Tearing Up

I still haven't buried the top of the wedding cake. We were going to do it after our fifth anniversary, but we haven't yet. It's still here.

Nature is not on our side, it would seem. But Christians love stories of miraculous births, especially to couples who have basically given up hope because of their age. And Christians tell other Christian couples not to give up hope, maybe because even though it would be easier not to hope, but just to get on with life, there is something good about hope. It's a theological virtue, after all.

I am always amazed when women my age or older conceive a baby, and I am often tempted to assume the worst, i.e. IVF. After all, I once met an intelligent, devoutly Catholic woman who froze some embryos before giving birth to two and puzzling over what to do with the rest. The doctors had called and asked if she would donate them to science. I am not making this up. I wish I were. However, I was reminded today that a British Prime Minister's wife (and celebrated lawyer in her own right, etc.) conceived a baby "by accident" at the age of 45.

It's not something I think about all the time, which would certainly be unhealthy, and we always thought it was a long shot, as fertility takes a dive after thirty-five, and I married three years after that. But then I see news like this (not safe for little brothers) when I am checking for email, and I think of little else.

The baby boy is cute, and the men are happy and shirtless, and some anonymous woman is merely the provider of necessary genetic material, and the woman outside the photograph has reduced herself to a paid baby machine. I don't imagine there will be any photos of the baby unconsciously and naturally nuzzling for breast milk and crying in unconscious fear and disappointment, do you?

But the line that bothered me most in this article was this one, maybe because it hammered home the playacting and the strangeness of the whole affair more than anything else:

“Every pain that she had, they were crying along with her,” Foster said. “When she’d scream, they’d scream. I wanted to take a picture and hug them at the same time.”

Never in my life have I heard or been asked to imagine a man screaming along with his wife as she gave birth to their child. Nor have I heard of a farmer and vet mooing away as a cow calfed. What on earth was going through that woman's mind as she went through all that, two men screaming away by her bedside?

Family Branch

My mother has come over to Scotland on holiday, bringing a tin of homemade cookies, vegetable shortening, Tim Horton's coffee and my best red suit, which I fit into once again. Today she has a refresher driving lesson, so as to get the hang of driving on the left side of the road. This is a brilliant idea.

Yesterday we dressed in our best Ladies Who Lunch outfits and went to the Caledonian Hotel (officially now the Waldorf Astoria, as it is called by nobody in Edinburgh) for afternoon tea. My mother loves hotel teas. But it's not the tea or the food as much as the ambiance, really, that is so romantic to my mum. And "Peacock Alley" is certainly an impressively grand space. (I suppose it could be described as romantic, only this time I was there with my mother, and the one time B.A. and I sat there we were with Polish Pretend Son, and PPS looked like he was about to stab the tardy waiter with his pen knife, which is romantic only in songs.)

Tea, you should be warned, is 25 squid per person. But you do get some very yummy things: sandwiches with the crusts cut off, two kinds of scones with clotted cream and two kinds of jam, slices of chocolate jelly roll, several petites fours, and an extra plate of cookies and lemon loaf, plus multiple cups of your chosen tea. My mother and I munched our way through the plates of goodies discussing family news.

I had the vaguest sense of being a British colonist somewhere in Africa in the 1950s, hearing about home. Canada seemed very far away, and yet the snazzy afternoon tea ritual is as familiar to Canadian hotels as it is to Scottish ones. The King Edward in Toronto, for example, has an absolutely splendid tea and an equally grand hall to consume it in. And I asked eager questions of sisters, brothers, nephews and niece.

Peacock Alley was mostly populated by women, mostly slender, with excellent hair and expensive business suits. A few women had a man (and at one table a child) with them, but more often than not the tables were woman-only spaces. Afternoon Tea is a more feminine meal in Edinburgh than it is in Toronto--which I first discovered when Benedict Ambrose baulked at attending my own tea parties at home. I offer the idea of Afternoon Tea to single female readers as an excellent social activity for women, single and otherwise.

On Sunday night, B.A. and I went to the birthday dinner of a dear friend, and as usual we were the only married couple there. There were eight lifelong Singles and us--ten childless people. It was all great fun, with piano duets and singing in the sitting-room afterwards. And naturally I would have rather have been home with children because, whatever anyone says, the crown and fulfillment of married life is children.

I know that there are women with children who, being very bored and lonely, would have swapped places for me for an evening to go to a party with a lot of Single people and listen to piano duets. However, I also know that they would hasten home to their children feeling terribly glad that they had them.

Fortunately for me, one of my brothers and one of my sisters HAVE had children, so I don't have a totally "child-free" existence. I have three childish personalities to ponder, especially in the run-up to their birthdays and Christmas. And I look forward to the day when they are ready to be dumped on their Edinburgh uncle and aunt for a month in the summers while their parents see what a holiday from parenting is like.

When in Poland this year I talked about being married-but-childless, a lady asked "What about adoption?" "What about adoption" is a very painful question to the childless, particularly now that adoption is so expensive and wound with red tape. It is also wrought with bad feeling as Catholic parents lose battles to place their children with other Catholics, or even with a traditional married couple. Personally, I would have taken the Slovak Roma children in a heartbeat--although in the next heartbeat I would have remembered that I should have asked B.A. first.

I mentioned to highly politically-active friends that I would quite happily take in Christian Syrian refugee children, just as the British took in refugee children during and after the First and Second World Wars, and that I was rather surprised nobody has asked me to do this. This led my neighbour to decry the racism of the UK government and the fact that only 24 Syrian refugees have been allowed in--something like that. This confused me as Syrians are white and Christians are, er, Christians, so I don't know what racism has to do with it--other than that "race" is a highly social construct and changes from society to society.

And so this post, which begins with a delicious and expensive afternoon tea at a prestigious Edinburgh hotel. ends with the reminder that hundreds of thousands of fellow Christians are suffering horrible privations, massacres and homelessness. And I with my cash-poor but certainly circumstance-rich lifestyle am vaguely wondering why nobody has asked me to help take care of them. Oh, sure, I do get emails from a Catholic relief agency asking for money, but I don't have money: I have time, a love of hospitality and a desire to help fellow Christians. During the Second World War, I wouldn't have had to go looking for children to help; they would have been billeted on us already. What has changed?

Laetare Sterilis

It is Monday after the Laetare Sunday before, and oh but do I have a lot of dishes still to wash! But it was a lovely day, from the glorious rose vestments to the rose-coloured icing on the cakes. And right there in the readings was a command that childless women should rejoice:

Galatians 4:27 Scriptum est enim laetare sterilis quae non paris erumpe et exclama quae non parturis quia multi filii desertae magis quam eius quae habet virum. (For it is written: "Be glad, O barren woman, who bears no children; break forth and cry aloud, you who have no labor pains; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.")

Well, I have a husband, and this all probably applies more to nuns, and St. Paul probably meant it figuratively anyway, but I'll take it!

At lunch a young Polish guest, in Edinburgh just for the weekend, surveyed the rest of the dozen people around the pink tablecloth and remarked that none of us had children. And, indeed, I can see that this would look strange to Polish eyes, for Poland is a country that really loves children, and most Polish adults prefer to have them. We were of all ages ranging from 25 to 69.

I explained that everyone except BA and I were unmarried and BA and I had married too late for children. And I went on at great length about my parish friend currently away in Asia, who is married and had two children while attending our EF Mass. This was in part to prove that some people in our EF community actually do have babies. (And there are others, of course.) But I had to admit that this friend never comes to Sunday Lunch, and indeed socially the community is roughly divided between those who have children and those who don't. However, this is partly because families with children don't really have the time or the inclination to come to Sunday Lunch.

Here is where I should write something clever and poignant about the message of the Gospel being partly about the inclusion of those left without children or husbands or family ties into society, but poppets I am wiped. Lunch for 14 means a lot of work, and BA always snores after parties.

Mothering Sunday Thoughts

I have to think about Mother's Day twice a year because British Mothering Sunday is on the fourth Sunday of Lent and North American Mother's Day is the second Sunday in May. Mothering Sunday seems more low-key than North American Mother's Day, and in fact its historical roots do not wind around mothers but the practice of visiting one's "mother church" or Cathedral that day. Visiting ol' Mum and bringing her a nice treat (like a simnel cake) sprang up around that, and was revived in the 1920s.

I do not know if parish priests in the UK ever pull the "All mothers stand and be applauded" nonsense because I am always at the FSSP Mass on Laetare Sunday, and homey don't play that. I hope ordinary parish priests don't either. But if they do, I hope one day all British Catholic women over 25 get so sick of it that they ALL stand. John Paul II wrote that all women are called to be mothers, physical or spiritual, and so, really, clerics should not be making such a obvious distinction between biological mothers and all other women. Incidentally, I wonder how the bereaved mothers feel when the priest cheerfully "invites" them to stand. Or mothers with children in JAIL. Or mothers whose children have been taken from them by the courts or runaway husbands. Or women who have had miscarriages. Or women who are grieving ab*rti*ns. Mother's Day must be hard enough for them without tacked on cheer and clap-clap-clap.

Have I mentioned how much I hate it when pastorallytone-deaf silly people add all this made-up stuff to the liturgy? I have?!?!

I wouldn't mind a prayer for mothers at the end of Laetare Sunday Mass, if said over the entire kneeling congregation, especially if it mentioned all the horrors that attend maternity--the physical pains, the emotional pains, the social difficulties, the dread of what the world might do to their darlings, the anger at what the world has already done to their darlings, etc. No, what I principally object to is the mothers being invited to stand while the childless sit dumbly and are forced to applaud with everyone else their fecund (or richer, adoptive) sisters' gift of children. I do not at all blame these mothers. I blame the priests.

Poor old priests. I probably tell this story every year, but back in Toronto around 1997 or so, a priest gave a Mother's Day homily on the wonder of MOTHER. Ah, our Mothers, our sainted Mothers, ah to be sure, too-rah-loo-rah-loo-rah. After Mass, as he was talking to a male classmate of mine, a furious woman stormed up with tears in her eyes and told him that he didn't know anything about mothers and his homily was insultingly sentimental nonsense. On she raged, and the priest and my pal were petrified before her inexplicable female anger and I HOPE, although I don't know, that the priest said, "I am so sorry you are upset. Please come and talk to me in my office."

"My goodness," said my friend, who thought I would join him in marveling over this "crazy" woman, "if you can't preach a sermon on mothers, what CAN you preach about?"

Listen, chaps. Not only are women sensitive about whether or not we are mothers, we are also sensitive about our experience in being mothered. And an overfed priest rabbiting on about how proud his mother was the day he got ordained is not going to go down well with the generations of women who grew up playing second-fiddle to their brothers, or who found themselves horribly thrust in the position of rival for their father's/stepfather's attention. There are even mothers who will sacrifice their children--who will turn a blind eye to their daughters'/granddaughters' sexual abuse--for their own sex lives. Homilies on that would be great. Heavens! And wouldn't I love to hear an [X]-Canadian priest demand of [X]-Canadian women (for example) if they work their daughters too hard and pamper their sons too much. (Fill in the [X] however you like.)

Anyway. Mothering Sunday. When I don't think about it in detail, I feel more tranquil now about being childless that I have been since I married. The answer to "But does the pain of being childless ever go away?" is YES--at least in my case. Since the bitter heartbreak of the Insensitive Doctor's Phone Call, I have been feeling a lot better. The worst--and that was the worst--is over, and I can get on with my life. I am answering the question, "What would you do if you were reasonably sure you could never have children?" by praying, "God, You know I want children. Send me whichever children You think I should mother."

And lo! In the post yesterday, Mothering Sunday greetings from Seminarian Pretend Son to his "Canadian Pretend Mother"! Yay! My first authentic Pretend Mother's Day card! Such a good boy. He's in the seminary, you know.

So that is my advice to women, single or married, who terribly want children, but don't have them. Pray hard, not for children, but for whichever children God wants you to have. These could be natural children of the body, or they could be children of the spirit. They could be foster children, or they could be foreign students. They could be your own elementary school pupils. They could be, if you become a nun, your novices. (And what a shame so many orders have dropped the title of "Mother" from older nuns!) When it comes to motherhood, we need to think outside the box. If all women are called to be mothers, then motherhood is not just a biological reality, and motherhood is something more than giving birth. It is a many-splendoured gift from God to us all.

The Gift of Being the Oldest

Today I was on Skype with a faraway friend who has two little children under five, and I thought again about young stay-at-home mothers and how frustrating their lives can be. Even if they live in comfortable material circumstances, there is the difficulty of keeping the home nice long enough for their husbands to see it nice. After all, it takes small children five minutes to undo an hour-long cleaning job that in actual fact takes a mother with demanding infants all day to do. Then the tired and cranky husband comes home, sees the mess and thinks, "What have you been doing all day?"

I've read that it is actually easier to be a mother of four and more than a mother of two because a mother of four and more automatically recruits the elder children to help with childcare. My first word was "diaper" because I had helpfully brought one to my mother when she was changing my first brother. I was two.

Naturally I enjoyed the power that came along with being the eldest and in charge of making sure my brothers and sisters didn't fall down the stairs, or out of trees, or in front of cars. But nowadays I just enjoy the childcare knowledge that came from youthful experience; it means that I can empathize with mothers when they talk about the "terrible twos." My youngest sister, I can say with confidence, did not actually suffer from the "terrible twos." She was a wonderfully cheerful toddler.

What she did suffer from, as do most if not all babies, was waking up in the middle of the night from birth until about the age of two. She did not like this; it made her wail. The nursery was across the hall from my room; my parents' bedroom was downstairs. So I would get up and sing my infant sister back to sleep with the small store of appropriate songs I had learned at school. "Eidelweiss" was very helpful as were "Skye Boat Song" and "Too Rah Loo Rah Loo Rah." "Too Rah Loo Rah" is fake Irish Tin Pan Alley garbage, but it worked.

I thought it was tremendously noble and saintly of me to be the one to get up and rock the baby sister back to sleep although I very much enjoyed doing it. It was extremely good for my soul, too, to be dragged out of my habitual self-absorption to think solely of someone else for an hour. Meanwhile it is probably much easier for a child of thirteen to go without an hour of midnight sleep than a busy woman of thirty-seven anyway. And since it is increasingly unlikely as each day goes by that I shall ever have infant children of my own, I am supremely grateful that I was given the opportunity to care for my mother's in such a special way.

I don't think there can be anything better than rocking your very own children to sleep, but I was reflecting that there can't be anything worse than worrying about your child when she is sick or about to do something stupid or running around with bad friends or gaily going off to an alien religious service. Maternal types without children may not experience the great highs of parenthood, but we don't experience the horrible lows, either. We gets flashes of joy and flashes of fear, the former inspiring gratitude and the latter deep compassion for parents.

Providential!

Seraphic: Listen, O Lord. I am going a bit squirrelly here. I realize we are approaching Elizabeth-and-Zachariah territory, but I need a young thing in the house. I'm starting to wonder if bats make good pets. That's where I'm at. Do something.

God: Well, this is your lucky day, for it turns out I have another Polish student with a housing cris--.

Seraphic: Awesome! When can she move in?

With Married People With Kids

Well, I have been remiss in blogging, for I have been out and about, taking buses and trains to visit friends and family. I don't know how mommy bloggers do it, for if I had children, I don't think I'd be able to blog. As I was writing in my travel journal today, my three-year-old niece appeared in a pink leotard and tutu and began to dance. Well, who can write under such conditions?

I am a Baby Ballet slave. The Ballet Baby having, apropos of nothing, told me that "Jesus is very nice", I gave her a prayer card with Our Lady of Czestochowa on it. She ran away immediately to put it in a special box containing a miniature melon and a tiny lamb wearing a gingham dress. My heart melted, and my IQ dropped ten points.

Really, babies. A drug. Last week I was in a café designed for art-loving mummies and their babies--very much a place for Mommies who Lunch--and a little Korean-Canadian girl, about one and a half, pointed to me and squeaked, "Emu! Emu!"

"It means 'Aunt'," explained her mother, and I was blown away by the brilliance of this child.

"Yes, I am," I said. "I am an Auntie."

My heart melted, and my IQ dropped ten points.

Of course, in many cultures, an Auntie is any older woman who appears to be friendly with one's parents. This is true, in a moderate way, in English-speaking Canada, too. It's old-fashioned. I'm old-fashioned. And I love being an auntie.

One of the benefits of being an auntie is that it is usually part-time work, and I don't want to insult the small children of the world, but they seem to run their parents ragged. I don't know many mothers with little children in Scotland, so I am struck by how loving yet tired my Canadian friends with children are. Tired and sometimes frustrated. And lonely. The stay-at-home mummies are lonelier than the working mummies. The working mummies get to see other adults and have adult conversations. The stay-at-home mummies really depend on other women taking the time to cross town to see them, or to see them around children's activities. The mummy café on Toronto's Roncesvalles is not just a brilliant idea, it's a true service to the community.

Doting grandparents are extremely helpful. Occasionally grandparents take the kids away--and then some of the parents are vaguely uneasy. Suddenly they want to spend MORE time with their kids... I'm not sure I really understand parents-of-little-kids, really.

At any rate, from listening to stay-at-home mummies I have come to the not so original conclusion that the grass is always greener on the other side. Some stay-at-home mums really want to work, for the sake of money and companionship and their expensive(in time and effort as well as money) educations, but then they don't want to be away from their babies. Other stay-at-homes are fine with staying at home, but would love an extra pair of hands to help out with the endless cleaning. This married, childless aunt is in total thrall to any girl child between the ages of six months and five.

Meanwhile, once again, I find the best cure for the Childless Blues is to go home to Canada and see how the Childfull live. And the Childfull are flatteringly happy to see me. For one thing, I am good for two back-to-back storybook sessions. Last night I carted a wailing child away to a couch where I deposited her on cushions and read her the tale of "Madge the Tickling Midge." I had already read her and her brother "Darth Vader and Son", absolutely straight-faced.

Ah, it's good to be an aunt.

Astonishing Frankness about Time

Warning: Allusions to Natural Family Planning in this post, so modest Eavesdroppers shouldn't read it, and the rest of you Eavesdroppers are jerks.

So when Benedict Ambrose and I met and got engaged, I was 37. My mother conceived her last baby at 36, so I figured I was running out of time. We tried to get married as soon as we could, but my parish priest back home squeaked with horror, so we couldn't get married in March, as we wanted. We had to get married in May.

Now, I learned all about NFP when I was 19 and was as regular as clockwork from the age of 12 to the age of 37. That's, twenty-five years with serious dysmenorrhea, too. I used to lie on the floor next to a radiator with a scorching hot electric pad on my tum, complaining about it to Almighty God.

"You better give me children to make all this worthwhile," I said.

My point is, I definitely knew the signs of fertility when I saw them. And the last time I saw them on a normal, clockwork basis was that March. April, no. May, no.

So I should have gone to my friendly family doctor in April. By the end of May, I no longer had access to my friendly family doctor because now I was in take-a-number-IVF-is-free land instead. Despite her politics, I was comfortable with my Canadian family doctor, who still treats the rest of the family back home, but the idea of submitting myself to a gang of foreign pro-ab*rts scared me to death. When the first nurse I spoke to mentioned the baby I wanted to have and then swiftly corrected herself to say "fetus", I was so depressed, it was a long time before I went back. Why they bother asking us our religion when we sign up is a mystery. Maybe I should start adding "PRACTISING" or "FANATICAL" to forms.

The local bedside manner is such that when I called to make an appointment regarding the results of my fertility tests, the doctor gave me the bad news over the phone. And mentioned IVF again. And sounded pissed off after I told her my opposition to IVF was very difficult to explain as a Catholic in a Protestant/post-Protestant country. In Scotland, it is a big insult to suggest that someone is sectarian; the idea is that cultured Protestants/post-Protestants like Catholics, they just hate the Catholic Church. Meanwhile, for all I know, Doctor Sensitive was herself a Catholic, only pro-IVF and drugged to her eyeballs on the Pill.

That said, the last doctor I talked to was very nice and gave me what I wanted, which was a prescription for anti-depressants. Hello, pillbox, my old friend; I've come to talk to you again. Actually, I love these pills because I love balanced seratonin levels like I love Georgian architecture. Where was I?

Ah. Time. So the thing about not settling, is that sometimes not settling means not having babies. However--and this is very important--I do not regret it. I love my husband and our life in Scotland and the view outside my window and this beautiful blue 1960s formica table we got for only £25. I love our Extraordinary Form of the Mass community, and my Polish classes, and being so close to the delights of Continental Europe. I love the Historical House almost as much as B.A. does. I did not want just any baby--I wanted B.A.'s baby. And I keep hoping some dramatic teenager appears at the door, announcing in tragic tones that B.A. is his father, although B.A. assures me that this is not going to happen.

I am happy to ascribe blame for my too-early infertility on God or the nervous parish priest or the British medical establishment or myself, but the culprit is really Time. Bad Time. And I can in no way blame B.A., even if I wanted to, because B.A. married me as quickly as the Church allowed.

I would never recommend that anyone else marry in six or eight months after meeting. We are very happy together, but we are we, you know? If you are over 30 and seriously grown-up, getting engaged after six months sounds reasonable to me. If you are under 30, I'd say a year before engagement. If you are under 20, I'd say wait until college/trade school graduation. Meanwhile, we did not marry so fast just as a last chance to have a baby but to avoid serious sin and also because we were so crazy in love, we suffered so much from being apart.

So I do not understand why women spend so long waiting for their boyfriends to make up their minds to marry them. I really do not understand this. And I really do not understand this in women over thirty. Okay, I guess I do understand how hard it is to say to a man you deeply love, "Marry me or I'm gone", but I don't understand why the men, if they are not getting any sex, don't want to sleep with their girlfriends. In short, I don't understand why Catholic men do not marry their Catholic girlfriends within two years of dating.

Anyway, this is not really about me not being able to have a baby because nasty old Father Time tapped his watch. It is about other women not having babies because they are stuck on a man or on a series of men who simply will not marry them or, if they are living with a man, because he says that he is not ready for a baby and means it. If the woman stays with him so long that eventually she cannot have a baby, how could this situation not end in bitter resentment?

I will always say don't settle for the wrong man. You are never too old to get married. But, unfortunately, you will one day be too old to be a birth mother. I am, but the man I love most in the world is not at all to blame. That is a huge comfort.

Update: New post at Ignatius Press Novels! Subject: why Catholics need other Catholics to teach us to write.

Mean Girls

I found Polish Pretend Son in the sitting-room, eating full-fat Polish cheese for breakfast. He looked very much like my Polish Pretend Son, for he hadn't glued his hair down yet. We have a lot of hair in my family. If he eschewed the hair gel permanently, he could pass as one of us.

"Did you sleep well?" I asked.

"I slept okay," said Polish Pretend Son. "How did you sleep?"

Actually, I had just woken up from a terrible dream in which I had gotten out of bed and taken a bus to central Edinburgh to go the gym but changed my mind and went to a very expensive French patisserie instead. And just as I had changed my mind about buying almond croissants, I heard someone calling my name. So I looked, and lo, it was one of the Mean Girls from high school. The Mean Girls were rather less mean to me than to my friends, mind you. However, in my dream they made up for it in mid-life. Before I knew it I was surrounded by middle-aged Mean Girls, all slim, well-dressed and haughty, except for the one who was eight months pregnant. She was just well-dressed and haughty and needing to impress upon me how much more fabulous her life was than mine.

"We didn't like your book," said one of the non-pregnant Mean Girls.

"But I don't think anyone has it yet," I said to confuse her. It worked. She looked confused.

"Your Single book," she said. "I thought that part about that girl was stupid."

And they all murmured assent and looked at me avidly in that way girls look when another girl is being bullied.

"You can't bully me!" I cried. "I don't have to put up with this! I live in a seventeenth-century mansion!"

Of course, I don't own the mansion, and live in the attic, and it was built on so much by 1740 that it is rather more eighteenth-century than seventeenth, but I didn't think it necessary to mention this. Instead I fled the expensive French patisserie and its Mean Girl Tourists/High School Alumnae.

"I think you have already your blog post today," said Polish Pretend Son.


Update: Now I have put also Polish Pretend Son on the bus to catch his train for London. I'm reasonably sure this is an activity common to many real, Scottish, mothers, too. Look, look! I'm assimilating into Scottish society!

Imaginary Sons

I think somebody mentioned in the ever-lengthening series of comments in reply to "Do Mothers Have It All?" that the married childless can open their house to friends, or some such. That is quite true, if both married people are on board with this. Some married people think of their home as a fort, in which to barracade themselves with their spouse/hostage, who is made to watch really boring television from dinner to bed-time.

Fortunately B.A. and I agreed that--at least until we had children--part of our vocation as married people would be helping Single people. This means that B.A. is on board when he comes home to find slender young men drifting through his hallway, eating muffins prepared by his wife, who is cooking zealously in the kitchen while practicing Polish verbs. (The Single people we know tend to be Catholic, and Catholics in Edinburgh, particularly the ones having temporary housing crises, tend to be Poles.)

When I was a child, I thought it would be rather fun to be "Mrs Bhaer" aka Jo March from Little Women except that "Jo's boys" were nothing like the human piglets I knew. However, now I am grown up, and so are the temporary homeless Singles eating muffins, so it is indeed a bit like Jo's Boys minus the fulsome gratitude and German accent--except when B.A. imitates Adolf Hitler singing "Hooro My Nut Brown Maiden."

But when I was a child, I was used to there being a lot of people in the house, particularly younger people I was expected to keep an eye on, help with their shoes, etc., so it feels a bit odd to be alone in the Historical House with just one other person most of the time. So that is another reason to be happy when Singles and their suitcases land at my doorstep.

Today we get two Singles for the weekend, so I will soon break off and rush about making up beds and baking cookies for two imaginary sons, aged 25. In my set, we all act like we are the same age--an ever-youthful/sophisticated 33--so it is actually hard to imagine my imaginary sons as sons, especially when they are actually here. I always say "Oooh! It will be like having a son back from college," and then the imaginary son arrives and I am forced to reflect that even if I had had a baby at 16, there is no way he could have looked like that.

(Seraphic mulls various dimly remembered innocent high school boys with exotic names. "Miroslav...? No. Janek....? No. Tomislav....? No.")

I would love to put up photos of today's imaginary sons, but I already put up one of one of them as a Swashbuckling Protector, and none of you dashed north or across the sea to snaffle him, so he's going into the seminary. The other one has threatened to sue.

Friday Night

 "So do you go out in the evenings?" asked my pal, currently in Southeast Asia, over Skype.

She has kids, so there may have been wistfulness in that question, but the answer was basically "Ha, ha, ha!" because the vast majority of husbands, from what I've ever heard, including my mother's and my own, don't go out in the evenings. I don't think the vast majority of English-speaking husbands have gone out in the evenings since the invention of the radio. They come home and either turn on the TV or the computer, and you chat to them briefly over dinner, and then it's the TV or the computer again.

And I don't mind. That's what I grew up with. For me the revolution was figuring out I could go out in the evenings on my own, if I had a good reason, and so I go to Polish class. Why this was such a revolution is a question, though, since my mother has always gone out at night to her Catholic Women's League meetings. I guess, though, that Polish class lacks the CWL's gravitas. Nobody prays. And there are men. How very weird.

But as a matter of fact, B.A. and I did go out last night, to a dinner party. And it was a very good dinner party, involving sherry, red wine, dessert wine, port and song. I'm sorry I had the port (I usually don't) because it gave me the headache I woke up with this morning.

There were nine people at this party, and at least eight of them don't have any children, and the ninth has a mobility scooter, so if she does have children, they are certainly grown up by now.

I am sure the other partiers would all think this was an extraordinary thought to be having during the party, for we didn't talk about children at all. We talked about the new Archbishop of Edinburgh, and someone's trip to Berlin, and excitement at work, and the biography of an interesting person and someone's attempt to master reading German. But there was something about going to a godson's wedding, and something about thinking someone had a daughter when she meant something else entirely, and I thought, "How odd, how odd, to have the long chain of my ancestors stop here, with me."

Being someone who thinks deliberately sterile marriages are shocking and yet does not have any children is darned ironic. On the one hand, I champion the whole beautiful human project of men and women looking outside their families for a spouse and to graft new families onto the old. On the other, I haven't managed to make a new family to graft onto the old, and from an outsider's point of view, B.A. and I look like any other couple who would rather have a lot of fun and pursue our hobbies, etc., etc.

That's rather a drag, but there are heavier crosses to bear, that's for sure, and it is a great mercy that B.A. and I know so many other childless religious people. And I mention it to assuage any panic Single childless readers may be feeling about what on earth you are going to do if you don't have children. In my case, I carry on and make friends with people who share my childless circumstances and make the most of them. No doubt many of the younger ones will find spouses, have children and move on, but not all will (e.g. future priests), and the older ones are tough old birds who may well outlive me.

As a matter of fact, the long chain of my ancestors does not stop with me but has continued to three little people, more proof that one of the best presents your parents can give you is a brother or sister. The childless women I feel sorriest for are those who have no siblings or siblings not particularly interested in having children.

Still, I imagine that these are the childless women least likely to find themselves alone in huge, child-centred parties, where they are made to feel like sexless drones. The childless make excellent company for the childless, especially when we all agree that children are marvellous and we all, sometimes, sigh a little sigh.

The Sad Part Again

Some of you have mentioned this before: it's not the fear of never having a husband. It's the fear of  never having children.

That's a real, respectable fear.

But it's also a pre-Christian fear because after Pentecost, having children was no longer the be-all and end-all of a woman's existence. Christians began to seriously question whether or not marriage and reproduction should be anywhere as central to human life after the Incarnation as it had been before.

St. Augustine was among the theologians who argued for the goodness of Christian marriage, and the goodness of ongoing reproduction. However, at least one of his arguments was that Christian reproduction was great because it produced more Christian virgins. St. Augustine was in no doubt that the highest form of Christian life was a life of perpetual celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom.

Not a single early Christian theologian argued that Christian marriage was a great way to have as much sexual enjoyment as possible without catching a disease. Carnal enjoyment was just not  on the the theologians' list of priorities. On the contrary, they ordered men not to treat their wives like prostitutes. And, indeed, throughout the ages Christian men have accorded their wives respect just for being their wives and the mothers of their children. If the wives lost interest in sex (or the husbands were jerks), the husbands often found mistresses. Until the 20th century, they usually didn't just divorce their wives so they could give their mistresses promotions.

(No, men ought not to have mistresses. However, I think that may have been better than the current system of revolving door marriages. I'm working on this line of thought, and it is subject to correction.)

Marriage was primarily for children, and goodness but didn't Bishop LeFebvre throw a fit when it looked as though the Second Vatican Council was redefining marriage in a way that made children the number two priority and "unity" number one. And before the Council, Saint Edith Stein was much more interested in the motherhood aspect of marriage than she was in the "unitive" aspect. Indeed, if I remember this correctly, she thought the ideal relationship was that of mother and child, epitomized by the relationship of Our Lady and the Lord Jesus.

Saint Edith Stein did not have children herself, of course, although on her way to Auschwitz, she took care of similarly imprisoned children, washing them, and dressing them and combing their hair, for their real mothers were too terrorized to do it. (I always cry when I read that part.) Saint Edith Stein was one of the most accomplished woman thinkers of her generation, but when push came to shove, the most important thing she could do was care for and comfort other women's children.

I find that very comforting because, dear readers, a doctor just called me back with the results of my blood tests. To sum up and quote a Deepa Mehta film a the same time, "No eggs, madam."

And I turned down horrible Frankensteinian experimentation IVF yet again.

I don't trust a system that kills thousands of unborn human beings and mistreats quite a number of born ones, too, so I am most definitely going to be getting a second opinion. But at the same time, I am 42, so chances are that the second, third and fourth opinions are going to be identical to the first. And this means that, more than ever,  I will have to fight for the principle  of spiritual motherhood, not only for unmarried women, but for married women in my situation.

It's funny. The new "perfect" mother seems to be the Yummy Mummy. You know--the woman who has children and yet remains a sexy glamour queen. She looks like a fertility goddess, like Venus, surrounded by cherubs. And Venus is so sexy that she even has a somewhat wonky relationship with Cupid and gets tremendously envious of little Psyche. And thus Venus is completely antithetical to spiritual motherhood. Could anyone ever be a Yummy Spiritual Mummy? No.

I doubt it. And that makes me sad. There is something so awful about sterile sexuality, but on the other hand sexless motherhood seems awful too. It makes me feel like I'm a grandmother without ever having been a mother. I'm not ready to relate to men like a grandma yet. I don't want to be old. But an overattachment to youth, beauty, sexuality and all of that is not the Christian way, is it?  And we must stay rooted in reality, even when reality really hurts.

Update: A serious comfort: my own mother is still alive, so I could call her up.

Update 2: And B.A. has been great.

Kryptonite

Long-term readers know that I am scared of British doctors. However, I made myself speak to one two weeks ago. She understood right away when I said that IVF was out of the question, so I tried not to mind that she consistently used the word "fetus" instead of "baby" and mentioned "termination" twice.  There is a measles epidemic in Wales, the effects of which could be catastrophic to a "fetus" and she supposed I would consider a "termination" out of the question. Yes, I said. I would consider it out of the question.  So this means being checked for immunity to measles on top of everything else.

Anyway, since I have been declared clear of the yucky diseases all wannabe mums get tested for, the next step is blood tests. And this may sound very silly and wimpy, but I hate blood tests more than anything, even dental surgery. I am more frightened of being tied off like a junkie than I am of speaking in public, speaking in public in Polish, and sleeping overnight by myself on the floor of Stansted airport the night before speaking in public in Polish.   

I usually weep, which is not very nice for whoever has to do the job, and I am afraid that if I get hysterical, they won't do the blood test at all. And poor B.A. is in charge at work tomorrow afternoon, and his mother is in Dundee, and I don't want to fall apart in front of a friend or make a friend come all the way from central Edinburgh just to watch me freak out for ten minutes. Thus, I am going in alone.

I know. It's a First World problem. And maybe if I had concentrated less on my "career" and more on getting married and having kids, blah blah blah blah blah. But, actually, the older I get, the more likely it is I will have to give blood anyway. The sooner I get over this irrational phobia, the better. 

At this point, I think I need supernatural aid. Would readers remember to pray for me tomorrow at 2:20 PM (14:20) British Summer Time? This is 8:20 AM in Chicago and 9:20 AM in Boston and Toronto and 15:20 in Poland and Germany. That way when I am waiting in the hallway---and it is a nice hallway, really, newly painted white, with lots of natural light and fresh pinewood fittings--I can think of you who are already awake praying, and I will feel a lot better. I don't care if it hurts. (It will. My veins are small, and in the past they have always poked around trying to find a good one.) I just don't want to panic or cry. 

I am sure it would be helpful. Thank you in advance.

M-Day Notes

Spiritual mothers are mothers, too.

Ooh la la. I was scrolling through the internet wondering what I was going to write about today, and my eye fell upon a "Great Gifts for Mother's Day" headline. We've already had Mother's Day in the UK, but I know what lies before my single-never-had-kids readers in Canada and the USA (and Australia and New Zealand, as I just found out) tomorrow, so obviously I must write on the great M Day.

One of the problems with priests playing around with the Mass as if it were their very own Sunday school art project is that sometimes they add stuff that is liturgically and pastorally divisive and dumb. Dividing the women-with-kids from the women-without-kids by getting the women-with-kids to stand up and be applauded surprises and hurts many women-without-kids like a slap in the face. I mean, really, the next time that happens, have a look around at the faces of the women who are still seated. I don't mean the teenage girls, clapping for their mom with either sincere or pasted on smiles. I mean the women who go to Mass alone or with another Single woman or who just suddenly sag against their husbands in their pews.

This is not to say that mothers do not deserve our respect and honour. They very usually do, particularly from their own children, and the children's fathers, and from such teachers and coaches who find their children a delight to work with. Just by being mothers, they have done something important for the community, and I have no problem with the commercial, public recognition of Mother's Day. Let the flower shops and the restaurants and the card shops and the media and the state go nuts. Mothers do so much for their families, let their families give something back, I say.

But I think separating women-with-children from women-without-children at Mass in that very public yet intimate way is a bit too much like separating the sheep from the goats. Despite modern liturgists' impassioned attempts to rob any worshipper from quiet time to pray privately in silence or with any other emotion but social cheer, many of the Single women present will have dared to pray, on Mother's Day, about their own hope for children, or despair that they might not have any. It's not so great, after wiping away tears of longing after communion, to suddenly have to paste on a smile and clap for the women God has blessed with kids.

On Mother's Day, the childless need special sensitivity. I go to the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, so the newfangled "Hey, let's clap for the MOMS" ritual never occurs on our British Mothering Sunday. That did not prevent me from being a bit crabby and melancholy on Mothering Sunday anyway, especially when we launched into a hymn about Mary, Our Mother at the end, to which I did not know the words. However, just as I was feeling super-crabby, another childless woman (a Single one)  got out of her pew and came to my pew to share her hymn sheet with me. That was a very kind and motherly thing to do, which brings me to my next point.

Blessed John Paul II, strongly influenced by the writings of Saint Edith Stein (aka Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross), stated that all woman are called to be mothers. Some of us are called to be physical mothers, and others are called to be spiritual mothers. Some people read in this a married/religious dichotomy, but I think the truth is that all women are called to be motherly. Some of us are naturals at this, and some of us aren't, but we can learn.

And because all women are called to be mothers, Mother's Day should apply to all women. In fact, a super-lefty priest I once knew, whose theology was wonky but whose pastoral sensibilities were fantastic, used to call Mother's Day "Women's Day", and would direct the ushers to hand out flowers to every woman who walked into the church. Any American or Canadian priest who wants to do fun, creative, empowering, inclusive stuff at Mass tomorrow, take note.

It goes without saying that I think families should celebrate their mothers to the hilt on Mother's Day, either in the privacy of their own homes or in the limelight of a snazzy restaurant. Every childless Canadian or American woman whose mother is still alive and in the picture can alleviate feelings of exclusion by concentrating on her mother. If you love the woman and she's within a drive, go and see her. If you don't, or she isn't, send her flowers. What the hey. She gave birth to you, and last time I checked, the Fourth Commandment was still "Honour your father and your mother."

But you can do something else, too. You can honour the spiritual mothers in your life. You can send a present or former female mentor an email. You can do a little reading about your favourite female saints. You can pick a few flowers and make a special bouquet to place in front of your icon or statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. You can read Saint Edith Stein's Essays on Women. You can send faraway  nephews and nieces (if you have some) postcards, so that they (A) have the fun of getting something in the post and (B) remember your existence with fondness.

I have a fantasy that one day all women will stand when Father Creative-and-Inclusive asks the mothers to stand. All across the USA and Canada, from the Arctic Circle to Tijuana, from Newfoundland to Hawaii, every Catholic woman of child-bearing age, teenagers, Singles, wives, widows, nuns, virgins, ex-virgins, consecrated virgins, standing together in solidarity as mothers, physical and/or spiritual.

On the other hand, I can't stand it when people hijack the liturgy to make points. Better to write the priest a little note afterwards, saying that he made you cry (if he did) and to ask that next year he honour the gifts of the spiritual mothers, too (if he didn't this year). That'll larn 'im.  

My prayer for Mother's Day is that all the priests who decide to talk about mothers, talk about spiritual motherhood, too. Oh, and maybe to acknowledge the hurt of those terribly hurt by their own mothers, or by their own children. Honestly, a little bit of reference to the dark side of life won't shock anybody. There's a crucifix on the front wall.

Update: Thanks to B.S. for the Mother's Day present/donation. Much appreciated!

The Sad Part

I get so many emails from women in their early twenties worried that they will never get married that I find myself saying again and again, "You can become too old to be a mother, but you will never be too old to get married."

This is meant to be bracing and comforting, but it also reluctantly points to a harsh biological fact. You can become too old to be a mother, and so far there is no test to tell you exactly when that will be. And this can be very sad. It is certainly very sad for me, as I am in the not-sure zone between 35 and menopause.

There are young married couples out there who have infertility problems. And often they don't find out about these infertility problems until after they are married and months pass and the bride never gets pregnant. But infertility problems are more likely to happen the older a couple are when they get married. (Naturally I am talking about couples not using abstinence or contraceptive methods.)

I am thinking about this today because although I am absolutely terrified of the British medical system, I have just made another appointment to talk to a doctor. It has taken me almost two years to get up the courage again. Two years. And it's not like I am normally a coward. Last week I submitted a column on Margaret Thatcher that I knew would rile up readers who hated Thatcher. The week before I whacked a man with my handbag. I used to box. I'm learning Polish. I cook Polish food for Polish people. Ergo, not coward. But terrified of the British medical system all the same, not to mention the phrase "reproductive health", which most of the time has nothing to do with "reproductive health" but is merely a euphemism for ab*rtion.

At times like this, I really, really wish I were back in Ontario, whose medical system I am completely familiar with, or in a Catholic country, where I would not have to explain to one stranger after another in a semi-apologetic tone that I have deep ethical and  religious objections to various reproductive tests, technologies and practices. Or a city like Toronto or Dublin where there are lists of NFP practitioners as long as your arm.

My greatest regret is that I did not go to my own decent, familiar, Canadian family physician before I got married. I could have said "I want someone to look at my insides," and--without a mountain of paperwork and borderline offensive letters --someone would have looked at my insides. I could have said, "I want a test for this," and I would have been given a test for that, either on the spot or half an hour later downstairs in the lab. I could have said, "I'd like you to actually look at me while we're talking and spend more than five minutes with me before chucking me out of your office," but, actually, I never, ever had to say that. My family doctor was a "Hey, how are you! How's your mum doing?" kind of lady. I didn't realize that not all doctors are like her. And so I took her for granted and left Ontario serene in the misunderstanding that if I had any problems I could just consult a local Scottish doctor, and it would be completely the same.

Ah ha ha ha.

But, anyway, just like I have made myself lose ten pounds and made myself read the first chapter of Harry Potter in Polish, I have made myself call the clinic. Somethings we cannot control but with grace we can at least control ourselves. And we must all remember that although the expression "reproductive health" has been cheapened and basically ruined by the ab*rtion industry, we still should take seriously the concept of fertility care.

Update: Lest I look like I am poking unfairly at poor old Scotland, I will admit that the pure irrationality of my level of fear points to Migration Angst. Anyone who leaves their country (especially a richer one) to move to another country in mid-life is very fortunate indeed if they do not hit a wall of Migration Angst. Many Catholics are going to feel uncomfortable with doctors when it comes to reproductive/fertility issues, so when you throw migration into that--! And it's not like I can go to the Canadian Mass and meet other Canadians who can tell me where I can find a Canadian-speaking doctor.

Four Parties in a Row...

Goodness me. I found myself crawling into bed after 2:30 AM yet again. It's a Christmas Party Marathon. Christmas Eve. Christmas. Feast of St. Stephen. Feast of St. John. Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents, but I don't think B.A. and I are going to any parties. I'm going instead to my favourite cocktail bar for a Girl Drink.

Squinting back into the past, I am absolutely sure my parents did not go to many parties (or any cocktail bars), so I think all this partying--at least at my age--is an offshoot of being childless. (I'm mentioning childlessness again as it is something most of my Single readers and I still share and, indeed, something that you do risk if you wait past the age of 35 for The One--although how much worse if you marry The Zero at 25 and still don't have kids?)

Christmas is apparently a time of great gloom for many, so I think the best things anyone can do are to (A) plan ahead to ensure oneself and those under one's influence a happy, emotionally supported Christmas and (B) concentrate on what you have instead of on what you lack.

I have a lot of parties.

Not to be a Smug Scot, but parties are more fun here than they were in North America. I think this is because they have structure. The usual, North American stuff-everyone-in-the-same-room-and-pour-drink-into-them model just didn't work for me. What really work are dinner parties. Dinner parties involve a clear plan, easy rituals, procession, recession, a three part structure.

For example, dinner parties at the Historical House involve aperatifs in the sitting-room, then a procession to the dining-room for supper, and finally a recession back to the sitting-room, sometimes in two parts: if dinner conversation has been terrifically male-dominated, the ladies leave first, to be joined by the gentlemen when they have finally grown tired of what it was they were talking about and are curious to know what the ladies are talking about. Otherwise, we all leave for the sitting-room together.

Personally, I like to end a dinner party with a film, which breaks up the very long after-dinner drink fest, and adds something to think about.

Another wonderful after-dinner activity is to sing around the piano. There was singing around the piano after a dinner party I went to yesterday, and as we sang Christmas carols, this was particularly enjoyable, for us, if not for the neighbours.

I hasten to mention that life in North America and, indeed, Single Life, is perfectly suited to dinner parties. I had occasional dinner parties when I was in my early and mid-twenties, living with Mum and Dad: all I had to do to secure permission was say, "May I have a dinner party, Mum and Dad?" and make sure dining-room and kitchen were left cleaner than I found them. These dinner parties started at a later hour (say 8), which gave my family a chance to eat their own dinner.

As I had a large family, family dinners were arguably dinner parties in themselves. And this in itself is an incentive to those, like me, who grew up with a lot of people and now find themselves living with only one or two. It's a return to the normal life of childhood, with a lot more drink.

Update: The research on gender differences in conversation is incredibly interesting. The more women there are in a group, the more comfortable women feel speaking, apparently, and one Harvard study revealed that women students at Harvard were more likely to speak up in class if their lecturer was a woman.

What this suggests to me is that at work and school, women should do our best to assert ourselves in conversations and classroom discussions, but in private life to take more of a conversational back seat and become famous good listeners. It strikes me that the centuries-old libel that women talk too much is bandied about by some of the men who want to talk even more than they do and feel frustrated and hurt when they don't feel sufficiently listened to. Bless their little hearts.

Incidentally, we already know how useless it is to talk to 90% of the men of the world about their feelings, right? Just remember this is not because they don't have any; it's just that male feelings are not that connected to male knowledge and male speech, especially when the males are young.

Non-Reader: But how do you FEEL?

Honest Young Male: I don't know.

Non-Reader: What do you mean you don't know? How can you not know?

Honest Young Male: I don't know.

Non-Reader: But that's crazy! Meanwhile I NEED to KNOW how you FEEL!!!

Honest Young Male (extremely uncomfortable): I'm leaving.

Very often, the least helpful way to figure out how young men feel is to ask them.* It's a better idea to pay attention to both their body language and then what they do. I remember one young man getting dead drunk at a wedding while punching his male pals boisterously and glaring at the pretty girls and yelling "I'll never put my head in a noose!" Dear, dear, dear. What a lonely soul.

*I suspect this is much more true in dating relationships than in friendships. Although men are usually reluctant to tell you exactly how they feel about you, they often have no problem telling you how they feel about other girls, at least if they have no reason to believe you will get mad at them for it.

Super-Trad (if Childless) Christmas

My electronic spy tells me that someone in the South of England who ought to be in the Central Belt of Scotland keeps checking my blog, so I suspect at least one person wants to know how Christmas is going for the Trids of Edinburgh, particularly the ones who drink gin and think about socks. So I shall write an account of a Super-Trad Young Fogey Trid Edinburgh Christmas.

Super-Trid Young Fogey Edinburgh Christmas at the Historical House began shortly after five on Christmas Eve when the first guest arrived for Wigilia supper. Wiglia is the Polish word for Vigil, and the Poles eat their big Christmas supper during this Vigil, before going to Midnight Mass. But as Advent used to be a fasting time, this is traditionally a meatless meal, featuring a lot of fish and pierogi.

The reason for this Historical House Wigilia supper was two-fold. First, most of our Single friends had somewhere else to eat on Christmas Day, so we tried to tempt them over for Christmas Eve instead. Second, I had a version of my usual conversation with the Lord of History, which went metaphorically like this:

Seraphic: Dear me, Christmas just around the corner. How nice it would be if You sent me a baby, Lord, hint hint.

Lord of History: Now that you mention it, I have a Polish student in his mid-twenties who needs somewhere to eat Christmas Eve Dinner, as his family is abroad and he won't be able to get a visa in time to join them.

Seraphic: That's sort of so not what I meant.

Lord of History: How sad to be Polish and alone in a foreign land on Christmas Eve. It's going to rain, too.

Seraphic: Okay, okay. What do Poles eat for Christmas?

Lord of History: A twelve course meatless meal.

Seraphic: What!?

Lord of History: Involving a lot of herring.

Seraphic: What!?

Lord of History: Plan ahead.

So I made a twelve course meatless mostly-Polish meal* for Christmas Eve, and great fun it was, too. As our table wasn't big enough to accommodate the diners, the traditional place setting for the potential stranger who arrives out of the night, and twelve dishes, I put the dishes out on a side table, and it all looked very impressive, and I was quite pleased with my uber-feminine cooking self.

(B.A., I should mention, made the salmon and rolled some of the pierogi dough. I discovered, at 4:45 PM, that I no longer had enough energy to roll pierogi dough. Thanks to the reader who suggested that at such times men ought to be allowed in the kitchen. Good call!)

So let me see. We had the reading from the Gospel of Luke instead of grace, and we ate an astonishing variety of things, including (of course) herring in two guises, and at ten an invited guest who had had too bad a cold to come to supper came with a hired van to whisk us away to Midnight Mass. First, however, I made her eat a little salmon and some barszcz, which is the correct spelling of borscht from a Polish point of view.

So off we went to Midnight Mass, where 44 Trids gathered to celebrate Baby Jesus and, amusingly, indulge for once in the Three Hymn Sandwich: a`British hymn I didn't know for the Procession to the Crib, "Adestes Fideles" during the Offertory, and "Hark the Herald" after the Recession. The servers were the Grizzled MC and the Marooned Polish Student as Thurifer (and Cross-bearer), as a reader in the South of England will be keenly interested to know. The candles were many and the vestments were gold.

By then the rain had stopped, and it was a clear, fine, mild moonlit night, such as Edinburgh had not known the last three Christmas Eves, believe me. The Trids therefore stood about cheerfully in the car park afterwards, exchanging Christmas greetings and mostly turning down pulls from the Marooned Polish Student's whisky flask. And then the Men's Schola and its Ladies' Auxiliary climbed into the van and were whisked away.

The McAmbroses arrived back at the Historical House at 2 AM, which gave me enough time to take the dough rising in the fridge out of the fridge and transform it into embryonic Traditional Christmas Chelsea Bun, leaving it in its baking tin to rise overnight. For such is the way of the Women of My Family. I went to bed at 3:30 AM, and got up at 9 AM to bake the precious thing. It turned out perfectly, i.e. exactly like my mother's. I had passed my own standard of Women of My Family Femininity, and therefore my superego acknowledged that I had the right to a happy Christmas.

The van returned on Christmas Morning for B.A., but I had no time for such pleasures as Christmas III Mass (Christmas II having been said at 9:30 to a congregation of one). No, no. For now it was time to wash the remaining dishes from Christmas I Supper and Christmas II Breakfast (the Bun), and to make Christmas III Supper. Perhaps if women understood that making three traditional Christmas meals in a row is in itself a kind of priesthood, we would not have so many unhappy Catholic women with bad haircuts rushing off to the Anglicans or excommunicated weirdos for a curious ritual they call ordination.

B.A. skipped the after Mass festivities to come home and labour over the turkey, the gravy and the potatoes. B.A. is a master roaster. No matter what else I do, I leave the cooking of meat and the roasting potatoes to him, for lo, he always gets them right. Instead I made the Traditional Christmas Trifle, the Traditional Christmas Vegetable Soup, the Traditional Christmas Curried Carrots and the Traditional Christmas Green Beans with Red Pepper and Toasted Almonds. Then I got dressed for dinner while B.A. entertained the Guests (Clerical and Polish) in the sitting-room with champagne and the sacred Bun.

Then there was great feasting and drinking and offering of the seven different kinds of desserts I seem to have made for my family of two (literally seven**) and a great deal of after-dinner conversation, into which I popped in and out, on account of having many dishes to wash.

Seraphic: St. Monica used to have trouble with that. As a child, she would steal sips of wine.

Cleric: Really?

Seraphic: Oh yes. St. Augustine wrote about her childhood sins as well as his own. You know, though, St. Monica was not just the weeping mother of the Confessions. In a lesser known work St. Augustine presented her as a great Christian Intellectual.

Assembled Trid Men: Oh? Ah. Mm.

Benedict Ambrose: Apparently it was her prayers that led to St. Augustine's conversion.

Seraphic: Yes, but that's the weeping mother in the Confessions, so that's not my point. My point is. My point. My point is that St. Monica was also a GREAT CHRISTIAN INTELLECTUAL!

Marooned Pole: Have more wine.

Seraphic: No, I'm going to wash more dishes.

And more dishes were washed, and more wine was drunk, and the clerical guest went home at a very prudent hour--about 9:30, gracious--and then the vodka came out. So there was vodka, and Belgian chocolates, and--oddly--the watching of a Polish film called Rejs (1970), and so ended the First Day of Christmas.



*Kutia, kompot, barszcz cierwony, uszka, śledzie w oleju, śledzie w śmietanie, pierogi ruskie, pierogi z grzybami i kapusta, łosoś, carrot-orange salad, kompot owece, makowiec. Wesołych Świąt!

**Christmas fruitcake, florentines, makowiec (poppy seed roll), kutia (wheat berry pudding), kompot (cooked dried fruit with honey), trifle, and Chelsea bun. There were also mince pies, brought by a guest.

(Relatively) Alone at Christmas

I am not sure how much "count your blessings" advice Singles can take at Christmas time. As I recall, Christmas is a lonely time of year to be Single. It is also a lonely time of year to be apart from your family, if you are an expat like me, but if you are a happily married expat, you can't really complain too much.

I definitely cannot complain too much because I keep thinking about all those families in Connecticut facing a first Christmas without those little children who were so looking forward to it (and, of course, the families of the murdered teachers). Sometimes I am sad that I have no children, but then something like what happened happens, and I think, nothing can be that sad. Yes, I am sure the families are grateful that they had their little ones for six or seven years, but... Eeek. I don't want to think about it anymore.

There is no such thing as a perfect Christmas. I wonder if we don't get the longing for a perfect Christmas confused with our longing for that truly perfect and everlasting Christmas we hopefully will one day see. As for romantic Christmases, I come from a big family so I have never associated Christmas with boy-girl romance but with family.

Before I got married to B.A., at Christmas I put being home to family above everything and everybody, except the Infant Jesus at Mass. Then I would walk miles to get to Midnight Mass and then miles more to be with my family on Christmas Day. I know this for sure because I have indeed walked at least one mile in the freezing cold dark night from a train station to get to Midnight Mass and then one and half miles from the subway station to get home to my family.

My first married Christmas, the only family around was B.A., and how I cried, poor man.

My second married Christmas, my parents and one brother and one sister came, so I was very happy.

My third married Christmas, the other sister and her son came, so I was again very happy, although more tired, as my mother wasn't there to do the toughest cooking jobs.

This married Christmas, my family isn't coming, and B.A. and I couldn't afford to go to Canada, so we are having Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinners, having collected as many Single friends as have not got other Christmases to go to. This is not for them as much as it is for me, as the idea of Romantic Couple Christmas--me, B.A. and a chicken--is shockingly pagan to me. Valentine's Day is for couples. Christmas is for family, or if you haven't got any family, friends.

However, I am sympathetic to those Singles who watch romantic comedies set around Christmas time and think they are really missing something if they can't go mittened hand in gloved hand with a man to the local Christmas market and drink hot apple cider together. B.A. said he always felt cranky when he could not do Christmas market-y stuff hand-in-hand with somebody. Amusingly, although we have been to the Edinburgh Christmas market with family twice, we have never gone by ourselves. This hand-in-hand thing with mittens, gloves, snowflakes and apple cider never really happens, which is okay, since life is much richer and more joyful than anything Hollywood can come up with.

My Readers

Well, poppets, what a fuss yesterday. The last time my traffic bounced like that it was on account of Mark Shea, who was so charmed by little me that he thought someone ought to marry me pronto. From this it is clear that Mark was not a daily reader, but I was delighted all the same.

Yesterday was not like that. Yesterday a blogger used my blog and--I might add--my thoughts as an excuse to sound off on What Catholic Girls Should Expect From Us Catholic He-Men and, to add insult to injury, revealed--clumsily, without malice--that he thought my readers were risible.

A bull in the china shop of the heart, perhaps?

The silver lining is that some Single women must have found my blog through his link and that they will find interesting things to read here and also the fellowship of my readers.

I blog here at least five times a week, and am not paid a dime to do it. Once in a blue moon, I put up a tip jar. And I've stopped counting how many emails I've received asking for advice. I'm sure it's over 100, but not how much over 100. In the past, I did not have an honorarium for speaking engagements, but just let whoever invited me give me what they thought fair. (Thanks to the contemporary realities of writing life, and my looming old age, I've changed my thinking on this.)

Meanwhile, I'm never, ever going to get signed on as a staff writer by a big Catholic Singles site because they deal in Catholic dating websites and, poppets, you know what I think about that. If it weren't for B.A., I would be the proverbial starving writer. (Of course, if it weren't for moving to super-secular Scotland, I'd probably have a great job in Catholic publishing, but let's not go there.)

In my six years of writing about the Single life, I've been married for three. So why do I blog on the Single Life?

Answer: You.

It's hard to say for sure, but I think I have a core readership of 200-250. These are the girls and the two or three guys who read every day or almost every day.

My elementary school had 250 students, so it's a staggering thought.

Meanwhile, I can't keep you girls straight because I get so many letters and so many comments and since you write to me of such personal stuff, I've trained myself to forget who says what.

But I do remember that somebody American said that she and her roommate start their day by reading my blog out loud. And since the majority of my readers are in the USA, I try to have my article done by the time the East Coast wakes up.

Writers love to write, but we also love being read. And what I love about blogging is that I get almost immediate feedback from readers. And what readers!

You're doctors. You're surgeons. You're scientists. You're professors. You're grad students. You're poets. You're professional singers. You're lawyers. You're soldiers. You're homeschoolers. You're high schoolers. You're engineers. You're mothers. You're teachers. You're lay ministers. You're PR pros. One of you may be an astronaut. One of you is a top mathematician.

You work in publishing. You work in laboratories. You work in studios. You work in schools. You work in sales. You work at home.

You're in the USA, most of you, but you're also in Canada, in the UK, in Poland, in Germany, in Australia, in New Zealand, in France, in South Africa, in Russia, in Asia, in the Caribbean.

Apparently most of you are in your twenties. Most of you are Roman Catholics, but some of you are Anglicans and Protestants and East Orthodox, and if Jenny from my town is still reading, at least one of you is a Jew. (And at least one is a Catholic Jew when Dawn Eden comes by.)

You're mostly women, Single women. And from your emails and your comments,I know you're pretty darn bright. And it is because of your emails and your comments that I am still writing this blog.

Incidentally, my blog readers have done more to promote my books than anyone else with the possible exception of the team at Homo Dei. The invitations to speak in the UK and the USA? The opportunity to lecture at the Edith Stein conference? Readers. You girls.

I met my husband because readers alerted him to my existence. The reader who set off the astonishing chain reaction of our romance is now a cloistered nun

I'm not Single anymore, but I am still childless, which is sometimes a burden, to be honest, since I seem to have grown into a motherly type, very interested in younger people, especially if you are bright. And somewhere along the I-93, the wheels of my shiny academic career fell off, so I don't have students either. What I have are readers, and you are such a gift to me. You, Science Girl, and you, Med School Girl, and you Charming Disarray, and theobromophile, and Nzie, and Aussie Girl in New Zealand, and Urszula, and Tess, and the girl whose email I answered when I got up this morning.

It's very humbling, actually.

Aw, shoot. Crying. It's Tess's fault for being so sweet.

And it's also the fault of that young woman from Warsaw. During the Krakow conference, there was a session where I was booked to hear women's concerns and to give Auntish advice. This young woman from Warsaw came in, wreathed in smiles. She didn't have a concern. She just wanted to say thank you and that she and other Single women in Warsaw had created a support group called the Anielskie Singles.

Trying to remain rooted in reality here. For after all, this is blogging. Blogging is somewhat removed from the real, physical world, and you can't know a whole person just over the net, as I've said a hundred times. But you can know something, and one thing that I've noticed is that my readers sound a lot like themselves in person. Berenike, for example. Benedict Ambrose.

So I feel like I know my regular readers, just from your comments and your emails over the years, and I think you're fantastic. Sure, you make mistakes. Sure, you commit sins. Sure, you lose it on men-in-general and wallow a bit in vinegar. But you're sorry, and you pick yourselves up, and you trust in God, and you keep going.

I'm crying again. The eavesdroppers are rolling their eyes at such girliness. Well, I am a girl, so they can go boil their heads (bless their little hearts).

Anyway, that's why I lost it a bit on Ryan yesterday.

Thanks, girls, for everything.

Babies, Lack Thereof

Well, my little Single poppets, if there is one thing most of you and I have in common it is the lack of the patter of little feet in the home.

The pattering stage is not my favourite, though. My favourite baby stage is when they are crawling. When they are really tiny and still kind of purple and their eyes are not focused and there's some mysterious crushable place on their poor tiny heads, I'm a bit terrified of their helplessness.

And then when they put on some fat and develop neck muscles so they can hold up their own heads but mostly just lie there, they're a bit dull. But when they begin to roll around and figure out crawling, then they get exciting.

It can be heartrending watching a poor baby desperately trying to crawl towards some toy and not quite making it. I am terribly tempted just to get them the toy, especially if they cry with frustration. However, I think it is better to encourage them to try again. And when babies do manage mobility, they seem absolutely delighted with their new powers. Usually they crawl backwards at first. Then they figure out how to crawl forwards. Then they crawl speedily everywhere, and anxious adults have to comb the carpet for the tiny objects babies long to swallow.

I very much enjoy visiting crawling babies because then I can get down on the floor and crawl around myself. Life after 18 months can be a drag, so it is great just to get down there and crawl again. Babies have a lot of cool toys, too. Two of the parish babies (now, alas, abroad) had an amazing spinning top of which I could never get enough.

Sometimes, though, after playing with babies--although not right after, usually not until the next Sunday Mass--I wonder where my baby is. How come I don't have a baby? What's wrong with me? How come I wasn't chosen to be a baby mother? I'm a nice lady. And I don't smoke crack or shoot heroin. I'm even married. So what is the deal, Lord? I don't see why I shouldn't have a nice baby that I can take home and keep.

This, however, is a dangerous line of thought and leads to crying in the choir stalls and possibly the altar servers wondering why. ("Maybe he beats her.") It is better just to think about the babies who exist already and how cute they are. Fortunately, there are always new babies. People are always having new babies. Unless they are, of course, me.

I would love to tell you what a comfort the medical establishment is at such a time, but I cannot. And unfortunately this is where culture shock and the British brand of socialized medicine and political correctness all play a part. When I finally did have the courage to talk to a doctor, I was handed a scary looking kit and told to test myself for a Horrible Social Disease of which I have no symptoms except, apparently, childlessness. So I went home and did nothing. Of all the things you can say to a childless woman, "Hey, go home and test yourself for syphilis" has got to be among the worst.

The result has been petrified inertia. I wrote "Roman Catholic" on my registration form, but God only knows why they asked, because certainly no-one at the medical centre seems to have taken on board that there are some issues around reproduction that Roman Catholics are very sensitive about, especially if we ourselves did not go to medical school. Never has my Torono family doctor--Lutheran, mind you, pro-choice but perfectly aware I'm not--seemed so far. And nobody mention Naprotechnology or I will have a stroke. This isn't Ireland. All anyone here can think about is IVF.

And nobody mention adoption either. Thousands of Scottish babies, or, as the NHS nurse who was extolling folic acid to Catholic me corrected herself, fetuses die from violence every year.

Any nobody cry for me. I have two nephews and a niece. There are babies in my immediate social circle. Other friends in my social circle are very likely to have babies themselves. I am not totally deprived here. I'm just feeling cranky.

Update: And now for something complete different: my random scrapbook of Polish stuff.