After about four weeks of consistent writing, I didn’t blog at all last week. Please forgive me, all of you who read this. I have good excuses – my husband was home sick and I’ve been trying to impose a new housework system on myself, with varying success. Anyway, what with all the chores and caring for the sick (not to mention the children) blogging was the thing that had to go, temporarily. But I’m not happy about it.

I’ve never, ever been a naturally organized or ordered person. Sure, I enjoy being in a clean house more than a cluttered one as much as the next person, but in my single days, that desire didn’t usually translate into actual work. At least not on a regular basis. Since getting married and having kids, a desperate desire for order has gradually grown in me. Part of that is due to having a number of people rely on me, part of it is due to the fact that if I’m not at least somewhat organized, nothing will get done, including the things I actually want to do. Part of it is due to just growing up and realizing that if I don’t do it, neither will anyone else.

So, last week I wrote out a schedule of daily and weekly chores and committed to sticking to it, at least for the week. The result was that the house was cleaner than it’s ever been, but a lot of the things that give me life – down time, reading, and especially writing – were sacrificed.

What I realized, I suppose, is that if I don’t bring order to all the areas of my life important things will go missing. Writing, I realize, is just as crucial as swiffering the kitchen floor every week, and I’ve got to schedule blogging just like I’ve got to schedule laundry.

I’ve also got to take it easy on myself. I was so committed last week to my daily duties that the thought of not completing them made me feel like a complete failure. That kind of conscientiousness is just as unhealthy as laziness. So I may not finish every chore on every day of my schedule. And I may miss a blog entry here and there. I’m sure living with discipline is something I’ll struggle with and (hopefully) get better at for the rest of my life. But if I put at least some sort of framework up, I know I’ll get far more done (chores and pleasures) than if I just wing it.

I was tempted to gush and gush about this poem, but I’ll take it’s advice and remain silent in order to let it stand for itself.

How to Be a Poet
(to remind myself)

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill–more of each
than you have–inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your work,
doubt their judgment.

Breath with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay way from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that com
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

Wendell Berry, Given

Evan: Seamus, how about if I give you a haircut tonight?

Seamus: No, Papa! That is not awesome.

My husband cooked me dinner this Valentine’s Day, so while he and my toddler were at the grocery store, I packed up the dog and the baby for a tramp in the nearby county park. Am I glad I did. It’s been a long, cold, lonely winter, in the words of George Harrison. I’ve been stuck inside a townhouse for most of it with a toddler, an infant, a large dog, and a bold cat. February 14 brought the first true sunshine and blue skies we’ve seen in weeks.

Usually on such a lovely but muddy evening, I would think I should take the baby and the dog for a walk in the park, but I don’t want to pack up the car seat and the diaper bag and get the van muddy and worry about it getting dark and maybe I’ll just watch this Colbert Report rerun instead. I’m glad I didn’t give myself enough time to think. I just jammed my feet into galoshes, grabbed what I needed to bring with me (living creatures and otherwise) and left the house before I had time to talk myself out of it.

I felt free for the first time in weeks.

The park was empty, the views were wide, and God was there. Stiff breezes carried the smell of spring at their back – wet rain, damp earth, roots beginning to stir. Piles of clouds towered and glowed gold in the late sun. My dog, usually a loveable nuisance at best in our smallish house, was a trustworthy friend in the darkening hills. The baby was at peace. I was at peace. I didn’t want to go home.

My husband and I have always dreamed of owning a little piece of land out in the middle of nowhere one day, somewhere quiet and beautiful and a little wild. (He’s thinking Alaska, I’m thinking northern Baltimore County.) It’s easy to get caught up in the drudgery of small spaces and forget how quickly I can still leave all of that and go find a bit of open beauty. It’s also easy to forget how necessary it is for me, how much more contented I am when I breath clean, cool air and feel the long rays of evening light speed across my face.

So this is for Evan – I remember what we dreamed about that night on a porch in West Virginia, and I still want it. Until we get there for good, we can still find wild spaces around the corner from townhouse neighborhoods and pockets of quiet hiding between gaps in the suburbs.

“A word after a word after a word is power.”

Margaret Atwood on writing

Me: Seamus, here’s your binky.

Seamus: Thanks, hon.

My husband is a type A personality. I’m a type Z. He’s a confronter. I’m a hider. He’s a doer. I’m a sleeper.  Marriage pushes these wildly differing traits of ours to the forefront of each others’ attention, often uncomfortably but not unnecessarily.

It’s taken me this handful of years to learn that arguments and disagreements that must be got through in order to come to consensus on the important things in our relationship – finances, child-rearing, careers – are not fun and probably never will be. But it’s so vital for me, a person who avoids confrontation and unpleasantness at all costs, to accept the difficulty of the conversations as a way of loving my husband. I can’t run away from or sugar-coat the very real, get-your-hands-dirty work of living life. Marriage, like anything worth doing well, requires damn hard work sometimes.

Love is not just a feeling. It is an active choice we make every instant. Grace is the gift that comes out of that choice. We are each the rock against which the other tumbles, our rough edges becoming smooth, our dull surfaces beautiful, our life together becoming graceful.

Last week was a hard week. I was broken in every way – unable to find patience for my children and understanding for my husband, unwilling to do the work in front of me given me to do. This week, I’ve gathered up the broken pieces of myself to start again. This poem has always helped me to gather all the bits of myself back together when I feel shattered by inadequacy. May it do the same for you.

The Book of Pilgrimage, 11.2

I am praying again, Awesome One.

Your hear me again, as words

from the depths of me

rush toward you in the wind.

I’ve been scattered in pieces,

torn by conflict,

mocked by laughter,

washed down in drink.

In alleyways I sweep myself up

out of garbage and broken glass.

With my half-mouth I stammer you,

who are eternal in your symmetry.

I lift to you my half-hands

in wordless beseeching, that I may find again

the eyes with which I once beheld you.

I am a house gutted by fire

where only the guilty sometimes sleep

before the punishment that devours them

hounds them out into the open.

I am a city by the sea

sinking into a toxic tide.

I am strange to myself, as though someone unknown

had poisoned my mother as she carried me.

It’s here in all the pieces of my shame

that now I find myself again.

I yearn to belong to something, to be contained

in an all-embracing mind that sees me

as a single thing.

I yearn to be held

in the great hands of your heart–

oh let them take me now.

Into them I place these fragments, my life,

and you, God–spend them however you want.

Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Hours

translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy