Night:

I read Elie Wiesel's Night late into yesterday's evening. Understandably, it left me feeling angry and sad. Most of us would probably agree with Dostoevsky's Ivan Karamazov that the suffering of children is the most impossible, unbearable, and unexplainable thing in the Universe. Wiesel writes of his seven year old sister with long blond hair and a bright red coat marching silently off to the crematoria, and one can't help but insert the children in one's own life into that situation. For me it's Camie, my precious little sister with bright blue eyes who loves to read and imagine and dance. It's Vinny, the enthusiastic little boy who tries to outrun the van when I arrive to pick him up for school. And it's Giuwels, who when I tell her it's time to stop playing with her dolls and clean up her room responds, "But Carolyn, I was just about to marry my boy and girl!"

Wiesel's account gripped me on two levels. One--the unspeakable, unnameable, incomprehensible things experienced by real children, just like the ones I love so completely. But I was also struck by the spiritual anguish and pain of the Jewish people in the face of their apparently utter abandonment by God. The sense of desertion and despair overwhelmed me. I found it best summed up in the statement a Hungarian Jew made to Wiesel one evening in the infirmary, "I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people."

I found myself startlingly angry at God after reading this book. There's the million-dollar-question of Why? And then How? And also, Who are you that you could let this happen? That you would sit by and do nothing? Our questions pinpoint the most painful part: our perceived silence on God's behalf. Perhaps more unforgivable than the fact that it happened is the fact that God has remained silent. He hasn't provided an explanation for any of it. That is what we find unacceptable. Yet there is a strange comfort and peace in lobbying all this anger and all these questions at God: He is there. Being angry at him, however miserable, confirms his presence as well as the intimacy of our relationship.

I almost always respond with a burning emotion first, and just as inevitably that emotion eventually cools to a point where I can logically assess the information and make rational judgments. I usually make decisions out of this calm point, base my life on what I know to be true in this purified stillness. What I know to be true manifests itself in the song of Zechariah, which I was memorizing before I ever picked up Wiesel's book: "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel for he hath visited and redeemed his people and hath raised up a mighty salvation for us in the house of his servant David..." The key word there is visited. God was not absent for any of these horrors. And somehow the fact that the Kingdom of Heaven slipped into the world over 2,000 years ago with the birth of a baby means that the Nazi's Kingdom of Night is far from being the last word on God's love, his Justice, or his ability to care his People.

This little piggy went to the market....

Giuwels and I have been handling the grocery shopping for the past couple of weeks while Nanny Irma (their housekeeper) is in Mexico on vacation. Today I let her push the cart through the store. I also let her fill up our cart with eight ears of corn on the cob. (She finds the process of shucking corn so delightful and desirable that her greatest act of love is telling Vinny that he can shuck some corn with us as well.) As we walked out of Albertson's, she sighed and said, "That was fun." I assumed she must be thinking of her play date earlier in the afternoon, which involved an enormous blow up pool and water slide. "You mean at Ella's?" I ask. "No. In the grocery store." It warms the deepest cockles of my heart to know that this little girl had so much fun on a mundane trip to the market. The realization dawned on me: how much potential there is for glory, beauty, and FUN in every moment of life! Thank God for children and their sparkling, uninhibited enthusiasm. As we walk to van to unload our groceries, she laughs and says, "It was fun when I asked you if we could get more kettle corn [what she calls corn on the cob] and you said no!"

Okay then!

He Likes Me!

Cheryl told me that while I was out of town getting my wisdom removed, she was encouraging the kids for being so self-sufficient one morning and jokingly said, "Wow, we could almost do without Carolyn!" To which Vinny responded, "No! I like Carolyn! I want her to keep coming!"

I will now proceed to live off this compliment for days, weeks, even months.

Innately, I sense that the kids do like me, are even genuinely attached to me, but they are not very expressive or even openly affectionate (being damaged by the abrupt departure of previous nannies is probably the cause of this), and so affirmation like this is in rare supply. (Although Cayla also reminded me that kids don't spend everyday telling their parents how much they love them either. I suppose kids take for granted certain "fixtures" in their lives.)

In conclusion, one of the reasons that Vinny likes me is probably because when he asks if he can throw the hard-boiled eggs that we dyed for Easter (and that have since then proceeded to go bad) off the balcony and into the yard/street, I say "Yes, as long as you pick up all the pieces afterward," and then join him on the balcony to watch the rainbow-colored eggs sail through the sky and splatter on the ground. Later I help him pick up the sticky pieces of yolk and the colorful bits of eggshell littered around the yard and street, and we have much more fun than we ever could have had monotonously eating all those hard-boiled eggs day after day.

I've Been Meaning to Post This:

April 4, 2011, Spring Break
Day One: Happiness
Giuliana, hair flying, turns cartwheels in the April wind and sunshine. Her brothers toss a baseball back and forth in the street, and I am curled up in a red Tommy Bahama lawn chair, coloring and enjoying Spring.


April 5, 2011, Spring Break
Day Two: The Monster of Polliwog Park
Tuesday afternoon the sunlight was too beautiful to stay in doors. I packed up a bag filled with the unwanted heels from our past few loaves of bread, the stale remainder of an angel food cake, and two stacks of white cheddar cheese rice cakes which everyone in the house refuses to eat. Armed with our supplies, Vinny, Giuwels, and I set off for Polliwog Park. There are many things we love to do there. We like to see how close we can get to the dozens of turtles sunning themselves on the banks of the pond. We like to run full speed into a flock of pigeons or sea gulls for the sheer joy of watching them all fly away in a whirl of feathers and wings and indignant squawks. We like to feed the polite pairs of Mallard ducks that swim so calmly up for food. But most of all, we love to toss some crumbs out over the water and then stand quietly back as we wait for the Monster of Polliwog Park to surface. A catfish the size of a small dog, with whiskers as big as pencils, lives in the depths of Polliwog Pond, and to see him is almost as grand as seeing the White Whale. He's enormous, mysterious, hideously repulsive and yet strangely enticing. You want to see him, but when he rises to the surface with his huge vacuum-like mouth sucking up all the food in its path, you're completely horrorstruck that such a creature exists. We spent our afternoon tossing rice cakes onto the water and screaming, "It's a BEAST!" whenever the legendary animal appeared. In conclusion, I can only say that I hope the Monster of Polliwog Park likes cheddar!



April 6, 2011, Spring Break
Day Three: "Even at Our Swiftest Speed, We Couldn't Break from the Concrete"
Yesterday afternoon as the kids were wheeling their bikes out of the garage, I noticed a white beach cruiser parked in the back of the garage that looked to be just about my size. Vinny said it was Michael's, so I dashed upstairs and interrupted his tutoring session to ask if I could ride his bike for awhile. Having obtained permission, I ran back downstairs, cleared away all the junk piled around this beautiful but hardly-used bike, and hopped on. I think Vinny and Giuwels were just as delighted as I was because they immediately began clamoring to go for a real Bike Ride--which is different than their normal experience of riding up and down the street in front of their house. So we set off on our grand avdenture Around the Block. Manhattan Beach is full of hills, which makes for some challenging biking conditions--especially when riding with a 5 year old who's still got training wheels. Of course, the downhill part is everyone's favorite. The exhiliration and delight on Giuliana's face as she raced down the slope of 27th Street was worth the more arduous trek back up 25th Street. She was reduced to walking her bike up the hill, and I joined her in her plight. The uphill work builds character and determination. The downhill rides remind us that our souls can fly.

I'm Losing My Mind!

The Hunger Games are driving me mad!!!!!!

AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Best Week of My Life Approaches:

Tomorrow, after work, I'm catching a flight up to San Francisco, and on Tuesday I'm getting my wisdom teeth removed as well as a bunch of other dental work done. I will probably be out for 6 hours. Now, before you start to feel sorry for me, please don't. I am actually looking forward to this for several reasons:

1. I get a week off of work
2. I get to take moderately powerful narcotics legally
3. I will be sleeping a lot
4. I will be reading a lot (The Hunger Games)
5. I will be taking lots of warm baths while reading People magazine
6. I will be spoiled by my in-laws
7. I could wake up from my surgery speaking another language, the way Dan did

I'm pretty much about to experience the peak experience of my life. I doubt that ever again will it be my duty to relax, recover, and do nothing for a week. So, I guess after this week, it's all downhill from here.

(Side note: I am aware that I could react poorly to the anesthesia or develop that dreaded condition called Dry Socket. However, I am choosing to focus on the positive!)

And with the utmost sincerity, I must say that I am so thankful to God for providing the opportunity and the resources for this much needed work to be done. God's provision and the fact that I live in a time and a place where this excellent care is available to me are my most important reasons to be grateful and cheerful!

Sick Day:

Let me start off by saying that I know she's not mine. And yet, in many ways she is mine, because she's been entrusted to my care and responsibility, and because I love her. Because of the time, energy, and love I've invested in her and her brothers, they'll always be mine--not the way my own children will one day be mine, of course, but I will always carry them within my heart, delight in who they are, and be actively concerned for their well-being (to the best of my ability).

Well yesterday, my sweet little charge, Giuliana, woke up sick: cough, sore throat, and fever running at about 101 degrees. This normally energetic, precocious, and talkative child had nothing to say, and felt much too poorly to go to school. She slept most of the morning while I did chores around the house, and then around 11 she woke up and said she felt better. So we colored with our newly minted homemade crayons--which we made yesterday by melting down all the broken pieces of crayons they had in cupcake tins and then letting them cool and harden in the refrigerator. She wanted to copy everything I drew, which was cute and flattering since I'm hardly talented in the area of artistic creation. When we got tired of coloring, I made lunch and she wandered away into the living room. When I went to get her for lunch, I found her laying peacefully on the carpet in a patch of sunlight falling through the skylight. She never did eat lunch, and the avocado, strawberries, and peanut butter sandwich that I'd prepared for her sat untouched at the kitchen table. Instead, she continued to lay on the carpet, long after the sunlight had traveled across the room. Eventually she fell asleep, leaving me to contemplate the wonder and beauty--the sweetness and innocence--of a little girl in pink pajamas, napping on the living room floor.