3 Years Ago...

I was single. I was the co-chair of a church Activities Committee. I was living in a house in Lake Oswego on Seville Street with my three goddess roommates. I was a paralegal. My life was more or less consumed with dancing salsa and swing. My superpsychojealousfreak boyfriend didn't like me to go dancing. Bless his heart, he tried to manage even though I would usually bail on him Friday nights about 10:30 or 11:00 to hit the dance floor (that part, I understand. It's the other stuff was nutty). Among other things, he also forbade me to talk too much to certain people. One person in particular, actually. There was this one guy at church who went to law school with one of Boyfriend's buddies, and Boyfriend thought that if I talked to Law-School-Guy that Buddy might hear about it and Boyfriend might be embarrassed or something. I don't know, I never quite followed the logic, but I tried to respect his feelings about it. Thing was, I happened to really like the guy he didn't want me talking to. Not in a sexual-attraction kind of way, but just in a he's-really-cool-I-like-talking-to-him kind of a way. Three years ago I remember talking to him and another guy briefly in the hallway one Sunday.

Anyway, Boyfriend and I broke up shortly (duh), and a few months later I did, in fact, become better friends with Law-School-Guy. We had lots in common. Our minds thought similarly, and he was fun to talk to. Our friendship steeped slowly, and became more and more intense as the next several months wore on.

I think it's so funny to imagine, now, what would have gone through my head then if I had known the future. What if I could go back and say to myself, "Hey self! By the way, three years from now you will be pregnant with Law-School-Guy's child. You will be living in a great old house in WestSlope with a beautiful backyard. You're working on remodeling your kitchen. Today the two of you picked out a light fixture and then raked leaves together off your front lawn. You have a kitten, and Law-School-Guy always cleans the litter box so you don't have to. He loves you and cares for you like you never imagined anyone would. And you love him in a way you never thought possible. And you're happy. And it's all with THIS guy! This one you just chatted with in the hall for 2 minutes. The one who can't laugh because of a scab on his lip from a basketball accident this week, which will become a scar, which will become one of your favorite features about him. And right now in the three years' future he's playing the piano in your living room with a fire burning and baby in your tummy and a cat sleeping at your feet."

HA! Would I have believed myself? I would surely have gawked and been shocked. The real question is.... would I have been happy to know that? I mean, there's a reason you don't know the future. If I knew I was going to marry Jared in advance, would we have had the magical and suspenseful union that we did, that created the spark, that made it all possible? Without uncertainty, would I have had the humility and ambition to love him? I'm not sure. And for all the frustration involved in not knowing the future, it sure seems it would have taken the fun out of it. I love Our Story. It's so full of each of us thinking various things and accidentally falling in love and not knowing what was going on. It's funny and suspenseful and torturous in a chick-flick kinda way. Without all that, what would it be like?

I'm glad we only live in one moment in time, and that we can only see one direction from there (backward). Whatever benefits knowing the future has to offer, they must certainly be outweighed by the adventure of finding your way.

And so I'm also glad, I guess, not to know what this child will bring to my life. It gives me the room to dream and hope and imagine things that may or may not ever be. It leaves room for surprises. And it spares me the pain, from this end at least, of many things that will inevitably come to pass, because those things are known only from the other side of time. And hopefully they are easily forgotten, just as the torment and sorrow and loneliness of so many lost loves has paled and softened with with time and with Jared and with my selective memory. And the joy and excitement and fun of the adventures is only magnified with each passing day, as events' significance is added to by their rippling and repeating effect over time. One special moment can remain just that and be forgotten. Or it can become a fond memory, a moment of enlightenment, a step forward, a tradition, a new beginning, a shared understanding, something that pops its head into the present over and over and adds to itself. Like that chat in the hallway that day. I can't think of it without smiling, remembering the brief and seemingly meaningless connection, which eventually contributed to the blossoming of the most beautiful and powerful thing I know: Us.

Things You Do Not Say to Your Pregnant Wife

Which of the following is not an appropriate response to your pregnant wife's suggestion of "cuddling":

a) Why, yes, Honey. I'd love to cuddle with you.
b) In fact, why don't you come lie over here, and I'll massage your feet.
c) You have never been so beautiful as you are now. Can you sit closer to me so I can see and feel you better?
d) We can't cuddle on the couch. There's not room for both of us because you are like a Baluga Whale.

I've got money says any other reasonable human being who reads this blog will easily pick out the (in)appropriate answer.

Oh well, though. He made me laugh, which is sometimes the best thing to do of all.

Published!

A piece of mine has been published in a real magazine! Hurrah! Sunstone Magazine's September 2006 issue includes a short memoir of mine in its "Touchstones" section (theme: Small Miracles). You can't see the text online, so I've pasted it below for those who don't have access to the magazine:

SMALL MIRACLES
by Skye Pixton Engstrom

When I was a little girl, my brother gave me two quarters so that I could use them to buy cotton candy at the fair the next day. I lived on a practical farm, and had never had cotton candy before (nor did it seem the type of thing my whole-grain mother was likely to buy me). I cherished those quarters with my stubby little four-year-old hands and heart in great anticipation.

It wasn’t long, of course, before I misplaced them, and was completely beside myself about it. I remembered a recent Primary lesson, that if I prayed in a private place, God would answer me. I went to the privatest place I knew – the small bathroom – and uttered my first little heartfelt prayer kneeling over the toilet.

After praying, I got up and wandered about wondering how God would tell me where the quarters were (my teacher hadn’t gotten to the part about how prayers are answered, and I didn’t know). Mind and heart open, within minutes I got a picture in my head, clear as day, of the quarters lying under the pillow on my bed. I went directly to the bed and looked under the pillow and, behold! Quarters.

I realize that it would be easy to explain away the spiritual significance of that event: I mean, maybe I just needed some focus and time to remember where I had put them. And it would be easy to think that I self-manufactured the idea that God had answered me, simply because I wanted it so bad. But almost all of my “spiritual experiences” to date are similarly simple: a feeling of peace, quiet assurances, wind at the right moment on a mountaintop, a bird stopping by for a significant moment – things that are unmiraculous and known only to me. Does my wanting the experience somehow create and therefore invalidate it? Our commonly used definition of faith (“things hoped for but not seen”) inherently implies, by the word “hope,” an actual desire, not just willingness. So the very ingredients of faith make it easy to dismiss.

I don’t remember the cotton candy I bought with the quarters anymore, nor do I remember the fair. But I have never forgotten my first answer to my first prayer. And while sometimes I think it’s a silly story – why would God answer such a trivial and insignificant request? – I also realize that the desires of our hearts, however simple, are of great interest to God. He lost nothing by reaching out to a four-year-old girl, in a four-year-old mindset, with four-year-old desires. He gained a lifelong friend in me. -|||-


A Story and a Brief Thanks: about 3 or 4 years ago Emily, Lumina, Michelle and I wrote "titles" on paper and stuck them on our bedroom doors. You know, like whatever you might put under your name on a business card: "Skye Pixton: songwriter, paralegal, salsa dancer," etc... I think we each boldly put at least one thing that we weren't really qualified to put there, but wished we were and hoped someday maybe we would be. I put "writer." And that month I started experimenting with writing occasional memoirs. I'm pretty sure every one of us has accomplished our title we weren't qualified for by now. Emily has a CD. Lumina is an art teacher. I can't say I know a ton about Michelle's doings at the moment, but I know we've all changed and grown and progressed in ways we probably thought nearly impossible at the time. Thanks, girls, for encouraging me!

Hawaii Sunset

Originally uploaded by skyepixie.

Our first evening in Hawaii last week. To see more pics, click the link.

I Have Sunburned my Bellybutton

Seriously. At 6 months pregnant, I have developed somewhat of an “outtie” . It’s not outrageously out yet, and it depends on how I’m sitting or standing and what time of day it is. And thus, it would never occur to me to put sunblock on my bellybutton. My sunblock application techniques, developed over the last couple of decades, involves rubbing lotion in a circular motion around my tummy, never paying heed to the little hole in the center which has not seen the sun in as many years.

It was a shock, seeing my bellybutton again for the first time. I remember the day I looked in the mirror and could see into my bellybutton hole and the light from the lamp was actually shining on the crumpled bit of skin at the back. "Holy cow," I thought. Before then, I’d always had to reach in and stretch it or poke q-tips in there in order to ascertain what was going on. Suddenly one day I could just SEE it.

And NOW that little soft fleshy piece of crumpled skin is beginning to turn inside out and poke out sometimes. Apparently when I’m on the beach it pokes out, because I have an excruciating sunburn on the tip of it. Remember: this piece of my body hasn’t seen the sun in a score or so. And then I went and thrust it into the tropical Hawaii sun as if it’s been hardened and calloused like the rest of me. Unfortunately, it responded like baby skin. Now everywhere I go, my shirt painfully rubs against it, causing my hand to reach down and try to press it back into the hole from whence it came.

And as such, I have developed a sort of obsession with my bellybutton. It’s so SOFT! It’s so squishy and tender and cute, like a baby-something, and unlike anything else on my body. It’s maybe closest to an earlobe (a part I have also long had an obsession with), but even then there’s no contest. Touching it is like touching – I don’t know – but it’s like there’s really really soft baby skin over just air or just water or just feathers or jello or clouds or something. I feel like I have to touch it carefully how I would touch a baby bird, or a delicate flower petal, or how you would touch a tomato seed without it slipping from under your finger.

I understand now why you don’t want to sunburn babies. Their skin is probably all tender like that, having never seen the sun EVER, not even 20 years ago.

Learning to put sunblock on my bellybutton falls into the category of the many things about pregnancy that you find in no book. Or if it is in books, you don’t understand what the heck they’re talking about until it happens to you. So here’s my list of advice and warnings for pregnant women-to-be of things your pregnancy book won't tell you:

1. Put sunblock on your bellybutton.
   
2. Everybody knows that pregnant women have to pee a lot, but they don’t tell you that sometimes you have to pee but you don’t really. Like the equivalent of dry-heaving when you have the flu, sometimes you really think you have to go but there ain’t nothing in there.
3. It is entirely possible that all children will suddenly become annoying and unbearable to you. I assume this goes away when you give birth to your own, but I have yet to find out.
4. When “morning sickness” (a.k.a. every-minute-of-every-day sickness) finally “goes away” it morphs into this other thing: if you don’t eat for more than 90 minutes or so, you get this feeling like your intestines are eating themselves, and you must put food in them before you are consumed from the inside out.
5. You might turn into a total sex-hound, and your husband might find he has to hide at certain times of the day to avoid you ravishing him senseless all the time.
6. You’ll probably start to bump into people and furniture and corners, because you used to be able to squeeze through any teensy space by turning your svelt little body sideways and mincing a flirty “excuse me” through the aisle. I have bumped so many people with my stomach and knocked so many chairs over and stepped on so many feet losing my balance because I forget that my profile is no longer my slimmest dimension.
7. For some reason, lots of other women feel compelled to warn you about the horrors of birth by sharing their horrible birth stories. (Why they think I want to hear this is beyond me. I’m ALREADY pregnant people! There’s no way out of it. If you wanted to scare me out of having a baby it’s too late. Now you’re just giving me unnecessary anxiety.) (As if I don’t already have enough of it).
8. The stuff our mothers were told to do and not to do while pregnant was a bunch of wacko advice that’s all been debunked by now. Don’t trust your mother’s generation when they give you advice and do’s and don’t’s about pregnancy. (Also, this tells me that probably half of what doctors advise now will eventually be proved unnecessary, stupid, or harmful, so I can’t stress about it too much. Still… it’s not like I’m gonna go eating mercury-burgers or anything).
9. You might get cellulite on the FRONT of your thighs. The FRONT, people! (I know this makes you think I’m one of those fat pregnant ladies, but I’m really not. I look mostly normal. Not that being a fat pregnant lady is bad. I personally don’t understand how anyone could possibly “control” their weight while pregnant, given the host of nutrients we’re supposed to get daily (which is impossible without eating like a horse), and the fact that you are SO hungry all the time and you’re not supposed to diet or deprive yourself of food and you’re supposed to “listen to your body” – which is probably telling you to eat chocolate and pasta like there’s no tomorrow. Here’s to fat pregnant girls!)
10. Trying to sleep with a baby in your tummy is like trying to sleep with a 15-pound bowling ball strapped to you. Only all your skin is around it, so it will painfully yank all your organs wherever it goes. Unless, of course, you lie on your back and balance it on top of yourself cutting off your circulation, your air supply, and any space that previously existed in your bladder. Not to mention how it throws you off balance in your day-to-day operations.
11. Whatever ideas you had about being the hard-core, bike-riding, backpacking, super-productive pregnant lady were likely wrong.

…more to come as I think of them…