Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Swimming Naked

There's a guy in Australia who hosts a nude swim every year. At first I assumed he was a perverted weirdo, but I saw an interview with him and changed my mind. He said he does it to force people to think about their priorities. He said people usually only re-evaluate their perspective when one of the terrible "d's" happens to them - death, disease or divorce - and he wanted to create a positive situation that would yield the same positive results. It sounds crazy, but I actually think it's totally plausible that plunging naked into the freezing Australian ocean surrounded by a whole bunch of other naked weirdos would give me a broader perspective on life and its many challenges. (I could probably argue that the people who sign up for something like that in the first place probably aren't the people who need it, but I don't want to be a downer.)

Anyway I think I have the opposite problem. I think it's from writing the news.

Before I go on, a word to pre-child me and anyone else who has an eyeroll at the ready for the next person who talks about how "becoming a parent changes you":

Becoming a parent changes you.

Like, I don't think it makes you morally superior, or even more wise. You're not a bad person, or weird or selfish, if you don't have kids. You can still experience deep, meaningful and fruitful human emotion. You can still teach others, and have passionate feelings. BUT.

The Maria Baer before Naomi was a different Maria Baer, with shallower fears, less weighty daily concerns and more inward focus. I wasn't worse, but I was different, and less emotionally stretched. My love wasn't as deep and my fear wasn't as wide. I didn't know how to prioritize stressors the way I do now. (An aside: this literally makes me feel like a Completely Amazing Person on a daily basis. Do you know this feeling? My kid is crying, I just spilled coffee on my shirt, someone's knocking at the door and my phone is ringing. What do I do first? Tend to the kid. Then door, then phone, don't worry about shirt. This is a small example but it's hard to quantify how empowering these kids of little stress pop quizzes are.) My point is I am different now and probably slightly more wise. This is not an opinion or a moral judgment, it's just a fact, and it's emotionally mature to accept it without getting defensive (still talking to my pre-child self here) and move on.

A few weeks ago I wrote to my pastor in Phoenix about how guilty I felt for singing "I Surrender All" at church on Ash Wednesday knowing full well that I very much DON'T surrender all, because I don't surrender my daughter. If God pulled an Abraham-and-Isaac thing on me, I don't even have to think about it; I'd say no. I just would. It troubles me to say that, and confuses me because I don't know what it means about my faith necessarily, but I do know it's true.

Anyway my pastor said (among many other things, which were a great help) that when God told Eve that there would be pain in child-bearing after the apple incident, THIS is what He meant. All of this. Not just the contractions the breathing and all that, but the fear, and the desperate and terrible love. I feel like a broken record. (Having a child has changed me and I am still dealing with it).

Writing local news roundups every night has exacerbated this. All these car accidents, tornadoes, mothers arrested for neglecting their babies, heroin overdoses at 21, accidental fatal gunfire, sexual deviance, teachers abusing students, men robbing convenience stores at knifepoint, drunk driving accidents - It's salt on a very fresh, confusing wound that I'm still tip-toeing around, staring at from different angles and trying to parse. What is this fear? Is it real or exaggerated? Is it wisdom or irrational, hormone-induced anxiety? Am I living with a wise, much-sought-after "eternal perspective" ("life is short") or just paralyzing myself with fear and worry ("Oh shit, life is short!")

Pardon my irreverent French, but John Piper is an asshole about this. Remember when he started a Twitter controversy (remember when it was possible to NOT start Twitter controversies?) after the deadly tornado in Missouri by tweeting something about how it was all part of God's plan? He said it much more aggressively than this. Lately I've been reading a book of his called "Don't Waste Your Life." I bought it at a conference and will sheepishly admit I was drawn in by the title. I was secretly hoping it was going to be a nice, comforting little treatise on how accepting the Gospel means you could never possibly waste your life, even if you're a newly staying-at-home mom still trying to figure out how to spend her time. (If I spend the next 15 minutes doing the dishes, will I Regret For The Rest Of My Life that I didn't spend those 15 minutes with my too-rapidly growing baby? Don't they make flowery instagram memes about this? And if I don't do the dishes, won't it annoy me the next time I go into the kitchen, and the time after that, and eventually we won't have any dishes to eat on? How the hell do I make this kind of decision?)

And I guess the Piper book does essentially say that (the Gospel thing, not the dishes thing) but it's just so... mean. I finish each chapter thinking "why are you yelling at me, John Piper?" I'm paraphrasing here but I'm pretty sure there's a paragraph that basically says "if terrible things happen to you, who cares! You shouldn't, because Jesus is eternal."

The odd thing is, in the same season as this fear has been swirling around me, my life has gotten really deliciously small. Like, the kind of life I always wanted. I wake up in the morning slowly. My girl and I eat breakfast. I make coffee, she plays. We sit on the back porch and talk about the weather and the new flowers blooming. Maybe we take a walk to the park. I sit at the piano for a while. We read books. She naps. You get what I'm saying. I'm still reading and writing and seeing other adult friends and cooking fun things and running on the treadmill and everything. But I'm not stressed. I feel really present.

And in all those same moments, I'm also terrified. I realize some folks need to jump naked into the Pacific be reminded of what's important and to find the encouragement to stop spending so much time on frivolous things. My problem is the frivolous things aren't fun anymore because I'm too consumed with the frailty of What's Important.

Sometimes I feel like I can't win. This is why I like reading fiction. (And drinking wine.)