“You know what I like about you?” a dear friend inquired the other day.

I hesitated to guess the answer. She didn’t wait.

“You’re…”

There was a pregnant pause. Clearly, she was searching for the right word. After a moment, she found it.

“…meticulous.”

I burst out laughing. Visions of accountants and librarians and my high-school calculus teacher danced in my mind. Gee, thanks.

“No, really, I mean it as a compliment. You’re thorough, careful, you do what you say you’ll do, and you’ll do it right.” Even with her complimentary explanation, I wasn’t entirely comforted.

But as I changed out every. single. switch plate and electrical socket in my house today — by myself, I might add– I couldn’t help but recall that conversation.

Why, you ask, are you changing out the switch plates and electrical sockets? Because they’re cream. And my trim is white. And it has bothered me for the better part of three years. Deeply. But not anymore.

Meticulous. My husband calls it obsessive-compulsive. I just call it…happy.

He was pulled from his mother with sterile, gloved hands. Legs dangling, he was carried to the corner of the room where he was left flailing in a plastic isolette. Quickly bundled, he saw — but did not touch — his mother but for a moment, and then was mechanically rolled down the hallway, his father following a few steps behind, but entirely out of reach. Moments later, separated by a window, father watched as his son was touched and examined and cleaned with methodical, clinical hands. Callously and cavalierly, the nurse performed her tasks and duties, as she does day in and day out. A pinch. A poke. And cries left unanswered, sobs left unsoothed. Two hours old, and yet to be held by mom and dad.

He’s really not hurt by all of this. He really won’t remember it.

And all around him, the same thing happening to the eight, nine, ten new souls with him in the room. An assembly line of new life.

Outside in the hall, proud fathers, ecstatic grandparents, and even a few moms, all gazing at their children through tears of happiness — and a glass window. No one stopping to reflect. No one stopping to question. Is this really normal? Where is the cradling? Where is the tender touch? the joyful laughter? the warm embrace of mom and dad? Lost. And such a shame.

But the biggest shame of all was that no one around even seemed to notice.

I’ve always found bumper stickers in the fashion of this post title to be particularly annoying. What, are you trying to be cute? deep? enigmatic? Whatever the purpose, I have heretofore prejudicially and fully rejected any person sporting such proclamations on their vehicle (or anywhere else, for that matter).

Except, now I feel I might have to claim the proclamation for myself.

First, there was the surgery.

And then, there was the fire.

Soon thereafter, the second surgery.

And, finally, a third surgery, this time, presumably to repair the cosmetic damage from the very first surgery, but, at this stage of the game, I’m entirely uncertain as to whether it has achieved its purpose, or, instead, simply caused me yet another round of pain and swelling.

So, given all of this karmic backlash in my life of late, you can see that I can understandably be questioning my beliefs and wondering whether there is good in this world.

But the final blow came last night. A group of girls, gathered for friendship, wine, a few laughs, and an absurdly simple game. The winner — in the category of most losses for the evening? You got it. Yours truly.

My hitherto unwavering belief in some kind of benevolent higher power–now includes the conviction that said higher power has one hell of a sick sense of humor.

When I was growing up, I had two delightful girls (one of them now “lives” here) living next door to me. It was a magical time in many ways. Despite being a group of three, which is all too often a recipe for disaster among young girls, we were the best of friends, always playing fantastic games in each other’s yards and homes. After school, we’d congregate together without much thought or effort, and find ourselves playing until we were dragged home for dinner by our parents. And summertime? Hours and hours would slip by without the single interruption of an adult to break up our games. All of this, spontaneous. All of it, unplanned. All of it, free.

Which is why I rankle so much at the modern concept of a playdate.

“Mommy, can I have a playdate today?” The question at once inflicts guilt and stirs irritation. Invariably, I have not made the requisite calls to be able to answer her question in the affirmative, and the opportunity has passed for the day.

I’m simply not a planner. And to have to plan on sending my child to someone’s house, or receiving someone else’s child into my own, simply doesn’t work for me. The phone calls to set it up, the carpooling arrangements, the calendaring and the organization it takes are just too much for me. Don’t get me wrong. I do it. But I don’t like to, and I probably do a pretty poor job of it, which is evidenced by the whining and crying that takes place when there’s simply no one to play with.

Where is the spontaneity? the freedom? the non-existent calendar? Lost, all, somewhere in the last twenty or so years. The kids in our neighborhood are too spread out for spontaneous gatherings in the yard. Schools draw from great distances, introducing our children to lots of different kids — wonderful — who live very far away — not so wonderful. And then there’s after-school activities to be tip-toed around, and parental work schedules to marry into the mix, and. and. and. It’s simply not easy. And it’s a shame.

A long time ago, a friend wrote about missing the freedom of our youth. Her words intangibly resonated with me, but, now, with a child old enough to want and need friends of her own choosing, those words have a concrete illustration in my life. That lost freedom means less for her, perhaps, than it does for me. She? knows nothing different. But I do. And as glamorous as it appears to sound, I’d honestly prefer a life that didn’t require a social secretary.

If I have a religion, it includes in it a healthy trust and faith in Mother Nature. And Mother Nature is never more present than at the birth of a child. I don’t believe she’s right all the time — no one can be perfect — but I know she’s wise, and her vision extends far, far beyond mine. I don’t question her designs as much as I try to understand them; I don’t fear her plans as much as I try to trust them. But, I’m not perfect, and I know that my ignorance and confusion are, at their root, my shortcomings — not those of Mother Nature. Each birth I attend, then, is an examination, a test, if you will, of my faith. My desire — compulsion, really — to write about each birth is my way of exorcising the ignorance and confusion to make room for more understanding and trust.

Her water had broken the night before, and labor had not started. When I arrived at her bedside, as a volunteer, she was hooked to an IV, the hissing pump forcing pitocin — a manufactured form of Mother Nature’s labor hormone — through mom’s body. Her uterus was contracting in response to the drug, regularly and powerfully; her manufactured labor eerily mimicing that of Mother Nature’s quite well.

But hours and hours and hours later, mom was no closer to giving birth to her child than she had been the night before. No progress. No change. All those contractions, and, simply, no change. “Failure to progress”, the doctor said. Another primary cesarean, performed in a puddle of mom’s tears.

Failure to progress. The mystery that is Mother Nature weighed heavily on my heart. How can she appear not to work, yet again? The broken water and absent labor — that is something I understand. That is not a failure of Mother Nature as much as it is a failure of human nature: impatience is all too often our downfall. But I know Mother Nature is stronger than our shortcomings. Why, then, all of this apparent failure? Where is the triumph of her strength? Where is her victory? I stood in the hallway, watching mom disappear into the surgical suite, and I struggled to understand.

I don’t question her designs as much as I try to understand them; I don’t fear her plans as much as I try to trust them.

A few hours later, mom in recovery, dad with his son, and me standing by, trying desperately to make sense of it all, I listened as the nurses gleefully reported the past few hours’ activity. It had been a busy evening, and the bustling nursery was evidence to the fact. “A busy night,” the charge nurse said, “nine vaginal births and one cesarean inside of three hours.”

Her vision extends far, far beyond mine. Victory.

I wrote these words on New Year’s Day, 2006:

I meet this New Year with detached boredom. I feel no excitment at the prospect of turning a new page. It’s cold, dark, and wintry. Certainly not the time of rebirth. These resolutions, they simply slip past me. I’m unwilling to set yet another goal, only to see it not attained. An absurd form of self-loathing. Games, they are. I’m tired of playing games, only to lose each time.

I titled the piece, “Nothing Changes on New Year’s Day,” finding the title dark, bitter, and pessimistic enough to reflect my mood. Nothing Changes. I felt trapped in my shortcomings, shackled by my failures, and utterly incapable of overcoming them. Worse, I found the prospect of attempting to change to be a cruel mockery; certainly, I was destined to fail.

I couldn’t bring myself to publish those words. Too dark. Too depressing. Not for public consumption. But, I held on to them. I didn’t erase them, delete them, or send them off into unindexed, lost, bitspace. There must have been a reason.

It is now a little more than a year later, and I now understand why I saved those words.

A lot of things have happened in the time since I wrote those words. I smile more and I laugh more — at myself more than anyone. And I no longer feel so trapped. My shortcomings and my failures? Many of them are still there. But they no longer anger me or sadden me. They just “are.” I have changed, for the better. And I will continue to change as time goes on. Sure, there will be mistakes, there will be failures, and I’ll stumble and trip along the way. The point is, I have a way, and I always will.

Nothing changes on New Year’s Day. I now read that title and am filled with a sense of optimism, a sense of joy. It’s all a matter of expectations. True, nothing does change on New Year’s Day. Likewise, nothing changes on Tuesday, or Friday, or any other given day. Our opportunities for change aren’t bound by a single day, destined to crumble and disappear should we fail in a twenty-four hour span. We can change, slowly and methodically, on the collective time of each sunrise.  Nothing changes on New Year’s Day;  to me, that is the very definition of optimism and faith.

A set of snow tires. The world’s ugliest sweater. A bust of Thomas Jefferson- a really, really big bust of Thomas Jefferson. And a gargoyle with a computer on his lap.

These are among the better gifts Tim’s father was known for giving. The man always had his heart in the right place when thinking of gifts for others, but, somehow, the synapses mis-fired just a wee bit in the execution of his heart’s desire.

I was a relative newcomer to the experience that was a gift from Tim’s dad, but I knew we were in for a doozy when Tim’s brother laughingly handed over a wrapped gift to us at Thanksgiving to take home to be opened at Christmas.

“I helped him wrap it,” he said, stifling a laugh. “He’s outdone himself on this one.”

Once home, the gift loomed in front of us for several more weeks before we were able to open it. But…oh, when we opened it!

A gilt-framed shadow box enclosing a plastic saxophone, a bouquet of dried flowers, and a piece of parchment with fake music notes written on it — all for the saxophonist in the family. How, um, thoughtful.

It really has been a joke for the last seven years. That gift represented the epitome of Tim’s father’s gift-giving prowess. After his death, we toyed with re-gifting it amongst family members, but, for some reason, we hung on to it.

But, finally, as we recently moved back in to our home from the fire and took the opportunity to declutter a bit (well, a lot), the great gift finally made its way to the garage sale pile. It was not without great circumspection. It was not without a lot of laughter. And it was not without a lot of bittersweet tears. But, finally, we realized, the great gift had served its purpose, and was now, simply, the really ugly piece of trash that it started out to be.

Garage sale people never cease to amaze me. They really are, well, an intriguing lot. The first purchase early on Saturday morning, before the sun rose, and before the official start of the sale? You got it. That lovely piece of art. One man’s trash. Another man’s treasure. And the gift just keeps giving.

“Welcome to the XYZ Company Voice Recognition System. What would you like to do today? Say ‘do this’ to do that, say ‘do this other thing’ to do that other thing, or say ‘other options’ to do something else.”

[in the background] “Evan! I want to play with the red puppy!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t understand your response. Please say ‘do this’ to do that, say ‘do this other thing’ to do that other thing, or say ‘other options’ to do something else.”

[in the background] “Zoe! Give me back my red puppy!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t understand your response. Please say ‘do this’ to do that, say ‘do this other thing’ to do that other thing, or say ‘other options’ to do something else.”

[in the background] “Stinky Face!”

“I’m sorry, I can’t understand you. Let me get you to a live representative. But first I’m going to ask you a question to make sure you get to the right person. What would you like to do today? Say ‘do this’ to do that, say ‘do this other thing’ to do that other thing, or say ‘other options’ to do something else.”

Click.

Do you understand that?

41 minutes ago, a scrappy older man with a greying, curly pony tail stepped into our home to give my husband his first guitar lesson. Merry Christmas, Tim.

2 minutes ago, I did an auditory version of a double-take, realizing it was my husband banging out an old Wilco tune in the room next to me.

The man I love now plays Wilco? Pinch me.

(Trying desperately to get back in to the swing of writing daily…bear with me)

Zoe can be particularly complimentary at times. “You’re my favorite mommy,” she’ll say, or “You make the best cheesy bagels, Mom.” Now that we’re back in our house, and have our own clothes back (yeah!), her compliments of late have been much more superficial in nature: “You’re so beautiful, Mom, in that shirt,” or “That outfit is the best, Mommy; you look great in it.” And though these compliments come from an entirely juvenile and even slightly sycophantic source, requiring that I must caveat their accuracy, I have to admit I don’t mind hearing them. Hey, if they boost my self-esteem, I’ll take observations blinded by youthful adoration as truth any day.

This morning, though, Zoe was anything but blind.

It had been a particularly frustrating trip out of the house. Production would be more like it. Extracting Evan from his Legos, negotiating the selection of shoes for the day, packing up belongings, and shuttling out the door — all were simply, not simple. I was annoyed, and my patience had worn thin. Zoe’s curious inquisition into all the things scattered about the car — instead of buckling herself in — was the last straw.

“Come on, Zoe! Just get in the car already!” I scowled. Of course the offense did not justifiably warrant the reaction, but I was simply out. of. patience.

Zoe settled herself into her booster seat, and then calmly looked up at me and said, “You know, Mom, you aren’t very pretty when you are angry like that.”

Ouch. Worse, I’m sure she’s right.

I gave her a hug, said I was sorry — and then silently thanked her for possibly the best beauty tip ever.