Unpunished Rapture

Early Impressions On Being a Working Mother

The number one question I've been asked over the past couple of months since I started my new job with the Mormon.org campaign is, "How do you work out your schedule?" In different circumstances, I think working full-time and being mom to three kids would be utterly daunting. Most working mothers should be given an extra six hours in the day or a third hand. But as it is, I am in a situation that allows me the best of all worlds, and I continue to pinch myself every morning to make sure this incredibly fortuitous arrangement is for real.

Two essential elements lined up to make my schedule workable: I only work 30 hours a week so i can be home every afternoon by 3:30pm to spend the afternoon with the girls. Also, I have a terrific babysitter who Dalloway loves and who is willing to run errands for me during the day. My days are no longer available to do household necessities like laundry and grocery shopping, so those have gotten pushed to the late night shift, or sometimes don't get done at all for several days. Exercize is sporadic -- I've taken do doing yoga videos at home on the nights when I'm not completely dead tired -- and I find that I miss things, like appointments, scheduled phone calls, which day is Mother's Day at nursery.... So far, however, I've survived and appreciated people's patience as I bury my head in my hands over some thing or another that I forgot to do.

Even in past years when I haven't been working an office job, this time of the year always brings with it an underlying sense of guilt that I do not do enough of the "fun stuff" as a mother. I don't decorate my house at all. I don't make cute treats with pretzles and M&Ms and whatever else, I don't have my kids' Halloween costumes ready a month ahead of time... By the time we get to Christmas, no matter how hard I try, I wonder if I'm doing enough. I know my kids feel loved -- that's not the question. I worry if my kids will have happy memories of holidays and traditions from their childhood that they can look back on fondly.

Ironically this year, despite the fact that I spend even less time on home stuff because of my job, I feel less guilt than usual about my lame holiday skillz. I know that I'm giving my kids a unique gift by showing them I want to and can dedicate myself to the building up of the Church through my professional skills, and so I'm not so worried about whether or not we have a cute house for Halloween. The essentials are getting done -- we carved pumpkins the other night, even though I had to run down to Dan's grocery store to get the pumpkins while the girls were taking their baths. I don't have their Halloween costumes yet, but I've got a day yet, right? And it's not like I would be going all out on these things anyway even if I wasn't working. That's just not who I am.

Our family drove to San Francisco last weekend to visit family and friends there, and that is the sort of thing I can do to bring my kids together as they grow older. With this job this year, I'm at peace with the fact that our family culture is not what's baking in the oven, but where we've traveled, what we've seen together, what we've studied, the interesting families from other countries and religions whose friendships we've pursued.

Here's A Secret: Nobody's Normal

Want to hear about my greatest learning from the last ten months of running the Mormon Women Project?  Read it here at Patheos.com.

More Tidbits for the Week

A few points worth noting from the past couple of days:

• This video at LDS Living describes the work of Rising Star Outreach in India. One of our MWP interviewees, Sally Read, is on the board of this organization and described her work in her interview.
• If you have a fettish for "Mormon women singing at the Metropolitan Opera" (which, I admit, I do. Must be genetic.) you will be interested to note that two of the singers in the production of Das Rheingold I mentioned in my last post are, in fact, LDS women. Wendy Bryn Harmer sang the role of Freia, Fricka's sister, and Tamara Mumford sang one of the Rheinmaidens. 
• I have a vision for the Relief Society, and it looks something like this. We are just barely tapping into the potential of home-based humanitarian aid initiatives.

A Musical Interlude

In the style of Alex Ross, a few notes on key musical experiences I've had recently: A sensory blast in the movie theater last weekend at a Metropolitan Opera Live in HD performance of Wagner's Das Rheingold. I thought the $20 million set was an innovative addition to an opera that lends itself to reinventing, but some I attended with were distracted by the price tag. I try to keep in mind that the Met will get four operas out of that set, since it will be used for the other three installments of the Ring over the next two seasons. No doubt the Ring could use some editing (a "family version," perhaps, like the Met did with Magic Flute??) but I still think Wagner, like Strauss, has the ability to hold the whole of human experience in his orchestral lines.

Continuing my ongoing fascination with Sibelius, I listened to his First Symphony in the car while driving up to Midway, Utah, last week. A perfect accompaniment to the spectacular changing colors of Parley's Canyon. And I was driving for work, no less. Lucky me.

On another note, it took me a few listens to warm up to Brandon Flowers' more folksy style on Flamingo, but when I got to On the Floor, I was, well, floored. Maybe it's cause I'm all into creative hymn arrangments now because of the Lower Lights or maybe it's because it sounds like a tenor version of Johnny Cash's The Man Comes Around, but On the Floor is truly a moving and effective hymn.

The MWP Salon Event Was A Hit. Phew!

On September 30th, a group of women (and a few men!) gathered at my house for a "salon." What is a salon?

a.     “an assembly of guests in a fashionable household, esp a gathering of major literary, artistic, and political figures.” Well, maybe we weren't "major", but everything else applies :)

b.     “A periodic gathering of people of social or intellectual distinction.” How fitting!

c.     Lastly, the word can mean “an exhibition, esp one showing the work of living artists.” This is the definition I associated most closely with our event, because, even though the definition implies the "work" is visual art, at our Salon we admired living works of art in the women who spoke to us about their lives, their choices, their challenges and their testimonies.

A reporter from the Deseret News' Mormon Times attended the Salon. You can read her report of the event here, and see the photo of my living room looking like a daytime television program set.The discussion was fantastic and a video of the evening will be posted soon, but my favorite part of the evening was the comments I received afterwards: "The MWP finally makes me feel like I belong in this church," one woman said to me, and that was the common thread of the comments. It was humbling and immensely rewarding for me to hear that kind of response.

On another note, I am thoroughly enjoying the hymn revival music of the Lower Lights. This is the kind of innovation I've been craving in LDS music! Forget the sappy faux-pop arrangements or the breathy, arpeggiated instrumentals. Our hymns have an inherent kinship with bluegrass and I'm so glad to hear someone actually exploring that symbiosis. Especially with a sense of humor, like in "Count Your Blessings." How can anyone take that song seriously? In another life, I will play the banjo. Go Lower Lights!