Impossible Outcomes Manifested

"...impossible outcomes manifested." I was really proud of that turn of phrase when I used it in my Facebook status to describe the lesson I took from the Passover/Easter convergence this year. I work hard on certain status updates, when I wish to express something complicated but dear to me. And I won't post something I don't believe so i choose my words carefully.

The rub is always in the living. I see joyous miracles at the heart of the holidays which just passed (and, come to think of it, the Hanukah/Christmas winter duet, as well) and I'm genuinely moved. Yet I wake up in fear so many mornings, wholly divested from the notion of "impossible outcomes manifested" in my own life. I become certain that, despite following doctors' orders my baby will be born too soon and suffer for my physical shortcomings. I tally the bad choices I fear I've already made on behalf of my older son. I fret that I've waited to long in life to want a different for myself and my children than what my current career provides. I wring my hands with worry that I've never done any relationship "right" -- friends, marriage, family of origin and design -- and that loneliness and disconnectedness is core to my personality. And I believe, on some level, that anything different than my critical assessment of the world and all it's disappointment is, well, an impossible outcome.

I was raised Jewish-ish by a Jewish father and a mother who, though raised Episcopalian, left the matrilineal bloodline favored by Judaism intact via her convert-to-Christianity mother. We celebrated the Big Days at home and never went to church unless we were with my mother's beautiful believer sister Pam. Synagogue happened only on Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur, and as an accoutrement to the Hebrew school I asked to attend when I was 11. I had a bat mitzvah which fell on the same day as the Kentucky Derby, so my father and uncles made sure there would be a television at the bar. I continued my Jewish education for two more years because I had an interest in politics which, at the time, meant Glasnost. If I were in religious education now, I fear, I'd drown in a morass of self-hating ambivalence over Israel and Palestine. In any event, I came out of all this with virtually no grasp of any spirituality offered by Judeo-Christianity but well-versed in the secular experiences of both faiths.

It wasn't until the end of the summer between my junior and senior years of high school that I was introduced to the notion of spirituality, as a potential antidote to my wild-child, lost girl, headed-for-disaster adolescence. But that's a whole other story, itself. Suffice it to say that since that time I've developed a personal relationship with the Universe or god or "that which knows my steps before I take them but let's me take them myself." For followers of a given faith, the notion of taking aspects of any religious canon "cafeteria style" may be offensive. In my experience, drawing from the faiths of my childhood, Eastern faiths as I've been exposed to them as an adult and even aspects of the Catholicism which infuses my neighborhood and is core to my family-by-marriage allows me to to see myself not only in the lessons each religion teaches but sometimes in the stories and characters by which values are conveyed. It also allows me to reject doctrinal notions which do not jibe with the world view I aspire to, one of relativism, responsibility for one another and compassion.

And, yes, I am also a little bit Jedi.

So the Judeo-Christian spring holidays were weeks ago and the notion has been kicking around my brain ever since. Let's look at the stories, whether you take them as truth or parable. I am quite certain that Mary Magdalene, in her grief and after the utter trauma and heartbreak of the crucifixion of Jesus, never imagined finding that big ass stone moved and her beloved ascended. And, yet, that's what she found and never, ever questioned. And whether it was the weather or the hand of god, the people gathered at the edge of the Red Sea, the Pharaoh's men hot on their heels and pissed as hell about those plagues, never dreamed they would cross on their own feet, intact. And free.

Why not me? Based on what I've read, as a total layperson and secular consumer of religious writing, Jesus loved Mary Magdelene for who she was and who he believed she could be. She, in turn, forgave herself and loved him back, so much that she believed unflinchingly in his resurrection and deification as part of the Trinity. And the Jewish slaves fleeing Egypt weren't just blessed with a short cut around the deep water or something as banal as a boat. No. For them, the sea fucking parted.

There is a line delivered expertly by Jennifer Connolly in the movie "A Beautiful Mind." Her husband, played by Russell Crowe, has decided to stop his psychotropic medications and seek other ways to manage his delusional schizophrenia. Kneeling at his feet, having just realized his decision for the first time, she says "I need to believe something extraordinary is possible." She doesn't specify what, just "something extraordinary." That bit of dialogue runs on a loop in my head for the last several months.

So why not me? I can believe in impossible outcomes if I don't have to know how they will come about or even what they will look like. I need to stop daydreaming about perfect children and people that never let me down and a house with a yard for boys and animals to play in and an "easier" job. Those are inherently binding, limited notions. Anything that comes with a mental brochure is dangerous for me. I simply need to believe that "impossible" outcomes don't really exist. Every road leads somewhere, why not believe it's somewhere incredible that I haven't imagined yet? Faith. Trust. Love. Compassion. Living in the moment. Gratitude. These should be my only signposts. Of course, I need to pray and plan and take action and learn and be of service to others. I can't just sit back and wait for the Universe to serve me my future like a Happy Meal, in a neat little box with a handle and a toy. But the energy I put in to my life will come back, in some manner of equal reaction. I will know it when I see it, and not a moment before. And where I next plant my foot (or, while on bedrest, my ass) is enough information about the path I'm on to lead me to my very own impossible outcomes manifested.

Why blog? Why now?

Well for one thing, I'm driving my friends crazy on Facebook.

I am currently 30 weeks and 5 days pregnant with my second son. I have been on bed rest and, therefore, out of work since the first week of February. As my restrictions have increased over the weeks, my days have boiled down to watching television series, wandering the internet's good and bad neighborhoods, and spending more time on Facebook than a hormonally-challenged sensitive soul ever should. Occasionally, I have forms to fill out or childcare arrangements to make for my older son, Levi, as we shuffle my restrictions and my husband's work schedule. Although we often discussed a second child, we did not plan my getting pregnant two months before my 40th birthday and at this particular juncture in our lives.

So why blog? I have a lot to say. I have a lot to sort out. And even when I feel as though I am indulging in "listening to myself vent" or over-sharing, I get constant reenforcement from others of the universal truth in each of our struggles to suit up and show up for life.

Also, life is so fucking funny. It's easy to miss that when we're afraid and lonely and jockeying for position in the galaxy but when I write, I see it. And I laugh. And when I laugh, I'm momentarily healed. And, right now, my belly button pops out when I really laugh. Hysterical!

You should also know: I am a lover of movies. And of high-quality television. My homage to Boba Fett in the title of this blog tips off a favorite, but I'm Star Wars geek-lite and hardcore consumer of film and TV. That is not to say I am glued to the set during my "regular" life. I'd rather explore the world with my sidekick, Levi. But movies have always been the soundtrack of my life and inhabit my vernacular and world view every day.

Finally, I have a lot of opinions and no place to put all that energy right now. I'm a liberal, but I take each issue and story as it comes so I might surprise you. Or I may be totally predictable and cause you to roll your moderate or conservative eyes. Either way, this is not a politics blog. It's a life blog. It's a real-time memoir.

Why now? I'm a 40-year-old mother with another on the way on leave from a job I am ambivalent towards, at best. I have a marriage that breaks many molds, for better or worse, and I suck at holding babies in. I have a fabulously flawed family; my mother, who died in April 2009, is my missing piece. And I have some time, now that I am on strict at-home bed rest.

For those who are interested, the medical facts in a nutshell are as follow: I have a short cervix, most likely as a result of a LEEP surgery to remove a carcinoma in situ (tiny spot of cancer) from my cervix in 1999. I also have regular contractions which cause further changes in my cervix over time. It happened with Levi who ultimately arrived at 33 weeks. There was no guarantee it would happen again with this pregnancy, but here we are.

As a newcomer to the blog world, I think I'll start with that. Find some other bounty hunters to follow. And thank you for visiting.

Bunny