The truth about dating (and a bad pick-up line)

June 1, 2014 By

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Online dating is strange.  It’s a sign of how desperate us human beings have become to go around with our photos and profiles and witty one-liners like a pre-historic mating call morphed onto a website.  It should be so simple.  I think you’re cute / you think I’m cute.  We think mostly the same about things, have similar values, you do / don’t want kids just like me and we don’t clash on religion and politics, so WHAMMO.  Let’s meet for coffee. Or on a boat where you bring me flowers.  Or you drive for hours to take me to dinner because honestly our lives are just plot notes for my future novels and I need them to be dramatic.

And yet.

(1) I’m not sure who might think descriptors like “tummyrubbin” or “hero4you” are real hit attractions for the female sort. I could be wrong – those people might really be scoring.  I’m particular. But I consider online dating like a video game whereby I push the delete button as fast as possible when these type people email me believing they might destroy my secret magic castle.

(2) I get it that you have a cat.  Cats are nice.  They keep themselves clean and don’t require much maintenance.  But let me say this once: don’t take the limited space that people need to actually see what you look like so they know they aren’t going on a date with a four-foot tall Pegasus and post a picture of your feline.  I can’t believe I had to say that out loud

(3) If you’re a widower don’t say things like “well I’m finally out of my dark bottomless hole of grief after my wife died and my life totally bottomed out.  But I do like to walk around town lake and maybe someday I’ll love again if I can only find a shirt that’s not stained with my tears.  Wanna grab a beer?”  Buzz-kill.

(4) There appear to be a ton of really fit people in Austin who work out constantly and find time to concurrently run races and skip-to-my-lou to the whole foods whilst drinking wheatgrass shots and practicing hot yoga on the plane to Europe.  Seriously, folks. Slow it down.  We know you’re really just sitting around your oak table eating leftover enchiladas most of the time.  Playing with your cat, probably.

(5) A note about profile pictures – let’s not be lying down in a seductive posture.  Thinking about posting something shirtless on a boat holding up a fish? A bathroom selfie with your underwear showing?  Donning a Halloween costume or wearing a mask? In a dark crowded bar where the picture’s all blurry like you woke up in 1990 and only had a disposable camera? All of these are delete-button favorites.

(6) Please, men: don’t chop a photo down to where you cut out the woman next to you so some gal’s long red nails are clasped around your neck like an eagle’s talons. You’re not really trying all that hard here, dude.  How lame will our date be?

(7) If you don’t actually have a handlebar mustache on a day-to-day basis but just-did-it-that-one-time for a costume ball to be funny I’m not quite sure you’d really want to lead with that

(8) Don’t say you’re 39 when I can so tell from your photos you’re 52.  And the concert where you’re clearly standing is the ACDC world tour.

(9) There’s nothing wrong with tattoos, but you should inform women of this in advance if there’s something of concern that’s permanently attached to your skin.  If there’s a large winged Archangel on your back with blood on it’s teeth that’s not a discovery some girl wants to find out after a tipsy night at Pete’s Piano Bar.

(10) And to the dating websites themselves: please don’t tell me a guy is compatible with me because he likes to dine out! He has a dog! He has a degree, just like you! This information is MEANINGLESS.  What I’d rather be told is he’s going to love listening to your poetry! He’s from a rich pedigree of brilliance and wealth! He loves to be sarcastic and buy women orchids! This, dear websites of love and bliss and all things matchy matchy, is what really matters.

Given the above, I naturally decided to get off the strange online world and start meeting people the old fashioned way. Like at a bookstore or Starbucks or church. Perhaps I’ll run into a dude in slow motion in a park where we are walking our dogs and our leases get all tangled. That happens, right?

So last week I was in standing in line at Chipotle for lunch, after a break-up no less, so in my weepy state I look up to see a very handsome guy.  Ironically, the same handsome guy who was super tall who was there the day before that I so happened to notice.  What were the odds? This is so fate talking, you guys. I owed it to the universe to talk to him.  To make sure he saw me.  Because – naturally – if we looked at each other there would be birds circling and cherubs shooting arrows and we’d tell our grandchildren we met over burritos and he’d mutter how amazing I am in multiple languages.

So OF COURSE I decide to tap him on the shoulder and asked if he comes there often – yesterday, maybe? – or some other horrible line that I didn’t practice and no one should ever say to another human being ever. He looked at me as if I were an employee who had asked if he could move a few feet over for the sake of a mop and a disastrous sour cream spill and said “Why yes I was here yesterday at 11:20, stalker lady with frumpy shoes.  I come here often whilst texting my girlfriend Ashley who also happens to model underwear for the Gap because my own office is teeming with women who won’t leave me alone and this is my one safe haven.” Or at least that’s what his eyes seemed to say. Then he turned around and ignored me for the remainder of the line while I tried to fade directly into the concrete floor below and took my lunch to go, never to be seen in that restaurant again in my life. In fact I think I’ll stop eating black beans and chicken too just to be safe. This helped tremendously with said break-up, which meant I hid in my office and cried for an hour.

So there goes romance, both online and in real life.  I think from now on it’s just me, my books, and my two precious children, who think we all make a great team regardless of our shoes, and we can all just laugh ourselves silly until the end of time. And then, I pray, when I’m least expecting it, my prince will come around and hit me like a brick in the head with love.  And after the concussion heals we will welcome him into our crazy little fold. Come on, prince.  You know we’re worth it.

 

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photo:

The First Date

Filed Under: Embarrassing Moments, Humor, Love, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,

Flying High

May 27, 2014 By

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We were sitting in Jean-Georges in New York City, just a bunch of youngsters in suits and expensive hair products, lifting water glasses to our lips like this wasn’t the nicest place we’d ever been.  Like talking with Donald Trump wasn’t the coolest thing we’d ever done.  Like spooning chocolate mousse as billowy as clouds into our uneducated palates was something we were accustomed to doing.  We raised champagne glasses and said Mazel tov through our grinning, sparkling faces. I’m not Jewish and yet I could feel the prickling sensation that we were indeed filled with good luck, and that this night would forever be marked in our collective memories.  This, I told myself, was New York as my mind would forever enslave it.  Buzzing with energy and richness so deep I could barely keep afloat in the pool of it, and sitting there with Trump it all seemed so bubbly and delicious.

But the most memorable thing about my time in New York was the feeling that nothing was an impediment to success.  The world was just one huge shell and all we had to do is pry it open to receive our valued pearl. We were young and fearless.  We would run and dash and climb up stairs in five inch heels whilst whistling and looking over our shoulders at the poor saps beneath us.  And there at Jean-Georges amidst the sparkling lights, Trump gave us some essential wisdom that I’ve never forgotten.  The man’s politics aside, think of his bravado, which is in part ridiculous and narcissistic but in part brilliant and glorious.

“You have got to think bigger.”  He said it many times and in many ways, as if he were imparting wisdom to his children as they ran off into this big, big world.

We were a room of young big thinkers, so we thought, all nodding and soaking it all in, like we were the enlightened few that had made it.  Won it.  Persevered through it.  Earned it.  In reality we earned nothing, and our lives had amounted to very little, and we were just the recipients of good luck and pretty faces, who talent scouts found favorable.  We’ve now gone on to do great things, and we’ve lived a lifetime since that night.  But it was so clear and fresh then like a raspberry dropped into our champagne flutes, the bubbles rising with fury to the top.

The world, my friends, is yours.

I am reminded from time to time of this night, and this phrase, and this challenge.  Am I thinking big enough? Am I reaching high enough? Did I do enough, ask enough, make enough happen? As I sit and wait for publishing houses to decide the fate of my novel, when I re-negotiate legal deals, when I sit at home cutting out construction-paper banners for my child’s birthday party, or when sit through boring dates listening to men drone on about their dull IT career, am I living up to this charge? Did I let the burdens of this world drag me down to the point of no return?

As I slog through traffic on my way to work, I pray that God will open my eyes to a brighter future.  A bigger future. One so vast it seems currently impossible. I pray that He will lead me toward large lofty goals and that I will have the faith to seize them by the horns and ride them. To not allow me the security I so desire but instead throw me off the cliff so that I may fully rely on Him to sustain me.  For then we really start to live, and breathe new air, and really succeed. We all have the ability to put fear in a box and set in the attic for a while, despite our financial situation or our domestic hindrances.  We have the amazing ability to do whatever we want to with our lives, and that reality is both liberating and stifling all at the same time, like we get to pick out any toy in the shop and all we can do is stand there staring. So I prayed for courage and wisdom, and to land on a dream.

Let’s encourage each other instead of tearing each other down to go big.  Go all out.  Grow wings and soar together. For this world has enough negativity.  Enough people telling us we can’t.  That we aren’t pretty enough or talented enough or educated enough.  There are people whose egos can’t handle us, or ladders that don’t have room for us.  There are too many people clinking glasses and saying they are the winners and we are just the remaining lot.

But this world has enough opportunities.  Enough new ideas like pieces of sand on a shore to spread for miles.  There is nothing you can’t imagine. Nothing you can’t grab.  Nothing you can’t find a home for, and a place for, and a dream big enough to hold. Do it.  Be it.  Live it.

March forward boldly in the direction of your dreams.  

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Photo:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jjmontero/8859386304/sizes/m/in/photolist-euSETJ-7E1hc9-abgFSw-b9KyQZ-b9KBCr-e8E89z-cXapNw-ddo5NG-ddo6am-ddo4HB-ddo6sG-ddo4yD-dodNtV-bKV4uX-9FpHDg-acezDq-9bn7fo-8fNxVk-jgxEoF-9tJrC4-7QMQVh-aEs6tb-adv3B4-8f3mkA-dXCgFr-jGiDDU-jEg8cQ-ddJSmr-b3pmQP-c4jPCq-bA2mns-8fRHQQ-bA3r85-dzMYcU-bH5j7R-bA2me7-cb5kCL-dVwTC5-ebHPGh-jsQcTt-kRjiUk-kRjjbc-7Ns4DC-kRjjpi-kRjjSn-kRmgnG-kRk6f8-kRjjKP-kRk5RH-9EL6by-eyNY5q/

 

Filed Under: Inspirational, My life, Religion, Television Tagged With: , , , , ,

Sun Kiss Shining

May 21, 2014 By

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The sun hopped and danced between oak leaves as my hand was steady on the wheel, a steel guitar strumming and an ache deep.

 

I rounded the corner to an empty house, the lingering quiet stifling.  I let out the dog, grabbed a glass of something cold, wondering what direction your blue eyes were peering.

 

This was the night where I used to race home. To sit cross-legged on the floor and soak up the rays of your beautiful heart.  When I could finally shed my old skin and crawl into yours.

 

Joy ran deep at the sight of you, and the taste of you, and the plans we made like smooth butter.  Because a hundred years ago I knew you, and we were kindred, and we spoke a language that cannot be translated.

 

And yet love is fire and it burns hot, and sometimes turns to dust.  So I scraped up the remains and let them fly off toward to the West, by the garden and the snow peas, the pieces drifting in the wind.

 

I hope the ashes of our love land in Montana, next to where the sun bears low and the mountains rise high.  I shall imagine you there, by an old barn with dusty jeans, looking up to see a hazy cloud of us, and you shall smile slow like you tend to do.

 

Wait for me there, my love, for another hundred years.  We’ll fly through back roads and kiss like fools once again.

 

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Photo:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/34121831@N00/8206323521/sizes/m/in/photolist-dvay5z-9yfXyz-Mjfsg-ahvn36-5nyhxj-5nu2fX-fNwiHt-33VHbU-a9qnRj-F1DAY-55Mj7-8m63YJ-9chUns-4SwPvE-fpmXmL-6KF1xb-8LAaFX-6EwJrW-e8erWw-3ahDth-aPRY2a-3UbJK-dmVSPe-dmW5gk-dmVSQz-dmVSw4-dmW5ht-dmVSG4-dmVVoq-dmW881-dmVVqh-dmW55g-dmW58k-dmW56D-dmVVmq-dmVSEe-dmW5eP-hZ2XCf-4mBdV-8ff8RZ-2BdRq2-jTEnCY-7avf2Y-5ACHAb-9cqgc2-brFX7K-8xbkA7-4nzNp2-an3n5S-K51ZZ-4FP7NQ/

Filed Under: Love, My life Tagged With: , , ,

How I Write

May 19, 2014 By

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My friend Missy sent me the online version of a chain letter today daring me to document my process of writing. I tried to hate her and crumple her threatening seven-year-old writer chain dare into a wad of trash but she’s so funny and awesome and we are all going country dancing in a few weeks and I need her to be my wingman for hot cowboys.  So now I feel compelled to write about writing, which is the lamest thing ever.  Blame Missy.

What dare I say about this messed-up process? It’s like asking me for the secret of how I do laundry, which is composed of very ingenious piles of generally-the-same-color-things, some of which are white and are now the opposite of white and others I confuse between those boring labels such as “clean” and “dirty” so I stick my nose in a pair of underwear to see how that turns out and then react to myself like I did something revolting when I clearly did by sticking my nose in underwear but it was next to the wadded up clean jeans so I thought maybe miracles happen (?) and I throw a wet towel into a dryer of already dried crumpled-up kids t-shirts hoping the moisture plus an extra 20 minutes will equal all things right and beautiful.  So most days I survive with lots of heaping, wrinkled, and/or moldy piles in various stages of being half-folded.  But occasionally, when the stars align and it’s a breezy beautiful Spring Saturday I lay out all the whites that are cleanly bleached and fold them so gently and put them all away in their rightful homes whilst singing Over the Rainbow in my very best soft soprano wearing a flowing lace dress with cowboy boots and this is how I imagine laundry days in my brain for all eternity DO NOT MESS WITH MY DAYDREAM, PEOPLE.

And so. My answers to the How I Write questions:

1. What are you working on?

I’m working on staying sane.  A lawyer by day, trying to battle a commute and post-divorce dating, with two small children who live in a delusional far-away land that “when momma sells her book in New York she’s gonna quit her job and we’re all gonna get a pool and eat ice pops.”  So I manage to lower their expectations and make spaghetti that no one will touch and deal with laundry (which I’m a pro at) and fall asleep in my son’s little bed with dinosaur sheets and then trudge upstairs at 11 pm to crank out an essay that I often can’t publish because it’s too personal or too awful and I’m writing in a half-dazed state of exhaustion.  I work on what’s in my head brewing, and writing it down helps me work through it and make sense of it, which is why my essays are sometimes weepy and other times flippant.  I try to not let guilt seep into my consciousness for not writing more often. It never works. You could swear I was Catholic with the guilt.

2. How does your work differ from others in your genre?

I write about funny and I write about faith and occasionally slip into cliché issues facing us mothers so basically I’m like every other blogger on the planet except that I have better hair.

3. Why do you write what you do?

If I wrote what I did I’d be dissecting the art of drafting contracts and the complicated world of healthcare regulations, which is about as interesting as a lawn chair, so I write mostly about my struggles with life and God and relationships. And I consider myself a very positive upbeat person, so I suppose I try to convince myself that life always has a sunny side.  I always and in all things try to encourage others to be bigger, bolder, and love God more fiercely.

4. How does your writing process work?

I have no freaking idea.  Something just plagues me and follows me around like a bubble cloud over my head.  I swat at it and it keeps raining down words and then I get in my car all pissed off about this idea that won’t budge so when I drive or walk or fold laundry (ha ha ha) my brain starts spitting out these words in order and I re-arrange them in my mind until they form some sort of essay and then I sigh and trudge upstairs and put all the words on paper.  That’s how it mostly works (sorry to disappoint). But regardless of whether I write during the day or at night or whenever in whatever fashion, the minute I’m done I sigh deeply, like I had all these truths bearing a hole in my soul and I finally found a release valve, and they all poured out on the page, and I want to cry and sleep and curl up in a pile on my down comforter because my work here is done.  When I finished my novel I felt like I had run a marathon, because it was like a life that I birthed, and a extrication of pain that I didn’t know I was grasping onto, and a release of joy that I didn’t know was even lingering.  And it’s a beautiful thing to find release, and feel you are living your truth, and you just have to do it in whatever sloppy way that happens.

Writing is like laundry.  Some days are wadded up piles and others are flowing silk.  Whatever you do, just don’t stick your nose in it.

 

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Photo:

Mystery Writers

Filed Under: Humor, My life, Uncategorized, Writing Tagged With: , , ,

Finger Pointing

May 14, 2014 By

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“There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?”

James 4:12

I read an article where a young girl in a very conservative college was chastised for wearing a low-cut shirt because she was allowing temptation in the minds of the young men to flourish.  And we all judged because of course women shouldn’t be shamed for wearing v-neck sweaters while men stare with drool coming out of their mouths, and how ridiculous are these religious people.  And yet when hardworking nurses tend to the poor and the homeless at community health centers, some consider it charity undeserved, and handouts undesirable, and critics sit in their easy chairs and scream at the television, judging how America’s gone to hell with regard to its own moral fiber.  We all at some point have sat in meetings where people use double negatives and we laugh at people’s ugly blazers and cackle when the mighty fall.  And when marriages split up?  The cheerleader gets fat? Men cheat on their wives? Celebrities die of overdoses? For heaven’s sakes a woman makes a choice involving her body? Give me a scenario and I’ll let you know how we as humans handle it – we find a way to cast a firm and harsh judgment upon it.  If I can think of one sin that continues to flourish in our society without reservation, it’s our continual and sickening judgment.  You can tell I don’t listen to talk radio.  For the love.

Because in reality, God’s the only judge in the room that matters.  Live your own life to glorify the one you serve, and let God work out the rest.

I have a friend who belongs to another denomination.  There’s a different word on his church building.  It’s on a different road and in another town and there are songs I’ve not heard and worship I’ve not experienced in my stable and slow-moving Presbyterian fashion.  It delighted me like a shiny penny, and we had long talks over wine and gruyere cheese while laying strewn comfortably about on the couch regarding our differences in faith, family, worship, and traditions.  It made me realize how grateful I am that in this country we have the right to choose our ice cream flavor, and can walk out of this temple and into this other, and how we can love each other when they don’t check the boxes in the same order. And he was a lovely man that I cherished, despite our differences, and his heart was huge and he loved to serve and there was no one he considered beneath him.

Because who are we, exactly, to be elitist about how people answer to their own God, or which road they decided to tread upon, or choices that they determine to make? I think in the end we’ll all be shocked about how understanding our Heavenly Father is about the struggles that we manage to muddle through, and choices that we make that might not always have beautiful endings.  Because he knows our hearts, dear friends, and at the core isn’t that what’s it’s all about?

Instead of judging about how people live their lives, or how they worship their God, or whether they wear long skirts or v-necks or whether they have ten kids or none, let’s just let our hair down in a very 1970’s flashback and allow each other to breathe.  To be.  To feel comfortable in who they are.  I wish for a day we could all just allow people to make mistakes, and give each other the benefit of the doubt, and consider our only job on earth to pray for the lost in silent, and encourage our own children to be strong men and women of character, and love fiercely the God we serve.  It’s not our role to place judgment on the choices of others, but to simply love with a pouring out of our Father like morning rays to a spooky and eerie night, allowing it to permeate those around us, filling up hearts and shining like brilliance and to say always and forever thank you.  For allowing us to co-exist.  For reminding us to complement each other’s unique gifts.  To encourage us to think and look at things differently.

And as the dew forms we see vast and glorious differences in the field, strewn about with color and shapes that makes for a patchwork of glory.  Paintbrushes and bluebonnets and wild sea oats floating in the breezes. This is life.  This is His kingdom.

This, my dear friends, is freedom.

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photo:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnloo/4876114194/sizes/m/in/photolist-8qTmSo-97hcz9-agdpUF-ecv9cN-hbsAuY-e35QYP-b6RYY6-aTB3Fn-8gL9DB-8XVtzi-8vbKtv-8veNqU-cw4HZY-8veMym-8vbKtX-eGiLyC-98eHM1-8veM2J-8xEX7V-8veMJd-8veLSo-8veNgQ-8veMbY-8vbJyx-aqYYE6-dGmsXr-bx1pKv-9tHFVK-cVxGh5-aeHSQF-g5HnXC-gKRgvP-dKfbZq-9SAg62-a8BvWf-anvH5K-9NnoYa-dq1ecN-d7Bc2J-aqZ1La-bnVsHt-gtomUU-9WiPed-8Mkfzq-hGVfmq-fHvoMF-aBnzL4-93HbEA-dNZxht-kg4mqM-dq1dNQ/

Filed Under: Inspirational, Love, Religion Tagged With: , , , ,

Odd and Curious Thoughts (about a weekend alone)

May 4, 2014 By

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(1) Being the environmentally conscious city that it is, Austin has a city ordinance that you have to bring your own recycled bags to the grocery store or else you’re carrying frozen peas in your purse and balancing tri-tip steak between your armpits while hunting for your car keys.  But today, I traveled outside the city’s jurisdiction to Trader Joe’s, which is free of said restriction, and what do I see but some woman lugging in the bags after all.  I had an urge to run up to her and say “But honey! You don’t have to bring them! They not only have chocolate-covered potato chips but they give you bags!” But her assortment of henna tattoos revealed that she was just trying to be environmentally conscious.  Weirdo.

(2) I’ve begun to refer to Diet Coke as chemical water to warn obviously ignorant consumers to the danger of aspartame so when I stopped by people’s offices this past week see if they want anything from the break room I gave them a choice of 30 grams of sugar or chemical water and suddenly people are shutting their doors and I don’t know why.

(3) I planted a pack of wildflowers in my garden this year, but as I was driving today I saw fields of Indian paintbrush along the highway and I felt so guilty for trying to force flowers that were supposed to grow untamed and free into neat little rows and like wild horses these flowers would forever now be caged and I wanted to run out and pluck their little green shoots from the earth to spare them from a life in captivity.  But I didn’t because that’s dumb.

(4) I mentally judged a woman for not wanting to fill landfills with plastic bags and yet I contemplated ripping soul-less seeds from the earth to protect their unrealized ego.  Who is weird in this situation. Pray tell.

(5) So Dude is out of town for a work conference so I’ve spent all glorious weekend cleaning out closets.  I didn’t realize how much mental and physical energy went into getting dressed up, applying make-up, being mentally alert and ready for any required flirtatious banter, and generally being an affable and overall pleasant date on all occasions. From now on I need to stop dating and focus on closets because I never realized how much I can actually accomplish. IT’S AMAZING.

(6) At Trader Joe’s I got a frozen pizza and it turns out my evening is spent curled up in my [extremely] clean closets with wimpy organic flatbread creating grease spots on paper plates PLEASE MY DEAR COME BACK TO TEXAS I CAN’T LIVE LIKE THIS.

(7) When I have free time I make care packages, so fair warning, friends I haven’t had time to call in four months because you’re getting chocolate covered raisins and rainbow washclothes!! So excited, ya’ll!

(8) So in the garden I’ve been growing snow peas.  Every time I go out there I pick about seven of them.  Today at the store I noticed a huge package of them for $2.49 so basically all this freaking hard work is saving me nothing.  NOTHING.

(9) Yesterday I was at the mall and in the Talbots window was a model wearing a green sweater with blue tropical fish on it and I thought perhaps Talbots is running some covert campaign for population control because pretty much anything is sexier than a grown woman wearing fish on her sweater and I mean honestly we need these accountants and HR specialists and upper middle class Talbots couples to have babies so let’s stop with the fish already.

(10) I cleaned out the pantry and found a box of fudge cookies with Santa Claus on the box. Seriously, people.  This is how I live.

(11) At World Market you have to purchase the furniture in a box so Saturday morning in Austin some girl with one eye and no depth perception was trying to figure out how to use a wrench and screwdriver and when certain holes could not be found in the prefab wood despite the stupid instructions perhaps this girl drilled into where she thought it should go but this girl isn’t an engineer and just a lawyer so perhaps someone should come over and re-examine the work done post haste.  And don’t set your coffee on the table just words of wisdom I’m not saying it’s going to fall but PROTECT YOURSELF.

(12) In sum, a weekend alone is glorious and you can sleep until the dog begins to bark at you for a treat and you can make an entire pot of coffee all to yourself and vacuum with wild abandon and eat salad in a mixing bowl while watching another episode of Suits but then Sunday night rolls around and you get lonely for little people who suck all you energy and give you sloppy wet i-wuv-you-momma kisses and suddenly you’re wistfully staring out the window where they used to play and GOOD GRACIOUS IT’S BEEN THREE DAYS YOU CAN DO THIS.  Please, kids, I need you to come home.  I’m utterly lost (and slightly crazy) without you.  See: the wildflower incident mentioned above. Thanks, ya’ll.

Filed Under: Humor, Motherhood, My life, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,

Our Wrinkled Lives

April 29, 2014 By

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I’ve been busy. 

That’s what I tell myself when I want to write, poetic words about how Jesus rose or balancing a career or the absurdity of car names like Trail Blazer and Expedition but then a Yaris drives by with a missing window and no hubcaps and I’m like “sure those other dudes are jerks and ain’t nobody roaming the range in an eighty-thousand-dollar car but honesty, Yaris.  Have some self respect and get a paint job.”  Then I think about how Yaris sounds like a tropical disease and I flip through the radio but my speaker’s blown so I balance the iphone in my console and blow my nose on an old Starbucks napkin and think TONIGHT FOR SURE I will clean out my car but I’m caught swooning over the sappy love mix on spotify the Dude created amplified only by the walls of the cup holder and I think about how kind and wonderful he is until I suddenly I remember I have three loads of laundry waiting on the bed that I’ve already pushed over into a wad on the non-sleeping side so they’re in piles of “re-dry for critical wrinkle relief” and “who the heck cares/you just sleep in this ratty t-shirt, girl” because I was so tired last night I could barely stumble from my son’s bedtime stories to my own and I’m out of dog food and my car needs gas and I got a warning from the teacher to not pack peanut butter again because the fumes may waft into the air and destroy some kid’s life and I just don’t see how airborne peanuts can kill someone so I pack a cheese sandwich that no kid on planet earth likes and I think about my 7:30 am meeting and how that contract never got sent so I set my alarm extra early to sound like raging bullhorns and I drag out of bed and look at my face that somehow resembles a wrinkled sock and text at a red light and eat a chipotle burrito in my car when suddenly a black bean rolls in between the seats and I’m curled up all contorted in a three-hundred dollar suit searching for a rogue black bean so I laugh at myself and apply lipstick and get home to remember the freaking dog food so I feed the poor thing half a cup and seventeen treats and realize I didn’t clean my car and that laundry will have to wait again and I really, really hope that my poor dog’s extra fat sustains him until morning.

Where were we. Oh yes. Jesus. I wanted to write about Jesus.

There are times I get so busy I can’t even stop long enough to feel. I washed a pair of kid’s underwear in the sink and dried it with a hair dryer at 5:30 am for goodness sakes, and last week I purchased a hamburger at the gas station grill because I was there, and so tired it seemed rational.

I think that perhaps the gift of new life is even for times like these, when we get caught up and distracted. It’s not always a perfect season where we let dough rise and children play in flocked dresses and plumes of dandelion seeds flutter off onto the dewy grass below.  There are seasons for which we simply must hunker down and do our best.  We pray in traffic and forgive a co-worker and bring our positive best to the task in front of us that God has asked us to shoulder.  And we manage between the heated up green beans and leftover macaroni to ask for our children’s hands to be folded long enough to roll through a long and beautiful list of blessings.  We feel our breath again.  We stop and bow and mutter our own set of thanks.

So to you hard-working women out there, I say this – you not only CAN do this, but you WILL. You must.  So throw that hair back in a hair tie and do the dishes.  Fold the laundry.  Get to work early.  Pack a cheese sandwich (he’ll live – seriously he’s only 4).  You smile at adversity and co-workers that derail you and YOU ROCK THIS WRINKLED LIFE.  Not by your own strength, but His. Because you only have a short time, and you don’t have the luxury to half-ass your way through it.

Sometimes life just sucks. But also it doesn’t, because God has asked you to bear it. And to shoulder it for a time. Wait for the calm, and do your best to find it.  Center your own soul, even in the swirling mass of laundry.  Laugh, hire a housekeeper, have ice cream for dinner, let the kids stay up late, make forts, roll on the clean laundry pile, re-wash them, drink wine, eat on paper plates, and be grateful.  Forever and always grateful.  Even in this season. It’s all testing ground for your soul.   Maybe you’ll meet someone amazing, who smiles at your jokes and makes you feel crazy loved and you’ll suddenly begin to see sunrises and opportunities and chances to shine.  Maybe you’ll start to realize how strong you really are.  Maybe your face will still look like a wrinkled sock, but Estee Lauder has a cream for that.

“Waiting time is not wasting time. Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.” ~ Henri Nouwen

Wait for better times.  But also live abundantly and gloriously in the one you’re in. 

 

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photo:

1914 Nell Brinkley Worship and Treachery

Filed Under: Career, Humor, Inspirational, Motherhood, My life Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Flight Safety Speech

April 14, 2014 By

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I flew to a conference last weekend, from Texas to Ohio with a detour through Florida, because honestly that’s close. It’s pretty exciting being crammed into a plane with recycled air with a bunch of children sporting Mickey ears shrieking about Disney and beleaguered parents praying their sugar high will last until the rental car. But even more fun is when you hear the same speech you have heard for your entire life from every perky flight attendant since the dawn of time and spacecraft.

The Captain has turned on the Fasten Seat Belt sign!  I love this opener, because instead of just saying “put on your dang seatbelt because we’ll be taking human beings into the thin air in a large mechanical bird and if we crash your ashes will be spread out like dust over Birmingham,” they tell you the sign is on.  Like that ever works when you see the yellow light in a school zone.

Please make sure your seatback and folding trays are in upright locked position! I’m wondering if it would cut a human in half if the folding tray was down.  I’m also curious if some guy named Bob just made up this line twenty-seven years ago because they were trying to fill up space, like “make sure your shoestrings are tied!” and “take off your hats, ladies!” because the seats only move a total of 1.7 inches even when you force them with all your might by digging your heels into the cold floor and what’s the freaking point of the seats moving 1.7 inches.  And I’m imagining the gasping of a woman decapitated upon take-off, and her sobbing husband wishing he had only remembered to keep the folding tray in an upright locked position. 

If you are seated next to an emergency exit, please read carefully the special instructions located in the seatback in front of you!  I take this seriously, ya’ll. I glare at these exit row passengers with beady eyes to see if they’re paying attention to this immense duty that has been bestowed upon them, because if they can’t handle the exit row responsibilities I’m totally there to lead this ragtag crew in to safety. I’m ordering scared children toward open doors and blowing up life rafts saying things like “atta boy” and “you betcha” and high-fiving the flight attendants.  Also? I know there are a ton of exits, somewhere up front and blah blah down at the end that can only be recalled with some fancy two-finger arm movements that I can recall in a pinch if the plane is plunging to our deaths. I’m onto you, old lady who moves slow and is taking up precious exit row space.  Get with the program and read the handout in the seatback pocket in front of you.

At this time, we request that all mobile phones, pagers, and other electronic devices be turned off for the full duration of the flight! They LIE I tell you, because something as sophisticated as a plane that lifts us into space surely isn’t derailed by my itouch reader and an electronic Jane Eyre.  But then again apparently the seatback thing is a deal and people have to follow signs to remember to wear safety belts and you wait with crazy anticipation for a cup of soda the size of a sippy cup so perhaps we aren’t all that bright after all and the machine really has to dig deep to fly straight.  And Southwest took me through Orlando on the way to Ohio which means someone’s turning on their freaking cell phone.  Stop it, people.  Have mercy. This thing needs to fly in a straight line.

And lastly, it’s always nice to be reminded that it’s a non-smoking flight, in case you woke up from your nap and thought it was 1952. And in case you wanted to run off and light up in the lavatory, because we all still totally use that word, or tamper with, disable, and possibly destroy the smoke detectors, it’s a no-go, folks.  I totally caught some woman eying one, thoughts racing inside her head like she needed to tamper with it, or perhaps destroy it, but then the soda came and like Pavlov’s dog she was giggling and I realized she was staring at an exit row sign while playing Candy Crush.

The moral of the flight safety speech is that we are all morons, have to be told things of no significance, need to yield the exit row to my mad skills, may cut our bodies into two if we aren’t careful with the tray locking feature, have to resist urgings to destroy things, can’t smoke, need signs, and get super excited about small cups of Dr. Pepper. I’m confident about our future generation.  If we’re lucky, they will learn to actually turn off their cell phones.

Have a good flight!  If you forget something, there’s a sign. And a speech that won’t change for another two hundred years.

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photo:

Flight attendants are pretty cute too

Filed Under: Humor, Technology, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Headwinds

March 30, 2014 By

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In church this morning, our pastor spoke of the bio-dome experiment in the 1980’s where the aim was to create the perfect atmosphere for human and plant life. All was controlled, from the temperature to the water to the light to the air.  And yet the funny thing was that trees just toppled over after they grew to a certain height – they just couldn’t support their own weight.  Why?

There was no wind to force the trees to grow deep roots.

And that got me thinking.  About the forces that blow against us. About the trials we are burdened to bear.  We put our heads down as the wind whips and bites. We flip up our collars on Michigan Avenue and hunker down.  We don’t have the luxury of hiding, or giving in, and so we trudge forward in the headwinds and just mutter curses under our breaths at the enduring.

And sometimes we feel like breaking, when death blows like a hurricane into our lives when we least expect it.  My mother’s father died the moment he retired.  A slip off the scaffolding trying to repair a water leak on the building he had just managed to close.  They were going to travel, my grandfather and his bride, after years of toil in the sand and gravel pits, dirty and drained.  He worked his whole life for the sweet smell of victory. Retirement.  Money in the hole.  And yet a hole swept through my mother’s young tender heart.  The winds, they howled.

And often times when it rages you simply hide curled up in a bathtub covered in mattresses, because love isn’t supposed to end and covenants are too powerful to break and cells are too precious to be eaten up by tumors.  When you lift up the coils and look around, all you see is soggy destruction, and you fall to the ground weeping at the broken china and the tables overturned and the photo albums lost. Because roots, they are shallow.  A hurricane blown through a soul that believed.

Sometimes I meet people who live a charmed life. They move from job to job and relationships come and go until they settle upon a good solid choice with two cars in suburbia. They prance their way through medical school and waltz their kids into private school whilst drinking lattes in a sharp Tuesday blazer. I shudder at the thought.  That they will grow to a certain height and then topple over. Because the winds, my dear friends – they are coming.  When we least expect it as we stare into televisions and walk blindly into offices toward afternoon meetings or feel isolated inside our own marriages and are pretending to live a life.  We find ourselves suddenly and desperately alone.  Despite our wild successes.  Despite those around us who love, or beg for us to return. And like a duster on the south plains the wind kicks at our ankles like a tickle. Until it rages, and we find ourselves beneath the mattress in the bathtub, where all is lost.

It is times like these I hear James pounding in my ears that blessed is the man who perseveres under trials.  But not because of our own strength but the one who strengthens.  Don’t you see, my neighbors? You, who is standing in what was a living room but is now just wet dripping boards or you, trapped inside the walls of an operating room wanting to tear off your own skin? We can’t escape the winds, even when we try.

But it’s not our roots that are deep, for our own roots are so very shallow.  It’s who we’re linked to that matters. “I am the vine; you are the branches.  If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you are nothing.” James 15:5.  It is the ability to graft onto Him, and trust He will sustain, and believe in all things and in all ways God is always, forever faithful.  This is what allows us to stand.  To weather.  To be thankful for winds that tear and rip and destroy. We know that without Him we are a toppling bunch of cards.

My friends, how elegant this truth.  How grateful is my weary heart for trials.  For when the rainbow bursts forth it is a Technicolor morning, colors so bright they are blinding.  Love springs forth new and houses are rebuilt and new covenants are formed.  We raise up what was lost, not in consolation but in new brilliant glory.  And we know that the next time around nothing can destroy us.

The winds will come.  Get on your bike and head straight into them, with teeth clenched and a mind determined, for nothing can stop or destroy the love God has for you.  What is the worst the bitter winds can do? For even in death, we are not defeated. That, my friends, is perseverance. So I say to the winds: howl.

 

photo:

35/2011 Struggling

Filed Under: Inspirational, Religion Tagged With: , , , ,

The grey coat

March 17, 2014 By

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Some nights I curl into a ball tight under mountains of down with the anxiety of good, because I’ve grown so familiar with the weary.  Like an old peacoat I wore so many years that I reach for it’s tattered sleeves when they are long since gone. A prisoner who wishes he was back in the solidarity of grey.  It’ll be different this time around, I swear. And yet dinner will again grow cold.

So I take this fabric and rip it.  I sew round buttons upon it, and a ruffled lapel, and buy tall black heels with a hint of red underneath, because there is no price more worthy than to rise above the grey of ashes.

And in this coat I travel miles and heartaches to reach him. He is supposed to ride into this town upon a donkey, this man who changed things and built things and sees things, and yet I have no more living to do.  So I flap the wool before me like a parachute as I let it float softly down.  Down to a puddle on the ground, mixed with sand and leaves.  Sticks and ants.  It’s all just dirt and death to me. And below lay an old refashioned pile of rags, rain soaking in its fibers like the earth and the rain and the stones and the coat were all working in stride with one another.

I suppose we were all preparing for a great love that marks you.  For a kiss that surprises you.  For a fire that refines you.  And I curl up in that familiar tight as he draws near, wanting to scrape the earth feverishly with my fingernails to let me in like a brother.  Oh please, hide me from this crushing sense of gratitude that I have not earned, and a grace I have not paid for, and a fear that I will not be enough for the lives I’m responsible for.  So much of my life has been altered, and my vision limited, and so many years pushed and crammed into this very old soul.

It is the same image I had years ago at a conference when the speaker asked where we might have fit in the loaves and fishes story. I was hands and face down, just swaying in the dust, eyes clinched shut.  I couldn’t get low enough.

And yet as tears fell into the puddle beneath me I am caught with the flash of a golden sun ricocheting from the dirty water, and I look up to see an animal’s hooves treading and stopping, and for a moment my weary eyes rise to see what peace looks like passing.  All I have is this one useless thing, and it’s all spread out and soaked up, but I don’t say those words because they’ve already been spoken.

My back, the one that was curved from all the hiding, straightens.  And the grey, it starts to shine like silver. I had no idea I was so broken because now I’m standing tall and I didn’t realize how short I had grown from the stooping.  The black hole of my eye is gone as I reached forward and I felt a brilliant light pass through me. He clicked the back of the donkey as it moved on, down the way, down the road, down around the branches and off beneath the setting sun.

I leave the jacket.  It’s warm out. I feel the earth between my toes and narcissus around my nose and my heart is a white-hot coal that radiates.  I step over the fabric as the dust settles – down the way, down the road, down around the honeysuckle branches and off toward the summer nights to come.

 

photo:

http://www.modcloth.com/shop/coats/midnight-in-michigan-coat

Filed Under: Inspirational, Love, My life, Religion, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,

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