I’d gotten more invested in the fight against this amendment than any political issue in my life. I wrote about it here, and here, and had countless conversations with people at church and elsewhere. I went to several meetings of faith leaders and watched as they worked tirelessly, for months, trying to spread the word and get out the vote. Rob and I went to a rally the Sunday before the election. The short volunteer stint I did at the phone bank earned me a t-shirt, which I’ve been wearing around the house, sadly, this week.

Many have noted the “historical inevitability” of gay marriage, and I think that was part of what got me so fired up about it. Jonathan and Harper will look back on this time the way I do on the civil rights movement, or apartheid, and I want them to know where I stood. I’ll tell Jonathan that he went to that rally with us, that he chewed on a “vote against” postcard while Dr. Barber challenged us to ask the right questions. I’ll remind Harper about watching the “Vote Against Amendment One” music video on youtube, over and over again until she almost had it memorized.

But it was mostly the inspiration of folks here who organized rallies, built bridges, signed petitions, talked until their throats were hoarse. On election night, I gathered with some of those faith leaders, a little self-consciously, since they’d all done so much more than I had. We met at a synagogue here in town, and watched the results come in. It was pretty clear from early on that things were not going to go our way. But there was still a lot of hope in that room. There was hope for future partnerships and continuing work, and there was the deep and abiding hope that all will be well. 

My friend Julie, a pastor who led the charge here in Greensboro, said this:

“We have won in so many ways.. in the partnerships that we have formed and the conversations started. So many incredible stories, done for the love of neighbors and the sake of others. The state will be better for our work. We have a temporary loss, but we will win the battle. Our work is just beginning.”

I had to stay away from Facebook for a few days after the election. It was hard not to take some of the angry, snarky “North Carolina sucks” comments personally. I love this state, with its beautiful geography and beautiful and generous people. These are good people here, some of whom can’t quite get their heads around the idea of two people of the same gender loving one another, maybe because it’s awfully hard to get over what you were taught “the Bible says.” Or who didn’t realize, with the confusing language of the amendment, that there would be collateral damage to women and children and opposite-sex couples. Yes, there are the extremists and the mean-spirited, and those who haven’t even tried to understand. But I suspect most people were somewhere in the middle. There are good people here.

I wish it had not passed. We’re not there yet. We’ll get there. There’s work to do, but we’ll get there. History is long and complicated, and we’re right in the middle of it.

It was, by far, the most interesting cab ride I’ve ever been on. Katherine and I soon realized that we had a lot in common – both Disciples, with young daughters (Harper was not quite two, Juliette was 17 months). We’d both just read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and had new bread machines. Drowning out our chatter, though, was the cab driver, who spoke in the lilting accent of northern Minnesota and insisted that we watch an episode of The Family Guy on the cab’s built-in TV. I had never seen The Family Guy and had no desire to start; Katherine seemed to feel the same way, so we ignored the television and kept talking. The cab driver interrupted a couple of times, with “Isn’t this hilarious?” or “This is a funny part!”

When he finally got the hint that we did not share his particular sense of humor, he turned off Family Guy and switched to something he thought we’d like better: a documentary called Life After People, which imagined what would happen to the world if humans instantly disappeared. It was decidedly not funny, and just as weird.

By the time we arrived at the Collegeville Institute, I had a new friend.

Commercial flights don’t fly into St. Cloud anymore. Now, you have to take a shuttle from the crowded Minneapolis airport. I wonder what that cab driver does with his time these days. I’ll always be grateful to him for providing us with the best first-friend-date memory ever.

The other significant thing that happened that week was that my good friend Bromleigh McCleneghan and I sat down at a picnic table one afternoon and hammered out the table of contents of a book we wanted to write. It would be about hope, and fear, and anxiety, and the grace we’d found in the first years of being parents. (Her daughter Fiona was born just five days before Harper; Jonathan and Fiona’s little sister Callie were not even in our imaginations yet.) It took us awhile, and a few rejection letters, but we finished that book this spring. It’s at the copy editor now and will be published later this year.

My new friendship with Katherine and the table of contents Bromleigh and I came up with actually pointed to a something bigger, more abstract, that happened that week: I stopped thinking of being a writer as something I wanted to do someday. I started thinking of myself as someone who writes, a writer, now. It was a beautiful change.

Katherine’s book, Any Day a Beautiful Change, came out last month. I read it all, in one evening, and sent a copy to my sister. It’s beautiful and wise and funny and gracious. I’m sure glad we shared that cab.

In celebration of the release of Katherine’s book, read about other beautiful changes here.

I used my first cell phone in that room. I still had a desktop computer. I mourned the loss of my grandmother. It was one of the last places I ever lived by myself.

I was back there this weekend. Nobody is living in it right now, so the room stands empty, the bookshelves awaiting somebody else’s texts. When I walked in, the smell of the room hit me — musty, but in a good way, as familiar as the words of a well-loved poem. I wonder how many books have been read there in the ten years since I left, or in the eighty years before I arrived.

2. There are lots of good pictures from our vacation last week: babies napping on beach towels, Harper building sandcastles, jumping in the surf, playing with aunts and uncles and grandparents. But here is my favorite, a certain niece and aunt getting their hair done together.

He’s in the stage where he is generally happiest when he’s riding around the house on my hip, just looking at whatever is going on. This is terrible for my back, but delightful nonetheless.

Meet Cafonkey. Cow? Giraffe? Donkey? We can’t decide, but we love him. Harper was just about this age when she first met Elephant, and I’m starting to wonder who Jonathan’s very best friend will be.

Oh, yes, and this: he’s six months old. One half of a year. That’s significant, is it not? We celebrated on Tuesday with pureed carrots. It was quite the party.

1. Daffodils, outside our side door, the first sign of spring. They’ve been beautiful, but their days are numbered.

2. The whiteboard on our fridge that keeps us organized. That’s a relative term, of course.

3. There’s apparently some kind of basketball tournament going on right now?

4. The church’s latest attempt at getting the attention of people driving by on Market Street.

5. This is what you get when you try to take a picture of a baby without setting him down first.

6. Jonathan has now entered the world of solid food.

7. Harper likes to feed him.

8. He likes to eat.

9. Jonathan was dedicated last Sunday. It was lovely. He was very cooperative, and squawked at all the appropriate times, enough to get everyone to laugh, but not enough to disrupt the service.

10. The church has a tradition of giving a bible and a baby blanket to families for every dedication. I’m tickled by my expression in this picture – as if I had no idea this storybook bible was coming, as if I wasn’t the one to have picked it out, as if they aren’t stored on a bookshelf in my office. (It’s a good one, though, should you be in a position of picking out storybook bibles for baby dedications: Children of God, by Desmond Tutu.)

11. Aunt Lynn and Eliza’s visit in February for BabyFest 2012. It’s still funny.

12. Two cute kids.

Signed,
Your sleepy parents

1. early morning
2. quiet sanctuary
3. office angel
4. handmade vestments
5. empty lot
6. lunch ready
7. beloved family
8. cleaning crew
9. patient baby
10. lentil stew
11. church again
12. friend waiting

Like holding my camera.

It still kind of blows my mind that the world of film cameras will be ancient history to her.