love her.    

But she would neither see nor hear him.                                                                         Fixed in the foothills of Bambur,                                                                                                 her heart has already moved beyond                                                                                  the Benue River to cities                                                                                                   below.       

There, young women with smooth hands                                                                   carry books and ride on the backs of motorbikes.   

There, streets fill with roasting chickens                                                                                 and conversation.              

 And there, sheathed in that                                                                                                 rare purple cloth of opportunity,                                                                                           she might begin again,                                                                                                         wearing her perseverance                                                                                                           into new life.

Shannon Vesely

In the sanctuary of perseverance, card-carrying members begin again. And again and again. They prefer the word grit. Sharper and more guttural, it packs a true punch to the gut. Determination, in contrast, often rolls too easily off the tongue, dissolving into the air of good intention.

Since the beginning of time, people have persevered, buckling on the breastplate of grit and taking on the world, one act, one choice at a time. History is peopled with perseverants of all sizes, shapes, nationalities, and faiths. More recently, however, psychologist Angela Duckworth has made grit the centerpiece of her research and subsequent books. In profiling her work, New York Times contributing opinion writer Judith Shulevith writes:

Grit. The word has mouth feel. It sounds like something John Wayne would chaw on. Who wouldn’t want grit? Wusses. Forget ’em.

Who wouldn’t want grit? Only the wusses and the too-delicate among us? Perhaps. From her research, Duckworth argues that grit more reliably predicts success than either talent or I.Q. and that any individual–regardless of his or her current perseverance quotient–can learn to live and act with grit. Duckworth’s claims fly in the face of other prevailing arguments like you are either born with talent or you are not and success is largely a matter of luck. 

I recall an anecdote from one of Duckworth’s books I read a few years ago in which she described how high school seniors identified as at-risk were taught practical ways to be gritty as they began their college careers. Their high school teachers counseled them to sit in the front row on the first day–and every day–of class, to introduce themselves to the professor before they left the first day, to actively take notes, and to ask one relevant question, daily, throughout the remainder of the semester. Duckworth writes that, as she and her research assistants tracked these students, they discovered that they had been overwhelmingly successful: in course completion, in passing grades (and in many cases, better-than-passing grades), and in overall collegiate success.

Having read much of Duckworth’s research, I found it to be compelling enough to bring to my high school staff through professional development. As you can imagine, when I presented her research in front of a group of 90 teachers, it was much like preaching to the choir. In genuine John Wayne fashion, teachers insisted that students today are soft; they just don’t have any grit and our students don’t look at failure as an opportunity to improve but rather an easy excuse to quit. Truthfully, from my vantage point as a 40 year educator, I could only nod knowingly. It was far too easy for me to lapse into sentimentality, ruing the loss of grittier times and students.

In his 2008 book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell describes what he has termed the 10,000- Hours Rule:

The 10,000-Hours Rule says that if you look at any kind of cognitively complex field, from playing chess to being a neurosurgeon, we see this incredibly consistent pattern that you cannot be good at that unless you practice for 10,000 hours, which is roughly ten years, if you think about four hours a day. 

In the sanctuary of perseverance, the hardy wholeheartedly embrace the 10,000-Hours Rule. You stick to it, you buckle down, you fail and then you learn from your failures. Arms akimbo, you square your shoulders to the world and growl: Bring it on. Make my day. 

And all this conjures up images of tough guys and gals, hardier and grittier than us common folk who, on even our best days, find it truly tough to persevere in the face of disappointment, obstacles, and outright failure. Our spirits may be willing, but, too often, our flesh is weak. We retreat to less challenging realms.

Still, I think it all too stereotypic to hold fast to such images of gritty machismo. Consider Mother Teresa, the Saint of the Gutters, frail and aging, persisting in the slums of Calcutta. And if this is not enough, consider the painful reality that her secret letters have revealed: she spent almost fifty years without sensing the presence of God in her life. Fifty years of persisting, of living as though she would, someday, sense God’s presence. Fifty years of serving the world as God’s hands, feet, and heart. Now that’s grit of a spiritual magnitude that I cannot begin to comprehend.

In a letter to the Rev. Michael Van Der Peet, September, 1979, Mother Teresa wrote:

Jesus has a very special love for you. [But] as for me–The silence and the emptiness is so great–that I look and do not see,–Listen and do not hear.

Decades–not days–of silence and great emptiness. The persistent urge to listen in hopes of hearing. Mother Teresa could teach Angela Duckworth a thing or two about grit.

Today, perseverance seems to be an intellectual, emotional, and spiritual habit to which the world pays loads of lip-service, but to which it frequently falls tragically short. I’ve taken Duckworth’s grit survey, which gives you a type of personal grit quotient based on your responses. Like most, I am painfully aware of my own grittiness–and lack thereof.

But there is good news: in the sanctuary of perseverance, there are always do-overs if you can muster the grit to begin again. Throughout my life, I have witnessed the power of perseverance in the most likely and unlikely places, through the most likely and unlikely people. These people and places have inspired me to imagine myself as a Dust Bowl mother, cloaking my children in love to keep out the dirt and want; as a young Jewish woman in Auschwitz, sleeping on a hard wooden bunk with five others, pulling myself into and out of dreams of one-day love and life in the Polish countryside beside my husband, my soul-mate; as a young Civil Rights’ activist in Natchez, Mississippi, pushing the cause forward by day, hiding in seclusion at night, and holding fast to the belief of a new day and age; as Nigerian girl living her days with her baby brother tied to her back, envying other girls who spend their days with books and prospects of life beyond the village; and as a young writer, holed up in a forgotten corner of a college library, struggling to eke out those words that might take her to places she had never imagined.

In Daniel James Browns’ best-selling book, The Boys in the Boat, he chronicles nine American rowers’ quest for Olympic gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Writing largely through the perspective of one rower, Joe Rantz, Brown helps us understand his lowly beginnings. Having lost his mother to throat cancer in 1918 and his father to grief and to the wilds of Canada, Joe, age 5, was sent from Washington to Pennsylvania to live with a relative, and then retrieved when his father returned home and remarried. Although for a time, Joe’s life with his new mother and father was pleasant enough for a child who had suffered such trauma, it did not remain so for long. His stepmother could not bear Joe, and with her husband’s consent, banished him.

At age ten, Joe was left to fend for himself, to live in the schoolhouse, to work at the mining camp for food, to persist with any and everything that would sustain his life. Brown writes that Joe’s  world had grown dark, narrow, and lonely. When his teacher taught a science lesson in which she revealed that the cauliflower mushroom, Sparassis radicata, was not only edible, but delicious when stewed slowly, Joe realized that if you simply kept your eyes open, it seemed, you just might find something valuable in the most unlikely of places The trick was to recognize a good thing when you saw it no matter how odd or worthless it might at first appear, no matter who else might just walk away and leave it behind. 

As I read The Boys in the Boat, I could not help but marvel at Joe Rantz’s persistence in the face of Depression-era poverty, loneliness, and abandonment. How could one so young and so alone take up the mantle of such grit? And yet, he did. Determined to live another day, he scavenged for food, for work, and for self-worth. When, years later, he took up collegiate rowing, this same grit ultimately shaped him into a world class athlete and a genuinely fine human being. Brown’s passages which describe the rowing practices through wind and sleet on Washington lakes are, undeniably, some of the most beautiful and painful prose passages I have ever read.

I suppose in the politically correct world of safe spaces and protections of all sorts, promoting the sanctuary of perseverance is dicey. Someone might be offended by the mere claim that one could improve his or her lot through hours of practice, prayer, and effort. Hours, you say, during which there is no one to applaud you, to comfort you, to sustain you? Hours, you say, during which there are no trophies or awards given to those who participate? Hours, you say, during which there may be blood, sweat, and–gasp–tears? 

No, I’m guessing the PC world will pass on perseverance. But, in the spirit of Joe Rantz, Mother Teresa, and countless other gritty individuals, I am going to press on in the hopes that I will significantly raise my grit quotient and face my world, arms akimbo.