Throwing Rocks

The water level in the lake is very lowwww due to the current drought.  I’d guess it’s down at least 6”. As a result, big rocks piled along the seawall (required by the Department of Environmental Quality to provide habitat for aquatic critters) have been exposed above-water to catch floating seaweed and other stuff.   Think compost pile with rotting gunk, only worse because of the constant water-soaking component.  Yes, you got it. Yuck.

So today I took it upon myself to clean the rocks as much as possible with a garden rake (thick mats of black slime - peee-ewww!) before throwing them into deeper water where they can’t act like Velcro.  Too bad for the crawdads!  Heave HO…oomph…ker-plunk!  Again!  And again!  I must have moved maybe 30 of these slimy, gross rocks of various sizes, many in the five-or-six-pound range.  By hand.  By golly.  By the hardest. 

Tonight my back is bawling me out.  “What WAS all that about, anyway?  Don’t you know your AGE?” 

Well, yes.  But I don’t want to argue about it.  (Shouldn't my back know me by now??)

I will confess here, though – it’s still easy for me to wave the control-freak banner high.  If something needs to be done, just do it, I always say.  Don’t be the stereotypical wailing damsel in distress who is too pink-around-the-edges to get her hands dirty when confronted by a messy job. Just handle it. 

My back overhears.  “But you ARE a damsel in distress, an old one, albeit a tough one, and you DON’T have to make a scene or be all prissy,” it barks with authority.  It is riled now, and insists on making a statement. “Just ask for help.  That’s what senior citizens DO.”

Oh.  Play the old lady card.  Ok.  I get it.  Next time I decide to throw rocks I’ll remember that.

  

The Old Man and the Fish

As dusk fell yesterday, I unscrewed a grayed light bulb after it blew its final pop and headed to the laundry room cupboard to look for a new one with “75W” stamped on its fat nose.

However, I heard a lot of commotion on the deck, so I paused in mid-stride to investigate.  On the other side of the picture window, a 15” bass flip-flopped in mid-air as it hung suspended from a 3” triple-barbed lure (two clusters of 3 barbs each) connected to my hubby’s line and pole.  He’d been fishing along the shoreline, and brought this catch to the house as a show-and-tell.   “I’ll get the camera!” I yelled through the glass.  “Kids, stand by Grampa and you can be in the picture, too!”

As Grampa’s attention shifted from the handsome fish to the attendant prancing grandkids, he also grew careless.  Pow, the fish thrashed and drove one of the lure’s other triple-barbs into the old fisherman’s middle finger.

Being people who are basically water rats at heart, we’ve had our share of hook impalements – but nothing like THIS.  The barb was largely submerged, perhaps at bone level, in the finger’s fleshy pad.  “Grab the fish and HOLD HIM DOWN so he stops yanking my finger!” Grampa bellowed while kneeling on the deck just as I returned with the camera.  “OH MAN THAT HURTS!  OWWWWWWW!”

The kids’ eyes popped wide – the older ones with recognition and the younger ones with curiosity.  I held the fish down with both hands, even as it continued to flop beneath my hold, sticking me with the spines of its dorsal fin. “We need to kill the fish!” I proclaimed.  “Otherwise we can’t get the lure out of his mouth without him jerking you!”

Grampa was reluctant at first, not wanting to sacrifice the fish - one he’d intended to release.  “We’ve got to kill it!” I repeated at least two more times.

“Owwwww – oh MAN!” Grampa moaned.

Mercy! Have mercy, Lord Jesus....

At one point a two-year-old granddaughter slipped behind Grampa and solemnly placed her hand on his shoulder.  It was a firm grasp, and not at all tentative.  He turned briefly to look at her, and she gazed with all due seriousness into his eyes as if to say, “I’m with you.  And I’m so sorry.”  Gulp.  No froth or panic, just compassion.

Our daughter-in-law ran to alert the rescue squad: a neighborly fisherman who de-headed the fish and removed the lure from its mouth. 

The kiddos were herded inside the house by their mama to get ready for bed, and Grampa and I headed for the not-so-local hospital emergency room with the lure dangling from his throbbing finger. He was sweating.  Profusely.  And pale.

At the ER, he received more than the expected anesthetic (two burning-hot shots since the first one didn’t seem to take very well) and then the doc put down the syringe and headed for the door.  “NOW I’m going to get the Big Tools,” he said with a serious nod.  “Be right back.” 

I thought, well sure, surgical tools, he’ll probably end up cutting this thing out.  I pictured scalpels and tweezers and such.  But lo and behold, he returned with a plastic toolbox holding various pliers, wrenches, and other manly tools right from the local farm implement store, except they looked old and well-worn.  Seriously.  I mean these could have been in any average guy’s garage workshop.  No hammer, though, just tools for holding, prying, and grabbing.

We all laughed at the collection.  “Sometimes we just need…the Big Tools,” the doctor chuckled.  He proceeded to cut the barb free from the lure with something that reminded me of my Dad’s old tin clippers (huge, stubby, wide scissors), and then grabbed the cut end of the hook with needle-nose pliers.  After several minutes of firm pushing (he couldn’t get the hook to push out point first), and pulling (he finally reversed his efforts and pulled it out backwards with the barb tearing all the way), the deed was done.

Despite the drama, it all ended well. Today Grampa says he’s had no residual discomfort despite the fact that heavy-duty pain meds were prescribed.  We can’t believe it.  NO pain.  No physical pain, that is.  He’s still very regretful over the fish’s death, which seems so trivial to me under the circumstances.  “That was a beautiful fish,” he said several times today.  “I’m so sorry we couldn’t save it.”

Fishermen.  An interesting breed of humanity.

Fifteen Seconds with Tinnitus and the Grandkids

Rrrrrrrr-ing-rrrrrr-ing-ing-rrrr-ing-rrrrrrrrrr-ing-ing-rr-ing-rrrrr (“Gamma, I tuk – NO! - me do it”) rrrrr-ing-rrrrrrrrrrrr-ing-rrr-ing-rrrrrrr-ing-rr-ing-ing (“I mumble-mumble-mumble said um an I wa a mumble-mumble-mumble”) rrrrrrrrrrr-ing-rr-ing-ing-rrrr-ing-ring-rrrrr-rrrrrr-ing-rrr-ing (“Uh!  Uh!  Da my!”)  rrr-ing-rrrrrrr-ing-ing-rrrrrr-ing-rr-ing-ing (“MY!  ME!”) rrrrrr-ing-rr-ing-ing-rrrrrrrr-ing-rrrrrrrrrr-ing-rr-ing-rrrr-ing (mumble-mumble-mumble just mayonnaise mumble-mumble-mumble) rrrrrr-ing-rrr-ing-rrrrrrrrrr-ing-rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-ing (“Gramma, can you please make a mumble-mumble-mumble for me?)  rrrrr-ing-rrrrrrrrr-ing-ing-rr-ing

This is SO TYPICAL.  One child is stuck in the high chair and doesn’t want help figuring out her escape.  Another is asked to define the lunch sandwich-of-choice and I can’t hear what it is.  The first is incensed that someone else has her sippy cup.  The second defines the sandwich in ways I can’t understand.  The third chimes in with a nicely-worded request (I’ve been working with this little cherub to cut out the bossy ‘I wants’) but I only partially decipher it and hear everything but the most important part.

Because of the hearing disability accompanying my tinnitus, communicating with the grandkids is especially hard work.  I am gradually teaching them to help me hear by looking at my face and speaking clearly.  Some get it more than others, and all forget most of the time.

No wonder I’m loopy after a whole day of constant internal ringing punctuated with little-kid chirping and mumble-blah-mumbo-ing. Multiple days in a row?  Well, this discussion at least partially explains why I’m not just your average, ordinary person.  If I seem a little insane around the edges sometimes, there’s a chance you might be exactly right.

Air

Sleep resembles a mini-death, and waking a mini-birth.  Every night as my head falls onto the pillow, I die to the events of that day.  Not only that, I die to myself.  For a period of hours, I am unaware of being me.  Then every morning I am born to a new day to be lived, a day with new potential to be somehow different than the person I was yesterday or the day before.

My first awareness this morning, while still emerging from the dark world of sleep, was of air.  It brushed my face and hands before I even opened my eyes.  In that in-between spot of rising anew, nature’s perfume-on-the-run enveloped me: wind-driven, water-laden breeze coming off the lake. 

I lingered between the sheets, savoring the day’s rebirthing process with its attendant fragrances that promised to quicken, inspire, and enable me.  They seemed heaven-sent compared to the dusty staleness of dry, confined air – air pressed through furnaces or air conditioners – air manipulated somehow by human engineering to do what we tell it to do.    

The free-flowing, clean air brought with it a sense of great spaciousness – not space as measured by feet and yards, but space that opens up and spreads out beyond the confines of a measurable area.  Space that infiltrates and surpasses human receptors, space that insists there is more than the obvious.  

As a result of the morning’s quality wake-up, I’ve embraced pockets of contemplative down time today as the wind has continued to push across the lake.  Air.  It does a body good.

Jesse's Almost Swimming!

Our six-year-old special-needs grandson, Jesse, cannot speak and is severely retarded, although he is able-bodied physically.  He has no sense of danger and does not respond to verbal cues of any kind.  Needless to say, we have to watch him like a hawk around the lake.

After months and months of one-on-one therapy, Jesse is making eye contact – hooray! At times he will repeat simple repetitive drills with small toys in order to receive a food reward (raisin, peanut, etc.)  Any tiny improvement in his behavior is cause for celebration.

This summer it appears Jesse is intuitively/instinctively acting differently than ever before when we're swimming in the lake. In the past, he needed constant handling.  However, this year when he’s in waist deep water (give or take a few inches), he throws his entire body down until he is completely submerged and then rights himself with his feet on the bottom - only to repeat the activity again and again and again.  He seems really close to swimming!!  Great exercise for a little guy who needs to spend a lot of time restrained for his own safety. 

We’re almost certain he ends up swallowing lake water, but oh well.  There’s some reason to believe there could be a carry-over between swimming skills and his other therapies, since when one area of the body develops a skill, every other area also benefits.  We’re excited about the next couple of months in the lake, and his parents are already on the lookout for a trained professional who could work with him in a nearby pool.   

Go Jesse!

DARE TO BE GREAT!

Today was really great.

To start with, challenging topics re: thyroid replacement and other messy hormone stuff found resolution at the doctor’s office, and I should have more energy soon.  Yay!  Swarming grandkids (think insistent swarms of bees) at the lake don’t stop for anything, including caretakers who are either distracted or out-of-it.  Comatose grandmothers DO NOT WORK. I need/want to be sharp-witted and on point (um, isn’t this something like en pointe?) in order to feed, and encourage, and safely monitor the activities of these swarming-swimmers.

So you must be thinking, okay, but what does THAT have to do with daring-to-be-great? 

Jussst beee patient.

First I’m going to share other fun news of the day – you know, to lead up to the dare-to-be-great part.  The blueberry season arrived early this year, and we bought our first 20-lb. box of locally grown, juicy blue orbs on the way home from the doctor’s office – mmmmmmm.  We also stopped at a plant nursery advertising a half-price sale, and I purchased a few more daisies (the fluffed-out, shaggy Shastas were so cute) and cone flowers (traditional pinkish-lavender and a lovely coral ones begged to come home with me). 

Great stuff, but not in the context of dare-to-BE-great, right?  Hang in there, it’s coming.  I promise. 

I suppose I also should come clean and share the bad news - well, embarrassing in one way, and shocking in another. This will nicely prime the pump for the real-topic-of-the-blog.

We stopped on the way home at D’Nicio’s Parlour to celebrate all the good/encouraging events.  However, this good news (we NEVER go out for gourmet ice cream) became momentarily not-so-great-news – originally good-tasting news that stopped being good at the tastebud-level and became bad about the time it hit our bloodstreams.   “We’re too old for this kind of thing,” I whined as my heart pounded.  Seriously.  Nearly-comotose grandmothers have no business eating Turtle Sundaes. 

I figured it was all D’Nicio’s fault.  Crazy Italian – I can just imagine him jabbering away: “You-a must-a try-a THEE-s flavor!  And THEE-s one!” He’s responsible for the sugar rush. The fog-brain.  It's his fault there are 50 irresistible flavors to choose from.  What business does he have offering countless sundaes, parfaits, sodas and floats?  Huh? 

(Just so you know, we’re getting to the dare-to-be-great part.  Your patience is about to be rewarded.)

At least I didn’t take D’Nicio’s dare and order his single menu item named, “Dare to be Great!” for $30.29.  Here’s the description: “Twenty-one scoops of assorted flavors of ice cream, topped with strawberries, chocolate, pineapple and marshmallow toppings, chopped nuts, whipped cream and cherries.  Finish this one by yourself within one hour and it’s FREE!  Ask your server for details.”

To that I say, “Only in America.”

Bless his heart - D’Nicio also promotes a “Baby Dare to be Great!” for $17.29 described as, “Same great taste and ingredients as above, but smaller with ten scoops.”  Isn’t that nice of him to offer something for those with outlandish but slightly less obsessive appetites who dare to be only half-as-great.

So now you know the headlines of my day.  It was pretty great.  But I will never dare-to-be-great D’Nicio-style.  I’d love to watch someone else accept the dare, though.

Overwhelm

Challenging circumstances lurk on so many sides these days, and yet there’s another heart-level overwhelm in operation as well: the realization that God is my personal all-in-all.

Ps. 61:2 – “From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”

I haven’t heard a song entitled, My Heart is Overwhelmed by Hillsong, but ran across the lyrics a few days ago and was drawn to the line, “My heart is overwhelmed:”

Perfect in love

Lord, You came to earth

To rescue me

You took my place upon that cross

The stains that held me back

Were washed away

You made me whole

Your love has set

The broken captives free

Your love released

The chains once binding me

I'm found in grace

In love's embrace

My heart is overwhelmed

I stand redeemed

Your Spirit now alive within my heart

I walk with you all of my days

I shall live to glorify You God

Hear my soul rejoice

Your love has set

The broken captives free

Your love released the chains once binding me

I'm found in grace

In love's embrace

My heart is overwhelmed

Sings my soul of how

Your love has set me free

Sings my heart of how

Your mercy rescued me

Hear my cry of endless love

To my Savior and to my King

My heart is overwhelmed

Sings my soul of how

Your love has set me free

Sings my heart of how

Your mercy rescued me

Hear my cry of endless love

To my Savior and to my King

My heart is overwhelmed

Your love has set

The broken captives free

Your love released the chains once binding me

I'm found in grace

In love's embrace

My heart is overwhelmed




Clara's Dream

We have two four-year-old and two two-year-old granddaughters (in different families, of course).  One set of sisters (ages four and two) is preparing to move into the area with the rest of their family, where they will a inhabit a unique custom home that has been in the construction process for the past two years. 

Today, Clara (age four, the older sister) told me several of her famous stories.  At one point after watching a school of bass minnows and other assorted larger fish (bluegill) swim near the pier she said,  “I had a dream once about a fish."

“What kind of fish?” I asked.

She paused.  “A mommy fish.”

“What did this fish do?”

“She took care of her babies.”

“Her minnows?”

“Yes, her minnows.”  She stopped to think.  “And then I dreamed I WAS the mommy fish.”  This was said as an exclamation, with great emphasis.

“Really?”

“Yes.  And her name was…Cinderella.”

Fairy tales call us into fantasies founded in reality.  Somehow Cinderella, Clara’s concept of parenting, and the fish around the pier got all mixed together in Clara’s mind until she found herself in the middle of the story.  Not only that, but she became the exemplary heroine: patient, kind, hard-working Cinderella.  With fins.  And gills.

“Her name wasn’t Clara?”  I asked.

“Well, maybe Cinderella-Clara,” she replied.

“That must have been a nice dream,” I said.

“It WAS a nice dream!  But it was sort of real, too, you know…”

And so I introduce to you the fishy, the one-and-only, Cinderella-Clara:

The Taylors

A southern gospel quartet performed at church tonight, The Taylors from North Carolina - four talented vocalists who enchanted their audience with musical excellence coupled with upbeat excitement and a strong message of hope.  Although hearing issues kept me from fully participating, their addictive energy lifted me to a higher plane, almost like surfing on a wave of four-part harmony.

When I think of their travel schedule and the rigors of continual performance, I marvel at their vision. It is no small thing to sell out to a touring lifestyle, especially when income is spotty.  I wonder what it would be like to live as they do - to always be on-the-move, constantly inserting themselves in others lives and injecting doses of encouragement.

Memory Garden

Our antiquated gray Villager mini-van, the vehicle with the most unique character (in the form of dents and rust), purred like a battle-worn, hoarse barn cat as I drove down a narrow country road on the way to the Big City grocery store this morning.   My left arm remained propped, half-in and half-out the open window, where it cooled in the wind (since the Villager’s air conditioning no longer works).  I relished the pastoral trees, charming farmhouses, fresh air and grazing horses as the car grumbled down the road.

I was not thinking about the city with its miles of gray concrete, massive storefronts, exhaust fumes and traffic lights.  I was not thinking about groceries.   

So it's no surprise that I got sidetracked and stopped at a large nursery on the way where I’d admired countless beautiful landscape plants earlier in the spring.   It just seemed the thing to do on this particular day, and besides, an idea was brewing.  Why not define our new raised bed by the mailbox as a “memory garden” of flowers reminiscent of those that grew wild at the lake when I was a child?

I went right to the daisies, black-eyed susans, and coneflowers and selected four plants.  After I got home and put them in the ground, I also transplanted some taller, wispy daisy-like plants a neighbor recently volunteered as orphans needing a new home. 

Voila!  Here’s the result:

There’s a gap where I’ll probably add another black-eyed susan, but otherwise I’m pleased with the initial results.  Now to get some mulch and keep these adopted beauties WATERED. 

It’s not difficult for me to imagine myself at age eight or ten, barefoot and walking the sunny road on the way home from the boathouse, twisting the tough stems of flowers such as these along the way.  I would often collect a handful (by the hardest) and take them back to our log cabin by the lake to make a bouquet for the table on the porch…..sweet, sweet memories.  

Smoooothing Out

Like most people, I’m a selective procrastinator.  Although dirty dishes rarely remain piled in my kitchen sink, I always put off ironing.  It’s one of my least favorite chores.  I wait until a mound of clothes accumulates and stares me down like some wrinkly mammoth, and THEN I get out my miniature fold-up board and very cheap iron that sometimes steams (as it is supposed to) and sometimes doesn’t.

Let me clarify one small detail.  My iron has had an attitude problem for years. Without warning it can decide to hold its breath instead of breathing out puffs of hot steam, and in an unsuspecting moment, regurgitate a tablespoon or more of water all at once.  This exasperates me. I sigh, frown, pout, threaten to buy a new iron, and scold it with verbal lashings.  Then it behaves until the next time. 

In my opinion, ironing is a little like nursing a baby: it’s a necessary activity that requires more important and/or engaging activities to come to a screeching halt. However, when it is time to iron (or nurse), IT IS TIME.

My hubby will visit a funeral home tomorrow and thus wear nicer dress clothes than his usual jeans shorts and t-shirt, so of course the mound of clothes glared at me this morning with undeniable insistence.  It was TIME.  I resigned myself, tuned on public radio, and set about ironing the 14 garments that had piled up.  Melodious classical music in the background would surely keep me sane.

All of the clothes in the mammoth pile were old.  They’d been worn many times.  Wouldn’t it be great to have a wardrobe of nice new ones, I lamented?  Ones that didn’t need ironing?  As I handled each item yet once more, I remembered the time I wore this blouse on a certain memorable occasion, or when I purchased that one at Goodwill, giving it a second chance at a new life in a new closet and on a new body that frequented new places. 

Before long I realized things were looking better because my attitude was better.  I replaced a button on a pair of kaki pants without a hint of the typical irritation, and then overlooked the slightly frayed edges of the pockets while ironing them - a feature that usually annoyed me.

As the iron smoothed out the clothes on the way to their respective hangers, and the music infiltrated my house, something in me gradually smoothed out, too.  I was actually enjoying myself – the lack of interruption, the unhurried but steady pace, the warmth of the board beneath my hand.  I was grateful for the familiar items in our old wardrobes, and could identify with (and forgive) the wayward iron’s attitude problems.  After all, I’ve needed that kind of peace-making myself.

When Sunny Gets Blue

Our two-year-old granddaughter came to visit this morning with storm clouds hanging over her spring-loaded blonde curls and typical sunshiny countenance.  For the past week she’s been struggling with a snotty cold and raspy cough that have worn her down. 

Everything was not quite right.  The squirt guns didn’t shoot water fast enough.  The puzzle pieces didn’t cooperate.  The word-du-jour? “NO!”

Sunny was blue.

How could I comfort her?  Finally I lay in the hammock - an idyllic spot with a breeze blowing across the lake and dappled sunshine peeking through the shushing green canopy overhead - and she sprawled on my chest before nodding off to sleep.  Looking into the trees, I remembered the lyrics to Nat King Cole’s old song:

When Sunny gets blue, she breathes a sigh of sadness,

Like the wind that stirs the trees.

Wind that sets the leaves to swayin’

Like some violins are playin’

Weird and haunting melodies.

When I thought she was deeply asleep (this was hours before her regular naptime), I carried her inside and approached the pack-n-play.  But she woke up:  “NO, Nana, NO!  Wok, Nana!  WOK!”

It took me a minute to figure out she was saying “rock.”  She loves our very old, very verbal, crick-cricking rocking chair that sings a song whenever we rock.  Creek-crack, creeeeek-crack.  She loves it.  So we sat.  And rocked. 

After she zonked out - hypnotized by the rocker’s song - and had been asleep for a long time, I carefully transferred her to our big bed and surrounded her with puffy pillows as comfortable pads.  A tiny Queen with a red blanket as her royal robe.

She woke up an hour-and-a-half later (which would have been the usual time to begin her nap) with an almost-whispered request: “Nana!  Wok, Nana…..wok….”  So we resumed our station: creek-crack, creeeeek-crack.  Nothing more was said.  Nothing more needed to be said.  After a while she rallied, and the earlier dark countenance lifted.   Sunny was no longer blue, and she went on to swim hard in the lake in the late afternoon - slipping down the slide numerous times and jumping from the pier -  apparently fully recovered. 

The Good Fairy in Suspenders

Quiet and stony-faced, Willy shuffled down the hall, leading us to a small room with a microscope.  He was probably 65 or 70 years old, I thought.  Although his chin was thoroughly shaven, a long white beard flowed from the underside of his neck and was framed on two sides by elastic pillars: wide blue suspenders.

Our interaction was labored at first. I wasn’t sure if Willy intended to open up, or how much I should talk. However, eventually the conversational dam broke.  His face lit up with an animated, quizzical smile and bright eyes topped by arching eyebrows.  Then we got down to business.   

He took our blood samples, a single prick of the finger one at a time for each of the two of us, and smeared the drops on individual slides.   He then identified various features under the dark field microscope, and enlarged his findings on a small TV screen. 

Then we talked.  And talked some more.  Although I lost track of time, we were probably there a good hour or more. His experience of 25 years of research and experience showed.  As we listened to the stories told by our blood, he translated what they meant to us in respect to our health.  It was magical (airy, fairy-like), exciting, encouraging, and hopeful.  We heard both old and very new things, and left with NEW hope.

Dark Field Live Blood Analysis is a form of diagnostics largely foreign to mainstream medicine, and yet to a wise and experienced practitioner, it is a telling indicator of what is happening within the body.  I feel privileged to have visited Willy today – an Amish man with a heart to serve who helps 15-20 people every day.  The cost for his services?  Nothing.

Extreme

It has been an extreme day.  Extremely uplifting, busy, crazy, special, surprising, fun, challenging, and…extreme.  Extremely extreme.  That works.

I visited a church this morning that was very different from my home church.  I found it extremely inspiring.

Father’s Day lunch featured extreme homemade chicken/bacon/bleu cheese/onion/b-b-que pizza (yes, b-b-que pizza) and neopolitan banana splits topped with whipped cream and a cherry - compliments of our daughter.

Extreme drama exploded when our 2-year-old granddaughter screamed.  A drip of hot bacon grease landed on the top of her head during the pizza prep.  Miraculously, coils of her curly hair shielded her scalp and she knew only momentary discomfort thanks to the application of a bag of frozen peas.   No lingering blister, only a pink spot!

Volumes of sawdust and extremely loud noise floated both inside the outside the house this afternoon as the guys replaced our sliding glass door.   This called for extreme clean-up. 

Last year I laboriously transplanted clumps of lily-of-the-valley from an overgrown portion of the yard in an attempt to rescue them from obliteration.  Today I made a radical (extreme) executive decision to dig them up.  They weren’t right for the space, so I’m extremely glad I gave myself permission to undo what I did before.

The dog struck his mesmerized statuesque pose in the lake for a total of 5 hours – an extremely patient fisher-dog.  (We assume he’s looking for fish when he does this.)

It was extremely cloudy and gloomy this morning, but turned out to be an extremely gorgeous, sunny day. 

Some folks might say (I know for a fact they DO say) we’re an extreme family.  Today I'd have to agree.

The Other Person's Pain

It is one thing to deal with unresolved personal issues.  It is quite another to accompany some other individual stumbling in the darkness of loss and discouragement - one pressed by the proverbial wringer.

For several months I’ve witnessed a challenging scenario play out.  I’ve wanted so much to fix things, or at least assist in the fixing, and have been willing to sacrifice accordingly.  I’ve hoped for the best, prayed, waited for delayed answers, and waited some more.  I’ve supported the hurting person in both obvious and creative ways.

The situation only continues to compound.  My vicarious longings grow deeper until the ache of want becomes chronic. This doesn’t mean I’m without an anchor (hope), it just means discouragement reminds me of my smallness and inability to control the outcome. 

That’s a good thing, because when problems seem to have no solution, the options narrow.  Will I run, hide, quit? Will I pray, obey, wait?

It is still early morning of a day that will be full of visitors, activity, and service – as well as compassion and support.  As I consider the challenges before me, I grasp the words from an ancient morning prayer:  “Lord, teach me today to pray, believe, hope...”  The most I can do is petition God, trust Him, and hope in Him.  These must be the focus while I attempt to share the other person’s pain in ways that will eventually support resurrection from despair, redemption from darkness, and restoration from brokenness. 

Stunt Diving

While riding in the boat this afternoon, we watched a Kingfisher dive near a patch of lily pads in the lake.  First he furiously flapped his wings while dangling in a single spot in mid-air – as if treading air – until he spotted a desirable fish.  Then in an instant he tucked his wings and dove like a torpedo from the sky to pluck it out of the water. 

His performance was brilliant.  Stunning.  Deserving of whatever is awarded to skilled airplane stunt divers.  And yet we were the only ones there to watch…while the wind riffled the water, the sun prickled our shoulders, and the cattails waved in unison, pointing their fingertips toward the scene.

Salad du Jour

Tonight’s dinner menu featuring manly food was already quite well-developed* when I decided to add another side dish: a never-before and never-again unique salad that turned out to be the hit of the meal.

It all started because of the black olives.  A few old ones in the frig had been begging me to be used (picture their little pit-holes shouting, like wide-open mouths, “Eat me, eat me, EEEAT MEEEE!”), so I thought, “Now what would go well with those olives?”  A few minutes passed.  “Italian,” I told myself.  “Think Italian.”

I tried my old squinting trick when my eyes become slits (this helps me act impulsively rather than think too hard), then grabbed a zucchini from the produce drawer and made it into long, spaghetti-like strips with my hand-crank spirooli.  I tossed the raw zucchini “noodles” with the olives.  So far so good.

“What now?” I opened the produce drawer to look for the answer to my question. “OH.  It needs some color.  There – red pepper and burmuda onion.”  So I chopped half of a red bell pepper and some onion and threw the ruby pieces into the bowl as well.

“But if this is supposed to be Italian, what about tomatoes?  Shouldn’t there be tomatoes?”  However, I remembered one of the manly-men coming to dinner didn’t like fresh tomatoes.  “Surely he wouldn’t notice some small pieces of sun-dried tomatoes,” I rationalized.  So I chopped a handful of yummy, chewy sun-dried tomatoes and put them in a separate bowl to soak in olive oil.

“And what about cheese?” I asked myself.  “Feta would be perfect, but I don’t have any.  Hmmmm.  Some asiago would be nice – I have some in the freezer I could grate!”   But then I reminded myself: one of these guys is lactose intolerant.  NO CHEESE.

“Let’s see.  Seasoning.  Salt, garlic powder, oregano, and basil.”  I shook the spices over the vegetables, spilling the basil – oops – and thus adding probably twice as much as expected. “And here’s a little leftover homemade celery seed dressing.  I’ll use that.”

But the dressing was not near enough.  “Better add more olive oil – oh, and the oil along with the sun-dried tomatoes that have been soaking.”

It was looking pretty good, but I remembered another one of manly-men expected at our table typically preferred creamy salad dressings.  So I decided on a compromise: chunks of avocado.  Surely that would give the salad a creamy taste.

The result was visually enticing. “Nice.  I like it.  Those black olives really started something,” I told myself. But the verdict was still out.  What would the guys think?  Would they even try it, or turn the other way and gorge on meat and potatoes?  I anticipated the usual polite recognition when I try crazy salad mixtures (which happens frequently), but that’s about all.

Dinnertime arrived. I didn’t say much, but watched to see what would happen.  Of course the men piled their plates high with manly food, but…lo and behold….they also tried the salad!  In the midst of other conversation, one manly-man (the one who dislikes tomatoes) exclaimed that the salad was exceptionally good.  “This is great stuff!  What IS it?” Another one agreed that it was very tasty (the one who prefers creamy dressings), and a third person echoed the others.

“What all is in it?” they wanted to know.  I was floored. 

“Uh….let’s see…” I responded.  I honestly had to think hard before responding.  The salad had evolved without much premeditated thought, but I finally pieced the story together and told them – which is why I’m able to write this blog.

*venison roast, mashed potatoes, gravy, steamed broccoli, fresh kale salad with pine nuts, fresh strawberries, gluten-free blueberry bread made with coconut flour and rice flour.

Rest

Cattails sway like a troupe of willowy ballerinas to the rhythm of the wind as we anchor in a small private cove surrounded by wild shoreline.  I stretch out on the floor of the pontoon boat, grateful for the respite from busy activity, and study the cloud-studded sky.

A celestial pillow fight seems in progress.  Silky, feathery clouds appear at first glance to be frozen, and yet a slow motion choreography is in place.  They gradually change position, and I relax as their deliberate dance defines my own slowed breath, my own slowed thought.

Simple, uncomplicated, elemental things.  Dancing cattails.  Floating cloud-feathers.  They envelop me until my inner grinder stops grinding.  The clamp of busyness loosens.  Shallow breaths give way to deep, even ones. 

The sun spangles the water.  A blue heron flies overhead, swooping its wings with powerful, and yet seemingly effortless, strokes.  And I rest. 

Funky Ovens

We own ruddy-chocolate-brown, double-wall-mount ovens installed in 1961 when our house was built – miniatures in one unit that together measure 24x48”.  At 350 degrees the bottom oven belches steam like a muffled dragon when the door is shut.  The top oven, the more dependable of the two, has a more even-tempered reputation, but recently threw a fit and retired.  It just quit working, right when I was trying to brown some oven fries for the grandkids.  Of all the nerve.

Like a stealthy detective, I researched replacement ovens online. I found several of this odd size, but alas! The online reviews socked a punch - mawhumph - as if to deflate my victory.  One model was reported to have repeated problems with the control panel that would burn-out (nice pun) in about four years.  The shallow ovens described in reviews for several other models couldn’t accommodate normal-sized cookie sheets, let alone a turkey roaster.  And what good is an oven that can’t roast a Christmas turkey? Pshaw.

Still, we went on the prowl today to try and actually SEE some of these ovens for ourselves.  We found one, and one only – a GE.  It was attractive enough, with ovens of reasonable height, and the price was the lowest yet – but I gasped out loud when I peeked inside.   The back walls redefined what should have been the oven’s mid-section, essentially cutting it in half.  These ovens were not deep enough to hold a cookie sheet, let alone a…you guessed it…turkey roaster.  Gulp. Those reviewers were right. 

My old ovens, on the other hand, had thinner walls and larger cavities even though their rough exterior dimensions are the same as the new one we examined today.  They accommodate not only a normal cookie sheet, but some I own that are oversized – as well as large baking pans AND my giant turkey roaster.  However, a replacement part is no longer available for the old geezer, although an appliance dealer said he could supply a custom-made one (for a fee, naturally). 

So now we’re stuck in a quagmire of a dilemma.  Which funky ovens to we want?  Eh?  The bigger, on-the-way-out older ones with a handcrafted patch, or the smaller, more energy-efficient, newer ones that will deny us Christmas turkey?   The vote is still out.

  

Light

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.  If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.  I John 1:5

I’ve heard it said that eyes are the soul’s window – small transparent lenses that not only allow light to enter, but also disclose whatever light or darkness lurks within an individual.  This seems a credible claim.  We’ve all been uplifted by lively eyes; we’ve all been deflated by deadened ones.

God is light: a compelling mystery, eye-opening truth, and comforting reality.  Can I see His light in you?  Can you see it in me?

Building Sand Castles with Words

I seem to be shifting gears in my writing life, but not without some grating and gear-stripping. Change is always challenging, even when defined as a silver lining peeking from behind a huge cloud of complacency.  I’ve got to be willing to reach out and take it.

While one good-and-respectable seven-year discipline grinds to a halt, a futuristic goal lurks in the wings.  It coaxes me to come, come on out from the stage of weekly contest entries into the cubbyhole of longer-term, committed writing – into the workplace where you get serious about publication.  I argue that I haven’t the time. The more I resist the more the gears grind. 

As a result I’ve been hoping to open the windows of my writing expectations by rereading some portions from Bird by Bird by author and creative writing instructor, Anne LaMotte.  I’ve read Anne’s recommendations numerous times in the past, and yet they always seem somehow new and inspiring, causing a fresh writing-wind to fill my sails. 

I’m copying excerpts below since I know at least several of my blog readers share my almost compulsive writing mania.  Perhaps they will also speak to those folks as well, and offer permission to listen to that other inner voice - to get on with what it insists must be written and shared.

Here is one:

You are lucky to be one of those people who wishes to build sand castles with words, who is willing to create a place where your imagination can wander.  We build this place with the sand of memories; these castles are our memories and inventiveness made tangible.  So part of us believes that when the tide starts coming in, we won’t really have lost anything, because actually only a symbol of it was there in the sand.  Another part of us thinks we’ll figure out a way to divert the ocean.  This is what separates artists from ordinary people: the belief, deep in our hearts, that if we build our castles well enough, somehow the ocean won’t wash them away.  I think this is a wonderful kind of person to be.

And another:

The society to which we belong seems to be dying or is already dead.  I don’t mean to sound dramatic, but clearly the dark side is rising.  Things could not have been more odd and frightening in the Middle Ages.  But the tradition of artists will continue no matter what form the society takes.  And this is another reason to write: people need us, to mirror for them and for each other without distortion – not to look around and say, “Look at yourselves, you idiots!,” but to say, “This is who we are.”

In this dark and wounded society, writing can give you the pleasure of the woodpecker, of hollowing out a hole in a tree where you can build your nest and say, “This is my niche, this is where I live now, this is where I belong.”  And the niche may be small and dark, but at last you will finally know what you are doing.  After thirty years or more of floundering around and screwing up, you will finally know, and when you get serious you will be dealing with the one thing you’ve been avoiding all along – your wounds.  This is very painful.  It stops a lot of people early on who didn’t get into this for the pain.  They got into it for the money and the fame.  So they either quit, or they resort to a type of writing that is sort of like candy making.

Don’t underestimate this gift of finding a place in the writing world: if you really work at describing creatively on paper the truth as you understand it, as you have experienced it, with the people or material who are in you, who are asking that you help them get written, you will come to a secret feeling of honor.  Being a writer is part of a noble tradition, as is being a musician – the last egalitarian and open associations.  No matter what happens in terms of fame and fortune, dedication to writing is a marching-step forward from where you were before, when you didn’t care about reaching out to the world, when you weren’t hoping to contribute, when you were just standing there doing some job into which you had fallen.

Day is Done, Gone the Fun

She (our 4-year-old granddaughter) pushed her cousin (our almost-8-year-old grandson) off the drifting pontoon boat first, and then her uncle pretended to return the favor and almost-but-not-quite sent her flying off the edge as well.  She howled as if truly panicked by his shove.  There was more scuttle and mock threats coupled with laughter, and she eventually jumped into the lake on her own with great relish – ker-sploosh!

Meanwhile as the sun dipped below the western horizon, four of us watched the other six (3 adults, 3 kids) swim around the boat.  Eventually the adventurous swimmers crawled up the ladder and wrapped themselves in beach towels so we could continue our evening ride around the lake. 

Once home the revelry shifted to include skateboarding on the deck and hammock swinging.  The grandkids rummaged in the kitchen and discovered sustenance to carry on a bit longer (corn chips and ice cream bars).  At 11:00 I was saturated with so much fun and ready for bed, although the others seemed in high gear and were reluctant to leave.

It is now 11:06; the house is finally quiet.  Day is done, gone the sun…and the fun.  Until the next time.

The Recital

The lights dimmed.  The audience grew hushed. 

Groups of elegantly costumed dancers of various ages and proficiencies took turns emerging from the curtains to perform their practiced recital choreographies. When the more advanced ballerinas appeared on stage to spin and glide with grace, excellence, and poise, they called out my latent desire to dance.  A discarded passion leapt within me.

As they floated back and forth across the stage and tip-toed on pointe, my heart pounded and my mouth hung open.  What WAS that feeling?  Where did it come from? Embarrassed, I looked to either side to see if anyone noticed my overreaction.  Of course they didn’t. 

I’ve felt these kinds of stirrings for as long as I can remember – the desire to creatively express myself to music through movement – although I never had the first ballet class.  However, whenever I’ve watched others dance and let myself vicariously immerse myself in their performance, some lost part of me has seemed to come home.