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PLEASE say you'll join me for 31 Days of Europe?!

If you're visiting for the first time from Nester's 31 Days Linky--I'm so glad you popped over!  And to all readers, now would be the perfect time to subscribe to PENSIEVE if you haven't already (and your Facebook "Likes" or Twitter tweets are like rainbow sprinkles on the icing on the cake).

I haven't been this excited about blogging (ohmyword) EVERY DAY for a long, long time. What used to be my modus operandi has long been relegated to past practice.  I'm beyond thrilled to have a good reason:

My friend, Nester, is making me.

If you've followed my blog for the past year, you're probably a little confused.  Am I living in the U.S. or Germany?  Well, I've been intentionally vague, not thrilled about letting the Scary People know my exact travel plans (which makes me especially thankful for our house sitters who give me much peace o' mind).  

I've been collecting, though...myLANta, I've been collecting. Memories. Pictures.  Experience and experiences.  Holding my three teenage children hostage for two months this summer without cell phones or having to share them with friends--THAT might be the hightlight of all this for me. 

Crazy/wonderful.

Don't believe for a second, though, that it's all good. This is not perpetual vacation; this is daily living...and it can be hard.  

But I'm too full and happy and content in t h i s moment to think on those things, and I want to share the richness and beauty of our experience.

Finally.  

I've taken thousands of pictures and shared very few (save Instagram, where I've been known to share a lot), and Nester's 31 Days kick-in-the-tail is just the motivation I've needed.

Now would be the perfect time to subscribe to PENSIEVE if you haven't already (and your Facebook "Likes" or Twitter tweets are like rainbow sprinkles on the icing on the cake).

In addition to my favorite pictures, 31 Days of Europe will include cultures and traditions, Expat and travel tips, destination recommendations and who knows what else?  I'm not exactly one to write posts in advance...and hopefully you'll even learn a thing or two :).  DO ask questions and if I know the answer, I'll feature you in an upcoming post!

I messed up thinking today was the day to begin posting, but we're only introducing our series; tomorrow I'll begin for real with my temporary home state of Bavaria and introduce you to one of our hometown annual events (and favorite things so far!).  

You don't wanna miss it--it's really something special!  

 

 

 

The birth and death of a people pleaser

The memory’s as sharp and fuzzy as 40 years in between allows, but I think I remember because it’s the day I was born a people pleaser.

I had never been to Guys and Dolls salon before, but my hair needed a trim and whoever was in charge of me thought it was a good place to go.  Funny, all the details I can’t remember–who was it who dropped me off?

“What does your mother do?” the hairdresser asked.  Question benign and routine to her was poison-dipped dart penetrating my already-shattered nine-year-old heart.

My chin quivered, tucked low; she attempted a straight line.  I was glad she couldn’t see my eyes…notice me flinch under my vinyl shroud.  I concentrated on all that hair on the floor, leftovers from others, furry, matted cloud animals.  Could anyone else see those three blind mice?  It would’ve been easier to be one of them.

“Oh, she doesn’t work,” I answered, willing back a flood.  In a literal sense, I suppose I wasn’t even lying.

Mama had lost her five-year battle with cancer earlier that spring.

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Please continue reading The Pleaser at A Deeper Family, a recently-created, family-centric iteration of Deeper Story.  

Take note:  stories won't be all warm and fuzzy.  The definition of family will be broad, and its inherent complexity and dynamics will make for an interesting read.  I'm thrilled to join an amazing group of storytellers who are certain to make you cry and laugh and most of all think, especially as we consider "family" in relation to faith, heritage and becoming who we are.  

 

The missingest, a daughter's lament

It was Father's Day and there was this unspoken understanding how important it was to celebrate together, so we gathered without question.  For him?  For us?  For all?  Yes...surely all.

His mind was leaking, it had been for years.  With each visit we could sense memory and thought siphoned into oblivion, and I think he could, too; there was a vacant desperation in his words.  

Before he ran out of time, he was still trying to parent us.

Around a sacred table, he did his best.  He clawed for coherence, the present, to be heard.  We listened, polite and attentive, trying to fill in the blanks.  Adult children who didn't really need him the way he longed to be needed, but who loved him enough to let him believe otherwise.

I knew that moment was important to him, and for once it wasn't about him, it was lesson and legacy.  He was trying to help us see in future's dark.

I wrote his words down, chicken scratch on paper now playing hide and seek.

Summer's heat was beginning to rise and I had on a red and white skirt that doesn't fit anymore.   

He's been gone 5 1/2 years and today would've been his 81st birthday.  

I wish I could still fit in that skirt.

 

 

A glass for every bier and a bier for every glass

With the declaration by Munich's mayor, "O'zapft is" (It's tapped!), the world's largest fair began about half an hour ago.  Oktoberfest, known to the locals as Die Wiesn, will see about seven million visitors and over seven million liters of beer sold before it's over in two weeks.

I'm headed there Tuesday and will share more facts and pictures later next week, but until then, a little fun:

Can you name the three types of beer pictured below?  I love how Germans have a glass for every beer and a beer for every glass.

On miracles, letting go and a First Only

It was only yesterday when every day was a challenge, when every day he challenged, when I questioned my ability to mother him at all.

His terrible twos lasted five years.  Each morning I begged for new mercies, that today would be different.  I loved him (though, admittedly, sometimes even that was hard) but liking him was Calvinball; he was the Gamesmaster, mercilessly changing the rules without warning.

We were mother and son, clash of the Titans.  Nooobody and nothing I had read prepared me for this heart and soul tug-of-war.  

He was determined and persistent, this pint-sized cowboy, and my goodness! those days were so long I thought they'd never end.  

So, how did the y e a r s go by so fast?

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Who can pinpoint when perspective changes, when a mind begins to see what the heart was shouting all along.  

It was never about my son where I was concerned; it was about me.  

The grit and grind that wore me down and nearly out was reshaping me into something else.  It smoothed my selfishness.  That relationship demanded that I be a better mother.  Not in any quantitative sense--how can you say one mother is better than another?  Absurd!  I couldn't be complacent; I had to be intentioned.  There was no status quo, phoning it in, parenting on autopilot.  

This boy bent my knee low and left me with no other option but to seek wisdom and to pray without ceasing and to love the way I had been loved.  Without condition or limit or logic.  

Had I been the one who was most stubborn and foolish?

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Every mother and child is tethered by miracle.  A mother's body is first fortress, incubator, life preserver...soul within soul, life within life.

On the inside and the out, her body earns telling scars.  Giving birth is a violent thing, the blood letting, the pain, the transition from pitch darkness into blinding light, the agony of first breath, oxygen, new atmosphere.  

The first letting go.  

My God...they both have to let go for the first time at exactly the same time.  This...this spills the tear!  A piece of her heart has been rent from her body, never to return but always connected by invisible, indestructible, inexplicable thread.

This is when I get crazy in my head and imagine shaking every person I see and shouting DON'T YOU KNOW YOU'RE A MIRACLE?!  

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Along the way, we changed, he and I.  This one who is like me the most, and asks me How?  I can't quite lasso the Why, but we are.  I know it from the center of who I am...who he is.  

We made a hard decision, our family, and it means for a while I let him go again.  This, before the biggest letting go.  Maybe it's to help me to get used to that one, maybe it's gift in disguise.  I've always parented with an open hand, or at least that's what I've told myself.  Sometimes that demands more than others.

Sometimes I long for a dance where I could still rest my chin on his head.

When the rest of our family returned to Germany, we let him stay behind to complete his senior year of high school, in its entirety, with his class.  There was no best answer from our pile of choices; every one left our family fractured for the short-term.  The big picture said this was right.  

He lives large, this one.  All of life is reason enough to celebrate, and for this one who makes me laugh at will, his own smiles come without effort.  

I'm resigned to missing some of his First Lasts for a little while; thankfully not all of them.   

He thrives among his friends, his oxygen.  I love them, too, and they know it.  I miss them, them together, their sounds.  A mixture of laughter and ease and even the perverse (they are high school boys, after all.).  

They require boundaries, and because they know it, they don't even mind.  

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I missed a First Only last night.  

It is Homecoming Week and spirit paints his school's walls, halls and students every day in a different way.  Last night was their annual Powderpuff game.  Girls suit up and play football, the guys dress up and cheer.  At halftime their mock Homecoming Court takes the field and a Queen and King are crowned.

I suppose this makes me the Queen Mother.

I wonder if we wear the same size....

That's Hollywood...!

Remember when I crashed filming for Tim McGraw's "Truck Yeah" video last month?  And I told you I didn't know how the scene I was part of would work?  

Well, dang it, I was right.  Cutting room floor, I'm afraid.  No extras--not even the fabulous fly girls--made it to the video.

Then, again, despite Tim's studliness, the trucks are the stars of the show.  I fell head over heels for this purple Chevy ~ 

 

Hello, luvah...

 

You can see the video in its entirety on youtube.  There were only 67 views the first time I checked, and I bet those were all the other extras with me that day.  

UPDATED:  And if you're looking for the beautiful brunette in Tim McGraw's Truck Yeah video, it's Maria Montgomery.  I loved reading her perspective on the shoot (and how she got the part).

S i g h...there's always next time, right?  

Emily, Annie and Lisa

Two of my favorite bloggers-turned-authors are Emily Freeman and Annie Downs.  

Our paths first crossed over four years ago when I met them at She Speaks (a speakers/writers conference); there was something about both women that drew me to them, they're the type friend who instantly makes you want to spend more time together.  A year after that, the three of us would be invited to write for a new, faith-based women's site, making it easy to stay connected.

Fast forward to now and it's time to

cue the confetti & streamers:

Emily and Annie just released books on the same day!

And if you have daughters, you need to head straight

to your favorite bookstore and buy them!

 

Graceful (For Young Women): Letting Go of Your Try-Hard Life

 

Perfectly Unique: Praising God from Head to Foot

 

Annie and Emily speak with authority, having mentored and cultivated significant relationship with young women, tween, teen and older.  They have insight and wisdom worthy of your time.  I can't speak more specifically yet--both books are sitting bedside, next in queue--but based on what I've already read from these ladies, I'm 100% confident in endorsing their work.  

If you'd like to "try before you buy", read the reviews attached to the links above or simply read  Emily's and Annie's blogs.  It won't take you long to fall head over heels with their writing voices.  

And, oh, my--how could I almost forget?  Emily has a wonderful, unique trailer for her book!  I love how she tells a story with these beautiful images....(do click through to see it full screen).

Note:  I'm grateful to any of you who use the Amazon affiliate links above, provided for convenience & to line my pockets with pennies.

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On another note, you know how when you have a conviction or revelation about something, and it's reinforced over and over and OVER?  You might see a related news story or a passage in scripture or a particular book or even on TV or in a song or heaven forbid a brilliant quote on Facebook? 

That's happened recently with this call in my life to Be Still.  First, I feel this check in my spirit; then just for me Lisa Leonard created jewelry with that message; and then I discover Lisa Chan has produced an entire video series around the discipline of Stillness and True Beauty!

Yep, me thinks God might be boinking me on the head with this....

When I was approached about reviewing the intro to Lisa's series, I almost said no.  But because her husband's (Francis Chan) book Crazy Love had some beautiful, important things to say, I agreed.  

Lisa's vision for the series came after a romantic getaway was interrupted by life and she was "forced" to be alone for a period of time.  If you have no idea what it means to Be Still, this is a great place to begin.

 

 

Surfing in Munich's English Garden

The Englischer Garten in the heart of Munich is famous for a lot of things--nude sunbathing, its size as one of the world's largest urban public parks, the Chinesischer Turm and multiple bier gardens--but today I finally made the coolest discovery of them all:

Surfers on the Eisbach River.  

These guys are fast and furious, and the way they take turns would make their mamas proud of their manners. 

Watch.  Be amazed.  I did and was.

Glory revealed

The earth displays His glory....

September, 2012, Sunrise on Hilton Head Island

The heavens proclaim the glory of God.
    The skies display his craftsmanship.

Psalm 19:1

 

Shakespeare, Elvis and Obama

There's gotta be a great line in here SOMEwhere.  

Best caption wins.