My iPhone lied to me this morning.  I rolled over and touched the Weather icon, one of my favorite apps for the feeling of control it gives me over what’s happening outside just by knowing the details, and saw 43 degrees.  Doable.  I emerged from my bed cocoon and pulled on my Under Armour running gear, yanked my hair back, and laced up my shoes.  Just before I opened the front door, I checked again.  Just to be sure.  28 degrees, my screen said, laughing maniacally (or so I heard).  Whaaaa? I opened the front door and was met with a frigid blast that definitely felt closer to 28 than 43.  I called for reinforcements, opening my laptop and heading to weather.com.  Indeed–colder winds prevailed.

Faced with a new decision to make, I considered this week two years ago, when I was preparing for my first race ever (and only one so far), the Central Park half-marathon.  I ran it in 15-degree-with-wind-chill-of-9 temperatures, with three loyal friends and the then-BF waiting for me at the finish.  I was strong.  I was raw.  I was a warrior.  But that was then.  Today, I picked coffee over cold and replaced nylon with flannel.  And I headed downstairs to talk to Jesus and make a strata.

I read an interview this week with Becky from Glee, the Cheerio with Down syndrome who serves as Sue’s right-hand girl.  The 20-year-old was asked how it felt to be a member of the cast, and she answered that whenever she wears that uniform, she feels like a typical person.  I wiped my eyes and pushed away mild rage over the impending rarity of innocence like this, given our human propensity for prescreening and discarding scenarios that are inconvenient and imperfect.  Then I considered the contrast between people like Lauren (her real name) who just want to be “typical” and so many of us who yearn to be anything but.

For most of my life, I longed to just fit in.  I frantically scrubbed away at any qualities that could keep me from being camouflaged.  It’s called being a teenager (though it lasted well past those years for me).  Then that effort fell apart, and I embraced an atypical existence, driving 1000 miles north to find it.  Walking the streets with celebrities, running in Central Park, staring up at the Empire State Building, knowing when to hit Magnolia Bakery so there wouldn’t be a line.  Meeting and falling in love with a man lacking a Southern accent and NRA membership.  Who voted for Obama, for God’s sake (and is living with the consequences of that choice).

And now, here we are, living in our wooded community with our two-car garage and pool/tennis membership.  I’ve made pot roast, meatloaf, and the aforementioned strata along with dozens of cookies, all this week.  I held a Swiffer in my hand for the larger part of Wednesday.  On Sunday we will join a church that doesn’t have a New York Times best-selling author as its pastor.  We’re contemplating buying a chocolate Lab.  I could be scooping up turds on a street near you someday very soon.

What the f%$k happened?

Leaning over the boiling crockpot and the bleach-drenched tub this week, I thought about Sex and the City.  Specifically, the second movie version of the show.  And why it sucked.  And though I still contend that the major reason behind its critical and box-office failure is that they abandoned the city that gave the story its life, I also have a sneaking suspicion that not as many people want to watch these ladies live in another setting: Domesti-City.  Single girls running around at midnight in brightly-hued high heels are much more fun than moms baking cupcakes.  And I wonder if, for those of us who have turned the page on the wandering portion of our lives, the end of all our T.S. Eliot-style exploring will be to arrive where we started…and be bored as hell?

Then, still bent over that pot and that tub, I thought about all that has happened to get me to this point of stability, of doors without eviction notices and streets without drunk men accosting me.  And I realize that because of all the love spent on my behalf–on trees and in trenches and in front of oceans, repeating vows–I am unlike anyone else.  Just like you.  I am an atypical person living a typical life.  This primal desire to which I find myself connecting looks more like home-cooked meals than one-night stands, and I see the blessing in that, a peace untouched by the frantic furor of high heels on pavement and feminist movements.  I know that my truest self began to be unlocked on that city pavement but continues today, here.  I realize that the life I am living, even/especially the part of it with ladles and sponges, is an act of worship acknowledging a plan that is bigger than a five-year chapter.  And I wonder if, just maybe, there is more challenge to consistently finding God in soap bubbles than in the light reflecting off the Chrysler Building.  If there is a holiness in this new home beyond what I can imagine.

After all, it would serve me right.  He always has a way of showing up where I least expect him.