Notes From Home Plate

Ode to Nick

Published on by Lisa


Nick is man who works hard
There’s nothing he can’t do
He drills into new tasks
and does what he puts his mind to

Nick is man who works on taxes
and brings them to H&R block
But it’s Nick who corrects
the Block’s mistakes – oh, really, what a shock!

Nick is man who works on our bathroom
the sorrowful sight that it is
But Nick takes pride in accomplishment
and owns every task as his

So, cheers to you, Saint Nicholas
I’m very grateful for all that you do
Not just for the taxes and paint peels
But just because you’re you

Letter #8

Published on by Lisa

Dear Veronica,

I have high hopes for this month and trying to contain my excitement and impatience is a lot more difficult than you’d think. You’ll find that people are much more accepting of children being explosive than adults. The expectations for adults is that we should be even, controlled, and mature. That’s not what your mom is these days.

Finally, a bit of good news on the ovulation tests. It looked good and I squealed and woke up your dad to share my overflowing joy. We snuggled as I clutched the stick, two lines growing deeper in truth as each minute went by. I smiled at my body and prayed for good health and possibility.

Your father and I are Catholic and we plan to raise you that way as well. In our faith cycle, this past week was the most powerful week all year. As someone said, “It’s when the impossible becomes possible.” Funny how all this occurred during Holy Week. It felt somewhat miraculous and difficult to believe.

Faith is a choice, but also a gift. It comes in many forms, different languages, symbolism, and tradition. If you ever decide to leave the Catholic Church, which many people decide as an adult, the only thing I would encourage you to do, Love, is to stay with whatever draws you deeper in mystery and challenge. Stay with what draws you closer to a mysticism and Love of others. I found it in faith. You may find it in something else, but always keep one hand on the rail of belief because, I do believe there is more after this life. There is so much more than you and I will possibly be able to understand. That unknown used to frighten me and I tried to believe for a period of time that there was nothing else but my body, this world, our earth.

But deep, deep inside, in the cavernous echo of my heart, I always believed there was something Else out there.

Years ago, when I worked in the University, I often laughed at bumper stickers on the backs of cars with which I was stuck in traffic. There was this one I never forgot. On the right side of the bumper it said, “Militant Agnostic.” The other side read, “I don’t know and neither do you.”

Precisely!

No one knows for sure…which is why it’s called faith.

It might be a toss of a coin and I might be wrong about everything I believe. But if I, your old farty Mom, lives a good life where I can help improve this planet, where I create something that brings joy to others, or work on behalf of those who are in need – and if my faith is the backbone of those actions – than even if I’m wrong, I’m still in a good place.

I take in what energizes me to live a decent life. Faith is the oxygen to that action.

When you come to us, you will have moments where you hate what we tell you, you’ll be bored and angry when you want to do something else and make you learn what we have grown to love so passionately. But, I will tell you that I understand your frustration and I do.

You’ll wonder why in the world I’m teaching you things that seemingly do not translate to your life and I will tell you to stay with it, to revisit the stories and keep thinking. You’ll resent how I will tell you to ponder mystery and move forward with no easy or clear answers. I’m sure you’ll even leave for a while or express disinterest for the things I find so critical to your faith development. Even with all of that, I am so excited to pass this gift to you.

It’s messy and hairy and full of contradiction and ambiguity, but you’ll find, dear Child, that the challenge and reward of faith is a reflection of the deepest way to live life, your life. You need not come with answers, only a willingness to love.

Love,
Mom

The Small Stuff

Published on by Lisa

Instead of apologizing for not writing much the past several weeks on this blog, just think of it as a “getting to know you” moment. Now you know how sporadic and unpredictable Nick and I can be.

Well.

Now you know how sporadic and unpredictable I can be.

I’ve been meaning to write, but spring has swept us away in a fury of home repairs, out of town guests, and settling into new responsibilities with work and jobs. Instead of writing about the big things, like how long it has taken for the kitchen leak to be repaired or how this tax season is giving us migraines, I’d rather tell you about the important things, Seinfeld style.

You know how Seinfeld made its mark by centering things that are seemingly not important? That’s like our life. Nick and I joke, love, distress about the details of life, the things that make us laugh hardest are our perspectives and thoughts about the mundane things of life, the things that most people pass by without giving two seconds of a thought.

So, we try and focus on the small things. It’s like that book, “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff,” except our version would, “Don’t Ignore the Small Stuff.”

The small things of life would be how I have tortured my husband with daily talks of cheese. All throughout Lent, as I gave up the daily goodness, I never let a day go by without telling Nick how I would kill for a bit of mozzarella, how a small taste of havarti, or brie, or cheddar, or parmesan, or gruyere…you get the picture. And everytime I open my big mouth to give a great big sigh, Nick will remind me, “It’s Lent. Do something in the spirit of Lent, not something that makes you miserable for 40 days and 40 nights.”

And today, Easter Monday, I have returned to the glorious world of cheese.

That’s one of the small things. It’s small things like not being able to eat cheese that brings us to attend Fish Fry dinners at St. Dominic during Lent and where we meet new people in our neighborhood and finally get a sense of community here in Cleveland. It’s the small things in our life that have brought us a real sense of home – like playing Catch Phrase at Book’s house until 1am and laughing at the ridiculous level of competition Nick and I display.

It’s the small things like eating dinner with Pete Kosoglov and his fiancee in Tremont, or going home to Russia just to spend time with family and take pictures of Chelsea Hoying’s family (check out my photography website if you haven’t seen them!), or celebrating getting a round of laundry done so Nick doesn’t have to hold up a shirt and ask me, “Is this too wrinkled too wear?” where my answer is a resounding YES.

Celebrate the small things in life. Like Seinfeld, you’ll find that it’s the small things that really count.

The Marinara Massacre and The Great White

Published on by Lisa

I’ve been an atrocious blogger. Ugh, nothing since March 19! You all might start thinking I actually have a life or something. HA! Don’t be fooled.

(Just kidding, I do have a life. It’s rather nice, well, no it’s actually awesome.)

Anyhoo, here’s the big story that has finally ended today…

So, for Nick’s birthday weekend, we went home to Russia. Always a great time to just hang out in the ROOSH and eat foods that I would never buy but always love to dip into (chips, cake, ice cream). Friday night (3/20) we decide to celebrate Nick’s 30th by going to La Piazza in Troy.

It’s supposed to be good Italian. SWEET.

So we all get dressed up and head to Troy, a little piece of Ohio I’ve never seen. Lo and behold, it’s cute. Nick, Ron, Kay, and I met Keith at the restaurant. We sit down and I wonder where to hang my coat. I’ve been a little protective of my coat. It’s pretty much brand new and it was the last thing I bought in Boston before my move here to Ohio. It’s a white coat with pretty silver buttons and satin yellow daisies on the interior. In a nutshell (especially for men who read this blog), it’s a great white coat.

Reluctantly, because I didn’t see any hangers or coat racks, I hang it behind my seat and sit down. Not too long later, our server greets us and tells us the specials. As I am immersed in the menu, trying to find a non-cheese item at an Italian restaurant (I gave up cheese for Lent), I heard a terrible crash behind me. In my peripheral vision, I see scatterings of plates, food, and our waitress on her hands and knees apologizing to the table behind us.

I turn around and decide not to look so to not contribute to her clear humiliation.

Then, I look up and Nick is staring at me like I have a lobster sitting on my head waiting to clip off my nose.

“What?”

“Did you, uh, check your coat?”

MY GREAT WHITE.

I take a mini look down at the ground and see a small edge of my coat. It looks like a marinara massacre took place behind me and my coat is the only bloody survivor.

Oh dear…

The waitress goes running and that’s when Keith decides to arrive.

So, the whole family gets up to hug him, greet him. I’m wondering what the hell is going to happen to MY GREAT WHITE and whether I should be nice (I’m with my in-laws, you know) or whether I should surrender to my east coast side where ever verbal exchange is a war of the worlds.

I decide the former.

So, a manager comes running out and proceeds to apologize profusely, offer dry cleaning, and “anything to make it right.”

Damn. If it weren’t a Friday, I would have asked for a filet mignon on the house, but I just smiled and said, “Accidents happen. It’s a coat. I’ll live.”

She points out the obvious, “And it’s white!”

You know when someone points out something really dumb but you don’t want to make them feel bad by making a face? That’s what I felt like the whole time. She was very sweet and Nick kept eyeing my face to see if I was going to explode, but it really was ok.

The rest of dinner was not nearly as entertaining except for the fact our server was beyond humiliated and wanted to make up for it by being an Olympic speed walker to fetch us pitchers of water, more bread, extra this, extra that…

After the marinara massacre was over and we headed out into the chilly evening, I, obviously, asked Nick to hand over his coat because I was wearing short sleeves and freezing.

I made a point to walk up to our server and tell her to not worry about it. She was more than relieved, “Thanks so much.”

My parting words, “Look, I was a server once too. I lasted for 3.5 weeks and 2 of those weeks were training. On my last day, I burst into tears and quit. That was at Chi-Chi’s. It’s just a coat.”

And then began the process of getting my coat back.

The manager took The Great White to a Great Dry Cleaners somewhere in Troy. I was supposed to hear back from them the next day, but I got nothing.

I waited three days and then emailed both the owner and the manager (again, that east coast bitchy side was coming out to play) with a message that was polite but was really saying, “DUDE, YOUR RESTAURANT KILLED MY COAT. FIX IT.”

More email exchanges promising to send word once The Great Dry Cleaners contacted La Piazza. What drama.

And today, finally today, I have a package at my door and inside is my sparkling white coat with satin yellow daisies.

It’s ironic now to think back right before Nick and I first left for Russia, I looked at The Great White and thought I should have it dry cleaned sometime, but it’s probably too expensive.

Letter #7

Published on by Lisa

Dear Veronica,

I wish there was a way to explain the world to you in a somewhat simple manner. Most days, I feel after thirty years of observing it myself, I am no closer to a resolution than when I first asked as a little girl.

I remember when I was seven and I slept on the bottom half of a bunk bed, on a blue mattress with white and yellow rockets on them. I woke up one Saturday afternoon from a nap and wondered for the first time, “What if my whole life is a dream?” I waited for the day when I was going to wake up from the real bunk bed of life and discover that I am really a sophisticated genius, dreaming I was seven years old.

In some ways, I think I am still waiting for that wake-up call.

I’ve been thinking about the pain I am physically in from all the different medications I am taking to ready my body for a pregnancy, hopefully. I’ve closed down any pathways for alcohol, steer clear of anyone who breathes out cigarette smoke, and try to get some form of physical activity once a day to rejuvenate my spirit. Vitamins, pills, appointments. This morning, I woke to a stomach full of cramps, gripping and squeezing my lower abdomen. Another cycle.

I’ve finished reading a book called, “The Shack,” and your Dad and I discuss all the ways we agree and disagree with it. The book is about faith. It’s about God and tragedy, but most of all, the book is about redemption.

I thought of how I might explain redemption to you someday and it almost made me laugh. You, an innocent oval of joy rolling around in my head with nothing resembling a stain or mark of evil or oppression on your skin, would know nothing of redemption because you know nothing of death or pain yet.

Redemption is about making something new, the bursting through of darkness with transformation and purpose. It is a lovely concept, but not many people believe in it. I think it’s an odd word, something foreign. I think I put space in my vocabulary from that word because I know it can only come through the despair of tragedy. Redemption is inherently tied to some sort of wrong. I hate wrong.

“The Shack” will be a thing of the past, a dusting on the walls of your books when you learn to read and I am confident there will be a hundred other New York Times frenzies for you to consume. But this book, this particular book came to me in a time where I have been thinking about the possibility of tragedy. My tragedy would not be loss, it would be tragedy of nothingness. Not having you, not seeing you and admitting all the darkest fears in my heart.

A strong confession left my heart and onto a kitchen table with friends as I let out some of my deepest fears of pregnancy and fertility. One of women, one of the wisest I’ve ever known, turned to look quietly into my face, the face of fear, “You need to come to grips with all that you are hoping and wishing. You need to face all the possibilities of having children and not having children and what that means to you. We’ll be here. We’re not going anywhere.”

Veronica, I couldn’t place whether I am more scared to have you in this world with me or to be without you and never experience giving birth to a soul within my soul, light from my cervix, a throbbing bubble of life in the space between my ribs. I am terrified to face the fear that my body may not be capable of the longest desire I’ve ever known. I am out of my mind frightened at the possibility to bring life into a world that doesn’t know anything about redemption except in the contours of novels and films.

Most of all, I’m scared what I will hear within my own mind for the rest of my life if I am infertile, if I am not able to hold life in my body. I am most scared of this small phrase that nearly every single human being thinks and feels, but loathes to admit: I am scared to fail.

My body might fail me. Your father might fail us. I might fail you. You might fail the world. God might fail me. I know I’ve failed God.

Fail.

Fail.

I’m afraid of failing.

So powerful is this fear that I don’t know how else to elaborate its meaning. It’s all there in one damning, one syllable word. Fail.

The shame of failure and the perceptions that dance around a dead dream haunt me everyday. The measure of womanhood is often by her body, her health, her decisions, career, family, relationships, mind, spirit. And children. I’m afraid of being seen as a failure, being seen as dry in the soil where life is supposed to thrive. I’m afraid that I have no garden inside me.

I have all the intuition in the world and I still cannot feel where I am headed. I hope, I suppose, toward my own redemption.

And so, even with all those dimming lights, the sadness and trembling, I continue to plow my land, I dig in the areas where the ground is soft, working to create this garden. I loosen the dirt, readying it for rain, seeds, and love. Readying it for you.

Love,
Mama

The Crisis of Credit Visualized

Published on by Lisa

If you are anything like me, you like pictures. You like visualization. Concepts and problems must be graphed, color coded, or drawn out for me to have a clear handle on things. If you are interested, for your own self-education, on how the credit crisis exploded (or imploded), here is a nice video that explains how it all relates to one another. I’ve been asking siblings who are all in banking and insurance to better explain it to me. While I’m still not there, this video helped quite a bit. It’s basic and explains popular banking jargon. Also, it has funny animations that made me giggle.


The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Just Imagine This Scene

Published on by Lisa

6:15am
Friday, March 13, 2009

Nick wakes up quietly, trying not to wake his wife peacefully sleeping and dreaming on his right.

His usual kind and loving tradition, he leans over to gently kiss his sleeping wife on the cheek before he goes to start his day.

It’s still dark, but the morning sky is just beginning to turn.

Lisa is having a bad dream. Her eyes fly open.

The slight lighting from the window casts a silhouette outline of someone leaning over her.

She opens her mouth and screams bloody murder. Her left arm comes up in a helpless defense against who she thinks is trying to attack her.

“LEESE! IT’S ME! IT’S NICK! LEESE! LEESE!”

She recovers and shudders, “Ohhhhhhhh…” her heart pounding.

One of these days, someone is going to have a heart attack.

Popcorn in Bed

Published on by Lisa

There is a gaping hole in our kitchen ceiling and it is atrocious.

Our contractor had to rip it out because our noggins were endangered of having the thing collapse on us.

So, Bob, our very own Mr. Fixit, is kind and generous enough to help us through this problem. It’s going to be finished at the end of the week. I can’t wait because every time I stand in front of the refrigerator it feels like I am about to be sucked into a huge vortex of darkness and leaky pipes above.

The joys of homeownership. Nothing is better.

In other news…

Last night was an unusual night. I had a late meeting for a potential and temporary short term job and came home around 9:30pm. I chatted on the phone for an hour or so with my lovely sister in law and figured, with a quick peak at our shut bedroom door and the sound of the space heater, that Nick was already sleeping, passed out like the old man he is.

So you can imagine my surprise as I head upstairs after I was done talking to Kelly and my phone rings. And it’s ringing Nick’s ringtone.

Nick is still out to tell me he’s on his way home. If he’s still out, who in the hell is in our bedroom?

And the door swings open and it’s bleary-eyed Nick, cell phone in his hand.

YOU GAVE ME A HEART ATTACK. WHY ARE YOU CALLING ME WHEN YOU ARE ONE ROOM AWAY?

“Oh, hi, babe. I was wondering where you were. I was getting worried.”

HEY MR. SHARPIE – I’VE BEEN HOME FOR AN HOUR.

“Really? I didn’t hear you.”

So, I give him an odd look and get ready for bed.

As I snuggle into my side of the bed and begin drifting off to sleep, Nick speaks clearly as if it’s the middle of the day, “I’m wide awake.”

“Well, this is certainly a role reversal.” I just want to get to sleep, but know it’s not going to happen.

“Maybe I should eat something,” Nick muses.

“If how I feel right now is what you felt the entire first year we were married when I kept yapping my head off because I wanted to talk, this is my way of apologizing right now and I swear I’ll never do that again.”

“I will go eat something,” he decides.

“Fine. There’s some popcorn I just made sitting out downstairs if you want that.”

Now, if you know ANYTHING about Nick and popcorn, you know that popcorn is not just another snack like, say, Pringles or M&Ms. Popcorn, in the Borchers family, is eaten in a rather methodical, non-stop robotic nothing can interrupt my rhythm, kind of way.

So you can imagine my surprise, slight annoyance when I am drifting off to sleep and all of a sudden I hear the clank of a glass (filled with sprite and ice, I’m sure) hitting the side table near our bed followed by Nick easing onto his side of the bed and I hear the back and forth of hand-bucket-stuff into mouth -hand-bucket-stuff into mouth – hand-bucket-stuff into mouth rhythm. All in the background is the distinct sound of Nick chewing the grains and fluff of salty popcorn.

I flipped over, “Are you eating in bed?”

I can’t see him in the dark but I hear the crunching continue, “Yup.”

My tiredness turns into sarcasm, “Is it good?” referring to the popcorn. I try not to think of the crumbs, particles, and oil that are going to get on our sheets or on me because of this late night snack.

“Mhm- MHM!”

With the dark veiling my face, Nick could not see me roll my eyes. I just laid on my back and waited for him to finish the bucket. It didn’t take long. For Nick to finish a bucket of popcorn, it never does.

As I heard him clap his salty hands and throw the excess on the ground because I know he doesn’t believe in napkins, I closed my eyes for much needed rest.

Sure enough, he falls asleep.