Lent 2012: Breaking the Cycle of Bad Habits

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Ellen Painter Dollar

I’ve been in a bit of a rut recently.

I’m sad about what’s happening with our dog. While I’m excited about my book finally being out in the world, I’m intimidated by how much effort goes into marketing, with results that are rarely immediate or even noticeable. Every week, I have a manageable to-do list. Every week, Friday rolls around and the list has not gotten much shorter.

Sunday’s New York Times magazine featured a cover article about how retailers such as Target collect information on shoppers’ habits, and use that information to gear promotional mailings to customers’ habits and needs. The article included this explanation of the three-step process involved in ingrained habits:

First, there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is a reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future. Over time, this loop — cue, routine, reward; cue, routine, reward — becomes more and more automatic. The cue and reward become neurologically intertwined until a sense of craving emerges.

I have developed several bad habits that are influencing my mood, health, and productivity. These bad habits include:

  • Spending too much work time clicking around aimlessly on my computer, reading articles, checking blog stats, and doing other stuff that I can justify as work-related, but that just wastes a lot of time.
  • Failing to exercise often enough.
  • Taking a mid-day nap when I’m home alone all day working. I justify this because I wake up very early (between 4 and 5 a.m); I am a much kinder mother when I have an hour or two to myself before my early-bird children wake up around 6. But while I don’t think it’s unreasonable to nap midday given that I usually only get about six hours of sleep at night, naps leave me off-kilter for the rest of the day, as I scramble to finish up necessary tasks before it’s time for the kids to come home from school.

Lead me not into temptation...

One cue for these behaviors is my preference for working on our den couch—a place I associate with comfort and relaxation, which makes web surfing and napping more appealing than focused work and plunging into a cold pool to swim laps. Another cue is that I take my pain-relieving medication at certain times, which has a sedating effect. The sedating effect is only apparent if I’m sitting still. If I’m up and moving, I don’t feel sleepy. In fact, I feel energized, because my joint pain is controlled. But if I take medication, and then sit on the couch, the combination of the couch’s “relaxation” cue and the medication’s “sleepiness” cue steers me toward activities that don’t require much effort. Thus, mindless web surfing and the occasional nap have become routine.

The reward of mindless web surfing is a shot of adrenaline when I read something positive about my writing, or find an article that is perfect for a blog post I’m writing. Dozing off is its own reward, especially in a completely silent house. I don’t often get to sleep without being woken abruptly by a child or an animal.

To give this a spiritual spin, I believe I am bogged down in that old-fashioned sin of sloth. I am scattered and apathetic and reactive instead of focused and energized and proactive.

So my Lenten practice this year is to first notice the cue-reward-routine cycles that are enabling my bad habits. And second, to begin to break those cycles, I’m going to make the following changes:

  • After my initial e-mail check/blog reading in those wee early-morning hours when I’m up before my kids, I will put away my laptop until I have: 1) gotten the kids off to school, and 2) either gone to the pool for a swim, or done a household chore. I should get back to the laptop by 10 a.m. at the latest, which gives me a good four to five hours of work before the kids get home.
  • I will work at the kitchen table. I work on the couch partly because it is much more comfortable for my achy joints. But that comfort is precisely what tempts me to relax by clicking around mindlessly or dozing off. Working at the table will force me to work more efficiently, and take more breaks, during which I can do a few things on my to-do list, such as make phone calls, take the dog for a walk, or dust and vacuum a room.
  • I will change my medication schedule to avoid sleepiness during the same hours that I am sitting still and working. My goal is to reserve the medication for those times when I have the worst pain—mornings and evenings—thus avoiding mid-day sleepiness. I will make this change gradually to avoid unpleasant withdrawal symptoms, because anyone who takes these medications long-term becomes physically dependent.

In addition to breaking the cycle of some bad habits, I’m going to beef up my newish practice of “praying the hours” using Phyllis Tickle’s excellent book series titled The Divine Hours. I pray the morning office most days. I’d like to add the midday or vespers to that. I used to feel that reading prayers written by someone else was lazy and not very meaningful. But I’ve found that using these beautifully written, thematically consistent groupings of prayers and scriptures has infused my prayer life with new energy. It makes prayer easy, because I don’t have to first decide how I’m going to pray. And while sometimes my heart is most definitely not engaged fully in praying, I get great comfort from the scriptural promise that the Holy Spirit is praying within me.

We also like to undertake a family Lent discipline. Last year, it was striking the phrase, “I want….” from our conversation. This year, we’re not going to spend money on non-necessities. That means no buying new iPod songs, no allowing the kids to pick a candy bar at the drugstore check-out, no ordering pizza when we have perfectly good food in our refrigerator, no picking up a few items from the clearance section when I go into a store to buy a gift.

So those are my Lenten disciplines this year, to combat sloth, pray the hours, and cut out spending on non-necessities.

Yours?

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Five Really Bad Excuses for Parking in a Handicapped Space When You Shouldn’t

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Ellen Painter Dollar

Several years ago, I drove my daughter Leah to school one icy morning. Because slippery, icy sidewalks are a danger to people like us with fragile bones, I pulled into the parking lot closest to the school entrance, where there are two handicapped spaces. Both spaces were full.

This is not an unusual occurrence. One spot is nearly always taken by a teacher who has a permit, leaving only one other spot for anyone visiting the school who also has a permit.

But this morning, the car in the second space did not have a permit. Anywhere. I looked, long and hard. Nope. No permit.

Because I really needed to park as close to the school as possible given the ice, I squeezed my car into the lined area between the two spaces. (The school has given me permission to park anywhere, including in the principal’s designated space or on the grass, if the handicapped spots are all full.) Leah went inside. And I sat there, waiting.

Along came a mom, Starbucks in hand. I got out of my car and said in the most friendly voice I could muster, “Excuse me. But I noticed you don’t have a handicapped permit on your car. I really needed to use one of these spaces this morning for my daughter, who has a physical disability.”

She mumbled something about how “My kid has something too” and “I left my permit at home.”

No, she didn’t leave it at home. She didn’t have one. I’ve gotten to know the other families, parents, and teachers at our school who have legitimate tags. This mom is not one of them. And in the years since this incident, I have never seen her park there again. I think she parked there because it was a cold, unpleasant morning and she didn’t want her or her child to have to walk far. And like most people who park illegally in handicapped spaces, she probably justified it with one of these common excuses.

1.         “I’ll only be a few minutes.”

I’m guessing that was this mom’s reasoning. But what, pray tell, are those of us with a legitimate tag supposed to do when we show up and all the spaces are full? Intuit that you’ll be back in just a few minutes? And then cheerfully cool our heels, knowing that we’ll eventually be able to park if we’re just patient? Regardless of whether, perhaps, we might need to be somewhere at a certain time?

2.         “I’ll only be a minute, and I’m staying in my car, so I can move if someone comes along who needs the space.”

And how will you know that someone needs the space? Will that person (again, cheerfully) get out of his/her car, come knock on your window, and say, “Excuse me. Would you mind moving? I need this space.” Oh, wait. These spaces are for people with physical impairments. So getting out of the car might actually be something of an ordeal, something they might like to do only once. Say, after they park in a designated handicapped space.

3.         “I/my family member hurt my/his/her knee/back/foot.”

Handicapped spaces are not for people with temporary injuries. If you have an injury that is more than temporary but not lifelong, you may be able to secure a limited-time permit, depending on your state laws. But you still need to go through the application process to do that. You can’t just decide on your own that you have a legitimate need for a handicapped space.

I know it can be hard and painful to walk long distances with an injury. Believe me, I know. But if your injury is temporary, you need to suck it up and deal. Ask someone to drive you and drop you at the door. Consider getting a cane or crutch to help you get safely from point A to point B. Make an appointment to talk to a doctor about pain management. Just don’t park in a space that is legally not yours to park in.

4.         “I’m driving my elderly aunt/grandfather/neighbor around for the day.”

That’s very nice of you. Next time you do someone this kind of favor, ask if they have a handicapped parking permit and if they do, suggest they bring it with them. You can temporarily put it on/in your own car. If they have a handicapped-designated license plate on their car, ask if they would like you to drive their car instead of yours to get the parking benefit.

If they don’t have a permit, or are unable or unwilling to bring theirs along, then drop them off at the door before parking the car.

5.         “My dad/grandma/elderly uncle died and I inherited his/her car, with a handicapped permit.”

OK. So I have no way of knowing, when I see a car with a legitimate handicapped tag, if that tag was procured for the person who is actually using it on this particular day. And I know better than to question someone’s use of a handicapped tag based on whether they “look” disabled. (Yeah. That? Don’t ever do that. You really can’t know someone’s reasons for having the tag at a glance. A friend whose child has my bone disorder once had a passerby yell at her for parking in a handicapped spot. I hope that passerby felt appropriately ashamed when she saw my friend pull her daughter’s wheelchair out of the trunk.)

But if you’re taking spaces away from people with wheelchairs and walkers and terribly arthritic knees just because you can, just because you happen to have a tag that you inherited from someone, but you don’t actually have any reason for needing such a tag?

Then you’re just a jerk.

Bottom line: If you don’t have a valid handicapped parking permit in or on your car—a permit that was legitimately issued to you or someone who is riding in your car—then don’t park in a handicapped space.

Ever.

EVER.

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Six Ways to Be Hospitable Toward People with Disabilities

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Ellen Painter Dollar

We’re all familiar with the ways that public spaces are made accessible to people with disabilities—designated parking spaces, ramps and elevators, automatic doors. Of course, mechanical error, stupidity, and general ridiculousness mean that such accommodations are not always as accommodating as they should be. Elevators break, for example, or are hidden in some dark back hallway. And don’t get me started on handicapped parking. (I think I’ll write a separate post on that some time because if I get going on that subject now, I will quickly lose my focus and my marbles. In fact, I’ll write that post for tomorrow.)

So, public accommodations, when they are well-done and well-maintained by well-intentioned people, make life for people with disabilities a little easier.

But we don’t spend all, or even most, of our time in public buildings. In private settings, I frequently bump up against barriers that make it difficult for me, as a person with a disability, to feel welcomed. Not because anyone does or says anything offensive or rude. Simply because so many places and situations are governed by the needs and assumptions of perfectly able-bodied folk.

Here are six ways that you can make your home and your attitude more welcoming to people with disabilities—both people with a diagnosed disabling condition, like me, as well as anyone from middle age on up with creaky knees and bad backs. (I’m going to assume that people who use wheelchairs might have a somewhat different list; I’d love to hear from some wheelers in the comments.)

1.         Install handrails on all staircases.

It can be impossible (really impossible…I’m not exaggerating for dramatic effect) for someone with bad knees and/or weak quads to walk up or down steps without a handrail. And dangerous too. Install sturdy handrails on all the stairs in your home, inside and outside, including those two steps up to your front door and the basement stairs. And for goodness’ sake, even if you adore sleek modernist design, please don’t ever install one of those “floating” staircases that don’t have any handrails whatsoever. Dumbest design idea ever. No design statement is worth someone breaking a hip on your staircase. Trust me. Plus, we’ll end up gripping the wall instead, which will leave handprints on your pristine white walls.

2.         Clear snow and ice early and often.

When I lived in Virginia and then D.C., winter weather posed a much greater danger to me than it does here in New England. Here, most people are outside with their shovels or snow blowers even as the last flakes are falling. In warmer climes, people are more likely to let the snow sit where it falls until it melts. Problem is, of course, that between the falling and the melting, snow gets trod on and packed down and transformed from lovely fluff to treacherous ice.

Even here in New England, there are people who don’t clear their front walks, driveways, and sidewalks. I have on occasion driven up to someone’s house, noted that getting from my car to their front door will require me to risk my life (or at least, my fragile skeleton), and driven away without even getting out of the car. For someone whose walking gait and balance are compromised even on ideal terrain, an icy sidewalk is a thing of terror.

Get out there and shovel or snow blow as soon as you can. Within a day, the sun’s radiant heat will clear the last thin layer of white stuff away, and you’ll have a bone-dry driveway and front walk. And I won’t have to avoid your home until April.

3.         Don’t ask me to take my shoes off.

People who expect others to take their shoes off in their homes often have perfectly reasonable motivations, involving their cultural background or a desire for clean carpets. But asking me to take my shoes off is like asking someone who uses a wheelchair to leave the chair at the door. My shoes provide support and traction that I need to navigate safely through your home. I’m happy to explain this to people, and they are generally happy to accommodate me.

But what really bugs me is that, so often, the “Leave your shoes at the door” request is presented as a demand, often with a not-so-slight whiff of superiority. I get the sense that I’m being asked to leave behind not only my shoes, but also my grimy little self that doesn’t seem to understand the value of clean carpets or cultural sensitivity. How about: “We take off our shoes at the door and you are welcome to do the same if you’d like. But it’s up to you.”

Because it actually is up to me whether to remove an article of my own clothing.

4.         Look down.

I’m always amazed by how many people seem to believe that everything worthy of their attention is at their eye level. I’ll be at a crowded stand-up party in someone’s home or elsewhere, and someone next to me will whirl around, eyes firmly fixed on the bar where they are headed for a refill, and plow into me, even though I’m right there! Right next to them! And I am not invisible! People also tend to careen around corners without looking anywhere but straight ahead.

Not all people with disabilities are as short as I am, of course. But many of us are. Older folk tend to shrink a bit with age. And given that our balance may already be a bit off, we’d really rather not have people running into us willy-nilly.

People look so surprised to find an actual person, a grown-up person, occupying the space from their torso on down. They apologize. Don’t apologize! Just look where you are going! Sheesh.

5.         Pay attention to what is on your floors (and in your tub).

Throw rugs with pesky corners that won’t lie flat. Slick marble or ceramic tiles in the bathroom or the kitchen (because smooth tiles that are slippery even when dry make so much sense for rooms in which there is lots of water). I see these things and my thigh muscles literally tense up, preparing to keep me upright should I trip or slip. Okay, maybe it’s a teensy bit unreasonable for me to ask that you renovate your kitchens and baths for my sake. But at least make sure that slick surfaces are dry. If it’s rainy or snowy, provide a rug at the door and encourage everyone to wipe their wet feet before walking all over the shiny floors. (Just don’t demand that they take off their shoes…)

And if you’re having a house guest who has even a little bit of trouble with mobility, please go to Target and buy a rubber tub mat. It’s very hard to get oneself clean when one is gripping the shower walls to prevent a completely mortifying situation in which one will have to call for help after slipping on wet porcelain and injuring oneself, all while stark naked.

6.         Don’t do these things for me. Do them for yourself.

Chances are you have someone in your life, such as an elderly relative, with impaired mobility who would benefit from this advice. But don’t make these changes to your home and your attitude only for the people in your life who are not perfectly able-bodied. Make these changes for yourself and the family members who share your home. Because pretty much all able-bodied people are, in the words of theologian Hans Reinders, only “temporarily able-bodied.” You or someone in your family may have an accident or injury some day that leads to temporary or permanent disability. If you’re very lucky, you’ll simply get old, and as you do, the cartilage cushioning your joints and spine will wear away, your muscles will weaken a bit, and your balance will become unreliable.

The architectural concept of “universal design” is not merely about making spaces accessible to people with disabilities. It’s about creating spaces where people of all abilities, and of changing abilities, are welcomed and accommodated. What I’m proposing here is a sort of “universal design” that requires little or no actual renovation. Most of the world is governed by the needs of people for whom an icy sidewalk is just an icy sidewalk and steps are just steps. Spend a little time and effort to adjust your spaces and your attitude, and you’ll give people like me a tremendous gift—the gift of being welcomed just as we are, the gift of feeling safe, the gift of not having to articulate our needs all the time because those needs have already been met (quietly, routinely, effectively). And you’ll be a bit more prepared if (when) the day comes when you see an icy sidewalks and staircases as barriers keeping you from the people and places you love.

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Patheos Peeps: Dilshad Ali on “Extreme Parenting”

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Ellen Painter Dollar

Every Friday, I post a link to a blog post written by one of my fellow bloggers at Patheos, a web portal devoted to religion and spirituality. I encourage my blog readers to click through to read these posts, comment, and if you like what you read, follow these bloggers as well.

Since joining the Patheos team of bloggers in December, I’ve quickly become a fan of Dilshad Ali, who blogs as the “Muslimah Next Door.” Ali has three children, including “Lil D,” a son with autism. I keep thinking of a post from last week in which Ali contemplates the constant strain and activity of trying to meet all of her family’s needs, the pressures associated with the “extreme parenting” that is required when one has a child with significant special needs.

She ends her post, which includes some description of her daily life that is exhausting to read, much less live, with this:

But, as my husband reminds me from time to time, we have two other children, and we both have jobs, and we want to spend a little time together each day where autism and kids don’t dominate the conversation. So, as the saying goes, something’s gotta give.

Can someone tell me what that is?

You can read the whole thing here.

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Observations from My Book Launch

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Ellen Painter Dollar

Observation 1: I really love public speaking. I had a great time speaking at my book launch party on Sunday, and at a local Episcopal church earlier the same day. And apparently I’m pretty good at it. People laughed at my jokes! My sister said I remind her of Kelly Corrigan, which might be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, especially because I have a huge writer’s crush on Kelly Corrigan (and Catherine Newman and Anne Lamott too…any time someone would like to compare me to one of them, you are welcome to do so).

Observation 2: A book launch is not unlike a wedding. That is, I talked a little bit to lots of people, but didn’t really catch up with anyone to the extent I would have liked to. And despite the presence of much excellent food, I ate very little. I did cart a cup of Diet Coke around with me for the entire event, though, because all the talking was making me hoarse. Then later a friend remarked that I did really well up at the lectern during my talk…Was that by any chance wine I was sipping? I’m trying to figure out whether the fact that she thought I was tipsy is a credit to my sparkling wit or a sign that I wasn’t making a whole lot of sense.

Observation 3: I need a lesson on book-signing etiquette. I found myself stumped about how to sign certain people’s books, especially people I know fairly well. Just my first name or my full name? And do I attach a closing salutation like “Love” or “Sincerely” before signing my name? Then there was the friend who asked that I not personalize it at all, because she has heard that signed books are much more valuable without a personalized inscription. As a result of my confusion, some friends got my whole name and some got “Love, Ellen.” I hope they don’t decide to compare their inscriptions because it could lead to all sorts of soul searching: “Why did Ellen say ‘love’ on yours and not on mine?”

Observation 4: Different audiences ask very different questions. I gave basically the same spiel to both my morning church audience and my afternoon book-launch audience. But the questions after were completely different. The church crowd asked lots of deep theological and ethical questions about reproductive technology. The book-launch crowd asked lots of questions about me. I guess that makes sense, given that most of the party attendees were my friends and family. It’s just interesting how differently two audiences can react to the same information. And it’s part of what makes me really like the public speaking part of this work. Always something new!

My favorite question of the day came from my friend Ronan, who asked whether, now that I’m a successful author with a book and a growing writing career, he will still run into me at Stop and Shop all the time?

Yes, Ronan, yes you will.

Gratuitous photo of me with adorable child #3.

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Q&A on Christians, IVF, and PGD

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Ellen Painter Dollar

Over on her new blog hosted by Religion News Service, my ever-fabulous editor Jana Riess has posted an interview she did with me about my new book, No Easy Choice. Check it out!

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My Huffington Post Article: 5 Tips for People of Faith Considering Reproductive Technology

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Ellen Painter Dollar

I have a short essay on the Huffington Post today offering some very broad advice for people of faith who are considering reproductive technology. I asked a friend who has struggled with infertility (and thus far, chosen not to use any technology for help conceiving beyond a relatively low-impact fertility medication) to read this over before I submitted it. Overall, she liked it. But she remarked that tip #2 “Consider moral questions,” was too short. Because she has, like me, spent considerable time considering the moral questions raised by reproductive technology, she wanted me to say much more in this section, which reads:

Moral questions around reproductive technology encompass, but go far beyond, traditional concerns raised in abortion debates about embryonic life and reproductive choice. For example, what are the implications of our being able to control certain aspects of procreation (such as screening embryos)? Does fertility medicine tempt us to view children not as gifts, but as products manufactured to parental specifications? The market orientation of fertility medicine raises questions about stewardship of resources, and the potential exploitation of patients desperate to have a baby, gamete donors, surrogates and the children themselves.

The news media tend to alternately gloss over or sensationalize such questions. Clinicians, committed to their discipline and focused on achieving pregnancies, are unlikely to raise moral concerns with patients. But moral concerns remain (in fact, as reproductive technology grows in scope and capability, they are multiplying), and are highly relevant for people of faith.

I wanted to say much more in that section too. I would have liked to write a post solely about the moral concerns raised by repro tech. But first, that’s not what I was asked to do. And second, the blogging format is a terrific one for many purposes, but not for lengthy discussions of complex topics. Huffington Post asked me to write something around 700 words. I ended up giving them about 900 words, and they took it. But I was pushing it.

So to anyone who agrees that this section of my post doesn’t adequately address the moral questions raised by reproductive technology, here’s my advice: Read my book!

And in the meantime, check out my Huffington Post piece, and if you are so moved, leave a comment. (Thus far, the comments are rather…um…belligerent. I get a kick out of the ones railing at me for writing from the perspective of ancient superstitions, a.k.a. religious faith. OK. So you’re not religious. That’s cool. But why are you reading the religion section of the Huffington Post?!)

Thanks!

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A New Wedding Ring for Valentine’s Day

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Ellen Painter Dollar

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I’m re-posting this essay that appeared last year on my former blog, Five Dollars and Some Common Sense. I had a fabulous book launch party this weekend and planned to post some photos and other thoughts about it today, but am having some technical difficulties with the photos. Stay tuned!

My Valentine’s Day gift [in 2011] was a new wedding ring. My husband actually had nothing to do with this. I came up with the idea, found a jewelry designer, raised cash by selling off some gold (including my original engagement and wedding rings), and went to pick up the finished product all by myself.

My original engagement ring had a good story behind it. My husband was engaged once before…to a woman I shared an apartment with in D.C. (That is another story indeed, but not for today.) When Daniel decided to propose to me, he took his former fiancee’s ring back to the store where he had bought it, Mervis Diamond Importers. In 1990s Washington, D.C., Mervis radio ads were ubiquitous, immediately recognizable due to owner Ronnie Mervis’ thick South African accent describing adventurous forays into deep, dark diamond mines. The day Daniel arrived to swap the old ring for a new, it so happens that Ronnie himself was manning the store. Once Daniel chose a new ring—bigger, better, more expensive—Ronnie exclaimed, with his distinctive drama and clipped accent, “Ah! A man of decision!”

Daniel presented the ring along with a marriage proposal on the South Transept steps of the Washington National Cathedral, where I had my first job in D.C. after college. Obviously, I said yes. I was so taken with that ring—a large solitaire with five smaller diamonds on either side of it, purchased from the one-and-only Ronnie himself! Daniel had blown his budget on it, though, so we bought my wedding ring—a plain, thin band—from a mall jewelry store in suburban Maryland. I think it cost $99, and we each paid for half. (My grandmother gave me my late grandfather’s wedding band for Daniel, a nice heavy ring that Daniel once lost and then recovered from the bottom of a murky lake populated by splashing children on a hot summer day a few years ago. Sort of Bilbo-esque, don’t you think? The ring will always find its rightful owner.)

We got married at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in the shadow of the Cathedral, just a few hundred yards from where Daniel had proposed. We got jobs and we left them, we moved to Connecticut, we bought and sold houses, we had three babies. When the kids were small and prone to grabbing shiny objects, my rings and watch were the only jewelry I ever wore. I would forget I even had the rings on. I would look down now and then and see my engagement ring, the gold and diamonds dulled by age and grime, but still a reminder of the promises we made when we were living a whole different kind of life—of last-minute dinner plans, subway rides to downtown jobs, and long, uncharted weekend drives south to the Shenandoah or north to Gettysburg.

Then one summer day a couple of years ago, I looked down and realized with a sickening lurch that the diamond solitaire was gone. The kids and I were heading north to visit my sister and her kids in Massachusetts. I figured the diamond had fallen out while I was rushing around packing. Daniel searched the house, driveway, and car with a flashlight. He went painstakingly through the vacuum cleaner dust bag. When we arrived back home, I told the kids I would (really!) give anyone who found my diamond $100. No one ever found it.

For two years, I wore my wedding band alone, figuring that one day I’d replace the diamond solitaire. On its own, the band was so insubstantial, such a poor symbol for a decade-plus marriage encompassing two states, three jobs, one book contract, three children, five homes, 10 broken bones, half a dozen surgeries, and countless baths and bedtimes; dinners out we couldn’t quite afford and On Demand movies we could; family birthdays, weddings, and retirement parties; stomach bugs, colds, ulcers, gall-bladder attacks, and cancers; and trips north, south, east, and west.

A wedding band is just a thing, of course. It’s the marriage that matters, not the wedding or its many culturally mandated accoutrements. But when I looked down at my lonely little band, I longed for something bigger and weightier, not as a status symbol, but as a tangible reminder of our marriage’s longevity and vitality. And I realized that even if, some day, we had a couple thousand dollars to drop on a new diamond, I wasn’t sure that’s what I wanted. The brilliant, sparkling solitaire that had so captivated me as a young bride no longer seemed right for two people grappling with the myriad daily struggles, fleeting joys, and occasional crises of middle-aged parenthood.

So I sold off some old jewelry, including the solitaire-less engagement ring and the paltry mall-store wedding band, and had a goldsmith make me a new wedding ring. He took the 10 small diamonds from my engagement ring and incorporated them into a simple new design. Purely by happenstance, I picked up my new ring on Valentine’s Day, with my five-year-old in tow and while Daniel was at work. Which seemed completely appropriate for a marriage characterized less by romantic encounters and more by divide-and-conquer strategic planning.

I love my new wedding ring. It makes me happy every time I look down and see it. The ring is not particularly fancy. It wasn’t very expensive. But it seems a much better representation of the life we have built together. One day when our kids are grown, if we’re lucky, we’ll once again make last-minute dinner plans and take long, uncharted drives into the countryside. Maybe then, I’ll ask Daniel for another sparkly bauble to wear—a diamond necklace, perhaps. But right now, I don’t need it. I don’t even want it.

My favorite part of my new wedding ring is how it feels, heavy and thick. The weight is not confining, but comforting, like a down comforter on a frigid night. It is affirming, like a sleepy child leaning into my chest—a concrete reminder that in this mundane, often limiting family life, I have found my calling and my place, and am lucky enough to share it with my true companion.

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Patheos Peeps: Diana Butler Bass (and Others) on the HHS Contraception Mandate

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Ellen Painter Dollar

Every Friday, I post a link to a blog post written by one of my fellow bloggers at Patheos, a web portal devoted to religion and spirituality. I encourage my blog readers to click through to read these posts, comment, and if you like what you read, follow these bloggers as well.

A big controversy is playing out in the news as the Catholic Church reacts to the Obama administration’s mandate requiring Catholic institutions that serve the public to include contraception in their employee insurance coverage. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops regards the mandate as a fundamental violation of religious freedom.

Patheos blogger Diana Butler Bass wrote about the controversy this week, arguing that as American citizens, people with various religious convictions must accept that U.S. law will sometimes require them to support ideas and practices in opposition to their faith, such as pacifists who pay taxes knowing that some of that money will support the military.

As a good liberal mainline Protestant like Butler Bass, I am sympathetic to her argument. However, I’ve also read two compelling editorials this week from religious folk who think that the HHS mandate truly does threaten religious freedom, including this editorial in Commonweal, and this column from journalist David Gibson on the Sojourners “God’s Politics” blog.

I’m still not sure what to think. But I do agree with New York Times columnist Gail Collins, who had this to say:

This new rule on contraceptive coverage is part of the health care reform law, which was designed to finally turn the United States into a country where everyone has basic health coverage. In a sane world, the government would be running the whole health care plan, the employers would be off the hook entirely and we would not be having this fight at all. But members of Congress — including many of the very same people who are howling and rending their garments over the bishops’ plight — deemed the current patchwork system untouchable.

 

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When Unconditional Love Isn’t Enough

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Ellen Painter Dollar

There’s a hazard to “living out loud,” to writing as a memoirist who pens intimate posts in which I try to be honest about my inner life while painting word portraits of my outer life. The hazard is that, when I realize that something I wrote is no longer true, I have to come clean. I have to admit that I was wrong.

I wrote a few weeks ago about our rescue dog, Eddie. I wrote that our decision to keep him despite his quirks (anxiety, timidity, and his occasionally lashing out when he is startled or unsure) was teaching me about unconditional love and God’s radical acceptance of us despite our quirks. I wrote:

…we are not giving Eddie up. Not even after he snapped, teeth bared, at Ben last week when Ben startled him by coming too close as Eddie slept in his bed. Instead, we told the kids that Eddie needs a safe place, and that when he’s in his bed, they are to imagine him in a protective bubble that we are not allowed to penetrate. I figure that, whatever Eddie has been through, he deserves a safe place, along with a family that will not give him up, despite his quirks and fears and even his ability to lash out at us when we unknowingly remind him of how it feels to be unsafe.

So it is hard (heartbreaking, agonizing) to report that we’ve decided we must give Eddie up. This week, he lunged at a neighbor child, leaving marks on her arm and tearing her coat. I thought I knew what circumstances made Eddie aggressive, such as a child surprising him when he is sleeping in his bed, or when a stranger comes to our door, or when the mailman comes. So I was managing those situations. Everyone leaves Eddie alone when he’s in his bed. When someone new comes in the house, I keep Eddie leashed until he has checked the visitor out (and then starts following him/her around looking for love and belly rubs). I bring Eddie inside when I see the mail truck on our street.

But this time, Eddie was in a situation he’s been in before. Our neighbor drove into our driveway, and her daughter got out of the car to come to the door to get my kids to go to school. Normally, Eddie sniffs cars in the driveway, tail wagging, glad to jump into any random minivan in the hope that someone might have left some crumbs of a previous snack. I have no idea why he lashed out this time.

I immediately knew when this happened that we could not keep Eddie. If I cannot anticipate a situation like this setting him off, I cannot keep him and the kids safe. We live in a neighborhood where kids come and go from our yard, and even our house, at will. What if a neighbor child walked into our kitchen while I was elsewhere, and Eddie got scared and tried to bite? I’m willing to set limits and guidelines for my own kids and others in order to keep them safe. But I can’t be by Eddie’s side at every minute.

When I shared this decision on my Facebook page, I heard from friend after friend who has gone through a similar situation. And I also heard from a couple of people who hadn’t gotten rid of a dog who showed this kind of aggression, and regretted that decision later, when the dog eventually bit someone badly enough to require stitches.

We are working with the rescue group that has helped us train Eddie to place him in another home. My heart breaks into a thousand jagged little bits when I think about this next home as being Eddie’s fifth home in his four-plus years of life. But we are hopeful that a different kind of home—a nice quiet household with utterly predictable routines and no kids, perhaps with a single person who works from home or a retired couple—will finally give Eddie what he needs and deserves.

We will keep Eddie until he finds a new home, because the group we’re working with has no facility where they can board him. While we still love having Eddie around, keeping him at this point just makes it harder to imagine giving him up. And it also means that every day that goes by with everything just fine makes me second-guess our decision. I begin to think, “Maybe we can make this work after all.” But I also know that the next time he lunges, we might not get away with just marks on the skin and a hole in a jacket.

If you are a praying sort, please pray that we will find the perfect home for Eddie and he can finally relax into a place where he can stay forever.

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