Twas Brillig

Today is December 27, and I’ve already taken my Christmas tree down.

It’s not really a bah-humbug kind of thing.  I love Christmas.  I love Christmas decorations.  I love the smell of a fresh Christmas tree!

And yet, this morning, when I woke up (at 10:00 a.m.– I’m so stinking spoiled) I marched downstairs, undecorated the tree, and hauled the messy thing out the door.  My husband watched in awe, feeling so proud, announcing that I’m the best wife ever.  He’s SO right. 

(I then spent TWO hours vacuuming needles out of my carpet, but that’s a different story.)

I love Christmas, and I love when it’s over.  I love hauling out that tree.  My house, not exactly known for its cleanliness, feels SO CLEAN when that darn thing is taken out.  That corner of my family room that used to be so joyfully cluttered is now empty.  And empty looks so, so good.

Plus, I don’t have to keep the dog from trying to eat it, and I don’t have to keep Isaac from shattering any more glass ornaments.  (Did you know that if you put a glass ornament in each hand and crash them together like cymbals, then shiny, colorful glass explodes everywhere?  Could there be ANYTHING more exciting to a toddler?)

On the other hand, the lights on the front of our house are still up.  My poor husband nearly killed himself– repeatedly– stringing them for me.  It was an act of pure love, because he sees no value whatsoever in such things, but he knows that it makes me happy.  So he put his life on the line.  Awwww.  And I returned the favor when he got off that darn ladder and I realized that the lights on one column went the opposite direction as the lights on the other six columns in the front of our house– I didn’t even make him get back up and fix it.  (And yes, every time I pulled up to my house, I had to consciously tell myself that it’s OKAY for one column to be different from the other five.  I may or may not have utilized breathing exercises acquired in natural childbirth during this time…)  See?  I really AM the best wife ever.

But, back to my point– the lights are still strung on the front of our house.  Because I can’t possibly tell Hubby to get back on that ladder.  I suggested to him that we just leave them there until next year and he eagerly agreed– until he figured out that I was KIDDING.   He thinks that it would be really cool if we left them up and then randomly turned them on from time to time, like on Father’s Day, or my birthday, or Arbor Day…  I mean, the neighbors already think we’re bonkers, so why not?

Um… because.  No.  Just, no.

So, yeah.  Christmas is over, at least inside.  How ’bout for you?  Are you the sort of person who waits until February to take down the tree, or are the stockings unhung from the chimney with care by sundown on Christmas Day?

 Brian turned 33.

Princess Fluffy turned 7.

My marriage turned 8.

That pretty much brings you up to date.  Yes, December is crazy around here for all the regular reasons, plus the three I just listed.  What’s cool, though, is that you’re busy too.  You’ve probably enjoyed having that ZERO next to my link in your Bloglines— it gave you one less blog to check.  Consider it an early Christmas present.

Here are some other fun numbers for you.

People in my house who are sick: 5 (Princess Fluffy is the only one who came out unscathed.  Isaac is, of course, hit worst.)

Loaves of Pumpkin Rolls baked:  24.  Seriously.

Viewings of Twilight.  2.  Yup– I’m one of those overweight 30 year olds who’s seen Twilight multiple times.  How did I turn into this person?

Christmas presents left to buy:  Zero.

Christmas presents left to wrap:  Also zero!  I’m NEVER on top of things like this!  Ever!  It’s a Christmas miracle!

Hours until I have to wake up:  7.  So off I go.  Because, as you may have gathered, I’m sick.  Well, not sick, really.  Just somewhere between sick and well.  But closer to sick.  But closer to well than Scooby, Isaac, and Brian, all of whom sound like hell.  I mean, they sound like DEATH, because hi.  I don’t say “hell.”

By the way, I will profess eternal love to anyone who can finish my limerick.  I got stumped trying to find something that rhymed with Bloglandia…

In the village of Grasmere, in England’s Lake District, there sits a church called St. Oswald’s.  It’s a little church, really, but particularly significant because its graveyard is home to William Wordsworth’s grave.

I spent most of my summers in this little village as a kid.  My father is a renowned Wordsworth scholar.  Twice a year, he spent a few weeks in Grasmere lecturing at the Wordsworth Conference.  I rarely went with him during the winter, but come summertime, Grasmere was my second home.

All of the photos that I’m posting here display Grasmere on bright, sunny days.  Of course, this is not at all how I think of Grasmere.  There’s a reason that everything is so green.  I think of Grasmere as a little village shrowded in clouds with the near-constant drizzling of rain.

While my father was busy with his conference, my mother and I would roam the familiar streets.  I would wear whatever wool sweater I’d just conned my parents into buying me from a local woolen mill shop.  My mother followed the English fashion of wearing a soft wool scarf around her neck and sturdy walking shoes.  We would stroll, arm-in-arm, up and down the streets, stopping to buy Lion bars and Hob Nobs and perusing the Beatrix Potter books as we had done so many hundreds of times before.

Every morning we would walk around Grasmere Lake.  It took us an hour if we walked briskly.

On our way home from our walk, we passed St. Oswald’s, where we were greeted with the aroma of fresh gingerbread baking at Sarah Nelson’s Grasmere Gingerbread Shop, located right at the corner of the churchyard.

There is nothing quite as intoxicating as the combination of an old English churchyard, drizzling rain, and fresh gingerbread.  My mother and I would stop every time, just to inhale, as if maybe we could smell enough of it that we could take the scent with us.

In some ways, I guess it worked.

For all my time spent in Grasmere, it occurs to me that I’ve never actually been there at Christmas time.  I’ve spent several Christmases in London, but never have I ventured north to the Lakes during this season.  And yet, because it’s when the world smells like gingerbread, Christmas always makes me think of Grasmere.  No, it makes me pine for Grasmere.  The scent of cold air and fresh gingerbread send my heart there, as I yearn to take my family– show my husband and my children this integral part of my own youth, a part of me I’ve never had a chance to share.

My mom and I were often swayed by the smell of gingerbread, like a siren’s song.  We found ourselves buying Sarah Nelson’s Gingerbread over and over again– despite the fact that we knew we didn’t particularly like the taste of it.  But the smell always convinced us that we should buy it again, just in case.  How could we resist?

Are there certain aromas that send you to a favorite spot too?

“That’s it!  I can’t talk to you anymore!  I’m done!”

This is what I scream at my husband, in front of my children, before I run up to my bedroom and bawl in the dark.

It’s rare for me to scream at my husband.  I mean, really, really rare.  We definitely don’t agree a lot of the time, but that’s what makes our marriage so much fun.  And when we do fight, we do it in quiet, angry whispers.  Never screaming.

And we never, ever fight in front of the children.

I know, as I curl up into a ball on my bed, that he is now left with traumatized children who would need some sort of explanation.  And I don’t care.  I’m furious, and it seemed a fitting punishment.

There’s that statistic that hangs over our marriage— the one that says that divorce is almost inevitable when there’s an autistic child in the mix.  80% of married couples with autistic children end up divorced.  Before this moment, I’d almost felt like we were better than that.  Our marriage is strong enough to weather any storm.  Plus, we both love Isaac so much— how could he ever tear us apart?

We were so obviously the other 20%.

And yet, there I sat, with tears pouring onto my pillow, contemplating divorce for the first time ever.

Even in the bitterest moment, it wasn’t that I hated Brian.  I don’t think I’m even capable of that.  It was that I hated disappointing him, and wouldn’t it just be easier if he could go off and be Superman somewhere else so I could get on with my life as “Medioce-At-Best Woman.”

I don’t think it’s autism that rips couples apart.  It’s that people mourn differently.  They cope differently.

And sometimes, because we’re human and therefore occasionally weak and prideful, we judge each other for the way the other one copes.  And we feel threatened by it too.

Brian is a researcher.  Research, research, research.  Between the two of us, he’s the autism expert.  I’m just… not.  I work all day to help my little boy.  I go to therapy with him, and I try to learn what the therapist is doing and practice it all at home.  I do well with targeting Isaac’s specific needs, rather than seeking out information on autism in general.  Brian, on the other hand, can recite to you the entire debate about vaccine-related autism.  The vaccine that supposedly, or not, triggers autism is given to children at 18 months old.

But, see, since Isaac was only 12 months old when he started displaying autistic tendencies, I don’t see any reason to become an expert on a vaccine that definitely did NOT cause my son’s autism.

This is just an example of our differences.  There are lots of them.  And yes, they’re all just as trivial.

So, I ask myself, why am I suddenly hashing all of this out?  Why am I suddenly screaming at my husband over all of this?

And I realize the stupid, but painful truth.  My feelings are hurt.  Not by Brian, but by our autistic son.  Because our son loves Brian, but he doesn’t love me.

It’s something I vowed that I would never take personally.  And usually I don’t.  But picture Thanksgiving dinner, for instance, where 35 of Brian’s closest friends and family were packed into one room.  Lots of noise, lots of chaos, and a large audience.  They probably weren’t staring at me, judging me, but I felt like they were.

My son hates me.  Over and over again, he made that clear for our audience.  He wouldn’t let me feed him.  Just Daddy.  He wouldn’t let me hold him.  Just Daddy.  And the room is staring, wondering why I make Brian do everything, not understanding that I’m DYING to help.

“Say ‘more,’” I say to Isaac, showing him the sign language.  Meltdown ensues.

“Say ‘more,’” Brian says.  “More!”  Isaac says back, both vocally and with sign language.  Everyone laughs and giggles and claps.
And finally, Isaac doesn’t let me touch him.  I can’t even pick him up when he falls and hurts himself.  When I tried, he screamed as if I were torturing him.

And the pit in my stomach grows.  As does my shame.  Every person in the room is now aware that I’m the worst mother in the world.  But no one is more aware of it than I am.

And so when Brian suggests a new therapy approach or a change in Isaac’s diet, sometimes I disagree.  My child has spent most of his life severely underweight.  He’s finally gained enough weight to be on the growth chart, thanks in large part to bread and pasta.  So even though Jenny McCarthy “cured autism” by taking gluten out of her son’s diet, it just seems like a really bad idea in Isaac’s case, at least right now.  I can’t stand to go back to the world of “failure to thrive,” and I tell Brian so.

But…  there’s this thing in the air.  The thing that suggests that I’m obviously wrong, and Brian is obviously right.  Because I’m the bad parent.  He’s the good one.

And so I find myself crying in my dark bedroom, wanting to run away from everyone and everything that makes me feel like a failure when I’ve been trying so hard not to fail.  And if that means contributing to the divorce statistic, maybe that’s just how it has to be.

Fortunately, I know that I don’t mean that.

My mind flickers, then, to the four little people downstairs who were left bewildered and even scared when I stormed out of the room.  I realize that maybe there’s still a tiny part of me that’s capable of being a good mom, and hiding out in my bedroom and throwing myself a pity party isn’t really who I want to be.

I wipe away the tears and emerge from my room.  I come downstairs to find that Brian’s made dinner and he’s feeding the kids.  I almost resent him for holding it all together when I’m falling apart.  At the same time, I’m grateful that I don’t have to cook.  The kids are careful with me— they know things are strained and they don’t want to contribute.  Eventually they finish eating and wander back to their toys and their projects, leaving me and Brian alone in the kitchen.

“I’m so sorry,” he says suddenly, breaking our silence, as he wraps his arms around me.  “I never want to make you feel like that.  Ever.”  I believe him.  It’s impossible not to.  He’s so warm, so sincere.

I lean into him, but I can’t respond.  There aren’t words, because I have no idea what I’m feeling anymore.  I just cry all over again, but this time I’m not alone in the dark.  I’m with him.  He lets me cry, because somehow he understands that that’s what I need to do.  Because, despite my utter mediocrity, he loves me.  Possibly as much as I love him.

And we’re going to make it.

I’m coming to this party late.  That’s kind of on purpose.  I mean, I was SO SO SO happy not to be around Bloglandia during the election.  I was glad to have an excuse keeping me away from all the insanity.  All the celebrations and the finger pointing.  All the joy and all the mourning.  And, of course, the hate.

Amazing, really, that we–who celebrate our freedom and consider ourselves to be so much better than the rest of the world — can be so full of hatred.

We talk about hatred as though it were something that exists only in Rwanda or Iraq or some other unenlightened part of the world.

I’m a democrat.  That’s no secret.  I’m also a Mormon.  Again, not something I’m trying to hide.  For some bizarre reason, totally beyond my comprehension, the two labels don’t generally go hand-in-hand.  And yet, here I am.

Oh, and my life-long best friend is gay.

All in all, these things make me the most hated person in America, by all reports.  The Mormons hate me for loving the gays, the gays hate me for being a Mormon.  The liberals resent my Christian value system, the Mormons despise my leftisms.

I really like to think that the above statements are false.  I’m purposefully making generalizations here, since generalizations are all I read everywhere else.

Help me to understand, why is it the higher road to be hateful?  What point, exactly, does it prove?

You, on the left hand, have desecrated our holy sites.  You have sent “suspicious white powder” to the Prophet!  You have made hateful commercials, wickedly implicating my religion in ways that you know are completely unfair.  Such acts, if committed against a bigger, less-controversial religion, would have been called Hate Crimes.  Lucky you, we Mormons are so insignificant that no one is being prosecuted.

You, on the right hand, have been unfair, unkind, and un-Christlike.  You have used the sacred word “marriage” to discriminate.  You have stripped good people of basic rights.  Your definition of “marriage” would tear families apart, leaving innocent people uninsured, disowned, and unprovided for.  Either you didn’t think that through, or you really are monsters.  Either way, I fail to see how it answers the question, “What Would Jesus Do?”

Frankly, I’m ashamed of all of you.

Let’s have a race, shall we?  Let’s see who can be the MOST hateful.  It seems that that’s the game we’re playing here.

What kind of trophy should we bestow upon the winner?

The truth is, these ARE generalizations.  My gay friends didn’t spray-paint hateful slogans on the temple. My church leaders didn’t say anything hateful.  But just like in a game of telephone, one person says something, and by the time the thought has been passed down to, say, stupid bloggers who pretend to speak for all Mormons, the message is wholly altered.

I guess what it really boils down to is the fact that people are doing and saying things in the name of whoever they supposedly represent.  But the hateful remarks against gays?  Those remarks don’t represent my feelings.  The hate mail sent to my church leaders?  Not my feelings either.

And yet, supposedly BOTH represent me– or claim to, anyway.

So, is it possible that there’s a grey area?  A warm, fuzzy place where hate doesn’t have a home?  Is such a thing even possible?

Does love compromise morals?  Does my love for Matt, for instance, somehow make me less righteous?  I can’t believe that’s true.  I can’t believe in a God who doesn’t love all His children, nor can I believe in a God who doesn’t want ME to love ALL His children.

Why do we keep pretending like the two are mutually exclusive?  Shouldn’t love and obedience go hand in hand?

Well, it’s obvious that I don’t have all the answers.  But I promise you that if Matt decides to marry his boyfriend, I’ll be at the wedding, bawling like a baby, with my active temple recommend in my pocket.

It’s a paradox I can live with—and HAVE lived with for eleven years now.  Sometimes I wonder how long I’ll have to.  Sometimes I wonder if I can wait it out until the answers come.  Sometimes I wonder if the answers are already here, and I’m too proud or too willful to let myself see them.

But one day our eyes will be opened—yours and mine—and we’ll things as they really are.  We’ll finally understand that God has a plan, and we’ll see where God’s plan includes those who currently appear to be excluded.

In the meantime, I’ll err on the side of love.  Join me, won’t you?