the town circus

So I stupidly and blithely, several weeks ago, said to the really super nice person who gently and kindly cleaned my teeth, "Oh yes, my husband and I could both come in at Two O'Clock on Monday, September 9, 2013, me for a filling and him for a teeth cleaning." I smiled and beamed all around, like some benighted village idiot.

Yesterday I remembered.

"We have to go to the dentist tomorrow," I said.

"Who's 'we'?" inquired Matt, with interest and suspicion.

"You and me," I said.

"But not the children? The children don't have to go to the dentist," he said.

"Well. But the children do have to go, if we both go," I said apologetically and tragically.

And so it happened that all eight of us went to the dentist today, me for a filling, Matt for a cleaning, and six children to "sit nicely and read books" as I explained in hopeless desperation.

I made them dress up and comb their hair and lathered myself with eye shadow and some other stuff. The thing is, I've been to the dentist a lot lately, as I've chronicled on Facebook. I've gone from being someone in mortal fear, through drilling and trauma, to being someone who just walks in to the Dentist Waiting Room like its no big deal. And that's largely because the Dentist herself and all the people who work with her are SO KIND, so extremely kind. As I said to Matt on the way home, "they don't make you feel like a worm and no man and a Really Bad Person" when you walk in and open your mouth. I mean, that seems obvious, that a Dentist shouldn't make you feel awful about yourself every time you go. But it Isn't. Every other dentist I've ever been to has not only inflicted physical pain, but spiritual pain to match. I've come to treasure the women in this office, and thank God that they send their children to regular school so that they're free on Mondays when we all come filing in. That was the substance of my lecture to the back of the car on the way there.

"You be obedient and respectful and kind," I waved my finger in the air, "because you're all eventually going to be sitting there with your mouth open and it's better if they generally like you and don't think you're awful." The children all cowered back and narrowed their eyes. "AND you can have a big handful of chocolate at the end if you're good." The looked vaguely mollified, "AND I'll give money to you older ones if you keep the babies quiet and happy."

I lay back in my perfectly contoured chair for an hour of blood, gagging and pain, listening to Matt in the next room "chat" as one chats to any dentist with the mouth wide open, "cragaouveaawwrhh." And vaguely from the Waiting Room came the sound of Elphine saying "shhh" every so often and then...silence. Real complete quiet. The only other sound? The many congratulations of everyone for how nicely they all "sat and read books" and also played with the iPad and iPods and all the other electronic devices I dragged along. I shouldn't have been so geared up. They're basically good children. But, you know, its the Dentist. 

he lives, we seem to still be living

It is April, as some of you might have noticed, and I am sitting in my bed covered by two large quilts and holding a warm mug against my mouth waiting for it, my mouth, to slowly thaw, or whatever the word is. There are stupid ugly snow flakes dithering their way down out of the ugly gray sky. (I like to keep track of the weather, for future reference, so when my children look back at this moment they will know exactly what kind of day it was. That Kind of Day.)

Earlier this morning, having dressed myself up in red striped socks, soft comfortable jeans, a thick sweater and the armor of anxiety, I presented myself precisely at 9:50 to the fancy and expensive specislist dentist at the top of that hill in Binghamton with the expansive view and capacious cemetery. There, for two hours, I fixed my internal eye on Jesus and survived my first, and it seems, probably not last, root canal.

Knowing that I have a surprising ability to gag and more than a goodly share of anxiety, my own new regular dentist had called ahead for a large tank of nitrous, or, as they so funnily call it, 'laughing gas'. I lay back and breathed heavily waiting for all my troubles to melt away. Well, after a few minutes, I did feel very drunk, a sensation I not only do not approve of but also do not enjoy (not, of course, that I would know) but there was no melting away of anything. The hysterical woman on CNN persisted through any sense of relaxation (it must be hard, keeping the hysteria alive, hour after hour, in this case about Michael Jackson--really?--and some poor basketball coach who said something unpardonable which they wouldn't say on TV), and then the various injections killed the rest of it off after that. As they lowered my head towards the floor and started chipping and whacking away, the grief of the suffering of the cross--that our Lord lay and died, that his friends were similarly tortured--wafted over me more powerfully than any so called 'laughing gas' and I eventually gave myself up to sorrow and pain and lay there crying.

'Are you ok?' The begloved and persistent nurse kept asking, 'Are you ok?'. Oh sure, I'm fine, I thought, nodding cheerfully, I feel like I'm drowning and choking and definitely dying, but otherwise fine. When she wasn't asking how I was, she was telling me to swallow, something I couldn't manage to properly do.

So to all the people who told me this week that they fell asleep during their root canals....well, I
I don't really have anything to say. Please don't try to commiserate with me about it or I might say something unbecoming of my station and situation in life.

As I write this the children are eating vats of candy and fighting over some Xbox game. Elphine is baking an Italian apple cake. She has only broken one tea cup saucer and received one slight burn in the process of making everyone fried eggs for lunch. I didn't want her to make fried eggs, but she took advantage of my emotional weakness to bash me into letting her have a try. So also with the baking of a complicated cake. For some reason, the baby is stark naked and covered with chocolate. I dressed her twice before I went away this morning.

Here they all are in their Easter Finery.

Here is Strawberry Jello concocted by Alouicious for Easter Dinner. None of us had made jello before, let alone in any kind of mold, so we were all impressed.

And here is Plum Pie, by Elphine, not in the sun, obviously, because there hasn't been any sun for weeks, but it was for everyone.

And Eggs, ready to be hidden.

Everyone ready to hunt eggs. No pictures of them hunting because no one held still for even one second.

Marigold, hopped up on sugar.

And here is The Table, before the children had a go at it.

Flowers of the altar made their way home with us. Thank you Altar Guild!

So, here we are, lying back in a house awash in Easter Bunny grass (stupid Easter Bunny), a couple of baseball practices to force us out of bed, teeth perhaps on the mend, a few hundred piles of clothes to wash, waiting for Elphine's cake to be a triumph. Another season of penitence gives way to joy, exhaustion into rest, snow into...oh never mind.

teeth etc.

I happened to be back at the dentist yesterday and the poor state of my poor mouth is rather taking up all the emotional space in my life. I am now on an antibiotic with all kinds of warning labels all over it and I have a tiny special paper explaining where and at what time I am expected to present myself to the Very Special Person who does Root Canals.
'There is life after a root canal,' said my dentist yesterday, 'the name sounds worse than it is.'
'Indeed,' said I, in pain, 'it sounds medieval.'
But at this point I welcome the whole experience if it will really solve the problem.
But also, I was knocked back by the first rather strong antibiotic and so this new one makes me feel even more like everything, good and bad, is being destroyed in my already run down system.
Nevertheless, I will now arise and do school and make breakfast and do laundry. And I will do it all without barely speaking because that is too painful for anything.

7 quick takes: church

one
I happen to be reading Exodus and Romans at the same time--not a bad combination. Boy I really do feel for Moses. His whole life sounds like one endless dinner hour with cranky kids. Yesterday my kids decided not to really eat their lunch and so by dinner the cry was, 'I'm dying!' Except that then when the dinner was served (my week at Shepherd's Bowl so lentil curry a la kennedy) they found they were really only hungry for the bread and cookie and I was suddenly entangled in three or four whiny and complicated negotiations. After a while I did really feel like shaking my fist at the heavens and saying, 'why have you given me this ungrateful people....' On another partially related note, I'm deeply interested in the idea of an Egyptian Meat Pot. It sounds delicious.
two
I had thought I would be laboring over my curry kennedy with a numb and painful mouth but in a happy twist I was sent away from the dentist with a powerful antibiotic and arrangements to try again next week. Wanted to ask the dentist if she was at all concerned by the terrifying super bacterias coming along and What Would We All Do Then, ha ha, but just kept a lid on it and said thank you.
three
As the afternoon wore away and the curry melded in to the onion, garlic, peppers, sweet potato, lentils, chickpeas etc. I glanced at my phone and discovered that this relationship is finally over. So grateful. Evil, don't you know, always seems to over step. Really, John Crosson is the outside limit. So grateful.
four
Have also been reading lots of catholic blogs trying to discover if this new pope will be A Good Thing. Can't really tell yet. Boy some people are already really upset. On the other hand it is so great that he looks so much like the new ABC...and Woody Allen.
five
It's nearly Holy Week. Did you know? Have you been making plans? Yeah, me neither.
six
Matt thought he'd be at the passion in Mark by now (in church, he's preaching through Mark). Isn't that funny? Funny funny funny. Srsly, if you are struggling to love the bible or had the book of Mark destroyed for you in seminary, I can't recommend enough his whole series so far. Week by week he unfolds the scripture and brings the person of Jesus into such clear focus. If you have nothing else to do in Holy Week you could lie flat on top of a lot of sicko John Crosson/Jesus Seminar books and listen to Matt preach and be healed of all your various infirmities. For, as Alouicious noted earlier, 'preaching heals the greatest wound, which is not knowing Jesus.'
seven
Don't you just love church? I think I love Holy Week so much because there's just so much church. So much preaching, so much liturgy, so many times to set up the altar, so many things to veil, so many details, so many extra days to see people. In my wildest deems, if you had asked in high school or college what I wanted to do if I could do anything in the whole world, I would have thought (though not said it out loud, because that would have been freaky) 'I want to be in church.' See God can be nice, sometimes.

emerging

Slowly.
Slowly emerging.
We had some lovely visitors. Stand Firm Family, as it were. All the lovely pictures are on Matt's computer. And you know how it is. You have to go to that computer and sit down and turn it on and go to the Internet and laboriously send the pictures on email and then open them and so on and so forth...so I don't have pictures, yet...
And then we were all sick. Horribly and wretchedly sick. The tummy thing. The head, nose and throat thing. The Maybe I'm Actually Going To Die Thing. The Anne Has To Go Grocery Shopping Alone Thing.

But in spite of everyone still not really breathing, there is an imperceptible feeling that Things Are Looking Up. Elphine and Alouicious have plugged out two full days of school cheerfully and industriously. Upon examining everyone's school work I discovered that if we work really really really hard for the next ten weeks we might really finish all our work on the day I imagined we would. Praise be.

I've endured the dentist visit that worried me the most--the one wherein I expected to be told I needed a root canal. After a great deal of suffering and pain I was told that I still have a thin but real amount of tooth before the root and so, for today, I am spared. Tomorrow I go back to have the big gaping hole in a tooth coped with. Turns out there is a real and true reason for me to be in such pain I have to take no less than 9 ibuprofen over the course of 24 hours. And then one more visit after that and I will be in the category of Normal, Basically.

My little tiny tomato and pepper seedlings are coming up and have not yet been destroyed by the 'babies'. They're actually large little girls who go around chattering and holding hands. They play with dollies and dress up and color and have their hair brushed. And if they would sleep all the way through the night we would probably like them.

As for Gladys and Romulus, they do a generous amount of whining and tattling.
On the whole a good measure, shaken tighter, pressed down, flowing over...

And then today we watched the white smoke appear and rejoiced with so many who welcomed the new Pope. Well, I won't lie, Elphine and Alouicious were horribly sarcastic about the news coverage...and wanted to snarkily debate theology. But I finally told them to go away so I could watch it all in peace. And now I'm listening to them all clean the kitchen and bicker gently. So I think I'll have another glass of something, just to be sure. Pip pip.

On going to the Dentist: Guest Post

Those of you on facebook will know that I went to the dentist yesterday to have my teeth scaled. The good news is that I am here, a day later, still alive (although I wished very much, as I was reclining in agony, that I had been a terrorist and that I had some kind of interesting information to offer up to make the horror stop. Why, I asked myself, do we waterboard? Why don't we scale teeth? Later I learned that other chosen people get to go through this horror with pain medication, but I, apparently, was outside of God's mercy). The bad news is that she didn't actually scale my teeth because I "couldn't take it" and that she was referring me to a specialist. A helpful friend informs me that a "specialist" is just someone who can't send me away. Being a specialist, they have to scale my teeth, one way or another. Anyway, as part of this ongoing series, I give you the detailed and horrific experiences of my mother. I encourage you, really, to read the whole post, long though it is, because it will not only tell you a lot about her and about dentistry in remote parts of the world (like France) but will give you a brief glimpse into my past. For example, I remember vividly the motorcycle incident, and the summer in France is one about which I could write whole volumes. Enjoy!

June, 2004
Portland, Oregon
From the Dentist’s Office: the News in detail
Bob and I have been delivered over to the dentist and her minions, like sinners for torment and woe, until we resolve to live a new life of flossing and brushing.
If ever a message creeping out of some dark hole in my past has a chance to repeat itself, it gets the chance while I'm gripping the sides of the dentist's chair, mouth open in an unrelenting gag. And unlike the ever-popular message for an age where therapy is practically synonymous with salvation -- (the message saying, “You need to feel good about yourself since God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life,”) -- the message I’m hearing today says, “YOU ARE A BAD PERSON AND GOD IS VERY ANGRY!”
I have failed. I have done those things which I ought not to have done (twist off bottle caps with my teeth). I have not done those things which I ought to have done (floss daily -- at the five times of prayer perhaps?). Oh miserable offender!
Of course no one in this office actually says anything in the way of condemnation. But the hygienist, ferreting around in my mouth like a squirrel, keeps referring to the significant number of “issues” going on among my teeth.
Like the molar tucked away back there, not causing me any trouble at the moment but harboring a rotten core. “Why not just pull it,” I wonder. “Half the population of the world has gaps in their teeth, so why should I not take the cheap, ugly way out and join the throng?” “Oh no,” she says. “The rest of your teeth will shift around and your bite will deteriorate.” “Great,” I think to myself. “If I don’t get a root canal and a crown on this one for the insignificant sum of $700, the world is going to worry that my bite is worse than my bark.”
“Hmmm....” murmurs the dentist, poring over an X-ray. “Was there ever a trauma to these two front teeth?”
An old memory floats to the surface. If I could reply through this numb, dumb, lopsided leer, I could tell her a thing or two about those teeth.
“I fell off a motorcycle,” I whisper.
“I thought so,” she says. “These two teeth are dead and brittle, and could snap off at any time.”
“Wonderful,” I groan, remembering a long stretch of road in southeastern Mali, at the end of a hot day sometime back in the 1980s. Bob, four-year-old Anne and I were precariously flying along, dodging potholes on a moped (the universal Malian family “car” on two wheels). Bob was in front steering. I was dangerously balanced on the back clutching an unexpected gift of three pineapples and a jug of drinking water. Anne was sandwiched in between us in a child’s backpack. We were an accident waiting to happen, when a flock of sheep heading away from the road suddenly turned and made a leisurely crossing in front of us. Bob pulled steadily on the brakes, and we were nearly at a dead stop when the sheep, having safely reached the other side of the road now turned back with the apparent intention of leading us into town. One of them clipped the front wheel and over we went. So there we were, rolling about among smashed pineapples, bounding bleating sheep, and a crowd of sympathetic bystanders all rushing to the rescue.
My face was the first part of me to meet the road. I came up with a mouthful of blood and a new angle to consider. My front teeth were bent back like strange, wobbly fangs, and there was no way to do anything about it until morning. I wasn’t even sure if there was a dentist in the local town.
Next morning however, Bob took me to the hospital in Sikasso, where someone claiming to be a dentist ushered me into his lair. He wore a lab coat that might once have been white. The room itself might once have been properly equipped with dental furniture. There was the chair. Ribbons of black vinyl indicated that once it had been well upholstered. There was even the metal arm-thing that used to hold instruments of dental torture, but they had gone the way of vandals. Flies rose and resettled on little piles of excrement in the corners of the room. This wasn’t just a has-been dentist’s office. It was somebody’s latrine.*
“Bonjour, Madame,” the man in the coat said politely. “What can I do for you?” I pointed to my mouth. “Ah, oui,” he said. “But as you see, although I studied dentistry in Paris, I have no equipment. It has all been spoiled.” I could see that, and was about to beat a retreat and think of a new plan when he inserted me into the chair, gripped the back of my teeth with his thumbs, and snicked them into something like their former place. I staggered around, said thank you, that would be fine, and what did I owe him. “O Madame, rien (nothing) except what occurs to you as a gift.” I searched my pockets, bestowed the contents on him, and fled.
That was a long time ago. True I went around with a jagged grin, but the years passed by, and all was quiet. Until the summer of 1993, when Bob and I were teaching linguistics and anthropology in Lamorlaye, France, just north of Paris.
For three months we lived in what had formerly been the stables of a chateau (now a college), and summer school was proceeding at a stately, untroubled pace when I woke up one morning to a searing headache and a shaft of pain in my mouth. The August sun, fingering its way through a crack in the window, stabbed me in the eyes just exactly at the moment when my two front teeth went into serious decline.
France. August. What could possibly be wrong with this picture? I called the dentist, and got the messagerie which said in essence, “We can’t come to the phone right now. Please call back in September” (meaning: when we get back from our holidays on the Riviera).
Of course. How stupid of me. In the middle of summer school I forgot that all of France goes on holiday during August. Everyone, in every town, except one pharmacist, one baker, and possibly one doctor goes to the sea or the mountains. But by September we were expected back in Africa. I couldn’t stand it!
After a few days the intense pain disappeared to be replaced by no feeling at all, so when September came and we went back to Africa, I figured that dead teeth just stood in place like marble tombstones marking the spot.
This view is not shared by dentists.
“You are going to loose these two front teeth,” my dentist says. “The only question is when. They could snap off at the gum anytime. There are, however, some possible ways to save your smile. One solution would be a bone graft and implants, a procedure which takes a year to complete.”
“And probably $10,000,” I think wretchedly to myself. “There is no way I can sit around in America for another year and spend sums I don’t have.”
“A second approach would be to pull these teeth, do root canals on either side, and cement in a fixed bridge, which could look very nice.”
“It would HAVE to look nice to the tune of $4,000.” I am full of despair and woe.
“Or,” continues the dentist, “we could fit you with a flipper” (a thingamyjig with two fake teeth and some sort of hardware to grab the roof of the mouth). The thought fills me with horror. “Flipper” is such an unfortunate word, suggesting that it regularly flaps and flies out of the mouth when one is in polite company.
In the end I’ve opted to do nothing for now about these two front teeth except PRAY -- and take the path of Gideon with his fleece. If you remember Gideon, he wasn’t quite sure if he’d heard correctly when God told him to go smite down the Midianites. He was a timid man and kept saying, “Could you repeat that, please?” hoping that he’d heard wrong. Eventually, just to be sure, he put a piece of wool on the ground overnight, and told God that if the wool was sopping wet in the morning and the ground was dry, this would help him figure out if God was serious or not. And having come up the next morning with wet wool and dry ground, he begged God not to loose his temper but just once more give him a sign: if after another night in the open air the wool was totally dry and the ground was wet, then he Gideon would know that there was no way to avoid the whole Midianite debacle.
Me – I’ve decided that if my two front teeth start to chip and break up in the next couple of weeks, then clearly something has got to be done at once. But if not, then surely I can trust God to preserve them from all evil -- or at least all breakage -- for another couple of years.
So for now, the dentist has got to be content getting away with thousands of dollars on deep cleaning, fillings, and that root canal way in the back.
The key thought – “surely I can trust God” -- is not unreasonable. Where else can we go but to God when life becomes impossible, or when we tumble into ridiculous and even dangerous situations?
We can trust God because -- well -- because Goodness and Mercy keep following us day after day, and our cups keep on running over with gifts and prayers, love and laughter.

Monday Morning Haze

In honor of the fact that I will now often be going to the dentist, I am treating you all to first in a series called Going to the Dentist. Essentially, I'll be giving you installments of Mrs. Miniver "At the Dentist's"
Here is the first bit and it really perfectly describes my experience this morning.

"For really it was the refinement of civilized cruelty, this spick, span, and ingenious affair of shining leather and gleaming steel, which hoisted you and tilted you and fitted reassuringly into the small of your back and cupped your head tenderly between padded cushions. It ensured for you a more complete muscular relaxation than any armchair that you could buy for your own home; but it left your tormented nerves without even the solace of a counter-irritant. In the old days the victim's attention had at least been distracted by an ache in the back, a crick in the neck, pins and needles in the legs, and the uneasy tickling of plush under the palm. But now, too efficiently suspended between heaven and earth, you were at liberty to concentrate on hell."

And now, having gotten that off my mind, I'm going to dress all five children and muscle them into the car so we can All go to Marigold's one month well baby and then to the store. Why, you may ask, are you taking five children? Because Matt has to be somewhere else at the same time, some nice place where no children are allowed.