cash poor, asset rich

As a part of my forty day mom-and-baby pajama party retreat (see "forty days with baby bird") I've taken to burning through BBC drama mini-series. My favorite has been Ballykissangel, but since I am, so sadly, reaching the end of that series, I've turned to a new one set in Scotland, called Monarch of the Glen, which I don't enjoy nearly as much. Even though, while growing up, my dad had the "Mason Family Crest" hanging in a cheap frame in a marginalized wall space next to our kitchen pantry, and claimed Scottish descent somewhere in our distant past (whatever you say, dad), it isn't so easy to relate to a show about a family from an aristocratic bloodline, living in a gorgeous castle in the Scottish countryside. Still, one episode included a phrase that stuck out to me. The young, urbanized son learns that his family is actually close to bankruptcy, and will be forced to sell all in order to pay off their debts: they are "cash poor, but asset rich." I decided that, in a more humble, drastically paired-down, non-castle sort of way, this phrase works well to describe what I feel about my life.

There is something kind of crazy about a family that is broke, yet living in a castle hung with tapestries, fine art, first editions of old books, and an absolutely gorgeous view of lake, woods, and hills. There is also something kind of crazy about a graduate student and his unemployed wife, and new baby living in a decently nice apartment, eating decently nice food (even eating out more than we should), renting DVDs, having nice books to read, wearing decently nice clothes, and driving a decently nice car, with plenty of gas to put in it. All of that and more. And if I was worried about having a baby on our ridiculously broke budget, that has been no worry either. Baby gear, clothes, supplies have come in from every conceivable point on the compass.

When we moved to South Bend in July 2005, I was so worried about our situation. I felt sure that the ground was going to open up and swallow us if I didn't get the right kind of job, right away. That didn't happen-- not even close. I ended up working at Starbucks last fall "temporarily" until I could find something better. "Something better" seemed to come along in an opportunity to work at a commercial printer, but that turned out to be a misery-inducing job for me, so I quit right before Christmas last year. Then, I found out I was pregnant in January. I kept applying for serious jobs, interviewing in my first, nauseous trimester, and generally making myself sad and nervous. I proceeded to give myself over to the fatigue of pregnancy, and went into hibernation for several months. I finally got a temporary job in May that lasted through the summer, doing easy clerical work in an office full of nice people. It was fun, and they were sympathetic to my pregnant state, which was merciful (you can read more in "the happy hippose of holy absurdity"). That was when the sun started to come out over the midwestern landscape for me. Then I had Esme, and the sun got even brighter.

Now everything is different. I'm still not sure what is going on or how this is happening. It's like we're on a road trip and haven't pulled over to get gas, but somehow the engine keeps miraculously running. Perhaps this is the way wives of priests feel. Maybe they should get together with wives of graduate students and swap stories. Yes, we're partly living on loans, which is unpleasant to think about. But really, the loans aren't that much. Family helps us tremendously-- I'm not even sure why. I always wanted to be self-supporting--no missionary life for me-- but now I'm being supported, and didn't even have to ask. It fell into place without my permission. I've also learned not to spend money, which is something I couldn't say for myself in the days when I was supporting myself with a respectable job, living in a fun city, in an interesting apartment. I don't think I've bought more than a couple of frivolous things for myself in over a year (though my mother-in-law sometimes buys frivolous things for me). I also began gritting my teeth and buying as much of our grocery list as I could from Save-a-Lot and Family Dollar. But even though our spending is so confined, I still feel rich in one sense. I'm sure this is partly because I live in the richest country in the world-- the brattiest, and most spoiled-- yes, I know. (We could probably live off what a typical American family puts in the trash.) But also I feel that maybe God decided to spare Jeff and me from the total disaster that seemed so possible and eminent when I gave up a perfectly good job out east and moved to this strange town-- a town which seemed to keep saying, "no job for you, no job for you," for months on end, try as I might to win its approval.

The picture above is the view from our apartment at sunset. It's the roof of an ugly warehouse next to our extremely generic apartment complex, and beyond that, Grape Road, which is that road in every town which serves as portal to all franchise/strip mall shopping. The paradox is that I think this view is kind of pretty at certain times of the day. I think I must thrive on paradox.

cancer tree, carved saint

I'm finally getting out of the house with Esme. Before she was born I promised myself I would not let the enroaching cold season keep me cloistered. Today I acted upon those good intentions by taking her to Notre Dame campus in her stroller. It was nice. The university is on fall break, so the chatty, stylish students, who usually fill the campus airwaves with the buzz of a thousand cell phones and oh-my-goshes, are mercifully somewhere else. The sky was overcast but bright, fallen leaves were everywhere, and three-dimensional stone images of western saints looked down on me quietly from the dormitories.

The walk was nice, but also made me feel lonely and serious. Perhaps this is partly due to the autumn weather, and partly to the serious company of a four-week old baby who has yet to smile at anyone (we're waiting for her first more than the watchmen wait for the morning). Perhaps it's also because of the gravity of the world that is gradually enroaching back on the insulated nest I've been building around myself for the past four weeks. I had stopped watching the news after her birth, or reading anything other than optimistic, how-to childrearing material. Now I'm gradually resuming the habit of tuning into external information sources, even though they make me sad, and sometimes feel piercing or apocalyptic in turns. I was watching the BBC News the other evening, something I had done routinely all summer out of habit, but this time it felt painful. They did a story about a woman in France who had been missing the bottom half of her face for a long time after it was bitten off by a dog. An innovative surgeon in London had just given her a face transplant so that she could resume life with a nose and lips and chin like other people. She emerged from the surgery looking, by any standards, quite unattractive, but incredibly grateful for a face of any kind. The story pierced my heart, and out of some strange impulse I went to look at Esme who was asleep in the back room, with her brand-new, unblemished face. It made me feel as if I brought a beautiful, vulnerable face into a world where faces can get ravished by dogs. It is unlikely, true, but it's within the realm of terrifying possibility. While I was gazing at her in her crib the news anchor had moved on to another story, and the words "unending cycle of violence" floated back to me.

What's more, NPR and the NY Times keep running stories about over-population. Can't I enjoy the new little person in our family without being made to feel like her nine pound body is tipping the planet off its axis?

On our walk, we passed the campus graveyard, the cancer tree (each ribbon represents someone who suffered from cancer), and the World War II memorial fountain/sculpture, which, by the way, is huge and towering. It's as if I was strolling Esme through the valley of the shadow of death. I took a break at a picnic table in the alcove of an old dormitory to feed Esme and then noticed the saints carved in the architecture above. Then I went to the Notre Dame bookstore and happened to get drawn in by that book by Al Gore, Inconvenient Truth, which artistically documents global warming in vivid pictures and words. I probably should have chosen a different book to look at while I drank coffee.

In any case, I must say that at least the stone saint, with his peaceful, wise, and knowing face--although he was outnumbered, above the line of vision, and understated--did provide hope and poetic beauty--that internal warming that comes from knowing even a single person who is trying to pray and do the right thing-- amidst the gloominess. Maybe soon Esme's smile will emerge and do the same.

the gathering gene pool

The Michiana area should send Esme a thank you note for helping to stimulate the tourism economy. Since she was born, Jeff and I have had more visitors than we ever would have dreamed of receiving while living in this area. This includes the man in the above photo, who is my maternal grandfather, and Esme's great grandfather. He called a week ago to let us know that he had already purchased his ticket-- a direct flight from Orlando, Florida, to South Bend, Indiana-- and booked his stay at a bed and breakfast. He wasn't going to impose, he said, just peek at the baby, take us out to dinner, and take an excursion into Chicago for a day. Many years ago, when my mother was a baby, he had lived there while doing a nine month course at the University of Chicago. He hadn't been back since and wanted to go see the city.

My father informed me that Popo (that's what we call my grandfather) was crazy to be making such a trip at the age of eighty-nine. But my father is not a big fan of adventures, except the ones you take between the covers of a book, while propped back in an overstuffed recliner. My grandfather, on the other hand, has never stopped having adventures and doesn't seem intent on stopping, ever. He has always owned a boat and still does, which he "goes out in" about three times a week. In his younger years he owned a plane. It was only a few years ago that he gave up owning a motorcycle, which over the course of several decades zoomed him through miles and miles of parkway in the Blue Ridge Mountains, with various of his eight grandchildren clinging to his windbreaker in the seat behind him. After being stationed in Alaska in World War II, he must have felt the need to keep the adventure ball rolling. He has stories. My favorite is one where he and another pilot friend (in the mid-1940s) decided to fly from North Carolina to Manhattan in a tiny, tiny plane that flew barely faster than a car could drive. They made it into Manhattan sometime after midnight, and putted in the air around the island trying to spot the airport. He said they traveled directly over Park Avenue, going not much faster than the cars below, flew over Times Square, and passed not more than 500 feet above the Empire State Building. When they finally landed unannounced in La Guardia, they were in big trouble. The traffic controllers cursed as they approached, told them to get the *#@*# out of the way because another plane was scheduled to land on that runway shortly. They were met at their plane and fined $50, which drained their weekend funds and ruined their plans for a big time in New York. Oh...how times have changed.

While with anyone else I might have been a little put out at not having been consulted about a visit, my reaction in this case was only to be thrilled and flattered that my eighty-nine year-old grandfather, who happens to be my favorite relative, was moved to make a special trip just to see his thirteenth great grandchild. (You would think that after, say, the twelth, great grandchildren would become slightly passe.)

On our way back from an Amish restaurant in the country last night Jeff wanted to take the backroads home through the cornfields instead of the toll road. We didn't have a map, so we just guessed, and naturally, got lost. One might think that our elderly passenger would be put out to be lost in the backroads of Indiana at 9 p.m., ready to get back to his bed. But not Popo. He seemed to enjoy the uncertainty of driving through uncharted territory, and kept saying that it would have been helpful if we had a compass (as I recall, he has always had one mounted on the dash of his car). This morning he called me from the South Bend train station sounding delighted at the senior price tag on his round trip train fare to Chicago.

Having him here, along with the other relatives who have visited, makes me scratch my head when I look at Esme. There are so many wild cards in the Wickes-Mason gene pool. And yes, there is also the darker "shadow" side of both families, which I won't go into here, but it is interesting to think of a baby--another individual-- being born out of the colorful cornucopia of people that make up a family.

40 days with baby bird

The Orthodox Church has a custom-- or some would say rule-- that after giving birth, a mother should return to church after waiting a period of forty days. It reflects the scriptural account of Mary, who presented herself at the temple forty days after giving birth to Jesus.

People say a lot of other things about it, and why this custom exists. Whatever the theological symbolism, and despite having taken notes furtively in Erickson's canon law class at seminary, I'm more capable of appreciating the practical value of this waiting period than the spiritual. I can only think of these forty days as a period of recovery and adjustment to a new reality. At first I thought this seemed like an unnecessarily extravagent period of recovery, but I'm realizing now that recovery from childbirth is comparable to nothing else I've ever had experience with. I need a lot of time, whether or not I wake up feeling like I do on any given day.

I can only wonder, since this custom began in the middle ages, why the period wasn't longer. Women in Byzantium were not discharged from cushiony hospitals after being looked after by a legion of nurses, then armed with pain med prescriptions for the weeks ahead. They couldn't send their husband to Walgreens for a variety of soothing treatments. They couldn't go online to the La Leche League FAQs to find solutions to their breastfeedng quandries. Baby soothing contraptions like battery operated bouncers, swings, and pacifiers weren't invented. Despite, or maybe because of my utter reliance upon all of these post-natal succors, I keep thinking I might be ready once again to have a normal day of activity. This has not proven to be the case. One outing with the stroller is enough to send me back under my quilt, donning the fuzzy aromatherapy socks that a more experienced mother of three gave me. Esme seems to be on the same slow track as me, and reacts with grumpiness to anything more strenuous than being burped.

We've started calling Esme, among other nicknames, baby bird, because of the way she sometimes cranes her little neck upward like a baby bird asking for a worm. I'm realizing that these weeks-- her first several weeks outside of the womb-- aren't really comparable to ordinary life, either for her, or for me. But, like most Americans, I feel the tug to get back to normal life, not be bothered by something so useless as rest. A few days of nearly getting sick has shown me that I need to think of this time in the way that the Church leads me to, in a practical sense. I'm hoping that if there is in fact a deeper theological potency behind this literally byzantine custom, it's meaning will sprout and grow inside of me in forty days time, if I don't plow it over with my heedlessness.

Through the prayers of the Theotokos, Savior, save us.