A Princess and Two Thrones

In order to fold a queen bed sheet, I extended my arms wide and stepped to one side - and in so doing, peered out the laundry room door.  There sat a tiny-but-regal Miss Princess on her throne, a tall wooden chair intended for a bar stool, swinging her bare feet.  Her crown of curly blonde locks coiled in every direction like old-fashioned bedsprings. She looked like a delicate little fairy-person eagerly waiting to be acknowledged, and maybe dubbed, by some royal queen.

Something important was up.  Her expression said so. 

So far she didn’t see me, so I held my position, peeking over the top of the sheet.  She pointed into the kitchen and said something to her mother with great gusto and urgency.  I couldn’t understand her words, but knew whatever-they-were mattered greatly. Her tone was pleasant but insistent, and her expression brightened with full-blown expectancy as she was offered a huge stainless steel bowl filled to the top with various colors.

“Pick one - just one,” her mother said.

I didn’t know it yet, but she was being rewarded with her choice of a trick-or-treat candy for a grand achievement: pooping in the potty chair.  She’d finished her job on the little upstairs throne and come down to this one for her treat.

She labored over the decision for about ten seconds, which is a long time when you’re facing a huge stash of candy that belongs not only to you, but also your sisters and your four cousins.   Finally she selected an orange Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup (smart girl) and began intently tearing open the wrapper.

For just a moment she looked up from her task, recognized my eyes peeking over the sheet, and yipped a little I-see-you-hiding squeal. I dropped my camouflage and grinned.  She flashed her signature smile-to-melt-your-heart, giggled with delight, crawled down from her throne with candy in hand, and dashed into the sunny afternoon with blonde curls bouncing, leaving me standing there, sheet draped on the floor, relishing the after-glow.

Perspective

As a little tyke, I proudly wore a round metal “I Like Ike” political button: red on top, white in the middle with blue lettering, and blue on the bottom. Dwight Eisenhower was our man.  When he won the election, my parents and their friends cheered.  I thought the whole world must be ecstatic, and was in awe that one man could be so important and merit such attention.

I grew up believing the United States of America was a cut above every other nation on earth.  We were top dog, having saved the day in World War II - advanced, very big, strong and secure, with unlimited resources. Our democracy was the perfect form of government that promised never to fail.  This was the intrinsic stuff of an inbred American Dream.

Then one day, John Kennedy was assassinated when I was in study hall laboring over algebra.  A girl ran down the hall, screaming: “The President’s been shot!  The President’s been shot!”  We all sat there and dumbly stared at each other. This wasn’t supposed to happen in America. 

The Motown artists from Detroit became my heroes. Rules still dictated everyday standards, and we girls wore code skirts to school that had to touch the floor when we knelt or else we were sent home. The adults in my life were appalled by the peace symbol.  I couldn’t figure out why. 

Changes came faster, sweeping across every aspect of life.  During my freshman year in college, the same old high school dress code held for the main campus buildings.  By the time I was a senior, we were all wearing jeans, sweatshirts, and tennis shoes, even in the Union.  I went from ratted hair that required a can of hair spray a week to straight, un-styled locks. Expectations were looser.  Everywhere. I felt it.  I lived it.

The Richard Nixon was elected to the presidency, and the Watergate scandal exploded.  Who could be trusted?  Was I supposed to redefine respect? 

What about that incident in the Oval Office, years later, with President Clinton and Monica? 

Now fast-forward…..to election day, November 6, 2012.  The “I like Ike” mentality has evaporated; our country is comparatively complicated.  Families are splintered.  Life feels faster, harder, more reckless, thrill-driven and technologically defined.  The economy is unstable.  Values are spread out so thin you can see right through them. Sure, good things are happening, I don’t deny that, and yet America’s strength - its fiber - seems to be collapsing from within.

Post-election day, I’ve been thinking how time is leading to an eventual end just as surely as there was a beginning - how leaders come and leaders go and change compounds.  Today I rest in the knowledge that at the right time there will be an end followed by a new heaven and a new earth (Isaiah 65:17 and Rev. 21:1).  And today I choose to focus on the present reality: “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”  (Matthew 28:20)

All I Want for Christmas

I stopped at Panera Bread today at 3:00 for a late lunch, and found it crawling with noisy people. Wasn’t everyone supposed to be between-meals at this time of day? Why weren’t they working, or picking up kids from school, or…voting?

But alas, this is the reality of public places.

When the tired-looking young woman behind the cash register finally stopped talking with her colleagues, I told her I wanted to order a Roasted Turkey Harvest Salad with an apple and glass of water.  “Do you wah-wah, wah-wah-wah?” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“Uh-muh, wah?  Wah-wah?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you.”

“Wah.  WAH-WAH-WAH.”  Her eyes peered from beneath droopy eyelids to reveal an even more weary soul.  Maybe she’d been here, punching those keys, forever.  Maybe the ongoing lunch crowd had worn her thin.

I repeated my order, which evidently clarified whatever she wanted to know.  She swiped my Panera Rewards Card and my Visa and handed me the electronic pad with a big number 8 that would go crazy with flashing lights when my food was ready.

After lunch, I stopped at Barnes and Noble to purchase a book.  The woman at the check-out wore thick make-up and spoke indistinctly with a chirpy voice like that of a mother rodent (a rat, I suppose) talking softly, so softly, to her children.  I heard a few vowels strung together and the word, “name.”  I gave her my name.  She faltered (everyone does), so I spelled it. Phone number?  I gave her my phone number.  Address?  I gave her my address.  Why did she need to know this information?

She sighed, and I leaned over the counter to see her face more clearly.  This is what lip-readers do. 

“You’re not in our system,” she cheeped helplessly.

“What does that mean?  Can I still make my purchase?”

She looked at me blankly.  “Of course.”

“Then why did you need all that information?”

“To log you in as a member.”  I was staring at her face, now.  That helped.

“I’m not a member.  I’m so sorry.  I have a hearing disability. Did you ask me if I was a member? “

“Yes.”

Maybe she originally said, “Can I have your member name,” assuming I was a member.  I don’t know.  But I don’t think she asked Are you a member? and What is your name? point blank – there weren’t enough syllables for all of that. I smiled, and bought the book with my gift certificate, and apologized again, and smiled again, and left.  The next person in line, a bookish-looking younger gentleman, gave me an oh-brother, good riddance look.  I don’t blame him.

After finishing my errands, I ramped onto the interstate and zoomed into the flow of huge truckers, leaving The City behind.  Forty-five minutes later, back in our small village devoid of even a single stoplight, the tiny township hall was stuffed with blank-faced voters spilling out the door and into the parking lot.  When it was my turn to receive the ballot, the woman behind the table gave verbal instructions.  Of course I didn’t hear them, which was mostly my fault, although she’d repeated this same speech hundreds of times today, and was on automatic pilot.  Drone, drone, drone-drone.  Drone.  And repeat.

I asked for clarification since things were obviously a little different here in the boonies. Voting wasn’t a matter of punching a punch card, but rather was a paper-and-pen process like back in the 70’s. 

There were no booths. People were seated along a single side of two end-to-end, fold-up banquet tables, the kind you expect to see in the church basement.  Folded cardboard blinders were set up to provide partial privacy – and yet secrecy couldn’t be guaranteed because the people who walked behind the tables could easily look down and see what an individual was marking.

“Where do I deposit the ballot?”  I asked the droning attendant before heading over to the tables.

She laughed, and her voice was louder because of the laugh.  “Just follow the herd, honey.  Follow.  The herd.”

I drove home thinking I know what I want for Christmas: a large clip-on thing, like a nametag, in bright red with black letters.  “SPEAK SLOWLY AND LOUDLY, PLEASE.” I could clip it to my shirt, or maybe my hair.  That’s a good idea.  Dangle it against one cheek.  Ah.  A new fashion statement.

Writing Quotes

Tonight I ran across a web site listing quotes about writing, about a hundred in all. These are my favorites:

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. ~ William Wordsworth

We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master. ~ Ernest Hemingway

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. ~ Maya Angelou

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. ~ Mark Twain

The muscles of writing are not so visible, but they are just as powerful: determination, attention, curiosity, a passionate heart.~ Natalie Goldberg

Writing is both mask and unveiling. ~ E.B. White

The best style is the style you don't notice. ~ Somerset Maugham

You don't write because you want to say something. You write because you have something to say. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself. ~ Franz Kafka

A Tale of Kale

This afternoon I heard I heard a rap-rap-rap, as if someone was kicking rather than knocking on our storm door.  Our neighbor’s friend, a large-statured man in his 80’s, stood on the other side, arms laden, almost-hidden by two enormous bunches of freshly-cut kale.

I opened the door and laughed at this Jolly Green Giant covered by frilly, ruffled, dark-green leaves.  He handed me one bunch for each hand - beautiful cascading greenery radiating from common centers like bridal bouquets.  Both were unique works of art.

Tomorrow I will juice kale leaves, romaine lettuce, lemons, fresh ginger, and apples, to make Green Lemonade.  And then Tuesday day, I’ll juice more…and then Wednesday, more again. There’s plenty to inspire a Juice Feast for several days – which is, in case you don’t know, a juice fast gone gluttonous.

Thanks, Green Giant!

Perch Dinner

The phone rang.

“Hi Hon.”

I stepped in front of the sliding glass door and scanned the still lake.  He was out there somewhere, fishing. “Hi.  Catching anything?”

“Yeah, I am! I’m having fried perch, oven fries, and cole slaw for dinner tonight!”

As the chef, my forehead wrinkled with a hint of protest; fortunately he couldn’t see. “I was planning to have the pork loin stuffed with spinach and feta I told you about…”  It was supposed to be my gift, a nice meal at the end of his hard work week.

“Figured I’d better let you know.  You haven’t fixed it yet, have you?”

“Well, I cooked the spinach, but no big deal.” 

“Great!  So I’ll see you in a little while – for fish ‘n chips ‘n slaw! Bye!”

I’m grateful I had cabbage and potatoes on hand. I’m even grateful he changed our dinner plans at the last minute.   Mostly, I’m grateful for a beautiful, sunny afternoon, calm water, and half a dozen nice-sized, hungry fish that provided just the right blend of relaxation and excitement for him.

After dinner, he said, “I’m not sure what it is about catching your own dinner out in the wild, and eating it same-day.  It’s just, well….special.” .

My stuffed pork wouldn’t have come close.

Around the Neighborhood Today

Trees in our neighborhood stand mostly bald now, tall, dark tough guys stripped of the leafy coifs that blazed with color not long ago. 

Weeping willows refuse, however, to let go of their long, summer-green tresses blowing silky in the wind.

Waving grasses sow their seeds, flicking them crazy-wild. 

Cattails explode as mushroom clouds in the wind.

Beauty.  Adventure.  Gratitude.  Hope.