The Wisdom of Marty McFly

Turns out the one egg wasn't so good after all. It was a bad egg, and failed to fertilize. So that's all she wrote....for now anyway. All these bruises on my stomach for nothing. All the bloating and weight gain and anxiety. Oh well. We are sad and disappointed. I knew my eggs were old and in short supply. I just didn't think they were on life-support. So I look forlornly at the box filled with syringes and "sharps" and alcohol swabs and vials of syrupy medicine. I kick it across the room.

A nurse who was taking my blood the other day was shocked to look on my chart and see my birthday. "How old are you?" she asked.

"I'm 42" I replied.

"I can't believe it. When you walked in, I thought you were 25!'"

"Well, thanks, you made my day" I smiled. I get comments like this occassionally. And I'm usually flattered and happy. But it gets me nowhere when it comes to procreating.

I wanted to tell her, "Thanks, but just take a look at my ovaries. Apparently they're members of AARP and drive a beige Buick."

So I was bummed all day and David cried and then he left for Wilmette to play hockey and I stayed home and surfed TV so I wouldn't have to think about my bad eggs. I saw Michael J. Fox was on Inside the Actor's Studio and so I paused my surfing to see what he had to say. Marty McFly. Teenage Warewolf. Alex P. Keaton. Parkinsons sufferer. In this interview he wasn't shaking too badly. His meds were working well, apparently, although he did have to interupt the interview once to take more pills. He said lots of wise things because when you're dealing with something like Parkinsons, or any kind of suffering for that matter, you can either fight it, have a temper tantrum and become bitter and angry, or you can step into and let it change you.

At the end of the interview some of the acting student asked him questions. The last question was asked by a young, freshman student who had dark hair and black plastic frame glasses and a silky complexion and she started crying as she stood up. She revealed that she was recently diagnosed with a neurological disease similar to Parkinsons, and she was asking Michael J. Fox whether it was realistic for her to try to become an actress. And whether she should try to hide her disease, or be open about it. She was wiping tears from her face as she spoke.

How did Michael J. Fox answer? Be honest, he said. And see what happens. When you embrace your situation, something will happen and chances are that it will be something good. Maybe it's not what you were expecting, but something good will come from it.

Marty McFly made me cry. And convinced me I need to step into this sad, empty wilderness and wait to see what happens next. Because even though I can't see it right now, there's a chance it could be something good.

One good egg

For anyone who thought the "Naming Hope" entry was an indirect pregnancy announcement, I'm sorry to say it wasn't. Just to clear that up...

But we are taking steps...steps that I've been hesitant to write about. But now I'm thinking, hey, what the heck. I'm a writer, after all, and aren't writers supposed to bare their souls?

After a month of shots in the gut and butt, I have bruises on my stomach, have gained 10 lbs, and have ridden the rollercoaster between being hopeful and not-so-hopeful. Today was the day we went to the clinic to have the egg retrieved. Not eggs. Just one egg. That's all that came of my month of painful shots. If you know anything about IVF, the more eggs the better. But "at my age" (that's the phrase I hear often at the clinic), the chance of getting lots and lots of eggs was small. But I was hoping for maybe 4 or 5. The "follical stimulation" drugs were supposed to force lots of eggs to pop up in my geriatric ovaries. But apparently my ovaries are too old and tired to get excited about anything, even when pumped full of stimulants. I guess they got tired of waiting...all those years waiting for Prince Charming to sweep us off our feet. Faithfully pumping out an egg a month, just in case. All those good eggs that went to waste.

The truth is, all those years I didn't think much about my aging eggs. I felt pretty ambivalent about babies. Of course, I loved babies, but mostly other people's babies. Looking back, I realize my ambivalence had more to do with my fear of not being a good mother and of never having the time to read a book again with toddlers hanging on my shins, than of not wanting to be a mother. Not that I really had a choice. Prince charming hadn't arrived yet. By the time I reached 40 and celebrated my birthday as a single woman, I had come to terms with the fact that I may never have children.

But then Prince Charming did arrive, and I starting thinking, "well...maybe." So here we are. And after having been pregnant twice and finding the courage to be a bit reckless, I'm realizing how sad I'll be if our one little egg doesn't fertilize, or doesn't attach. I'm also realizing that will all of the technical, scientific, medical advances, how little control we have over our lives.

Friends who have been through this remind me that "if God wants you to get pregnant, you'll get pregnant." And they tell me stories of the friend who only had one embryo implanted, got pregnant, and just gave birth. Or of the woman who had 8 perfect embryos, and didn't get pregnant. Just goes to show you, we're not in control.

I've learned to accept that. And sometimes Plan B and Plan C turn out just as exciting as Plan A. But right now I'm pulling for that one little egg.

Defining the Emerging Church

Check out this article: "Five Streams of the Emerging Church: Key elements of the most controversial and misunderstood movement in the church today" by Scot McNight.

It's a great summary of the emerging movement -- and helped clarify for me what it means to be an emerging church.

Winter in Chicago, Barak Obama, and Alice McDermott

Winter's back. Finally. The high today should reach only 25 degrees, there are 2 inches of snow on the ground, the sun came out. David revels in this type of weather. He likes it so cold it takes your breath away, with white icy snow crunching beneath his hiking boots. I don't particularly like being cold, but I have to admit this is much better than a 40 degree, overcast, drizzly days we've been getting most of this winter. If I wanted drizzle and clouds, I'd live in Seattle. Give us snow, sub-zero temps, crystal clear days, a fire in the fireplace, long underwear. At least for a month or two. So when spring finally rolls around, we'll actually appreciate it.

I'm sitting in a warm, charming coffee shop listening to fellow coffee shop patrons buzzing about Barak Obama. Yep, he's taken the first step to running for president in 2008. Read about it on the front page of today's NY Times. Go, Barak!


And after I get a bit of work done, I'm going to crack open Alice McDermott's new novel "After This." I heard her speak/read at the Festival of Faith and Writing last April at Calvin College and was blown away by her reading from "After This". So I shelled out $24 for the hard cover and am on page 89. Reading great writing is a spiritual experience for me. I feel a bit guilty about this...being the former Fundamentalist Christian that I am....but I find God more often in the pages of great literature than I do in church. Why am I more drawn to reading novels than Scripture?

Apparently, I'm not alone. There's an interview with McDermott in the current issue of Image Journal. She left the Catholic church for a while, and then returned. Here's an excerpt:

"...for me, the transition away from the church was accompanied by a discovery of literature. The questions that the church taught me to ask and, it seemed, was refusing to answer, or was giving answers that did not satisfy -- I discovered that these same questions were being asked in more complex ways in literature. And not necessarily faith-based literature. There was a time in my life when I would have run for the hills if anyone had asked me to read faith-based literature. But the great writers were talking about death, suffering, the meaning of life, and how we get through and live. They were also reiterating the sacredness of the individual, and the individual mind. Great literature allows you to forget your own mind and enter into the life of another human being, to recognize our common humanity and hear their inner voice, to glimpse their soul. It wasn't that I rejected one and found the other. The church only took me so far, and literature itself was addressing all these same things."

Naming Hope

Charlotte? Hannah? Sean?

We throw each out randomly, and they float in the air until the other one ponders it for a few minutes, the originator waiting expectantly for for the final verdict. Sometimes the reaction comes fast. No way! But if there's a pause, there's a chance that the other will at least consider it. How would it sound with McCracken? Would it be shortened to an unbearable nickname?

Fiona McCracken? Too Celtic. No way.

But I like it!

You'll never convince me on that one. Sorry.

How about Hannah. It's the name of a great, great aunt. You know, my dad's mother's father's sister.

Hannah McCracken. Hmmmm. Now I kindof like that one.

Ona? My great, great, grandmother.

Ooh, I like it. But it might be a little too unusual.

Judith?

Judith, I like. Judy, I don't. And inevitably her school friends would shorten it to "Judy". Unless we could call her "Jude" for short, which sounds cool.

The naming has begun again. For a while, we didn't do this. AFter the two miscarriages and my 42nd birthday.

Make it no big deal, so you won't be disappointed when it doesn't happen. Don't name something that probably won't exist.

It's a little like being a 13 year old girl, writing the last name of the boy you have a crush on next to your name. Imagining what it would be like to be "Karen Smith" or "Karen Johnson". Someday, you would think. Someday I will be married.

Hope.

Then after a while you stop hoping. You grow up and stop writing boys' last names next to yours. Childish thing, to hope. And you wait and wait and when it finally does happen, you don't change your name anyway.

But now you find yourself hoping again. And writing names in your journal. Alexandra McCracken. Robert McCracken.

But it's a dangerous thing. Hope.

What if it doesn't happen? What then? If we pretend we don't want it, that we're okay being a family of two, that we'll fill our lives with writing and travel and each other, then there's no risk. That could be a good life. We're okay with that. No disappointment, really. We're okay.

But still.

We would have a good life. But wouldn't it feel like something was missing? A Kylie or Ali or Sean?

So we're tentative. Maybe coming up with one name a day. Not too many. Not too extravagant. Don't want to push it because we migh jinx it. Besides, we don't want to seem obsessed.

We're just testing the waters. Sticking our toe in to see if it's safe.

Kiera. Maya. Joshua.

Hope.

Rethinking Hospitality

Since David and I have been married, we've only hosted a few dinner parties for friends, and I've been feeling a bit uneasy about our lack of hospitality. The thing is, I like inviting people to our home. But I also feel anxiety about it. I feel that everything has to be "perfect" in order for someone to enjoy coming to our home. The decor, the meal, the scent of the candles. I inherited this from my mother, who felt it important that the house be scrubbed clean of any hint of human existence before guests arrived.

This year, I really wanted to have a big Christmas bash -- invite all of our friend...friends who we had failed to invite into our home for the past year and a half. But before I committed myself to a party, I wanted to paint all of the rooms in our condo. I wanted to impress everyone who hadn't yet seen our place -- to make them think we are cool and hip and have the latest Benjamin Moore colors on the walls. I wanted them to get the impression that even though our place is small, it's worth living in. Most of our friends our age have rehabbed bungalows, or at least much bigger condos. I wanted to impress.

Well, I started painting the office. It took longer than expected. Then the living room, which took an entire weekend. Then the entryway, and the kitchen....well, early December turned into mid-December and before I knew it all of the "good" dates for Christmas parties were taken by other friends, and I still wasn't finished painting and my hopes of a Christmas celebration were dashed. So I'm starting 2007 with even more guilt that David and I are approaching our 2nd wedding anniversary and some of our friends still haven't been to our place.

Two days ago, on Wednesday, I was working on a project for a new client, which always makes me insecure and stressed. I had also told our friends, Jane and Andy, that I would bring them a meal, since they just had a baby and aren't getting much sleep. But by 5:00 I was running late. I was still at Whole Foods, cramming ingredients for a Spicey Thai Beef Salad into the cart, when Jane called wondering when I was going to drop off the meal. 7:00 or 7:30 I told her. But after I hung up, I realized how crunched for time I was -- standing in the checkout lane watching a VERY SLOW checkout guy pass the items in front of the scanner. GET A MOVE ON IT! I was yelling at him in my head. I had to pay for the groceries, drive home, make the salad and get to Jane and Andy's by 7:30. As I was driving out of the Whole Foods parking lot, my cell phone rang. It was David. "What are you doing?" he asked. "I'm just leaving Whole Foods and I'm very stressed." I told him.

"Well, I'm going to make you even more stressed. S is coming over and he's going to stay with us for a few days."

"What?!" I blurted.

"Yea, he needs a place to stay, and so he'll be over in 30 minutes. I'll tell you more when you get home."

All I could think about was the dirty bathroom, the dishes in the sink, the papers scattered over my desk. In normal circumstances, I would have rushed home and at least given the condo a once-over. But there was no time. I had to get home and rush to get the salad made. "Okay", I sighed into the phone. It wasn't that I didn't want S to come over, it was just that I wasn't prepared. Things weren't perfect enough.

Well, I got the salad made (with lots of help from David), S came over, and I found out he's going through a difficult time right now. While I was dropping off the salad, he and David had a chance to talk, then I came home and we sat in the living room and talked some more. I told him I was sorry about what he was going through, and apologized for the house not being too clean. Of course, he didn't care.

Last night I was in the kitchen washing dishes (our dishwasher is broken), and S came into the kitchen. "Thank you," he said.

I said, "For what?" I hadn't provided a clean house. I hadn't cooked him a meal. I hadn't really done anything that would get me into the hostess hall of fame.

"Thank you for your hospitality. And for being so calm." he said.

"Well, you're welcome," I said. "Anytime."

He left the kitchen and I started thinking about what hospitality really means. It's not about a clean house or perfectly cooked meals. In fact it's not about me at all. It's about giving...and providing a little bit of refuge in the storm of someone's life. I guess that's what I had done, without even trying.