Bread and Roses

I usually write a "round-up" of the previous month during the first week of the new month, but frankly I've been too tired (and a bit too scatterbrained) to contemplate that posting. Maybe soon. Life is gearing up to be interesting for a while, as I'm taking on a new, half-time job outside the house. It's the first time I will have worked outside the home at all since Sarah was not quite 2 -- in other words, half her life ago. So we've all got big adjustments coming. I'm wishing I didn't have to do this, but I'm also grateful God is providing something for our family -- and I'm trying to be willing to do what needs to be done as he provides.

One of the adjustments I forsee is less time to read and write -- between new work hours during the day, continued work I need to do at night (both as a t.a. and in course development for the course I'll be teaching online next fall) and perhaps most importantly, trying to be as attentive and truly present as I can in the fewer waking hours I'll have with my little girl (not to mention regular "stuff" like ongoing household tasks and -- oh yes! eating! prayer! sleep!) I just can't see how I'm going to carve much of a slice out of that pie to dedicate to writing projects. Once again, I'm faced with the dilemma of having creative fire burning in my bones/longing to flesh out ideas into stories, poems and articles/wanting to use this gift and valuing the gift in and of itself -- and yet being forced to put it low, low on the priority list because it's not "productive" and doesn't help my family economically. I've been here many times in my life, but for some reason being faced with yet one more season of consciously having to push writing into the cracks and crevices of my life hurts a lot more this time around. Maybe because I just had a birthday so am feeling more aware of the swift passing of time. Maybe because the older I get, the more I feel I have to say and the more I long to find ways to say it through story. How ironic that the time periods of my life when I had more time and space to write, I didn't have nearly as much in me that longed to be written.

A week or so ago I read an interesting little book by Jill Paton Walsh, a short novel for middle grade readers called The Green Book. It's fantasy (and sort of rudimentary science fiction) about a family being sent with a small group of other people to colonize a new planet, since earth is dying. This family, a single dad and his three children, are told they must pack light. Each of them may bring one book and one book only. The father agonizes because he longs to bring a Complete Shakespeare but realizes that he needs to bring a book on technology instead, if he's going to help the colony in the new world. He lets each of his children make their own selection without his input, and their choices (and those of the other group members) are interesting, to say the least! When they all realize (after they're onboard the spaceship taking them to their new home) that the youngest child has brought along a blank book (the "green book" of the title) they're dismayed because they think she's made an unwise, even foolish choice. But it turns out to be a creative choice; one that the whole community values once they realize the child has been writing down the stories of the new community/colony. No one else had thought to do that.

I thought about entitling this posting "what book would you choose?" because I'm still genuinely curious to know what other people might pick if you could only pick one book in the world to take with you on a long journey without any real prospect of finding more books where you're arriving. I'm going to presuppose that you could take a Bible, or that the community would have a Bible; otherwise (for Christians at least) the question would be a "no brainer." What one book -- besides the Bible -- would you choose to take? I'm still not sure of my own answer. I think the Complete Shakespeare would be a good choice, actually, or the Complete Austen or the Complete Dickens. Although maybe the "complete" idea is a bit of a cop-out. Any takers here? I'd love to hear some ideas!

But the more I think about it, the aspect of Walsh's story that fascinates me most is that agonizing decision the Dad makes, to choose the "practical" book on technology (needed, productive) instead of the book that feeds the spirit in more intangible ways. How often we think of our more practical, physical needs first -- and I'm not saying that's a bad thing in and of itself, it's just a necessity because we're embodied, physical creatures. But we're so much more than just our bodies. It reminds me of that old workers' song "Bread and Roses" that talks of people's need for both bodily, physical sustenance and for beauty. How often do we have to choose bread and not roses in our daily existence? Most of the time, it seems to me. I also find myself painfully aware that, for a lot of people in our world, the choice between bread and roses isn't even a choice, because they don't have either one. And that should not be.

I know all this may sound a bit simplistic, but it's working on a soul level for me tonight. Bread and roses are more entertwined than we might think, because we human beings are entertwined, made up of body, mind, soul, spirit. Having really struggled with poverty in the past couple of years (although thankfully we've had family to help) one lesson I've learned is that poor people need and deserve good things and beauty as much as anyone else. So often what we give them is our castoffs, our broken and used things; our generic and less healthy food items go into the food pantry box, our faded and somewhat stained clothing goes to the vets, our toys with missing pieces go to the local children's home. Sometime again, when we're not counting every penny and still coming up short, I want to remember this lesson and give someone poor something that they need...on more than one level. Something beautiful as well as practical. Something new.

And as for now, I feel like I'm being asked to make a choice about how to apportion my time, and in some ways I'm having to weight that choice heavily toward practical considerations -- i.e. bread. Which means less time for roses. But I'll survive, and somehow I'll find some time in there somewhere for roses, real or imagined. At least that's my hope.