Clean and White

 Last year around the time my dad was diagnosed with cancer, our contractor began the huge project of demolishing our children's bathroom (which also doubles as the bathroom our guests use).  It desperately, desperately needed renovating!

It was the only room on the main level without a window. I remember when my mom built the house, she'd hoped to put a window in, but with a standard fiberglass shower insert, they couldn't make it work.  In a house this bright and open, the bathroom always felt dark and closed!

A few years ago the exhaust fan began working only spottily.  With so little ventilation in such a highly-used room, I had to adopt the practice of scrubbing the shower free of the mildew that would pepper the ceiling.

The exposed-bulb-light-strip was original to the house, but my husband and I had replaced the original mirror, countertop (pink formica to this dappled granite) sometime when Finn was a toddler. I had painted the cabinet cream, and the walls a sage green.  

Somewhere along the line, a Person Who Shall Remain Unnamed cracked the cabinet door. The sink cabinet was low, which was great when my children were itsy bitsy, but Finn is already taller than I am at 15, and I suspect he's got more growth to accomplish.  It was almost comical to see anyone brush their teeth or wash their face at this sink, crouched so far over.....it just didn't work for our family of older children!

We started to joke that the bathroom was demolishing itself: one day the toilet lid just fell right off.  And the linoleum on the floor (also original 1993) had started to peel up and back. The bathroom never "felt" clean, even when I scrubbed it to within an inch of its life, and that annoyed me. Ew.

Over one of our 20th anniversary dinners (we had several!) in 2019, my husband casually suggested we redo the bathroom. I almost fell out of my chair.  My husband is THE most frugal person.  At the time, we had several other large house projects happening, so we waited until the dust settled on those, and got our contractor (who is also our across-the-lane neighbor, a Mennonite, and one of the most wonderful humans you'll ever meet--not to mention a top-notch builder who does a beautiful job with everything) to take a look and give us a quote. I got cold feet after receiving the quote, but my husband encouraged me to just go forward with it.  So we did.

Paul started demolition the week my Daddy was diagnosed with lung cancer last year. He gutted the entire room down to the studs.  It was epic. After that week, I came home, asked my mother-in-law to stay with my children for a day, and literally picked out every single thing for the new bathroom in one fell swoop, an unprecedented approach for me. But I knew I'd have to spend a lot of time traveling and in Charleston, and I wanted to have it all picked and off my plate!  Fortunately, I had a pretty strong vision for what I liked.  That helped. Also, my husband had no opinion at all, on anything, so I was given carte blanche on the whole project. I appreciate that about my husband. :)

Hexagonal marble tiles, a window, beveled subway tile: a beauty to behold. I'm really happy with this bathroom and so grateful my husband insisted we go ahead with this project.

The window has just been fabulous! I wanted an awning-style so that there's no visual interruption to the view out the back of the property (it's all our family farmland, and the window is very high, so no privacy worries).  We have more-than-adequate ventilation, and bright light!  I don't really like normal subway tile, but I love the beveled tile because it adds dimensionality, and it's really not much more expensive than regular subway tile.  We used white grout on the walls because I don't like contrast between white tiles.

The countertop is quartz. I discovered that I don't like granite, but I do like quartz.  It's simple and very easy to care for, and though it's sort of a luxury finish, on a cabinet this size it was not too expensive at all. 

I had the cabinetmaker build something very simple and a lot taller than what we had before, and kept my fingers crossed that I would like the color that I chose (ran to the paint store, picked out Benjamin Moore's "Smoke," and gave it to the cabinetmaker--he used that color for his lacquering). I was so relieved when it came in and looked exactly like I wanted it to look.  I don't usually gamble so recklessly with paint colors.  This is probably my favorite color in the world, a soft blue-grey. The little cabinet pulls are pretty little trinkets from Anthropologie.

Went for a taller toilet, too.  

I appreciate the nod to bathing that the painting implies.  I bought that painting several years ago with a whole group of others at the thrift store, and it definitely belongs right here.  (Here's the story on that amazing find!) It needed to be framed, but I didn't feel like committing to a frame, either mentally or monetarily, so I used a fun trick: black duct tape to cover the raw edges and staples and paint smudges. Viola, looks great. 

Now this tiny little space is so bright and pretty. And when I clean it, it feels clean!

Major thanks to my husband for the encouragement and to Paul for his beautiful workmanship. 

Sneak Peek of the Bathroom Renovation

All the details tomorrow! I'm so thankful that this project is done and that it turned out so well. 

And that I just happened to have a painting of a bathing goose (I think it's a goose; it's a goose, right?!) sitting around, waiting for its perfect spot!

2022 Reader's Journal

I finally sat down to try to compile my 2022 Reader's Journal.  It was definitely not a year with a lot of reading; it was a year of travel and of grieving.  But there were a few books I just adored.  My recommendations have asterisks in the list below, and my favorites are highlighted here.

The Order of the Phoenix (JK Rowling)

This year I finished reading all of the Harry Potter books, and the Order of the Phoenix was my favorite. This is the midpoint in the story, and it's the place where we really begin (I think) to see the maturation of the main characters.  The stakes of the war between good and evil are raised in this book.  My favorite books other than this one were The Prisoner of Azkaban and The Deathly Hallows, but I like The Order of the Phoenix the best.  However, the later books--say, The Goblet of Fire on to the end--are better suited for teenagers than children.  I resisted reading these books for years (I'd tried to read the first one ages ago, but couldn't get into it, and it's definitely the weakest of the books), but now I appreciate the intricate world and characters JK Rowling developed and the ultimate message of the story, which has to do with the lifesaving power of  (surprise!) sacrificial love. 

All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr)

I am placing this book here even though it disappointed me bitterly, because I really did enjoy the bulk of it.  I loved the weaving together of the stories of the German boy and French girl, and Anthony Doerr is a talented storyteller.  But I cannot forgive him for the last 50 pages.  Oh Anthony! Why?!

Even so, it's a very, very good book.  (But really. WHY??)

Vein of Iron (Ellen Glasgow)

I had read Vein of Iron years ago, but wanted to re-read the story of Ada Fincastle.  I loved this book--an insight into the world of a Virginian during the years preceding the Great Depression.  It's a well-executed book, and I think Ellen Glasgow is a sort of "hidden gem" writer. I was introduced to her years ago by my college roommate/best friend, who is a Glasgow scholar.  I particularly appreciated Ada's father in the story during this reading; he seemed more nuanced than I'd found him the first time I read the book.  

Final Gifts (Maggie Callanan & Patricia Kelley)

I recommend this to anyone who is dealing or may deal with a dying person--and spoiler alert!--that means everyone.  There is so much meaning in a person's final days, which can be both brutal and strangely lovely.  Too many people are keen and quick to disregard the things dying people say or do.  This book confirmed what I have thought for a long time: that there's meaning and a sort of universality among these experiences.  Highly recommended. 

How Green was My Valley (Richard Llewellyn)

Oh, how I loved this book! I listened to most of it on Audible, read by Ralph Cosham (he's great).  Then I finished it in paper--my husband gave me a first edition copy for my birthday, three days after my Daddy died.  It was such a treat to really relish the last chapters by reading it on paper.  I found the characters compelling and realistic, the story poignant and beautiful, and some of the scenes absolutely riveting and--in one case--heartbreaking. I read it right around the time my father died.  I cried.  It was a wonderful book--my favorite of the year. My father would have loved this book, too.  

1. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (JK Rowling)*

2. Are Women Human? (Dorothy Sayers)*

3. All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr)* (loved this book until about 50 pages from the end, and then was furious and dissatisfied!)

4. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (JK Rowling)

5. The War of Art (Steven Pressfield) )(this was a re-read--I basically read it every year, because I'm a fan.)

6. How to be a High School Superstar (Cal Newport)(Cal sometimes drives me crazy, but he makes good points, and the primary point of this book is that colleges aren't that interested in "well-rounded" students anymore--they have thousands of applications from well-rounded, top-tier students every year.  Instead, the author encourages students to be interesting. I can get on board with that, because it seems like a more real and organic way to live--pursuing one's interests--than checking all the boxes of athlete, volunteer, scholar, et cetera. And--here's my addition--what makes someone interesting?  Being interested in the world! That's an admissions philosophy I can embrace and appreciate.) 

7. Piranesi (Susanna Clarke)(fascinating, weird, and strangely predictable, but ultimately too far outside the realm of believability, and yes, I realize that Harry Potter books aren't exactly within the realm of believability, but they do have their own logic and rationality, even if they don't comply with the workings of our natural world.  The world of Piranesi was just tooooo far gone for me. However, it was thought-provoking.)

8. The Shallows (Nicholas Carr)*(a good book that takes a hard look at what the Internet can do to our brains; this book contained one of the most thought-provoking quotes of the year for me, which I'll share sometime. I read it by the pool and kept having to stop and make notes in my journal about it.)

9.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (JK Rowling) 

10. A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)*

11. Vein of Iron (Ellen Glasgow)*

12. Blue Ruin (Grace Livingston Hill)

13. The Jane Austen Diet (Brian Kozlowski)  

14. Final Gifts (Maggie Callanan and Patrician Kelley)*

15. How Green Was My Valley (Richard Llewelyn)*

16. A New Name (Grace Livingston Hill) 

17. Grace Livingston Hill (Robert Munce)(an interesting glimpse into Grace's life!)

I also listened to five Harry Potter books on CD: The Sorcerer's Stone, The Chamber of Secrets, the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Goblet of Fire, and The Order of the Phoenix.

As always, there was also the Bible, smatterings of The Book of Common Prayer, my favorite devotional (Streams in the Desert), and Uniformity with God's Will, a personal favorite. I also read much of The Screwtape Letters, which I basically read every summer by the pool. It's an annual tradition for me now!

I also suspect, as I always do, that I missed a few books along the way, but I did my best to remember and list the books I've read here!

I did not read many books to my children last year.  Annie and I are working our way through Heidi, and the kids and I are reading Carry On, Mr Bowditch, and as a family we're reading The Hobbit, but it has been very, very hit-or-miss.  Some seasons are like that.  I hope that 2023 will be less like that. 

Here is a link to last year's list, and previous years' lists as well.

Happy new year, and happy reading!

Paradise

 

Well, I have finally seen, with my own eyes, crystal clear waters and sugary white sand beaches. 

I took my sister on a quick trip last week.  Our father loved the lower latitudes, but neither of us had ever been much south of, say, Orlando, Florida.  We went a bit farther this time.....

Do you wonder what heaven is like? I think it's entirely incomprehensible, something that our feeble brains can't understand, some dimension that is more beautiful and full of goodness than anything we could imagine on earth.  

I have no idea if heaven looks like this, but this is truly beautiful. I believe that all of the best things on earth--our most loving relationships, the most striking natural landscapes--are pale shadows of What's To Come.  So heaven probably isn't like this; it's probably much, much better.

The clarity of the water! It astonished me.  It's real! I kept thinking.  It's really real!

I think maybe that's what people say when they reach heaven.  The rumors are true! they probably think.  It wasn't photoshopped. It wasn't made up. It's real, and it's more beautiful in person than I could have ever expected. 

That's what I think about when I think about this beach, where I could hardly talk all day, I was just so astonished that it was, in fact, really real. 

What is my father seeing now?  I have no idea.  But I think he sees things clearly, as they truly are, at long last. 

For now we see through a glass darkly, and one day we will see face to face. (1 Corinthians 13:12)

Yes and amen. 

Annie Gets a Party

Annie turned 12 earlier this month, and one thing she asked for this year was a party.  A Real Party. 

Given the fact that for the past three years we've not been able to have friends over on her birthday, either because of covid, or me having covid, or generalized illness, I thought it would be a nice thing to do, to celebrate this last year of pre-teenagerhood.

So today after ballet company rehearsals my husband and I are transporting nine girls home, with four others to be dropped off at our house a bit later, for Annie's Twelfth Birthday Party.  We've got cupcakes, chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, vegetables and dip, fruit, party games, a craft, and a dance playlist (many thanks to our niece, who took time out of her busy first year of law school exam time to send a plethora of good "dance party" suggestions that I used when I was choosing songs). My sister gave Annie a tabletop disco ball for Christmas, along with glow-stick necklaces.  Annie will be wearing her blue silk dress--you know, the one I bought at the secondhand store, tags still on, for $5 about 5 years ago?  The pizza will be delivered around 5pm.  People are excited.  (Is it wrong to say that I'm excited that tonight I will be done hostessing?  Because I'm excited about that!)

Annie is a pleasure to parent and it's a privilege to celebrate her.  She's my right-hand girl: reliable, kind, intuitive, thoughtful, and generous.  We understand each other on what feels like a mitochondrial level.  She has made countless sacrifices over the past year, with my Dad's illness, and she doesn't complain about it. She's so unselfish and unspoiled that it's a delight to spoil her just a little bit now.  She loves friends, and beautiful things, and cupcakes, and I'm thankful to provide those things for her today. 

A dozen years with my little girl.  I know you hear this all the time, but mothers will little ones: don't blink.  It truly flies.  And it's beautiful and bittersweet. 

{I make it a rule not to post pictures of my children, but this one is acceptable: Annie practicing piano recently in a straw hat. So sweet!}

Happy next year of life, Annie, and happy party day!

On Grief

 I had an interesting experience with grief last autumn.  

Since January, I had been deep in anticipatory grieving.  We knew my father's cancer was a terminal one.  We knew that the statistics on small cell lung carcinoma are grim. Last year before he died I cried most days.  Sometimes I'd be washing dishes and burst into tears.  Sometimes I'd be driving somewhere and start crying.  It was a constant companion: the anticipatory grief.  Knowing this was the end of something.  Knowing goodbye was so close.  

After my father's death, my primary emotion for weeks was relief.  The suffering near the end of his life was real.  I had envisioned that as a cancer patient, he would drift off in a morphine-induced haze and die peacefully.  That was absolutely not true. I was so relieved his suffering was done, so relieved that we never had to replay it again, that I did not cry.  I was exhausted, I was sad, but I was relieved.

Somewhere about six weeks after his death something else began.  It was like the time I toured the infamous underground bunker at The Greenbriar Resort when I was a teenager.  We walked into the tunnel that leads down into the bunker, and the 20-something ton door shut behind us.  That sound was so final.

Sometime in November I felt it.  The door was irreversibly closed.  The relief had faded and the reality set in: I will never talk to my father, face-to-face, in this lifetime, again.  Our morning cups of coffee, where we'd talk for hours from before dawn until the rest of the household woke up, are over.  Our long phone calls of laughter and teasing and nonstop talking are over.  Our hugs, when I'd rest my head on his chest, are over.  The door felt like it slammed shut on me every time I thought about this reality.  My lifelong Gibraltar was--is--irrevocably gone.

And so a different, deeper grief began.  It was like an underground river, flowing somewhere deep within my spirit.  It was a quiet grief that felt omnipresent, that felt below that place Wordsworth described as "too deep for tears."  

Yes, I have faith in God. The last solid food my father ate was the communion wafer his Anglican priest brought to the house three days before he died.  Was my father reconciled with God?  I believe so.  Will we meet again? I have no idea how heaven works.  I'd like to think so. I am confident of (and unendingly grateful for) my salvation and I'm confident that God has a much bigger plan than I can envision.  That faith does not negate the reality of the pain that I will never make my Dad's morning coffee again, just the way he likes it: black, with two small cubes of ice. 

Every year my Dad and stepmom threw a large Christmas party between Christmas and New Year's. Our initial thought was not to have the party this year, but sometime in the fall my stepmom said she was considering it. I am fully on board with whatever she wants, so I agreed.  We kept it simple, she had it mostly catered, and it was good.  All the neighbors she invited except one were able to come.  There were great stories told, multiple conversations for hours, loads of food, happy conviviality.  Our neighbors in Charleston are good people--it's a sweet, close-knit community.  My Dad, who loved to have his house full of people enjoying themselves, would have loved it. 

Getting past the party was an emotional triumph for me, one more step in the right direction of healing and recovering.  So the grief has shifted, from that reverberatingly heavy closed door and that deep  underground river, to something different yet again.  I suppose the closest thing I can describe it as is "acceptance," although that's not quite right.  But it's close. 

If you're grieving, just lean into it and know it comes and goes in phases, it ebbs and flows, and it shows up when you least expect it.  The best thing to do is acknowledge that it is real, and be kind and gentle with yourself and others while you heal. 

A New Year

 The calendar has flipped again, and I am not sure I've ever been so glad to see the year turn.  The last time I posted I was sick at Thanksgiving (and the whole family got sick, although to varying degrees: what was a fairly unpleasant experience for me was 48 hours of body aches for my husband!).  Then it was Advent, and Christmas.

I did not have the heart to write much during that time.  Once I recovered from my illness, we were immediately thrown into Nutcracker week, my sister's 40th birthday, and my sweet aunt and stepmom visiting from out-of-state. The month continued to snowball: Finn's piano teacher sold us her car (praise the LORD --I had been looking off and on for months for a replacement to my 19-year-old car, and she just happened to be selling her 4-year old car with 45,000 miles, one of the only two brands I was trying to find!), so we spent an inordinate amount of time the week before Christmas on moving money, dealing with insurance changes, going to the DMV....you know. Then my in-laws lost power during the coldest week of the year, and my brother-in-law moved in with us for a few days while my sister also came to down for Christmas.  On Christmas Eve I was sending a hot Dutch oven of chili and thermos of coffee to my in-laws (who refused to leave their house although it was 39 degrees one morning!). 

But there was something deeper happening also, and I knew it and could feel it.  The dryness, the fatigue, the sadness of wrapping up what--I can see in retrospect--was the hardest year of my life.  I used to think that was 2018, when my husband had cancer. That was hard.  But this one was harder.  By the time the end of this year rolled around and Christmas was upon us, I just didn't have the heart to do much. 

We didn't drive around in pajamas looking at Christmas lights.  We didn't go look at the decorated trees in town.  We didn't bake a single thing--except that I did bake fruitcakes, some sort of primal urge, although my Dad (my annual fruitcake recipient) wasn't here to enjoy them. Although I ordered Christmas cards in October, I have yet to send them out. We didn't pull out our Advent book to read, and I think I watched one Christmas movie.  I didn't put out many decorations. 

 I did give everyone gifts.  We had a beautiful Christmas morning brunch, as always.  I threw a special 40th birthday brunch for my sister, whose birthday is December 10th.  But that's it.

I realized somewhere in there that I was really just wanting to get through the holidays, and get to January, so I could be done with it.  I wanted to check the box and move on. I adore Christmas, so this desire to just get it over with is not my normal state of being. But it's completely understandable.  Grief is a multi-faceted emotion.  I acknowledged this as my reality: my father has died, and I am sad, and I don't feel like doing the normal holiday things.  And I acknowledged this also as reality: God is here, the incarnation was real, and next year Christmas will be easier.  I know it will be. I feel it already. 

I allowed myself to feel all this without feeling "guilty" about it.  My children both said several times that it didn't feel like a normal Christmas to them, and I told them that I understood completely.  But in order for me to have the emotional space I needed to get through the season with grace and joy, I needed to keep everything very light and easy on myself.  I could tell that I had a twinge of depression; I sometimes wandered around the house wondering what to do, and didn't feel "motivated" to do much.  When that happens, I feel like it's important to get rest, to pray, to understand that it's okay to have a hard season.  They come and they go.

It has gone.  We spent four nights in Charleston around the new year, and when we pulled into our driveway on January 2nd I was almost elated: I had gotten through the holidays. I had gotten through Christmas. Most of all, I had gotten through the first Charleston Christmas party (a big annual event at our house there) without my Dad.  I had gotten through 2022.  Hallelujah.  

This new year feels like a gift.  We are only one week in and I feel like a revitalized version of myself. I feel the old optimism and energy, the old purpose and direction--I feel those things pulsing within me again.  

That's where I am, and I'm thankful.