reorienting
Running late, as usual, I feel stressed.
I imagine myself purpling and breathless, like some vile thing has me by the neck as I sit out in the car thumping the steering wheel with my thumbs, willing my Riley to finish her checking rituals—and yes, I took my morning pills, and yes, it looks like I have everything, and Mom is in the car, so… She stands sweetly in the doorway, brassy waves bobbing as she punctuates her sentences with an outstretched hand and a cursory bow toward six o-clock, nine o-clock, three.
Meanwhile, my mind shouts, with equal devotion: It.is.time.to.go!
Riley knows, because I told her, that we should have left five minutes ago for our appointment, but there is no dissuading her from this recitation, which seems, thankfully, particularly tied to home. When we leave the appointment itself, she will not need to do this, but when leaving home, this protocol must be carefully carried out and no deviation in speed or process shall be permitted. There shall be no hurrying. OCD, at least in Riley, knows but one speed.
Tap, tap, tap, tap TAP—my thumbs, pounding out protest, signal my undoing; me, glancing (unhelpfully) every thirty seconds at our estimated time of arrival silently ticking up in Maps; Riley, moving away from the door, out of sight, and then back in view.
What is she doing in there? Oh, but I know.
Ask me how I know, even though, the door having drifted–like the slice of available time for this commute–toward closed, I can only just see her bare toes now (she will have her shoes and socks in one hand, for putting on in the car) curled against the plank floor, a strip of the front of her dress, waving back and forth across that opening like a rose pink flag, the tight white fingers of the one hand looking stark against the edge of the door where she holds it open. Ask me how I know her exact script, even though, from inside the car it’s like watching a maddening silent movie, but anyway, I know the cadence of this speech, the way her mouth rounds out the words, the number of times she will have to say each thing before she can leave.
The repetition of it all feels like a slow dismantling.
Finally, the door flung open, out she walks, carrying the shoes and socks I predicted and also a brush, a cup of coffee (in the crook of an elbow), and a silver basket which I know contains barrettes and jewelry, vitamins, her phone. She’s just so diligent, but I have to wonder, as she bends and unloads the basket onto the driveway beside the car, freeing a hand to open the passenger door, if she’ll even have time on the way to use all the stuff she’s brought along for the ride.
How does this routine still stress me out, after all these years? It’s not as if I don’t know it by heart. And what is it exactly that’s eating at me? God examines my thoughts with re-orienting questions, and I am reorienting even now, though I’m sick with hurry, as Riley, having managed to open the car door, mumbles, oops, I forgot my—I don’t even know what, because she’s already turned on one heel, marching back toward the house.
“Okay, but you need to be quick because we’re already running late,” I call futilely after her, and admittedly my voice carries a little too well, because she pauses, only just a beat in the doorway, and I watch her lips form a harried, fluttery, okay I will, before she slips back inside the house. My thumbs resume their racing beat against the steering wheel.
Who of you, by worrying, can add one hour to her life?
Another re-orienting question, and I know that word for worrying, the Greek merimnao, means to be torn apart, literally, to go to pieces with distraction and over-concern over the necessities of life, this being the opposite of God’s beautiful shalom, the opposite of His heart-guarding peace. I get to choose the harmony and integrity of union with Him, or give myself over to futile dis-integration, because worry never rescues anyone.
When finally Riley gets back into the car and closes her door, it will be my anxious words, still hanging in the air like some kind of exhaled poison, that will bring tears to her eyes, that will cause her to bristle and glance cautiously at my face as I shift into reverse, hit the gas, and whip us out and on our way.
Riley will only just have realized that for some reason she can’t quite comprehend, her best efforts have landed on the wrong side of me. Slowly, we dis-connect.
Say what you want about Riley’s challenges reading people, but it seems like she can certainly always read me, even if she can’t quite figure out what has happened to disappoint me. All the way down the sun-dappled road, I can feel her checking my face like she checked behind herself on the way out the door, trying to find signs of my heart again, looking for love overflowing. As we curve along, crooked and suddenly mis-matched, it will be this seeking, her eyes searching my face in the weighty silence like I should be seeking and searching God’s, that softens my heart, that makes me smile so she’ll see that we’re really okay with each other.
Reorienting.
A singer croons in stereo:
They say it only takes a little faith
To move a mountain
Well good thing
A little faith is all I have, right now
At a stoplight, I lay my sore hands open in my lap and begin to pray right out loud so Riley can hear me, asking God to put me back together, to re-member and re-mind, confessing my little faith to trust Him with us, with this appointment, with what time we arrive, and what happens when we do. And then I thank Him for Riley and the appointment and the car and all the reasons for our going along, late or on time, together.
And Riley relaxes, quietly murmuring assent, while the singer sings on—
But God, when You choose
To leave mountains unmovable
Oh give me the strength to be able to sing
It is well with my soul
–and gently, the Way unfolds in front of us, the trees quivering with unwithering leaves, coursing with their unseen water, and I hear, re-membering, whoever believes in me, Rivers of living water will flow from within them.
The promise rests, an answer.
Pisteuo-faith is persuasion by God, and certainly this morning He has persuaded me. So again, His streams flow in the desert. He re-orients, re-orients us, making the Way straight. This is how it is, stumbling as I am, to be carried along by God.
I can feel an apology building in me the rest of the way to the appointment and as we walk through the double doors and announce ourselves to the receptionist, who frowns a little and asks, “What time was your appointment?”
I feel it in my throat, that apology, the words crowding, burning, even as I’m telling the receptionist, eight full minutes ago, her mouth pressing into a thin line. She reaches for the phone. Riley bends over the sign-in book, carefully printing her name, the time of our arrival, pressing so carefully hard as to emboss our confession on the three, four, five blank logs below, before she stands and follows me to a bench to wait.
“Riley, I’m really sorry sometimes I get stressed and worked up about running late. I’m sorry I pass that anxiety on to you. I know you don’t need that, that it’s hurtful and not encouraging. I’m really sorry.” I lay my hand flat against her back, feeling her knobby spine beneath my fingers. She looks at me, slowly tracing my expression with her eyes.
“It’s okay, Mom.” She pauses, smiling wide. “At least you prayed. I’m really glad you prayed.”
On her face now, in her eyes, settled on mine, just peace.
Don’t go to pieces about anything, Paul once wrote, but in every situation, by prayer, with thanksgiving, ask God. Tell God, and His tying-you-together peace will keep watch over your heart.
