Front Burner Chronicles

Here's what's on the front burner these days which is making the back burner simmer a little lower:

1. My brother Daniel and sister-in-law, Andrea just brought twins home from the hospital. Here's the longer version of the story.

2. The doctor marked my fever yesterday at 103.4. I hardly ever get fever sick, so the whole chills / sweating / achy / moaning day yesterday was ugly. The first time in 6 years that I've not gone to work because I was sick. (I'm staying home today too.)

3. The Open Frame Student Film Contest which is the little student film contest I run for our students went off without a hitch on Saturday night -- but for the two weeks prior -- it occupied plenty of time and energy.

which means that:

4. Now I'm trying to catch up on grading.

Hope your world is full of --

peace~

Something is About to Happen

...somewhere...

The thing is -- something is *always* about to happen somewhere. Somebody is always on the brink of something.

Or maybe...

We are all always on the brink of something?

Falling into place? / Falling apart?

.......

When I found out that the doctors had induced labor for my daughter's birth mother, my world suddenly felt like it was spinning out of control. I decided to fast until Jaelyn was born. Both as a spiritual discipline to focus my attention to prayer and as an expression of solidarity with Jaelyn and her birth mom and the enormous strain upon both of them to help her enter the world.

And the growling emptiness in my stomach just exacerbated how loud and odd the world seemed to me that entire day. There were still papers to shuffle, phone calls to be made, student conferences to hold, graduate student admission committee meetings to attend. And it all seemed so ridiculous, so inconsequential, and yet illustrative of the fundamental nature of humanness. Waiting toward something. Working to bring about some new birth...

Our lawyer had suggested that we visit Jaelyn but have her sleep at a house with friends. At least for the three days until her birth mother could announce her intention in court. That way in case the adoption didn't work out we would have protected our emotions.

We had strategically only purchased the most essential elements for baby care, not wanting to live through another disappointment underlined by a million soft and pastel objects in every corner of the house.

All day we were wanting with our entire beings. Trying to hold our emotions in manageable ziploc bags, too, though. So we could zip them together and store them away for a different day if we needed to, if we had to...

.....

At five o'clock our lawyer called to announce that Jaelyn had been born. After asking him a million questions he couldn't answer, I made myself macaroni and cheese and a tunafish sandwhich. I ate in our little yellow dining room silently as I listened to Lynn asking the same questions and talking to her family on the phone.

If all went well, we would pick our daughter up at the hospital...

So while my ritual sacrificial food smoothly slid down my throat, I started to realize something about the nature of children. You only partly know what is going to happen next. You always expect that something is about to happen, and you're never sure what it is....