Today is a beautiful soft rain with a hint of warmth in the air. It’s tulips blooming and fresh spring grass with thick clouds and deep thoughts. It’s my birthday. I roll over into Brent’s arms and ask how old it is that I’m turning. “27” he says. “hmmm” I mull. Twenty Seven. The baby is talking in her crib. “Da da da da dad a” she chatters over and over to herself. I go in and pick her up, unwrapping her from her bundle-me, I put my lips close to her ear and whisper “how about for today, you say ma ma ma ma?” she turns to me and smiles, “da da da da”. I sigh and start cleaning up the kitchen from last night’s dinner.
Looking out the window at those clouds hanging low, I think about what a birthday really holds. Presents, if you’re under 16. After that I’ve always tried to make it a day of doing only things that I want to do. Do you ever get a whole day of doing only the things you want to do? Quite the luxury, no? In college I dated a very beautiful boy who smelled like summer. His skin was dark and worn like the Moab rocks, and he had this way of making you feel completely taken care of. He was everything I never would have dated, which is why I dated him. He drove from Brian Head to surprise me on my birthday. I lied and said I had rehearsal all day. As he pulled his truck out of my driveway to go kill 6 hours, I opened my violin case. I spent all day practicing, because that’s what I wanted to do. Uninterrupted. Do I feel bad that I lied? A little, I guess I felt guilty more than bad. It was my birthday and I justified my actions because it was so.
Today I feed the baby her oats, then put her in the tub to wash all the breakfast out of her hair. I lather lotion on her soft skin as she kicks her legs and tries out a new word – something that sounds like a combination of gurbling and blowing bubbles with your lips. I put her in her first outfit of the day (to be destroyed at lunch at the latest). Then I pass her off to Brent so I can sit down and do something I haven’t had the time to do in months: write.
The clouds envelope the hills behind our little house, making them look looming, with the implication of being much bigger then they are. Birds flutter back and forth on the branches surrounding our porch, picking from one budded leaf to the next. I think of France, and all the alone time I had there. I think of New York and the smell of garbage that I became so fond of. Life. I really love my life. It’s been full of ’me’ time. It’s been full of a passion for learning, of wanting things and working hard to get them. It’s been full of that feeling you get when you accomplish something great – the sweet satisfaction of a job well done, and the addictive sweat of getting there. This past year my rhythm was changed. For the first time, my days and nights, and every small breath that filled them, was working around and for someone else. Much more so than in a marriage . . . in marriage your spouse wakes up and goes to work and the ‘me’ time continues. With a baby, a part of you is constantly connected to something that has needs and wants that interrupt that ‘me’ time. Selflessness demanded me.
Some people are just better people then I. Some people (I could name 10 off the top of my head – part of living in birthing Utah, I guess) slipped right into this phase of life as if it was what they were born to do. It fulfilled them in ways that I would stare at in wonder. I am a different breed. I hold the bundle in my arms and my heart fills fills fills with love; my mind goes fuzzy as I bury my nose in her hair, smelling the sweet smell of all things baby. I love this little girl. But there is a part of me that aches for the freedom I breathed with before: The days of waking up, feeling the first hint of cold, and without warning loading my truck with day pack and dog, heading South for a week or two. I miss finding a place up a canyon and calling it my bed for a night. I miss the pace of New York and getting 45 things accomplished in one day. I miss the hours and hours of steady practicing as my brain and fingers work as one – ending with the soft thickness of having learned and accomplished everything according to the pattern I set.
Last night I went to a lecture on Fractals and the Theory of Chaos. We learned that chaos is not disorganization and tumult, like we are taught as a child, but actually a series of unpredictable patterns – seemingly glorifying the intelligence of God with its infinite nature. Everything is a pattern, and everything is constantly changing. I loved the quote by Margaret J. Wheatley “These ideas speak with a simple clarity to the issues of effective leadership. They bring us back to the importance of simple governing principles: guiding visions, strong values, organizational beliefs – the few formula individuals can use to shape their own behavior. Our task is to communicate, keep them ever-present, and clear, and then to allow the system its random, sometimes chaotic meanderings. In fact, these ideas bring us back to Joseph Smith’s powerful and prophetic vision for leaders: “I teach them correct principles and they govern themselves.” Anyone who has exercised leadership in an organization, church group, or family, knows how hard it is to practice the restraint and faith implicit in Joseph Smith’s principle. We are afraid of randomness and autonomy, afraid that open self-expression and personal freedom will drag us deeper into a chaos without form or meaning. We have become conditioned to believe that the only way we can create order is through the exercise of clear controls – telling people what to do and doing this at ever greater levels of detail. If we sense that chaos is increasing, our conditioned response is to charge in, issue new policies, exert more control, take over the task – anything to avoid the descent into darkness that we fear as chaos. But I believe that Joseph Smith truly understood the workings of chaos, and how real order is created.”
The irony for me is that the chaos I fear is the steady mundane life of a housewife.
As I drove home, a gorgeous Wagner Opera was playing on XM radio. It was live from the MET – part of the Ring Cycle. I let the melodies sink into my skin as I thought of the patterns of my life, and how the changes have stretched me. Imagine my surprise when the opera concluded, applause filled the air, and the announcer revealed that the soloist was a friend of mine from college (who had a baby around the same time I did). I sighed as a certain sense of fulfillment collapsed inside of me. I am trying to make an impact here. I am trying to become something great. And just like that it was all too small and unimportant.
There are patterns in life, birthdays after birthdays as our circumstances change – patterns that never repeat but instead grow. We grow with them, becoming, changing and striving, squinting our eyes through the tough times until one day we open them again, only to find that things have once again altered. I think that one of the most important words in the human language is consistency. Consistency . . . . of patience, of principle, of prayer. . . . without consistency, well, there is only the randomness of chaos.
My life is not excitement and freedom like it used to be. No, it is methodical, predictable, and (in my own opinion) often mundane. But, I am learning. I am growing. I am trying. I am for sacrifice and the uncomfortable feeling of doing something that is hard. I am for being happy for a colleague who has success even if it makes me feel for a moment like a failure. I am loyal. I am for recommitting to honesty. I am for the moment you drop your pride and let your eyes pull toward heaven. I am a sinking to your knees. I am for the every day commitment to try and get that run in, to try and open the case even if it means facing a fear of having regressed. I am for being okay when these things don’t happen because instead I held the baby. I am for pulling myself up higher, and the exhaustion in doing so. I am for reading, and writing, and knowing that one day I’ll look back and remember with nostalgia those moments that I wanted so badly to be over. I am for forgiving. I am for happiness in a small house in Sugarhouse with a life that seems cliché. I am for the randomness that isn’t chaos, but an explicit pattern that glorifies God. I am for the plan He has for me, albeit so different from what I often would choose. I am for children and the giggles that make the whole world seem brighter. I am for being a housewife, even if it is my own version of one. I am for choice, and choosing to not settle. I am for stretching and taking a moment to step back and assess. I am for change, and for striving to keep the important things unchanged. Today, I am 27.