I was scared of the food processor. I was intimidated by the food processor.

But tonight at Earth Fare, Cole dumped a ton of organic, frozen fruit into my cart and I realized that while I’ve been talking and thinking about it for a really long time, I haven’t made a smoothie in nearly two years.

It’s been nearly two years. Since I became separated. Since I moved out of my house and into an apartment. Since I turned my world (and the Kaiser’s) upside down because I was unhappy, unsober and undone.

And that’s some heavy shit.

I made the Kaiser a smoothie tonight. We mixed the strawberries, bananas, blueberries and yogurt. I showed the kid how to turn on the mammoth machine. We watched it spin. I poured the purple concoction into a glass and he smiled and drank it. Purple lipped at the kitchen table, he asked me if I had ever made him a smoothie before.

How such a little thing can break my heart. From the time he was able to eat solid food, I made the boy a smoothie nearly every day. They were his favorite. It was our thing. But two years is a long time. It’s nearly an eternity in a child’s mind. I understand that.

I guess that smoothies were one thing I got right. That sounds stupid, doesn’t it? It’s a little stupid. I think back on making them for the Kaiser and those are clear moments. Unclouded and pure. It didn’t much matter if I was hungover when I made one, although I don’t ever remember that being the case.

Eh. It made me sad. And at the same time, I know that A) I, too, remember nothing prior to the age of about five and B) I’d damn well better make each moment count.

I was driving home from work today and, rather than listen to NPR News, which I find insanely sobering, I listened to my go-to “feel better” song by Free Energy. It’s good. I promise.

And as it has over and over again in the past few weeks, this imagery creeps into my consciousness.

Buddha taught that human rebirth was insanely difficult to attain. In the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, the Buddha presented this concept with simile. Imagine a vast, vast ocean. In that ocean floats a yoke, blown by the winds. At the bottom of the ocean lives a blind tortoise, one that only comes to the surface once in every hundred years. As difficult as it would be for the turtle to surface with its head through the opening of the yoke, just so difficult as it is to be born as a human being.

In the midst of day-to-day banality and global uncertainty and my near-constant anxiety, this image helps me. To just remember, through the duration of a song, how utterly and unquestionably fortunate I am to be here… it’s astounding. It’s humbling. And it’s beautiful.

Heyyyy, look. I wrote a blog.

I’ve been watching the Penn State/Sandusky scandal grow over the past week. I wonder how I would react to this if the Kaiser were ten years old and asking me about the story. I am thankful that my son is five and that he has no interest in football. No hard questions and no hard answers. Yet.

I wonder how the parents of the protesting Penn State students felt. If I saw my 18-year old standing in solidarity on JoePa’s front lawn, I think it’d be time to pick up the cell phone. I would be ashamed if one of my children was out there chanting “one more game.” I would know I had failed as a parent. Someday, these kids will have children of their own. And maybe when that day comes and they look into their own child’s face, they’ll understand the full scope of the horror that occurred at their alma mater. 

Paul Howard, 24, an aerospace engineering student, sums it up nicely. “Of course we’re going to riot,” he said. “What do they expect when they tell us at 10 o’clock that they fired our football coach?”

Ok, let me make sure I heard you correctly. Despite our country being at war, despite gross economic woe, despite world economies failing and human suffering the world over, dude’s gonna take a militant stand over – the firing of a football coach.

Loud and clear, asshole. Loud and clear.

Get it right.

I believe in compassion more than I believe in just about any other virtue. Real compassion brings pain and then it breeds action. But what I’ve seen is a misplaced compassion toward Joe Paterno, and that’s something I really don’t understand. Granted, I don’t give a shit about football. I’m sorry (no I’m not), but have no interest and no real respect for collegiate or professional sports. It’s an industry, like anything else, and I think this is a prime example of how we’ve absolutely lost our way insofar as priorities.

I’m tired of hearing that Joe Paterno is a good man. How are we defining “good?” When children are being sodomized in the shower and you not only fail to act but also allow such action to be covered up, you are not a “good man.” Over the past 10 years, countless people knew that Sandusky was around young children, regularly, through the Second Mile Foundation. As recently as last week, Sandusky was working out at the Penn State athletic facilities. Joe Paterno was Sandusky’s boss. At the very least, Joe could have fired him and kept him out of the clubhouse. Who continues to work for years, day in and day out, with someone you have reason to suspect was a serial rapist of young boys?

Don’t call it “sad.” Call it disgusting. Paterno’s conduct is grossly misguided, and lamentably, so is the conduct of the mindless boobs who riot to express their anguish over Joe’s dismissal. Children were raped. Repeatedly. Let’s do a little thought exercise here. Place your son in the place of one of these boys. Get it now? Paterno is a coward, or worse.

C.S. Lewis wrote that, “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” When it mattered, when it was risky, Paterno protected himself and the university’s football program. So don’t give me that “good man” shit.

Ahem. Sorry. Whew. Welcome back to the blog.

Cole and I took a trip to the beach a few weeks back, returning on the afternoon before Father’s Day. I had already gotten Jed a book, but we needed to fill a gift bag with some cool daddy stuff so we headed to ye olde Walgreen’s for the perfect card and perfect fireworks (South Carolina, you ARE good for something and don’t let anyone tell you differently) and perfect dark chocolate.

As we walked into the store, the Kaiser inundated me with his desire to buy something for himself.

“But mom, I haven’t bought anything in FOREVER.”

That is a lie. We acquired no fewer than five quickly forgotten souvenirs at the beach the week prior. And a hermit crab because I’m a sucker. So I explained this, and reminded him that this was about Father’s Day, not about Cole. Because… not everything is about Cole.

“You don’t love me,” he spat out.

Welp.

“I do love you,” I said, “but you’re still not getting anything.”

If the kid relates material acquisition to love, the next thirteen years of his life are going to be rife with disappointment. I explained this and we had a chat about what matters (family and kindness and fun with friends and love). He didn’t care; all he sees is the shiny plastic car that his mother is not going to buy.

I’m writing about this today because upon waking, my first thought was the shiny new iPhone 4 that I’m thinking about buying. It’s $200, and that’s a lot of money to me. But I want it. I want it so badly. I don’t even have an iPod and that’s how I’ve been justifying it to myself. 

You can play angry birds like everyone else.
You’ll have musics!
It looks so damn cool.
Your phone is so old and crap.
It’ll be so damn cool.

Hello, beautiful.

But I can’t afford it. I can’t afford to get an iPhone and get my dog to the vet for a check-up. I can’t afford an iPhone and pay my car taxes on time. I can’t afford an iPhone because that’s $200 less in my Sara’s-gonna-buy-a-farm fund.

Need vs. want. Non-attachment. Learning, just like the Kaiser, what is important and what’s not. He’s young now, and that means he doesn’t really pay attention to his mother’s purchases or lack thereof. But someday he will, and one thing I know is this: I can talk all day about the things that are important and the things that are not, but the tangible choices he sees me make … that’s what matters. 

(I still want an iPhone.)

Last week at the pool she told me that she was an addict. Her drug of choice is pain pills, and I don’t know much about that, but that’s really irrelevant. An addict is an addict is an addict. She talked to me about her short (45 days) sober time in a Christ-centered recovery program.

She scared me. I remember where I was at 45 days. I remember the crushing reality of… reality. I remember the fragility and the sadness, like I’d lost my best friend (granted, t’was a best friend that was killing me, but my closest companion nonetheless). I remember how alone I felt, except when I was in the presence of other addicts. I remember how painful it was to come out of the haze and take a good, hard, ugly look at myself and who I was.

It’s fucking horrible.

And she talked to me and she cried and apologized for crying, and for the first time I found myself on the more-sober end of the conversation. Someone is looking to me for experience, strength, and hope? Agh.

I hurt for her and I fear for her because it’s so hard. Early sobriety is awful and the chances of making it are slim. She wasn’t solid. I knew that, but I also knew that there wasn’t one damn thing I could do to keep her sober. I told her to call me, told her to make sure she made her meetings, told her to look at her children when she thought of using, told her to remember how shitty she feels when she uses, told her to “play the tape,” told her not to romanticize the drug, told her it would get better.

And it does get better. There’s just no amount of “telling” that can convince someone of that unless they’ve held it in their hands, felt the good, known the utter relief that comes when it finally does… get better.

On July 4, a group of us gathered at the pool to cook out and play with the kids. She drank. I watched her pour the vodka and I said nothing. Maybe I should have. At that point, though, the decision is made. You wanna relapse? You plan your relapse.

There’s no moral to the story. I’m sad — a deep-down-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach sad — for her and for her children. I hope that it was just a slip, but I’m also aware that no one can get or keep someone sober. It doesn’t work that way. This is what I think. We are all looking for something. Something bigger. Something transcendent. Something that gives us meaning and fills some hole and makes us better. We’re all looking. Addicts are like anyone else, just on a fucked-up spiritual path. And we can reach out, we can connect, we can love. At the end of the day, though, we all have our mountains. Whether you climb or you languish at the bottom… wholly up to you.

Stop with the aging.

This is new to me.  He’s been oblivious until now, and oblivion is easy.

On Friday morning his class was having a water day, followed by lunch then a trip to a jumpy-castle place. So the kid needed to wear his swimming trunks to school, get sunscreened up, bring a towel and a change of clothes. All week he had stressed about me bringing in the permission form and the $7 for the trip. I assured him that his father and I would take care of it, annnnnd we did.

Yesterday he woke excited, and we puttered around the house packing our bags and lunches and preparing for the grand day ahead. I folded towels and stuffed them into his bag. He ambled into the living room, face panicked, eyes wet.

“I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do,” he says and grips his hands tightly together.

Oh God.

I stopped. I sat down. I explained it all, all the points that seem so self-evident to me, but to him made no sense and sent him into a five-year-old tailspin. We talked about the plans, what was packed and ready for him, how he had underwear and socks and that yes, someone will help him should he not be able to button his pants.

Growing up, man. It’s complicated and it’s bittersweet and it’s just… it’s hard. The Kaiser slept in my bed last night, a Friday tradition. I traced the still-chubby curve of his cheek and chin. He’s changing. It’s never going to cease. Every day, I parent a new kid, and I’m tackling that with as much grace as I can muster.  

But if there were ever a choice to stop time, to slow it down and make it last, I’d choose now. This summer, this day, this morning. Ain’t figured out how to manipulate its passing, though, so I’ll continue to hold on and let go, all at once.

Everybody knows
It sucks to grow up
And everybody does
It’s so weird to be back here
Let me tell you what:
The years go on and
We’re still fighting it, we’re still fighting it
You’ll try and try and one day you’ll fly
Away from me

-Ben Fold, Still Fighting It

(Just because it happened to you doesn’t make it interesting.)

When I don’t write for a length of time, the process becomes alien to me. The mechanism by which I once turned anecdotes into a focused story has become rusty, red and jerky. It’s a different part of my brain – the clever sliver, the storytelling nook, the metaphor maker – that helps me write. And when I don’t use it regularly, it fades until eventually I don’t even realize I’m missing it.

I’ve been working a lot, thinking a lot, planning a lot. I’m on the crux of making some key life decisions (oh, Christ) that will change the course of this little path I’ve ambled along for the past year.

On June 13, I hit my one-year sober anniversary. I marked the day with more significance than I marked my own birthday or past wedding anniversaries or the day my mother died. I marked it well. There was no grand celebration, not even a dinner out. And I didn’t tell my friends or remind my family until the day had passed. That’s ok, though, because it’s mine. It’s a day I wanted for myself.

And the Kaiser? He’s great and we just last week returned from a Myrtle Beach adventure:

Handsome as he ever was.

He still... loves his foot?

... and climbs.

... and always looks sneaky.

... and tells everyone that he "got crabs."

Mad scientist time. Now.

There is something about being a child, some little nugget in a kid’s brain, that hardwires them to wake early on a Saturday morning. Monday through Friday the Kaiser sleeps until well past seven and I have to wake him with soft words and coaxing. On a Saturday, though, his weekend gray matter kicks in and he’s in my room at 6am, telling me to wake because it’s going to be, “a beautiful day, Mommy.”

As we sat in the drive thru at Dunkin Donuts, I questioned the Kaiser about this oddity. He laughed and told me he didn’t know why.

I don’t suppose it much matters, and I remember doing the same thing when I was a child – waking on Saturday morning like it was Christmas, full of the happy and the readiness to start a glorious, school-free day. I wish I woke like that now. I don’t know how to wake like that now. Most mornings are punctuated by a vague sense of dread; yes, I am aware that that is probably not healthy.

The Kaiser and me? Our ideas of the supremely fun are different. I’d love nothing more than to lie in bed until ten with a cup of coffee beside me, book in hand. But he reminds me, and often, that it’s not always about … me. And maybe my idea of fun isn’t actually all that fun.

The thing about kids is this: When you have a child and if you’re open enough, you can lay your hands on the magic of childhood. When you have a child you can watch cartoons for hours and wrestle on the floor and jump in bouncy castles and discover the sweetness of a honeysuckle. You have direct access to childhood, an immediate and every-day opportunity to see things anew and forget, for a while, that you have bills to pay and work emails to answer and a car to wash. Stay in the moment and you can forget that excel doc you forgot to send, your broken vacuum cleaner that spits dirt instead of sucking, and all the boxes that still need packing.

It’s Saturday, and it’s time to forget.

I was annoyed.

Maybe I’m annoyed because I don’t feel it. I didn’t wake up today overwhelmed by joy, heading out in my best dress to an Easter sunrise service. Maybe I feel like I’ve been left out of this top-secret, uber-happy club. And maybe I find it grating that folks use social media to throw out their lukewarm, half-assed theology.

Or maybe I’m just being a bitch.

In any case, I think I’m missing the point. Why am I so concerned with the faith (or lack thereof) in others? I find it so easy to slip into cynicism, to be overwhelmed by my own doubt and my ire at those who seem to have no questions at all.

This morning I had a cup of coffee on the porch and watched a chipmunk eat… whatever it is that chipmunks eat. I had a long talk with my best friend. I read and I watched Rob Bell.  It’s amazing how, by simply recognizing my own slide into uneasy misery, I can stop it. I can cease it and I can turn it around and in the same hour feel utterly overwhelmed with love. And that, I think, is God. Or I’m crazy. Either explanation seems equally plausible. 

And when Jesus died on the cross, he died for everybody. Everybody. Everywhere. Every tribe, every nation, every tongue, every people group. Jesus said that when he was lifted up, he would draw all people to himself. All people everywhere. Everybody’s sins on the cross with Jesus. So this reality, this forgiveness, this reconciliation, is true for everybody. Paul insisted that when Jesus died on the cross, he was reconciling ‘all things, in heaven and on earth, to God.’ All things, everywhere. This reality then isn’t something that we make true about ourselves by doing something. It is already true. Our choice is to live in this new reality or cling to a reality of our own making. – Rob Bell

*Karen Schultz on Jesus. 

“Oh my GOD (groan). I know. It’s like, ‘Get the FUCK.OFF.ME.”

The worst time for this? There’s something about sitting in a restaurant booth that results in immediate and boiling annoyance.

There’s a full three feet of fake leather sitting space. Scoot over. Let go of my arm. Drink from your own cup. Back off, kid.

The Kaiser also switches into cling mode when I write. I don’t write much when he’s awake. I recognize that my time is better spent playing. I accept that. I dig it. But sometimes I take a few minutes (like now) to write a quick blog or jot down some ideas before they flee.

And this morning, yes. I’m experiencing kid-too-close annoyance. When the Kaiser sees me settle into the leather chair and get out the laptop, he takes that as notification to commence the aggravation. He scurries up next to me in the chair. It’s a one-person chair. He scoots in behind me. I type madly and move forward, perching on the very edge. His bare feet press against my back. He squirms around. He whispers in my ear. He headbutts me. He stands on the arms of the chair. While I’m writing, I can zone it out for a while. Five minutes probably, during which I keep typing, say nothing.

And then, I’m done.

“Get off the chair.” I pick him up and deposit him on the floor. I make my mean face.

“But it’s MY chair.” He starts climbing back on.

“Cole, I swear to God if you get back on the chair, I will spank you.”

And I mean it, too. Sorta. I don’t know if he buys it, because spankings are rare and he knows he’d have to push a lot further to get to the point where hand meets ass, but he at least senses that I’m at the breaking point. He backs off. I feel immediately guilty. And so it goes.

Please. I'm BEGGING you.