pensieve.me

On luck and charms

"Is everything okay?" he calls out, unleashing his dog on the far side of his driveway, beyond the vacant lot on which I'm trespassing.

I had noticed them half an hour earlier, at the beginning of my hilly, neighborhood powerwalk.  French Bulldogs are such a curious-looking breed, they remind me of Bartok the bat from the animated Anastasia.  I almost expect them to rise on two feet, do karate-chop hands and squeak "I'd give her a HA! And a HI-YA! And then a OUU-WA!" and I can't help but wonder if I'm the only person who has ever imagined that.  

Hunched over with my nose inches from the ground, I suppose I might have looked like I was sick or maybe searching for a lost contact.  My posture indicated anything but "okay".  

"Oh, I'm just looking for four-leaf clovers," I explained, like that was perfectly normal, a grown woman hunting clover anomaly.  It strikes me that I'm the deviation from the norm.

But in the very moment I speak it, I spot one.  Thrilled, before I allow time to think before I gush, I tell him, "You must be my lucky charm YOU'RE A LUCKY CHARM!" and as soon as those outrageous words excape my lips, I want to burrow under the grass and hide from this stranger-neighbor.  

Kindly, he shrugs it off with a manufactured laugh before quickly disappearing into his home.  Away from the crazy lady.

Undeterred, I return my attention to the clover patch.  

I see another...

    and another...

        and another!

Eventually, six in all.  

If fairies are real, this is where they live.

* * *

I continue my walk homeward, heart brimming with good cheer and hand pinching a tiny, leafy bouquet.  My steps are lighter.  

Friendly, concerned neighbors breed goodwill.

* * * 

I cannot pass a clover patch without looking down and trying to find a four-leaf clover, even if I'm walking fast.  If I'm forced to, I feel like I'm missing something special...extra-ordinary...lucky.

It's a quirk.

It's one of those things I name and know and like about myself.  

I think it's important to notice the things about yourself, the ways you're wired, that make you you.  The little things.  The commonly uncommon.  Maybe even the things no one else on the planet knows about you.

* * *

Like so many others, I carry a phone most everywhere I go.  I do this not to talk or check in or to socially document my every step, it's so I can take pictures to make moments last longer.  So I can remember what I so easily forget.  

Like lucky charms and verdant fairy bouquets and nice neighbors and bat-like dogs.  

What a bonus to discover the phone I'm demo-ing as a Verizon Wireless Ambassador (a Blackberry Z10) has a Story Maker feature; I just wish I had been brave enough (aware enough?) to steal a picture of the man and his dog.  

But maybe that would have made me bonafide crazy.  (Maybe that I wouldn't think was so wonderful.

Enjoy the mini movie; it's my first so they can only get better, right?

 

Stop this train

"Want me to play for you?"

I've watched this one grow from boy to man, a day's change imperceptable, but the years impossible to miss.  His brown eyes dance and his smile curls with ease and I'm never quite sure when he's sneaking something past.  This one is a charmer.

He's a natural at so many things - sports...music - and he's rare in just as many ways:  unashamed to ask me to pray for the people he cares about, gratitude on his lips in response to the most simple of gestures, concern about disappointing the adults in his life, regard for authority.  And he takes as long as a girl to get ready to go out.

He was the first friend to ask my son to come over when we moved here almost ten years ago.  I remember asking the elementary principal about their family because I didn't know anything about anyone here. 

I was grasping for the kind of knowing that comes from living in the same place for long enough to grow a life.  We had only been here weeks and that was futile, little more than a mother's wish. 

So, he's here last night, and I'm aware time with him - and The Others Like Him - have numbers ticking the days left.  College...moving...moving on.

It's been a time, a season, a good one, a rich one. 

The kids in my children's lives have been Community to me in a way I never expected.  They love me, they tell me things, they listen. 

I love them, I tell them things, they listen.

The older ones come back sometimes, too, even when my children aren't here. 

So he asks me if I want to hear him play, and I'm genuinely touched that he'd ask.  That he's brave enough for an audience of one.  That he wants me to listen.

And I'll be damned if it's not John Mayer.  It had to be John Mayer....

See once in a while when it's good
It'll feel like it should
And they're all still around
And you're still safe and sound
And you don't miss a thing
'til you cry when you're driving away in the dark.

Singing stop this train I want to get off and go home again
I can't take this speed it's moving in....

 

It was beautiful.  It was a paycheck to a mom. 

He has no idea my heart exploded.

 

A fool's delusion, a cautionary tale and how Downton Abbey can save your life

(Though this post is about MUCH more than Downton Abbey, if you haven't seen the 1/27/13 episode, don't read past section iii below....) 

Image Source

 

i.

Stephanie was a little bitty thing.

Even nine months pregnant she had coat hanger arms and matchstick legs and I wondered why her metabolism was in such a big hurry.  

She birthed her baby boy with no complication, but then she discovered something bothersome and her doctor told her it was a blocked milk duct.  It made perfect sense so she accepted it as gospel without question.

It was what she wanted to hear, after all.

If I was her, in my early 20s, I would have chosen to believe it, too.

By the time she discovered it was something more, it was too late.  Her friends tried to pray her whole and the doctors tried to kill that cancer, but that little bitty thing just shriveled even smaller until she grew tiny enough to slip through Death's door.

Her baby boy is close to 20 now.

 

ii.

In May I had my annual mammagram, a few days before my husband was returning home from work in Germany, and a few weeks before we were all to return there for the summer.  Since Mama died when she was 38 from breast cancer, her mama died in her early 20s from the same, and my sister is a 15-year survivor, I don't miss opportunity for this singular form of humiliation, knowing that a good breast smashing is for my own good.

 

What I didn't expect was the follow-up phone call early the next morning.

 

Why would I?  They've never called before.

"Mrs. Dance, we're going to need you to come back in...." 

The blood drained from my brain into the pit of my stomach splashing bile to the back of my tongue.

Nevermind that my tech was upbeat and minimized what she saw; they still needed me to come in to confirm their suspicions:  cysts in my left breast. 

I've known my entire life I live in cancer's shadow.

I've tried to be realistic about my odds for getting it, to imagine how I'd respond if I ever received that News.  Early detection would be my Savior, right?

My eyes filled with water and I did my best to steady my voice to make an appointment for the follow-up sonogram.  I was an Imposter until I hung up the phone.

The floodgates flung open.  I was so damn mad at myself because I couldn't control the tears and this wasn't even a diagnosis!  I had imagined my response would be different if I ever got that stupid News, but here I was a crybaby over an imaginary diagnosis. 

The Imposter returned when I talked to my sister and husband later that day and I wondered if they could sense my detachment.  I wasn't going to tell either until after my appointment--Tad was 5,000 miles away and my sister two hours, and they would be a tangle of worry and helplessness.  

Despite my puddly reaction, there wasn't a thing to worry about.  

* * * * *

Relief came within seconds of my second appointment; the sonogram confirmed fluid-filled cysts; no solid mass or tumors or any of those ugly words.

Exactly what my tech had predicted.  Exactly what I wanted to hear.

Lurking in Memory's 20-year-old shadow, Stephanie's face came to mind.  I swept it back into the corner thinking My situation isn't anything like hers was....

A fool's delusion.

And then I called my sister who promptly went ballistic.  

Among a torrent of suggestions, she urged me to see my gynocologist and to get a second opinion.  She's my older sister by all of 16 months and she's been bossing me as long as I can remember.  I suppose she decided it was her job after Mama died.  She's as strong as steel and sharing her opinion is one of her superpowers.  

Our phone call wasn't sufficient.  A flurry of texts with scary words came next--

...needle biopsy...

...cyst aspiration...

...breast MRI...

And then the hammer--

"Our family members are not your average case study.  You are going to have to be proactive in the choices you make and you will have to take charge with your doctor."

Gosh, she overreacts.  But then I was able to reach Tad, whom I thought would be satisfied with the post-sonogram report.  

I was wrong.

Though he didn't know the Scary Words my sister had used, his sense of urgency was the same.  He insisted I make an appointment with my gynecologist for us both to attend after he returned home the next week.  

We asked the doctor about all those Scary Words and although he remembers (because he's looking at my file), I remind him about my family history.  

I'm one of the lucky ones.  My initial diagnosis stands up.  A small cluster of cysts we'll watch forever or when they dissipate, whichever comes first.  

 

iii.

Another love in my life has been sick off and on for a while now, but it's hard to say just when all the little things started.  She's been back and forth to her small town doctor, and he's been faithful to prescribe this and that for her symptoms.  

Only recently it occurred to me that HE WAS TREATING HER SYMPTOMS--never has he diagnosed the issue causing the symptoms.  I haven't been privvy to doctor/patient conversation and I know I've missed more than I've heard, but it dawned on me that she desperately needed to see someone else, because her preferred provider was missing something--

She hasn't been 100% well in over a year.

I'm no doctor and I had no idea what he was missing, but that disquiet in my spirit was Sense telling me Something important.  So I railed and I ranted and roared like a lion, and at the risk of sounding like a complete jerk, I demanded that she make an appointment with SOMEONE ELSE.  Anyone else. 

Before she made a new appointment (who knows if she would have?) the Good Lord saw in His Divine Providence to smyte her with somethin' dreadful, and her body betrayed her.  It literally told on her!  

In a miraculous chain of events, she got sick enough to warrant a trip to the ER.  The causative issue was revealed, she was properly treated, and just like that she's on the road to good health.  

Glory!

Now, I don't know how my way of thinkin' squares with theology, but you'll have a hard time convincing me otherwise; that God didn't allow her to get Just Sick Enough to HAVE to go to the ER, so that someone else could look at her with new eyes and figure out what was wrong.  

The what that was wrong...that Sense that was stirred up in my spirit....had her body not rebelled against her (stubborness? loyalty to her doctor? naivete?) would have killed her in a matter of days had it not been addressed.  

 

iv.

So I was watching Downton Abbey Sunday night, awaiting the birth of sweet Sybil's baby along with all the Granthams and the staff and the rest of the Downtonrazzi. 

It was painful, wasn't it?  All of it.

Not just Sybil's labor agony; any woman who's given birth felt the pangs with her.  

It was the ridiculous

[and I beg your forgiveness in advance for employing so crude a phrase to describe what comes next, but I can't think of another thing that more aptly describes Sir Philip's and Dr. Clarkson's behavior]

pissing contest between the two doctors.  The arrogant, petulant Sir Philip versus the Village doctor Clarkson.  Ignorning Lady Grantham's best advice of them all - defering to Dr. Clarkson's opinion who had known and treated Sybil since birth; he was certainly in a position to know what was best for his patient.  

But the misguided Earl of Grantham, Sybil's father, only heard what he wanted to hear.  He valued the pedigree of Sir Philip over the commonness of Dr. Clarkson; well, that and he couldn't forgive the perceived failures of Dr. Clarkson with regard to Matthew's temporary paralysis and Lavinia's flu-related death.  

Hearing what he wanted to hear informed Robert's belief, and he bullied Sybil's husband, Tom, and the rest of the family into getting his way.

Which, unfortunately, ended in Sybil's unnessary death due to eclampsia.

We all watched and wept, didn't we?  It was avoidable if only....

If only Robert et all had not acted on what they wanted to hear.  

 

v.

Sunday night's episode of Downton Abbey stirred memories past and present, three of which I've shared here.  

Can we let it serve as cautionary tale?  If...when...you or a loved one receive a diagnosis you want to hear under a cloud of "What ifs"; would you please seek a second opinion to confirm that diagnosis?

But how can I cast stones at Robert?  We have the benefit of hindsight in Sybil's (imaginary) circumstance, but haven't we all acted at some point in our lives upon what we wanted to hear rather than what we needed to hear?  

Consider me a big sister who's assuming the right to boss you around; or compel YOU to boss someone else who needs bossing.  

Because it might just save a life one day.

 

Listening to voices

I wasn't thinking about it when I woke up this morning.  In fact, I'm not even sure I've committed this date to memory.

Is it because I'd rather forget very sad things?

I have this old perpetual calendar, gifted to me by a friend maybe 15 years ago.  On its pages, sometimes when I remember, I've added life events.  Births, celebrations, major happenings, I simply write them on that date's page.

Since I've returned from Germany and life is still slightly out of whack, days run together like a watercolor rainbow.  We no longer get the newspaper delivered and were it not for my cell phone, I'd never know the date for sure.

But I knew yesterday was the 7th because I had a doctor's appointment and had to sign and date a form and my phone told me it was January 7th.  So that means today is the 8th.

My old perpetual calendar sits atop a tiny little side table in my bedroom, relegated to near obscurity because my new one is downstairs in a more prominant position.  I can't seem to throw it away because it tells my history, it remembers for me.  

So I flipped it from January 6th to today and in the top left corner, a scribble--the first spot I choose to record something on any given day--"Daddy died 2007."

Do you remember that scene in Somewhere in Time when Christopher Reeve finds the coin in his pocket and he's mercilessly slung back to the present?  That future-dated penny is a portkey to his present.  

My old calendar is a portkey to my past and when I read those words this morning, I was hurled back in time.  I stood there frozen...remembering.  I saw where I was sitting when I got the news, I felt it like yesterday's chill.  My heart ached as I pictured the last time I saw my father...withered and restless and barely recognizable, a soul begging for release from diseased shell.  

My eyes unconsciously shifted down the page.  An Emerson quote--

They can conquer who believe they can.

And a verse from Matthew, 17:20-21--

If you have faith as small as a mustard seed...
Nothing will be impossible for you.

He's encouraging from the grave.  I ascribe to him Providence, but I know it's Abba-Father...kindly, gently redeeming the pain of loss and void and words never spoken.  

There's this thing I'm working on.  A project with potential to be much bigger than me.  Something I'm excited about, believe in, suspect could make a difference in not only my life but in the lives of others.

But, like I said, it's bigger than me and it's easy to waver. Doubt.  Think myself crazy.  Give up.

But then I receive a cheer, a rallying call, a battle cry from a man and a Man.

It's a little later and I'm downstairs, and I find my new calendar and flip to today.  My friend Bonnie has this to say--

If you're feeling hesitant to go for the blessings God's put on your heart this year, don't hold yourself back because of history or shortcomings in your view. Jesus isn't looking for perfect people.  He's eager to show us that he can make something beautiful out of our lives...

A lump is growing in my throat and I swallow it back down because, r e a l l y ...?  Two words of affirmation?

Two words of confirmation??

A smile curls my lips.  Light casts off shadows.  A push compels me to next steps.  

And tomorrow I'll flip the calendar to nine.

 

Glory days

i.

The last time this happened, I was a college freshman having the time of my life; so many years ago I'm not going to tell you how many, because even I am having a hard time believing the distance between then and now.

 

ii.

Born and raised in Athens, Georgia, Saturdays in the fall meant only one thing:  GA football.  I took it for granted at the time, the way Youth doesn't know any better, the way you just don't realize you're livin' in the middle of the Good Ol' Days.

Leaving Neverland eventually opened my eyes to understand that sitting on the hill with your friends was the best way to watch a game, that there was bourbon in those silver flasks people passed around, that my friends' parents must've paid a lot of money to score those tailgaiting spots right outside the gate.  Also, it wasn't a big deal that I was friends with Coach Dooley's daughters and spent time in their home and went to homecoming with one of his sons (chauffered by Coach's wife, Barbara, in a white captain's hat and uniform because he couldn't drive yet or I couldn't single-car-date or somethin'...).  

Yes, eventually, I would comprehend the simple wonder and greatness of those Saturdays between the hedges...plus the scent of brown liquor forever-after would conjure memory of sweat and grass and crowd noise and freedom and happiness.  All that without taking a sip.

Apparently none of that mattered, however, because I'd forsake those GA Bulldogs and go to college an hour and a half up the road to "where the Tigers play...."  I thought I'd end up at UGA the next year, but I made best friends and fell in love with a place that still stirs my soul when I return, and the next year I'd meet and fall in love with the man who still shares my life.

Over the years my affections shifted a bit, and I discovered I was less of a football fan and more of general school fan.  I think it was something about painting Tiger paws on cheeks with Q-tips dipped in orange tempra. 

I loved my years at Clemson.  

 

iii.

Under the charge of head coach Danny Ford, and the ferocious play of Homer Jordan, Perry Tuttle, Terry Kinard, Jeff Davis, Donald Igwebulke and William-the-Refrigerator-Perry (and the rest of the team) Clemson would eventually play 11 games, win 11 games and earn their only-ever National Championship with a decisive win over the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

I remember being conflicted when the Tigers prowled into Georgia, and if it's possible, I was pulling for both sides.  Daddy paid $100 each for our tickets - highway robbery.  I felt awful he did it and doubly awful I was happy about it.

The next fall would see Clemson's football program placed on probation following an investigation that identified 150 recruiting violations.  It would last the remainder of my collegiate years.

I suppose their National Championship team was the best money could buy.

 

iv.

They saved the best for last.

 

Photo credit: ESPN

 

The best game of their season to the best opponent of their season to the best nailbiting, drama-riddled, hold-your-breath-and-stop-your-heart last play of the season.

My word.  The Clemson-LSU Chick-fil-A Bowl was everything you (and by "you" I mean "I") want in a game.  

Intensity.  Drama.  Action.  An underdog's victory.  A come-from-behind-at-the-last-second win for MY team.  

The game was a game of lessons; not just for the field but for life:

• You've got what it takes.
• Never, ever, ever give up if your goal is good and worthy of your time, talents and effort.
• Persistence and determination pay off.  
• Play to your strengths but don't underestimate the contribution of your weaker suits.
• Stay focused on the prize and don't allow temporary setbacks to throw you off course.
• Play the game you know (that one killed LSU's chance at the end of the game).

I'm sure you could add to the list if you watched.

I hated Sammy Watkins' injury sidelined him after the initial drive.  As a mama, it killed me to see the pummeling Tajh Boyd endured, but time after time he shook it off and kept going.  Chandler Catanzaro refused to be iced when the weight of the game fell on his shoulders.  No matter how hard LSU tried to lay down and slow the game down, it didn't matter.

I doubt anyone woulda put a dime on Clemson's defense to be the difference maker in the game.  Like I said, I'm not even a die-hard football fan but I knew that much.

 

v.

Yesterday I would have never imagined that my first post of the New Year would be about football.

Then, again, I don't think it's about football at all.

 

Hardly the "help"...

 

When I was a little girl, I didn't know any better; I asked her if her blood was brown.

Looking back, it wasn't a fair question - my blood wasn't white for heaven's sakes.  It wasn't that I judged her skin color, either; I simply noticed it was different.  I got in trouble for asking, but not from Callie.  She understood and appreciated my curious heart and just chuckled the way she did, with every bit of herself.

Callie worked for my grandmother as housekeeper and cook from before my childhood memories began.  Her husband, Kephus, was gardener and handyman, but he died when I was four and I don't remember him, except for that one picture...black and old and tattered, the man and the ancient image.

Callie was one of the most consistent fixtures in my life.  During my mother's wicked five-year battle with cancer, we stayed with my grandmother a lot; Callie was always there.  In a cruel succession of events, my grandmother died the year after my mother, and rather than relieve Callie of her duties, my father continued to employ her.  When my brother got married, he hired her, too. She mostly sat in the kitchen or watched her stories by then, but they were offering her backpay for years of service.

All the money in the world couldn't compensate her for what she gave us.

What Callie lacked in cleaning finess she more than made up for in the kitchen.  Though I have her recipes for Chewies and tea cakes, I've never been able to duplicate them; her feathered rice, though, is one of my children's favorites.  And then there were those "Callie Biscuits"...you'd have to grow up on them to fully appreciate:  punched the size of a 50-cent piece, they were hard and dry but oh-my-lanta, we begged for more.

Once she tried to teach me how to cut up a whole chicken.

Graceful hands cut through bone and sinew like counter-soft butter and it was then I realized I was witnessing something special:  she was an artist, creating.

Later when I would attempt a try, I'd end up throwing the damn mutilated bird in a pot of boiling water, and settle for a second-rate casserole instead of Callie's fried chicken.

It was never about the fried chicken, though.  I was trying to conjure home.

  Callie taught me beyond the kitchen.  She never spoke ill of another person.  She'd look to the bright side if I voiced complaint.  She was loyal to her friends and family, doing for them whatever she could with the little she had.  She went to church every Sunday and believed that God was good and knew what He was doing.

Her life was an offering, a liberal outpouring of kindness to others.

Years later when I began reading The Shack, it's not surprising I saw Young's Aunt Jemima God with Callie's face.

But soon enough I would learn something that would break my heart and make me wish I had the power to reverse time and right at least one injustice.  

* * * * * * * * *

Please click to continue reading Hardly the help... at Deeper Story ~ Family today. It's tribute and memoir and a story about Family born out of love and affection.   

First night, last night

I remember our first night in Germany.

I can still smell the cold.

Taste the new.

Feel equal measure of exhiliaration and intimidation.

Hear the wonder.

See adventure 'round every bend.

That first sleep was met after eyes had been wide and ravenous for near 40 hours, when exhaustion had been exiled and adrenaline was in control.  

I was a foreigner in a foreign land and everything was a shadowy reflection of what I knew it to be.  

We didn't understand the bedding.  

Weeks earlier, we had crated a pile of stuff we thought we'd need, comforts that fill a home.  

Pictures to dress the walls.  

Clothes (too many) to dress ourselves.

My favorite Swiss Diamond frying pan, the one that cost a bundle but delivered what it promised.  It doesn't cook food, it conjures magic (and I'd buy the whole bloomin' set if I could afford/justify it....).

Towels and washcloths, because we're particular about our linens...

And despite being told "German beds are sized differently than American beds," we sent along our coziest sheets, featherbed, my theraputic neck pillow and an old king-sized comforter.  

The crate wasn't due for a week, so in the meantime we were to use the towels and linens provided by our landlord.

* * * * * * *

To stave off jetlag, we refused to nap.  We went a thousand miles per hour throughout the day, acclimating to our new hometown, touring the grocery stores, visiting the butcher shop and learning the hard way that the Apotheke isn't the same thing as a CVS.  Another story.

That evening, we met up with our fellow expats for dinner at one of the two Greek restaurants in town--oh, the amusement of trying to direct people when we didn't even know where we were ourselves, couldn't pronounce the street names, and the GPS spoke only in German.  By the end of that meal (which remains a mystery to this day) I welcomed the complimentary shot of schnapps offered by the tavern owner "for digestive purposes," a custom for which I'm beginning to believe is, in fact, to aid digestion.  But that's yet another story.

It's late when we arrive back to our apartment, and it's only then we beginning sorting through a mountain of linens in the Ikea-inspired wardrobe, and either due to exhaustion or American blinders we just. don't. get. it.

German beds and bedding are different from their American counterpart.

A German king-size bed is actually two singles within one large frame.  Two, separate mattresses.  

The bedding isn't for the entire king-size area, bottom sheets are for each single AND THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A TOP SHEET.

But, see, we don't know this at the time and we're trying to find what we know; we keep looking and looking and I'm telling you, my landlord passed along A LOT of bedding and it's STILL not dawning on us THAT GERMAN BEDDING IS DIFFERENT!

And, its' not just the bottom sheets and lack of top sheets--they only use duvets with covers, AND THOSE DON'T EXIST IN KING-SIZE!  

Also, you know those Euro shams we use for decorative pillows?  THOSE you sleep on here.  I think.  Maybe not.  Suddenly I'm confused and worried my landlord will find this post and say "YOU SLEPT ON THE SHAM PILLOWS?  **THAT'S AGAINST THE GERMAN LINEN LAWS AND WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO EVICT THE IGNORANT AMERICANS**" except they don't speak great English and they probably would've stopped reading by now.  

There are sleeping pillows, too, but not a single pillow case that fits them.  They're rectanglier than American sleeping pillows and I have yet to discover cases that fit them.  Even when I've looked in homegoods stores THAT SELL THE SLEEPING PILLOWS, I've only seen Euro shams.  

Are you following me?  Am I explaining this okay?

We do the best we can, a pitiful attempt at figuring out this new German Way (the first of many instances), bottom-sheeting the mattress, and picking out two duvets and some pillows.  I should also mention the heat hadn't been turned on in our apartments until the day we arrived, and it was cold--below freezing outside and inside not much warmer.  

So I stacked a few more duvets on top of me, acting out some Deutschland version of the Princess and the Pea but without the pea.  

S o m e h o w soul and spirit finally settled down and we survived the night.

When our crate arrived the next week, I kissed my king-size feather mattress topper and king sheets and king comforter, worried not a bit that they were larger than the two single mattresses they covered.

That was then, ten months ago almost to the day, and there was snow on the ground like there is now.

* * * * * * *

Ten months have overflowed time and space and tonight is my last night in my German apartment.  

My featherbed and cozy sheets and therapeutic pillow and king comforter were crated yesterday, on their way home ahead of us.  

We knew how to make up the beds with our landlord's linens this time, but we held onto two pillow cases for the German rectanglier sleeping pillows.  

It's freezing outside but toasty inside.  God, I'm going to miss radiant floor heating.  Once it cranks up, it's goooood.

I've been saying my good-byes all week, never knowing when someone would jerk the tears right out of my heart.  

I never saw this coming.  Real friendship.  Strong community.  And though I'm ready to go home and regain some sense of normalcy, I'm astounded that it's this hard for me to go.

Our common bond is twofold: sharing the expat experience and a language.  If you've lived in another country, you'll understand; if not, I don't think you can.

* * * * *

I can smell change.

Taste the quiet.

Feel equal measure of anticipation and hesitation.

Hear the beauty through tears.

See everything but the future.

And I keep finding myself humming I Left My Heart in San Francisco.

 

 

* * * * * *

 

Dedicated with affection to those who've made all the difference in my Year of Living Dangerously.  

 

Death and Redemption of a Stepford Mother

A very long time ago, and yet just a blink of the eye, I was the Model Christian Mother.

A poster child, if you will, for what you’re supposed to look like if you’re doing all the “right” things as a Christian mom.

My car’s radio was tuned only to Christian music.

Most of the children’s books on our shelves were purchased from Christian retailers.

We memorized scripture together and learned Children’s Catechism.

We prayed out loud at bedtime and most days in between.

Bible verses were scrawled across art and craft projects.

I was active in Children’s Ministry and even worked at my church for almost ten years in service to babies and littles.

We modeled hospitality in our home and supported and served the local poor.

I was intentional and determined and eager in leading my babies to Christ, and by God if I had anything to do with it, they would follow the path to salvation.

I had more answers than questions.

But, then, we moved out of state, joined a different denomination, and, perhaps, stressed out or burned out or worn out,

I

just

stopped.

We faithfully continued church attendance–Sunday school and corporate worship–but outside of nursery duty I never served in children’s ministry again.

My children were in first, third and fifth grade when we moved and none of them remember when I was the Model Christian Mother.

* * * * * *

I have two sons in high school now and a daughter in college.

They know I’ve struggled as a believer for years.  In part, I can point a finger to the church we joined nine years ago; their leadership floundered during the four years we were without a pastor.  Good men made poor decisions (by their own confession) and it left me trying to submit to an authority I neither respected nor agreed with.  People were hurt.  I was hurt.  We were loyal and tried to make it work, but this among a host of other things, led to spiritual anemia…a long, fitful, complicated, spiritual slumber.

Here’s the thing about the temptation to assign blame:  when I point an accusing finger elsewhere, there are always three damning me.

Those fingers are satan’s delight.

* * * * * * * 

Please keep reading at Death and Redemption of a Stepford Mother at Deeper Family today; this one is a tale of redemption and influence, the back story of which is told in my incourage post today.

when it snows, i write love letters

snow fall and tear drop

No matter the number of children you deliver, how can it be that each is your favorite, for reasons as many and varied as the things that shade their differences? Intense and deep affection, seemingly dulled by the dailiness of living, is fierce lion lying in wait, patient and certain.

You never see it coming.

When it springs, it grabs you by the throat and has its way with you.  You're completely at its mercy.

Love is a king. 

You never see it coming but don't you always know it's right there?

* * * * * * *

It's too quiet today.  The silence screams for notice, and I do, because this silence means something.  He's home.

Home is where his heart is, home is where his friends are, home is his comforts and familiarities, home is where they speak a language he understands.  

Home is not with me.

This is my son, my always-baby by virtue of birth's order, the thing he didn't ask for but will always be.  

He's done a hard thing without complaint, believing a future purpose that didn't feel true in the present.  Well done, we tell him.  Well done, and he knows we mean it. 

He's earned a pride that swells my chest and stings my heart the good way, and I sing this lovesong to him as best I can and he hears it as best he can.

But he won't be able fully to hear it until he sits where I sit, a lifetime from now.

This one is light and life, kinetic energy, noise maker.  He thrives on laughter, he's friend to all, his concern is for others, he can't hold a grudge.  He has no idea the rippling of his super powers, they're boundless; which is yet another of his super powers.

Six weeks ago, he came with a plan.  There were many things he couldn't control so that plan was lifeline, full of things that mattered to him.  It had a beginning, and more important an end, and it compassed his way til he was done.

There was one thing in the plan, though, that he couldn't control:  the weather.  Did he really put weather in the plan?  THAT was ridiculous.  

Snow.  

 

Wow--click this to enlarge the photo and you'll see a beautiful, perfect snowflake on the rose's petal!

Snow in October?  A rarity, even here.  Last year it was minimal and didn't arrive until later, but that didn't matter to him.  He had hope.  And, I understand it, I do, because I share this fizzy delight in snow's fall--enchanting, frozen pixie dust as far as I'm concerned, likely my adoration shaped by its scant in my life.

 

And then, wouldn't you know it--the weather inched toward winter and at the beginning of the week snow, indeed, was forecast.

Oh, ye of little hope, all hail the one with great hope!

...in a thing that mattered to a boy...

But timing is everything and he was already flying above the snow when it finally showed up below.

And what normally thrills me to the center of who I am, that which sends my spirit dancing and happy, this morning it is only reminder that he missed his wish by inches and hours.

Love is lamb and lion, king of beasts, conquerer.

First snow...the beautiful letdown.

Selah.

Memory, miracle and falling with style

"I wish the world could see what I see.  
Sometimes you have to go up really high 
to understand how small you are...I'm coming home now." 
~ Felix Baumgartner, his last words before jumping from the edge of space

Felix Baumgartner is a madman.  Gulping buckets of adrenaline, he wriggled free from techno coccoon to unfurl limb and life, and rocket his way into history's tome. 

Wearing a specially designed pressurized suit, Felix Baumgartner flew 24 miles from the edge of space to the plains of Roswell, New Mexico.  Fitting, don't you think?  Isn't that where aliens end up?

His body accelerated to 373/mps or 1,342.8/kph or, the language I speak, 833.9 mph.  That's Mach 1.24 telling us the thing we most wanted to know:  he broke through the speed of sound, the first man to do so outside of an aircraft.  

One small step....

 

And he lived.  But wasn't he living just in the trying?  

I think he might argue that both ways, but he'd prefer the former.

"The world needs a hero and today they got one," said his medical director, Dr. Jonathan Clark.  Brave and daring, Felix risked his life to pursue a personal dream while collecting data that would benefit others.  Self-serving in one sense, sacrificial in another.  

I owe him a thank you.  He gave me and my son an "I remember when..." moment, and this time, it was a good one.  

* 

*

*

We were crowded in Aunt Paula's den, the color of mustard and avacados and delicious apples, golden, and why do I think of food remembering her living room?  I was only six.

I was fidgeting behind Uncle John's easy chair, peeking out from time to time when they landed.  "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind," declared Neil Armstrong...and it was.  

Before the age of Star Wars and special effects and computerized animation and revisionist photoshopping, there was room for wonder.

Astonishment.

Reverential awe.

It would never have occurred to me then, that this moment would be sealed in memory's vault; I wouldn't know this would remain my only recollection of Uncle John, who left the family soon after; or that I'd always associate kiwi and lychee with my aunt, who introduced me to these exotic fruits during that visit.

Peculiar, these details, attached to man landing on the moon. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin have no idea the memories they fostered among their brothers and sisters.

*

*

*

I will remember it was just the two of us, but I likely won't remember why.  I'll remember it was "that year we lived in Germany" but will I recall 2012?  I'll see my son reluctantly tearing himself away from the insignificant football game he was watching, to witness this man's unforgettable step of faith. Will we remember how we marveled at the clarity of the picture?  That technology could bring us this close to Felix Baumgartner?  That we could see him respond to Mission Control and his mentor, Joe Kittinger's, simple commands?  That we could hear him breathe?!

Will I remember Stephen was wearing the message "Live Simply"?  A little thing I hope he wears on the inside.

Talking to my husband later, he thought my comparison to Apollo 11 a stretch.  Maybe so but I'm still inclined to see how all these men risked their lives for something much bigger than themselves, how passion and dreams drove their actions and cast aside fear, and how, upon reaching their goals, their self awareness changed.  

"When I was standing there on top of the world you become so humble you do not think about breaking records anymore, you do not think about gaining scientific data, the only thing that you want is, you want to come back alive because you do not want to die in front of your parents, your girlfriend and all these people watching you.  This became the most important thing to me when I was standing out there." (Baumgartner at the post-jump press conference.)

Indeed...sometimes when you're really high up, you understand how just small you are.  

If you use this graphic, would you mind linking back to my original post? Thanks!!

If you missed this spectacular event, scroll the pictures below, or better yet, the highlights are worth 90 seconds of your time--

 

 

He makes it look so easy....

Shadows reveal the sunshine

They all look relieved and his mother, elated! Understandable.

Mission Control celebrates landing.

I couldn't help but wonder if in THIS moment he was thanking God.

 

 

The delight, pride and joy of Joe Kittinger, mentor; Felix Baumgarnter, successful daredevil and protege

The Stratos team, thankful and humbled by groundbreaking success.

From Felix's blog--

(Edited by me, for those of you with delicate sensibilites and with apologies to Felix.)

VERY interesting related links:

The sponsor, Red Bull, has a wonderful site that asks and answers more questions than you can imagine:  RedBullStratos.com

They also have a blog worth checking out.