Peace to Freaks

A lot of times life can feel like barely controlled sanity, and that’s if you’re lucky.  Just go to your local Whole Foods and you’ll see what I mean. Now, to be sure, we are not regulars at Whole Foods.  We’ve been a handful of times because other, kind people, who think we’re a Whole Foods type of family, have given us gift certificates.  It is a thoughtful gift, especially these days when grocery money is hard to come by.  It’s just that I feel like a poser even accepting the gift certificates, like somehow accepting them is a silent acknowledgement that I am committed to all things clean and green like real Whole Fooders.  I wish I could be, but one glance at the array of garbage recycling bins with emphatic signs as to what’s allowed to be thrown in and the overwhelming feeling of incompetence that follows, and I understand that I am too dense and tired to be a Whole Fooder.  After our visit the other day, I realize I also get creeped out too easily.

We went to Whole Foods as a celebration of sorts.  Jeff had been away in Canada the previous week and we decided to celebrate our family’s reunion by feasting on pesticide-free food.  I will admit I was already in a fragile state before we arrived at Whole Foods.  I thought maybe food that had been less tampered with chemically might be a good thing for my personal chemistry which seemed to have gone a little loopy the night before Jeff was leaving for Canada.

I don’t know why it’s so, but most women I talk to go through awful things when their husbands go out of town.  These times can bring on enough desperation that spiritual perspectives become forever altered.  A staunch atheist friend of mine admitted to crying out in prayer to God, Jesus and The Blessed Mother when her husband was gone and all three kids were sick with a stomach flu.  Another friend, who possess a reserved, waspy-type faith, found herself begging the Holy Spirit, with Pentecostal fervor, for a miracle, hoping that this might cure her daughter’s prepubescent bitchiness that seemed to set in an hour after her husbands plane took off.  Then there are those, like me, who start going around the bend a bit thinking Satan and his minions are crouched and ready to pounce at any moment like a toad eyeballing a spider.  It seems to be the only explanation for why things could be so bad.

I’ll just say the night before Jeff left, we realized I was having a mammary debacle that coincided with a teething four-month-old.  Fun times.  There’s nothing that will take you to the Dark Side quite like haywire hormones and insecurity about feeding your infant.  I knew I was in sorry shape when I noticed, after a few days of Jeff being gone, that each room of our house looked like a page from one of those Eye Spy children’s books. Everything was disheveled.  The only constant I happened to notice was that in each room I could spy at least two empty beer bottles.  A glance at the baby’s room revealed diapers, Desitin, a sock, teethers and two beer bottles on the windowsill.  A peek into Bella’s room and I saw a doll, stickers, rocks, dress-up clothes on the floor and two beer bottles perched on top of her armoire.  A look into my room showed my Bible, a Walker Percy novel and two beer bottles all resting naturally at my bedside table.  I think Martin Luther once said that beer is proof that God loves us.  Given this week, I’d have to agree.  By day three of hot compresses, breast pumps, anti-biotics, bottles with myriads of nipples and still no clue as to how to feed the baby, I realized that a regular intake of beer at least allowed me to pull myself away from the corner of the bathroom floor and get dinner on the table.  So I went with it.  Desperate times call for desperate measures and I was having a desperate week.  I was also uttering some desperate prayers; actually just one desperate prayer that was stuck on repeat- HELP.  It’s amazing how simple  prayer becomes during challenging times. All I know is that each time I yelped out the word “HELP” somehow help came, and I was vulnerable enough to receive it.  One of those HELP prayers was answered in the form of my dear, sweet, Mom who had come to lend her hands for much of the week.  She would gently remind me that “this too shall pass” and then, she would lovingly fetch me a beer.   By the end of the week, I was convinced that my Mom’s parting gift, a case of Sam Adams, was the sweetest, most heart-felt present I had ever received and most certainly an answer to prayer.  After witnessing my crazed state throughout the week, I think she was convinced of this too.

So by the week’s end, I was fried and desperate and perhaps a little dehydrated, and longing to have a thought that didn’t have to do with lactation.  A trip to Whole Foods seemed innocent enough, but as soon as we pulled into the parking lot I felt myself becoming twitchy. The Whole Foods here feels a little like visiting Logon airport in Boston.  Everyone is in a pissed off hurry.  I don’t know why.  Maybe it’s a lack of all the harmful chemicals that causes a certain derangement.  As soon as we entered the store with it’s narrow, not-stroller- friendly aisles, I knew we had made a mistake.  This was confirmed when, after 15 minutes of attempting to assemble lunch for our family, not one person had ogled the baby.  That’s just weird.  So in a bit of a huff, I told Jeff that the baby and me would go secure a table in the café while he and Bella finished elbowing their way through the buffet line.  During the twenty paces it took to get to the tables, two different people brushed up against me and didn’t bother to say “excuse me” which just added fuel to my growing fury.  So by the time we found an empty table, even though it’s size seemed more suited for Bella’s doll house family than ours, I snatched it quickly and decided to just sit and breath for a moment.  My moment had not yet expired when a lady, who had been sitting across the anorexic aisle, approached me and asked if she could sit and eat beside me so that she could watch my “beautiful” baby as she ate.  Before I had a chance to answer, she sat on down and proceeded to ask me if I believed in miracles.  Again, before I could answer, she said she knew I must since I had such a beautiful baby.  She then went on to tell me about her faith life, her health problems and how great her salad was tasting, all the while ogling the baby.  I was beginning to rethink my analysis on baby ogling and, in my over-sensitive state, and with her crazed blues eyes darting back and forth between me, the baby and the salad, I was also wondering if this was one of those times that I should rebuke Beelzebub or if perhaps, this Nutty Baby Ogler was some angelic phenomenon to whom I should be extra hospitable.  I wasn’t sure, so I asked God for HELP.  Help came as Bella and Jeff wiggled their way through the skinny maze of tables and chairs to join us.  Jeff and I had already locked eyes and shared a look that said “Oh no” as he twisted his way closer.  Bella cut right to the chase.  In a clear, un-hushed voice she asked “Um, What’s she doing here”?  Again, before  I could answer, the Nutty Baby Ogler said “I wanted to look at your cute brother.”  “Oh, isn’t he great?”  Bella replied.  Bella and the Nutty Baby Ogler proceeded to chat as Jeff and I attempted to consolidate our food into mouse-sized portions so that we could eat at our miniscule table.  We were finally successful after only one coffee spill and one accidental salad dumping.  Just as we blotted up the last puddle of coffee, a new lady, with an amputated leg came limping through the café maze on her crutches.  In Bella-like fashion, the Nutty Baby Ogler said “What happened to your leg?” The amputee explained that she had it removed during a horrible fight with cancer.  This peeked my interest.  Four years ago, our precious niece Maris, who was 11 at the time, had her leg amputated due to a hellacious bout of a rare cancer called Ewing’s Sarcoma.  Two years after that her cancer returned in her lungs.  Since her last round of treatment she seems to be doing well, but this seemed to be the case after her first round of treatments.  I sat for a moment thinking about Maris as I watched this lovely amputee patiently chat with the Nutty Baby Ogler.  As they chatted, I found myself leaning in to listen.  As I leaned in and caught glimpses of Nutty Baby Oglers vacant blue eyes, a scene from my own life, that had transpired the week before, played through my head.  I remembered, in a fit of desperation, how I had roamed around the first floor of our house, jostling the baby and singing Jesus songs at the top of my lungs in an attempt to fight off the imposing darkness of fear.  It then occurred to me that there wasn’t just one Nutter in our company and maybe I could let go of feeling creeped out and find fellowship.  So I joined the conversation by telling them about Maris.  When I finished, the amputee grabbed my hand and said “Sweetie, I am proof that God is in the miracle business everyday.”  At this point, the Lovely Amputee, the Nutty Baby Ogler and me, a twitchy, hormonal wreck all shared a tear-filled, heart-felt moment that testified to our common need, longing and hope.

As Jeff and I found our way to the car through the pissy parking lot, I kept having images of Bella learning to swim flash through my mind.  At first, her “swimming” resembled barely controlled drowning.  She’d fling and flail and barely stay afloat. But as time went on, all that flinging and flailing gradually turned into graceful strokes.  Now she plunges into the water and navigates her way through it’s current with dolphin like ability.  That’s how life seems these days.  It feels like barely controlled sanity, and that’s on the good days.  But I have this hope that won’t let go of me.  It whispers, that like my child, I am in the process of learning to live, to trust, to become graceful and grace-filled as I lean on the One who proclaims peace, who promises miracles, who answers prayers of HELP even to the least of us; an amputee, a nutty baby ogler and a creeped out, hormonal train wreck.

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