In May I told you that I had met with an agent (and his lovely wife) who had expressed interest in representing me for my second book. Woohoo! I finished my proposal, emailed it to him, moved around the world, and waited.

Very recently, it became clear that the proposal is in need of “some tweaks” if it is to become a book, in need of clarity in a few places. I understand this to be a completely valid part of the process, but did I mention I’m 100 months pregnant, practically requiring pulleys and levers to even get in and out of my bed at this point?

I think it is a universal truth that the last month of pregnancy is no time for finding clarity on anything.

Additionally, I’ve been through “this” before. Found Art kept coming apart at the seams when I was trying to get it written. Just a real mess at many moments in the process. In the middle of the initial draft, I found out I was pregnant with Luke and Lane. No problem, I thought, I’ll be done with this thing long before the babies are born.

Of course, I wasn’t.

In many ways, I had only just begun. And when L&L were born, the book still hadn’t totally come together. In fact, my editor, Angela, and I agreed that I would just take a little break, have the babies, and get back to the writing when I could.

I began to refer to the manuscript as “Angela’s Ashes.”

When the babies were 3 weeks old, I got back to it. Not because anyone was forcing me to but because I needed to. I needed to finish the project that I had been carrying for over four years. I needed closure. I needed to know that motherhood wasn’t a dream that had swallowed up my other dreams. When the babies were 3 months old, I turned in a completely revised draft of the book. I’ll always believe that while that was one of the most intense seasons of my life, the writing really did save me.

But it took me a long time to sleep all that off.

Now, on the absolute eve of birthing another not-so-Tiny Tank, I wonder how this book #2 project is going to unfold. I’ve found I don’t like going into childbirth with any loose ends.

In the midst of all this, an amazing blog, has just gone viral and has set the four corners of the world abuzz (including my corner of the world). And while she (who is beyond fabulous, by the way) posts pictures of visiting agents in New York in her new outfit from Nordstrom, waiting to weigh out potential offers from publishers, I’m waddling and glowering and trying to resist the urge to say, “I quit. I’m outta the game.”

As if there were only room for one more book in the world. As if there were only room for one more voice.

I’ve spent the last 24 hours feeling ever so slightly sorry for myself. I see how small that’s making me feel, and I believe grace is so much bigger.

Before I do anything else today, I’m stepping into the confessional and asking to be power-washed of the lies. Because I want right now to be about space and freedom.

I’ll end with a prayer:

God, I want to trust you.

I could use some help with that.

Amen.

Everything this time around feels unknown.

With the twins, I knew I was having a c-section because Lane was breech, and my doctor was not comfortable delivering any other way with that presentation (not that there are that many other options). I didn’t know when the delivery was going to happen, but I showed up to the hospital for a routine non-stress test that they had me doing a couple times a week. The nurse, as usual, checked the amniotic fluid levels, and announced that she wanted a doctor to take a look because they were a little on the low side from last visit.

The doctor came in a few minutes later, took one look at me and said, “How far along are you?”

“38 weeks and 5 days,” I said. Because when you’re carrying multiples, you know exactly how far along you are. You are constantly aware of how important it is to keep those babies in as long as possible.

“I think you’ve made it far enough,” she says.

And that’s how I knew the babies were going to be born that day, December 23, 2008. I delivered them at Mary Birch Hospital in San Diego, the same hospital where Linsey had delivered Hunter and Tina had delivered Trevor. Familiar.

Now, it’s all different. Different hospital. Different doctor. Different country. According to the ultrasounds, she is measuring XL, so the doctor is still on the fence as to how Baby Sister is going to exit my body exactly. So I’m not sure what kind of delivery I’m preparing for. Not sure how I’ll tolerate labor. Not sure what we’re in for at this different hospital in this different country. Just generally not sure.

And, the greatest of all unknowns, not sure how I’ll do as a mother of 3. Yowza. I still can’t believe it. I can’t believe that we’re going to have 3 kids.

My initial crossover into motherhood was not perfectly blissful for me—which I have carried no small amount of shame over—and I have felt this impending anxiety about returning back to the haze that hovered over me for many of the early months of L&L’s life. I’m so scared of going back to that place—where life felt like I couldn’t lift it.

I’m scared of feeling all that all over again. Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about.

I’ve been trying to bring these concerns to Jesus, to share my thoughts on the matter and to confess my uneasiness/panic. And here’s what I felt like he’s given me . . . out of the blue . . . a little something to hold on to:

Trey is my younger brother and the 3^rd child in my family. He is charming and funny and a joy. He’s my brother but he’s also my friend. I admire his ability to take it easy, relax, chill, let go, calm down. He brings this cool breeze in the door with him that wins everyone over. I just love him.

Every time I start to get scared about how we’re going to integrate Baby Sister into this already-mess, I think about Trey and I think about what our family would have been like without him.

I’m not saying Baby Sister is going to be a replica of Trey. I have no idea what she’s going to be like. But I think God has just been trying to offer me a little teaser. What if we hadn’t had Trey? Life in the Miller household would have been much more serious, much more spun up. Even today, what would we do without his ease, his carefree charm, his wit.

So I’ve been trying to trade in my anxiety lately for anticipation. What will BS bring to our family of four that we would have never experienced without her? What kind of quirky zest will she add to the mix? What might we experience that only she could have given us eyes for?

I can’t wait to find out.

While these thoughts don’t erase every last bit of unease, they do help me to focus on abundance instead of scarcity right out of the gates. Instead of dwelling on what will be diminished by adding another child; this is my invitation to dwell on what might be gained.

Thank you, God, for Trey. He is a prince. And thank you for BS, whoever she may be.

Looking forward to meeting you, little girl.

This is something I’ve had to tackle as a writer—sitting down on a very consistent basis and getting a bit of work done. Sometimes the work that is done is barely perceptible, with little sense of accomplishment. Sometimes the work that is done is terrible. And in the face of that knowledge I have to choose to sit down again and begin again and keep beginning again. Hideous. Yet, at the end of a week, a month, and a year, there it is . . . all documented in words: some strange kind of sprawling progress. Raw material. Something I could have never just spit out in a weekend binge writing session. Movement. Healing.

This is the truth I am taking with me into 2012: the great importance of today.

One of the things I really love about the 12-step program is its emphasis on today. Breaking life down into a series of todays keeps us from getting overwhelmed by the prospect of having to sustain anything (i.e. sobriety) for an entire week, month, or year. Just for today. And it keeps us from living in the delusion that I will – sometime this year/at some point in my life – do such and so and really change things for good: i.e. lose weight, begin writing, read more, watch less TV, drink less, walk more, get my emotional health under control, etc. This is the thinking that allows us just enough wiggle room to sabotage our best intentions.

Goals/resolutions are a necessary and important part of life, but they are impotent without a firm root in today. It doesn’t matter what I set out to accomplish this year if I don’t have a sense of how I will reorder my today.

Am I willing to start today—even if that means fumbling and stumbling a bit?

How might my decisions today begin a trajectory and a momentum that I could build on?

What choices do I have today?

I’m hopeful that this will be a writing year for me. Not so much in terms of just producing something but because I know that when I am writing consistently, I am more of a whole person. I also know that I will be birthing a baby in the next few weeks. Balancing mothering and writing never works perfectly. And yet, if I try to take all that in right now, I’m overwhelmed and stuck before I even open my computer. But if I can think about today . . . the little bit of work that I can do today . . . even without a perfect sense of how it’s all going to come together, at the very least, I’ve put some words down. And I will always be better for wringing out my soul a bit.

Tolkein has the dazzling line that says, “Not all who wander are lost.” I love this because it reminds me that wandering is a part of the gig. I can’t map out a perfect strategy from beginning to end for most things in my life. Especially the things that really matter. And that doesn’t mean I’m lost as a result. What it means is that the mess is often the magic. And I also take that to mean that I might need to get my hands in the mess – today – instead of waiting for the perfectly clear path to present itself.

What we do in the messy, wandering, trenches of today matters. So I guess I’m encouraging myself, and hopefully you too, to consider how your dreams might intersect with today. And in doing so, we might roll up our sleeves and get to work even if the path is not perfectly lit.

Sometimes all we’ve been given is fog lights when what we were hoping for/waiting for was high beams. But if we’ll commit to what’s right in front of us, we can make a long journey with just a little lit at a time.

Here’s to today.

Sunset over the Persian Gulf at Amwaj Island.

One of the many stacks of packing paper from our move.

Baby belly at the Bahrain Fort on a very windy day. This was when I was still somewhat reasonably pregnant. I am now — at 36 weeks — UNreasonably pregnant. With four weeks still remaining, we may have a 13 pounder on our hands.

A runner that I am currently obsessed with from our favorite rug shop. We brought it home and then took it back. Terrible idea. Now I feel like something’s missing. Beautiful, right? I’m not usually a “red” person, but I adore this runner for some reason. Has amazing shades of green and turquoise here and there that just work. Perhaps if I birth the  13 pounder, I might get this as a gift for all my efforts!

I might be sick, but I’m still darling.

Flying high with Daddy at the Bahrain Fort.

The orange and pink celebration for my two favorite 3 year olds!

Did I mention that 12 latex balloons filled with helium cost $18.62? Yowza.

Besties Junior.

Besties Senior.

]]> http://www.gypsyink.com/2012/01/a-thousand-words/feed/ 16 http://www.gypsyink.com/2012/01/a-thousand-words/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gypsyink/~3/ZpyRXLPZjCE/ http://www.gypsyink.com/2012/01/what-art-will-be-found-in-2012/#comments Thu, 05 Jan 2012 07:12:11 +0000 leeana http://www.gypsyink.com/?p=425

About a year ago, to commemorate the closing of 2010 and the beginning of 2011, I offered a Found Art workshop entitled “A Year in Review” for about 40 women in San Diego. I’ve offered a dozen or so of these workshops, all with similar format.

We come together around round tables and I provide a few writing prompts to help us all process a specified topic. We share findings from our writing—what came out of us that surprised us, what confirmed some underlying angst, what we needed to say that had been bottled up for too long. We share around our table and then we share with the larger group, in moments of what I consider extreme bravery.

Often I would choose an excerpt from Found Art to read. Often most of us were crying at some point in the evening. Love that.

Then we’d take a break, drink a lot of coffee, eat whatever snacks I had mustered, and laugh so loudly you could no longer hear the background music I had playing. Love that too.

After the writing and sharing and crying and laughing, I would then step back a bit and the women would be invited to create a piece of found art inspired by the work they had done that night. They would take out their writing and “mine” it for key words and phrases. These would be the guidance for their art.

All along one wall of the room I would have tables of supplies, the kinds of things you would intuitively need to create something—paint, markers, glue, staple guns, glue guns, etc. And then there would be an entire area of odds and ends—things I had pulled from the back forty at Pat’s, things that had been abandoned and cast off. These are the raw materials of greatness, in my mind.

And in the last 90 minutes of the workshop, the most alchemic thing would happen. Creative expression would arise out of literally nothing. These amazing women, who had just opened themselves up so beautifully, would capture their realizations in paint and paper and wood and nails and all sorts of other bits and bobbles.

And then we’d all stand back and survey the prayers each of us had prayed through our hands and through our art, and you would feel changed.

I share about these workshops with you for 2 reasons:

1. I miss doing them. I brought all of my supplies with me to Bahrain and I still hope that sometime while we’re here I’ll be able to offer a Found Art workshop to the women here. I felt so completely close to my own soul when doing these workshops. So it’s meaningful to me to go back and think about them and share that with you. Thank you for indulging me.

2. I thought you might need a little inspiration and clarity as you head into a New Year, and if you feel so prompted, I’d love for you to use the specifics from the workshop I led last New Year’s as a guide for your own time of personal reflection and expression. What have you learned? How have you grown? What have you lost? What have you gained? What has this past year meant to your soul? Who are you becoming?

At the workshop a year ago, I encouraged women to bring their calendars from the past year (so you would use your 2011 calendar) and to take about 15 minutes to review its contents. Here are some instructions:

Make a list of any events that stand out to you over the last year:

• look for trends and themes that you might not have realized—perhaps you notice how many times you went to the doctor this year
• perhaps you notice how busy your schedule is
• perhaps you notice how much free time you had
• perhaps you realize you worked a lot more than you thought
• maybe you realize you spent all your time doing things for other people; maybe you realize you spent all your time on yourself
• maybe you acknowledge the amount of transition you’ve been through

Now, take some time to write: What was something you realized about your year?

Trends? Themes? Patterns? Do any key words come to mind? Things to celebrate? Things to commemorate? Things to grieve? Not just activities and events, but what has this year meant to your soul? Listen to the stirrings in the deeper waters of who you are.

Next, read Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, 11 (the heart and soul of Found Art)

there is a time for everything,

and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to break down and a time to build up,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to turn away,

a time to search and a time to quit searching,

a time to hold on and a time to let go,

a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace . . .

he has made everything beautiful in its time.

he has also set eternity in the human heart;

yet no one can fathom what God has done

from beginning to end.

ecclesiastes 3:1-8, 11

What word or phrase stands out to you from the passage? What “time” resonates with you? What did you zero in on intuitively? If you’d like, spend some additional time writing down your reflections on your key word or phrase from this passage. Why do you think you were drawn to that particular word or phrase?

Lastly, if you’re feeling up to some creative expression, find some magazines, glue, scissors, and a small poster board or journal or anything else that could house your creative musings.

Flip through your magazines and find pictures, words, colors—anything—that captures the processing you’ve done so far. What has the last year meant to you? How is where you’ve been shaping where you’re going? What are your hopes for 2012?

Glue down your clippings. Add some of your own words to the collage. Keep it messy. Don’t Martha Stewart it to death. Try to treat it as a prayer, not a product.

Maybe get a few girls together and do this as a group. Wouldn’t that be amazing? Chronicling where you’ve been and where you’re going . . . together.

The phrase that stands out to me from Ecclesiastes and that seems to sum up my 2011 is “a time to scatter stones.” That’s the phrase that stung my eyes a bit as I was reading. A time when all the bits and parts of me got scattered in this chaotic whirlwind of a move across the world. And the realization that it takes so much energy to begin gathering again, unifying the parts, rebuilding.

It occurs to me in this moment that perhaps after the stones have been scattered, and they are gathered again and the rebuilding commences, something new is formed out of those same old stones. And I wonder if that is what 2012 will be for me. A time of reformation and renovation after a season of disruption. What will become of those same old stones? And what new ones will be introduced? What will be constructed one year from now?

And, I can’t help but say the thing that we all hate to admit but is true nonetheless: sometimes the scattering (while entirely inconvenient) was the necessary catalyst to getting the new thing constructed. It couldn’t have happened any other way. Things had to be disrupted. Hmmmm.

As we open a New Year, may we all have eyes to see the beauty-in-the-making—the found art—that is waiting for us, even in the most foreign places of life. And may we have the courage to name the beauty that we behold (even that smallest sparkle in the midst of the coal) . . . as an act of worship.

All my love.

Dear Luke and Lane,

We just celebrated your third birthday. An orange and pink party—as you requested—because Brother’s favorite color is orange and Sissy’s favorite color is pink.

I took a moment last night to just look at each of you for some time. To gaze. To capture you at this moment in your life. Not just a photograph, but to take you into my memory and carry that image with me.

Here’s what I saw . . .

Luke, to me, you are this unique combination between your dad and my dad. I love that about you. Your wide, Fred Flinstone feet, your big hands and big head, your fair skin, your beautiful light green eyes, and your dad’s face in most ways. When the doctor held you up over the blue surgical curtain on the day you were born, I didn’t recognize you. I didn’t know your face. And your infancy was about the two of us getting acquainted, and I have fallen in love with you. Now, it’s as if you are the most familiar thing in the world to me.

You have a purity about you that catches me off guard almost every day. Very, very clear on your preferences. And yet, also very deferent to those you love. Like your father, you don’t miss a detail in the world around you, always pointing out a lone hawk, the moon, an ant in the grass. You keep me aware of beauty. You keep me present. “Her needs her mommy,” you say if a little girl is crying at the playground. Tuned in to everyone and everything.

I like the way you debrief your day with me right before you fall asleep at night, often rehearsing the things that didn’t go quite right, that puzzled you, that worried you. I feel like I could break in two listening to such significant things come out of such a little man. I love you.

Lane, you are dark, which is different from me, and yet you have so many of the other traits of the girls in my family. When the doctor held you up to show me your face for the first time, one minute after I saw Luke, I knew you immediately. Your face was exactly as I expected. And yet, since then, you have developed this little twinkle that always keeps me guessing, makes me wonder what you’re up to, and most of all—who you are becoming. You are beguiling, and you are beautiful.

I can’t wait to see you with Baby Sister. When I found out we were having a girl, my first thought was you. How thrilled you would be to have a little sister and what amazing companions you two will be.

I love that you’d rather we sing you “Cat and Mouse” and “Rye Whiskey”—drinking songs—before you go to sleep instead of any kind of sweet lullaby. This is so quintessentially you. Spirited, creative, clever, brazen.

At least once every day, you grab my hand and say, “Mommy, can you come sit with me?” and you just want me to be by you. You have always needed a lot of close, physical attention. And it soothes me and calms me to be near you. In many ways, I feel as though I have always known you. Since you slept most of your entire infancy, we have spent a lot of time just cuddled up together. I hope we always do. I love you.

My greatest joy, Luke and Lane, has been to watch the incredible bond that you two share. You are so distinct from each other, and yet you are so connected. It’s an amazing thing to witness.

Raising twins presents challenges, and I have often wondered if we have been able to give you what you have each needed to begin your journey of becoming in this world. But when I see you two together and the great love you have for each other—this unexplainable knowing—I see that something profound has happened right before my eyes over these last three years.

We watched you snuggle up to each other in the womb, and the miracle of two separate lives interconnected in such a unique way continues to unfold each and every day. I am so profoundly grateful to have been a part of this miracle.

My very favorite picture of the two you remains the one that the nurses took in the hospital with you swaddled together into one big blanket, in daddy’s arms. He has a surgical mask over his nose and mouth, but you can tell by his eyes that he’s smiling the most full-tilt smile.

It was like we just got handed the most absolutely-no-words-for gift. Three years later, I’m still speechless in so many ways. Shocked that we’ve all survived these early, intense days. And also silenced by the unspeakable gift that is you two.

Happy Birthday, Luke and Lane.

I look back on this year and think about a beautiful one-day retreat I did in March with the women of Menlo Park Pres church at the reverent grounds of the Mercy Center. We spent the day talking about the soul’s journey of Exile to Belonging. I was just six weeks pregnant at the time with little knowledge of what was ahead. Little knowledge of the journey I would be taking later that year, a journey that has been, yet again, about the passage from exile to belonging, as life so often is.

We were still hanging in the balance, wondering if we’d be able to come to Bahrain with Steve or if our family would be living apart for a year.

Soon after that retreat, I miscarried, and we still waited and waited and waited to find out if we would be moving or not. Looking back, I remember a blur of exhaustion and sadness. A feeling of helplessness. As I wrote then, the feeling that something inside me had been silenced.

In very early May, just five weeks after the miscarriage, I spoke at a weekend retreat in the Seattle area. I spoke about the recent loss, and how badly I was upside down, grieving and not knowing if we’d be able to go with Steve or not. I have never been so raw in front of such a large group of people. The women there shared their own pain with each other and with me—one particular story of a young woman who lost a baby at 28 weeks that I will never forget—and somehow the solidarity started a tiny spark of healing in me.

Steve got his orders with such little lead-time and we packed him up and got him on a plane and I remember standing outside our rental house in Mission Hills, holding Luke while Lane still slept inside, putting Steve in an orange cab as he sped off to the airport. Not exactly sure when we would see each other again.

Somewhere in the midst of all that, I got pregnant again. Still not sure how that happened. I remember trying to get in touch with Steve to tell him I was pregnant, and having to hold onto that news for three days before I could finally get in touch with him on skype to let him know. And I remember his shock. Mine too.

Shortly after, we found out that we’d be moving, too, adventuring—yet again—to the Middle East. But this time with toddlers and a brand new little baby budding. And all the sickness that follows.

Commence one million details necessary to move across the world and the tireless help of my mom and Steve’s mom during those demanding days.

Next, I remember hazy goodbyes to my closest friends, feeling as though I was underwater about half the time. Overwhelmed. Hormonal. In such incredible shock I could barely cry.

We stopped off in South FL to see my siblings and their families—a circus of 7 kids and all the accompanying adults under one roof—making the most of swampy summer weather. And then Jamie joined us and we got on the plane to make the long trip to Bahrain.

I remember the first few months here like a scald. A hot boil that left me raw. Steve traveling. Our stuff somehow mistakenly put in long-term storage back in San Diego and the news that it was going to take so much longer to get our belongings and get settled. Steve traveling. The realization that you can’t just take your two toddlers out to the park when it’s a 120+ degrees outside. Ramadan. Plagued by mothering guilt and those howling monkeys in my head. Losing Steve’s grandfather. Steve traveling.

Never wondering if we made a mistake coming. Just wondering when I would feel better, settled, at ease again. Cue the self-contempt. Wishing I could be one of those women who could just do it all better.

Late fall, the heat evaporated and it all cooled off. I mean that in every way. And now, as I think back on this year, I am so thankful, grateful, hopeful, in awe. That we have come through it all and we are together. What more could I possibly ask for on my birthday or ever? That I get to wake up next to my husband. That I get to love these two precious maniacs, Luke and Lane. That I get the profound gift of growing another baby. That I get to put life into words and give that to others. That Christ remains with me. Even on the far side of the sea. Even here his hand guides me and holds me fast.

As I opened gifts and emails and texts and read all sorts of messages on Friday, I was undone by the great enveloping love of my tribe. And the words that kept coming to me were Thank You (breathed in the direction of countless vigil-keepers, including Christ himself). Thank You that we survived this year, and that despite its desolation at times, I have always received the gift of consolation.

As I have said before, and I believe more than ever, there is great beauty in foreign places. Discovering this beauty is never convenient and is hard-won. Such difficult news for me, as I’m too often tempted to stop at glamour when my soul really longs for beauty.

Yet, I’m seeing right before my eyes, an unfolding. That life rarely stays in the scald forever.

Thank you. And thank you again. For coming near. For delivering me. For your great love. I am held so entirely.

All four of our birthdays are in December—the Pirate’s is today!—and that means a level of general feverishness descends on my psyche that I try to keep from turning into total hysteria.

Currently, my holiday is epitomized by the following: I find myself tearing up while singing “Tender Tennessee Christmas” as loudly as possible while the fake fireplace DVD crackles from the television. Pine scented candles. Plastic tree. Toddler trenches.

Today, I gifted my husband with “Bacon Soap.” That probably sums things up for you.

This is not the first year the glamour-meter has been low.

At this very time three years ago, I was finishing my Christmas shopping at the Mission Valley Target in San Diego, and I was GREAT with child(ren). So great, in fact, that when I came back out to my car with my purchases, and a car had pulled into the spot next to mine, I could not—no matter how many different directions I maneuvered—squeeze my substantial self into the gap between my car and theirs.

A few weeks previously the same situation had happened, and I was able to open the back of the car and crawl through the entire length of our vehicle into the driver’s seat. But those days were long gone.

My only option was to wait until a seemingly kindhearted stranger crossed my path and ask her if she would be willing to help me out of a tight spot, literally. Such a woman presented herself, and I handed over my keys to someone I had not known 5 seconds earlier, and asked her if she would pull out my car. “Well isn’t this what Christmas is all about?” she said to me through such deeply empathetic eyes, I knew I must have actually looked even more rotund than the world’s fattest Santa stuffed with two oversized elves.

A couple of weeks later, on December 23, the elves arrived. All 7 lbs 7oz (Luke) and 7 lbs 9oz (Lane) of them. Full of all kinds of life.

Sometimes—and I am learning this slowly and painstakingly—beauty outshines glamour.

A few nights ago, we attended a Christmas tree lighting event on base, complete with live nativity featuring an authentic Middle Eastern camel. All Lane wanted from this evening was to get to touch baby Jesus. So we made our way over to the nativity and she was pushing her way into the scene, wanting to get a better look at baby Jesus’ face.

Mary was played by a young pre-teen girl with braces, and she held a white gym towel all wadded up in her lap with no real sign of a baby inside the bundle. Joseph stood over them, looking like he could be Mary’s father. The camel swatted excretion from his tail onto bystanders.

Lane kept pulling Steve’s hand, wanting to actually enter the nativity so she could touch the baby. Mary laughed uncomfortably not really knowing what to do. But Joseph bent down on one knee and motioned to Lane to come toward them. “You can touch Jesus,” he told Lane. And she reached out and patted the white towel like it was the most beautiful baby she had ever seen.

Showing them around our lives here has been meaningful to me. Joanie had visited in 2004, when we lived here previously, but Bill had never been. Taking them to the Souq, the Grand Mosque, our favorite carpet store, our favorite restaurants (Café Lilou, Monsoon, Copper Chimney, CoCo’s), and also showing them the everyday—the base, the kids’ school, the mall, the grocery store—all of it added up to a feeling of being seen here.

Something important happens when you are far away from “home” and familiar faces show up to witness you in your new life. Like you are visible once again.

We also struck out on a little adventure together and spent three days in Dubai. Just a quick one-hour flight—which is about all I can handle at this point in my pregnancy—and we were in another country. We sat on the beach and played in the sand, floated in the pool, ordered room service, and went to the aquarium. I even braved the “torrents” and “rapids” at the water park. Seven months pregnant, bouncing around in an innertube. Not spectacular. But very, very fun. Luke saying to me the whole time, “This is a wild ride, Mommy. A wild ride.”

I still can’t believe they let very pregnant women and small children, almost babies, on that wild ride, but we all made it out. Whooping and woo-hooing like only Americans can do.

As adventurous as I felt on the rapids, the highlight of the last month, for me, was visiting the Grand Mosque with Steve’s parents and seeing “Fatima” again after 8 years. She was the young woman—just 19 then—that took me on the tour of the Grand Mosque that I later wrote about in chapter 16 (“dying”) ofFound Art. Something in our interaction back then forced me to look at the whole concept of desire as it related to my spiritual life.

When I walked into the mosque all these years later, I recognized her practically immediately even with everything covered except her eyes. Still so petite and such big brown eyes. The tour hadn’t changed much at all in eight years, but I listened to her as if I had never heard any of it before. I couldn’t believe I was back in that beautiful place, with her, after what feels like a lifetime later.

We stood in the upper level, the woman’s prayer hall, overlooking the main prayer hall, as the Muezzin offered the call to prayer. The first time I had ever been inside a mosque during the call to prayer. Standing there in a black abaya and head scarf, it was like we were in another world.

My mother-in-law told Fatima about my book, and Fatima gave me her email address. I’ll have to take her a copy someday soon and tell her what she has meant to me. Maybe we will go to coffee and talk spirituality. Maybe we’ll talk marriage as she is considering a proposal right now. Maybe we’ll just talk about what it means to be a woman in this world. I’d like to think I will see her again.

When we left the mosque, she kissed me on each cheek and asked me to pray for her. In Islam, it is believed that a pregnant woman’s prayers are twice as likely to be heard by Allah. I said I would pray, and she padded off—in her black socks—back into the Mosque. I tucked away the neon green sticky note with her email address on it. I say a prayer for her when I see it. And I smile to myself at the wild, winding ride that is life.

The package includes:

• Notes from the girls—some on pretty stationary, one with a hand-drawn pepperoncini on the bottom since we always have a Costco jar of pepperoncinis at our gatherings, one written in hot pink pen on a napkin
• A photo with a handwritten note on the back
• A flyer from a found art exhibit at an art show by the Bay
• A Thomas shirt and bathtub toys for Luke
• A princess starter kit for Lane, along with the cutest chocolate brown corduroy bloomers ever and a little outfit on a miniature hanger for one of her dollies
• Magazines for “inspiration” and “creativity” (including People, Real Simple, the Pottery Barn catalog, and a Writer’s Digest pub)
• A flower hair clip for me and one for Lane
• Perfectly pale pink nail polish
• A mix CD that includes El Shadai from Amy Grant, if you can stand it
• Archer Farms Tex Mex trail mix from Target . . . one of my personal favorites
• A beautiful hardback journal with swallows on the front—in a signature turquoise and green pallet
• A novel
• Sour Patch Kids
• And all this crazy love spilling out on random sticky notes and scraps of paper

And once again, I am cared for by this band of Gypsies . . . mind, body, and soul.

Just about once a week I get a video of the girls when they all get together. Some of it is them saying hi to me, but mostly it’s just a couple trips around the table so I can see them and be with them—laughing, eating, talking, being together. Mostly it’s just them letting me know I’m still a part of them and they are still a part of me.

I was really moved by the response I received from my last post. Clearly, some of you are struggling with that stuck feeling, too, and you needed to hear that Emmanuel might in his own way be coming to thee. Not necessarily to change your life but to keep you company while you’re living it.

I didn’t realize when I wrote those words in that post that Emmanuel would be coming to me in the form of a care package. Christ in the bread and wine of Sour Patch Kids, the sacrament of Target Tex Mex. Christ scrawled on napkins. Christ in a cardboard box. (Who says you shouldn’t put God in a box?)

I am believing that some kind of care package could arrive for you today, too. And that it would nourish you as you need to be nourished.

All my love.