When Nothing Existed but Chaos....

In this week's Bible study class on Genesis 1, Pastor Bill mentioned that Frederick Buechner says that writing is really about just sitting down every day and doing it, regardless of the fact that most of what gets written does not feel or read as if it was divinely inspired.  (I don't have citation for this idea.  I'll have to look for it in all my spare time.  Ha ha.)  Julia Alvarez says the same thing.  Anne Lamott says the same thing.  Madeleine L'Engle says the same thing.  The first step is always always always sit your butt down and do it.  So there's the what.  As for the why, Genesis 1 promises us that we are made in the image of God and that God creates.  He uses words to put the world into order.

So for the next hour I am sitting my butt down in the midst of mess that is verging dangerously close to chaos, squalor, or both, even though what I really want to be doing is eating a cookie, which would, of course, necessitate making cookies instead of writing.  Chocolate chip, I think, with walnuts.  Or maybe a nice apple cake with maple frosting....

So let's talk about the reign of chaos over our lives.  My life at least.  A blessedly close and honest friend of mine called me up last week to tell me she had a bad mommy day.  She had yelled at her daughter, mostly over her daughter's flippancy toward her part in the domestic chaos.  Oh, sister, I thought, I hear you.  But I can top you any day of the week.  I am nothing if not competitive at the sport of falling short.  My day that day had just happened to have begun with a visit to the elementary school principal's office so that one of the fruits of my loins could explain to the principal the incident that said fruit claimed to have forgotten when previously interrogated by said principal.  How did it go?  Fruit-of-my-loins, although he had made a full confession/explanation after several hours of sitting in his room and being periodically grilled by one parent and then another, claimed once again that he didn't remember the incident in question.  GAHHH!!  That same day I realized about 9:30am that, in spite of notes being sent home by the music teacher, the PTO, and the classroom teacher both in paper and electronic formats, I had failed to dress my forgetful fruit in red, white and blue for the ceremony about the anniversary of the National Anthem in which he was singing.  Furthermore, I had been invited to that ceremony, which had taken place at 9am.  Good mom.

The following day was my daughter's birthday.  I woke up feeling miserable with a cold.  Full body aches and fatigue, on top of the usual head, throat and nasal problems.  Determined to be a better mom, I got up early anyway to make two batches of pancakes: one without wheat or dairy, one with pink food coloring.  I made snacks for the preschool class and stayed at preschool the whole morning.  I came home and made lunch and strawberry layer cake.  I felt beyond awful, and when my daughter said she just wanted to lie down and take a nap, I said she could.  I didn't make her use the bathroom.  So, of course, later in the afternoon she came down to the family room, where I had just moments before fallen asleep, and told me she had to go potty.  I yelled with a scratchy voice for her to go to the bathroom, but I didn't follow her in there quickly enough, so she came back to the family room and had an accident on the carpeting.  Hearing me scream at her, she ran to the bathroom, emptying her bladder through the hallway and half of the bathroom.  Not the half with the toilet.  She was empty by then.  I screamed at her, on her birthday (oh, on her birthday on her birthday on her birthday,) but that took all of my remaining energy, so while she sat in the bathroom and sobbed (she was in the clean half), I was kneeling in puddles of urine, also sobbing, which made her sob all the harder.  I asked her, "When you have to go potty, what should you do?" over and over and over again, making her repeat the answer (go the toilet) over and over and over again, while trapped in the bathroom by ponds of urine and a sobbing mother.  On her birthday.  Incidentally, I found out today that I was supposed to have returned the picture order form to preschool on that day as well.  I just didn't know I had missed that due date until her teacher asked me about it today. 

In the mean time, my kitchen counters have been overtaken with vegetables and apples and pink cake and pans and items from the grocery store I haven't put away and napkins I haven't washed.  Apparently there's a picture order form somewhere in there as well.  The dining room is covered in sleeping bags my husband is "airing out" and the bags and camping equipment he doesn't even claim are there for any reason other than he didn't put them away.  The shower is covered in mildew.  The guest bed is covered in clean but unfolded clothes, and the rest of the clothes we own are still dirty.  Child number one wore to his picture day today a shirt that I pulled out of the dirty laundry, shook out, sniffed, and handed over.  Good enough.  The family room is unnavigable because it is covered in toys.  The pillows from the couches have joined the sleeping bags in the dining room to make a fort.  The apple tree in the back yard is so heavy with ripe fruit that some branches are nearly touching the ground, and the apples are getting eaten by worms and birds.

How did this happen?  How did I get so far behind when I don't even have a job?  I do not wish to live so frantically.  I want the water to separate from the dry land and the light from the dark.  That would be good.  But where to start?  How do other people have houses that are neat and clean?  I want that.  How do other people remember not only to dress their children in patriotic colors on the anniversary of the national anthem but also to have matching socks and hair bows for all of their daughters' outfits?  I should mention here that my daughter only has outfits because a kind relative in California sends us boxes of clothes periodically.

And yet.

I sit here writing this.  This evening I will take a child to soccer practice.  Later, I will go to band.  (I will feel guilty that I only practiced once--last night.)  I went running this morning at 5:30am.  I walked to preschool when I could have taken a car.  I biked there and back for the pick-up.  Tomorrow I will go do PTO work at the elementary school and then take child #2 to her soccer practice, and I'll probably do those errands by bike.  I will have my sister come over, if she happened not to read this and is therefore not too horrified by the mess to set foot in my house.  I will run with my running club.

The first Mary assignment in my Mary and Martha housekeeping book is to write down why I want a clean house.  It can be in poem form, or I can write it on a pretty sign and post it somewhere as decoration.  "Hurray!" I thought, when I read that first assignment.  My first housekeeping task is to write!  And I know why I want my house to be clean.  I feel better when my house is clean.  I breathe more easily.  I smile more.  I can relax (well, sort of) and play with my kids.  Perhaps more importantly, I feel that I can be more hospitable to others when my house is clean.  I want to be able to say to anyone who needs a place to meet or relax or eat or chat or spend the night: here!  Come here!  Stay here!  Sit here!  Eat my apples.  Taste one of these walnut chocolate chip cookies.  Talk to me.  Breathe and feel well and loved.

It's a good reason to spend my time cleaning and making order, is it not?

I suspect that my life is perhaps a bit too full to be completely orderly, and that is good too.  If I did not have children to feed and clothe and nurture, if they did not participate in sports or dance or music or scouts or school, if I did not have Bible study and church committees, if I didn’t chair a PTO committee, if I did not make music, if I did not read and write, if I did not have a garden, if I was not committed to ethical and healthful and joyful eating, well, then, I think I might have less mildew in my shower, and the laundry would be cleaned, folded and put away before it was needed on picture day or National Anthem day.  And while I'm sorry my house is a mess, I'm not sorry about why.

There is reason behind my chaos, if not full order.  Priorities.  Relationships.  Good.