Misfits

July 23, 2013 By

 

Enjoying the nature

I hope that my children turn out to be misfits.  Geeks.  Nerds of the worst sort.  I hope they don’t fit snugly into a world of perfect hair and football uniforms where things come easy.  Because self-esteem comes from knowing you’re worth more than the stereotypes.  Because failing miserably over and over builds up deep reserves of character.  I want my children to fail because I love them so.  And loving them means I want them to develop a strong moral fiber, and a confidence that only comes after the breaking.  And when they hear the words “you are not of this world,” I want them to feel the words seared into their very own scars.

In 6th grade, I had a deep crush on some boy with glasses.  Everyone knew it, and the mean girls would write notes and slide them under my desk as if coming from him.  Letters covered with hearts and cheap men’s cologne that I believed for a solid four days, telling me to wait by his locker for a kiss.  It was a lie, as I soon discovered.  And when the history teacher wasn’t looking, someone threw gum in my hair that stuck and my mom ended up cutting it out and wedging stray strands free with Vaseline.  Let’s be honest: school sucked.  Especially when I fell over backwards and broke both wrists at the same time, waddling around in high tops and matching arm casts. Try and top that, fellow nerds of the world.

One day at recess in the 7th grade, before the days of school shootings and metal detectors, someone lit up and threw a smoke bomb at me, the red ball singing with pent-up explosive authority, causing me to topple off a ledge and break my ankle.  And there was the time I was so desperate to wear Guess jeans that I sewed one of those triangle labels on the back pocket of an old worn-out pair of Levis. And for a blissful few hours, I felt special.  Until the label started to unravel in English class and I stood in front of an entire room of kids pointing and staring, practically curled over in raucous laughter.  The feeling in my gut sunk deep, and I can still feel its weight after all these years.  I was so hungry to fit in.  I ached to belong. I just wanted time to rush by so I could enter the seductive world of adulthood.  But children, you aren’t ready.  These lessons have to simmer slow.

Growing up is hard.  It should be, because this world is hard, and it can at times be filled with pain.  You have to learn these lessons at a time when you can still run home to the loving and accepting arms of family.  Many times we would take weekend trips to the city, because mom could tell my sister or I had quite enough. The defenses were tearing loose at the seams, and we just needed to breathe.  That’s what true family is – it’s a space where you can let out the air and take off the mask and learn who you really are.  Loved regardless of what you do or what you say or what you wear.  A fierce love.  An elegant love.  A love that stands next to you, so that no matter how far you run, you can’t ever overtake it. We’d order pizza and flop around in the hotel pool and just be our glorious, goofy, nerdy selves.

I will die running to tell my children how they can never disappoint me.  How the lives that they see as silly and disjoined are like masterpieces to me, patching their father and their grandparents and their own twisted strands of cells into a pride in me that swells.  Oh my loves.  The flesh of my flesh.  You will never do anything too vast or too dark to create a chasm in my heart.  And if I can wrap my heart around you like this, you can only imagine how much more God can love.

There are times I wish my childhood was different.  I wish I had cooler stories or adventures across the globe or wild weekends of desire. I cringe at my own feelings of inadequacy, feeling stupid for being tall and clumsy instead of whimsical and witty. I didn’t go to fancy camps.  I didn’t join a sorority.  I wasn’t in cheerleading or wear name-brand clothes and I only made All-State Choir as an alternate.

But I was so deeply loved.  And now I’m so grateful now for the trials, because they only get harder, and your strength is tested, and it’s the ability to rise above them that matters.  After all these years, I laugh more.  I judge less.  I have learned that great courage is found in the vulnerable places and to succeed you first have to feel the sting of failure.  I rise up and arch my back against the blazing sun with tears drying on my cheeks.  I throw my hands up to the heavens and say thank you to parents that always believed, and ran along side of me until their sides heaved with hurt, and never let go. Because I know that no matter what happens, I will be okay.  I will rise again.  I will be loved.

That’s what it’s like to be a misfit. And it’s beautiful.

 

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photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/greenlightforgirls/5166535531/sizes/m/in/photolist-8SxR1P-akdfhX-bMgu1F-bMgtWe-bMgtQZ-6phQVs-7agAHq-8dy5h6-7dyoo5-5D41Ga-8N68Bk-aYX5zR-a5PVqk-8ym3ak-9ftAoV-bniUuu-5PgEkR-dJz2TD-bDRPuS-6KrCDn-ciN23Q-bzd1GD-qnqgQ-f8deek-9atX92-6qeVfb-4JZYzo-f8sozW-9suffB-8MdBUz-dwCCjH-a7bmkR-brfbii-f8stCs-6vqzMb-f8smkQ-cWwwTW-f8d68t-f8ddu2-ewXdoz-7Ac25r-c7qyRs-9MtrPv-apyTJg-f8ssFA-f8d6Tz-cchaMu-aQNtkH-2kDHYR-f8sqwW-joeUC/

Filed Under: Embarrassing Moments, Love, Motherhood, Religion, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , ,

My Gardening Adventures

July 21, 2013 By

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So one day I woke up and decided I’d garden.  As in “how hard could it be / I know the location of the nursery / plants need water and fertilizer and I totally got this” type of thing.  Maybe I should have read a book on the subject first.  But seriously. Who has time for all that.

 

So I gleefully planted rows of peas, cantaloupe, watermelon, and tomatoes.  I planted zinnas and sunflowers, peppers and herbs.  If I was going to get on my hands and knees yanking out Johnson grass all summer, I might as well get some produce in the mix.  I have neighbors to impress, ya’ll.

 

I heard you should mark your plants, or lay out some form of grid, but in my typical impromptu fashion I just planted the melons and yellow squash and zucchini and cucumbers in the same general vicinity, because I’ll totally know from the leaves what they are.  But wait – I’ve never planted them before.  But wait – all the leaves look the freaking same.

 

I bought all my plants from a natural organic nursery here in Austin – a good healthy mix of heirloom varieties, so when the cucumbers turned out looking fat and round I was pissed that I got some goofy variety that nobody in their right mind likes to eat.  I ended up picking one, diced it up, and ate it with oil and balsamic, but it was terrible.  I declared my first batch of cucumbers inedible and totally blamed the plant store for selling me total junk.  I was seething I just didn’t go get veggies at Home Depot, where things turn out as they should.

 

So the other day, I went to pick more peas and noticed that all the ends were growing black.  I rushed off to my organic guru, despite the cucumber disaster, and asked what the heck was happening.  I told him how I’d tended to them so lovingly, provided climbing apparatuses for them to attach to, fertilized the crap out of them, and now they were paying me back with black tips.  “You fertilized your peas?” He looked at me like I was telling a new mother to put Sprite in a baby’s bottle.  I felt stuck in a vortex where other avid gardeners were pointing and staring, like this is a party for legitimates and you’re just a smarmy school girl with braces.

 

Oh crap.  You don’t fertilize peas? Is this common knowledge? He told me I’d created a nitrogen crack habit for aphids, and how I’m now getting a fungus, and I needed to spray and pray and for the love of all that’s worthy read a book on gardening.  Fine already, plant nerd.

 

So when I went to spray the peas, one of my strange heirloom cucumbers had grown larger because I wanted to see how big it would grow, and as I looked closer I was quite amazed.  As it turns out they weren’t cucumbers after all.  They were cantaloupes. I’m not admitting that to anyone.

 

So the lesson to this story is to plant zinnas from seed, because these suckers are totally foolproof, and grow into lovely big-headed flowers in the heat of the summer, so when friends come over you can hand them bouquets, and say you garden, even if you overwater the tomatoes and pick all your melons before they ripen and over-nitrate.

 

Next year, watch out.  I’m reading a book on the subject.

Filed Under: My life, Texas, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,

On Being a Lawyer

July 12, 2013 By

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All of us are trained for something.  We make cappuccinos or hold human hearts in our hands or fix leaky pipes.  Well, I happen to be a lawyer.

Having this profession means I’m trained to look at words with a certain critical eye, wondering how sentences back clients into corners, or create paper giants that will take off their straw hats someday when no one expects, when executives have new jobs and children are peacefully sleeping in their beds and the moon is fading next to the morning sun.  It’s then when the aggrieved will roar.

I once got a call on a Tuesday afternoon from a heart surgeon with kind wrinkles and silver hair who liked to volunteer at the local community clinic and had a pretty young wife. His voice cracked and his breathing was quick, and I knew.  I knew that this highly-educated man, who could remain calm under any form of pressure, was breaking.  A life could be on the line and squiggly lines could flatten but this man who would take deep cleansing breaths and call a code and draw from deep immeasurable pools of training and experience was trapped in a world he didn’t understand.

He’d been sued.  

And the moment his name was scrawled on bloody paper, the middle initial pierced between the first and last in print before him, the color ran from his face and all he saw was his life’s work twirling like a tornado, flocks of patients running from his office and the medical board digging into his charts like a dog after a meaty bone.  A house in the mountains and a Range Rover and kids at Stanford all faded, and all he saw was this.  He dialed my number with shaky fingers and said he didn’t understand.  He treated the patient’s family for a decade.  He was scared to death and swirling.  But now?  I called my own form of code and took a deep cleansing breath, working to save a different form of life.

I’ve spent a dozen years living this profession.  I can’t say I’m the best attorney that’s ever practiced, but I’m not afraid of analyzing a non-compete or looking up an issue I’ve never encountered or going head-to-head with some dude in a suit with an ego problem.  I’ve got this.  I know this.  I’ve grown into these pants.  And I realize it’s a mix of talent and determination and a good measure of grit, thankful for the good fortune of having parents who put education a priority and being born in a first-world nation. But mostly I’m just thankful I’ve been given this calling, and this ability to think differently, to help those who need it most.  I want to look into this man’s face and hold his hand and tell him that no one has the ability to rip his heritage away.  I’ve got this, I tell him.  And I mean it.

There are times I want squeeze out of these pants I’ve worn so long.  Do something different.  Shed the lawyer image. But even if I change into flannel pajamas and surround myself with play dates and grocery store runs, the call of law never really leaves.   Because once you know something – when you live it and study it and peel back the onion layers to smell it and cry it and feel it inside – it never goes away. Lawsuits that haven’t occurred yet in the far distant future plague my mind, wedged between actions and limitations, and arguments shuffle in priority order while I’m driving or eating toast or mopping a kitchen floor.  My mind’s a domino game of what-ifs and probabilities and percentages of risk, drawing circles around bombs that might never detonate.  Protect and secure and make safe.  That’s what policeman do and what mothers do and what lawyers do as well, although we get to wear more expensive uniforms and have sexier shoes.

I like to call myself a writer, but much as I want to hide from it, I’m also a lawyer.  Because I have spent too many hot showers trying to develop counter arguments that will not fail.  I can solve problems others cannot, and respond in the language lawyers understand, and I have the ability to stand in the face of an adversary and say with full confidence that “I do not fear you.” That is power, and something a man who has fixed a hundred leaky hearts cannot do.

So I suppose I’ll always wear these pants, stitched with secret knives to shred all those paper dragons, who may never appear and just might turn out to be crumpled up tissue and sticks.  But every once in a while one will emerge large and ominous, and it’s in that moment I realize I’m in my element, and I was born for this, and I’ll never escape. Because I don’t just wear the pants of a lawyer any more.  The fabric has soaked into my skin and my own body has absorbed it up, so now it’s just a part of me, walking.

 

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photo:

Law library books

Filed Under: Career, Law, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,

The List

July 9, 2013 By

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The hate splintered off my fingers, it did.

It was difficult to manage due to all the pokes and prickles and blood drops as the words fell, but I listed all the anger and bulleted out my reasons and explained to the universe how I’d been so terribly wronged.  The hurt and the so-not-fair and the years wasted.  It was all there for the next generation to pity.

Then I got up before the kids woke, early when the birds belted out their happy melodies and the flag flapped on the front porch in the sunshine.  I stood over my kitchen sink and burned it, the list of hate.  The mockery of love.  The not-so-fair and the not-so-perfect and the never-to-be-seen again.

I watched the flames consume the words in black, enveloping them like racing stallions toward a finish line of ash, before the flame caught up.  Fire does that – starts with consumption and ends with a harsh burn.

I swept the ashes in the sink, turned on the disposal, and watched it all vanish like it had never been.  Which is what you do with hate, really.  Watch it vanish as it had never existed, because the only way to rid it goodbye is to burn it and instead replace it with good.

I sat with a cup of strong coffee with the other list, the one that outlines the positive, and the beautiful, and things that made me smile.  It soothed like Caladryl on a bite as I ran my fingers over these healing words.  And I felt a calm wash over, because when a heart is filled with love it can’t be anxious, and when a mind is fueled by gratitude it has no room for revenge, and I thanked God for the gift of fire that purifies, and paper that can be burned, and of a heart that is willing to overcome.

 

photo:

(threew’s) followed by: flickr.com/photos/theodorescott/5077015716/sizes/m/in/photolist-8JD2TJ-dPSEQ2-8MduYk-8Mgy65-8Mgy8Y-8MduPn-8Mgy1Y-4W7eX8-aR8kyv-3zLCZq-5eTYRE-3gtex-6bUzHM-8jfvYP-2BRJT-MDuK5-2BRYy-7yt7Kn-7ibwsD-dYe5RL-dYe5Rd-a5nQAf-boz5xe-dcGuvi-dcGuxc-6DV2Zo-dPSENr-7XijeJ-d5m7SL-6XhKSg-hGfS-8uKhgR-5XFK2-a7ZbdJ-4XQRFZ-7ywVPq-7ywVSJ-dMCQAh-71jFte-7yt7Hn-7yt7FM-7ywVM3-6kdbEQ-6kd5Z5-6kd41S-6kcYAm-6k8Q5X-6k8Lsr-6kd7HW-6k8XRc-dJBUfv

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

Odd and Curious Thoughts (regarding my weekend)

June 30, 2013 By

 

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I’ve been speaking all lofty lately, like “let’s assuage our common sense” and “thou shalt not raise up wimps that cannot debate like Jefferson” and if you didn’t know better you’d think I wore purple robes in my living room and sat around reading fine literature.  So I thought I’d keep it real up in here.

(1) On Friday, I went to dinner with one of my fabulous girlfriends.  Promised myself I’d eat light, cut down on carbs. Started it up with a Fireman’s 4 and ended at Amy’s ice cream, whereby some lady was filming the ice cream guy throwing scoops in the air.  No more needs to be said on this particular topic, either with regard to the carb-load or the ridiculousness of filming an ice cream guy.

(2) I spent an inordinate amount of time staring at my computer screen watching the entire first season of Suits.  I took a break from the season to re-enter humanity and went to the grocery store, but rather than walking, I sort-of strutted into the store with the show’s hip background music playing in my head.  My internal dialogue may or may not have been something along the lines of “I’m too fabulous to be in here buying eggs and milk / isn’t there someone I can pay to do this for me because I have a case to settle.” I felt similar emotions after a Downton Abby bender when I had to make my own bed.  Total bummer, reality.

(3)  I took a video of my garden, panning from one side of it to the other.  I was proud of the way the squash was getting on.  The zinnas, they are really popping.  And my black-eyed peas? Really reacting nicely to organic fertilizer.  I sort-of stepped outside myself and said, “are you taking a video of your plants?  Is that really what’s happening here? What exactly are you going to do with this video? Please step away from nerd-dom and go have drinks with someone or read something that’s published or try to act like a human being with a real life.”  But then I remembered the ice cream video and felt less alone.  But at least there were people in her video.  Mine had only squash, which is weird.

(4) Today I read an article that a woman drank nothing but soda for fifteen years (not one drop of water) and had to go to the ER for low potassium levels and fainting. After one week of no soda things went back to normal. What? That’s it? Not at all dramatic, you reporting idiots. If I take the time to read a story about a women drinking 2 liters of soda a day for her entire adult life, I want to hear that her insides have rotten fish floating around in them and she’s somehow miraculously living despite a soda can lodged in her large bowel, rusting since 1982.

(5) The only thing I can say as a redeeming point to wasting time on pointless articles is that I didn’t watch the Miss USA pageant, so that half-hour that those people brain-wasted I stored up to read articles like what Kim K’s doing these days (Napping! Watching grass grow! Feeding North!) and apparently this lady’s (minor-pointless-boring) trouble with soda consumption.  So we are EVEN, peeps.  Although it’s strange I feel life’s a competition with strangers’ wasted brain space.  I’m Type A.  Whatareyougonnado. 

(6) I cut up some fresh tomatoes from our garden and blended them together with the cheese sauce that comes with the mac-and-cheese pack and thought our children would never, ever notice.  There was no red – it all just blended in with the fake cheesy yellow color, and I felt brilliant.  Until my daughter took one bite and was all “Barf” like I had ground-up elephant tongues in there instead of organic sweet garden tomatoes (I have a video).  My son just shoved it in his mouth and said “well I like it and you don’t get dessert if you don’t eat it then” and sucked it down without incident.  This is why I love boys.

(7) And lastly, I threw away an entire arm-load of unmatched socks because I was just sick of seeing them in the hamper for so long.  But I had to have a little conversation with them first, like “well I’ve not seen your mate in quite some time” and “you’re not really that great of a Nike product anyway “ and “it’s for your own good.  No one likes to be alone.”

So there you have it.  Lofty of not, it’s my version of reality.  If you want to see how the zucchini is doing, be sure to let me know.  I’ve got that on video, wenches.

Filed Under: Embarrassing Moments, Humor, Motherhood Tagged With: , , , , ,

A Manifesto (on building warriors)

June 29, 2013 By

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Anticipate your battles; fight them on your knees before temptation comes, and you will always have victory.

R.A. Torrey

We are responsible for raising warriors.  Those who can rise up and resist the lust of conformity and the whispering embrace of standing invisible behind a man or a crowd or a belief system that wanes.  We are nothing if we cannot propagate a generation of thinkers, insisting that our children use persuasion instead of force, logic instead of emotion, and truth at all times over the callous laziness of a lie.

If you want power in this life you can either earn it or steal it, fear it or abuse it.  And most people can’t even handle it because the allure of one’s ego dislodges the root and all that’s left is withering leaves.  Ayn Rand said that “the argument from intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence,” so let’s all quit claiming others are evil, heartless, dishonest, or ignorant just to avoid the research, debate, and collegial sparring.  We could bemoan the fact that we live in a fallen world or we could just lace up our damn sneakers.  Our minds and souls are a thin veil between human and ape, so let’s not waste the opportunity to sharpen our own ax.

I grow tired of Jesus portrayed as a long-haired hippie who went around singing lullabies, gathering children, and saying “make love not war.”  Jesus was the definition of power, and had not only the ability to speak truth, but be truth, who faced the devil and the desert.  He never backed down.  Moses didn’t lead an entire people out of Egypt by taking exit polls and Abraham didn’t just sit around wondering what Fox News had to say about a particular subject.

We must raise up our children to be resilient, like the skin of a tomato that withstands heat from the sun until it’s finally plucked from the vine, with tough skins and fruit dripping with sweet.  We must insist upon obedience to the Lord at all costs, for it sharpens the mind and allows us to rely not on our own understanding.

Those that hold power hold influence, and without strong arms and tough skins we cannot withstand the prison of this long-suffering life filled with decay and cells that eat at the fiber of our souls.

Oh my children, pure as honeycomb plucked from the field.  You are so joyful and full of hope, and I pray that you remain always optimistic.  But mark my words in blood that we are at war.  A war of a thousand pricks that sting but do not rip, because our defenses are growing weaker.  We are not building up an army of strength, but of men who capitulate, and sit in air conditioning, and shrug their shoulders at truth.  And how can a woman know the value of a scar if she does not set foot in the ring?

But beware, for true power does not bully or goad.  Our design should not be to win arguments, but hearts.  “[W]hen we observe how ineffective our debates are, it would be far better to listen to Scripture, and lament how ineffective our debaters are. This is a pursuit that must be encouraged, honored, and praised, and we must provide the requisite training for those who are called to it.” – Doug Wilson.

The masses point and shout and tell us we are weak alone, and only through union are we secure. But that is a lie that cannot hold you.  One man can do great things, through Christ alone who strengthens.  So lace up those sneakers, fit the buttonholes with cufflinks, strap on your police badge or white coat or hard hat, and start fighting.  Get in that ring, my sons and daughters, and don’t be afraid to train hard.

It’s hard because it’s worth it, and because God insists upon it, and because the wounds leave behind scars that become the very the armor you wear proudly and graciously, standing before the throne of victory.

 

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photo:

Horses of the "Artillery" Sculpture at U.S. Capitol

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

How to Raise Children of Integrity

June 24, 2013 By

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Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring, and integrity, they think of you.

-H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Today, my son told me he was going to put me in jail, he ate a brownie behind my back, disobeyed me twice before breakfast, and my daughter likes to yell at him for being in her general vicinity.  I believe twice in the last week I’ve gripped my son’s arms a little too hard, raised my voice too many times, used the the phrases “spoiled brat” and “deal with it,” and drank wine in their presence followed by the phrase “FINE.  Don’t take a nap. Run around like a crazy maniac and see if I care.”

None of us are perfect.  If that was the standard, we’d quit wasting time trying.  But we all want our boys to someday be men of great worth, growing up tall and strong, kind to strangers and old women, perhaps playing a fiddle under the stars.  And we desire our girls to be leaders in the world, not useless bleating goats, always truthful and fiercely passionate about the talents they have been entrusted.  I lie in my son’s bed and cup my hand to his little cheek, the grime scoured off in a hot bath, and wonder how to help shape him into the man he is destined to be.  And I catch myself staring at my daughter while she is curled up reading a book wondering how in the world I’ll help her understand that mean girls are just insecure little souls, starving for attention.

And a single word popped up over and over again in my mind.  Like a smooth stone I turned it over in my mouth, rolling it around on my tongue. Integrity.

It comes from the Latin adjective “integar,” which means whole or complete. It’s a combination of honesty and consistency of character.  To act in a way that is in accordance with the values and principles a person claims to hold.  It’s the opposite of a hypocrite, who says one thing and does another.  So what does it mean to really have it?  To act it out? To model it to our children?

I don’t think you can teach it from afar. You can’t pray your kids open it up for Christmas.  They are smart little devils. They figure it out if you’ve got a forked tongue. You have to live it.  You don’t have an option to compromise if you want to raise children of integrity.  It is you that they look to for an example of how to live in this fallen world.  There are times I want to slack off and think my kids are too young to notice. But they are more valuable to me than diamonds, and I don’t have the luxury of time.  And trust me – they always notice.

Here are 5 ways I’m trying strengthen my own integrity:

(1) Maintaining a tight inner circle.  I’ve learned that while having a large group of friends is great for dinner parties, it’s the very small group of honest friends who make all the difference.  The love they have for you is established and they want you to grow as a person. Is there anything I need to work on that I don’t see?  Can I open up to this circle about my fears and insecurities? These people love me enough to be honest, whether it’s telling me I need to forgive or affirming me that I actually did something right for a change. And in return I do the same for them. Every single time, without fail.

(2) Honoring God, not People. You can’t possibly still be friends with him or hang out with her or do this or eat that after what’s happened, can you?  How can you deal with the gossip? What about your own pride? What would people say?  That’s crap, all that pride and shame talking.  Tune it out.  Ask yourself if you are honoring God, and whether you are respecting yourself, and how whatever “it” is furthers your own journey.  Open up to your inner circle and pray often.  Then follow your heart and let people say what they will

(3) Admitting when I’m wrong, and making amends.  Whether this is apologizing to my three-year-old when I lose it completely or returning that errant pack of gum I didn’t notice slipped into my grocery cart until I’m at my car– these moments matter.  My kids are watching how I handle the small stuff.  If I’ve developed a pattern of bad choices, I can always clear the deck and begin again. As scary as it is to walk into someone’s office and say “Hey – I was wrong.  I snapped at you and it was uncalled for,” it’s worth it.

(4) Refueling my Soul.  It’s not selfish to need time alone to recharge, or to go off alone to pray.  It’s not self-seeking to get away from your family in order to study the Bible, go for a walk, write, see a therapist, or cultivate friendships.  You can give only as much as you have to give, and the more whole you are, the better you can serve and give to others.  The only question is whether these activities are really supporting your family or whether they are a way for you to run from your problems.  If they are the latter, it’s not refueling but depleting.

(5) Not Hardening My Heart: This one’s been the toughest. When tragedy strikes, people disappoint me so vastly, and when life’s so amazingly unfair, it’s easy to try and build a shell around myself and not let the pain in.  One can lose faith, and stop trusting, and begin to be hardened to joy.  Let your prayer be that your heart remains soft and open at all times:  open to forgive, open to love, open to hear, and open to change.  This openness is where real beauty happens.

Living a life of integrity is hard work.  And yet we are responsible for raising up lives.  Are we not the soil and sun and water in which these little people see what a moral fiber looks like?  Do they see us on our knees, in humility and obedience to God?  You can’t change the world – only the way your children live within it.

Let’s be the medium for which our children can flourish.  Worry less about plucking the weeds from their midst and let them bloom in all their radiance right where they are planted, rising above and choking out hate with their consistent approach to love.

 

photo:

Purple Wild Flowers

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

The Day I Tried Out for the College Tennis Team

June 20, 2013 By

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My parents were ecstatic to have a tall girl like me on their hands.  There were so many possibilities involving a girl, some form of ball, and a college scholarship.

But reality came crashing down when I dribbled the ball down the court the wrong way and broke both my wrists at the same time in a very polished backward fall. My parents drug me to all kinds of training and practices just to hear coaches say things like “we’ll put her in next time” and “we are winning by twenty, so what the hell.” Soccer required all that running, volleyball required all that depth perception, and they pretty much gave up on me until tennis came along.

Now tennis, I actually liked.  I was terrible, mind you, but I didn’t have people yelling at me or telling me I sucked when it was just me and a wallboard, blissfully mastering the art of backhands with a bucket of balls.   Seeing a glimmer of hope that I might lead a normal life and not become a colossal choir nerd, my parents enrolled me in private lessons.  They drug me across town to the country club with the rich kids so I could attend tennis camp and bought me little tennis skirts with blue and yellow stripes. In the summer, in my tennis skirt, with a private coach, with sweat running down my forehead, I felt special.  I felt athletic.  I finally felt as if I was part of something.

Fast forward to the school year, where I was known as the girl-who-fell-down-a-lot-and-wheezed, and the tennis coach apparently didn’t glom onto my enthusiasm.  I never won a game, I couldn’t keep up with the drills, and my shots looked sort-of like this:

  • Miss (that was weird)
  • Miss (the sun, it was in my eyes)
  • Ball over the fence (looking down at racket, which is clearly strung improperly)
  • Amazing backhand that whizzed over the net cross-court and no one could touch

Forever an optimist, I saw this twenty-five percent ratio as total success. For some reason, even though the tennis coach told me once that “you either have it or you don’t, so as far as you go, please keep singing in choir,” he let me on the team.  Probably because I was a senior, and it was my life goal to get an athletic letter jacket (how else would I display all those music patches?), and because I was a funny girl that made the team laugh.  So I became like the “official team encourager” that went along to all the tennis meets and looked the part.  But no one even asked if I won a game – after a while they were sort-of shocked that I was even in the tournament to begin with.  But golly I tried, and I always kicked the dirt when I lost, and believed I’d do better next time. High school finally ended, the yearbook had a picture of me looking very athletic, and looking back I should have just rested in this glory forever.

And yet.

One day in college, bored and wanting for a date,  I rolled up my sleeves one afternoon and hit the court with a bucket of balls and my old tennis racket.  It was a good stress reliever, the weather was nice and hot, and I was suddenly filled with the sensation that I could actually play.  Maybe I did have talent hidden underneath my goofy exterior that just needed some time to germinate before it finally blossomed like a beautiful flower.

That wasn’t true, of course.  I think it might have been heatstroke.

But my parents always told me I could do anything I set my mind to, so I contacted the athletic department.  I was going to try out for the Texas Tech University Tennis Team.  A school of thirty-thousand students, with athletes who fly across the world to compete? No problemo. Yes, I was available to meet with the coach for an information interview.  Yes, I was more than happy to work out with the team.  And yes, why of course I could play tennis at a very professional level.  State championship?  Well, no.  But I have many, many participation ribbons and a really awesome set of jokes.  That should count for something.

For a month, I got to eat at the athletic dining hall, and made many friends with people from Sweden and Missouri.  I was fascinated by the whole experience and soaked it up with vigor.  I ran laps and said “hell yeah suckahs!” and wore the perfect grimace.  But eventually, I had to hit the ball.  And thus began the comedic efforts of One Who Cannot Actually Play Tennis at the college level, bumbling and missing and having a terrific ‘ol time.  The girl from Sweden just looked at me like I just recently landed on Planet Earth.

The coach was so incredibly sweet, and pulled me aside after a few days to give me the tragic news.  “You didn’t make the team,” she said.  She offered some great advice, like perhaps years and years of lessons.  Or an arm transplant.  Perhaps a racket that hits the balls for you.  Or sticking with choir. I thanked her so much, and hugged the Swedish girl.  I smiled my big Texas smile.  “It’s just such an honor,” I said as I held my hand to my heart and dabbed tears.  But by this time they had turned their heads, back to practice. I was totally that kid on American idol who sounds like metal parts rubbing together that everyone laughs at. Get the crazy girl off the court.

I went on to do fulfilling and wonderful things in college, like being a Resident Assistant in the dorms (is that pot I smell?), singing baroque music (oh beauty, oh harmony), or meeting my friends in the dining hall for chicken strips (the gravy/ it’s divine).  I had a very dorky useless boring amazing college life, and I don’t regret for one day my near-brush with athletic fame and fortune.

I think the lesson to be learned here is to never give up. One day, you may actually realize what you’re good at and quit making a fool of yourself. But what’s the fun in that?

Keep on playing, suckahs. . .

 

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photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/skelastic/7817107614/sizes/m/in/photolist-cULHKu-cR6eqN-cULMNC-cULMnC-cR6eKb-cULRUL-cULV9Y-cR82Lm-cULK1A-cR6cTY-cULTib-cULVFq-cULP7E-cR83Kf-cULJQw-cULTBY-cULUuj-cR6ecm-cULQFh-cULS5J-cR834q-cULK9U-cULLT1-cULNDG-cULQfb-cULRdw-cULMZ5-cULU5j-cULQ8C-cULT8y-cR81Qm-cULLLY-cULKPo-cULLsC-cULM47-cULRGs-cULSpf-cULRxq-cULVkd-cULNYm-cULVSC-cULMCu-cULKYC-cULLAC-cULSg5-cULUHh-cR7Xe7-cR7Wz9-cULNtq-cULQYq-cULJBw/

Filed Under: Humor, Inspirational, My life, Texas, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,

Drunk Love

June 8, 2013 By

feet

Having kids changes things.  It forces you to think beyond yourself, beyond coffee, beyond 4:00 pm, beyond dinner, beyond bedtime.  You are planning and praying and cooking and cleaning, and then the next day you just hit repeat with different color t-shirts and different vegetables. 

Sometimes it feels like I’m trapped in a blender, all the toys and dirty clothes and wet swimsuits and snacks all whirling around me and it just meshes together into one big smoothie of midlife. And there are times it gets culture poor, and monotonous, and just flat-out hard.  I yell when I  wish I didn’t and give in when I said I wouldn’t and for goodness sakes pick up your shoes and shut the stupid door and I apologize for saying stupid but I can’t keep being your maid and waitress and clothes changer and bottom wiper and still have my own freaking life.  Now go to bed for the last time before I lose it completely. Some days I wish I just had a day to myself to finally get the house clean.  But then I do, and I sit around wondering when they’re coming home again.

But then there are the drunken moments, when I am simply intoxicated by the flesh of our own flesh, and I can only sit on the porch and bask in the high of them, laughing and throwing their hair back and playing and waving at me with their dirty hands.  “You are the best mommy in the world,” my son calls out, covered in mud, his wet shirt clinging to his chubby little tummy.  I smile, because this is his world, and his happiness, and it’s all so perfect I can’t stand it.  My daughter feels she’s missing out on the love so she shows off and it also makes me laugh and she goes into detail about a box of magical rocks and a house thatched out of limbs and the fact that someday she’ll be famous.  The drug is so addictive that I never want it to end, so I nod and don’t say a word and try to catch glimpses of them in my soul, burning them there so that if I lose my mind I’ll have a tattoo of them on the inside.   

The other night after reading book after book, hours past their bedtime, I just looked at their little sun-bleached heads and sobbed big fat momma tears, because I don’t want them to grow up and shed their baby skin and leave me.  And I realize it’s my own insecurities screaming out loud and clutching my children by the necks, saying to me “You need them.  You feed on their love.  You aren’t worthy alone.”  My daughter just hugged me and my son told me he would never grow up, and I told him that was just fine by me.  And I told that voice to shut up, that I deserved this happiness without all its ugly baggage.

Because the truth is that I squeeze my eyes shut during these precious times people are always chiding me to cherish, because I am really trying to live into these days, and lean toward happiness, but it’s all too tragically good.  I fear the worst, and know it will end, and I can’t seem to just be content with the flowers that my kids pluck from the earth, desiring a juice cup full of water to store them.  I want ten more of this same exact afternoon, and I want to curl up in their messy hair and fat cheeks and precious little words.  I tell them while they are sleeping that they are beloved, and could never disappoint me, and I fear what will happen of me when they leave.  I fear the coming down from this high because it will be a bitter pill, but that’s the devil’s tongue and I see it like a rope around my own throat.   

So I breathe in, and think how much I am loved, and tell myself that I am enough.  If I can feel this way toward my children with the sheer immaturity of human emotion, imagine how much more my Father loves, and desires, and protects.  Yes, yes. I might soon be back at work and won’t have lazy summer afternoons, but I do now, and that’s what counts.  So I let it out, the breath and the fear and the anxiety.  And I bask, and watch them sleep, and just utter thank you over and over until my eyelids fall. 

Despite the drunkenness of love, I don’t wake up with a hangover.  There is no hangman’s rope. I open my eyes to see a delighted three-year-old in my face, proclaiming that it’s morning time, and the sun’s up momma, and what are we having for breakfast? And joy again resumes, and I am reminded that this is a beautiful season in a rich life.  And I tell him the first words that escape my mouth –the only words I can muster. How about oatmeal, kiddo?

A perfect answer.  And the day begins again.  

 

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photo:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27384147@N02/4849189554/sizes/m/in/photostream/

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

Ten Things People Say I Think are Ridiculous

June 6, 2013 By

 

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(1) Pigs are actually very clean.  I’ve read this in books.  Someone taught this to my children.  These animals roll around in mud and eat slop.  Whatever to the whole “they do it to keep cool” business.  There’s a terrible stench and buzzing flies.  If I wasn’t allergic, I’d choose a cat.  They seem clean.  They lick themselves at least.

 

(2) I’m watching my carbs, so I’m cutting out wine. I hear the words, but they simply don’t register in my brain. I have an innate and primal need to translate this “I’m on a diet so I cut out all non-essential food (including, but not limited to, oreos) so I can partake of wine, thank the Lord.” That’s really the only way it works in my head.  Sorry.

 

(3) Time heals all wounds. No, it doesn’t.  It just numbs them sometimes, and hides them for me to scream in panic and/or heartbreak years later when I see a picture or a sticky note from 1998.  Healing belongs to the Lord.  See also girlfriends, kisses from children, and homemade mother’s day cards.

 

(4) Piece of Cake.  I know this means “it’s easy,” but why?  Is eating a piece of cake really the easiest thing you can possibly do? Wouldn’t just tying your shoe actually be simpler? No silverware, plates, or sticky lips? Taking a nap, staring at Facebook, even sitting in a chair– all easier. The next time your boss tells you he is wildly impressed with the report you put together, just say “It’s really not biggie. It was like staring aimlessly at my cubicle wall.”  Ick.  Don’t actually say that.  Stick with the cake bit.

 

(5) He just wants to have his cake and eat it too. I’m perplexed by all the cake references, and the apparent oddity of having cake in front of you and also eating it.  The horror.  Wait – that’s what I do. Do people have cake and NOT eat it?  Maybe I’ve been doing it wrong all these years. The next birthday party I’m just going to look around to see what other folks are doing with the sweets set in front of them.  I feel like an idiot that I’ve been eating it all these years.  No one told me.

 

(6) Think outside the box. Please, people of the world.  Let’s all just shake hands and decide to never say this again. I’m quite sure whoever was originally inside the box have left town, and it’s just one big old western movie ghost town, and if you can simply cobble together a coherent doodle of the president you’ve exited those wretched four walls.  So yay.  Moving on.

 

(7) It only costs a cup of coffee a day. This is usually reserved for charitable causes, and somehow to me it just seems deceitful, because when I hear it I’m usually thinking “like the venti double frap, or a simple cup of joe? Because there’s a three dollar twelve cent difference there and that just seems wrong to lump it all together in one pile.”  Think outside the box, charitable organizations.  Come up with a new slogan.

 

(8) There is no smoking in the airplane lavatory.  Welcome to 2013. Ain’t nobody going to go light a camel in the airplane bathroom. Let’s move on past the 1950’s and begin to explain to passengers how leaving your cell phone on might possibly mess with the plane’s navigation.  We aren’t morons and we need a real answer.  I’ve not seen a plane yet end up in Toledo because someone fired up their Kindle.

 

(9)                 Dog’s mouths are cleaner than a human mouth.  Hogwash.  My dog eats crap in the front yard.  I use Listerine.  Enough said.

 

(10)               There are no stupid questions. Yes, there are.  Like “where’s the restroom?” when it’s clearly marked, or “do we have homework?” when it’s in the syllabus, or “do you have a poop?” when you smell it as your child walks by.  I realize I’ve asked all those questions and eaten cake, so I’m obviously a ridiculous nightmare.

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photo:

2012 07 13_cake_0002

Filed Under: Embarrassing Moments, Humor, My life, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,

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