Bergamot Flashback

We're fast approaching Christmas,
and the choir has practiced the song
for maybe three weeks now. "Listen
to the recording at home,"
the director reminds us. Warm tea
soothes my throat while I knit.

The red sweater was done by Halloween, knit
with click-clicks and slow breath, full of mistakes, yet in time for Christmas.
Maybe Mimi will make peppermint tea
again, and this time my song
won't have to be, "Sick! So sick!" Away from home,
yes, but not pregnant this time. The choir will sing; this time, I'll get to listen.

The heater comes on in the house. Listen
to the cold rain hitting the roof and knit
while my daughters sleep. Tastes sweet to be at home -
to know the lights for Christmas,
on their timer, will glow while we're away - to hear my daughter practice her song.
Breathe. Today it took a cup of Holiday Chai tea

to get past the afternoon slump. Today's tea
I kept hidden from the girl; didn't have to listen
as she asked for some and return my sing- song
"No, no. It has caffeine." My hands itched to knit
today; I've almost finished the gray hat. And Christmas
makes so many demands on my time at home.

We won't be at home,
so if I want the gingerbread tea
I'll bring it in that little tin. We leave after both Christmas
choir performances, mine and hers. Nana can listen
if I record my daughter's performance. I'll wait to knit
my green sweater; we need to practice the song.

Once, two college girls, on guitar and piano, sang a song
together at one girl's family home.
One had taught the other how to knit,
and had made her soy milk-infused Earl Grey tea
before they sat on the bedroom floor in their apartment, where one girl could listen
to the other read a fantasy story and rest in the comfort as cozy as Christmas.

She can still knit with those skills and can still hear that song:
At Christmas time in her own grown-up home
she smells Earl Grey tea in a bottle of bergamot and stops to listen.

I recently attended a house concert where I had the privilege of hearing my college roommate and friend from many years ago perform her own beautiful music. A singer-songwriter who plays guitar, she always had an interest in creating, writing, and singing, and she always had a knack for turning any space into "home." It is an amazing experience when one brief moment - such as listening to a song or smelling a specific scent - recalls to your mind years of previous moments, and they all get bundled up together into one new experience that you can open like a gift as your present circumstances seem to be put on pause. The past moments take on new meaning as you see them through the lens of all your current life, and your current life is blessed, as with a refreshing shower, with the sweetness of the memories. At Christmas time, especially, I think we experience life as being circular, so that our past and present can affect each other in our perception of them, and each can imbue the other with new flavor and richness.

A sestina, with its recurring words presented in a new order in each stanza, is very circle-like, and seemed to me the perfect form in which to attempt to express this experience of memory.

The Sacrifice of Thanksgiving

"I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the LORD." Psalm 116:17

I thought my nights were unbearable. My 9 month-old was waking several times a night, so my sleep was constantly interrupted. This had been going on for weeks. I was a grumpy, complaining mess.

Then we all got sick with a cold. Nothing too debilitating, but just enough gunk to disrupt my baby's sleep so much that she would not let me put her down at all for one night, and barely the night after that. One night she screamed so much that for hours she was inconsolable and I slept very little.

What all of this showed me was that I need to be thankful for my circumstances, no matter what they are. Who can say whether they will deteriorate into something worse very soon? I tend to take it for granted that I deserve a certain standard of comfort (such as a full night's sleep), and I complain when I don't get it. Complaining shows that I see myself higher than I ought to.

In reality, I don't deserve anything good in my life. Every good gift comes from God (James 1:17), and He sustains all things by giving us life (Acts 17:28). If I have food and clothing, I should be content (1 Timothy 6:8). Many don't even have these.

I think God has given us many strategies for overcoming the complaining attitude and embracing an attitude of thanksgiving. He tells us to be thankful in all things, so we have a command to obey (1 Thessalonians 5:18). He gives us memories so that we can recall from our own lives times of trial and times of refreshing. Therefore, we can learn that seasons come and go, and if we are in a difficult time, a time of healing may be fast approaching. We can also remember how God sustained us through the past time of difficulty. For example, my first daughter didn't sleep through the night until she was almost two and a half years old. Now she sleeps like a champion!

God also allows us to learn about other people who deal with various circumstances that are different from ours, whether good or bad. We can see our own blessings by comparison and reach out to help those who materially have less or who may have more materially but need spiritual and emotional encouragement that we can offer.

There are so many ways to practice being thankful, and any time I give thanks, I feel blessed. Complaining only makes things seem worse. Being thankful may be a sacrifice, especially being thankful for difficult things, but it's an offering to God because it recognizes His sovereignty and goodness and it reveals that we ultimately trust Him rather than ourselves to know what is best for us.

My two (at times sleepless) daughters.

He Won't Dance with Me

I've tried everything: simple requests, bargaining, debating, reasoning, begging. Nothing will move my husband to dance with me at an event like a wedding. We have been to several in our nearly five years of marriage, so there have been many opportunities to try new strategies. Maybe this time, I'll think. Maybe this time he'll realize how much it would mean to me and he'll give in. Usually this crazy thought is followed by some daydreaming about how fun it will be to get out there on the floor, all dressed up, and enjoy a slow dance or two with my love. Every time I bring it up, however, my hopes are silenced, like pretty music suddenly drowned out by the sound of a loud truck's roaring engine. He absolutely refuses. He just will not do it. Why, I cannot fully comprehend. But there it is. He is the man I married.

Lest it sound as though my husband is never amenable to my requests, I should explain that most often he is perfectly happy to go along with doing things I enjoy, and to let me even take the lead in planning anniversary trips and such. Most of the time, he is not so immovable as on the dancing question. Dancing is one of two things I can think of on which he will not budge; the other is going to one of those "bring your own snacks and paint along with the instructor" classes.

Dealing with our completely opposite interests in the dancing matter is one thing, and I'm sure many lessons about disappointment, understanding, patience, and the like can be learned from it. But the more interesting point in all of this is the irony found in the fact that I, like many girls, I'm sure, always looked forward during my single days to the days when I would finally have a spouse to take with me to these dancing functions. It was always awkward without a dance partner who wasn't A) a crush (embarrassing), B) a reluctant date (pathetic), or C) a family member (not quite the same thing). I remember consciously thinking about how nice it would be to have a built-in dance partner who was at once my romantic interest and my best friend.

As it turns out, all of my best chances for dancing and enjoying it, notwithstanding awkwardness, happened when I was single. I danced more then than I have since and than I maybe ever will again. I had the opportunities to attend and participate in English country dances (yes, as in Jane Austen); swing dancing classes, events, and performances; high school banquets and fundraisers; and weddings. Little did I know that in my pining for future married dancing bliss I had fallen prey to a mindset that was false - and the dancing dreams were just one specific instance of that mindset.

The mindset was this: an assumption that married life would be a certain way, and specifically a better way than I perceived my single state to be. What a mistake! Of course, marriage books warn you not to assume marriage will fix all your problems, because you and your spouse will be just as messed up together as you are individually. I knew this truth, but somehow I failed to apply it in all my thinking. I sometimes let myself feel sorry for my single self instead of enjoying and making the most of the time that I had with good friends and fun experiences. Hence my dancing dreams, which frankly were a form of idolatry and jealousy (idolizing marriage and envying those who had what I thought I wanted).

In reality, my spouse is both much less and much more than I assumed he would be when I imagined what dancing with him would be like. True, he won't dance with me, but he will brush my hair, change the oil in my car, mow the lawn, and do the dishes. He will fight with me, but he will apologize when he is wrong and forgive me when I am wrong. He will raise children with me. God willing, he will grow old with me. He will be my first advocate and best critic. He will be my constant friend. We will laugh, cry (well, I cry, anyway), and converse deeply together. How thankful I am for him!

Marriage is not the answer to all of our problems; neither is singleness. But either is a good gift to be enjoyed in its proper season.