vastness

I believe in a really big, loving, forgiving God.

I am one of the volunteers for an organization called World in Prayer. Each week, a member of the international team writes prayers for the whole world, highlighting current events. In my first year, I (randomly and way ahead of time) was assigned the weeks of the Newtown massacre and the Boston Marathon bombing. I worried I was bad luck for the world, but it taught me important lessons in stillness during chaos.

Last week was my turn to write, and below is what was read as the prayers of the people in churches of many denominations across the globe.

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Gracious and Good God, we come towards All Saints’ Day with darkness in our world and with hope for your light.

We pray for the saints who have entered your kingdom who healed individuals and neighborhoods. We pray for those angels among us: those who feed the hungry, comfort the aggrieved, and love their neighbors. We pray for the dying, the sick, and the hopeless, especially those who are alone in their pain and despair.

We pray for the saints who have entered your kingdom who improved the lives of children and families. We pray for families across the world who mourn the loss of children due to disease, malnutrition, and displacement. We pray for the families in China, where the one-child policy has ended. We pray for foster children and for their families. We pray for those who are unable to conceive.

We pray for the saints who have entered your kingdom who were travelers, who proclaimed your goodness, who founded communities, who were martyrs, and who brought peace into the world. We pray for South Sudan, where new reports of crimes against humanity are emerging. At least seven ceasefires have been agreed to and broken since conflict started in December 2013, and more than two million people have become refugees.

We pray for the saints who have entered your kingdom who were people of the cloth and people for the people. We pray for Nepal, which elected its first female president.

We pray for the saints who have entered your kingdom who were artists: musicians, poets, gardeners, teachers. We pray for the victims of school violence in Aberdeen, Scotland and in Columbia, South Carolina, USA. Help our schools to be safe havens for children, staff, and families. Help our cultures of violence to become cultures of love.

Since last All Saints’ Day, many of us have mourned the loss of someone who was a saint in our lives or in the lives of our loved ones. May we feel their heavenly presence more than their earthly absence. May they be missionaries of your love and protection.

We have darkness in our world and hope for your light. Amen.

caramelized

I jokingly tell people that I am the Mayor of the French Quarter, which is basically what my job is. Being the Mayor comes with some special perks, like parking and hosted meals and special invitations inside homes nearly as old as our country.

Last week, it meant leaving a meeting after dark and getting followed by someone creepy.

I am hyper vigilant about my surroundings, especially when I am alone. I have learned that the best way to politely (and safely) excuse myself from drunks/vagrants/unpleasantness is to duck into the nearest praline shop:

1. They are well-lit.
2. They are open late.
3. They will offer you free samples, and pralines are delicious.
4. They will deter anyone following you around.

I walked into the Magnolia Praline Shop and was greeted by two very nice male employees who seemed disturbed by my plight. They walked me to the door after a few moments, and they scouted for any potential wrongdoers. They watched me walk to the corner, where I had to turn (on a better lit street) to get to my car.

I stopped by the store today to speak with the manager about this above and beyond service, and now I'm telling you, too. Because I like to put compliments into the universe and to keep my people safe. And well-fed.

academy

I went to the same school from pre-Kindergarten through 11th grade.

It turns out that leaving your high school in your senior year makes you feel like you don't have a high school alma mater. This is particularly important in a city like New Orleans, where "where did you go to school?" always means "which high school did you attend?" It's a question that can answer what color, religion, and gender you are and how wealthy you were as a kid.

Yes, that's right: New Orleans segregates its parochial schools on gender and color.

I can't throw many stones, though; I had never been in a class with a black person until 12th grade.

But I didn't move away from the only school I had known to be in a more diverse setting. I chose to go to an all-girls' boarding school for my senior year because everyone I knew was having sex, drinking, and doing drugs. I was not interested in any of those things, so off my precious academic self went to a school that required I take Latin (!) but did not require me to wear a bra or anything fancier than pajama pants. It was the late 90s: there was lots of flannel and unwashed hair to go around, anyway.

I wanted to go to a high school that would prepare me academically for college, so instead of coasting through what would have probably been an extremely easy senior year, I moved 300 miles away from home. Bless my 17-year-old heart.

I cried every day until Thanksgiving. Every. Day. I was painfully homesick, and my parents wouldn't let me have a car until... I'm not really sure what changed their minds, actually. I think it was needing to get to my SAT or something. (Knowing 17-year-old me, I'm sure it was a very responsible sell.)

And then it was finals right after Thanksgiving and I spent my January term at home, and when I got back for my final semester, I only had four months to survive. My friend Jenny, with whom I have lost touch, said her father always said, "You can do anything for <period of time>. You can stand on your head for <period of time>." Jenny and I counted down the days until we didn't have to stand on our heads any longer.

When I got to college, I'd already gained my freshman 15, mastered homesickness, and shared small spaces (and bathrooms) with strangers. I knew how to study, write, procrastinate, live without a car (it disappeared again until my second semester sophomore year).

When people ask me, "where did you go to school?", I know they don't want to hear Wake Forest or George Washington. They want to know if I'm one of them or if I'm an outsider. They want to know if I can be trusted; what neighborhood I grew up in; and if I have any good stories about learning biology from nuns (I do, but they're my mom's stories).

What I want to tell them is that I don't really have a high school, and it still makes me feel lonely to think about sweet little 17-year-old me, sobbing every day for 3+ months because I missed everything I'd ever known, even though everything I'd ever known didn't feel right, wondering what was wrong with me and when I'd feel right.

My extracurricular activities became limited to the 300-mile drive home almost every weekend. I'd been Female Athlete of the Year in 11th grade; I only played one sport in 12th grade. Sundays became synonymous with leaving a place I was happy to return to a place I wasn't. Jenny and I would resume our counting.

And now I have car payments and student loan payments and no high stakes tests. I visit my parents' house, on average, once per year. I wonder if any of us ever stop questioning whether we're an outsider, if at some point we ever recognize "I have arrived!!!!!!"

Probably not. And, if so, I imagine I'll find a way to move into the unknown, the discomfort, the challenge, the new. It's who I've become and where I thrive.

Thank you, 17-year-old me. I'm sorry it was so hard. I'm sorry it was so lonely. But you're prepared to do great things, love deeply, and never take drugs.

mother's ruin

Day Two of my challenge, and my energy is already flagging.

So let’s talk about happy hour.

I really like gin. I was 32 years old when I recognized that I don’t hate gin; I hate tonic. I blessedly got to stop being the girl who ordered vodka or fretted over whether a champagne or a sipping tequila was high quality enough to prevent a terrible hangover.

I drink gin and soda now. Approximately 1 out of 3 times I order this standard (Bombay and soda), I get Bombay Sapphire and/or tonic.

This is my plea to you tonic fanatics: try gin with soda.

This is my plea to you gin haters: try gin with soda.

And to the rest of you: stop ordering martinis if you’re not going to drink them with gin. Chilled Hendricks with a twist (because olives are the one food I will not eat) is glorious. Also, if you mix Hendricks with anything resembling tonic, they should take away your drinking card.

My favorite gins, in no particular order: Death’s Door, St. George’s, Citadelle, Bulldog. They all pair perfectly with soda.

And invite me to happy hour(s), anytime. I find them to be reinvigorating.

tinkerbell, a tinker fairy

I completed a Whole30 this summer. It was informative in many ways (yes, it is physically possible to go 30 days without alcohol and still live to tell the New Orleans tale), but my best emotional takeaway was "you can commit to anything for 30 days."

So, for the month of November, I want to write every day... or at least post something on this blog every day.

"30 days of thanks" seems really cliche. "30 days of thirsty"? "30 days of thoughtfulness"?

A month of... ?! 

(Do I need a theme, or is it just my vain attempt at a witty hashtag?)

Yesterday was my sixth annual Halloween party. I live in a neighborhood full of families, and trick or treating is one of my favorite childhood memories. My brother and I would circle the neighborhood with our father, while Mom would stay home and hand out treats. These days, I invite a group over, and those of us with children search out candy while those child-free friends porch sit with a bucket of chocolate and drink.

My mom always made veal stew for Halloween, because it can sit on the stove and just continue to get more delicious, but cooking veal stew for four people is different from cooking for 20. Last night, I made a Crockpot adaption of red beans and my take on Susan Spicer's duck and andouille gumbo. My beau made desserts, we outsourced appetizers/snacks/dips to other attendees, and a couple of families arrived with craft projects for the children (aged 3-5 years). I also made pumpkin martinis. The final guests left close to midnight, with sugar highs.

I've seen so many tricks and treats in the past six years: pregnancy, miscarriage, struggle to get pregnant, the ease of an additional pregnancy. I've traveled to new places and explored a new career. I've built a new family, composed of chosen loved ones. I fell in love with a man who has a child, which comes with lots of other tricks; no little girl dreams of becoming a stepmom when she grows up.

But it's been good. Hard and heartbreaking, but good. 

And I am grateful. 

(Photo credit: Joy Bruce)

rehearsal

The script (not verbatim) of the toast I gave my brother and his fiancee on the eve of his wedding.

May it not be a rehearsal, lambie.

Andrew is three years younger and six inches taller, so he's no longer my little brother. But now that he has a little salt in the pepper of his hair, people often assume I'm younger. I allow this.

When we were in high school, we went shopping with our mom. My mother overheard a couple of girls talking about how cute Andrew was. One said, "Ugh. And that girl he was with! How did she get a guy like him?"

Now we're all wondering how Andrew got a girl like Sandra.

I'm told that life with a sibling started with much difficulty. I wanted to send him back when he got home. Like a dress, he didn't fit very well, and so we needed to just take him back to the hospital. But as we grew up, I gained a playmate, a partner in crime, a fellow adventurer. Sometimes, the adventures went too far. Once, I was giving him an upside down piggy back ride and dropped him on his head, giving him a rug burn down the side of his face. I pushed him off a pier and into a bed of barnacles, requiring four stitches in his foot. I convinced him that the Gulf of Mexico was safe to swim in, even though we could see a school of sting rays, and of course he got stung.

But through it all,  he never stopped wanting to be my friend. We always got along. He is loyal and forgiving and easygoing. I practiced using a curling iron on him. I practiced cooking on him. I practiced a too-short-lived stint as a Disney princess on him.

But so many things in life are practice. Love. Grief. Forgiveness. These things don't have to be perfect. Close enough counts in a multitude of ways, including hand grenades, which my brother once dug up in the backyard.

Andrew is especially good at rolling with the unexpected. The lessons from our childhood prepared us to be good practitioners of love, of partnerships, and of loyalty. I've practiced all of these things with my brother and learned more from him than any other person.

I am incredibly grateful that he as found such an amazing woman for a lifelong partnership. They are a great fit for each other, and I can't wait to watch all their practice become perfect.

yours

When I was a little girl, this song came on the radio, and my mother said it was the saddest love song that ever existed.

I mostly agree with her ("both hands" is a pretty damn sad love song), and I also empathize strongly with these lyrics; Elton John was producing music well before blogs or social media. I nearly always ask for permission or forgiveness any time I talk about how wonderful life is, whether with my beau or a friend or a colleague.

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I hope you don't mind
(I hope you don't mind)
That I put down into words
How wonderful life is
While you're in the world.