Kathleen M. Basi's Blog, page 72

A Fry Pan Can Be A Holy Thing

Over the weekend we had a memorial service for my grandmother. When it was all over, the family went to her apartment and looked through her things. Each of us was able to go home with items that belonged once to her. And I’m reminded of the wisdom of a faith that manifests the spiritual, the metaphysical, through the physical.

Because the gloves she wore to church remain unstained, covering hands that, like hers, have seen their fair share of filth in the name of love.

Because the love she baked into white bread (key ingredient: bacon grease) and zucchini bread lingers in these battered, beaten aluminum pans that will now feed another rambunctious family of six.

Because the collection of exquisitely sculpted blessed palms, which beautified her bedroom shrine, now beautifies our kitchen.

Because a canister of sugar will be used or shuffled daily in the preparation of the family’s favorite foods.

Because when I spend a car trip praying on the rosary she prayed before Mass every Sunday (well, one of the rosaries), I will remember the countless prayers she sent up on behalf of her crazy granddaughter who tries to do too much. (The rosary from Lourdes, given to me by my other grandmother, resides in the van for the same purpose.)

And because even a cast iron skillet becomes a reminder of holiness when it is used by a person who, over the course of a life lasting nearly a century, no doubt spent as many moments praying God grand me patience! while using it as I do.

The things themselves aren’t holy, but they are a tangible reminder of a woman who was. And by having them and using them, she remains with me, in some ways even more closely than in life. Every time I see or touch or use these objects, it is a reminder of a truth greater than food or car trips or fashion. This is why we reverence objects that belonged to or touched a saint, why we keep them in places of honor and pray in front of them. Not out of some creepy or unholy idolatry, but because we experience God through our bodies, and even to look on a relic is a way to connect with someone who achieved what we aspire to. A way to make it more real and thus, more attainable. Which is the whole point of the spiritual journey.

Blogging, privacy issues, and a Mommy Blogger

Photo by ItzaFineDay, via Flickr

The great thing about the online community is the way you can draw on the experiences of a much wider variety of people than ordinary life allows. You can have a conversation with a number of people at the same time, and everyone’s experiences and perspectives (via comment box) enrich each other.

Yet sooner or later, I would imagine every “mommy” blogger has to confront the possibility that her kids are reaching the age where it’s no longer acceptable to parade their every word, antic, and struggle in front of the world.

I’m really starting to wrestle with this now with Alex. Up to now, he’s always been very excited about being featured on Mommy’s blog. But a few months ago, he surprised me by saying, “Don’t put that on the blog!” It was the first hint that it’s time to start thinking more carefully about what I share of his life. His peers don’t read my blog, but some of their parents might, and not everything is meant for the world to know.

I try to be pretty careful about what I reveal about the lives of others. But I’m really struggling with the line in my own household. What you guys like to read is my reflections on children and family and parenting, and it’s hard to do that without sharing the stories that prompt those recollections. Plus, my blog has replaced the journals I have kept from 6th grade on. I sometimes miss that format–the format where I could use as many exclamation points and tell as many secrets as I wanted, be as blunt and frank as I needed to be. There was something very therapeutic in that process, and that’s something I can’t do in a public forum. But typing is so very much faster than longhand, and it feels like I’m hitting two targets by using the blog format.

You see, I began blogging because every author is supposed to have a “platform.” But I soon realized that nobody wants to know my ruminations on writing. And frankly, most of the time I’m not all that interested in writing about writing. What I learned I was good at was taking the moments of daily life and putting them into words that make them at least somewhat universal.  Which brings me back to my opening: the thing I love about the online world is the way it’s possible to glean deep insights from people I’ve never met, and the possibility of offering insights to others who might never meet me. We can learn from each other. Help each other through the struggles we all face. I think that’s really profound.

In order to accomplish this, however, we have to be willing to share–not to set up “privacy” as an idol. There are many times in the human experience when we iolate ourselves from the very people who can help us, simply because we’re afraid of being vulnerable, of being judged. That vulnerability is what frees us.

But where is the line? There’s little, if anything, about my life that only involves me. Any time I have an experience to relate and insights to share as a result, it’s because I interacted with someone else. I can strip identifying details, but are those people not still going to recognize the encounters and feel exploited? I wrote a post last week that never went public for that very reason: it felt exploitive, even though it was something that profoundly affected me for several days.

Most important of all is that line between too much and not enough where my family is concerned. It’s not my place to parade details of an adolescent’s struggles. And yet my own journey as a woman, a mother, and a child of God is deeply impacted by those details. How do I share my story without betraying the trust of those most important to me?

I’d love to hear thoughts from those who have wrestled with this already.

7 Quick Takes

___1___

Smoke detector (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There’s just nothing quite like being awakened at 3a.m. by every smoke detector in the house going off. EEE–EEE—EEEEEEEEEEEE. EEE–EEE—EEEEEEEEEEE…every one of them is high-pitched, but about a quarter tone off the others. Just imagine. They’re all linked, so no matter where you are in the house you’ll wake up. That’s good, except that they go off on average once a year, and it’s always because one of them has a low battery or the detector itself has gone bad. And what’s up with it ALWAYS HAPPENING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT? Don’t smoke detectors ever go bad in daylight?????

___2___

Some days, I can see the light at the end of the small childhood tunnel. Last night was one of those nights. I gave the kids jobs…and they did them! Even Julianna, who pulled all the chairs out of the kitchen in preparation for mopping without having to be re-prompted a single time. (Cue angelic chorus.)

___3___

Of course, there are hazards to so much unaccustomed productivity. Michael came out of the bathtub and followed me downstairs, right onto the floor Alex had just finished mopping. He immediately and spectacularly wiped out, twenty-six pounds of naked toddler splayed across the Pergo. And he didn’t learn his lesson, either. We counted three full-body slides before Christian and Julianna left for adaptive swim…and two more afterward. I took Alex out onto the deck to cut his hair. Michael, who no longer trusted the surface of the earth to support him, stood (naked) at the edge of the carpeting and watched me the whole time, wailing.

___4___

Photo by Kugel, via Flickr

Last week, Margaret at Felice mi fa talked about saving her voice. It was like a billboard: KATE! PAY ATTENTION! I too depend on my voice for some part of my livelihood, and I have felt well below my prime for quite a while. Some of it is seasonal but I can’t blame everything on the weather. I have to use my voice so darned much. I’m trying to manage a household with four kids. I have to tell each child each task at least three, and often five times. You do the math. I am issuing instructions twenty times over the course of getting kids into bed, for instance.

And then there’s the shouting. No one hears me unless I shout. They really don’t. In the past few years I’ve learned the art of the bellow–but there’s a price.

Sunday morning my voice was so stiff that I struggled to back up our lone soprano on her descants. I thought, Something has got to change. If my voice is behaving this way at thirty-nine, I won’t be singing at all at fifty-five.

So when we got home, I didn’t let anyone out of the van until they were all looking at me, and I said, “There will be no more shouting. If I have to shout to get you to respond, you will lose privileges. Do you understand?”

___5___

So how’s that working out for me, you ask? Surprisingly well. As with most things, when Mom prioritizes it, more is possible than she thought. I’ve had to accept that things don’t happen as quickly. But I’ve learned that the temper and the bellow feed each other. In any case, I made it until Thursday night without a true shout. My voice still feels not great, but undoubtedly better than it would if I was abusing it.

___6___

Can I get anyone to join me to start a campaign to do away with the words “friendly reminder”? I can’t tell you how many “friendly reminders” I’m getting via email blast and backpack notes lately, and they never…EVER…feel “friendly.” In fact, they feel quite the opposite. I move that we strike the phrase from the English language and replace it with the honest truth: “Listen up, you losers! If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times! (FILL IN THE BLANK!)”

Don’t you think people would be more likely to remember that way?

___7___

We’ve been watching the developments in Colorado with pained fascination and sympathy, considering it’s all going down right where we spent one of the best weeks of our lives, only two months ago.

June 2013

September 2013. Photo credit: http://media.thedenverchannel.com/photo/2013/09/12/estes-park-flooding_1379009577092_902480_ver1.0_320_240.jpg

There hasn’t been much talk about the long-term drought that has been troubling that area for the last several years. I keep praying that at least this weather event will fill the water tables and end the drought in one of the most beautiful areas on Earth. That the water doesn’t just run off. That at least that one good could come of it.

Cars and Vans And Things That Go

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Cover via Amazon

When Alex was a baby, the time I felt most secure in my role as a mother (outside of nursing) was bath time. At bath time, I knew what I was supposed to do. There was a structure to it, and he loved it, so I felt confident that I was seeing to both his physical and his developmental needs.

The rest of the time I was a little nervous. What exactly does one do with a baby all day? What if I didn’t read enough, or play enough? Or read the wrong things or played the wrong things? What if I didn’t give him enough tummy time? At bath time, at least, I knew I was being a good mom.

For some reason I thought of this yesterday as I was chauffeuring. 8:15–preschool dropoff. 9–to Jazzercise. 10–back home for morning nap. 1–preschool pickup. 3:15–kids in the van in anticipation of Julianna’s arrival on the bus. 3:30–Julianna off the bus and into the van. 3:45–to the orthotist to pick up her repaired shoe inserts. 4–pick up Alex at after care. 4:15–piano lesson. 4:45–head home. 6:30–head out with Alex and Julianna to EEE open house. 7:20–head for adaptive swim. 7:40: take Alex home for bed, get the boys ready for bed. 8:15–pick up Julianna and finally head home for the night.

Yesterday was the worst day yet this year, but I’m sure there are many days like it to come. I spent the whole day with an undercurrent of anxiety bubbling in my chest, a sense of hurry hurry hurry. The only time it eased at all was when I was in the car. And although I wouldn’t say I had exactly the same sense of purpose that I used to have at bath time, I couldn’t help noting the parallel. Because when I was driving from point A to point B, I knew I was doing exactly what had to be done.

Taxi time is a necessary evil that everybody tolerates, but nobody really enjoys. With the exception of crossing through the construction zones. That makes every trip worthwhile, even for me. Luckily, our city is in the midst of a huge highway-intersection project, which we have to go through every day. (Ahem. Did I just say “luckily”?)

This is a sign of crossing into a new stage in our family. In the nursing era this sort of schedule would have been enough to cause a nervous breakdown; now that all the kids can walk themselves to the car and “snack” means graham cracker instead of latch time, one set of complications has been cleared away. And just in time, too.

I tend to compare everything about my life to the way it was when I was a child. Realistically this is a poor comparison, because the children in my family were more spread out in age and we all went to the same school, which offered bus service for the first few years. Nonetheless, I can’t help feeling that we spend a lot more time in the car than I did when I was a child. And it’s very tempting to pass judgment on myself for that. To feel like we’re overcommitted and that we’re not giving our family what it deserves.

But the more I think about it, the more I remember one parent or another heading off to MRL or Farm Bureau or road district or prayer group. And the more I think about it, I realize that my sisters and I had piano and gymnastics and cheerleading and basketball and music group at church. When you have four kids, you’re going to have a lot going on. When one of them has a disability that requires her to attend a different school, there’s going to be scheduling headaches. That’s the way it is, simply part of this season of life. No sense griping or feeling inadequate over it.

Are You Ready For Some Serious Cuteness?

The Difference Between My Boys

My oldest child got in the car last week after school, his entire frame drooping. “The boys made fun of me,” he said.

Knowing my children’s capacity for drama, I probed for more details. But the more I heard, the more I hurt inside. Because as best I could tell, it actually was as bad as he said.

I often say I’m not a very good “girl.” I don’t understand how it’s possible, let alone desirable, to spend two hours getting ready for any occasion. I don’t carry a purse. I find shopping tedious and women’s shoes ridiculous.

Likewise, Alex isn’t a very good “boy.” He’s far too sensitive and creative-minded. He wears his heart on his sleeve. He’s all empathy and thoughtfulness.

In a decade or two, these qualities will make him a stellar catch for some lucky girl, but for now it just makes him…well, kind of a target.

That night as I did dishes, I was listening to Nicholas as he monologued. “I’m a good helper, Mommy. Wasn’t that a good job I did? I’m so good at ____.” This from the child who had had his movie privileges revoked for two days because he went up to his baby brother and smacked him, then turned around and shoved him to the ground.

As I reflected, I had to marvel at the contrast between my older two boys. Like his brother, Nicholas is highly imaginative and intelligent. Unlike Alex, he’s not particularly empathetic. In part, that’s the age difference, but the fact is that Alex has always had a soft heart and a less-than-atmospheric opinion of his own worth–two things that go hand in hand. After all, if you are able to empathize with others, you are also less susceptible to blanket judgments, because you’re more thoughtful about how your own opinions fit into the big picture.

Nicholas does not suffer from any such moderation. He’s the one who’s willing to cut off his hand to spite his foot. It’s all about him and what he’s feeling right now, with no regard for the future. He says he wants to give up bedtime book to play in the tub, but when it comes bedtime he’ll throw a tantrum because you make good on the deal. He wants the toy he wants, and it doesn’t matter if someone else had it first.

And it occurred to me that in four years, Nicholas might be those boys who make fun of dreamy, less-physically-coordinated peers.

There are two sets of thoughts here, one for each boy. The problem of how to teach Nicholas to respect and empathize with others is one whose solution, if there is one, is not going to fit into a paragraph. I’m puzzling over that now and probably will continue to do so as long as he lives under my roof.

More profound to me is the implications for Alex. I realize that as painful as it is for him, this feeling of being a misfit will form his character toward the good. Being made fun of will sensitize him even more toward the feelings and needs of others, and in the end, both the pain and the sensitivity will make him a better human being.

In the meantime, we have to teach him how to stand up for himself appropriately. Which is at least as big a puzzle as the one we’re facing with Nicholas.

Sunday Snippets

Welcome to my corner of Sunday Snippets: A Catholic Carnival! Today RAnn asked us to share two Catholic blogs we enjoy. Kassie joined the Church just a couple of years ago and has a really fresh outlook on Catholicism. She hasn’t been blogging that often lately, and she’s been focusing more on fiction, but every time I see her site go “live” in my reader, I jump right to it. I also really enjoy The Practicing Catholic…because with a name like that (double meaning: ”I-go-to-Church-Catholic” vs. actually practicing, i.e. devoting time and energy to, your faith), how can you not?

Okay, now for my turn.

My grandmother passed away this week, which prompted two posts: Ninety-Eight and On Death, But Without Being Morbid. Oddly enough, I didn’t get much traffic on that second post. Can’t imagine why. :) Actually, it’s full of little face-palm moments in which Nicholas tries to wrap his head around the concept of death. And I learn, finally, about the communion of saints.

Then there was this: Sex, Love and Women’s Fiction

And I gave an update on Julianna.

According to Word Press, this is my 126th post titled Sunday Snippets. How time flies!

On Death, But Without Being Morbid (a 7qt post)

This entire week, the subject of death has been front and center, but I promise I’m not being morbid today. In fact, to prove it to you, I will begin with….Nicholas, of course.

___1___

Earlier this summer, when we first thought Grandma was dying, Nicholas took the news very hard. So on Tuesday, I wasn’t sure the right way to tell him his great-grandma had passed away while he was at school. I gave him the remains of Michael’s box of popcorn chicken while I debated, and at last said, carefully, “Nicholas, Great Grandma went home to Jesus this morning.”

“Oh, she did?” he said nonchalantly. He chomped for a minute, and then added, “This is really good popcorn chicken.”

(Mommy throws hands in the air.)

___2___

On the other hand…

Labor Day weekend we brought home corsages from a wedding we’d played. Nicholas found a bud vase and filled it with water. By midweek the corsages were toast, so I threw them away. But the glass got overlooked. Until, ahem, Wednesday night when Michael got thirsty. Nicholas caught him drinking the dregs of the corsage water (no flower preservative, thankfully!) and fell to pieces. “What happened to the FLOWERS, Mommy?” I had to explain to him that flowers die after you cut them, and that’s okay, we just enjoy them while they last. He flung himself around my legs and fell apart.

(Reprise: Mommy throws hands in the air.)

___3___

Wednesday, of course, was 9/11. Alex’s third grade class spent time talking about it, so we shared memories at dinnertime, trying to impress upon him the drama and tragedy of that day. Nicholas (what, you thought this was going to be about Alex?) said, in the reverent tone of voice he saves for the fire department’s bucket truck, “The buildings fell down????” (It feels insensitive, possibly even sacrilegious, to share funny stories that are in any way, shape or form related to 9/11. But you know that when you’re in the deepest tragedy those moments of humor are all the more important.)

___4___

While I was making dinner on Wednesday, we somehow got onto the topic of great grandparents and godparents. “Uncle J. & Aunt L. are your godparents,” I said.

“Who are your godparents?”

“My Uncle L. and Aunt C. You saw her a couple weeks ago when we went to her mom’s funeral. Remember her?”

“No.”

“She’s Miss Chrissy’s mom.”

“Miss Chrissy’s mom died?”

“No, Miss Chrissy’s grandma.”

“MISS CHRISSY DIED?”

Face palm. “Just forget it, Nicholas. Finish setting the table.”

___5___

On Thursday morning I was downstairs with Michael, practicing my flute, when I heard a sharp THUMP somewhere in the house. But I couldn’t localize it. Until I came upstairs and found the bread machine lying sideways on the floor beside the counter in three pieces (and a lot of sharp black plastic shards!). Being focused on the subject of death, I naturally composed an elegy for it. But I’m not sharing it here because a couple hours later it occurred to me I could probably revise it and sell it as a poem or a flash piece.

___6___

After all the week’s emotion, a friend I hadn’t talked to in quite a while called to chat–about flute, life, and death. As we got off the phone, she said, “I know you believe this anyway, but you’ll find that your relationship with your grandma isn’t over.” I was surprised by her words, and perhaps that’s why they stayed with me the rest of the day.

Later that night as I lay sleepless, turning over the events of the week in my mind, I realized I already understood what she meant. I’ve had family members and people I knew or respected pass away before, but this is the first time there is someone on the other side who I already know how to talk to. Someone I genuinely had conversations with, with whom I have a relationship. On the heels of that revelation I found myself whispering, “Grandma, it’s wonderful to have you up there. You must understand so much more now than you did when we talked here, and I don’t have to try to edit what I’m thinking anymore, because you can probably see it all anyway. So I’m going to be asking you to pray for me a lot, Grandma. Just like you did when you were here, only  more perfectly.” And I realized I finally, finally understand the communion of saints.

___7___

Let’s change the subject for the last one. Julianna has added church and church school to the list of places she loves to ask to go: wee lah-ee (swimming lessons), Cock e Keez (Chuck E Cheese), keh-ah-shell (carousel), etc. But on Tuesday I had to tell her she wasn’t going to church school tonight, that church school was tomorrow night. She burst into a tears, dropped her head and flung her arms open wide as she yelled, “I wah hug!”

It’s hard to write that so it’s as adorable as it was in the moment. Ah, well. It’s enough for me to remember it.

Have a great weekend!

Ninety-eight

Grandma with Alex, 2005

When I was a kid, my sisters and I stayed with my grandma for a few days when my parents had to take a trip to some far-flung northern location to pick up farm equipment. Tracks for the combine, maybe? A ridge-till cultivator? I don’t remember. It probably happened more than once.

We slept in the south-facing living room of her ranch home in town, a home that even then I knew was outdated in decor, including the foldout couch in burnt mustard. Very scratchy. Not at all comfortable to sit on. But it had a silky pattern of curlicues in a lighter cream that I loved to trace. We sat on it and watched Wheel of Fortune on her tiny old TV. Played Mouse Trap on the coffee table across from it. And so on.

I was sitting on that couch yesterday morning at 11:20 a.m. or so in quite a different location: Grandma’s assisted living apartment, talking to my aunts while their husbands were sitting with their mother. The calls had come in at school sendoff time: they can’t wake your grandmother this morning. Your uncle’s on the way up now. Do what you need to do, but it looks like the end.

Grandma with Julianna, 2007

I had four hours between preschool dropoff and preschool pickup. I came back home, changed Michael into a disposable diaper, got gas and headed north. By the time I arrived, both my uncles and their wives were there. We took turns sitting by her bed.

After a bit, the parish priest came and anointed her. It was so, so beautiful. When he finished, he leaned over and put a hand on her forehead. “Okay,” he said, “now it’s up to you and Jesus.”

We stood and chatted with Father for a bit, until Grandma’s breath, which had been labored in a way I’ve never heard before–you couldn’t tell what was inhale and what was exhale–suddenly changed. We stopped talking for a few seconds; I thought she was choking. After that the breathing was quieter. We left my uncles with their mother. Not long after, I was sitting on that uncomfortable, burnt mustard couch while Michael did repeated “trust falls” off the arm onto my lap. I was thinking I needed to go back in again when my uncle came out and said, “It’s over.”

Grandma with Nicholas, 2009. Notice the thread-thin wedding band on her finger (she’d been a widow three decades by this time) and the support stocking wrapping her left arm, where she was always cold after a stroke years and years ago. She was nothing if not practical; why spend money on fancy wraps when you can chop off a pantyhose instead?

My first reaction was: Oh, no, I was sitting out here laughing and talking. I hurried in with Michael clinging to my hand, and realized…no, it wasn’t quite over yet. She was close. The breaths were short, soft, but not gone yet, after all. We all gathered around the bed: two sons, their wives, one grandchild, one great grandchild. And somewhere in between wrestling Michael and watching her mouth, there was no more breathing.

I kept waiting for it to come back. I just couldn’t believe it could be that…ambiguous. We thought Grandma was leaving us six weeks ago–twice. We were so sure it was the end, in fact, that people flew in from halfway across the country. And she came roaring back, moving home, even (briefly) ditching the oxygen tank. She was just so stubborn–and I mean that in the best of ways; Grandma was a spitfire and a spunky, sassy old lady who, much like Julianna, could drive her loved ones mad and create a fan club everywhere she went. “Well, God’s getting an earful tonight,” Christian said last night as we made lunches.

Grandma with Michael, 2011

We knelt down and said a rosary around her bed. Michael too, on his knees giving me big twenty-one-month “look what a big boy I am” eyes. Until he decided it would be more fun to play tightrope walking on my calves. And I thought that was appropriate. A woman who lived with such fire and vitality probably was chuckling about it. Chuckling, with her hands clasped over her big belly, much like my babies do.

The shelf across from Grandma’s bed.

When it was all over, I stood in the apartment looking around, seeing her in everything: in the broken calculator she kept on the coffee table for kids to push buttons, the Good Old Days magazines, her handwriting on mundane little lists I wanted to grab and bring home and scrapbook.

And when I came home, I pulled out the iron skillet she passed on to me a year or so ago–”I ain’t got no use for it,” she said–and cooked my Italian sausage to make lasagna for dinner. I could almost feel her with me.

Rest in peace, Grandma. May angels lead you to paradise.

Bernadine S., 1915-21013

Sex, Love, and Women’s Fiction

Love ? I love love love you. (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

I’ve been reading a lot of women’s fiction lately, and reading it with a more critical eye than is usual for me. As I contemplate the novel query stage, I’m analyzing how my book fits into what’s already out there. There’s a lot of really good writing out there: great character depth and engrossing storytelling. But one thing I just don’t get is the approach to sex.

That’s not exactly accurate. I’m not an idiot. I’m well aware that my outlook on sex, as an integrated act melding both body and soul, is way, way outside the mainstream. And I know that even after fourteen years of married life I’m still very sheltered. I find things revolting that others think are not shocking at all.

But recently I’ve encountered one character having oral sex (really? what possible attraction can that hold for the woman?), and another who repeatedly has sex with one guy as she’s becoming more convinced that she belongs with another. And Guy #2 knows about it. Eventually, Guy #2 and main character decide they’re perfect for each other, except they aren’t sure they’re “sexually compatible.” So into bed they hop, just to be sure before they get engaged. (Because no one can learn to give another what they need. You’re just s-o-l if you don’t get it right the first try. Puh-leeze.)

Do people actually act this way?

I suppose they do. But if they do, it’s no wonder our level of relational dysfunction is as high as it is.

I suppose it’s not surprising that contemporary literature for women would involve a certain cavalier attitude toward sex, since that is the reality of the culture we live in. And I suppose it’s no surprise that my formation, first as a sheltered Catholic girl and then as a woman who learned intimacy through the lens of an integrated, holistic sexuality that includes both body and soul, stands at odds to that. But frankly, having experienced the latter, I can’t imagine why anybody would find the cultural standard the least bit attractive.

A few years ago someone made a comment on a romance writers’ site that went something like: “And what is wrong with a man and a woman in love showing their love for each other through sex? If you’re honest with yourself, nothing at all.”

I suppose that’s a true statement, if it’s real love. But real love is revealed over time. You can’t front-load a relationship with sex and just call it love because you have an overpowering emotion. That overpowering emotion is not love. Love must be tested and proven.

It is a commitment made through choices over the long term. Yes, I know that’s really fuddy duddy, but anyone whose marriage has actually lasted would say the same. The sex is a response to and an intensification of a mind-and-soul unity that came first. Not a gateway to unity.

I don’t understand how women can not feel that this most intimate act loses value if you just pass it around to everyone you like. Frankly, it gives me the heebie jeebies to think about having sex with anyone other than my husband, whom I knew, long before we were intimate, has always had my best interests at heart.

And then there’s this question: If you know Person You’re Attracted To has just been sleeping with someone else, would you really want to be intimate with them? Isn’t there a huge “ewww” factor in that?

I just don’t get it.

But I think I have a totally different vocabulary surrounding this subject. To me, sex is a gift, and it’s intrinsically tied to personhood. It’s not something you can classify as “casual.” Sex has …well, consequences, for lack of a better word, although that has a negative connotation which is not what I mean. How can it be satisfying if it’s not experienced in the context of a 100%, no-holds-barred commitment? Which presupposes that the commitment came first?

Love and marriage is the central theme of my novel: when you grow up believing marriage is forever, and then you realize you made a big mistake, what do you do? How far do you go to salvage it? How much of yourself are you willing to sacrifice?

I worry sometimes that my view of the world is so outside the mainstream that it won’t resonate at all. But words are the tool I’ve been given to try to make the world a better place. So I have to try. Novel query stage: bring it on.