notes from the middle of November

Hello blogland friends,

I'm excited to share my new header. Henry designed this cinderella pumpkin to have fangs on top, but they've curled under now, leaving a friendly, gaping maw to greet me when I walk up the front steps. The quotation from Hafiz is from my bathroom calendar, and I just find it appropriate in so many ways.

I'm not all that fond of November, but it does hold things to recommend it to us: the maturation of autumn, the constant awareness in this month of remembrance that we are not alone. Other souls have walked this ground before us. I'm very mindful of that at the beginning of November with All Saints/All Souls days. We don't observe these days in any big way as a family. Personally, though, I can't help but feel the ache of those I know who are filled with questions about where they are going and where they have been--the ache of those who have more friends on the other side of this life than on the side we're on.

I had the most comforting conversation about disillusionment yesterday. It was one of my work days, and I was sitting at a round table with some elders I love and admire. What honest observations they made about their lives. Why is it, we wondered together, that you get to the next "chapter" and you still don't have it all figured out? Seems to have little to do with being a "person of faith." Somehow life's losses tend to lead us deeper and deeper into mystery and the wildness of our being.

It was good for me to be reminded that I have probably said a lot of things intended to be comforting that have been received as nothing more than well-meaning platitudes. What was so heartening about the conversation is that I can stow these thoughts away. If I'm granted the long life I hope to have, I want to remember with gratitude the friends who said, "It's not easy getting old. I'm just as confused now as I ever was." I want to remember them and how beautiful it was to see them wondering and loving, learning and struggling. Let me be like that. That's the kind of faith I want.

On a different note, I have felt buoyed along by the election of Barack Hussein Obama to the office of President of the United States. Joel and I stayed up late watching the returns and I went to sleep filled with the hope that we're entering into a new era that might hold transformation for our nation. I pray for this new president-elect in a way that I've never prayed for leaders before. That he may be wise and grounded and visionary and conciliatory. Already I've been shocked as I've heard him talking about killing Osama bin Laden. I am aware that I can't expect all things of a finite human being and that the heart of transformation is really my own response to life. Yet I feel hopeful and thankful and I'm not taking either of these things for granted.

I'm a big Michael Pollan fan and hope you'll have time to listen to this interview on his Open Letter to the Next Farmer in Chief. I hope our president-elect has made time to listen.

Days and nights have been pretty sweet in our home of late. Henry is bonding with my pregnant belly, which I hope to share photos of sometime. We're reading Riki Tiki Tavi thanks to a visit to the cousins' house, Little House in the Big Woods, and The Two Towers. The Tolkien books continue to be our family bedtime reading routine and I delight in hearing Henry sigh as he falls into bed, snuggles up and settles down to hear more of this fabulous tale. It pleases Joel to be the reader.

Oh, each day holds its own frustrations and nagging questions, but I'm so very thankful for my little family and our little home and all the family and friends who love us. November, I am thankful for you and want to savor your remaining days.