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I’ve been in a holding pattern on a couple of things. This would not be a problem if I had carefully reasoned out a course of action and decided that it was time to wait. That is not the case. I just defaulted into the pattern because it was easier than putting for emotional effort and time. But I’m not sure the holding pattern is actually saving me anything and it is definitely contributing to a feeling of futility. Time to kick these things into the middle of my brain and really look at them so that I can stop stalling.

The Diswhasher:
Ours failed fairly catastrophically a couple of weeks ago. We mopped up the mess and called a repairman to come look at it. His verdict was that the appliance was unrepairable due to the hole melted by the shorted out heating element. In the normal course of events, we would stomp our feet a little and then go buy a new one. But our finances are tight and so I paused before dashing out. In fact I have yet to even look at new dishwashers. Even when a flood of useful comments and information responded to my post, I still did nothing except continue washing the dishes by hand. I am the only one doing the washing. I haven’t even set up the rotating dishwasher schedule that requires the kids to help. I was presented with a problem, but instead of setting out to solve it, I have been waiting. This makes no sense. Washing dishes by hand does not make me noble. It does not make me eligible for an “excellent housekeeping” prize. It isn’t even more environmentally sound. If we are suddenly ambushed by busy, I will still have no dishwasher and I will also not have the time to hand wash. I can’t ignore the problem out of existence and so I am going to have to solve it. Tomorrow morning I’ll be headed out to look at dishwashers.

Writing:
I expected to do a flood of writing this Fall. I expected to send the kids off to school and be filled with a driving need to compose words that I could submit for publication. Instead I was buried in school-adjustment neediness. But that has subsided, and I still haven’t been doing any writing other than blog entries. I thought about writing. I organized my notes into neat folders. I figured out which projects still felt alive and which I wanted to archive. But any time I pondered actually writing anything, none of it felt compelling. I did not feel a driving need to get any of it done, so I wandered off and filled my time with other things. Some of those other things were important, but many of them were less emotionally important than writing. Yesterday I read Dan Wells’ post entitled “No one will knock on your door and ask you to write a book.” The whole post is good, but what hit me hard was the title, because that is what I have been doing. I haven’t actually been waiting for a person to show up and ask me to write, but I have been waiting for something internal to stand up and demand that the writing be done now. I could wait a long time for that Writer voice to be louder than the Entertain Me voice. I could wait for months or even years. I have the space in my schedule. I just have to declare some of that space as writing time. Then I have to sit down and do writer things during that time. I have to write words even if I feel like they suck. I have to put in the effort and trust that the drive and inspiration will arrive. This is not a ground shaking realization. Any pro writer will tell you this is necessary. I even knew it logically, but I was still stalling instead of writing. Yesterday I worked on some fiction. Today I revised an essay. It is a start.

I read aloud to my kids at bedtime. I read during snack because having the food there helps them to sit still and listen. The experience varies from wonderful to frustrating, but we all enjoy it enough to keep coming back. I can tell when the kids are really wrapped up in a story because their eyes are fixed on me and their bodies still. I love those moments when we’re all wrapped up in words together. Finding the right book to read can be tricky. Kiki doesn’t stay for the reading. She is too busy doing teenage things. Link has started drifting away too. But if I find the right book, one that moves fast and amuses, then Link will sit right along with the younger two. Gleek would like more books with magic and kittens. Patch would like more adventures and machines. But with the right story I can catch them all. And I did.

Last night we finished reading Larger Than Life Lara. None of the kids were thrilled when I picked this book for bedtime reading. It had no chases or explosions. No one learned magic. It was about a 10 year old girl and her class play. That did not sound exciting to them. I wasn’t sure that the book would hold their interest, but I knew that the book contained a beautiful story and so I started reading despite the doubts. The narrator of the story, Laney, captured their interest by the end of the first page. She sounded so much like a kid and she wove the story she was telling with explanations of the elements of a good story.

By the end of chapter four Laney had also captured their hearts. The kids sat eagerly to hear the next section and often protested when I stopped reading. Link stayed for the reading. Even better, Kiki started wandering in to listen. Last night the story reached its climax and we read straight through the last four chapters to the end. We were all wrapped in the words and all of my kids were touched by the story. Kiki was inspired to write a poem about helping others. Gleek spent the rest of the time before bed composing nice things to say to everyone else. Link got out of bed to come help me with the dishes. In the book Lara comes to the school and changes those around her into better people. This book did exactly that. It came into our house and when the book was done we were all filled with the desire to spread kindness. You can’t ask for better than that.

The best part is that the book is not preachy nor does it hit you over the head with moral lessons. The lessons are there, but it is up to the reader to find and interpret them. It is also educational. Each chapter is named for a story element and that chapter helps clarify that element by forwarding the story. Several times during the reading I heard my kids mention one of the story elements in a way that demonstrated a new understanding of how it worked. Anyone who is trying to teach writing to kids should take a look at this book. In fact, any writer may be interested in it even though it is aimed at 4th graders. But the strongest part of the whole book is Laney. Just reading the book is an amazing examination of character voice. Laney starts off by saying that the book isn’t about her, but really it is. I do not know how this book missed winning awards.

The last straw was that today was Grandparent’s day at the elementary school. It was the thing that tipped Gleek over into a little ball of sadness, but it was not the true source. Her inability to cope was more caused by her lingering head cold and the ear we did not realize was infected when we sent her off to school this morning. She was so glad to go. She’d missed two days already and she did not want to miss out on her after school art class. That art class was a tipping point too. It was the reason she was so determined to be well and why she did not realize that her general overwhelmed state was due to illness. She was trying to manage, but then the Grandparents arrived. Or rather, other kid’s grandparents arrived. Gleek’s grandparents, whom she loves dearly, live two states away. They can’t make a trip to be in her class for a day. Gleek’s teacher called me. I got a doctor’s appointment and came to get her.

The classroom was full of grandparents with groups of kids clustered around them. There were more kids without grandparents than with them, but this did not comfort Gleek much. She was sitting, eyes red, arms wrapped around her jacket as if it would save her from drowning. She was glad to see me and even gladder that we would go to the doctor to check on the ear that had been bothering her for the last two days. (The home remedies we’d been applying did not work.) We made a quick stop at home to pick up something more snuggly than a jacket and we were off to the doctor.

Gleek has always been fascinated by the doctor’s office. When she was younger this interest manifested as her climbing on things, jumping off of things, and collecting small piles of tongue depressors or rubber gloves. These days she is far more interested in reading the posters on the walls, asking questions about them, and learning about how the various equipment works. I’m not sure that the nurse practitioner expected to be grilled on biology while examining ears, but she was. Before we left the office Gleek learned about larynxes, uvulas, infections of the uvula, ear infections, how ear drums work, why the stethoscope works like an ear drum, how to use a stethoscope, what a reflex mallet is for, the difference between reflexes and other actions, why doctors look for reflexes, that lack of a kick reflex can mean spinal problems, that an over active reflex can indicate other problems, that babies have reflexes kids don’t, that neurologists sometimes tickle the feet of diabetics, and that doctors are often like detectives looking for clues about what is wrong. By the time we were done it felt like we’d had an educational field trip rather than a mere doctor’s appointment. Oh, and we diagnosed her ear and got a prescription.

After the appointment I let Gleek choose whether to go back to school. She decided to stay home, which I feel was a wise choice. It takes time for medicine to work, so all the pain that overwhelmed her before was still present. She did get to go to the art lesson, but I can tell that her concentration there was not the best either. By morning things will be better and she will be back to school. As for me, I didn’t get anything done other than tending to Gleek. It’s actually a pretty good way to spend a day. I like my Gleek.

As the Fall progresses I can feel myself becoming transparent. My life is filling up with invisible tasks. These are the seemingly small tasks that no one notices if someone else is doing them, but everyone notices if they are left undone. During the past six months the tasks either went undone or one of the household adults very visibly prodded one of the kids into doing it. We leaned on the kids for chores because the other option was to go without cleanliness. My schedule opened up and I have found myself sliding in to doing all of those tasks. I have become like the water in which everything else floats. I organize and clean and plan so that life runs smoothly for the other folks in the house. I am the facilitator, the enabler.

This sounds like a horrible recipe for ingratitude and resentment, but I don’t believe that will happen. This is right for this season of our lives. The kids have needed me to carry them a little as we weather the rough transition into this school year. Howard has need our home to be stable and routine so that he can develop a work rhythm which will allow him to get rolling on the next book. This is my season for filling my life with small services that make things smoother for everyone else. This is my season for organizing and clearing out. More insanely busy times will come to us. That is the nature of our work. We will again need to lean on the kids to help keep the house clean. But we have been granted a season of relative peace. A time when my emotional and creative energies are expended first upon home and family. I need to use it well.

Several weeks ago my kids expressed an interest in watching Field of Dreams. I was surprised at their interest. So I asked what they knew about the film. Link said
“It’s about baseball and there is this field and zombies come out to play.”
When I was done snickering, I clarified that the baseball players were more like ghosts than they were zombies, but that “ghost” wasn’t quite the right descriptor either. They remained interested, so I put the movie in our Netflix queue.

Once it arrived, we sat down to watch it together. It has been a long time since I’ve seen the film. I was not sure that it would engage the interest of all the kids. I knew Kiki and Link would get it, but I expected Gleek and Patch to get bored. The opposite was true. In fact when we had to pause for a snack, it was Patch who was hollering for everyone to hurry up so we could watch the movie. The kids loved it. They laughed in the funny spots and were happy with the story.

As I watched I found myself in tears. Partly the tears were because it is that kind of a movie, but they were also caused by the dawning realization that Howard and I have lived this movie. Oh, not the part about baseball and cornfields. The part about having an inspiration, knowing it was right, and following through on it even though it looked a bit crazy. We’ve spent time following instructions that confused us, taking actions that seemed nonsensical, and trusting that it was right. And then we’ve had the part where everything comes together in ways we did not expect to fill our lives with blessings we could not previously have imagined. That is our story, and it continues to be our story. At the moment we aren’t taking any life-shifting steps, but in small ways, on small inspirations we continue to do this. It is frightening and joyful and humbling. And like Ray in the movie, I am moved to look around me and consider that if Heaven is a place where dreams come true, that this might be Heaven.

We weren’t exactly poor when I bought these shoes. We lived in a nice house filled with nice things. We were paying our bills and buying food without scrounging. But Howard had just quit his job at Novell to become a cartoonist. Our income was minimal and our savings were dwindling. Gleek really wanted/needed flip flops for the summer. They were on sale, but it was very hard to part with $6 for brand new shoes when all our other clothes were coming from thrift shops and garage sales for less than a dollar. I remember holding the shoes in my hand and examining them for durability. Spending the money on shoes that would last for a year or two was one thing. Spending money on shoes that would break inside two months was something else. They looked strong. They were adorable. And I knew that Gleek would love them. I bought them and brought them home.

I confess I rather hovered over those shoes for the first while. Gleek did love them, but left them laying around with typical 3 year old abandon. I can’t count the number of times I collected them from neighbor’s houses or even from odd corners of our own house. I felt stressed or worried if the shoes went missing because Gleek did not own many pairs. But they made me happy when she wore them. I was glad my little girl had something pretty in her life during a time when I could not buy her much. I loved watching her clomp around in them. They were big on her feet, so she could wear them for a couple of years. Time marched on and our financial situation changed. I stopped paying attention to these shoes except to kick them into the closet along with all the other pairs.

It has been five years now since I stood in the store debating whether to buy the shoes. Today Gleek handed them to me to get rid of because they are too small. The five years of wear really shows. The toes are scuffed and torn because Gleek tends to drag the fronts of her feet. The soles are worn almost smooth. You can see shadows of the feet that wore them. One of the rhinestones is missing. The small crevices have years of accumulated dirt and sand from trips to beaches or just from being left outside. These shoes have been lost for months on end, then found again. They have been left in the car, left at friend’s houses, lost in the snow, and buried in closets. I have no idea all the creative adventures these shoes have participated in, but now their time has past. Gleek’s feet are too large. She no longer loves pink and butterflies. Now she loves blue, black, green, and furry animals such as cats.

To live is to change and to grow. Things come into our lives and play a part, sometimes an essential part. Then the season passes and it is time to let them go. This afternoon I will deliver the shoes to another little girl who is enamored of pink butterflies. She will not mind the scuff marks or wear. In her eyes these shoes will be as new and they will be beautiful again. It makes me sad to part with them, they are one of the few remnants of that season of our lives when all my energy was spent to make the money last. I had no way of knowing that the shoes would outlive the financial crisis, But they did. We all made it through. Now it is time to pass them on, just as I have moved on. But I did photograph them and write this entry because I do not want to forget.

This afternoon I sat down with my kids to watch the 1975 version of Escape to Witch Mountain. This is a film with strong nostalgia for me because I watched it a lot as a kid. The kids were willing to watch, but some of them were a little skeptical.

When the opening credits began to roll Link asked “Is this movie in black and white?”

Kiki leaned over and patted his leg reassuringly. “No. It’s in cheesy.”

It was indeed filmed in cheesy. There was even a side order of 70’s clothing. Kiki actually groaned at some of the special effects. But they all enjoyed it anyway. Even Kiki.

We’ve finally settled in to the Fall schedule. Part of the settling in was me evaluating our finances and figuring exactly what it is going to take to make ends meet between now and our next book release. At the moment those ends don’t meet, but we have plans for rapidly twisting a new rope to tie in the middle. Part of the planning/evaluation process involve me writing down a list of things we want to purchase or replace. Most of the list will wait until money is more plentiful, but it is a useful reference for when we are struck by a shiny thing. Having the list helps us to think twice and figure out what is really most important to us.

The list was begun, but not complete when I went into our storage room and discovered the water damage. Water had leaked from the ceiling onto several stacks of Schlock books. My first thought was that the ice maker in the fridge had leaked again, but this water damage ran in a different pattern than fridge leaks previously had. Some poking around with a flashlight in both the kitchen and the storage room identified the dishwasher as the likely culprit. $90 and one repair visit later, it was determined that the heating element in the dishwasher shorted out and melted a hole in the floor of the washer. This hole runs like a little faucet if we use the dishwasher and can’t be patched because the melting around it weakens the whole structure. The only way for us to have a functioning dishwasher is for us to buy a new one.

Dishwasher was not on that list of purchases. We were quite happy with our dishwasher. Now we must evaluate the purchase of a dishwasher against the other things on the purchasing list while also figuring out how much extra rope we’ll have to twist to cover the additional gap. It could be done, but I find myself pondering the issue of want versus need. Having a dishwasher is certainly convenient, but do we really need it? I’ve read stories of families where the dishwasher broke and the resulting hand washing of dishes provided useful bonding time between parents and children. I like the idea of teaching my kids proper dish washing method while talking to them about their lives. On the other hand, every minute that I spend washing dishes is not spent doing something else. My time can be incredibly valuable. Right now things are slower and so the hand washing of dishes has some appeal, but life is not going to stay slow. I must ask myself if we will hand wash dishes in the midst of a book shipping, or ifthe stacked up dishes will encourage us to eat out rather than generate more dishes. I can picture all the money we saved not buying a dishwasher being frittered away because in stressful moments I decide not to cook.

The next step is tri-fold. First I need to institute a dish washing rotation. Whether or not we buy a new dishwasher, it’ll take about a week to get the thing and the dishes can’t wait that long. Second I need to start doing some of those rope twisting activities. E-bay auctions here we come. Third, I need to get out and look at dishwashers. We need to know prices and installation costs to make an informed decision. And while I am looking I will continue to ponder want vs need. Sometimes the answer is clear, sometimes less so.

9/17/09 Edited to add: Thank you to everyone who responded with suggestions and information. All of it will be useful to me as I shop around to decide our course of action. Thank you also for the offers of help. We’ll be in touch if we decide to take you up on it. As of this date I still haven’t managed to get out and go looking at dishwashers, which is step one in the decision making process. I plan to go tomorrow morning.

Today was
walking across newly buckled hardwood flooring because the dishwasher decided to leak two days ago. Packing orders on a newly dry shipping table that had been made wet by the same dishwasher. Making an appointment for appliance repair.

business conversations with Howard in the kitchen where we hammered out current policy and future plans.

Taking Gleek to her first private art lesson, then picking her up and hearing “It’s over already?” Then watching her carry her new art supplies through the house as she began to create characters for a comic strip.

Watching for Kiki because she was late home from school and hadn’t called. Then seeing her as I was leaving to drive Gleek to lesson and learning that her lateness was the bus’ fault and that she would have called me if she could.

Listening as Link visits with our bishop about his upcoming ordination and responsibilities. Watching Link sit very straight in his chair with confidence and sureness in his eyes.

Holding hands with Howard as we walked home together.

Watching kids run wildly in the back yard, playing ever shifting games with their friends. Letting them stay up a little later that I should have because warm evenings are lovely and I did not want to cut it short.

Talking with my friend as we watch our kids play together.

Requiring Gleek to sit in the grass and blow invisible bubbles into which she can put her angry feelings and let them go. Then watching her do this same process by herself several times as there are frictions between friends.

Having the house clean enough that sweeping and vacuuming were minor tasks rather than major efforts.

Patch accidentally slapping me in the mouth while trying to give me a high five, and both of us laughing about it.

Watching over Kiki’s shoulder as she does some amazing coloring on one of Howard’s original drawings.

Realizing that my life is full of good things that I sometimes fail to notice.

For his twelfth birthday Link wanted “something Linkish” as in “something like the Legend of Zelda games”. He decided that fighting cardboard monsters in the back yard would be a good choice. At first I was a bit daunted by this challenge as I pictured us constructing elaborate monsters which would then be attached to poles, or something. But then I realized a much simpler plan would suffice.

We began with these boxes, of which I have many laying around. We bought prizes and treats to put inside the boxes, but then I pictured the fate of those goodies once they had been battered around inside a box.

Instead, I put a ball inside each box. The ball became the heart of the beast. Each guest could gain a treat bag by bringing me the heart of their monster.

The party guests were each given a box and some markers and they got creative.

Each guest was issued a sword from the armory.

Then they all departed into the back yard and the pummeling began. I can’t think of a happier activity for four 12 year old boys (and one 14 year old girl, and one 8 year old girl, and one 6 year old boy.) than to be given permission to pummel boxes into utter destruction.

They were victorious.

And there were treasures.

A good time was had by all.