MERRY CHRISTMAS

Merry Christmas dear friends and readers!  It's been a haul this Advent, and though I haven't kept up daily in the most literal sense of the word, thanks for hanging in as I reached my goal of publishing at least 24 posts this year.  It's been so great to get writing again and get centered.  Truly, finishing this post tonight is the best gift of all so thank you to everyone who continues to journey with me in this life of family, writing, questions, hope, love, faith and joy.  A Christmas cocktail of all that's good to last the ages!

Here's a shot from our house today, and another excerpt from The Glorious Impossible which I referenced in my post yesterday.  I hope you all are safe, resting, and having a merry day in just the way you want this year.

Holding the child in her arms, rocking, singing, Mary wondered what was going to happen to him, this sweet innocent creature who had been conceived by the incredible love of God and who had been born as all human babies are born.

God, come to be one of us...

...The wonder of the Incarnation can only be accepted with awe.  Jesus was wholly human, and Jesus was wholly divine. This is something that has baffled philosophers and theologians for two thousand years  Like love, it cannot be explained, it can only be rejoiced in.

                                                                                       -Madeline L'Engle, The Glorious Impossible

O HOLY NIGHT

Happy Holy Night everybody!  Here's a shot of our live Christmas tree, which my German husband insists on every year.  It's like Christmas roulette having two toddlers, a mound of presents, a real tree, and candles burning everywhere.  So relaxing, right? But in truth, so beautiful.  All said, I wouldn't change a thing.

One of the coolest Christmas gifts I ever received was this gorgeous book from Madeline L'Engle.  It's a beautiful narrative, written with clarity and pared down in a way that really illuminates the beauty of the Christian story.  I will leave you with her words tonight:

And so the life of Jesus began as it would end, with the impossible.  When he was a grown man he would say to his disciples, "For human beings it is impossible.  For God nothing is impossible." Possible things are easy to believe. The Glorious Impossibles are what bring joy to our hearts, hope to our lives, songs to our lips.

                           -Madeline L'Engle, The Glorious Impossible

THE TWENTIES

Not the roaring kind, but rather the angst-ridden late adolescent version.  Like, per this post and for the sake of continuity, say 20, 21, 22 and 23.  I recently got into a fascinating conversation with some of the young adults in the community I coordinate about the ideas in this book, which a lot of millenials seem to be consuming with great gusto.  It's basic message is don't f*** around in your twenties because it is the defining decade, the decade when you lay the foundation for the rest of your life.  You can get an abbreviated version by listening to the author's TED talk here.  We watched it at a retreat with some young adults and it got me kind of riled up, to be honest. While I support a lot of what Meg Jay says, I also feel like it encourages a sort of control and judgement about how you "make" a life.  I'm still trying to sit with all the reasons it nettled me to figure out which ones are worthwhile, but in the meantime, I thought others might enjoy it and would love to hear feedback. 

The one thing I can say about my twenties for sure is how much fun I had with my friends, none of which I would take back for a second.  I may not have been serious or focused enough to have EVERYTHING by Meg Jay standards, and so the foundation I laid in my twenties may end up having me looking something like this in my sixties-

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

but hey, it could be worse.  I came across the above quote from Emerson the other day and it pretty much summed up the beauty of friendship to me as I approach my next decade.  Old friends, new friends, lots of work, the joy of family, and stupidity to last a lifetime....

19

When I was 19 I felt almost grown up.

I was wrong.

Now I'm grown up and I feel like I'm navigating a grown up world to which there are no rules.  My dad wrote me the most moving Christmas letter the other day in which he highlighted the fact that he thinks my sister are I are navigating levels of stress that he and my mom did not have to navigate back in the day.  I'll never have his prospective, but it definitely sounds plausible.  Based on this fascinating and somewhat depressing article, the New York Times would agree.

But on the up note, 19 years is about the amount of time I've known most of my best college buddies.  This blows my mind, yet also feels sort of right when I think about how well they know me, what faithful friends they are, and the depth of support and insight that a long term friendship can provide.  I am so grateful for all my friends daily, both new and old.  Love, in every form, is truly what makes the world go round.  At least my world!

This is pretty much me and my college buddies in a nut shell

WHEN EIGHTEEN WAS THE LEGAL AGE

For drinking in New Orleans, oh what a Golden Age that must have been.  I've heard talk of it from my older cousins in Mississippi, and my own sister got to take advantage of the statute after graduating from high school.  Those were the glory days.

Recently, I had the pleasure of taking a brief trip to the Big Easy and myself drank this sweet and refreshing St. Germain cocktail at the lovely Hermes Bar at Antoine's.
It would be a great one to reproduce for myself and other's this holiday season.  Also, I'm a big fan of these mulling spices from Martinelli's.  I always have a fantasy of making my own homemade mulled cider or wine, and even have the spices stashed away in my spice drawer, but in the end, these make up a delicious brew and are honestly fast and affordable in comparsion.  Throw in the convenience factor and it's done.  I usually spice apple juice or cider with them in a big pot then throw in a shot or two of rum per glass and voila, instant cheek ruddiness and warm spirits.  

Hope your Advent is swimming along festively.

This picture is straight up from 1893.  Do it ladies!

SEVENTEEN SONGS FOR THE HOLIDAYS

Okay, seventeen more or less.  One of the best things about living in Austin is the AMAZING programming on our public radio station.  I'd never really fallen in love with radio until moving here, but both KUT (news) and KUTX (music) really bring it on a level I'd just never experienced before.  Like now, for instance.  If you're like me, that is, a music lover with very little time to discover and invest in new music, this list from KUTX is a life saver.  And here is the expanded version. Not that I'll have time to hunt down all the leads here to be riding their cutting edge wave of awesomeness, but at least it's a start. 
 

And along those lines, KUTX also plays just the right amount of Christmas music (like 3 days worth I think) from the furthest corners of the music maps, so if you're looking to play something festive in your holiday downtime or while entertaining, definitely consider streaming them live directly from www.kutx.org if it's possible.  I personally really don't like Christmas music, or though I didn't, until I heard what KUTX brought out from it's vaults.  Impressive and inspiring! 

SIXTEEN IS FOR SCREWING HOLLAND

The concept, mind you, not the country.  I've had some great times in Holland and am fond of the Dutch in general.  I even proudly sport a Dutch surname, so really, it's not personal.  Here's the thing:

In 1987, Emily Perl Kingsley wrote a brief essay about how it feels to be the parent of a child with special needs.  The gist of the essay goes like this:  When you are preparing to become a parent, it’s like planning a trip to Italy.  You’re incredibly excited for your Italian vacation, and you buy all sorts of guide books and plan your trip meticulously.  Then, when your plane lands, the flight attendant announces you have landed in Holland, and there you must stay.  In short, this sucks at first because it’s not at all what you planned, but once you get used to the idea you realize Holland has all sorts of amazing things going on and if you spend your whole life wishing for your lost Italian vacation, you’ll never really be able to embrace the Land of Tulips and all those wonderful Dutch people for who they really are.

After becoming the parent of a child with special needs, countless people referred me to this essay.  When first wading through my stress and grief, Kingsley’s words brought me comfort as they affirmed what I was slowly beginning to understand about my child: Her life will never be like that of her peers, but frankly, that’s okay.  It will be an amazing life none the less.

But since those early months of stealing hope and recognition out of the fog of grief, I’ve developed an ongoing annoyance and disappointment with this concept as my daughter now approaches her sixth birthday.   I get it:  She’s different.  Our life is different.   My problem with Holland and the idea this essay represents is that it simply doesn’t go far enough.  I thank Kingsley for her thoughts, which have no doubt inspired and comforted thousands of special needs parents over the years.   I’m simply asking for more.

I now realize that even though Holland is great, you can still see Italy, because on this magical and metaphorical map of Europe, Italy is right next door.  You can see your friends and family frolicking in the Tuscan sun while you’re trying to teach your child to walk in wooden shoes.   And somehow you’ve got to get your kid to understand how delicious Gouda cheese tastes when she can see all her peers slurping up gelato right across the way.  This is the reality of being a parent with a child who is different.  And the greatest pain comes when you realize all those kids running around Italy can still communicate very clearly with your Dutch child.  Even though they speak different languages, she still somehow understands every remark, jab or unkind question about her disability.   Yet she can’t seem to get a word of Dutch in edgewise. 

So I’m proposing a new metaphor, because I think we could all benefit from looking at the landscape of disability in a more realistic, inclusive light.  I would like to tell every special needs parent that having a child who is different is like landing, along with every other family, in a foreign country.   We’re all flying blind when it comes down to it.  But let’s say, for the sake of metaphor, we land together in France.   It’s a brave new world out there, and we are all bound to have a trip with lots of ups and downs, but the reality for a family whose child is differently abled is that it will be a very difficult, very challenging experience for them.  They will see the other families wolfing down a baguette, just to realize their child will never be able to chew bread, or at the least is wheat-intolerant.   Other people will zip all over town to see the sights, and for the child with a disability, the trains will often seem on strike.  Families will travel in huge groups to the Eiffel Tower, and the families of those with disabilities will have to acknowledge that their child may never get to see the top.   This is the reality.   We’re all here, all together. Placing the disabled and their families in the metaphor of a “different” country does not help any of us see, embrace, and work like hell to make the reality something more kind, more realistic and more humane exist for all of us.  

It wasn’t until the birth of our second child that I realized how painful and isolating my experience of the “Holland” concept felt. Before giving birth to our son, a big healthy boy, I’d begun experiencing anxiety about his arrival in full force.  Having a healthy baby somehow meant straddling the fence between Holland and Italy, explaining to a child who could go and do anything, that unfortunately, our family life was in Holland, but we’d do our best to make sure he could visit Italy as much as possible.  Would having a second child force us out of Holland, a place we’d worked so hard to create, love and accept?  How does a parent in this position mediate the needs of both children, and deal with the stress of a “bi-cultural” life?

That’s when I decided to screw Holland, and invite other people to join me.  Nothing against the lovely Dutch and their country, but we’re moving to France.  And yes, the rail won’t always work for us.  I’m sure at times the people will be rude.  We may have to pass on the baguettes, but somehow and someway we will find an existence that incorporates all of our needs, and doesn’t allow us to isolate ourselves or our family because our first born is different.  Nor does it allow other people to isolate themselves from our challenges, because they can and do exist and it is part of the human condition for everyone to recognize that.  Hopefully, with a 35 hour work week, we might even have time to talk about it.


   

Here is what my backpack looked like after arriving back in Austin from a transatlantic flight. Seemed like a pretty great metaphor for the wear-and-tear of constantly trying to shuttle back and forth between two countries.  Like my backpack, it often leaves special needs families feeling tired and haggard. So vive la France, ya'll!