Bookshelf

Do you see the bookshelf in this picture? The one behind the children, one of whom is jumping in various states of dress and the other is manhandling an octopod?

That bookshelf, let me tell you of its significance. It was purchased at the IKEA in Hartford, Connecticut with our wedding money. We had returned from honeymoon and moved into our new lovenest and discovered a clear lack of organization in our abode. I lovingly organized all and sundry books and photo frames and created a thoughtful assemblage of possessions on display. This is the third home in which the bookshelf has lived and it continues to serve us well. It continues to be an emblem of our life together, our books living side by side just as we, husband and wife and daughter and son, live side by side in a harmonious and orderly fashion. Sometimes. Occasionally.

You might also note that the books are arranged by color and not by author or title because I am more inclined to know whether The Accidental Asian had a yellow book jacket rather than it was written by Eric Liu (synaesthesia much?).

The aesthetic of my system is not bad but I was recently convicted about the real problem in my method.

As I was dusting off the bookshelves this week, I began looking at all of the books that I knew I would never read again. Naturally, I didn't want to let them go quite yet. I know many people have this same reflex. But what if I need to go back and see what Joan Didion says about grief? And what if I give away this Curtis Sittenfeld first edition and it becomes, like, super valuable someday?

What really pained me, however, was my resistance to sell or gift books or donate them because of their utility as items that Say Something About Me. The point of a library is to enjoy it and lend it, no? Yet apparently I want to hoard books because they indicate...what? That I am well-read. That I am familiar with the canon of certain authors. That I have made a living teaching others how to analyze certain texts, and this is my trophy case of works upon which I can expound in a classroom.

So. Incredibly. Gross. I. Know.

Are we called to build totemic shelves of books that are a nod to Who We Are? Yeah, I think we are called to store up treasures in Heaven, by and large. I seem to remember something about not being able to take it with you, that a good name is worth more than rubies, that nobody at our funeral is going to be remarking about what an impressive collection of tomes we had amassed in this life.

From now on, I am going to do my utmost to be purging myself of these books lest I retain them to impress only myself.

***

I dropped off a dear Boston mama friend at a writer's conference today. I was so happy for her visit wherein we solved all the problems of the world in 24 hours and covered lots of eating and laughing ground to boot. En route to the conference, I told her to e-mail her publisher to make sure she had enough copies of her chapbook on hand. She was going to do it later, but I told her to do it right then and there to put her mind at ease.

As I saw her off at the conference to go write and read and overdose on poetry with literary luminati, I was so so happy for her. I felt a small pang of envy that I wasn't going to be staying on a college campus and writing my hands off and sleeping in a room with no bunkmates interrupting my sleep just like she.

But my friend Anna has a book that actually says Something About Her. She wrote it. It's awesome.

I am not there yet. I hope to be. For now, though, I am happy for my friend and happy for me and my life and my children and my bookshelves. The shelves are now slightly less bulky, but the rainbow effect is still gratefully in tact.

***

Anna, Baby Girl and I, cha cha cha-ing in #CHA

Anna met the King in Nashville, natch

Gag Reflex

Herein I will paint an image for you that is less than appetizing. Tonight I was bathing Little Man and out of the charity of my heart, I allowed him to handle my special paraben-free honey oatmeal loofah bar soap. And how does he thank me for this decadence?

He bites it, tasting the organic cleansing ingredients to dissatisfaction.

At which point he barfs a small clay-colored geyser of various snacky items--now in chunky liquid form--into the bathtub. Convenient since I can still rinse him off with no clothes on. Inconvenient because, when is ralphing convenient?

Anyway. I forgot about the upchuck splatterpaint in my bathtub (see also: kids to put to bed, kids to remind to brush their teeth and kids to remind I'm not going to brush their teeth this time and then kids whose teeth I am brushing, sigh). A couple of hours later, I rediscovered the bath art and, while replaying the whole epic Little Man sneak puke attack as I scrubbed the tub, the thought struck me:

I've been doing the same thing as Little Man for a while now.

Tasting something that sort of seems a bit unpleasant and then, gack, everything that I had rumbling in my tumbly for months comes roaring up my throat.

Do you ever do this?

You think you're cool, you're dealing, things aren't always easy but you're coping, even and in spite of an unfavorable evaluation at work, poor sleep from babes who cry and/or dogs who snore, and bills that win at eating your paycheck before you got it...

And then SOMEONE just COULD NOT BE BOTHERED to re-line the stupid wastebasket in the bathroom and you find yourself TASTING THE SOAP.

It tastes sooo soapy. The potent taste of soap is too much. It's too much. There's more badness you're tasting. Actually, you're tasting bad things from 3 days ago. No! Three weeks ago. Oh, remember the bad thing you tasted 3 months ago and didn't tell anyone about?

In this moment, that bad taste is fair game. Chuck it up.

***

Lovey Loverpants, he is not a fan of the massive liquidation sale from the emporium of things that upset me that I have been stockpiling for days and weeks and months and maybe even years.

Sometimes I feel as though I cannot help myself, but mostly I feel that a part of growing up should be the ability to govern my feelings and thoughts like a character from a Jane Austen novel.

This is no plum assignment for someone who remembers everything that happened or was supposed to happen in hers and the lives of others, fictional and otherwise. Smile.

But the Lord is so provident to remember our own sins no more, to cast them into the ocean of oblivion. There is power in His hand that casts away and begins afresh to create in us new hearts over and over and over and over.

Take that bar of soap Lord and clean me out for your glory. Not just for my own expurgation. Amen.

*** Hope you had a delightful Mother's Day. I had a nice, chill weekend with my fambam. Went to church, ate some cupcakes, watched some "Jem and the Holograms," and even went to a wedding for two of my favorite students. Lovely all around.

(Thanks, Selena, for the pics!)

Identity

Hi. My name is Kendra Stanton Lee.

I am an American-born woman, a wife, and a mother of two.

I prefer to go by my full name. The family into which I was born and the family into which I chose to marry are equally important to me.

I have a master's degree. I was able to attend graduate school because my husband supported me: my dreams and my finances.

I teach full-time. I love my job. I like it when people ask me whether I like my job. I like it less when people ask me who cares for my children while I am working. When my husband worked three jobs, people never seemed to ask him the same question.

I was nursing my baby boy until two days ago. I love tucking my children into bed.

I believe my husband is the spiritual leader of our home. I do not, however, believe that he is always right.

I receive a paycheck in my name that is more than my husband earns per month. However, I believe we are both earning the same amount. Whatever is mine is his. It is unimportant whose name is on the paycheck because we are both working hard toward a goal united: to support our family.

I am uninterested in identifying myself as a feminist.

I more interested in claiming my personhood as woman who struggles mightily to be more like Jesus Christ.

There are women like I am everywhere.

Someday there may be more of us; I am raising one of them.