Last week I pulled Dorothy Sayers' Gaudy Night off my shelves and began to reread it.  It's been so long since I read it that I can't remember whodunit.  Last time I read it for the mystery; I came back to it this time for the love story.  But what I am reading is neither mystery nor love story-- I am reading instead the story of a woman who is trying to reconcile brains and heart  (her words).  This theme runs through the book overtly: in conversations between Harriet (the Oxford alumna cum novelist) and the females dons in her college-- and in Harriet's musings; and covertly, in the portrayals of all the women in the book. 

One passage that struck me particularly is a conversation between Harriet and a fellow alumna, a talented scholar, who had married a farmer and left the academic life.  She describes herself as a razor used as a plough, and now has found herself too dull to be a razor any more.  There is a striking passage as well about the farmer's wife's thoughts about the nobility of farming, and Harriet's response: "I'm quite prepared to admit that... A ploughshare is a nobler object than a razor.  But if your natural talent is for barbering, wouldn't it be better to be a barber, and a good barber-- and use the profits (if you like) to speed the plough?  However grand the job may be , is it your job?"

It fits my melancholy mood regarding my work (not to mention my time on the CSA).  For many years, I have been torn between my work as a physician and my calling as a wife and mother.  They are both calls, both gifts, both noble duties.  I wonder sometimes if I am the razor, used as a plough-- or a plough who tried to be a razor. 

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Okay, I know many of you love Facebook.

And I've tried, I really have.  But Facebook and I... we'll, we just don't understand each other.

As an example of our incompatibility, I offer this recent true story:

Several weeks ago I tried again to make Facebook my own.  I sat down with my cup of tea and worked on updating my profile.  I thought I'd add some photos and connect my profile to my husband's-- stuff many of you do without even a second thought.

So I click on Married, and it gave me the option to link to any of my friends, and I type S-A-- and there, Sam pops up.  Hooray.  I think I'm clicking on Sam.  I hit save, and it suddenly says I'm now married to my friend Sandra, and Facebook will just have to confirm this with Sandra...

Eek.  So I try to unclick Sandra, to no avail.  It turns out I have change my marital status to Single in order to fix the error... and then I went back through the whole thing again to marry Sam.  And then it told all my friends that I had changed my marital status to single, and then back to married.

Hence, a flurry of concerned calls to the house to ask what had happened here.

Well.

Facebook is not my friend.

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"Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never be seen."

-- Robert Bresson

What are you creating right now?  What will be seen because of your hands, your creativity, your faithfulness?

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This little guy (or gal?) appeared in our bush one morning... listening for worms, perhaps, or two tired after a first flight?  We watched him for a bit, as he watched us.  Then he reappeared after supper (ours and his, I hope) on the porch.  He left me a little prize on the rail.  We looked him up and think he's a juvenile robin.

A year ago, "looking up" a bird would have been totally impossible for me.  But this guy's body shape happened to resemble a robin.  So I looked up the robin, and there he was.  I'm trying to learn the different shapes of the bird families (eg., thrush, water birds, etc.) so I can narrow down my search through the bird book. 

Little by little.  My education is all in baby steps.

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Not a lot on this list either-- again, I think it points to the fact that so much fo my life is organized around my children's needs that this list needs to be about my growth.  But there are a few things here that I have wanted to do for some time, to be intentional about our family life, but that keep slipping down on the priority list. 

 Blessing the Children

38. Build a play fort

39. Write in their journals at least once a month (I'm getting better at this now)

40. Write goals for children’s habits w/ their help

41. Write plan for achieving goals

42. Dates (at least 6/year) (we've done three for each child so far this year)

43. Cook with J weekly (not quite weekly yet)

44. Play with M alone daily (falling off the wagon on this one)

45. Do a project with O weekly (why do all his projects have to have food coloring in them?)

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All right, I'm exaggerating.  I'm not really in an existential crisis.  But...

I recently reconnected with a friend from high school.  I heard NPR mention an upcoming interview with him.  We hadn't spoken since college, so I googled him and sent him an email to tell him how happy I was to hear of his success.  I didn't expect to hear back from him, but he emailed.  At the end of his note, he asked, "Are you a doctor?"

Well, yes, I am.  But that's so not who I am that Iwasn't even sure how to answer him.

How do I condense into a paragraph the winding path that turned me from full-time doctor into homeschooling mom of four?  So much of my life is about process right now, that I don't know how to talk about it.  How do I explain that I'm a doctor but may not remain one, that I'm just working at it until I can sort through the trauma of being sued for malpractice?  How do I explain that eighty percent of each day right now is about training my four year-old not to have tantrums?  How do I explain that the best part of my life these days is what I'm learning as I hand-copy Genesis?

So maybe I'm having a little bit of existential crisis.  Or maybe I'm living so much in the moment-- in the process-- right now, that the me-that-loves-results-and-outcomes doesn't really know what to do with myself.

Guess it's back to the carpet lines. 

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I've been knitting a lot (for me, that is).  I made a few washcloths in February.  Now I'm working on the Christmas stockings.  This week I completed the fourth.  Halfway done!  I'm really enjoying it.  Now I'm looking ahead to the cardigan I'm going to knit myself... someday.  So to gear up, my friend Heidi suggested I "practice" on a child's sweater.

I've been surfing Ravelry to find the right thing to make.  I thought about making the Baby Sweater on Two Needles, but it's really a baby sweater... and I think I maybe should knit one for my soon-to-be-five year old.  I think she'll appreciate it more, and then two girls will get to wear it eventually.  I'm thinking about Swing Thing, from little turtle designs, only in purple (my girl loves purple!).

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34. Get the children’s passports so we can travel

35. Attend a conference with Sam (+/- kids)

36. Take him to a musical twice yearly (3/09)

37. Dates each month (1/09, 2/09, 3/09)

38. Send him on short term missions trip (we're planning this for the fall)

I'm not sure if it should concern me that there are only 5 items on this part of this list.  Does it mean I'm already blessing him in lots of other ways?  Or does it mean I'm self-absorbed and only think of myself? (I could probably come up with 101 ways to bless him, if that's what this list were about.)  I prefer to think that this list is mostly about my growth, though these items will stretch me to be more of who I'm supposed to be. 

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The next category in my 101 in 1001 Days list is to become a better steward of the gifts I have been given.  This includes our finances, the earth, and my own body.  Here goes:

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Recently, I’ve been struggling mentally—emotionally?  Part of it is external circumstances (mostly around my career as a doctor), but part is simply internal.  In the past, when things have been hard, I have been able to do a Fraulein Maria and think of My Favorite Things.  Lately, though, I’ve found myself spending a lot of time thinking about my difficulties.  Nurturing my frustration, as it were. 

If you are truly struggling with real depression, please don’t take my words as an admonition to you—I can’t speak to the deep sadness I know so many feel.  But I am incredibly blessed, and when I’m thinking rightly, I can see it all around me.  I can verbalize hundreds of blessings, and I feel deeply grateful for them.  And as a woman who is in a time of challenge, I know that I myself need to spend a little more time nurturing gratitude. 

I think that will be my Lenten discipline this year: focusing on gratitude.  Hopefully all my gratitude will crowd out (some, if not all) of my frustration.  Do you have a Lenten discipline?

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