Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Archives for July 2018

Cinderella Mom

If you think Jesus would have come into your home that day and not issued a strong rebuke to the head of household, you are mistaken.

These words of condemnation have been haunting me for days now. They aren’t all that different than the soundtrack I play in my head on an almost-daily basis. It’s the one that berates me for reading a book instead of washing dishes or tsk-tsks my decision to take the kids out of the house to do something fun instead of staying in the house to clean it. It’s what drives me to give my husband a list of all the things I accomplished during the day or reasons I didn’t get this or that done. (FYI: He does not demand this of me.)

Until recently, it was just me and the condemning voice in my head telling me that if I was a better mom, I’d have a spotless house. If I was a better mom, the laundry would always be done and the dishes would always be clean and we’d always have a home-cooked meal on the table. (Where do I get these ideas?)

Photo by Scott Umstattd on Unsplash

But then something happened. A man came to our house to perform a service for us at the request of our landlord. And before he left, he said some things to my husband about the state of our house. He used the word “filthy” and implied that Jesus would be disappointed in how we kept our house and that it was somehow my husband’s responsibility to make sure our house was clean. (Aside: I don’t think he meant that my husband should clean the house. No, no, no, this was ugly patriarchy rearing its head.)

I was out for coffee with a friend and it was one of the mornings my husband is off. He was home with the kids and watching World Cup soccer. The night before had been our community’s fireworks celebration. I had cooked and prepped food all day Saturday and we were out of the house most of the day Sunday. We were also in the midst of a string of days that were 95-feels-like-105.

So, yeah, our house was messier than usual. (Did I also mention it’s summer and the kids are home and we’d only been home from vacation for a week?)

The words, told to me later, shocked and angered me, but they also fed that little voice that lives inside. Maybe he’s right. Maybe my reasons were nothing more than excuses. Should I have been doing a better job with our house?

Whether he was wrong or right about the state of my house, I felt it was wrong of him to say something about it, so I tried contacting him by phone but ended up sending a letter stating my thoughts. A week later, I got a reply. The sentence at the beginning of this post is a paraphrase, and it was not the worst thing in the letter.

I’m still not sure I’m over it.

In the days since this man’s visit and the exchange of letters, our house has gotten cleaner because that’s the normal rhythm of our lives. We work hard, we play hard, and eventually we get around to cleaning up after ourselves. We don’t live in squalor but we also don’t strive for perfection when it comes to how our house looks. Because I’m a low-energy person and the heat affects me severely, cleaning my house in the summer is a gradual process. (We don’t have AC in most of the house nor do we have a dishwasher … oh the modern conveniences we lack!)

Photo by Catt Liu on Unsplash

I like having a clean house, but I don’t always like the process, and I will often choose other activities before I choose to clean. I’m learning to accept this and not try to fit myself into someone else’s mold. I know there are some of you out there who love to clean (wanna come over?) and maybe you can see this man’s point of view. But we all have our own standards when it comes to cleanliness in our private spaces, right?

The Bible might talk about cleanliness and purification, but I’m pretty sure that’s cultural and not a justification for “cleanliness is next to godliness.” If Jesus came to my house and rebuked me for how well I kept it clean or not clean, then I’ve read the Bible all wrong all these years. (Would Judean homes have been spotless? What was that story about Mary and Martha again?)

I didn’t want to tell this story just as a rant, although I’m still pretty mad about the whole thing. I wanted to throw it out into a public space, though, because maybe you have an inner soundtrack like I do. Maybe you think you don’t deserve to do anything fun unless your house is spotless. I’ve come to think of it as Cinderella Mom Syndrome–if you finish all your chores, then you can go to the ball! (Or Target, or Starbucks, or whatever.)

If that’s you, then hear me now (and I promise to listen, too): A clean house is not the price you pay for staying home with your kids. Housework is not your penance. How much or how little you clean isn’t the measure of your success or failure at motherhood.

I have to say those words because I have to hear them. And as much as I want to believe that more people than not agree with me, if this guy can walk into a stranger’s house and say things that only add burden and shame to what is already a tough job (motherhood), then surely there are others out there believing their worth as a mother is wrapped up in their housework.

I stayed home with my kids for 10 years, and our house was never clean. I could have kept the house clean, but I think my mental health would have suffered more than it already did. I started working part time in January, and our house is still never clean. (What does that word mean anyway?) But our family is healthy and closer to whole than we’ve ever been.

Doesn’t that count for something?

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

The tending

These summer days are both too long and too short.

Day breaks before I’m ready to get out of bed, and yet there is something about the light that calls me to wake.

Some days, I answer, shuffling to the coffee pot, glancing across the lawn to the garden in all its green goodness. As the machine perks the beans, I survey the world. What has changed while I’ve slept? 

Usually, little.

Other days, I ignore, silencing the alarm, pulling the sheets tighter and closer, enjoying the respite the air-conditioned bedroom provides from the blistering heat of summer days. I will close my eyes to grab a few more minutes of sleep or reach for a book to open the day with words. Some days, I reach for my phone and survey the virtual world. What has changed while I’ve slept?

Usually, little.

—

On the hottest of these summer days, I have taken great care with the plants. While the children play their make-believe games all throughout the house, I am carrying water in the teapot-shaped vessel from the sink to the porch and back again. Sometimes this is a morning activity and sometimes a nighttime one. Some days, it has been both.

I am no green thumb, but I am managing to keep seven pots of herbs thriving as well as six potted flowers, one hanging plant and four succulents. This is in addition to the garden in the back yard, the watermelon seeds the kids started at a science open house that have now become vines, and a patch of petunias my husband brought home from work.

A few of the plants on my porch

So much of this is ridiculous to me. I used to joke that I had a black thumb, that I could not keep plants alive because they couldn’t speak to me. Give me a cat that meows when it’s hungry or a baby who cries when she needs something, then I can respond. 

Plants take a special kind of care—a noticing and paying attention that I didn’t have the energy for until recently. And, if I’m honest, they do speak in their own way. Dry soil. Droopy leaves. If I look closely enough I can tell when a plant is healthy and when it is not.

When we decided to start gardening for ourselves a few years ago, I was afraid of failing at it. I didn’t want to waste time or money trying to grow something that I could easily buy from someone else. Mostly, I was afraid of my own inadequacies. What if I didn’t water enough? What if I watered too much? What if these plants died on my watch?

I’m no longer afraid of these questions. There is an element of mystery to tending these plants. My part is so minimal. Not unimportant but only part of something bigger. Knowing my role has given me freedom.

—

A month or so ago, after our garden was planted, my husband brought home a bunch of daisies that were destined for the garbage at work. (He is employed by farmers who run two farm stands in our county.) They were wilted some and a few of the buds were brown, but he was convinced that with a little care, they would perk back up.

The kids and I gave each plant its own pot and surrounded it with soil. Then I watered and watered and watered some more, each day wondering if I was performing an impossible task. The leaves were a healthy green and only an up-close examination revealed some flower potential within. These seemingly dead plants eventually bloomed, adorning our porch with pink and yellow daisies. 

Even now, after weeks of hot temperatures and insufficient watering, they persist. I keep watering and wondering. Will they bloom more or am I watering for nothing?

—

A week or so ago, my husband brought home a flat of petunias that were going to be discarded. Having seen the success with the daisies, he was certain I could bring them back to life. As I prepared a plot for them, I shook my head in disbelief. Me? Bring dead things to life?

The day I transplanted the petunias

It is nothing short of a miracle.

The same petunias three days later

That same night, he brought three more plants for our garden. I made room for them as best I could, but it’s getting a bit crowded back there. We seem to be in a phase of rescuing plants that need a good home, and while it means more work, it also means potentially more beauty, more fruit.

How did I become this kind of person? Maybe I always was but fear got in the way.

These long summer days find me tending plants in the morning and watering the garden at night, preserving herbs, and harvesting vegetables as they come. I hover in the garden, keeping watch daily because the changes happen so quickly. What has changed in the night? A lot.

It is hard, holy work, this tending of plants. My hands bear hard callouses. My feet are constantly covered in dirt. My body reeks of sweat. And I never feel closer to God than when I’m close to the earth. Bare feet on dirt or sand or dipped in the ocean. Hands digging in the soil. The sounds of birds singing or leaves rustling in the wind. The colors of flowers. The green of grass.

Even in the rhythm of the near-nightly ritual of watering the garden, I can feel something of the Divine as I drag the hoses—one across the driveway, the other across the lawn—to meet in the yard so water can flow freely from the faucet by the house to the sprinkler in the garden.

I watch where the water falls, adjusting the sprinkler as necessary, never getting it quite right but hoping that the drops fall where they are needed most. I walk away for 30 minutes or so, leaving it be until puddles form in the dirt.

On the nights it rains, I celebrate the natural soaking our plants receive knowing it is far more thorough than my evening attempts to give the plants what they need.

I cannot keep up with removing the weeds but somehow life emerges. Already, we have eaten okra, eggplant and zucchini from our garden. Our first jar of pickles is in the fridge. (We still have to wait a week before they’re ready.)

The heat, the weeds—they almost made me lose faith that our garden would produce this year.

But the little signs of life help me believe.

—

I give up too easily on the seemingly dead areas of my life—dreams that dry up and plans that face too much heat, the place where I’m planted that seems overrun with weeds.

These wilted flowers and almost-discarded plants remind me that what looks to be dead isn’t always over and done. Maybe my dreams need a little watering. Maybe they need more room to grow. Maybe I can’t keep the heat away, but I can nurture my plans in another way. Maybe I need to get rid of some weeds.

Maybe I can’t give up on things just because of what I see. Maybe I need to trust the natural rhythms, the ordinary work to produce something surprising and unexpected.

And maybe the God who can bring the dead back to life can resurrect something in me.