Thanks, Mac!

My computer sadly expired due to heat exhaustion on June 14^th, 2014, which explains my recent week-long absence here.  Its last gasps included agonizing bleeps and blanked-out screens that I knew could only mean death. Feeling the loss, I went into withdrawal – a sort of techno shock. 

But I’m back in the swing now, thanks to the generous gifting of a brand spankin’ new MacBook Pro. I’m still ga-ga over this.  It seems almost too much to grasp since my past generations of computers, all hard workers who served me well, have been hand-me-downs.

Having a computer is extremely therapeutic for me, like owning a customized playground.  Creative writing especially guides my mind away from the constant scream of tinnitus.  Composing for thirty minutes in front of the screen eases accumulated stress that would otherwise compound, threatening to send me to the funny farm.  Or maybe beyond.

And so, thanks are in order.  Thank you, primary and secondary donors. Thank you Apple computer engineers, wizards that you are, for helping me manage a chronic disability.   

Thank you, Mac, for your big screen, clean keyboard, and countless blank pages waiting to be filled.  Thank you, too, for my eager new cursor, urging me to type something, to just get it down.  Thank you for browsers that open cyberspace and answer questions right here, right now, even in the middle of the night.

I salute you, Mac. May you live long and prosper beneath my hand.

The Beat Goes On

Spitting rain dotted the windshield like silver glitter as I drove out of the funeral home parking lot, my wipers rhythmically swishing the flecks with each stroke: schwump-shcwump, schwump-schwump, schwump-schwump.   Soon the drops eased their pace, and the cadence of the wiper-song slowed.  Water specks glittered longer between strokes, sparkling like miniature diamonds.  Thwap – pause – thwap – pause – thwap - pause.   

Each swipe of the blades slowly and rhythmically erased more and more of the glittery gems, somehow reminding me of swinging.  I began daydreaming about my childhood backyard swing, imagining what it felt like to pump my legs and stretch them out toward the sky only to fall backwards toward the ground and back up into the air with lift-off-the-seat-pauses at the apex of each ascent and descent.  I remembered the exhilarating sense of flight in-between the rhythmic ups and downs, the sense of separation from the earth while remaining safely grounded. 

Meanwhile the wipers continued thumping out a tempo, drumming with a pulse that seemed to surge with remembered life.  The memory of an elderly woman named Marie had been honored at her funeral just a few minutes earlier, and I sensed the flowing pulse of time and existence as the miles flew by and the wipers continued their beat.

Marie lived for eighty-nine spirited, inspiring years marked by inevitable challenges and hurdles. A niece said, “When facing the valley of a severe personal crisis, I thought, ‘I can do this because Aunt Marie could do it.’  She held the bar high for the rest of us.”

Pastor Tim commented that Marie’s life mattered because it was about love: God’s love for her, her love of family and friends, and their love for her. “We stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us,” he said.  Those carrying Marie’s banner will face sorrow, hardship, and vulnerability common to mankind, while also being upheld by her legacy.

This is the rhythm of life, I thought, the throbbing tempo of love as it passes between us.  It pumps us full with a surging, pounding heartbeat mimicked by the thwap of the wipers and the memory of my creaky old swing chains: a pulse of life and love.

Fox Books is Coming

In the movie “You’ve Got Mail,” a charming, privately owned children’s bookstore (The Shop Around the Corner) is threatened when a mammoth bookstore (Fox Books) moves nearby.  Eventually the superstore’s massive inventory, low prices, and fancy cappuccino capture the hearts of local buyers.  Priceless customer relationships are severed forever when Fox Books steals so much business that the owner of The Shop Around the Corner is forced to close her doors.

Something similar is happening here, only not with bookstores.

We live in the boonies, surrounded by small towns.  Actually they’re not called towns here, but villages, which is much more quaint.  One village about 25 minutes from us seems somehow immune to change.  Its streetlights – black wrought-iron-looking ones with globes resembling those that housed candles in the really-old days – replicate those I remember in the 50’s and 60’s.  Storefronts on the downtown strip haven’t changed much since they were built in the 19th century.  A stone-constructed post office, with tall, steep steps (awe-inspiring if not handicapped accessible) rouses memories of a time when it was normal to respect and honor governmental agencies and officials.

I like this village, and often frequent its privately owned grocery, coffee shop, and gift store. Residents survive quite well here without being squished by commercialism.  After all, The City is only half-an-hour away via interstate if you need something more than the village provides.

However, next month a new Wal-Mart will open just barely within village limits.  It has been under construction all winter, and now appears to be preparing for opening day.  Last evening as we drove by on our way home from a grandson’s Performing Arts Summer Camp program, we noticed brash lights blaring across the bare parking lot.  The hard expansiveness felt cold, and those towering mega-lights seemed out-of-place.

Although I’ve never been a Wal-Mart fan, I’ll enjoy having one close in the same way the folks in the movie celebrated Fox Books.  The enormous inventory will be convenient. I’ve heard Wal-Mart is chumming up with Whole Foods somehow to offer more organic produce at reasonable prices.  That alone will lure me through the door.

Some people call this progress, and part of me agrees.  And yet I’m also grieving, in The Shop Around the Corner sense.  What will happen to the little gift store, and the loyal grocery that has supplied hungry locals for years?  The village will never be the same again.  A certain quality of life will be changed.  And there’s no going back.

Here and Now

This afternoon I was greeted by an expanse of blooming clover as I turned a corner during my walk.  Lake winds rustled millions of tiny round leaves and flowers, tossing them playfully until they danced in undulating waves.

For a few seconds I squinted my eyes as if to pretend the clover blossoms had become a dainty sprinkling of snow. But no, that was a few months ago!  Time marches on, I thought, and it always delivers change; it is not mine to possess.  What I think of as “my time” is actually beyond me, and my expectations for it. 

I reopened my eyes wide to enjoy the simple beauty if this floral dance troupe.  The present moment was precious.  In a sense, sacred. For the present is always where God is, where He discloses Himself. 

Counting Years in Summers

Today we finished hanging pictures to create The Story Wall.  I provided inspiration and layout, and my husband supplied tools, mathematical know-how, and brute hammer-labor.  Together we got the job done.

The Story Wall tells the account of our summer lake life in picture form.  If this wall could verbalize, it would say something like this:

Once upon a time, a little girl and little boy spent their summers on the edge of a lake – one at a cottage on the south shore, the other on the west. They didn’t know each other in those days, but shared many similar foundational experiences, including the wearing of pudgy orange lifejackets.

They met as teenagers and spent sun-splashed days and dreamy nights on the water. Their love for the lake became a common bond that drew them together until they married.

The couple raised their four children to become “lakies” too.  Even as busy teens and young adults, the kids joined their parents whenever possible, fostering traditional love of the lake.

There came a time when family properties were no longer available, and the parents and children spent their last night in the log cabin on the south side before moving (that same week!) to property on another lake.  Then grandkids started showing up – one, two, three…until there were ten, and still more coming. 

This is a story of hope and love, of growth and maturing in the context of waves and sun.  It is a story with an ongoing legacy, a tale of life that “counts its years in summers.”

* * * * *

I count my years in summers -

Not that the other seasons are without recollections of their own,

Peaks and depressions in the landscape of one’s self.

But summer alone has always seemed the most vivid of seasons,

A refreshing, rich stop in the long year,

The time of greatest possibilities and promises.

And the fact that the promises of each summer are not kept

Leaves me with undiminished hope for the next one.

-excerpt from Life magazine, mid-1960’s

Test Kitchen

I seem to thrive on kitchen experimentation like some crazy inventor (think Doc Emmet Brown only with food instead of time machines).  Another way to say this is that when fixing dinner, I wing it most of the time. 

My current cooking efforts are unconventional with a healthy twist, but I still want them to appeal to the manly-man appetite that shows up repeatedly at my table every day.  Sugar-free, dairy-free, gluten-free, white-potato-free, and a host of other restrictions from his cardiologist guide and challenge me to come up with some wacky, but delicious, concoctions.

Some people say, “Well, what do you eat?  What’s left?”  I’ll tell you.  Plenty of real food.

Several people have requested written recipes (my husband talks a lot about his yummy heart-healthy food, and news spreads), so I’ve started a notebook where I record whatever I make each night for dinner.  It’s a fun project.

Tonight’s unorthodox meal offered components similar to a “fish ‘n chips” dinner: baked polluck filets covered with almond breading and served with tartar sauce made from homemade mayonnaise.  And turnip fries.  Yes.  I said turnip.  Fries.

Steamed green beans topped with toasted onion rings and browned almond flour and flax seed were actually better than the traditional Thanksgiving green bean casserole.  We agreed – who needs that gloppy canned mushroom soup when you can have this?

Another side of sautéed onions and baby bella mushrooms, tossed together with steamed spinach, complimented the rest nicely.  Salad was simple: sliced tomatoes with dollops of more homemade mayonnaise and a hefty grind of pepper.

But that’s not all…dessert!  Cherry crisp, made without grains (no wheat or oats) or refined sugar, but rather quinoa flakes (quinoa is a seed rather than a grain), almond flour, honey and stevia!

The farther we get into this lifestyle change the more I think we’re on to something big.  Why is it we look forward to new culinary delights made with very little processed or packaged food, and feel so much better at the end of a meal than we used to?  Satisfied but not heavy or dull-in-the-head?  Why are we able to get-up-and-go at this late stage of life? 

I’ll tell you why, or at least one reason.  Physical wellness begins at the cellular level.  The health of individual cells defines the health of body parts, and eventually entire systems.  We’re noticing positive effects because our cells are gobbling up good stuff.  They’re being served nutrient-dense foods, and are therefore happier and more functional than they’ve been in a long while.

She Listens

I wonder how often we hear each other’s hearts, those deep soul-voices that transcend spoken communication?  Bonded friends who invite disclosure, and listen with their whole selves, are priceless.  Heart-to-heart.  I am blessed with such a friend.

Listening is often the most we can do for another because it says, “What matters to you also matters to me.”  However, instead of listening we often hurry a response, and sometimes even interrupt and force our voice over another’s.  We’re so wrapped up in our own thoughts that it is almost impossible to listen well and with depth.  We want to be heard, and then to help fix everyone else.  This is unfortunate, not to mention wrong.

Even sincere advice intended to remediate a problem can fall flat, especially if forced or hurried.   It’s harsh, like a slap of plywood falling on concrete, and can shut down openness in a split second. On the other hand, love listens hard and long to the other person before it speaks.  It takes time to hear the terrain of the true heart first, and when the time is right, to speak gently with wisdom in an encouraging, rather than prescriptive, way. 

Of course it’s not easy or automatic to hear the subtle nuances of another person’s heart.  Bits and pieces commonly show up over time in inflection and intonation, body language and gesture, eye contact and plain old chemistry.  It takes practice.  For my friend however, who happens to be blind, listening gut-level seems almost intuitive.  Perhaps she is not distracted by visual cues and so can more easily focus, but I think it’s more than that.  She’s decided this is the way she wants to live, with God’s help.

“I can see how your dreams are pulled in that direction.  Keep open to prayerful answers,” she said in her email today.  She’d heard me in an earlier message – listened to my heart and affirmed it with practiced sensitivity, then released it to soar and trust God's plan.  This is empowering friendship.  I am grateful, and hope to be the same kind of friend to her.