Thinking in Stories

I read on another blog recently that once you start writing consistently on a blog the tendency creeps up to start mentally blogging every life situation.  This is true.  I'll make something, or have to deal with absurd customers at the soda fountain, or play a funny game of Spades with Clevi, and all the while I'm figuring out how I would cleverly turn it into a blog post.  Throughout the week Steve responds to my antics with "You should put that on your blog."

I was thinking about this phenomenon of mental blogging, and then it struck me that even before I had the tangible outlet of this blog, I was always thinking in stories - always trying to turn life into some kind of narrative. This probably started at a young age when I got sick of trying to get my paper dolls to keep their clothes on and decided to just make up a mental story about them while they sat there in front of me.  It continued when I was older (okay, maybe too old) and I wandered around the hills behind our house for hours pretending that I was an Irish immigrant, a coal-miner's mail order bride, or a nurse in the Revolutionary War.  Then when I had to be more socially together and do things like get a job, turning work incidents into parts of a novel made the afternoons speed by.

Thankfully, I seem to have married someone who is also able to think in stories.  Florianus, for example, is a lazy daschund who thinks only about eating, sleeping, and barking at the Catholics.  However, our narrative-forming minds have turned him into this complex creature with varied emotions, desires for fame and fortune, and personal preferences that are decidedly German.  Poor dog.  Our Baby's homemade toys are taking on a rather Winnie-the-Pooh life of their own these days, as well.

Thinking in stories helps annoying situations - like when Debbie-the-Crazy-Neighbor comes over and asks for a ride so that she can return an already laundered shirt to the store because "it shrunk."  Or when the ASI people send us a note in which every sentence ends in an exclamation point.  We can always use characters like these for our future books.

Is thinking in stories or mentally blogging merely an introverted act to escape reality?  I don't think so.  I find that it gets my mind off of myself, it engages me in my surroundings in a new way, and it heightens observation and creative thinking.  Besides, the Bible is essentially a narrative.  God thinks in stories, too.

Pregnancy and Poetry

I found the marker for our Wipe-Off board.  This brings great joy to my soul, so I decided to work on a little poetry for Steve.  Clara came over and I eagerly said, "Looky, Clara, I wrote a haiku!"  She walked over to the fridge and read it:

There once was a fellow called Tickle

Whose wife was in quite a pickle

His fingers got frisky

She was in a tisk-y

And nothing could be heard but a Giggle

(Or a Gickle, depending on how much of a Stickle you are at rhyming.) 

"Pretty funny, huh?" I said.
Clara looked at me.  "Yeah, but that's not a haiku.  That's a limerick."

Yes, I know the difference between a haiku and a limerick.  Yes, I know how to write both of them.  It pretty much confirmed that I have lost my marbles completely.  Pregnancy brain strikes again.

But here's a real haiku, just to prove that I can do it:

Steve tickles his wife
Throws her on the bed with glee
Fun despite the shrieks

Ha.  There you go.

 

The "Umm" post

We got home rather late from a date escape and I realized that I hadn't done my Bible study questions for my Mom's 6am (yes, 6AM) study through the book of Romans which would take place the following morning.

Me: Oops, I totally forgot about Bible study.
Steve: Oh, that's too bad.
Me: I actually went through this study a few years ago on my own.  The answers to the questions will be practically the same.
Steve: How's that?
Me: Well, I still have the same problems: I'm too self-focused and I don't always believe that God loves me.
Steve: I love you.  I hope I can show you that God always loves you.
Me: Actually, you do that all of the time.  I was thinking about writing a post about it.  I had a really good title, too.
Steve: What was that?
Me: Umm....

So this is the "Umm" post.  I really have been thinking for some weeks about how God uses Steve in this way, and I really did have a good thought-provoking, spiritual title - but between having a major case of pregnancy brain and then blowing out any remaining brain cells into whole colonies of Kleenexes (thank you, Spring Allergies), I honestly can't remember.  The content (albeit long) remains the same, though.  Here goes.

I struggle a lot with the idea that my worth to other people is based primarily on my performance.  I'm a first-born and I take the whole "Be ye perfect" thing seriously.  Basically, I figure out what I think I can do to make people like me and then go at it with tremendous enthusiasm expecting the results of being told, "Amelia, I don't know what we would do without you!"  This feels great and shoves the doubts of failure into a cobwebby corner for at least a little while longer.  Unfortunately, those doubts don't stay there.  There comes a time when I can't do everything, or be everything that I think people want me to be.  Then the doubts come flying back in my face and resound through my mind: You are a failure.  You can't do it.  They won't love you anymore.

Examples?  After graduating from high school, I stayed home for a few years taking online classes, working, and helping my parents with household responsibilities.  I was very secure in my position as the Indispensable Amelia.  Then came the fateful day when I left to study at CEF's International Headquarters twelve hours away from home.  One semester later, I returned home to discover that (gasp) life had continued just fine without me and (even worse) my siblings were doing a perfectly capable job at my old performance standbys.  What did this mean for my perceived worth with my parents?

Enter Steve and the Dating Phase.  The ingrained habits of perceiving worth through performance fired up again.  It was easy to figure out which conversation topics, outfits, and silly presents got results.  Enter the Marriage Phase.  Yet again, I find myself constantly believing that as long as I can keep a great house, make splendid (and varied!) meals, talk intelligently, and generally "keep it together," I'll be the Amelia that Steve can't live without.

Enter the most important relationship I have: my relationship with the Lord.  If I can just keep on being that Good Little Christian Girl who reads her Bible every day, talks nicely to people, prays a whole bunch, and desires him with every ounce of my being and never gets distracted, God will keep on loving me.  In fact, he'll love me more than ever.

Then comes the days and weeks when the performance flops: no home-cooked meals, no empty laundry baskets, no deep dark discussions on the effects of Evangelicalism.  No daily devotions, no hour-long prayer sessions, no ability to desire anything spiritual.  Fail.  Fail.  Fail.  The crazy thing is that deep inside I know that my relationship with my parents won't change (they are my parents...they have to love me, right?), my relationship with Steve won't change, and my relationship with God definitely won't change.  But my mind doesn't want to believe it.  My proud flesh still wants to have some reason to glory in itself...to think that somehow the blessings of secure relationships and especially my sanctification are my own doing.

This is where it becomes evident that God in his wisdom gave me a husband who reminds me of the truth of grace over and over again.  Sometimes the reminder comes through words: I love you no matter what you do or don't do.  You don't have to perform for me.  Your "being clever" isn't what drives me.  Many times it's just sitting and holding me on the couch while I sob out everything and really truly not caring if I act like a total idiot.  Other times it's physically getting me away from the performance areas (like going out for a walk or to a restaurant for dinner) that reminds me that he loves me for me.  That's all.  End of story.

Ephesians 5:25 says, "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her."  While I don't think that Steve would ever want me to suggest that he has achieved this command fully, I do believe that he obeys it fully and is the constant picture to me of Christ's contra-conditional love for the church...and that includes me.

But when the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.  Titus 3:4-6

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved....  Ephesians 2:4-5

 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  1 John 4:10

 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 8:38-39

The struggle with performance-based worth may last a lifetime.  But Steve truly reflects the steadfast love of the Lord to me on a daily basis.  I can't escape the reminder  Will I believe him?

God, who is the source of steadfast love and grace, assures me through his Word that it was he who loved first and nothing I can do will change that.  I can't escape Christ.  Will I believe him?

The Octopus

Installment #2: The Octopus

He began as a blob of a head with questioning eyes looking at his eight severed appendages.

All was going well with the tentacle attachment when his creator realized that he had become a Septopus.  Oops.

With the correct number of legs affixed to his person, the Octopus can now begin to go his thoughtful way in the world.

Which includes meeting The Duck.  The Duck was confused about which tentacle to shake, so the Octopus decided to relieve the tension by suggesting that they take a trip to visit Other Animals.

The Duck, remembering a previous encounter, decided not to stick around.  The Octopus felt bad.  

The End.

Want to join the fun?  Lion Brand Yarn is featuring a collection of Spring Animals patterns on their Facebook fan page.   Alissa and I are already going at the task of creating the entire crowd, and you can get into the spirit by pulling out those crochet hooks and knitting needles and making some of these great little guys for your favourite little people (or for yourself...or for our Baby).

The Duck

Apparently toys that don't look entirely freaky are hard to come by (or buy) these days, as evidenced by the shelves at Target and Wally World.  Besides having parents to play with, we want Baby Rodgers to have nice whimsical toys that feature wholesome materials, quality construction, and definite character.  In short, we are making our own...or rather, I am making toys.

Installment #1: The Duck

(We have to keep it hidden from Florianus.  It looks too much like the Former Chicken-with-a-Squeaker.)

Stephen and Amelia: A Grand Day Out

If there is one area in our married life that produces the most friction, yet also the most joy, it is the fact that I am a Do-er and Steve is a Chill-er.  The Chill-er won out over the Do-er this week when, in his great perception, Steve decided that we needed to spend some serious time away from our little house, little dog, and little work-a-day lives.  He bought tickets for us to see the Reduced Shakespeare Company perform at the Lied Center, I made reservations for a night at the Holiday Inn Express, and we popped into the Bronco for 36 hours of escape.

Highlights of the adventure include:

• Running into Target on the way to find an appropriate piece of maternity wear for the theater (since I have been wearing jeans and a shirt to most everything lately).  Steve actually found the perfect dress before I did, the helpful little stinker.
• Screaming out Part Three of the Steinbeck book over the grumbling of the Bronco and the roar of the wind on I-80.
• Stopping at Starbucks in downtown Lincoln for a quick change in the bathroom, and then going to Panera for a snack.
• Realizing that I forgot to bring the camera with us when we got out of the Bronco in the parking garage.  Wow. 
• Concluding that we were meant to live in a larger town and in warm weather.
• Seeing the Reduced Shakespeare Company perform all of Shakespeare's plays in 1.5 hours.  We sat in the balcony and there was no one in front of me (glory be!).  The play was very clever and well-performed, but it tended toward the raunchy side.  That was disappointing, but what do you expect from comedy these days?  We agreed that the condensation of Hamlet made it worth staying until the end of the show.  "OOB!"
• Finally finding the hotel (we bless the GPS, but it just didn't like getting us to Belmont Street) and discovering that I had accidentally made reservations for the night before.  Oops.  They were nice and straightened it all out, but I felt Really Stupid.
• Concluding that Applebees is the only restaurant open at 11pm on a Tuesday night, and is therefore a blessed sight.
• Wandering around Lincoln the next day:

We went to the Capitol.  This is such a fun old building.

Funny little statues.

Brown city of Lincoln, as seen from the top of the capitol.  It was really windy and creepy up there.

Windblown us.

Morrill Hall (science museum).  We just avoided the two busloads full of elementary school children.  

Steve: Well, now we have seen the demise of philosophy, and here we are looking at the demise of Marxist education.

There was a line-up of thrift stores and antique shops on O Street, so we kept sticking coins in the parking meter and spent about 3 hours perusing the junk.  It was so fun.

We kept coming back to this Starbucks over and over.  Like probably five times.

Only to be outdone by the Panera Bread across the street which saw our faces many, many times over the course of the day.  We weren't very adventurous in the eating department.

Home again, home again.  But only after doing the Baby registry at multiple Targets.

So the Grand Day Out ended, as they always must.  It's amazing to get away from Small Town USA to an only slightly larger town and realize how small and far away all of our every day stresses are.  It was also good to remember that God can use these escapes to restore our perspective on Himself, to allow us to enjoy each other and enjoy Him.

Now I wish that I could randomly give Grand Day Outs to other couples...or singles...or families...or grandparents or....

Baby Talk IV

With much anticipation we finally went to the long-awaited doctor's appointment this past Monday to discover...absolutely nothing.  This Baby who moves around and kicks like crazy on most mornings decided to be perfectly still, cross his/her legs and just sit there while we looked on in amused disappointment.  Wow.  If this Baby insists on being an anomaly, so be it.  The doctor keeps commenting on the beauty of the child's brain (since that's about all there is to be seen).  I told Steve that he/she obviously wants to be loved for his/her intellect and not just looks.

(Okay, after a hard week, I was really looking forward to having something positive to think about - like the gender of the Baby - and to be thwarted in this was the pits.  I should not have put mascara on that morning.)

But anyway, I think that it would be great if nurses could introduce themselves before poking, prodding, and handing me containers for urine samples.  Don't you think that would be the polite thing to do?  I mean, they know pretty much everything about my physical self and I don't even know their names.  Maybe they should just wear name tags.  Maybe I should just be more of an investigator of persons at nine in the morning.  The new nurse on Monday made all of the same "it must be a girl" jokes and then got onto the subject of names.
Nurse: Do you have names picked out?
Me: Yes. (*thinking* Do you have a name?)
Nurse:  Oh, that's nice.  What are they?
Me: Um. Harriet Alice or Edmund Paul.
No-Name-Nurse: Oh.  Those are old names.  But then again, you have an old-fashioned name.
Me: Well, I suppose that I do.
No-Name-Nurse: My mother had the name Aweilda.  That's an old name you don't hear very often.
Me: Um, no. (*thinking* Oh, yeah, like you ever hear that name.  I don't think that Harriet or Amelia are really in the same "old name" category.  Thank you very much.)

Having given up on the idea of knowing what the Baby is, we went ahead and created registries at Target and Amazon.com.  Steve thinks that registering for baby stuff is way more fun than making a wedding registry.  For starters, you really only have to worry about one section of a store which makes life much less complicated.  Plus, it suddenly becomes socially acceptable to go gaga over towels, cribs, undershirts, and strollers that are covered in cute little ducks, owls, or turtles.  We will probably have a better time than the Baby with the bath toys.  While I grant that we are pretty dorky folks, it was fun to be able to participate in Babyness together.  Sometimes it's hard because I have to think about baby stuff all of the time (after all, I'm lugging the kid around for nine months), while Steve's mind gets occupied with other things.  It's not as if he doesn't want to think about the Baby, but it is sometimes difficult to know how to get both of us involved at this point.  Registering made us even more excited about being parents, and more eager to see and interact with this wonderful little person.

I still can't bring myself to sew anything for the Baby because I can't get into this gender neutral mentality.  However, I am allowing myself to make some other things which I will post pictures of in the very near future.  Maybe tomorrow.