Weekend in Review

I’m in The Usual Monday Morning Fog. My mind is clouded with a stupid haze of tired and misremembering, in perfect contrast to the bright and clear sky. I feel, perhaps, that it would be an interesting idea to gather up my life and move forward into the the clear bright future. But maybe not. Maybe I’ll just stay here for the rest of the morning, moaning about my back. Maybe my mind will clear. Maybe it won’t. What day is it? Who am I? What is the order and purpose of my days? How come Matt doesn’t experience the Monday Haze of body and mind? How come he wakes up and pops open his greek book while I cast my mind over the wreckage of the past and the mountainous work of the future? Is there any more milk for the tea? What terrible bunny is eating my cabbages?

If ever I deserved to be in a fog, I’m sure it is now. I’m not together enough to articulate this deserving, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. But here are a few pictures.

He got us all through the wedding itself, and then went home and gathered the gravy, and a minute or so later I discovered him in the church kitchen, carving.

I helped him a little bit until I cut my finger and then I wandered off to test out all the infused cool gorgeous waters–lemon and blueberry and mint–and steal little bites of marinated mozzarella and sundried tomato. I know the person who did the food, and if you pay me some money, I’ll give you her name and number, at great personal risk to myself, having heard her vow that she would never do this again. Problem is, she did Such A Beautiful Job, the Food Was SO Beautiful AND Delicious…one moment more before I collapse into all caps and you click away from all the virtual shouting…I can’t imagine that she will never be persuaded to such a task again.

And I also know who decorated the Hall. For a similar amount of money, I’d be happy to divulge that secret.

I kept looking out from the kitchen at this cool, welcoming, twinkly expanse of white and blue and fairy purple and marveling. SO PRETTY. I repent of all the muttering under my breath about painting. It was The Right Thing to do. Maybe I’ll pitch in and help paint the foul stairways….well, no, I think I’ll leave that to others.

All around the wedding, on either side, was baseball, of course. Cold Cold Cold Baseball. And coping with little girls who are screaming about having their hair combed but also wanting it exactly a certain way, and when you do it wrong, or you pick the wrong color band, they look at you reproachfully and burst into tears, because how could they have been cursed with such a disappointment of a mother, who can’t do anything but hurt them with a comb.

By the time everyone was dressed I felt like a wrung out dishrag that offends the sensabilities of everyone.

Then on Sunday we had the Piano Recital. Elphine and Alouicious played beautifully. Romulus played Eye of the Tiger really well and then followed it up with Our God is an Awesome God which, it turns out, is a song that goes in a loop and has no end and goes on forever until the teacher gets up and helps you out of it. Matt and I gazed at each other across the room, him holding one squirming child and I another, in agonized laughter. Romulous, as so many of you know, just finished a season of baseball on a team called Home Central. For reasons that I cannot divine, the coaches of this team bestowed each and Every player with a trophy at the last game. Romulous has been groping towards reality, though not very well, in the realm of baseball. He has an excessively lofty opinion of himself, telling us game after game that his team won and he won it for them, never hearing the quiet whisperings of many that they don’t keep score. When presented with a trophy (!!! This is the end of America!!!) he announced to us all that his team had won ‘the Championships’. Texts from Matt quoting Romulus as they were getting into the car, to me, included ‘Every day I’m probably going to look at it’ and ‘Remember Rocky how he had all those trophies…this is my first for my collection’ and ‘My team is the team of the year but now I can get back to normal life.’

As I read all these texts I constructed an entire interior blog post about how, you know, this culture thinks you should tell the truth to kids about Santa and the Tooth Fairy and stuff (don’t worry, I’m not thinking of any particular anything, this is just my judgy sense of what America is like) but doesn’t have Any Problem lying to them about how awesome they are. If it were up to me, and I guess it is for my own kids, I would indulge the Santa Lie which isn’t about them, which is about grace and magic and beauty, and squash the You’re Awesome Lie, which, while sort of cute

turns out to be ugly in the end when it’s all grown up and nobody can stand to have a conversation with it. A good measure of reality, pressed down, shaken together, over flowing, is such a grace to the world. We are not awesome. God is awesome. Of course, Romulous has that part covered too, a la piano recital. So maybe he really is awesome.

Let’s see, what else went on this weekend? I watched ten minutes of a World Cup game. And I had a screaming fight with Matt about the fact that he wouldn’t let go of a handful of forks so that I could put them in the dishwasher. Gosh, he made me so mad. And he preached an excellent sermon and then took this mean picture of me.

And, what else. Maybe that was enough. Maybe I’ll toddle down to the bright outside and pull some weeds. And when I’ve gotten all the reality that I can bear gathered together, I will begin the true work of the week which is to begin to search for a Music Director for Good Shepherd. Our beloved Organist and Choir Whisperer is heading off to a much deserved retirement and, having whined and moaned and complained about it lo these many weeks, I know that God cares for us and will provide. But if any of you know anyone who is in Binghamton or who desperately longs to move here who also loves Jesus and wants to help make his church sing beautifully (or even adequately, let me not get ahead of myself) and who knows that God is indeed awesome PLEASE LET ME KNOW. And quickly, because I’m afraid Romulus will apply for the job.