Rhythms of Home: the fight and the focus

A drafted post never posted, written a few months ago about July-September....

Sometimes, I feel like I'm constantly sorting through a paradox of two worlds that continually contradict and depend on one another all at the same time.

July was a saturated month of redefining some much needed individuality in the form of music.  It came and went as suddenly as moods can.  It was an invigorating time of rushing out the door with guitar in hand to make it to a few coffee shop gigs, or an open mic, or a songwriters group, or a jam session with friends, or house concerts, or a garage concert with all my closest friends...that all culminated in a grand finale of playing my debut at an official music venue.  The support was incredible, I wrote new songs weekly.  We purchased a used guitar, an upgrade from my almost ten-years-played starter guitar.  I picked up the piano for the first time since high-school and wrote three songs (never having written one in all my former years of playing).  I began experimenting with adding other dimensions to my songs with a loop pedal. Corey would come home to a wife absorbed in lyric edits or an almost obsessive refinement of hand-written sheet music.  And Danforth's naps may or may not have been interrupted a few times with some soulful passionate vocalizing drifting through the walls.

Then, a major change happened within that seemed to parallel with all that was without.  And here it is in form of a "Song written for Danforth"...

Following this "new life" shift, I left for a couple weeks to visit family in Michigan, and my return to Austin was overwhelmingly silent.  And now a month has passed of almost exclusive lifestyle rhythms primarily around sustaining the beautiful little lives (yes, we've got another Engelhart coming in April if you didn't catch that above!) that are completely dependent on me.  The beauty of all of this is virtually unspeakable and found in the tiniest details.

I'll take a moment to randomly illustrate the images that come to mind though as an attempt to give light to this beautifully complex world:

giant grins to be greeted by on groggy mornings, full bodied ecstatic joy at all things trucks/trains/car/jeep/tractor, garbage truck commotion on Fridays being a highlight of his week, communicating preferences with a small little voice bathed in innocence and wonder, spontaneous kisses, fascination for watching his grandma & grandpa's home videos, the soft padding of bare feet across a quiet house, soft cheeks, storytime in the rocking chair, screaming "daddy home!" at the end of every weekday, the mimics of our oddities and expressions, tucking his chubby legs under blankets and intently demanding us to sit "cozy" beside him, determination to learn, watching his coordination continually improve, the tangible peace of his body at rest, his squeals of delight when we arrive at his friend's house.... All of it. It's the indescribable components of relationship, that only make sense in the context of hundreds of hours learning one another, and learning a new form of love of becoming a parent that is one of the most profound experiences in life.

Through all that beauty, there are some hard and sometimes soul-crushing realities are still being worked out in me.

It surfaced this week.

Monday came.  It was a normal day.  Danforth was in line with his usual self.  Nothing was abnormal.  He was being a two year old, usual fights over diaper time, the agonizing wails of having to wait 30 seconds for his breakfast to be procured out of thin air, maybe fighting his nap was a bit off from the norm...but seriously, it wasn't anything that unusual. 

And that was the hardest part.  

There was nothing tangibly new, nothing but the daily routine of waking, eating, cleaning, napping, etc.  

And it broke me down real hard.  To the honest point of sobbing on the bed proclaiming hatred for the day, begging for it to be over and imploring why God wasn't helping me.

You see, almost the entirety of my young adult life, I've been a seeker for beauty, for experiencing the richness and depths of our existence.  Some of that has come in the form of long-term traveling, some has come in the form of a radical lifestyle pursuit oriented around my spirituality. Either way, I've only known a continual quest for transformation and growth, lingering in moments to their completion, and with whoever I may be presently experiencing it with

Yet, these kinds of things all get shifted in motherhood.  I still see beauty, transformation, and growth... but it is of a different format. There is a part of me (my soul) that entirely resists that change and doesn't want to accept the format in which is is being given.  These things change when another's demands and needs are prioritized above oneself.  And each time I am in a moment seeking beauty in the various ways I do, there is often an inevitable sort of interruption that leaves a bit of a scar on my soul.  Creativity, deep-thinking, color, expression, freedom, loud soulful song making, spontaneity...these things that I've wrapped much of my life around, feel like they're getting shoved into a box of allotted time frames oriented around someone completely uninvolved, unaware, and unrespecting of it.

--To avoid the misrepresentation of expressing one extreme, I will also say, there is often a sharing of these things with my child, of course!  The uninhibited moments of an expressive mother is nourishment to the wild and wonder-filled side of any child, and I feel, they will love their mother all the more when she is fully engaged in the world in the ways most natural to her.  However, there are times I also seek these things individually, and this is what I am referring to here.--

The divide of these worlds felt so irreconcilable on Monday, I felt suffocated.  I didn't need advice, adult relationships, an hour of sleep, or wisdom...I desperately and quickly needed physically out of everything.

Fortunately, I am married to a man who understands spontaneous decisions and needs, and makes an incredible partner through life.  I called him sobbing with the proposal of me leaving the city for the night on my own to camp in some rugged empty terrain by water.  He left work pretty much immediately and helped me pack the necessary gear, and I was off.

Tears continually crept into my eyes at the beauty of this moment of just leaving my version of 'chaos' of a too rhythmic world behind for a pause to revive my slowly choking oxygen supply with some solitude and emptiness.  Time to ponder.  

Through my time out there, I struggled with the "how necessary is this really?" questions, especially when upon arrival I immediately encountered another couple that of course had two sons, one almost exact in age as Danforth. 

But then, I was affirmed through my self-conscious doubts, 

"Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest awhile." 

Spoke Jesus to his disciples after some pretty intense stuff happened to their friend and in the midst of so many needs surrounding them. This freedom to leave needs momentarily, to rest, I saw was a huge part of what God Himself demonstrated as He walked among us.  Which really helped me to accept the gift and begin to truly rest and listen for a while.

The things that happened in my heart are to remain primarily in thoughts and journal pages, but I will say, I left with a far greater reality on the forefront of my mind.

As I mentioned in the previous blog, there are incredible opportunities that come out of being planted for a while.  Of finding home even in the midst of a city in constant motion. For this girl who grew up surrounded by stillness of lush Michigan forests and no neighbors, it can feel a bit suffocating at times.  

Yet, a reminder swept my self-serving thoughts into their proper place.. 

Life is about SO much more than our personal quests to find beauty and fulfillment.  

We are deeply called, whether we know it or not, to a collective motion.  One that has eternal implications of such greater importance than any tangible successes this earth and lifetime can offer.

I occasionally struggle seeing others in a perpetual state of seeking these earth centered forms of fulfillment (notice I said perpetual), and honestly wish I could too sometimes.  But that is not where I have been called nor what I've seen as proper motives for my life. I'm permanently called to an eternal focus and within that have momentarily been called to create and dwell in a home in Austin Texas. I do believe this is temporary and there will come a day when we have the road underfoot once more. At that time, I feel quite certain, it will be with motives beyond journeying for the sake of journeying, if you know what I mean. 

But the present stillness is hard.  It reveals how needy I actually am.  That less than desirable quality is quite happily avoidable when there is constant motion under foot, when days are surrounded by so much external ambiguity that facing human faults isn't quite as necessary when they become peripheral issues.    

I guess, sometimes my physical world demonstrates my internal state too, which becomes much more noticeable in the context of stillness. I backed into a parked car with a friend's car yesterday.  Maggots covered the floor of my house this morning for garbage I neglected.  We didn't eat colorful vegetables for several days on end (a crazy that never happens sort of situation for me).  I found out I had six cavities--(turns out a deficiency from 18 months of breastfeeding caused it in my otherwise mostly sugar-less diet.) I've had to depend on others in a way that makes my self-sufficient determined personality super uncomfortable.

But in this whole process, I'm finding new depths of grace, how to both extend and receive.  I'm finding rhythms that create a far greater scope of beauty that goes farther than any tangible effects of this lifetime. I'm finding the dysfunctional gears of my life that need other's hands to fix and heal.  I'm finding uncomfortable places of neediness and how to allow others into that place. 

I'm finding that fulfillment can come in a hundred thousand ways, but if that fulfillment is apart from God's present plan and place for my life, I will be lost and suffocated no matter what it looks like.  

"But as for me the nearness of God is my good, I have made the Lord God my refuge that I may tell of all Your works." 

The irreconcilable divide still pulls me between motherhood and wifely-ness, with the wild spontaneous creative soul in me. This is where faith and trust in an eternal Father who formed me and has placed me exactly where I need to be comes into play.  I don't doubt there will come a time when we again embrace a physical lifestyle of ambiguity, but that is not for now, and with that great trust I will learn to embrace the structure and rhythm for all that it is, knowing this is part of the cross I am carrying for God's glory, no matter how ridiculous or shallow that might seem to some.  My life conformed to looking more like Jesus; sometimes He lived in a home, and sometimes, He got his feet dirty...but often, alone, He would go to the mountains and wilderness regardless.

These moments of individuality are where a soul is allowed to simply exist in a context without any other filters.  Motherhood is not a call to die entirely to self.  I believe it is a unique opportunity for growth to learn to cherish and embrace all the more, these moments of individuality within the boundaries of the structure and rhythm.  And oh how necessary it is to receive oxygen for that woman, for the ways it impacts her children, her husband, and her world.

So perhaps these small moments of solitude in the vastness of beautiful landscapes, can serve as a reminder of the far greater picture we have the choice to be a part of on this earth; making Jesus alive first in our lives and sharing that overflow of transformation and Hope with whoever is drawn to receive it.

And in that, I am grateful for the grace found in introspective rest and spontaneous expression, paired with the call to rhythm and structure to challenge and refine me in ways I would never choose for myself. 

Peace,

M