Wednesday, August 14, 2013

August 14th

Some of the leaves on the trees, bushes and vines down here in the South have begun to turn color, a phenomenon that always amazes me, seeing as how it is still stifling hot down here.

This was the week we were supposed to be moving into the new house and still we are here, amid boxes, waiting day and night for a call that could come at any time.

More and more things get packed away, including things that I should have saved out- like salt and orange drink mix and our steak knives, but we get by.

Keith and I fall into bed each night exhausted just by the extra emotional energy it takes to navigate this period in our life. Not to mention navigating all the clutter everywhere.

Yesterday, I said, Screw it, I'm packing no more! and instead, watched "Call the Midwife" on Netflix. That is a great show.

Way back in the days of our optimistic innocence, we thought we would need only six boxes or so, because the house loan would be closed! We would have weeks to move in! I could move stuff during the day, packing and unpacking boxes one room at a time, all leisurely-like!

Ha.

"So," asked one of Keith's friends- a full bird colonel, a man that in the normal course of Keith's professional career he would hardly get a glimpse of, let alone be friends with- "When is all this happening? When are you officially going on leave?"

This was a phone conversation- Keith had his phone on speaker. He gave me a wry look across the dinner table.

"At any time- they've had to stop her from going into labor three times already," I answered.

"So... Wow. How are you going to manage the move then?" the officer asked, confused.

"Indeed," I answered, amused.

Fortunately, my sense of humor is still intact. This is good, because I think I will need it.

We do have several plans in place- they are all slightly different, extremely complicated and alter by date. We hope like hell not to have to use any of them and that Baby remains in place until her due date, but no one thinks that will happen, at this point.

We have a scheduled conference call with our adoption specialist to help prepare us for the up coming visit and the time spent in the hospital.

Everyone is being generous and accommodating- even the bank and all their loan officers and inspectors. The loan is already out of underwriting and the final walk through is scheduled- it might even be today. That's record speed, right there.

In the meantime, I try to keep up with the laundry so we have all the clothing ready to pack at any moment and I pack one or two boxes a day.

I do think, in the years to come, that I will look back at this period of my life and wonder how on earth we made it through, but that happens so often in my life.

I thought the entire domestic infant adoption process would be impossible for me to manage! I thought it about completing the home study, the home inspection, the interviews, completing the pamphlet and the first phone call with the birth parents.

And yet I did manage those things and I continue to do so. And not just to manage them, but to live deeply in the process and sometimes even be creative in the midst of it.

That last poem I wrote, I love the best of anything I've written. I think those metaphors must be self explanatory, but there was one that puzzled me even as I wrote it. That is, I had no idea why I was writing it that way.

I talked about blown glass goblets and letting them shatter into a pathway like light on water. I loved those lines as I was writing them, and it felt powerful to write it out, but I had no idea why I was writing it or what it meant.

It took me a little while, but I figured out what it meant- the goblets are the things I do and believe that I might think makes me worthy of God- what I think of as my "good works and right thoughts," putting my best face forward, so to speak.

Throwing those small self created things down in the face of the mystery- letting those things shatter in the face of His presence- that's what I was writing about.

I guess it's a way of acknowledging one's humility and it made a beautiful path for Him to come to me. Instead, I lay my whole heart out on the table. It's not as pretty, it's not dainty- it's raw, but it's real, unadorned and all His.

And the thing is, He makes Himself vulnerable as well. In fact, He offered Himself this way first, and because He makes Himself vulnerable in love, I can follow suit. So the brokenness turns to heady sweetness, in the end.