The Divine Secret of the Ho-Ho Sisterhood

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Their husbands didn’t get it.

Lauren, Mary, Suzy, and I made plans to meet at Beth’s house near Chicago for a long April weekend. Lauren would drive in from Indianapolis, and Mary could handle the six-hour drive from St. Louis. Naturally, Suzy and I decided to make the trip to Beth’s together, from Pennsylvania.

Which is why we booked flights to St. Louis so that we could drive north to Beth’s house with Mary. Because, road trip.

This is what their husbands (and probably mine, if I had one) could not understand. It’s all about the journey.

*****

Our story really starts nearly 100 years ago.

In the early 1920s, Peter met Catherine at a church picnic. Peter was a young Ukrainian immigrant coal miner. Catherine, twelve years his junior, was the oldest daughter of Ukrainian immigrant parents.

Peter and Catherine married in 1923, and over the course of the next three decades, they had 12 children. My dad, John, was number nine. They eventually welcomed 36 grandchildren—I am number 22.

Mary and Suzy are the daughters of number eight, Patty. Lauren and Beth were born to Sonia, number ten. All five of us were born in the mid- to late-1960s, and although we’ve known each other all our lives, we were deeply into adulthood before we took the initiative to spend time together apart from the rest of our families.

*****

hostess-ho-hosLauren, Beth, and I dubbed ourselves “The Ho-Ho Sisterhood” in 2002, after an ill-advised trip to a Hostess Outlet store near Indianapolis. We had gathered at Lauren’s house to help prepare for a family reunion, and while running party-related errands, we each purchased a box full of our preferred snack cake. We then challenged each other to devour its entire contents on our way back to Lauren’s house.

None of us succeeded, although Beth insisted that she would have won the contest easily had we stopped to pick up a gallon of milk to wash them down.

We all felt a little ill, and our sides hurt. I think I managed to ingest four or five Ho-Hos—which was clearly three or four too many. But the stitch in my side had less to do with the volume of snack cakes and everything to do with the laughter.

We later inducted Mary and Suzy into the Sisterhood, minus the disgusting initiation ritual.

*****

Our inaugural Ho-Ho Sisterhood gathering at Beth’s house fell, appropriately, around April Fool’s Day.

Suzy and I ended up with a two-hour layover in Chicago’s O’Hare airport en route to meet up with Mary in St. Louis. The next day, we would drive six hours. To Chicago.

At this point, we wondered if maybe the husbands had a point.

Then we dismissed that idea. It’s all about the journey. We made this our new mantra.

But it was really all about the laughter. It started early between me and Suzy. On our boarding passes, our names were in all caps, and our first names and middle initials had been condensed into a single word. Suzy thought I was nuts when I first called her SUSANE. To this day, she calls me AMYL.

Mary picked us up at the St. Louis airport, and promptly took me to a local Urgent Care to treat my brand new sinus infection. She was the one suffering a bad head cold, which would likely have prevented her trip altogether had we not planned our group pilgrimage to Chicago.

ho-ho-sisters-trollsSUSANE and I congratulated ourselves for our combined intuition and foresight in routing our trip from Pennsylvania to Illinois through Missouri. The next morning, Mary and her box of Kleenex climbed into the backseat of her sedan, and Suzy and I took turns driving north to Beth and Lauren.

The itinerary of our weekend ended up having very little to do with Chicago. We did eventually visit the city’s IKEA store—but only after a pilgrimage to Hebron, Wisconsin, where we posed for photos with trolls and visited The Mustard Museum, where we witnessed Mary’s commencement from “Poupon U.”

We ate giant cinnamon rolls at The Machine Shed Restaurant before returning to Wisconsin to visit The Mars Cheese Castle, where an older gentleman complimented Lauren on her beautiful blue eyes. The rest of us reassured each other: “And you have eyes, too!”

Beth’s husband, David, dubbed himself the “Ho-Bro,” and graciously served as our chauffeur and photographer throughout the weekend.

In retrospect, it seems evident that we were just following the example set for us by our parents at every extended family event we ever attended. Whether a wedding, a holiday, a reunion, or even a funeral, only one element is as omnipresent at Maczuzak family gatherings as pierogies and coolers full of beer.

The laughter. It’s the lasting legacy of Peter and Catherine.

*****

 

Movie Nights

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I sometimes joke that I grew up thirty years before I was born. I was born in the early 80s, but most of my frequently watched movies and television shows are from decades earlier. As a child, my family rarely had cable, but we did have a large video collection. Most of the videos were carefully recorded from TV onto VHS tapes. Small white stickers with black numbers were dutifully placed on each tape and then entered into a handwritten index. We had indexes listing our movies both by alphabetical order and by number order.

This was mostly  my mother’s influence. She loved the old movies and the shows, many created even before her childhood. They made her laugh, and Mom has always clung to the things that bring her joy. I recently took a vacation with a friend to Niagara Falls and she honored my desire to re-visit these childhood memories by driving an hour out of the way to see a giant mural of one of Lucille Ball’s famous scenes on the side of a building in her hometown of Jamestown, NY.

Posing with a Lucy mural in Jamestown, NY. December 2015.

Posing with a Lucy mural in Jamestown, NY. December 2015.

On Friday nights in my childhood, my two brothers and I would spread our sleeping bags on the patchwork-brown linoleum in the living room for family movie night. On the kitchen table Mom and Dad would put out Breyer’s vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup, cool whip, and often some type of candy or sprinkles. We’d build our traditional Friday-Night-Sundae and sit on top of our sleeping bags — ready to laugh along as Jerry Lewis belts out a (rather catchy) song about beans in At War With The Army. Or, we would giggle for the hundredth time at Lucy and Ethel as they shoveled chocolates into their mouths. Sometimes we’d invite friends over; sometimes it was just us. There are dozens of movies (and television shows) in my head that I remember with smiles for the way they filled my childhood with laughter.  

Other times, we’d watch the movies late into the night. My parents would delay bedtime and press play on an old favorite because the night was special. Once, I was laying on the couch, my head in my mother’s lap as she raked her fingers through my bangs. We were watching one of Martin and Lewis’ movies. I would glance up every time I heard her laugh to see the light in her eyes. There were days that it was hard for Mom to smile. Days where Depression did its best to keep her isolated and numb. But there were other days that stretched into the night where joy, and laughter, were present. Those were nights we celebrated and embraced the joy.

I used to wonder why we didn’t watch the movies on the sad days, so that they would bring the laughter. It took me into my young adult years to understand that the laughter came on the late nights because the clouds lifted, not because the movies penetrated them.

This Christmas my younger brother and I stood in our parents’ hallway and scanned the movie collection, laughing in recognition at some of our old favorites. Much of the family gathered around the television and put in Dean Jones’ Snowball Express (Dad’s favorite) and we all laughed along as Jones flew backwards down the mountain, on skis. A few days later we pulled out North Avenue Irregulars to keep us awake as we counted down to the New Year. Mom and my brother had tears in their eyes from their laughter as Cloris Leachman rammed her car into a mobster who had caused her to break her newly-manicured nails.  

Those late night movie watching parties where Mom joined us in the laughter are treasured memories, but as an adult I think the work of joy is more evident in the every-Friday-night routine. Mom set up that routine and maintained it. Despite her own struggles, she made sure there was joy and laughter in the house for her kids. A joy that still pays off for us all these years later.

 

***************************************

Nicole bio YAH

A Goose in Church

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“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!”, my platinum blonde friend, Christine squealed in a loud, surprised pitch. Four of us us were standing in a wooden pew when her cry erupted.  

It had been a fairly normal day in our world. Donors dropping off supplies; volunteers stopping in to complete projects; the pregnant women heading in various directions for classeSt marys phxs and appointments. We were all live-in volunteers in a community for homeless pregnant women a few blocks away and attending noontime daily Mass was one strategy for coping with the high-drama environment. Those who were available piled into the broken-down car that was used for errands and dashed into “our spot” in the expansive downtown church a few minutes away.

The abbreviated daily Mass progressed, as usual, through the various stages: the reading of Scripture, a brief reflection, the Eucharistic prayers. During the Our Father, we held hands as we joined together in the rhythmic words that spoke of what sustained us: “Give us this day Thy daily bread” and “Forgive us our trespasses.”  

 Our hands dropped to our side as we said “Amen.” The priest invited us to turn to neighbors and offer the customary sign of peace, a ritual reminder to reconcile with our brothers and sisters whenever needed. As friends and housemates, we offered one another a warm hug, not simply the standard handshake.

At my side, CRay-Ban-Sunglasses-Specials-Summer-2015-For-Men-Women-1hristine had a glamorous flair. Her nails were freshly painted and sunglasses were perched on top of her head. I offered my curvy and boisterous roommate an embrace. As our arms released and she turned to the person next to her, I noticed her sunglasses slipping down the back of her head.

With overeager helpfulness, I lunged to catch the sunglasses and rescue them on their descent downward to the floor.

But, I’ve never been a great catch.

Instead of the glasses, I caught a fleshy handful of her buttocks, in a pointedly vulnerable area.

The sunglasses clattered on the hard cement floor.

She squealed and grasped her backside.

I blushed and muttered a few uncomfortable sounds.

Mass continued.

For a few moments, we suppressed our giggles and twitterings, attempting to think holy thoughts and avoid eye contact. The pressure mounted.

I pressed my hand into my mouth and tried to take in a deep breath, kneeling with my head bowed and gazing at the curve of the pew in front of me. As the holy words echoed around the walls of the Church– “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”– and the priest reverently raised the Blessed Host high above his head, the laughter erupted out of me.  

I squawked the odd noise of laughter attempting to be contained.

Once noise was emitted, Christine lost control as well.

In this most sacred of moments, we sputtered and croaked, desperately trying to stop but unable to regain the prayerful silence proper to the moment.  

Our efforts to contain the hilarity only spurred it onward. One small noise sent the other into fits and starts. Christine’s face turned red from the efforts to hold the laughter in, and happy tears ran down my face. Other people in the Church glanced at us out of the corner of their eyes, trying to understand what was happening without turning their heads.

We did battle with our laughter through the remaining minutes of Mass.

As it blessedly came to an end, we were released from the hold of sacred silence in holy space.  We pressed our weight into the large door at the back of the Church and walked into the light of street life and bright sunshine.

Among the small group of women gathered on the elevated landing, the clucking began:  storytelling, teasing, retelling, analyzing.  

And the release of happy laughter.

geese

 

 

mary bio YAH

She Will Grow on Laughter

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When my mother was pregnant with my older sister, she was a visiting nurse. She drove around Aurora, Illinois in her blue Plymouth Horizon, stopping at the Dairy Queen drive through on the way home from work. She’d slurp banana milk shakes while listening to the instrumental theme from St. Elmo’s Fire.

While pregnant with me, she chased around my toddling sister. She exercised weekly at a local Christian workout class called “Believercise.” That is, until mom lunged too far, causing significant bleeding; the doctor ordered at least a week of bedrest. She had to pee in a bucket, another reason she’s the best mom of all time. In her third trimester, she survived summer days by scarfing down dripping slices of watermelon, a fruit I still consider to be one of my favorites.

There’s something sacred and terrifying about the way babies go wherever their mothers go. They eat the same foods, hear the same noises, and even pump the same blood. They can benefit or be harmed from the womb they inhabit, which is why pregnant women aren’t supposed to eat Subway or drink cocktails. Now that I’m pregnant, I worry my tiny has been anchored to a sinking ship.

You see, I’m not the best at being pregnant.  

For half my pregnancy, my body rejected prenatal vitamins. I either vomited them up in fits of sweats and shivers, or they seared my esophagus with heartburn, fighting their way down the digestive tract. Everyone offered solutions, chewables, more organic options, and even a liquid green sludge that needed chased down with orange juice, but all produced the same result.

My first trimester, I survived on a diet of brown sugar Pop Tarts and Barq’s root beer. When I tried to joke with others about my nutrition free diet, they looked at me like a candidate for a morning talk show featuring teen moms who aren’t fit to be mothers. Giving nervous laughs, their countenance seemed to ask, “should you be joking about this?”IMG_1291

People ask if I’m excited, and I choke out the right kinds of answers. When I was younger, I pictured myself wearing pregnancy like a veil of honor, rosy cheeks and a delightful little bump showing under a flowy peasant blouse, but it turns out, I’m not the glowing kind of pregnant.

Some days I’m a nauseous, sweaty animal, sprouting a new layer of acne on my back; on these days, it’s hard to put how I feel into a pleasant statement. Instead, I lead with my signature defensive humor and make offhand comments about the anti-depressants that I continue to take while pregnant. “I would drink an occasional glass of wine, but I figure the baby already gets the Zoloft,” I say with a wink and a nudge.

This punchline hangs in the air for a few moments of painful silence before I try to reel it back in, “but you know, the doctors are monitoring the baby, and I got a special ultrasound, and…” This is when the nice person who asked me about how I’m feeling smiles through anxious eyes and clenched teeth, nodding their head to try and keep things polite.

But among all the things that I know I’m already doing wrong as a mother, I’ve come to enjoy bringing the baby to the places I go. I may not do great with leafy green veggies, but my baby will grow on laughter.

My baby’s momma is a comedian. I perform in Chicago as a comedic improviser, staging twenty five minute pieces with seven to nine teammates. My three teams perform at several different theatres around the city, which averages out to two or three shows a week.IMG_2428

I take her with me to the bar for a drink with my teammates after a tough show with low audience attendance, trading in my gin and tonics for Shirley Temples and diet Roy Rogers. She gets the consoling pats on the back my castmates offer me, and I imagine they reverberate through my body and hit her like a wave of Vitamin D.

I take her on the stage to the sound of a quickening slow clap, which she must think is for her. Receiving biweekly applause has to be good for brain development. She goes with me into rehearsal rooms where we shriek, snort, and guffaw at each other’s moves. She’s the unseen tenth player on stage, kicking to be noticed during my scene work. I often hold my belly when I laugh, as if to make sure we’re both awake to the blessing of these joy filled spaces.

She is with me when we’re the only women on stage. As my body changes to hold her growing form, we shapeshift into diverse characters with their own points of view and treasure troves of specifics. On one night, I played a petite daughter stowed away in her father’s suitcase. I crouched low, tightening my body into a ball to simulate the cramped quarters and the baby tucked in to the warm curve of my body.

When I worry about the way my depression must seep into the womb, tears dripping through the umbilical cord and sorrow carried through my bloodstream, I revel in a night where I’m out late at a cabaret table, watching my heroes and friends on stage. Many of us are deeply sad people, but for a night, we are artists and poets who have discovered the hilarious underbelly to the tragedy.

So I’m glad  that as my baby grows to the size of various vegetables, that she is growing up with laughter, that her adopted aunts and uncles are some of the funniest people in Chicago.

When I fail in so many ways that I lose count, I know the baby must know well the vibrations of her mama’s laughter, punctuated with my drawn out snorts and the fog horn blats I let out when laughter catches me unexpectedly.

I cherish this special time when I take the stage with a tiny teammate. As my friends and I wait in the wings to make our entrance, we participate in the ritual of assuring one another, we’ve got each other’s backs. I place my palms over my growing belly and say to my girl, “We’ve got this WIlla.” Together we laugh and make others laugh, and for a moment in time, we have everything we need.

***

Meredith-bio-YAH-1024x327

 

Laughing At The Future

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2015 was a hard year. Every time I say this, sitting on her lime green vinyl couch, my therapist reminds me to look at it through a lens of growth, from the perspective of someone a little further down the road from those moments that made it especially hard. When I put on her glasses, I see a woman who has traveled from full-time work without margin or a moment to breathe (or work on the book people keep asking her about) to the person I am today, who proudly calls herself a writer when people ask her what she does.

I made some important and terrifying decisions in 2015. My heart was broken. I fell back in love with my hometown. I went to a wedding on a first date. All I wanted to do in the cold heart of December was curl up and sleep until it was brighter again.

In the silence and the gloom, I began to hear a whisper of my own voice from long ago. I often wish that some parts of my religious education were different, but I am thankful for all those verses I memorized “word perfect” including these words from Proverbs 31, which speak of a woman of valor: “she can laugh at the days to come” (Proverbs 31:25b). I could still hear it echoing through the brightly-lit gym with the orangey-brown carpet.

I have wrestled with the great to-do list the church placed on my shoulders through that chapter, learning only recently that it is sung each week in Jewish homes, a way of praising the unseen acts of women who work hard, often for little reward.

As it occurs to me, I turn it over in my mind, thinking about the year that stretches before me, looking bright and new and full of possibilities, just as 2015 did, just as 2015 indeed was. Can I laugh at these days to come? I wonder.

Laughing at the FutureOnce this thought finds a home, my mind wanders back to Sarah, Abraham’s wife back in Genesis. God promised her a son in her old age and she laughed. As soon as I make the connection, I can’t believe I’ve never made it before. Sarah laughed at the days to come. She laughs because it seems impossible, and because everything is ruined. Her husband has a son already, because she took matters into her own hands, sending in her slave to further the family line. Things are in a mess. She is not laughing with confidence, but with disbelief.

“Is anything too wondrous for the Lord?” He asks.

Sometimes I sit in my therapist’s office and tell her that I feel like nothing will change. I’ll never meet someone I want to spend my life with, I’ll never measure up to my own standards of success, I’ll never beat my anxiety, or learn to forgive so it sticks. Lately, when these thoughts rise in my mind they are quickly countered with: is anything too wondrous for the Lord? And I begin to cry.

So this year, I’ve decided to practice making a home in laughter. I’m going to laugh wildly, and through tears and frustration and doubt. I’m going to laugh at silly TV comedies and British chick lit and with my friends and their kids. I want the laughter to wrap around me like a house or a cloak, a carapace to protect me from the elements. I’m going to laugh at what the days to come might bring and at what is set before me. I’m going to hope that the future will hear me coming, and will start laughing with me. I’m going to trust that even when I laugh at the promises of God because it feels like nothing will ever change, it doesn’t make the promises less true. The wondrous comes anyway.

cara YAH bio

In Which the People are the Place

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It’s been going on for six years. The ten of us, five married couples, congregate from all over Lancaster County and gather at one of our houses for dinner. Or we meet at a restaurant. Or, like we did last Christmas, we all find our way to some underground concert venue in Center City, Philadelphia to hear Over the Rhine. I can’t remember whose idea that was, but it will certainly go down as one of the best dinner clubs ever. It doesn’t seem to matter where we go, because it’s always the same crew, and I’m learning that sometimes the people become the place.

It’s been going on for six years, almost every month, and there’s a kind of depth that time bestows on relationships, a kind of depth that can’t be microwaved. In the consistency of our gathering, seed after seed has been planted. We began in the awkward mask-wearing phase, only allowing others to see what we put forward. But then, suddenly, we were celebrating together. And grieving together. Layer after layer and before you know it, six years later, when I enter the place we are meeting and everyone is there, I feel an immense sigh of relief.

I can relax. These are my people.

Photo by Sanderson Images

Photo by Sanderson Images

* * * * *

Another thing that comes with time is laughter, loud laughter, the kind that has you waking up the next morning with sore abdominal muscles. The problem with choosing to conduct this dinner club in public is that our laughter, it can be rather…shall we say…boisterous.

* * * * *

We all stop talking and pay attention. It’s time for a story.

One of our friends tells us of his groundhog problem. They’re destroying his yard, leaving huge gaping wounds in his fields. So he wandered into a local Amish hardware store in search of a good groundhog trap.

That will work, he thought to himself.

My friend arrived home and realized he didn’t know how to set the trap, so he turned to the fount of all wisdom.

Youtube.

Soon he’s intently watching a hillbilly video (complete with banjo strumming in the background) in which a long-bearded, barefoot man illustrates the proper way to set that very same kind of groundhog trap. My friend’s kids gather around, drawn by the intrigue of the trap and the volume of the banjo picking.

Step one, step two, step three…my friend follows the man through the process of constructing the trap. This is good. This will work. Soon he has the trap opened into a cube shape. The man tells him to make sure the safety pin is in. My friend searches the inside of the trap for a safety pin.

That Amish guy didn’t give me the safety pin, he mumbles to himself, prying around inside the trap. Suddenly, the metal slams closed, down on his hands, trapping him in the trap. His kids stare at him, their eyes wide open. Excruciating pain shoots from his smashed fingers and all the way up his arms. He tries to hold in the obscenities. His children stare at him, not sure how to respond.

He trapped himself.

Groundhog, 1. My friend, 0.

* * * * *

Maybe some friends would exhibit a greater amount of sympathy – after all, he could have lost a finger in that trap. I’m sure the pain was unbearable. But what did the nine of us do?

We absolutely lost it with laughter. I cry when I laugh hard, and tears streamed down my face. We hooted and hollered and clapped him on the back at his misfortune. And in that laughter, that story, another fine layer added depth to the friendships around the table. Another shared piece of history. Another moment.

* * * * *

The place where we meet always changes, but the people are the same. I guess a lot of times the people are the place, probably more often than not. It’s something I’m learning, as life takes me and my family from here to there.

The people are the place.

shawn bio YAH

Potty Talk

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It was 2008, and I was in the bathroom stall again, my infant daughter balanced on my lap and my fully-clothed bottom perched on the edge of the toilet seat. I was not fully clothed on top–the entire point of this awkward visit. It was nursing time at the zoo.

Visiting the zoo was not a treat, but a tool of my sanity called “Get out of the house with the baby whenever possible.” At home, I was more likely to surrender; at home, I was more likely to start crying and not know how to stop. But not at the zoo. At the zoo, I held it together thanks to sunshine, distraction, and the presence of strangers.

There was no crying in front of strangers.

But also out of bounds in public–at least for self-conscious me–was wrestling with a hungry baby under a poorly-designed nursing cover. After a few close calls, my baby’s public meals took place in public bathroom stalls.

The ones at the zoo were the worst. First, they smelled like what they were–an endless parade of dirty diapers, muddy shoes, and children still learning to flush. Second, the tiny stalls were not made for multiple people. With all the balancing and odd angles, nursing was a circus feat–tightrope and clown car combined, heightened with the aroma of elephants.  

But smelly and crowded were small annoyances compared to the noise. The zoo had recently installed a super-vortex, skin-stretching hand-dryer, and every time that darn thing went off, my daughter would jerk her head toward the roar, and I would yelp in pain. (She was, after all, attached to a rather sensitive part of my body.) Scrambling to keep her head from hitting the toilet paper holder, I would nearly lose my perch.

It was all so ridiculous, it was laughable. But I didn’t laugh. I cried, and nursed, and cried some more. I cried until we were both done, and then I stared hard at the ground as we left the stall. I stared hard at the sink as I quickly dabbed my eyes with a wet paper towel. I didn’t want anyone to know.

There was no crying in front of strangers.

* * * * *

By the spring of 2010, I needed a double stroller at the zoo. A friend watched my toddler while I visited the stalls with the new baby, or I used the nursing cover. I didn’t care so much about the stares of strangers anymore–I had two kids under the age of three, darnit. Stare away. Thanks to a year of intensive counseling, a low dose of anti-depressants, and a second baby who slept much more than the first, my postpartum depression was abating.

The clouds were beginning to lift.

One day, someone asked me how I was doing, and I was surprised to hear these words come from my mouth: “Being a mother is no doubt the hardest thing that I have ever done. But I laugh, multiple times, every single day. It’s what keeps me going.”And it was true. I was laughing again. In the haze, I had barely noticed.

* * * * *

In 2013 both of my girls were weaned and potty-trained, but we were still crowding into bathroom stalls.

“I said first!” my youngest proclaimed one day, rightly,5272628825_4fee6a975f_o but her sister had already dropped her pants and planted herself on the toilet. I glared at her, “Just hurry up, okay?” My youngest recovered quickly, as she does, and crouched on the bathroom floor–she wanted to see the shoes of the person in the next stall. “Stop it!” I warned, “and don’t you dare touch that floor! I told you bathroom floors are dirty!”

My temperature was rising quickly, especially when I noticed big sister settling in with “number two,” which often took more than ten minutes. “Oh dear Lord,” I thought with some desperation, “Let the person in the next stall finish quickly.”

No such luck. The person in the next stall had also settled in, and I know this because my youngest suddenly announced “Mama! The lady next door has loud pooping! Did you hear it?”

She did not register the look of horror on my face as she looked up, waiting for my answer as if she was just making polite conversation. “Shh!!!!!!” I hissed at her, the force of my breath attempting to blow this humiliating moment away. “Shh!!!!” I wanted to run, to never leave the house again, perhaps to disappear completely.

And then I heard it. No, not the ‘loud pooping’, but giggling in the next stall. Giggling, and then laughing. And then my children were laughing, and I was laughing, and we were all laughing together in the two-stall bathroom. The ‘lady next door’ washed her hands and left, still giggling, but we stayed together, and the girls switched places. When our laughter subsided, my cheeks were damp.   

“Mama, are you crying?” I shook my head, but this wasn’t the whole truth. Sometimes, even in a bathroom stall, you laugh until you cry. And sometimes you cry until you laugh.

* * * * *

jen bio YAH

Potty photo by Keoni Cabral on Creative Commons

The Bride and the Maid of Honor

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I watched from a few feet away, holding her bouquet of gray lavender roses, as she gazed into his eyes and said those sacred words of promise, “I do.”

It was the destination wedding that we had daydreamed about years earlier, laughing and letting thoughts run wild. I had trouble going too far into my hopes for the future, but she was clear: a refined wedding, intimate with only a small group of friends and family. Now, in the glorious splendor of the Colorado mountains, her dream had just come true.

In our first days of college, she turned to me and extended her hand, “Hi, I’m Sheri.” Her eyes sparkled with confidence and energy.  

Mass was over and people were in small groups chatting. I had been trying to shyly sneak out the side door when she caught my eye. “Hey,” I replied, fumbling a bit, ”I’m Mary.”  

“Oh!!!” she replied with a small squeal, “Sheri! Mary! They rhyme! We should do dinner!”

“Hmmmm, yah, okay.”

And so it began.  

In the dark basement of the student union, she chatted freely. Basketball. Classes. The dorm. And, she did her best to draw me out. Home. My major. The university. I was a bit taken aback by the dynamism of her personality and sat deep in my chair, a bit shell-shocked. But that dinner connected us, the first link.  

Soon, we were meeting up to walk to Mass together and dinner afterward became a norm.  Eventually, we started to talk about very real things, storing each other’s thoughts and pains in the vault of friendship.  

Among the things that I learned at college, Sheri taught me how to be a friend.

As the years passed and our friendship remained, I gained the confidence to refer to her as my “best friend.” I was honored and humbled when she asked me to be her maid of honor, but in reality, it wasn’t much of a surprise.

As she prepared for her wedding, I enjoyed getting regular updates, hearing about the details as they unfolded. There were a few mini-dramas planning a wedding a few states away, and I listened attentively as the bumps got smoothed out. The right paperwork got into the hands of the deacon, the cake baker started returning phone calls, and the awkward conversations about the abbreviated invitation list were carefully handled.

Somewhere in the process, a thought began to irritate me, a tiny sliver under my skin that kept pricking me during the joyous preparations, even though I tried to ignore it:  What would marriage mean for our friendship?  It was right and good that he was now the one to plan things with, the one to hold her hurts and dreams. Would I still have a place?

I made light of this tiny fear, raising my glass to toast the newlyweds at their reception. In front of all the guests, I presented her husband with official recognition that he was now entitled the title “best friend.”  I would retain the rights to the girly stuff.  

I gave that toast a little over a year ago, an eventful year of Friendship Cardups and downs.  A year of phone calls sharing good news and tears.  A year of advice as decisions were made and support as hard times were confronted.  A year of visits and gifts and travel.

The stuff of gold, our friendship remains:  a relationship with history and weight, with vulnerability and trust. The sliver of doubt which nagged me during wedding preparations is gone, the tiny wound has healed. My place is secure. In becoming one, Mick has been joined into our bond of friendship.  He is a wonderful man–gentle, insightful, authentic. He loves Sheri and I love him for it.

Last week, I sat on the couch of their living room and held their first-born daughter, less than three days old. She was perfect, a truly beautiful baby. Her limbs were still curled up as if she were contained, the occasional stretch exploring new-found room. They recounted her birth story, filled with the intimate details that you only share with a tight knit group.

Sheri Mick MaryThey are calling her “Lizzie”, in short for Elizabeth Marie.

I asked about the process for choosing her name.  In the confiding voice of a long-time friend, Sheri leaned her head just so and said, “Mick loved the name….and when he learned it was your middle name, he said, ‘Even better!’”

With silent joy, warmth filled my heart.  Tracing my finger down Lizzie’s cheek, there was no doubt.

Love multiplies.

***

mary bio YAH

While We’re Renting

Posted on by under Finding Place

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Old houses have a way of making themselves dirty, they crumble pieces of rusty radiators and cracking tile grout. My husband and I rent a place like this. In beams of sunlight, I can track fuzzy dust trails intertwined with all kinds of hairs and particles from disintegrating flooring. Clumps cling to the baseboards and slip under doorways, blown by invisible air currents.

After living here for well over a year, certain quirks get my particular attention. I can get quite distracted by the kitchen flooring, a 1980s white linoleum that turns mop heads and rags black, even on the tenth scrub. The dirt captured by its textured surface has been sealed in by grease and time, yielding just enough to fool me into thinking I’ve made progress by attacking it on hands and knees.

Under the cabinets, the edge of the linoleum curls up, a page of history begging to be turned. Splattered, brown grime creeps up in the crevice between the base of the cabinets and the well-worn flooring. This inevitably sends me into panic, a deep heaving, sweaty fear of mold and the other things that lurk in nooks and crannies.

We have made small improvements on the house, ones that seem appropriate for those only leasing the property. There’s the shower; I cried the first time I used it. We worked for hours with an X-ACTO knife to remove the floral grips someone had stuck on the floor of the tub now outlined with black and dark shades of green. Drew squirted a squiggly line of caulk over the deep crack between the tub and shower wall.

IMG_2120We tackled the back porch in the spring, removing the calico of welcome mats and rugs covering the floor and stapling down a single sheet of indoor/outdoor carpeting. We’ve replaced the light fixture in the bathroom, painted a yellow stripe around the wall in the dining room, and hung some heavy shelves on the plaster walls. And yet, sometimes even our elbow grease seems too much to give to this place that isn’t ours. The landlord seems determined to run his property into the ground, which is working because some of the house is literally sinking.

I tire of the sense that I live a collapsible life, the kind I’ve lived since leaving for college. My existence feels cobbled together from Swedish-named IKEA parts, propped up picture frames, and other signs that I will leave each room without a trace.

We will be renting for a long time. Financial experts have advised some millennials to never buy at all, offering online calculators and formulas to figure out if owning property makes sense in their financial bracket and geographical location.

But, I was raised to want land. I’m a midwestern girl, descended from European immigrants clamoring for a new start and middle American farmers who didn’t have running water, but owned a homestead and a clump of pear trees. The residue of my ancestors’ dreams still course through my veins, and before we go to bed each night, I speak of a future home like a promised land: “When we own a house someday…”

And now a baby is entering into this equation, and I’m more lost than ever. In the early days of sickness and fatigue, I’d lie in bed unable to tend to the everyday messes of dishes and dirty clothes. I watched shows on television where families knocked down walls and pried up carpet floors, installing subway tile backsplashes and farm basin sinks.

I’d walk into our kitchen holding my breath to avoid the odor of the rotting vegetables going to waste from our CSA due to the preferences of my nausea-riddled stomach. I couldn’t even take care of this place, it’s crumbs growing greater than its charms. I resisted planning the nursery. I resisted the stacks of paper and piles of former teaching supplies. I refused to make this home.

But a few weeks ago, a dear professor passed away at forty two, reminding me that we are all renters on this earth, exiles planting gardens and pouring cement foundations for temporary shelters. The night after Dr. Foster died, I moved closer to Drew in our bed, suddenly feeling like this might be our last moment on earth.IMG_1556

I realized how much I’ve held myself back from the places I’ve rented, refusing to be wasteful with transient things. But perhaps, in doing so, I’ve been truly wasteful, letting days and years slip through my fingers.

I lay my palm across Drew’s chest and in his sleep, he lays his palm over mine. I feel his inhale and exhale of breath. Home is here, this bed could be anywhere.

Why do I worry about the peeling linoleum or whether it’s worth it to paint the walls grey? Moving is in the future, now we are here, now I’m feeling Drew’s heartbeat and hearing the faint beginnings of his snoring. Part of me wants to stay up all night, feeling life in my love, but my pregnant body grows tired of my left side.

I pry my hand from his sleepy grip and turn over, now listening for the rise and fall of my own breathing. As I drift off to sleep, time seems such a fleeting thing, and I resolve to make this our home, even if it feels like we’re squatters.

Let’s dig a hole in the back yard, I think,  and lose our security deposit because we danced so much on the floors they’ve bowed under the weight of our living and breathing. Let’s carve our names in the closet and leave the baby’s height etched into a doorway. Let someone else paint over our memories, let them last for a second as we throw the dust of this life as confetti.

 

***

Meredith bio YAH

This Is Not My Home, But I Hope It Will Be Yours

Posted on by under Finding Place

This is our fifth year in Columbus, OH and among the various tasks I’ve taken on in this city, perhaps the strangest one is greeting people on their way into our church.

I used to dread driving through Columbus during my 12-hour sojourn to college. I passed through the rolling Appalachians, the hills of eastern Ohio, and then the relentless flat that dominates central Ohio.

downtown-columbus-ohio-1331979-638x455As I wove my way through the interchanges of Columbus before hitting the farmland again, I often wondered how anyone in their right mind would want to live surrounded by concrete and corn in a flat landscape bereft of salt water and mountain peaks. Twenty-somethings sure can be opinionated despite the limited perspective of the highway and a few years of life experience.

These days I call Columbus, Ohio my home—at least for now. I never thought I would say that. My wife’s career path landed us in Columbus for a temporary time that is quickly drawing to a close.

When I hold the door open for families once a month at church, it’s as if I’m a foreigner who helps others settle down and find their places. I’m a foreigner who didn’t choose to live here, who has struggled to find his place, and who knows he’ll be moving on soon. Yet I welcome families with small children, young couples, and blended families of every shape and size to a place where I hope they’ll feel comfortable staying, even if my mind is frequently occupied with our eventual leaving.

This morning our kids weren’t in full-on revolt, so I left my wife at home to get them out the door on her own, while I headed to church early to pray with the other greeters and pastors. We are interceding for an elementary school-aged child in our church who had a rough week in school, and we pray that she’ll have peace, courage, and good friends. We also pray for a resolution with her teachers.

While we pray, my mind is still trying to get past the struggle of getting my three-year-old son into his church clothes that morning, and then I begin to wonder where he’ll go to school next fall and if he’ll have a difficult transition. It probably won’t be in Columbus. Perhaps he’ll finally get past his pajama obsession by then.

“I want to wear my pajamas to church!” He shouted at me while I held out khaki corduroys and a plaid shirt. He would never leave the house in anything other than his fleece pajamas if we didn’t beg, barter, and bribe him to wear clothes. Reluctant though he is to let us inch the zipper down and unsnap the button at the top, the promise of switching back to his pajamas after church placates him.

Our pastor has been praying for the struggling girl while I’ve been trapped inside my own head with fleece pajamas. If anything, I need to go to church in order to be challenged to move beyond my own difficulties and concerns. My worries about my child’s future is someone’s struggle today. I also fight to find time to greet because I’m trying to see people eye to eye, face to face, when my work day in, day out, involves computer screens, social media profiles, and brief bursts of video.

There are many reasons why I have struggled to feel at home in Columbus. It’s not just my prejudice about landscape. It’s about a season of life where money, time, sleep, and just about everything else appear to be in short supply. We have two small children, two careers in transition, and days that are always scheduled to the minute. I wouldn’t change a thing about my work or my family. It’s just the season we’ve been in for these five years of transition, but it sure has been hard to be present for others.

*******

church-doors-1524762-639x852As the greeters set out to our assigned posts, I’m the lone greeter for the main parking lot. Twigs shoved into the doors prop them open.

A single mom with a pack of boys leads the charge up the steps, and they flash through the door before I can get a word in. A young couple I have yet to formally meet despite attending for years follows, ducking past my greeting. I finally catch the eyes of the next few couples, and we chat before they run off to keep track of their kids.

Oftentimes I try to keep things short, especially with the elementary school-aged kids.

“Hey, I love that super hero shirt!” I say to one young boy.

“Are you a ballet dancer?” I ask a girl in a tutu.

I interact on Facebook with quite a few people from our church, but some only engage in conversation with me when I’m a greeter, which is one of the stranger aspects of of our brave new world of social media and in-person Christian community. While greeting I also have a chance to follow up with the people from our church I run into during the week at the clunky, neglected cafe where I work each afternoon because of its big windows that let in the warm sun even if the coffee is usually lukewarm.

Two young women approach with a young girl, and they keep their eyes down and away. I struggle over how welcoming to be. I’m pretty sure they’re new, but I’m not certain. Truth be told, I’m an introvert, and the only thing that makes greeting possible is that I can overcome my social anxiety by embracing my “role” as a greeter. I’m not naturally gifted at drawing people out, and I don’t want them to feel pressure to be friendly.

“Welcome!” I say. “We’re so glad you’re here. There’s coffee just down the hall.”

They meet my gaze, nod politely, and walk in. I’m immediately seized with regret that I mentioned coffee and not the children’s church check in table.

I welcome a few more families, but I keep wondering how those young women are getting along. Did they find the children’s check in table? Is someone talking to them? Are they in New Church Hell where everyone seems to know everyone else?

Ten minutes into the service, I swing by the coffee table for a refill before tracking down my wife and kids. I arrive at the precise moment that one of the young women steps out of the auditorium with her daughter. She’s looking around—a bit confused, but she relaxes when we make eye contact.

“I don’t think I’ll get too much out of the service if my daughter stays with me,” she says. “Do you have something for kids?”

“We certainly do,” I say. “I’m sorry I didn’t mention that before. Here, I’ll show you the way and introduce you.”

We set off for the check in table, and in that moment I pray that she will feel like there’s a place for her at our church. In the back of my mind, there’s a moving van in my not-too-distant future, and a very unsettled notion that this isn’t necessarily my place—I’m not sure if it ever has been. It’s been a far better place than I would have expected for this season, but the door on this season is closing even as I walk this woman and her daughter toward the check in table.

How strange it is to welcome someone to a place that you’re waiting to leave.

 

*******Ed bio YAH