Tsunami

This morning, I awoke in a reasonable mood. Typically, I awake in one extreme or the other. The few times I wake up in a really good mood usually coincide with warm, sunny weather and sleeping children. The other times, I basically wake up wanting to die. Not in a suicidal way. Just in an “I’m not happy to be alive” kind of way. Meaning I don’t want to get a very whiny Elias out of bed and ready for school. I don’t want to listen to my daughter’s demands for Cocoa Wheats and candy. And I certainly don’t want to face the aroma of Ezra’s daily dose of nastiness when I enter his room.

But we are in Kansas City today and I didn’t have to deal with the first two scenarios, so I was in an okay mood. Surprisingly, even though it’s the beginning of February, it was warm and sunny, with the kind of breeze that teases my senses, making them think spring is nearly here. I made my way to the little workout room and walked twenty-five minutes on the treadmill while watching the biography of Reese Witherspoon. Afterward, I took the kids outside to the playground and let them run around.

So it seemed odd, after returning from a quiet retreat (meaning I was by myself) to McDonald’s and the Dollar Tree later that afternoon, that I found myself emotionally out of sorts. It wasn’t until an hour or so later that I apprehended the familiar cloud of loneliness and depression looming over me, concealing the sunshine that warmed me only a few hours prior. I wasn’t sure quite what to do with this feeling…this Tsunami of sorts, which was fast approaching.

So I ran from it.

I subconsciously decided that a pity party was in order. For starters, I would remind myself that I am not a likeable person and this is why when I walked up the stairs to chat with my team, everyone disbanded (nothing to do with the fact that they had been sitting there together the whole time I was gone and probably wanted a little solace). And then, I would begin criticizing people I love, namely my husband. This one always works really well, especially because it gives him a good reason to be mad at me and thus adds some fiery flavor to the pitiful atmosphere I have created, at this point, for the whole family.

Around six o’clock, we made our way over to the home of a couple on our team who lives a mere football field away from the training center where we were staying. The team was convening there in order to head over to the main office. I decided that instead of forcing myself to be a part of the conversation that was happening on the other side of the cul-de-sac, I’d tend to a shrilly Ezra who kept pulling me away from the group, his chubby hands using all their fortitude to drag me into his two year-old world, a world of open fields and plenty of room to run and explore. Thomas calls Ezra our little John the Baptist, and I have to say that in terms of being a wild man, this is true, even down to his crazy hair that matches wholly his personality.

I felt something inside of me churning while he led me into the open field. Something deep and God-like. I knew this was a teaching moment. Only this time, I was the student and my two year-old, the teacher.

He kept walking, his little Chuck Taylors picking up speed with every step. He had something to show me. Something way too big for his little two-word sentences to explain. I kept following him, getting further and further away from our team…from my agenda…from my self-pity.

Suddenly, he stopped, like a man reaching the edge of the Grand Canyon. He took my hand again and turned around, silently asking me to mimic him. I turned just as Keziah and her little friend Katie came racing down the hill, hand in hand, giggling as their bare feet ran over the damp grass and their bellies filled with tickly butterflies. The sun was just setting and pink and orange filled the sky behind their silhouetted figures. I took in the scene, like I was watching a really good independent film. I let the feeling settle down into that place that’s made just for Jesus and me. The place where revelation supernaturally prevails any life circumstance.

I breathed deep, suddenly realizing all of my senses were in tact and that they were all in perfect sync with one another, down to the crisp and dry smell of winter and the feeling of wheatgrass tickling my legs. Ezra stood next to me, like Morgan Freeman on Evan Almighty. It was like he was enjoying this moment every bit as much as I was. Keziah and Katie fell to the ground and their little dresses blew in the wind as their bare legs flew toward the sky. They continued laughing together, so hard, so freely. They were abandoned to the simple pleasures of life. The pleasures I so staunchly repress in all my grown-upness.

Instead of continuing to run from the sad and lonely feelings I held within for half the day, I unknowingly ran into them, knowing that God was beckoning me to embrace the beauty in front of me. All we really need is always in front of us, isn’t it? It’s just that we are sometimes way too sensible to see it. We think, in our very human minds, that we know what we need. And what we need certainly can’t be embracing our negative emotions… or can it?

We forget that Jesus felt lonely. That he spent much of his life empathizing with very sad people, mourning with them and for them. That he was rejected and despised and that even down to the evening before his betrayal, he wanted the cup of despair to pass him.

But He walked into the darkness. And from it came the most glorious moment in all of history. A moment on which hinges every bit of light that this sad world embodies.

I could have told Ezra to hold on for the hundredth time that day and tried desperately to repress my emotions and partake very superficially in the ensuing conversation. But I would have missed the reminder of how blessed I am to have these children. What’s more, I would have missed the opportunity to walk into the bigness of God, where my emotions are all put into perspective…where laughter and solitude dance together, hand in hand, as they apprehend the freedom and simplicity that comes with being children of a Father who delights in meeting us in our moments of angst.

Glorious Vegetarian Body

I was about to eat some asparagus tonight, but my husband warned me of its lengthy stay in Hotel Refrigerator. So I ate leftover manicotti instead. I don’t really like vegetables all that much. In Chicago, I have an ex-Amishy friend (I say Amishy because I can’t remember if she was Amish or Mennonite) who is as sincere and happy as the lady that plays the piano at Nordstrom. We took a walk around the block one afternoon and as we were discussing my vegetarianism and how I’d take a donut over celery any day, she said to me, very nonchalantly, “Yah, you aren’t like most vegetarians. I’ve never known one that wasn’t really skinny.”

Now, I could have given her the benefit of the doubt. I’m a far cry from really skinny. However, I don’t like that other people actually have the conscious thought when looking at me that indeed those are love handles that I’m trying desperately to tuck behind a mid-length cardigan and yes, that is most likely back fat you are seeing spill out of my bra indentation. I’m convinced that if I keep my black pea coat on, I can pass for somewhat skinny. Black works wonders in hiding all those post-three pregnancy creases. And coats, especially wool ones, well they were obviously invented by a woman who knew what she was doing. They are that perfect thickness, so as to not enlarge nor cling. Brilliant, I say.

I didn’t say anything to the Amish girl (she’s Amish now; she said I wasn’t skinny so she’s Amish, dangit). I just laughed that awkward “I don’t like what you just said but I’m not sure what to say” laugh and went on about the day, the thought lingering somewhere inside me that I probably should do something to become really skinny, like all “good” vegetarians. By the end of the day, that thought dissolved and Diet Coke and a Snickers bar were practically calling my name. I became okay, at least for the moment, with being chunky vegetarian girl.

If you were to meet me…perhaps you already have…you would not think that I’m overweight. I know this because, well, I just know. It’s not like I shop in the plus sizes or have considered bariatric surgery, though this is the reality of many of my friends...friends whose weight has never stopped me from seeing their inward and outward beauty (why can’t I be this kind to myself?). It’s just that I don’t know a time in all of my 29 years that I have been happy with my body. I take that back, maybe when I was two and three, before the four year-old dance recital trauma where I had to dress in a shiny green jumper and bright white tights and pretend to be a Magic Flower. I remember rather vividly wishing I had taken Jazz because they got to wear these cool black skeleton suits that covered them from head to toe. We’ve always had a good relationship, black and I. We were destined for one another, almost as much as I was destined to fall in love with that good skinny mirror in my bathroom.

So for, let’s just say 26 years, I have not been content with this vessel that I have inhabited. When I was younger, it was my thighs. I had this routine where I’d take a long walk down our upstairs hallway, sporting only undergoods, and glaring at twelve year-old me in the mirror on the back of the door, I’d focus on the jiggle factor of my inner thighs. I hated them. Really hated them. There is a reason why in Africa, showing your inner thighs is like going without a shirt in an American mall. They weren’t meant for public exposure. Who wants to see the two pads of fat that aren’t sure what to do with themselves while just chilling there between otherwise normal legs?

At some point, thigh jigglage was no longer the issue. In high school, my complaints were filed against my belly and my arms. I’d like to say I moved on with the body assault after that, or even better, that I overcame my self-esteem issues and am hopelessly in love with this body, but the truth is that I’m still fixated on doing something about the belly bulge. Only, whereas the problem used to lie in the front part, like a college girl who drank too much beer (I hate beer and was never that kind of college girl…and why does the phrase college girl sound so x-rated?), now the fat has spilled around my sides and back, creating the ultimate love handles, or better put in Oprah’s words, “The muffin top.” My sweet friend Carina, who is all of eighteen, likes to squeeze my handles, like she is squishing Play-Doh. I’m not sure why. But she’s one of very few people who could get away with such antics. And then she tries to tell me how she too has love handles and “see, feel them.” Upon squeezing the fringes of her abdomen, every bit as hard as she did mine, I tell her that what I feel is merely skin, not the rubbery stuff spilling out of my jeans.

Therefore, I have actually considered buying my first pair of mommy jeans. I own all of these jeans that prefer to cut my non-waist in half and leave the spillage issue obvious at hand. Somehow when I’m in the dressing room, I tell myself that the jeans actually go over the muffin top. But when I get them home, strangely, they no longer cover and when I wear them once, they loosen enough to fall down, because unlike most women, I have no butt and no hips. Which brings me to the other problem: I look like a man with boobs. I have calves that could be likened to the statue of David’s legs. And while I’m not up for a sex change and don’t even like males most of the time, I think I could be a pretty good-looking man.

Okay, I know there are a few of you right now who are rather angry with me in this moment, or in the very least, annoyed (oh, I can just hear my good friend Linda now). I sound like a sad woman on Dr. Phil, or worse still, Tyra, lamenting over her body image and what not. And trust me, I always hated it in high s school when the girl who was a size 2 complained about being “fat,” while all the rest of us were left squeezing into our size 8 (or was that a 10?) hip huggers (made for those with hips, not for us she-men folk). We always assured her that indeed she was skinny, all the while despising all 98 pounds of her preposterous self.

But as I have had friends who have struggled with eating disorders throughout the years, I have come to see that it isn’t about being fat or skinny. I have a good friend who has struggled with bulimia for a long time. When she looks in the mirror, she doesn’t ever see her tiny waist (which yes, I might consider giving up a toe for) or her very womanly body or her beautiful facial features. What she sees is everything she would change. She hates those outward features enough to damage her insides. It doesn’t matter how many of us tell her how skinny or beautiful she is (which is not hard…she is gorgeous), there is something inside of her that screams that she will never be good enough.

And therein lies the problem. While our culture doesn’t make it easy to be satisfied with anything short of a perfectly airbrushed Victoria’s Secret model, the reality of our discontentment is that we just want to be good enough…accepted and loved, not in spite of, but with this body, no matter its misplaced bulges and lumps. I have this theory, one that I did not come up with but which I read somewhere in some book, which means it wouldn’t really be my theory, so I recant and start this sentence again: I read one time that at age 12 or 13, the mother’s role in a girl’s life takes a back seat. At this crucial age, it is the father’s job to affirm this pre-adolescent…to make her feel completely accepted and loveable in the face of raging hormones and a changing body. I saw this movie once that starred Adam Sandler. I can’t remember the title and I have to say that after Billy Madison, I haven’t been too impressed by Mr. Sandler; however, in this particular movie, he played a father, married to this woman who is very critical of her overweight daughter. He loved his daughter unconditionally and despite the mother’s words, told her she was beautiful and made her feel completely worthy of his love. Something inside of me melted at their interaction.

Maybe that’s why I still have a certain image branded in my mind, an entrancing icon, and one that takes my breath away, like a burnished sunset. It was about this time last year and our daughter had just turned three. She was chubby and squishy in all the right places, meaning all the places that I like to tickle and squeeze. Keziah is perhaps the most kindhearted little girl I have known. She is in tuned to other people’s needs and emotions, the way I envision Mother Teresa was as a child. I’d like to say I taught her this, but because I have birthed two strong-willed boys who seem to think the world revolves around them at times, I know this isn’t true. Empathy and compassion and sharing come to her as natural as a mother’s love for her newborn.

She had just gotten out of the bath and while Thomas was drying her off, he lifted her up to the vanity and took the towel off her. He looked at her in the mirror, her sweet chubby body, her baby soft skin, and, as she made faces at herself in the mirror, he said to her, “Look at you Keziah. You are so beautiful.”

Tears welled up in my eyes as I peered through the small crack in the door. She smiled and continued to ask questions, her daddy’s words remaining inherent in her little mind. Of course she was beautiful. Of course her daddy was captivated by just one look at her.

And just like that, I watched how a woman’s self-esteem is formed.

I thought for a long time after that about how if we all received that same affirmation, we’d probably be perfectly fine with our not-so-baby-chubbiness, despite our cultural standards. We’d bask in the Father’s love because we had a father who modeled this. That love would be tangible and we would sense it every day, breathe it in every morning, be in awe of this body with its amazing gifts and talents, of the ways in which it carries babies and brings them into the world, and then astonishingly makes its way back to a beautifully altered, more motherly (and humbling) form.

And when we aren’t carrying babies within, we are running marathons, dancing like swans, diving from platforms, caring for the sick, creating machines, jumping out of airplanes, using every ounce of splendor these bodies have offered us. They are glorious, these womanly bodies. If only we believed it on the inside, where beauty exudes and glitters, like Tinkerbell, through the tiny holes of our outer selves.

We are all 13 year-old girls. I believe we all want to know that there is a prince whose heart we have captured. How beautiful when that prince is first and foremost our earthly fathers. How much more completely whole and enchanting it will be when, upon receiving the respect and dignity we deserve, a husband comes along and affirms the beauty, hopes, and dreams of our inner selves.

Just as my uninhibited daughter stands naked before her father, so we stand before our heavenly Father, the True Prince, who I like to think laughs at my ludicrous assaults on my body while gently guiding me toward confidence in this lumpy non-vegetarian-like being that has the audacity to be used in such wonderful, glorious ways.

Swallowing

Two odd occurrences of my day:

One: while shopping in Forever 21 and asking the kind salesgirl how to wear a square-shaped scarf, I heard a remixed version of a Johnny Cash gospel tune. Interestingly and strangely, I really liked it. Though, toward the end of the song, my head began pounding. By the time I left, three really, really loud songs later, I figured out why they call it “Forever 21” and not “Forever 29.” Loud music has the same affect these days as the spinning Spider ride at Santa Clause Land had on me when I was three.

Two: I ate the skin of a chicken. I haven’t done such a thing since I was thirteen, before the day I sat across from my eighth grade classmate and future best friend, Heather, at McDonald’s and, staring at the processed meat slathered in processed cheese, setting on that infamous crinkly, yellow wrapper, decided that indeed what we were about to eat resembled that of a cow’s butt. From that day forward, I claimed vegetarianism as my legal middle school right. My mom played along, making me special little meals all along the way.

The other day I got a call from this marketing place that does “focus groups.” Certain companies hire out marketing agencies to host these FBI-like studies, where a very detached and unbiased, as well as oddly friendly “host” (think Ms. Pattycake meets flight attendant) asks a set of questions, all the while reminding you of the mirrored walls surrounding you, behind which sits a mystery person, with a name like Joe or Bob, who the host always inevitably tells us to wave to. JoeBob is taking notes for company purposes. If that isn’t enough, we are likely to be recorded, at which point Ms. Pattycake points out all of the tiny microphones dangling from the ceiling. The lighting is the kind that makes my skin look pallid and makes me want to sleep, like first period in high school.

I have done focus groups on computer accessories, diapers and baby products, organic food, nuclear weapons, makeup, Taco Bell, and even a little device called “Potty Tunes,” made to fit into a child’s Pull-Up and play music while they peed in their pants. Every mom, including me, found that one rather ludicrous, knowing that our little toddlers would be much more apt to pee in their pants just to hear “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” There is a reason why I’ve yet to see “Potty Tunes” on the shelf at Target.

So ever since I moved to Indianapolis from Chicago, I’ve been kind of bummed because I used to go to these things rather frequently and they paid anywhere from $85-$200 for one or two hours of my time. Plus, I got to take the train downtown by myself and pretend to be childless for a few hours while I walked the Chicago streets, feeling like I had conquered something in the world by just being able to figure out which train connection to take and where exactly was my stop.

Indianapolis, however, doesn’t have the same urban feel, first of all. Second, I rarely get phone calls. And when I do, at least the times I’ve been truthful when answering the ridiculous and redundant questions, I get turned down. So the other day when they called, I was determined to get “in,” if you will. When they started asking me about fast food, I knew perhaps I was in over my head. All of a sudden, I began hearing myself saying that indeed I’ve eaten at KFC “3-5 times in the past three months.” I don’t think I ate there when I did eat meat, let alone in the past few months. After posing (because that sounds much better than “lying”) my way through about ten more questions, I was told I was “in” and that I should arrive promptly at 11:00 at their marketing oasis is some business park on the west side.

I arrived ten minutes early and waited in the little waiting room, complete with complimentary water and an excess of gossip magazines. I opted out of the water, as I was holding off on a McDonald’s Diet Coke, and pulled my ReadyMade magazine from my purse. I flipped through the “how to” section with my pink nametag, spelled wrong as usual, setting on my little table in front of me.

When they called us in, I knew I was in trouble. The Taco Bell one I did a while back, in Chicago, my first attempt at posing as a carnivore, was rather successful due to the group size and the fact that chicken hides pretty easily under a tortilla. This one was different. Group size: 7 Topic: Chicken wings. No tortilla.

I felt like I was halfway undressed in the locker room, right before some supermodel girl walks in, glancing in disgust at what is really under my black shirt and pants. I thought about going to the bathroom and not coming back. But I wanted my hundred bucks. I birthed three children. Certainly, I can sit through an hour of chicken wing talk. But every time the host dude said, “You are going to get a chance to try them here in a little while,” I started getting panicky, and a bit queasy, inside. I tried to picture the texture. The biting. The chewing. The swallowing. Oh dear. The swallowing.

After playing the girl who doesn’t really have much of an opinion, which was obviously very much an act, for forty minutes or so, feeling like such a phony, shallow and hopelessly desperate individual, it was time for the chicken lady to deliver the KFC wings. There was talk about the batter and the grease and, my least favorite, “the chicken itself.” Oh Gosh. The swallowing.

I prayed or hoped that I would only get one wing. She passed them around and cheerfully gave me two large ones, thinking she was doing me the wonderful favor of showering me with free food. I looked at them and tried to make peace with them. I thought about the times my mom would make chicken on the bone and how much I loved it as a kid. I thought about all the Thanksgivings that bird and I spent together before that fateful day at McDonald’s. I remembered all the times I considered eating one of my kid’s chicken nuggets when I was pregnant with Ezra because I desperately wanted anything fried and full of protein. Oh, if only I felt that way now.

I picked it up, focusing like a hot-dog-eating-contest-champion, and, trying to look very casual, took a very, very small bite of the skin. I nibbled around the sides, so as to make it seem that I had eaten around the entire thing. I glanced over at the eighteen year-old white gangsta boy across from me and noticed two lonely bones lying on his plate. Same with the policeman next to him. And the two African-American girls to my right who talked about chicken wings like I talk about Diet Coke. They knew the ins and outs of a good wing. Just bones lay on their plates as they waited for the conversation to ensue.

Picking up my napkin, I wiped my face and slowly placed it over my second wing, hoping that the distracted host wouldn’t notice. I continued nibbling at the first wing, like a girl on a first date.

“Well, I hope you didn’t eat too much, because we have more,” said the host in a gleeful and silly tone.

I smiled and looked to my peers for what to do next. Mental note: Continue smiling. Laugh like you’re excited. Sit still. Look relaxed. Act like you are listening to Mr. Host. Eat more chicken. More chicken. The swallowing…

I made it this far without eating the meaty part of the “tender chicken,” as my cohorts would later describe it, and I was determined, as I placed my napkin-laden plate on the chicken lady’s tray, to make it through the next round.

The smell of honey barbecued fowl filled my nose as the chicken lady entered the room once again, holding a whole feast on her large tray, including the wings that my husband likes to get from Aldi…the ones that must be so bad that they have to slather them with sodium-filled goop. The other wings only had a slight advantage over the high fructose corn syrupy ones, as I haven’t found a fried and crispy something or other that wasn’t at least edible. I sighed inside, exhausted by my own stupidity.

I offered the girl to my right one of my honey barbecued ones, thinking maybe I’d say something like “My stomach just isn’t feeling well today.” The words never came out because, even though she had a slight obsession with wings, she had a similar expression while glaring at the once free-to-flap wings of the bird. This was a hopeful sign. At least I wasn’t the only one grossed out at the idea of the slippery little guys.

One down. Syrupy wings: not edible

Okay, now for the crispy ones. I grabbed a napkin and acted like I was wiping my mouth due to the messy nature of the Aldi wings. I repeated my same trick, placing it over them in a blasé fashion. I picked up the crispy ones, looking like a professional chicken eater at this point, and nibbled at its State Fair-like deep fried bubbles of pure and tolerable air. My teeth neared the flesh as I continued on, having begun a possible career in acting.

Apparently I botched. As I picked it up a second time, I made some sort of disgusted face, like my son when I make him eat asparagus. The vocal lady to my right started roaring with laughter as she announced to the room, with cues from my brightly colored, very large, nametag, that they “should have seen Cristina’s face. Oh my gosh! That’s hilarious!”

All eyes were now on me. I laughed with them at myself as she re-enacted my expression and verbalized what exactly happened to my eyes as it neared my mouth.

I kept laughing. I had no other choice at this point then to laugh at the fact that I could never fake my way through representing a natural-born wing lover. And now, apparently my ridiculous expression matched this quite well, as the entire room could probably sense there was just “a little something off with that girl.”

Was it worth the hundred bucks, five of which I spent on that square-shaped pink and green checkered scarf at Forever 31…I mean 21?

I had a boss once that used to joke to others that “Cristi will do anything for twenty bucks.” And as much as I’d like to think that eating meat would qualify for anything, especially when we can always really use an extra hundred dollars, I will most likely re-think my answers the next time one of these marketing people calls and begins asking me about fast food.

I really thought I could eat meat. Sometimes the hardest thing to swallow is my pride.

Life is but a dream...

Sometimes you have to check yourself. And at approximately 11:55 p.m. last night, as I laid in bed on my very uncomfortable pillow, it all made sense.

The reason I write is to inspire people.

The reason I sent my manuscript to a publisher was because I was advised that it would be a wise move financially. After all, we are moving overseas and how wonderful it would be to support ourselves via sales from a book.

Well, the only publishers who got back to me were those whom I would have to pay to publish my book. And I have no idea if something will still come from the others.

But given that I would have to pay someone to make me a book...well...that's not serving my purpose. So, my dear friends, I'm back. And I have a few things to share with you.

Love you all.

Cristi

When Souls Collide: The book

Well, I did it.

I went and put my very ridiculous self on the line and sent my book out to a group of publishers.

Thank you to all of you who have encouraged me to do this, as it's been in my heart for a long time, like a recurring dream that I can't quite make sense of.

I do not know what will come of it. I have heard back from a couple of "partnership" publishers, which means I'd have to put some money into the project. I'm praying for peace in whatever direction God leads. Who knows...

So in the meantime, I'm writing, but most likely not posting. Because what good is a book if you have already read it?

Much peace until then.

Cristina McEwen

Losing My Shadow

I do a majority of my thinking and praying in the shower; but on days like today, when I am not afforded the luxury of twenty minutes of good water pressure and the white noise that muffles the voices of fighting, crying, or (on a good day) playing children in the other room, I do my thinking in bed, as I lay between Elias and Keziah, waiting for them to fall asleep. And so tonight, after Elias got done telling me how he wished he was born like the little boy in his Sunday School class who can't walk and gets to ride in a cool remote control wheelchair, I watched Keziah as she unknowingly discovered the art of shadow puppets. Her fingers moved slowly as she hid her thumb and wiggled her chubby fingers, watching their mirrored reaction on the wall. I felt like I was watching Peter Pan lose his shadow. I felt for a moment like Wendy, taking it all in and believing it, letting child-like naivity and simplicity settle down ino the part of me where inspiration and beauty are intertwined. The part of me that says it's time to write.

I remember seeing the mountains for the first time. I was something of eight or maybe ten, and we went to visit my aunt and uncle in Montana. My uncle, my dad's brother, embodies every last one of his parent's short genes, standing a mere five feet four inches (with cowboy boots on). But for what he lacks in vertical stature he makes up for in creativity and humor. The guy is seriously funny. He reminds me of Robin Williams, his absurdity and sensibleness entwining into a personality that is both likeable and infectious. Hence, I'd have to name him my favorite uncle.

But about the mountains. So I remember looking out their picture window and being mesmerized by the mountains that seemed a mere one hundred feet away. I asked my dad how far they really were. He said they were some twenty or thirty miles away. I was sure he was wrong...that if I ran to the end of my uncle's long driveway, I'd certainly begin my ascent into them. And surely it wouldn't take long to reach their snow-capped summits.

It all looked so fake, as if someone had pulled down a backdrop and landed it right behind my uncle's wooden fence, a little ways down the wintry hill that was, in actuality, a mountain in his backyard.

When I returned home, no longer a virgin to the west, I would pretend that my flatland home embodied a moutainous landscape. The clouds in the distance were mountains, the blue sky the ocean. And when they met in the sky, exchanging their blue and white hues, overlapping just as the waves when they meet the shore, I pretended it was a reflection of the Hot Springs where we swam a few weeks prior. The world was now wide open to so many possibilities. Why, if that backdrop in Montana were truly real, surely anything, even the flatlands of Indiana, held in them the promise of mountains and waterfalls and sunsets so pink and orange that not even the African plains could compare.

Thus my journey for something beyond the cornfields began. And while the illusions of mountains in the sky soon dissipated, I was left with a yearning for something outside of my surroundings. Different illusions were to follow. Illusions of fulfillment in friends, boyfriends, popularity, money, and lots and lots of material things. And when humility finally slapped me upside the head, I had the teenage audacity to believe that the ocean would heal all things broken.

So when I moved to Florida at eighteen, the ocean offered me nothing more than the reality that I was slowly packing on fifteen pounds and quickly realizing that the vision of me running, blonde and tanned, along the sand, perhaps in a swimsuit, maybe even a bikini, was something of yet another illusion. And all the true Florida girls that had the waistline that still makes me want to die, gave me a reality check day in and day out, as they flaunted their tanned bodies in tiny tank tops and shorts, all day, every day.

I left Florida a year later with a desperation for God. Of course I'm always in essence desperate for Him. But at that time in my life, I was so incredibly broken and confused, having faced one of the biggest personal battles of my life (yes I'm being vague. This isn't my diary for the love). Feeling defeated, I went back to the only place that has ever been truly "home" to me, no matter my location. No matter my struggles.

My knees.

Clinging to my Bible, like my daughter with her "silky blanky," I memorized Scripture and wrote out countless prayers, prayers that spoke of my helplessness and of my desperation for the Father to remain with me, through the storm, through the laborous and tiresome journey to simply do what was right. Most of all, I waited in hope that He would heal my heart.

Little did I know that the Midwest, namely Indiana, had a tiny jewel in its otherwise mundane topography. Bloomington, Indiana. Home of Indiana University, for those of you who remember the infamous Bob Knight (who I witnessed giving his final speech on campus, right after he got fired!). Having transferred to I.U. sort of by default (ie. it made the most sense), I arrived relieved to be only an hour or so from home and without the year-round pressure to derobe at any given moment in order to reveal a perfect swimsuit body. I never truly appreciated the Fall until that year. The changing leaves and autumn air reminded me that life turned in seasons and indeed this was the season for renewal in my personal life.

I met some great friends, fell in love with photography, learned to play the djembe', and took some amazing classes about Judaism, philosophy, psychology, writing and graphic design. I experienced community amongst roomates and met homeless people in parks. I interviewed people and heard their stories and took their photos. I dreamed of being a photographer and became obsessed with Sebastian Salgado and James Nachtway. I came to realize that my camera could tell the world of injustices that were being executed in Africa, India and in our own backyards.

As a perfect counterpart to the illusions I had as a child, I became conscious of the fact that Indiana had its own oceans and mountains and waterfalls and sunsets. I drove. Drove to lakes at sunrise. Nature parks in the middle of the day. Coffee shops at night. And allthewhile, I clung to Jesus, like He was my co-dependent boyfriend. Ours was the only relationship in which I felt truly known and secure. Loved. Adored. Treasured.

When I think back to that time, more than any other time of my life, I can feel Him in the car with me, like I felt the sweet breeze through the windows as I drove through the hills toward Lake Lemon. I can feel Him at the parks where I'd lay out my Mexican blanket and listen to Moby while working an art project. I can feel Him in even my closest friendships, those late nights at Taco Bell with Liz or at Jimmy John's with Jozee, the night we found out we had a bazillion things in common. I can feel Him at Soma, the night I went there in the rain and sat in the far corner, right under the speaker where "Ring of Fire" played through the speaker right above me, loud but strangely soothing.

Those three years offered me grace, redemption and the reality that the Father never leaves or forsakes His own, no matter how big the battle, how many the falls. Sometimes I long for that closeness. On other days, I feel it. It is the backdrop of my life, a mountain that is both near and far, a paradoxical union of ordinary and supernatural. While most things we hope in will fail us or prove, as they have in my life, to be an illusion of one kind or another, it is in losing our shadows in the Almighty and finding ourselves in His (shadow) that we can believe and hope for a future that is brighter, a healing that is greater, and a love that overcomes every shattered dream, every disheartened soul, and every broken heart.

A Christmas Toast

I have never been to Hawaii, but I imagine it would be like listening to Sufjan Stevens sing “Amazing Grace,” the banjo lulling me into a peaceful trance as I place another poorly wrapped gift under our burnished, ribbon-laden, and memory filled tree. I have always loved the hymn, but there’s just something about his version…

A guy in New York City committed suicide today. Something about a big financial scheme and losing lots of money. And I mean “lots” as in a billion. Though, the way the government throws around “billions of dollars” these days, like the lady at Costco giving out free chocolates at Christmas time, one billion doesn’t really sound like that big of a deal. Not that I’m into talking politics. I would risk sounding like my father discussing a woman’s menstrual cycle or better yet, afterbirth. That is to say, I would sound pretty um… how do you say it?

Dumb.

And mortified.

But more or less…dumb.

And I get that same uncomfortable feeling when discussing politics with people that my father gets whenever he is telling “us kids” goodbye and my husband is standing within three feet of him. I see his square jaw line tense up and a knowing smirk appear, it trying desperately to hide behind all 180 pounds of his seriousness. Then, he avoids eye contact with Thomas and embraces me until his three feet of personal space ensues…until he is no longer cornered by an oblivious Thomas. Apparently, this is the universal signal that hugging another man would indeed mean he is gay, or in the very least, to quote Mister Gepetto, “A real boy.”

I don’t know why I brought up the guy in New York. I guess it caught my eye because it seems Christmas, perhaps more than any other time of year, brings with it such a contradiction in terms. The Christmas cards, cookies, carols…the lights and laughter and the feeling that love is in the air, all imply that we are living on the set of The Brady Bunch.

Certainly, just for the month of December, the food fairies take food to the millions of people who are starving to death in Africa! And I’m quite sure the psych wards, just for a couple of weeks, will send all their patients home so that they can eat sweet potato pie with their “functional” families. Oh and let’s not forget the homeless folk down the street. Or the pregnant teenager out on her own. The AIDS patient. The child with leukemia. Her family. The grieving husband. The orphaned son. The unemployed single mom. The falsely accused inmate. Surely the holidays will offer them reprieve. Nothing a little mistletoe and fruitcake can’t resolve.

Sometimes I lament the delusions I had as a child and adolescent. The world was safe, people were on my side, leaders were trustworthy, and only kids on After School Specials did drugs. That’s back when drugs meant alcohol or cigarettes. When the problems on Seventh Heaven were the real problems of the world (admit it…we all wished our dad was a little more like Rev. Camden). Back when I thought that families stayed together forever. When the term “children are starving to death” meant nothing more than that kids were to clean their plates.

In one of our first years of marriage, Thomas and I were doing this no-carb diet thing. For me, a vegetarian, this left me eggs, cheese, and natural peanut butter. Oh, and vegetables (but they can be so darn boring). One of the items we could eat, however, was pork rinds. I am not a pork rindish kind of gal, but one day when Thomas brought a bag home from the store, I thought I’d throw back a few. Just as I placed the fifth or sixth one in my mouth, Thomas turned to me and said, “You eat pork rinds?”

I knew that very second that the name implied something. “Rind of pork.” “No, this can’t be…they aren’t really made from pigs? Are they?”

Thomas laughed at me, perhaps harder than he ever has before…or after. He was taking great pleasure in the shocked and disgusted look on my face and the fact that I had contaminated my meat-free body with fried pigskin. Sure enough, I turned the package around and there on the ingredient list read, first, “Pork Rind,” as if the pig himself were smiling at my ill-informed dieting scheme. I wanted to vomit. Like when I accidentally drink my toddler’s backwash.

Needless to say, I was ignorant.

Plato said, “Ignorance is the root and stem of every evil.” While it is bliss when we are children, as adults we must own up to the problems in our world. In our cities. Our neighborhoods. Our families.

I, for one, am a product of an ethnocentric culture. We truly believe that the U.S. of A. is the latest and greatest thing since pickled cucumbers. More than that, I personally have “middle-child syndrome.” This is my self-diagnosis of what is otherwise known as narcissism. So getting outside of myself is my biggest challenge in life. Oh oh oh. Did you know that there is such a thing as “Truman syndrome?” It’s true. Heard it on CNN (is that a paradox?). It’s when you think people are following you around, like the paparazzi or something and that everyone knows who you are…basically an exaggerated version of egotism. Well golly gee willikers, as my papa would say, can you believe, in our culture of overdone reality TV, glam ads, and rags to riches sagas that people would actually think that the world revolves around them? I like to think I’m pretty normal (on a good day, which is about 182.5 days out of the year), and I still struggle with thinking that the world owes me something. That this life is actually about me and my comfort and my adaptation to all things surrounding me. It’s my own little “Cristi Show” right here in these four oddly shaped walls.

So I have to force myself out of these pathetic patterns. I actually have this self-talk thing I do in moments when I am thinking the whole world is against me. On a typical day, one where I have to be around people, it starts in the parking lot. I used to pray for a good parking space. And then I realized that Jesus probably wanted me to get some exercise. So I stopped praying and started my own little Norman Vincent Peale session right here in my own pint-sized brain. For instance, if it’s cold out I say to myself, “There will be a parking space close to the store.” I speak very kindly to myself, like I’m talking to a newborn or a dying elderly woman. As I’m having this conversation with the little kid inside of me, I feel the virtue of patience fastening itself to me, like a good bra. I drive. Ho hum. There will certainly be a good parking space.

Eventually.

I drive some more. By this time, I’m stopping for pedestrians, letting cars go in front of me, smiling for no apparent reason, feeling like I just stepped out of the North Pole, like Buddy, and into the donut shop with the "world’s best cup of coffee." In reality, the donut shop is an overcrowded mall and the coffee is water dressed in brown. But by this point, I don’t care. I’m waiting on my destiny. And then, in my peripheral I notice white lights, the sign of a car in reverse. Right time. Right place. I just won myself a front row parking space. I park and nearly skip to the entrance. Never mind the fact that I just lost the opportunity to burn a few calories. It’s cold out, for the love. Jesus probably didn’t mind the cold like I do. After all, He patented it.

If this is as easy as it is to subdue my self-absorption, I am wondering why I don’t do it more often. It feels good to serve. To be a part of something outside of myself. I have noticed, even in our marriage, that if Thomas and I serve someone (or something) together, even by picking up trash on a walk, we are much more apt to be kind to one another. Serving allows us see beyond the interior, with its monotonous sounds and smells. When we look at the infrastructure of humanity, that every person deserves to be loved and that God created the earth for us to care for, serving becomes the wheel of change. We are hands and feet, fashioned for good. Period. Bottom line.

On a few instances I have lost one of my children in a store. I remember one time, in Chicago, Thomas and I were in a kids clothing store with Elias, who had just turned two. We were both looking at clearance racks, I guess thinking that the other had the boy, and suddenly we looked at each other and said, “Do you have Elias?”

“No,” we said, in unison.

We started searching the store. Calling his name. There is a timeframe that those of you who are mothers or fathers or owners of a beloved dog or cat or maybe even a ferret, are familiar with, when the child or pet disappears. At first you are like, “Oh, I’m sure he’s around here.” You call his name, expecting him to respond. Nothing. You walk around, eyes darting to and fro like someone on an acid trip, waiting for him to appear. Still nothing. Panic sets in. Headlines news scenarios rush into your mind. “Stay calm. Don’t panic. He’s around here somewhere.” Your motherly impulse overrides sanity.

And just as I started to lose it, there, out from behind the clothes rack on the far left side of the store, crawled a smiling Elias, as if he had performed a successful circus act, expecting us to be excited at his newfound passion for hiding. We hugged him, my hands shaking, heart pounding, still haunted by the thought of losing my baby boy. I kissed his neck, that little crevice between his shoulder and cheek that’s made for a mama’s lips. I smelled his baby-fine hair and then gazed into his huge eyes that have always looked ever so serious, and said, as every mother does, in my best mother tone, “Don’t you ever do that again.”

I have vowed in my heart that if a mother loses her child, I won’t just stand there and stare at her turning into a volcanic mess as many people have done when I have lost one of my kids. While I am a natural pessimist and would quickly believe that others simply don’t care about the fact that I’ve just lost my child, I think the reality is that they don’t know what to do. Again, I think this is partly because of our cultural apathy. We believe the problems of others aren’t our problems and thus we have been trained to keep to ourselves…to not be a part of the solution.

Last weekend Thomas and I ventured to “Christmas at the Zoo” with not only our three kids, but my sister’s three as well. The first stop in the sea of lights and creatures, and more than that, people, was the butterfly garden, which was transformed into a big train exhibit. As our kids peered into the tiny villages of snowcapped mountains and covered bridges, I noticed a mother next to me calling for her son. “Jess,” she kept saying, “Jess!”

Her voice became a little more troubled. Panicked, really. “Jess!”

Now, I must admit that I also have a superhero complex. I’m sure it’s intertwined into the middle-child thing, but mostly this one is used for the good. I even caught a guy at the Disney Store in Chicago last week as he stuffed a bunch of clothes into his huge black coat and darted for the door. I ran to the store clerk and yelled, “That guy just stole a bunch of stuff.” She ran outside and caught him just as he was about to step onto the “getaway” city bus. It was beautiful really. I half expected the whole store to put me on their shoulders and shout “hip hip hooray” just like they did on the Smurfs. But it’s Chicago, so I accepted my husband’s pat on the back and continued shopping for an Ariel doll and a Power Ranger.

My “mama empathy” rose up as I watched the mother wait for her son to return. I noticed no one was even paying attention to this woman. The ones that were sort of looked at her like she was an alien and then walked by, caught up in their own children, their own experience here in train land. I approached her, thinking simultaneously that I would probably lose one of our kids in the meantime. “What is he wearing?” I asked, knowing her mind was already to the “what-if” stage.

“He’s African-American and he’s wearing a striped hat and a black Zip up hoodie with a red shirt underneath and jeans. He’s five.”

Wow. “Good description,” I thought. This chic was on it.

“He was right behind me. And then I turned around and he was gone.”

“I’ll go look upstairs,” I said.

I went to the top floor and scoured the place, thinking the “what-if” question but mostly believing that he would show up. I was just starting to pray when I heard her say, in a stern but relieved sort of tone, “Jess. Oh Jess, where were you?”

I made my way down the stairs, eased at the sight of them together.

“Thanks,” She said, her countenance completely different than before.

“No problem,” I said. “I’ve totally been there,” I offered, an overused but true proclamation of understanding.

In the moments before this occurred, I had been frustrated with Thomas about something. I think it was his passivity. Feeling like the zoo idea was mine and he was simply being strewn along, like me when my daughter talks me into playing “baby.” (“Now you pretend to put me in bed. Now pretend to feed me. Now let’s go shopping and I’ll be the baby and you be the big sister and we can go to Chuck E. Cheese and I’ll have ice cream and then you are frustrated with me because I’m crying and then you spank me. She reaches for her doll and acts this out for me, announcing to the baby she is getting spanked and then hitting the poor thing and throwing her on the floor. That’s about the point when I tell her that mama is done playing baby and offer to put a movie in. And I don’t spank babies…or throw them across rooms, for the record...).

But after helping this woman, feeling as if I’d acted on a thought instead of just letting it dwindle, I was okay with Thomas. Of course, he still drove me nuts with his complaining about the cold and his obvious annoyance with pushing our ridiculous, and I mean ridiculous, double stroller. But I no longer let his attitude affect me in the way it had before. And by the time we left the zoo and made our way down to the Monument Circle for ice cream at our favorite chocolate shop, he was playing silly games with the kids, chatting it up with strangers, and being kind to his exasperating wife.

It began with getting outside myself. Announcing to the bratty middle child within that a) the world isn’t against her and b) that if she’d look in her peripheral she’ll find someone in need (or in the very least, a good parking space). Both of these things point me to the reality that this life is beyond my pendulum-ridden moods. There will always be someone in need. Always a bigger cause outside of myself and my circumstances. And to this, I raise my eggnog latte’ and give a Christmas toast:

May we suppress Ignorance and every excuse we have for her. May our eyes be open and our hearts be primed so that we can see all 360 degrees around us. May we embrace the narcissistic child inside of us, but may Kindness forever win out as we seek to serve and care for those in need.

Heaps of peace, abundant grace…and the small subtle nagging feeling of discomfort… to you and yours.

Cheers!