Guest Post: Projects

by Kaylee

I’m in the season of life where I can’t seem to finish anything.
I’m in the middle of reading three books, two very short, yet they sit unfinished.
I have yarn projects my fingers ache to work on, and a pattern to perfect and publish.
I have beads purchased to make a necklace to honor a woman I met once.
I have a research project, and books I want to write, and a handful of half finished poems.
(I can’t give birth to all my creations at the same time, but I’m trying to anyway.)
I’ve been doing my best to ignore my rather-long-and-still-growing list of house projects.
Project: Try A Triathlon had to be put on hold yesterday so that I would have energy in the evening for Project: Keep My Job.
Writing these words is a luxury in stolen time, while my baby fusses in her highchair.

Last night she woke up early, before I went to bed.
Unlike usual, she didn’t nurse back to sleep.
Usually I would be reading my scriptures right then.
Part of me felt like I “should” be reading my scriptures right then.
I could not.
How could I have possibly ignored my baby’s cries?
I relished the weight of her body on my shoulder. Her soft skin, soft scent, soft pats on my neck.
This is the time I have to seek God, but I’m too busy.
I’m too busy comforting the weary and feeding her with my own flesh and blood.
I am so hungry.
This is the time I have to seek God, so I did. I saw Her projected in my own actions. Or was it Jesus?
I am so hungry.
In our ordinances, we worship a male god who symbolically gives birth, who lactates. I don’t understand why this doesn’t seem to help us provide loving places for everyone on the gender spectrum. I ache to know more.
The men at church frequently tell me to read my scriptures every day. (I really do try.) It has occurred to me though, that the point is not to read. The point is to seek God. Reading scripture is just one way to seek. And I am so hungry.
I relish the days I can go to second church: playing in the woods with my kids, pouring Mother Nature into our bodies and curiosity into our minds. It’s hard to find Her at first church. I am so hungry.
With the nursing and the exercise, my grocery bill has increased dramatically. It’s so hard to keep myself fed. I’m always hungry.
For a moment, in bed nursing my daughter and snuggling her to sleep, I felt that my actions were at one with what God would do. I would have supposed such an impression to feel immensely satisfying. But no. I went to sleep hungry, and now I am ravenous to see God projected in my actions again. Often. That feels like a really big project.

Kaylee only wears sensible shoes (if she has to wear shoes at all) and is passionate about pants with functional pockets (even her Sunday slacks). She has degrees in physics and electrical engineering, but has spent the last few years as a rather alarmingly domesticated mostly-stay-at-home mom.