Sunday Solace

It's Sunday, and I figure that Sunday is the appropriate day to dial it down a little and seek some sort of desperately needed spiritual solace for the coming week. For me, this solace comes in many forms, whether it be meditation, breathing, praying, writing and/or reading something that is genuine.

I recently read a book called Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott, a book given to me by a person named Gracia. Gracia sent the book via mail with this sticky note affixed to the cover: "I don't know about you, but chickies and bunnies got real old. Here's a different take on the baby thing. Enjoy."

First of all, I have to say that this is the only "parenting" book I've been able to get through without feeling absolute fear and consternation, and maybe this is because the book is actually a memoir. It details the first year of Anne's life with her new son, Sam, and how she absolutely has to rely on her community and her faith to make it through. It is both funny and witty, and extremely genuine. I identified with this part especially, though its only solace is that I get to say, "At least I'm not the only one". Here's the excerpt:

from June 16

I'm trying to keep my faith high, but I feel sort of disgusted and puzzled by God right now. It makes me think of Sam's gratuitous looting; God standing there bored at his table, dropping or letting people's lives drop, to the floor. It's like he doesn't even care, isn't even paying attention. It's like James Joyce said: he's doing his nails.

I have a friend named Anne, this woman I've known my entire life, who took her two year old up to Tahoe during the summer. They were staying in a rented condominium by the lake. And of course, it's such a hotbed of gambling that all the rooms are equipped with shades that block out every speck of light so you can stay up all night in the casinos and sleep all morning. One afternoon, she put the baby to bed in a his playpen in one of these rooms, in the pitch-dark and went to do some work. A few minutes later she heard the baby knocking on the door from inside the room., and she got up, knowing he'd crawled out of his playpen. She went to put him down again, but when she got to the door, she found he'd locked it. He had somehow managed to push in the little button on the doorknob. So he was calling to her, "Mommy, Mommy," and she was saying to him, "Jiggle the doorknob, darling," and and he didn't speak much English - mostly he seemed to speak Urdu. After a moment, it became clear to him that his mother couldn't open the door, and the panic set in. He began sobbing. So my friend ran around like crazy trying everything possible... And there he was in the dark, this terrified little child. Finally she did the only thing she could, which was to slide her fingers underneath the door where there was a one-inch space. She kept telling him over and over to bend down and find her fingers. Finally somehow he did. So they stayed like that for a really long time., on the floor, him holding onto her fingers in the dark. He stopped crying. She kept wanting to go call the fire department or something, but she felt that contact was the most important thing... So she kept saying, "Open the door now,"and every so often he would jiggle the knob, and eventually, after maybe half an hour, it popped open.

I keep thinking of that story, how much it feels like I'm the two-year-old in the dark and God is the mother and I don't speak the language. She could break down the door if that struck her as being the best way, and ride off with me on her charger. But instead, via my friends and my church and my shabby faith, I can just hold onto her fingers underneath the door. It isn't enough, and it is.