My hero

So what is it about Holy Week and snakes?!! C killed a three-foot garden snake in the garage today. My hero!

"Is it . . . Saaatann?" ~the Church Lady

Happy Tax Day

I'm celebrating Tax Day today (Friday was a holiday in DC, in case you weren't paying attention.) I'm celebrating roads and hospitals and law enforcement and libraries. I'm celebrating being part of a nation that builds safety nets for the elderly and the disabled and the poor. I'm celebrating clean air and clean water and safe food. I'm celebrating that we value educating all our children and not just those whose parents can and will pay. Even though I'm sometimes uneasy, today I'm celebrating our national defense and the security we have at home and abroad. I'm also celebrating earthquake relief in Haiti and mosquito netting in Africa. I'm celebrating space flight and energy programs and national parks.

You've heard that government is the word we use for the things we decide to do together. I think it's worth celebrating one day a year.

Are we having fun yet?

Well, nobody's taking the T-bird away around here anytime soon.

At lunch on Thursday, I mentioned to C what I had been thinking lately: "We're not having fun." I thought he would tell me about how much fun we have together as a family and I was going to say that what we have is a joyful way of being and what I'm talking about is something different. But what he said was, "I know."

He went on to say that as two ordained ministers with demanding jobs, we aren't always very good at having fun ourselves or with each other. So we've been talking about that for three days now, culminating in long conversation at dinner and then later on a walk.

So what would be fun? Festivals are fun. Creativity is fun (that's Boo's contribution.) Dancing and hammocks and learning new things at a leisurely pace are all fun. Sampling all the food trailers in south Austin would be fun. Having a party would be super-fun (my contribution) but getting ready for it might not be. Going to someone else's party--with food, dancing and all our favorite people--would probably be more fun. Going for walks in interesting places--that was C's idea of fun--along with going to movies and listening to live music. He has tickets for Cage the Elephant in May so that will be fun for him and Mowgli. We're going to San Antonio for two nights later this month, which will also be very fun. Reading an interesting book together with all my friends and then talking about it--fun. Cooking something new for fun would be fun. (Cooking for my family at the end of a long day at work--not so fun.) Playing in the backyard with the kids in the kiddie pool and the sprinkler used to be lots of fun. Having all of us back together this summer will be fun, even just for a little while.

I've decided that we are really blessed that we all have such meaningful lives. I'm truly grateful. But what I'm really craving these days is fun . . . and committing to step outside the productivity routine a little bit to find it.

Happy birthday, Mowgli!

21 years ago, I became a mother. It was a long, hard day and also one of the very best. I could not have imagined then what my life would be--what it would be like to "have my heart go walking around outside my body," as Evelyn Underhill has said. I couldn't have imagined what the sacrifices would be or what the joys would be or how much one would compensate for the other. I didn't really understand that I would become a different person, that I wouldn't be my old self, only with a baby, but that I would become a new person, one that would completely contain the old person but would also never be the same.

The best work I've ever done is being a mom. I wasn't a natural mommy but I worked so hard at it, I got really good at it. I'll be forever grateful for that day 21 years ago when Mowgli made me a mom.