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I wanted to believe, and I did believe, that things would get better. But later I discovered, I guess, that you have to have this sense of faith that what you’re moving toward is already done. It’s already happened…It’s the power to believe that you can see, that you visualize, that sense of community, that sense of family, that sense of one house…And you live that you’re already there, that you’re already in that community, part of that sense of one family, one house. If you visualize it, if you can even have faith that it’s there, for you it is already there. –John Lewis

One of the decor items The Husband and I bought from the overpriced furniture store near our new home was a glass jar for our outdoor table. Since we placed it there, we’ve been filling it with shells: not one lump sum of them dumped in, but a few here and there, grabbed during our respective walks down to the beach ten minutes’ walk away, or after my swims down at the beach over the bridge, as I shiver in the sun and try to feel my toes. We each come in after these procurements and make our deposit, and so the jar is slowly filling.

We had the boys’ teacher/parent interviews yesterday over Zoom, and after some technical issues that left us a minute late to the first one (and left me seething through anxiety), we heard about each of them from people who truly know them: who see The Kid’s creativity in solving problems, his ability to be funny without knowing it, his growing and beautiful social interactions and his confidence at public speaking; who see Little Brother’s ability to be funny while totally knowing it, his need for eye contact and approval and physical closeness, his sunny demeanour and love of reading.

Can I tell you how many tables I have sat at, across from people who did not know my kids, across from school staff who said things like “he doesn’t sound like a fit for us” or who had an eye only for weakness? Those years-ago-now meetings can still pierce my heart but they no longer lord themselves over me because we are in a different place now, one where the road has turned and the light has become more and more visible, the hope springing up more and more often. These boys are becoming themselves and it is glorious to see. And to see it be seen.

It’s been compared to the underside of an intricately-patterned rug, this life we live that often only makes sense in reverse because, as it’s happening, the threads just seem chaotic. Especially right now? I would go further and say that it often just looks like a pile of shit that you did not order and would like to send back, thank you, but then there’s the moment when the rug is flipped over–or, maybe, the moments when it’s briefly flipped over, and the intended beauty is clear.

But until, and between, those moments is the now-but-not-yet living, which is full not so much of the beauty but of knowing, trusting, that it is there. That it’s coming. It’s what Maria Popova calls “almostness,” what John Lewis refers to as “living as if.” It’s defined by a yearning, an incompleteness that I remember best during a few periods of my life: like when I was single and waiting for TH, or when there were three of us and we were waiting for LB.

I believe we are intimately acquainted with grace in this yearning; that, indeed, if we are focused only on preserving the way things are instead of seeing the now-but-not-yet of this world, we are missing that closeness with grace that the yearning provides. I once read that the longing of God stretches across history–we see it in the three days before Easter, in the whole of the advent season, in our own lives. When we miss it, we miss everything: how grace aligns itself to us not so much when we’re fighting for things to be the same, but when we’re recognising the Much More that is always just out of sight. When we live toward this More.

“It’s hard getting ready,” TK said from the backseat on the way to school the other morning as we listened to a song that said the same. And he should know. It is hard. And even more beautiful.

Then we’ll be waving hands singing freely
Singing standing tall it’s now coming easy
Oh no more looking down honey
Can’t you see?
Oh Lord 
I’m getting ready to believe