3/5/07

I think I have been avoiding God for the past few days, and that is never how I want to function. I feel as though my faith is so elementary, yet, I don’t know where to start to deepen my understanding. I am so ignorant of so much and I don’t want to settle for that anymore. I feel like God is trying to tell me something, but I’m unable to hear it.

The thought just struck me that maybe I don’t hear because I don’t ask, therefore, I don’t listen.  I want to be still now and recognize his voice.

This is where I am. This is where I’ll stay

3/5/22

I rolled out of bed at 7:45 this morning. The girls came upstairs at 7:20 to see if it was, as they say, “wake-up time” yet, and I milked their relative morning independence until I heard the boys twenty minutes later—shockingly late for them.

The rest of the morning fell into a rhythm of laziness (the good, Saturday morning kind). The kids ate breakfast, drew at the kitchen table, then split up: The three big kids played with beads and string while Jude built Magnatile towers in the living room.

I moved in and out of it all. I solved today’s Wordle in four guesses before I climbed out of bed. I read at the table for a bit while they drew. I sent intermittent text messages. I checked my NYT news app from a place of muscle memory. I read a beautiful essay and an article about how Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote “Dos Orugitas” and then live-texted and emailed my friends my thoughts.

I sat in the living room with Jude while he built and then read him a book and in not one single moment of the entire morning was I fully present for any of it. I stayed in a state of distraction—never really focusing on one thing for any long measure of time.

I’ve been aware of this tendency for some time. Last fall, I wrote an essay about how annoying it is when Jude interrupts the moments of time I have to play with the other three kids, and, as I was writing, I started to wonder something: Was I so frustrated because of the interruptions or was I frustrated because the interruptions came during the singular moment in the day where I was making a conscious choice to be present?

I want to be better than this. I want to be still. To listen. To hear. I want my kids to learn to be still. To listen. To hear.

This is where I am. I hope this isn’t where I’ll stay.