Holy Embarrassed Valentine

 Here, on Easter Sunday 2011, is my Holy Embarrassed Valentine

This nice check out guy at Trader Joe’s asked me what I had on for the weekend and I was mortified to say that I was taking my son to church.

It’s Easter tomorrow and I have made definite plans to go to church with my child. You could knock me over with a feather.

I was raised Episcopalian(I’m so lapsed I need spellcheck to type that word) and as soon as I was in high school, I was pretty much over and out. All the mention of Him and the Lord, our Father. And this assumption that God was a guy, or identifying as a guy, just made me squint and then push me out the door.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would want to bring my child into that world. But here I am. And I mean, I am much older and more mello than during my squinting days. And I see intellectually that “The Father” is a metaphor. ( Truth to tell, I’m still not a fan of that depiction.)

However. The church I’m taking him to has a gay priest as it’s leader; there is a practicing Buddhist monk who is a parishoner. I have two good and trés cool friends who bring their families. They ring a meditation bell and there are healing circles in a side chapel during communion.

And, as a busy single parent, a place to sit down and be quiet with free childcare is nothing to sniff at.

But here is the secret reason. The VERY secret reason, I have started to investigate going to church: since I have been K’s mom, so for 5 years now, from time to time-at a very inopportune moments, I have started to feel a really connection to the stories of the life of Jesus.

I KNOW! It is so embarrassing! I am a liberal, intelligent, single mother! That’s so NOT a match with waspy, repressed Christianity.

When anyone I knew started talking about how moving the Jesus narrative is I have always rolled my eyes mercilessly (to myself, not to their face; but, then again, what’s worse?). And, over the years, I have written off some friends who tell me they are going to church. It always grossed me out a little bit. I would wonder: “why, oh why are you going to waste a perfectly good Sunday on THAT?” And I would purse my lips and shake my head. Yuck. And now I am one them! Oh my god. I can’t believe it.

Karma, man. That is what I get for judging your friends.

Note to self: hold off on pursing lips about other people’s behavior.

It started happening most violently at Christmas. K and I would be putting ornaments on the tree and I would think about Mary looking at baby Jesus in the manger and I would nearly sob outloud. Then, at the end of the kids’ Christmas Eve service, K and I are in a small Vermont church with my parents( remember? They are the still devout east coast Episcopalians. They don’t go in for overly emotional outbursts. They pretty much shake their heads and close their eyes at any kind of outbursts.) Anyway K and I are in the dark church and we are lighting each other’s candles singing ‘Silent Night’ a cappella in the hush of snow and stone and advent wreaths. And I’m sitting there with my beautiful son! And I can no longer sing because I am crying with joy and feeling…

(don’t tell any of my hip, liberal, atheist friends and family)

I’m feeling a connection to G-O-D.

All the while, I am thinking: “ I can NOT be having a religious conversion right now! This is NOT convenient. I’m probably just over-tired. Stop crying now, Darcy! K is looking at you like you are so kind of freak.”

In some ways, I get it. I get why I have been moved by some of these stories. 

It’s all about Mary.

She was a single mom! Right?

There she was IN LABOR and ON A DONKEY.

(Can you imagine breathing through some contractions riding an ass? Forget the calm music CDs and the ice chips.)

And no one will give her a fricken’ bed. I would like to have a chitchat with all those Bethlehem innkeepers.

But then she has the baby. He is a beautiful healthy boy. (The animals in the barn get it. No societal pressure to spurn the single mom…) There is a shining star in the sky that seems to appear just for her and her gorgeous boy. And I’m sure when she hears that healthy cry, she thinks-- as I did after five days of labor, a infection, an epidural and an emergency C section—but no donkey—

She thinks, “Oh, I would do it all again in a heart beat. Look at my baby boy!” ( makes me cry just writing it.)

I feel you, Mary!

Busy Valentine

SMV #11: Busy Valentine

My single parent consiglilere who is very wise-as we know; that’s the point of a consigliere-said that it’s important to figure out when you are super crisp and can’t handle the simplest of parenting tasks.

And, boy, was I crisp.

I was flat out for so long! I was cranking and busy for so long, I didn’t realize how much I needed a break.

The really beautiful thing about being busy and having a million (important) things to do, that cannot be dropped, is that when you DO get a break, and you have gotten all the work done: an organized closet, resumés sent, kindergarten applications in, syllabus and homework schedule written and delivered, and when you have been invited up and go to your friend’s country house, located in…Paradise, the not-being-busy feeling is nothing short of Joy.

The feelings of impending heaven happened even before I arrived at J’s house.  When I was well shy of the city, I inadvertently rolled down the window since it was a balmy evening and the sun was out after torrential and surprising weeks of rain. And-wow!- what an eye-opener! It smelled like new grass, wet leaves, warm flowers. I was smelling spring in the country and I started to vibrate. (With happiness, with excitement, with a calm, with relief.) Already, even though I was driving(normally my least favorite, most stressful thing I do) I was in a non-busy state, so senses are heightened.

I don’t really understand why any single, committed parents would take any hard core drugs because when you are so ITT- ATT: “In The Thick All The Time” of child-rearing, when you get a break and you get to do things alone, it feels to me like I am on one of those happy, happy, joy drugs.  Like Ecstasy. Note: I have never tried X and now I have even less curiosity about it. Seriously, being in the parenting trenches and then, doing anything alone and not on a time frame I am so over the moon I have to make sure I don’t embarrass myself.

I remember when I went to New York City alone for a few days for the first time after I was a mother and just taking the subway and seeing and realizing I didn’t have to navigate the turn-style and the tricky stairs with a stroller, brought tears of joy to my eyes.