Roots

I have some joyful news that I've been waiting to share until it was absolutely, signature-on-paper certain. And now that it is, as of yesterday morning, I finally feel comfortable talking about it on the internet.

Keith has a job. In Pittsburgh.

YAY.

It's going to be a craaaazy few months, because the job starts in July, which means he has to finish writing and defend his dissertation by then. But. We are staying in Pittsburgh. Praise God.

I have just finished reading this book--and again, I cannot recommend it too highly for all you fellow homemakers--and there is a quote in it from Simone Weil (who is one of my favorites). I just spent a lot of time trying to find it in the book, and I can't for the life of me, but I did find it online:

"To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul."

It has been such an anxious waiting, not knowing whether or not we'd be able to stay here. Here, where our families and friends are; here, where we have established our roots. So while this job may not be perfect, it is a huge blessing.



We are hoping, now, to buy a house by the end of the year. The interest rates and real estate prices in Pittsburgh right now are such that we wouldn't be paying a huge amount more in taxes and on a mortgage than we are in rent. We got a little overexcited and started looking at houses already before realizing that we couldn't exactly afford a downpayment pr get a mortgage until after Keith starts work. :-P But not before we fell in absolute love with a house.

It was a beautiful stone house north of the city, close enough for Keith to commute but also nearer our parents. It had a beautiful backyard to send kids out in, a flagstone patio, and doors that opened up top. It had wooden floors--some of which were covered by ugly carpets, but that's easily remedied--a working fireplace, five bedrooms, a big rambling and slightly creepy basement, plenty of closet space (especially considering the house was an older one), and a built-in china cabinet in the dining room. It was a bit dated; but who doesn't love the idea of adopting a house in need of a little love and making it their own, their home?

Keith can fall in love with a house almost instantly. It takes me a little longer. I get sad about the thought of leaving our apartment and our current little neighborhood; change overall is hard for me, and I find it difficult to initially picture any particular house as ours, filled with our things and molded to our lives. A house has to inhabit my imagination for a bit before I love it.

Well, when we realized we wouldn't be able to afford this house until August--and that it was highly unlikely it would still be on the market by then--Keith was able to resign himself to that and detach from it.

But me? I pictured my owl cookie jar on the counter in the kitchen. I imagined which bedroom would be our library, and how the shelves would be arranged. I pictured myself doing laundry in the exciting basement, while toddler-Michael had adventures in the dark corners. And I loved that house more with each image that flickered unbidden through my mind. Maybe it would still be around come summer.

And then on Wednesday the listing was removed, and our real estate agent told us someone had made an offer on it.

And while Keith is okay with that, I am still really, really sad. In my mind that house had started to become our home; I have nothing to replace it with, and when I imagine us living in a house, those are still the images that come to mind.

Well, I am trying to be patient. Before the house was sold (so far as we know) I prayed, Lord, if not this house, then please have a better one in store for us! ;) So, we will see.

Guadalupe

Our Lady of Guadalupe has a special place in my heart. My relationship with the Blessed Mother waxes and wanes, but any devotion I have is always a gift from her, and I feel from Our Lady of Guadalupe in particular. There was a missionary image of Our Lady of Guadalupe at a Catholic women's conference my mom and I went to when I was a teenager. People lined up to see it in between presentations because it was a miraculous image. When I found this out, I dragged my mother away from dinner early so that we could get in line before the last talk of the evening.

There was a woman standing by the image with a stethoscope. She placed the stethoscope over Mary's heart, and some people heard her heartbeat--and then she'd place it over her womb, and some people also heard Jesus' heart. As I came up in line she was wiping the ears of the stethoscope with her last alcohol swab, so I was one of the last people she let listen. She looked at me and told me cheerfully, "Children always hear the Baby Jesus' heartbeat."

I remember feeling kind of insulted, because it was literally the day before my sixteenth (or fifteenth?) birthday. Ha. She helped me put the stethoscope in my ears, held it over Our Lady's heart ...

... and there it was. Clear and slow and deep, the slowest and most even heartbeat I have ever heard. Like when I was little and curled up in my mother's lap listening to her heart.

And before I had a chance to take it in, she moved the stethoscope down to Our Lady's belly--I could point out to you the exact flower on her dress--and I heard Him. A much smaller, faster heartbeat, but just as clear. And as I listened to it, it moved. And as it moved, I heard splashing--the liquid inside Our Lady's womb moving as her Son swam inside her.

I couldn't fathom it. I had hoped to hear His heartbeat, but this? And as I tried to wrap my mind around that, then ... I heard His voice. A cooing, happy sound. The kind I am blessed to hear every day when Michael is occupied in examining a piece of string or a toy and suddenly looks up at me and says something, just because he is content and I am there.

I heard Jesus' voice.

It was a gift from my Mother, to whom I'd had little devotion up until that point, even though I knew I was "supposed" to--a generous and completely unmerited gift.



Before I had a baby, and even while I was pregnant, I could pretend to "get" the Incarnation. As in, God becoming man--big and mind-boggling and mysterious as it was--was something I could picture and imagine. But since having a baby? That poops and laughs and looks at me and screams in the middle of the night for reasons I don't always understand?

God did all that?

I can't even pretend to "get" it anymore. It's almost ridiculous. I can imagine God as Man, but God as a baby?

And yet, I've heard that Baby's voice.



It was really important to me to get to Mass on her feast today. So yesterday I asked St. Juan Diego to please help me get there (the guy walked a good fifteen miles to get to Mass on Sunday!), and he came through. Somehow I made dinner early in the day, packed up the baby, and went. I don't think I've been to daily Mass since Michael was born (although I really can't remember). I've only been to adoration once. In addition to things like preparing dinner and making sure that Michael gets his naps, it's hard for me psychologically to get out and do these things. I know that I need to place myself more often in the presence of God; I need to learn what this looks like in my life as it is now, as a wife and mother, rather than a single person whose time is her own to do with as she pleases.

I read this in The Way yesterday: "If  you accustom yourself, at least once a week, to seek union with Mary in order to go to Jesus, you will have more presence of God." So simple, and yet such an important reminder.



Other good things today: going to Wendy's with my dear friend Stephanie after Bible study; visiting with my mom; inviting two young women to our apartment after Mass for homemade chicken noodle soup, salad, and olive oil bread; pureeing some soup for Michael (he is becoming quite the carnivore! and he gets mad now if we take too long giving him his own food at dinnertime, hehe); singing O Come Emmanuel after lighting the Advent wreath with two extra voices.