Kathleen M. Basi's Blog, page 110

A Photo Day

Today is the first day of Triduum, and I am beginning to wind down blogging toward the holiest days of the year. Palm Sunday was supposed to be a crazy-busy day, with me traveling to observe an NFP class in the afternoon and attending a novels group meeting in the evening. It turned out both got canceled, and thrilled with the unexpected ability to be spontaneous, I said, "Let's have a picnic and a hike!" (Disclosure: I use the word "hike" loosely. We do have four little kids.)

I begin with a picture of me, because it's the only one that got taken. The photographer has to work to make sure she appears in the family photo album occasionally.

I love this next picture. Christian and I had engagement pictures taken on this bridge, from this angle.

Generally when we come to the state park, it's in the winter. Don't ask me why. I don't think I've ever been there with the wildflowers in bloom. It was so beautiful. I have better pictures of the wildflowers, but I love the tree in this one.

Heading toward the rock bridge…I'm not sure if Julianna  found the view or the climb most inspiring.

A couple of closeups I love: Christian reading an interpretive sign to Alex (gotta love a guy wearing a Snugli)…

…and how can you resist this adorable face? (So–does he look like mommy or like daddy? People can't decide.)

The back side of the rock bridge:

 Nicholas wasn't feeling very photogenic that day, but he gets so many pictures taken of him, I'm not going to feel guilty that I didn't manage to get a closeup of him to share this one time.

It was a perfect way to start off Holy Week…as a family.

The Many Names of Julianna

We're not big on nicknames in this house. We've given all our children long, classic names, and only Alex goes by the shortened form. People are constantly asking us "What do you call him? Nick? Nicky?" Other people are forever referring to the boys by diminutives, but we do not. We chose the names we liked, darn it, often , and we're going to use them!

But I have tons of pet names for the kids, at least when they're little. Alex went by Mr. Bug, and I've also used punkin, boy-o-boy, and variations on munchkin (munchy-girl, munchy-boy, munch-baby, smunchkin) for babies and toddlers.

But nobody, and I mean nobody, has as many names as Julianna:

Miss Pooey, a title bestowed by Grandma Basi, and its cousin, Missy-poo. This seems to be the name off choice when she's getting on and off the school bus.
Miss Sneaky, AKA Superspy. We first gave her this name as a joke, because when she learned to crawl, she smacked her hands and knees so loudly with every step–she needed hat much physical input. To our great chagrin, she has grown into it. Taking her to play outside or shopping anywhere is an exhausting mental exercise, because if you turn around–you know, to choose a head of broccoli–she pulls a vanishing act. And she does it soundlessly. As an example: one day I was nursing Michael when I realized I hadn't heard a peep from Julianna in half an hour or more. I ran from my room on the second floor all the way down to the basement, checked all her usual haunts, shouted her name. No response. I was rushing outside in a panic when I heard Nicholas saying, "Wake up, Juweeanna! Wake up!" I ran to him and discovered Julianna, asleep in Michael's crib. Yes. The crib.
Pretty girl. Self-explanatory.
Julianna Banana…occasionally. When we're feeling silly.
Sweet pea, girly-girl (I've never actually called her "half-wildebeest," though I often think of her in that dual way.)
Ju-Ju-bee, her Aunt Laura's pet name, and one I just love.
Then there are the various stages of little ones learning to say her name: Ju-ju, Nana, Jujunana, Junanna, Juwee-nanna, Juweeanna. Right now she pronounces her own name something like Ooo-lah-uh.
And of course, when she's in trouble, her compound name gets split decisively in two: "Julie-ANNA!"

And although she often makes me want to pull my hair out, I still love her madly.

*

The Drama Next Door

Photo by Tiger Girl, via Flickr

It was 6:20 a.m. on Palm Sunday when I smelled smoke. I sat trapped in my chair by the open window, Michael nursing greedily after sleeping all night, and peered out at fog hovering in the yard. But was it fog? Or was it smoke? It sure smelled like smoke. I knew it wasn't our house, because I know how well our smoke detectors work. So I returned to playing handsies with Michael, and the next time I looked outside, the haze had cleared, though the smell remained.

Finally the sirens started up. I relaxed; somebody got the fire department called, anyway, even if I couldn't get it done. I braced for Julianna's waking wail of terror, but it never came. Oddly, the sirens never came anywhere near our neighborhood.

By the time we left for church three hours later, the fire department had put out a release: an auto parts store was burning a mile and a half directly south of us. After church, as we prepared to exit the highway, we spotted the cloud of smoke glowering just over the rise. What do they do, I wondered, when they're fighting a fire at a busy intersection? Do people drive by on the way to Sunday brunch and gawk? Or do they reroute traffic altogether?

It got me thinking how much drama plays out just off-camera in our humdrum little lives. Whenever people start discussing 9/11, they begin by talking about their own lives–where they were, what they were doing. It's always something ordinary made unforgettable by what followed. My memories of that day, for instance, begin with a drive down the highway, and a feeling–that gorgeous-morning feeling, that feeling that anything is possible, in the best of ways. It was a school Mass day, and I remember a little second grader sitting at the end of the pew by the music area, his legs swinging, and I almost laughed out loud, it was so cute. Wholly ordinary. I had no idea that in a place I could reach in a few hours by air, people were dying and buildings crumbling.

We gravitate toward the dramatic, but as I navigate the blessedly ordinary paths of parenthood and work, I realize that the humdrum and the dramatic are separated only by a thread–a yard, a street, the passing of one second to the next. There is a home next door to that burning business, and a parent staring down from the patient tower of a hospital, her baby fighting for life as thousands of us drive by without sparing a glance. We are caught up in our own fears and broken relationships, our own worries, our own frustrations, until the moment our lives collide with the more dramatic events happening next door.

These stories, when people share them, are riveting, ordinary though they are. And for that reason, I am committed to finding a niche for the stories of ordinary people in my fiction writing. The collective wisdom of the literary world says no one wants to read those stories. We need bombs counting down and body counts climbing; we need fabulously rich and angelically gorgeous protagonists who act and in fact are larger than life.

And although those stories certainly entertain, surely I can't be the only person in the world who also longs for fiction that uplifts and sheds light on my own life. If I can learn to write characters so real that you forget you can't pick up the phone and have a nice long chat with them–characters you care about so much that you forget their problems are not yours, or those of a dear friend–if I can learn to do that, I am sure there will be room in the market for it. Even if there's not a bomb or a sculpted Adonis anywhere in it.

What do you think? Would you read such a book? What is it that you want from your fiction?

Persecution Complex

Photo by thefost, via Flickr

I have this persecution complex. It dates back to the days when I was engaged to an atheist and I knew I had no business being so. But despite the nudges from my conscience, I couldn't (or wouldn't) break it off.

Ever since then, any time I've been involved with something I love, I get this niggling feeling of guilt. As if the simple fact that it's something I want to do means it's automatically something I shouldn't.

Mothers in general are highly susceptible to feelings of inadequacy. We never do enough. We never keep our tempers under stress the way we think we should; we never juggle the responsibilities properly–we always, always measure up as less than in our own minds. And judging other mothers–an activity in which we all participate, whether or not we admit it–adds to our own sense of being Not Good Enough.

Imagine me, then, admitting at last that I am no longer a stay-at-home mom, but a work-at-home mom. Guilt steps up and starts poking me with pinprick pincers. If I didn't write, my house would be cleaner, and I'd spend more time doing "mom" things with my kids, so that when my three-year-old went for a DIAL screening he didn't get marked down for not being able to use a scissors. Surely I'd do better with faith formation, and Julianna would be farther along the path to speech, so they wouldn't think she has to spend two-thirds of her time in a self-contained classroom. I wouldn't get mad when they fight and break things, because I'd be there to arbitrate and redirect. Right?

Obviously, then, I must not be doing what God has in mind for me. I'm being selfish by pursuing a writing career, however humble. My vocation as a mother should stand pristine, undiluted, in the center of my life, and anything that distracts me is Not. God's. Will, even and perhaps especially if I enjoy it.

Like I said: persecution complex.

Yesterday was Palm Sunday, with an Old Testament reading from Isaiah:

The Lord God has given me

a well-trained tongue,

that I might know how to speak to the weary

a word that will rouse them.

Morning after morning

he opens my ear that I may hear;

and I have not rebelled,

have not turned back.

It seemed a beautiful affirmation. And then it seemed sacrilegious to hear any word meant for me in a passage referring to Jesus.

I am beginning to realize that I may never know for sure that what I think is God's will for me, actually is. I just have to muddle along as best I can, and accept that rock-solid certainty is not a commodity I'll ever have in abundance. And in the end, maybe that's okay. Because as long as I don't know for certain, I keep seeking. And as long as I am seeking, I don't become complacent.

Sunday Snippets

The end of another busy week sees us gathering at RAnn's place for Sunday Snippets: A Catholic Carnival. I spent two days adjudicating a diocesan festival, so I didn't do as much in-depth blogging this week. I'll just share two posts:

First Grade Sex Ed

The Hunger Games