Thanks, Maia.

Isaiah's First Year from Lisa Factora-Borchers on Vimeo.

December is a difficult month to grasp. It feels more like a concept than a month on the calendar. Setting aside holidays, it’s the time of year that buries the soul with questions and pauses that gently yank at you, “How will I remember this year?”

It was the year I became a parent. It was the year that everyday was a first. It was the year I found 13 strands of grey hair in one month. It was the year I truly began doubting myself, believing and embracing my mortality and limits, and began to press forward with my most important dreams with ferocious intensity.

This was all because of Isaiah.

I sit in my corner of the house, with scratchings of holiday paraphernalia on my desk, and see a changed home, a stronger body, and two singing souls.

There are brightly colored trucks and beige blocks spilling all over the living room rug. The dining room table is still holding remnants of Isaiah’s birthday party on Sunday and Nick’s coursework syllabi and notebooks lay awkwardly among strewn winter coats and scarves, hastily taken off near the side door.

There is no tree up. No garland, ornaments, trinkets, or lights. Just one wreath on our front door and Christmas cards with bent corners laying in our reading areas. There are no outward signs of the holidays, but our hearts have never been more reflective of Advent.

There hasn’t been time to decorate the house and, suddenly, Christmas is next week. Another Advent candle is lit and I see we missed another holiday party because we forgot to RSVP. “That’s ok, I’d rather just stay home and rest,” is what Nick and I take turns saying to one another.

Rest.

One year ago, Nick’s uncle passed away unexpectedly from a massive heart attack and what I remember about that day was my inability to hug him because I was so pregnant. I tried to embrace him, but my belly was in the way. He went to the funeral in his hometown and came back days before I went into early labor. It’s been a year since that day and I don’t know how much I, personally, have been able to absorb Uncle Bob’s passing because Isaiah came on the heels of his departure.

Rest.

I couldn’t imagine having a child in my life and now, since my brain has lost approximately 16 points of intelligence since giving birth, I can’t remember anything prior to my c-section. Older mothers tell me my brain power will return, like an old machine will restart once plugged back in. I hope they’re right.

It’s hard to describe what Christmas means this year, how suddenly a year of Isaiah has passed, and that means of whole year of my own life has passed. I don’t know if I ever truly rested in the past 52 weeks.

Rest.

Life moves at a startling rate. An alarming rate that becomes dangerously easy to become accustomed. I try to remember that Isaiah will not always be this darling baby of mine and eventually grow into a boy, teen, and man who will defy, try, and magnify all of my thoughts and hidden expectations of him and myself. I don’t know how many times I’ve already run into myself over the past 52 weeks.

What I do know about next year is that it’s a year of moving forward. It’s a year of new beginnings. And I am looking forward to defining what that energy and new life will look like. One thing I will do next year is take time for myself, take genuine care of myself.

I will rest.

It may have been the massive snowstorm that hit Cleveland at 10am on Wednesday and didn’t stop until about 2am the next day.

Nick was stranded on campus after his exam because traffic was not moving. His exam was finished at 12pm. He got home at 11:3pm that night.

Which meant I was homebound with my favorite Elf, Isaiah, who was feeling particularly whiny and squirmy the last four hours of the day. Which meant I was nearly sticking my head in the oven. Instead, the next day, I called a salon and booked a hair cut. The need to feel renewed was immense.

And so, an hour and a half later – with a complimentary facial, arms and hand massage, with a NO TIP policy salon – I came home 6-7 inches less on my noggin. My head, literally, feels lighter.
I hope this helps me get through the arctic blast on the way.

Sometimes all a woman needs is to feel a little more shiny to get through the week.

Isaiah's Book Club from Lisa Factora-Borchers on Vimeo.

Get your education on.

Isaiah’s getting over a stuffy nose and cold.  I woke up with a sore throat and slept the whole day.  Nick went to bed a half hour ago reporting, “Man, I just feel like crap.”

His descriptions are wondrously succinct.

So, 1-2-3 sickheads in the house.  And Isaiah is the healthiest one of us.  Not good.

We were in Russia over the weekend celebrating Thanksgiving and OSU football with Nick’s family and poor Isaiah was battling a cold.  We did our best, but the worst came Sunday night when he couldn’t sleep unless he was being held.  While I was severely sleep deprived myself and was having delusions of a good night’s rest, I still couldn’t help but think of how adorable the little Peach was in my arms.  He cried if he was even touching the mattress – he had to be completely held the whole time.

For the first time since he was a newborn, I laid on my back and let him sleep on my chest.  It wasn’t as comfortable as I remembered.  I guess ten pounds on your chest isn’t as bad as a 23 pounder digging his face into your lungs.  Poor little angel.

But it was Nick who gathered Isaiah up and held him for hours in the rocker so I could get a few hours of sleep.  I woke up sick.

Awesome.

And we’re up against deadlines.  Me for magazines and work.  Nick for school and work.  And somewhere in the middle of this, the domestic duties of laundry and dishes and sweeping and cleaning STILL need to get done.  Can you believe that these things don’t happen on their own. Like, it really *doesn’t* help when I stand in the middle of the kitchen and holler at the floors, “I JUST CLEANED YOU LAST WEEK.  HOW ARE YOU SO FILTHY?  CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELVES!”

PSST!  Let me tell you a secret: housework is never over.  You have to keep doing it yourself.

And in the middle of this craziness, I am eyeing our naked mantel and wondering when I’ll have the energy to find our Christmas decorations and hassle Nick for the 6 year in a row that he doesn’t have a decent stocking.  We can’t move through Advent, the season of hope and spiritual rejuvenation, without appropriately decorated mantels!  I mean, seriously, who are you kidding?

Tomorrow is December 1.

And I keep looking over my shoulder, wondering where October escaped to and how it did so quickly…

Last week, I attended mass in El Salvador and the priest was from the United States.  He explained to the Salvadoran congregation that in the United States, we have entire day devoted to giving thanks and being grateful for all that we have.  What a romantic idea – an entire nation, the only superpower nation, leader of the free world – giving thanks for what we have.

I don’t know how they imagined us – in our homes, at our kitchen or dining room tables giving thanks for the abundance that we have with…more abundance.  Thanksgiving, our time to give heartfelt gratitude is celebrated with a splurge of money and resources and goods.  AND FOOD.  Food like no other day of the year.  We eat until our ears are ringing.

This is how we give thanks?

If you look deeper, though, we do try to centralize what is important: togetherness, friendship, family.  We try to express the love in our hearts by filling our bellies and slapping each other on the back after not seeing our families for weeks, months…sometimes years.

Despite this rather odd tradition of giving thanks through gluttony, I have really tried to think and act intentionally this year for this holiday.  How do I give thanks?  Is by cooking that big bird and adding butter to the stuffing?  How do I show how grateful I am for my healthy son, how I am still overwhelmed by my uneventful pregnancy and glorious birth experience?  How do I express my joy for my husband, our home, our communities, health, faith, and even landscaping?

How do you find love in the time of thanksgiving?

So much of thanksgiving is about other things than thanks.  It’s time for Christmas and tradition, but is gratitude, real gratitude incorporated into our traditions?  In how we celebrate thanksgiving, do we really give thanks?

The people of El Salvador expressed joy over our visit, exclaiming how blessed they were that we – regular folks with limited Spanish speaking skills – came to visit their homes.  They give thanks over flimpsy steel roofs and standing in six inches of mud in the homes during the rainy season.   When their sons end up in jail and their spouses are sick on a makeshift cot, they focus on what they do have and are thankful.

This week, I am trying to make use everything I have and take inventory of what I really don’t need, want, or use.  For instance,  I am beginning with my kitchen.  Instead of piling up another cart of food for the upcoming week, I’m trying to cut my own potatoes and bake them instead of buying a bag of chips.  Instead of store bought dip, I’m making my own eggplant based baba ganoush.  Whatever clothes haven’t been worn in 2 years is being donated.  On reasonably dry and cool days, I take my bike or walk instead of the car.   Isaiah’s trunk of clothes is going to be raked through and anything that is tripled or quadrupled will be donated.

It’s not about restriction or limiting.  It’s about knowing what you want, using it, rejoicing in its function, and letting go of the superfluous.

Love in the time of Thanksgiving is finally letting down my guard and walking over to my neighbor’s house to simply chat. Love in the time of Thanksgiving is letting Nick be uncomfortable in going to the grocery store and allowing myself time to just relax at home.  Love in the time of Thanksgiving is going to a zumba class and letting loose.  It means being more gentle and accepting that not every mind can be changed, not every heart can be touched, but those who I do come in contact with would never guess that from my actions.

I try to stir my deeper memories, old paintings in my mind of figures and friends long gone.  Mrs. Young, my 5th grade teacher who told me I had “such great insights” which led me to write poetry.  A woman who talked to me for two hours on a train in 2000 and engaged in such rich conversation that she invited me to visit her in her Washington home.  Pamela Tanner Boll, an Oscar winning film director who spent over an hour with me on the phone encouraging me to continue with my writing through the demands and difficulty of new motherhood.  The speech therapist I had when I was six years old, albeit she was the scariest person to me at the time, but helped me overcome my lisp.  My first surgeon who steadily walked me through the reality of ovarian tumors at age 20.

Love in the time of Thanksgiving is not only celebrating what we have and who we are today, but also humbly remembering all who brought us to our present blessings.