A letter to my former self

September 14, 2012 By

Amanda,

This is so odd writing to you, a tall clunky fourteen-year-old, with the benefit of knowing your future.  Here I sit at 37 after going to law school and birthing babies and drinking an Americano with three raw sugars, all wise and sage and dolling out advice.

And yet nothing I say about treasuring the moment and “you are beautiful even though you don’t know it yet” and all other forms of motherly wisdom will mean much to you now. The reality for you is today, not tomorrow, and no one heeds advice to treasure today.

So I’ll say this instead:

(1) Lose the damn Coca-Cola shirt.  I know they’re popular.  I know you begged for one.  I know that everyone is wearing it.  Well girlfriend, trust me they are the dorkiest thing that hit that century and you don’t want pictures loitering around in thirty years that will forever be hitting facebook.  Wear it for pajamas, if you must.  But no photos.  Got it?

(2) What is facebook, you ask?  Well the minute you hear that word in your future you invest gobs of money into it and screw the haters.

(3) Please for the love of bacon don’t get bangs.  If you ignore me on this and do get the wretched things, don’t hairspray them up five layers.  Can’t you just leave them alone? And when you end up at a cosmetology school because “it’s cheaper” and “no one will notice,” trust me.  They will.  Use your best negotiation skills to get your hair cut at a real salon.

(4) And speaking of salons, you march in this very minute and tell your mother that home permanents are unacceptable.

(5) Save your jewelry.  All those fun James Avery pieces will forever be lost and you’ll miss them someday.  Put that jewelry in a safe.  I’m pointing my finger at you from your future.

(6) Letter jackets are irrelevant and useless and ugly.  When you hit college no one ever cares about them, so don’t stress about whether it’s a varsity jacket or whether it has patches.  Seriously – waste-o-time.

(7)  Read more classics. If you take nothing else away from this little lecture, you at least need to spend more time buried in literature.  Jane Eyre aside, you are behind, girl.  In the future you’ll have to play catch up, but then you’ll have kids and a mortgage and would rather be at the beach.  Read like a crazy person.

(8)  Someday your prince will come.  He will be tall and handsome and will take your breath away.  Take comfort in it.

(9) When you think your mother is old-fashioned and ridiculously strict and is the most evil and naive person on the planet, you will someday turn into her. So you might want to bring her flowers once in a while.  She ain’t that bad.

(10) You will soon have the urge to sew a Guess jeans label onto a pair of Levi’s in an attempt to fit in with the cool crowd.  You will be very impressed with yourself in coming up with this strategy and feel no one will notice.  But the label will come unraveled and cause a certain girl to point at you when you stand up in class and you’ll forever be stained with the humiliation of this day.  So spare yourself.  Just rock the Levi’s.

So yes, yes.  You’re secretly beautiful and you make really smart decisions moving forward.  Treasure today and soak in the youth and blahbitty blah.  But I swear you need to start plucking your eyebrows and quit wearing gobs of mascara.  And those warts on your legs?  Sister, they will go away.

What remains after the warts and the letter jacket is a really happy person all these years later.  You will go through trials of many kinds, but you’ll be prepared.  Thank God every day.  You’ll need it for tomorrow.

Love,

Mwah

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

Odd and Curious Thoughts of the Week

September 11, 2012 By

(1) My daughter asked why baby teeth fell out and I told her that the big grown-up teeth are underneath pushing them.  She said that wasn’t true because she doesn’t feel those big teeth yet and if they were pushing wouldn’t she see evidence of it?  I sighed and said that baby teeth must just have good timing.  Teeth don’t have brains, she says. She’s already surpassing me in logic and she’s only six.

(2) I love rap so much and it annoys me that they keep talking about clubs and drugs and money.   Let’s quit degrading women and start using this incredibly emotional forum to discuss rising from poverty and struggling past the racial divide.  Because when I hear Eminem’s Lose Yourself after all these years I’m still so powerfully moved. 

(3)  I made a chicken black-bean casserole tonight.  I used refried black beans instead of whole.  I added sour cream.  I threw in some cream and cumin and added bell peppers.  I smeared it into the pan and topped it with sharp cheddar.  It turned out looking like a large platter of smashed up dog poo. My cousin is a chef and says we eat with our eyes. She speaks the truth.

(4)  Sometimes I get annoyed that my daughter’s private school is so strict and rigid and her homework consists of reading and more reading and math worksheets.  But then I think of how awesome it would be to be forced to do all that reading and it makes me feel better.  This weekend I’m going to have her draw all the animals she can muster so we can add glitter and sparkles and create a mud pie masterpiece.  We’ll shake out all the sillies and dance to Elvis and on Monday we’ll go back to math worksheets again.  A few drops of glitter may or may not fall out of her backpack Monday.  I’m denying any knowledge therein.

(5) I spoke poorly of someone long ago and it got back to him through a tangled web of connections.  Although I don’t remember what I said it was something related to our tense working relationship at the time.  Vitriolic speech comes back to haunt you.   It’s a reminder to not speak with a forked tongue.

(6) I tried to explain to my daughter the other day what it means to speak with a forked tongue as we were looking at my son’s book of reptiles. She just looked at me and nodded in that way you nod to senile people.  I think she secretly believes I’m a toad trapped in a mother’s body and most of what comes out of my mouth is pure drivel.

(7) My son cried for almost an hour after his nap today because I wouldn’t drop everything I was doing, hold him in my arms, rock him back and forth while standing, and tell him it would all be okay.  Well I have things to do, buddy, and I can’t just pacify you at your every whim.  I’m over thirty and you’re only two and I can’t go around caving in to your ridiculous demands.  I ain’t raising no sissy, I told myself as I stood firm by the sink rinsing vegetables for dinner.  Keep crying if you want to because it has absolutely no effect on me.

(8) This afternoon, after rinsing vegetables, I sat down on the chair and held my sweet baby boy in my arms.  I rocked his little body back and forth. It’s okay, I whispered to his tear-stained face.  Mama’s here.  You’re safe.  There is no hope for him, I tell you.

(9) When Adele has her child that poor little thing will be so spoiled because her mom will sing Over the Rainbow and Amazing Grace and will catch herself humming Rolling in the Deep in the Burger King drive-in.  The kid will forever cringe at church when the choir starts and there’s just no living with a music snob.

(10)               Today I talked to one of my best friends and we laughed about farts, fans, and how we weren’t buying our kids smart phones until they were old enough to earn them.  We are so turning into old people.  The only thing left to go is our hearing and cute underpants.  Lord help us.

(11)               Sometimes I sit and stare at the blank page like a devil that laughs at my face and tells me there’s nothing more to say.  I start writing anyway.

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

Slaying the dragon

September 6, 2012 By

I think of death more than most people.  It’s only natural when you come face-to-face with it so often. My cardiologist can’t explain why my heart rate plummets dangerously low.  My oncologist tells me I’m in the clear now, ten years since melanoma cropped up like a nuclear bomb in my eyeball.  It’s been six years since I was in the hospital with a raging abdominal infection and two years since my heart flat-lined on the table.  I’m good, considering.  But the collateral damage that results is that I’m always pondering the blackness, leaving little notes for my children, and love letters to my husband.  I can’t ever leave enough, like I need to stockpile memories and words and tiny little charms.

Imagining my own death is hardly painful – I trust in God and believe there is a better place looming.  But I am utterly paralyzed when imagining it all happening in a different order, that the offspring might pass before the maker.  The thought of burying my own is too heavy a cross to bear, and I cannot place myself in the position of the one viewing the wreckage.

For whatever reason lately I keep stumbling across stories involving this particular tragedy. It’s not like I sought out to read them.  I was looking for a new website designer and found Anna See’s blog, An Inch of Gray, and was immersed in her story of her lost son, and grief, and hope.  A high school friend of mine died before she reached her 40th birthday and her mother still posts little thoughts on her facebook page.  I am spending the weekend with your boys. I miss your smile. And my dear writer friend Melanie Haney wrote a wonderful post on life and loss this week in her blog, A Frozen Moon.

I wonder if it’s good to think such horrid thoughts.  Maybe one just shouldn’t go around borrowing trouble.   And yet it seems as if this topic is pushed in front of me, against my best efforts and my own will.  The other night I was so consumed with sadness that I fell on my knees and begged God to never let this come to pass.  I am not as strong as Job: I would be unable to simply pick up the pieces.  I am not Abraham, who walked his own son to the alter.   I’m not Jesus who can say forgive them, Father, they know not what they do.  I am afraid I could never forgive.  I am so utterly weak.  I can do great things, but not this.  Please dear Lord not this.

So I tried thinking of happy things.  I loaded the dishwasher, read my daughter a book, cleared my head.  But last night I had fitful dreams.  I tossed and turned and kept saying no to some imaginary dragon.  I was fighting all night long and I can’t exactly remember why.  I woke up exhausted and overwhelmed.  Maybe I was fighting the devil himself.

Today, when I picked my son up from preschool, I swept him up in my arms and held him like he had been restored from death.  I stood right there in the little room, crowded in blocks and caterpillars and mothers busy picking up their children, and sobbed.  I peppered his cheeks with kisses and squeezed his body tight.  I walked out fast so the teachers wouldn’t notice, but I’m sure it was futile.  As I put him in the car, he looked at me and said simply, “I sorry, mama.”  Because his beautiful two-year-old heart is filled with compassion, and he didn’t understand my tears.  It’s okay, son.  I just love you so.

I wonder if Satan and God have been having a discussion about me, like they did with Job.  She’ll crumble like a house of cards.  She won’t stay faithful.  Without those two children, she’ll falter.  Let me test her, I beg you. I wonder if God would have faith in me, as he did in Job.

Because honestly, I just don’t know how God could see his only son suffer.  I would die in his place.  I would run and scream and not be able to bear the weight of it.  I would pull out my hair and rip my clothes and crumble to nothing. And yet I am weak, and can’t see the rising.  For in Christ there is always rising.  Through the blackness and cries of disbelief and anger and sorrow, there is light burning.  God knew of this.  It’s okay, son.  I just love you so.

Despite my own weaknesses, the rooster crowing thrice at dawn, and my utter ridiculous failures, I will rest in that hope.   I pray that certain things never come to pass, but I cannot guarantee such a future. My husband is the beam to which I’m tethered.  My children are the brightness and lightness of my very being.  But God is my strength, and without him it all crumbles like a deck of cards.

Tonight in my dreams, I’ll slay that dragon.  I’ll plant kisses and seeds of joy and fight fire with fire.  I will love my family through the tantrums and the screaming.  I’ll keep loving when we don’t speak and when life is all stressed out and messy.  I will show the devil that he cannot take away this love, no matter hard he tries.  So if it’s ever ripped from me too soon, I can say with my whole heart that I did enough.  I loved enough.

God is enough.

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

broken mirrors

August 31, 2012 By

The other night, I spent hours writing an article on inward beauty, and how a gentle spirit matters more than True Religion jeans.  We place so much importance on our appearance that we let the true elegance of our spirit go both unnoticed and unrecognized.  I stayed up late editing the piece, and was happy with how it turned out, and hoped that the national magazine where I submitted it would publish it.

The next day, my six-year-old had a play date.  I had been slumming around all week in workout attire, so I finally fixed my hair, put on a frilly top, and wore a necklace.  I sat poolside and shared with another mom how sad it was that someone I know seemed to stop caring about herself, and how she is just too pretty to let herself go like that.  The vitriol speech flowed like warm honey out of my mouth.  I didn’t even bat an eye.

Let me recap.

  1. I wrote an article on how outward beauty is overrated.
  2. I felt all slap-happy proud of myself for writing it.
  3. I dolled up for a bunch of moms who didn’t really care how I looked
  4. I totally slammed on some poor hapless victim about her lack of outward beauty
  5. I went home singing show tunes and eating popsicles

Sometimes I want to poke my own eyes out like one of the Three Stooges.  How can I possibly be such a screw-up?  Can I not go 24 hours without being so downright hypocritical?  I texted the mom I was talking to and apologized for my words, but it fell flat.  I lowered my head to ask for forgiveness.  I realized how flawed I am as a human being, and I wondered why God keeps giving me second chances.

Peter promised Jesus he wouldn’t betray him.  He felt with every fiber of his being that he wouldn’t. And yet he did.  Because left to our own devices, we say one thing and do another. We fall asleep and say hurtful words and fill our lives with vanity.  We give to the church but ignore the poor.  We pray for hours, and then walk out spewing vinegar from our mouths.  It’s a disgrace to our Creator.  It’s a disgrace to others who see us as examples.  It’s a disgrace to ourselves.  Our lives are but a broken mirror with past mistakes and shattered weaknesses strewn around on the floor.

But God repairs, and cuts heal.  I’ll regroup as the new day dawns, as Peter did.  Not due not to my own strength, but of His.

—

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/matte0ne/6328100019/

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

Rapids

August 25, 2012 By

We are all just swimming upstream.  The moment the wind calms and the food is plentiful and the credit cards are paid off, gusts once again sweep you off your feet.  They swell and pull at you and whistle uncomfortably in your ears.  Kids grow louder.  Your temper grows quicker.  The laundry piles and bills and coping skills get all worn and tattered by all that beating.  Life passes by in a streak of runny watercolor because your vision is full of rushing tide and debris.  Some folks can keep up, with their heads to the sky and their heart full of prayer.  You roll your eyes at those people. It’s all you can do to just keep looking forward, wiping the water from your tired, red, tear-stained face.  Funny thing is, you didn’t even realize you were paddling so hard until you look down and see the white caps of the rapids. Oh, for a moment of peace.  For the winds to calm.  Just a tiny second for your arms to rest.

I think now I’m supposed to talk about trusting in God’s everlasting arms.  To let Him do the fighting and you just roll back in a starfish float like my daughter’s swim lesson and allow all your earthly burdens to melt away.   That’s about the time I stop reading, because I’ve got things piling up and I just can’t hear any more about letting go.  I’m not into vague fuzzy lessons on how we are all masters of nothing and should quit fighting.  If I let go, I’ll drown.  I don’t know about you people, but I just don’t have the luxury of letting go.

So I build up endurance and keep on swimming.  I’m getting pretty good at setting my sights on the distance and finding friends to help make the journey palatable.   I’m growing strong, and confident, and feel I have this life thing figured out.  I thank God for strong arms and a fighter’s spirit and think I’m doing my duty.

But then the storm comes.  Not the everyday storm that makes my lungs sting and my thighs ache from paddling so hard, but the black storm that hits me in the chest until I cry out of fear and pulls me into a hole and makes me think this is so unfair.  I’ve worked so hard. I’ve been fighting the current.  I thought I got this, but now I can’t see or breathe and I’m drowning.

It is then you begin the slow descent to the bottom.  It’s a moment when time stands still, and you have the most peaceful conversation with your creator.  You aren’t pushing.  You aren’t moving.  You aren’t wiping water from your eyes or trying to take in side breaths.  You are simply lying there on the bottom of the river, watching all that rushing water above.  The ironic thing is that fear is surprisingly absent and your heart is strangely full.  And it hits you.  God truly is more powerful than the river.  His hands calm the winds and open your eyes and move the boulders, but all this time you were resisting.  He puts you in a place to allow you to see this abounding truth, even when you were fighting with your fists and elbows and words against it.  I will show you my love even when you don’t want to see it.  Even if it takes you to the brink of death.

When you rise up again, gasping for air, you are astounded by the beauty you see.  Your tears are clear, for through them you can see brilliance.  The winds blow, but they don’t suck you down.  There is a purpose to this struggle.  And just like that, you find yourself letting go. You didn’t read it in some devotional or have it handed to you by a priest or hear it in some sappy Christian song.  You let go because you were there at the bottom of the water, and rose up again.  Because you felt such an overwhelming peace.

Let the gusts come.  No bother.  You can take it.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,  because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.  Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.”  

James 1:2-8

—

River Rapids

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

Free as a bird

August 15, 2012 By

Last week, my daughter found a dove in the yard.  It had fallen out of its nest and sat there in the grass, looking confused and bewildered.  Of course it’s hard to read the emotions of birds.  It might have been trying to kill itself, inching and pushing and finally managing to throw his distorted body from the tree.  He might have been downright furious at the failed attempt.

Something was clearly wrong with the poor thing.  It was too large to be a baby.  Part of his feathers were grey and thick but his front half was a damp mass of skin and fuzz.  He could hardly open his little beak and looked a little bloated.  I placed him in a box lined with cloth and began to give him drops of warm water with a medicine dispenser.  I set the box in a high place and just hoped he lived. I just couldn’t see him lying there all night in the grass, devoured by dogs or hawks or other preying things.  Leave the guy alone.  Even birds need a place to rest.

I read online that you can mash up egg yolks and wet dog food and feed it to injured birds, so I rushed to the kitchen to make a life-saving paste.  There I was, trying to get the sick little thing to open its beak to take it in.  Once I squeezed too hard and too much came out, his poor eye covered in wet yolky-dog food.  I tried to wash it out but there he sat, wet and dirty, sick and sad.  It was hopeless.

I fretted all night about that bird.  I prayed that it would find a way to live.  That it would fly off and join the other doves, free and glorious and shining with silver radiance. But the next morning it had a fluid pocket jutting out below it’s beak.  I probably choked it to death with a tiny shred of dog food.  Great. My mother-in-law tossed it in the dumpster.  We’ll just tell the kids it flew away, she said. I wish she had at least broken its neck first and put it out of his misery. I hated that neighbors would toss garbage bags on top of him, just another piece of trash like used milk cartons or Frito bags. 

I wish we could all die elegant deaths – not in a movie theatre riddled with stray bullets or driving to Subway in our Subaru to get a ham sandwich.  We should all get to say our piece, kissing the heads of our little ones and quoting Thoreau.  We should all get to make amends and die in our sleep with our best dress on.   It fills me with rage that good people have to go so quickly.  That they are off to the market for strawberries one day and the next they are pinned under a car or lying in a hospital where all the zig-zag lines go flat.  I don’t like to think of living things contorted or bloated or twisted up in bullets. No one should die in the bottom of a dumpster.

But in the end, I suppose it doesn’t matter how we exit.  It’s a temporary holding place, this life, where we muddle through and say our prayers and eat our broccoli.  Someday, if I die a gruesome horrible death, falling out of my nest and landing in unfamiliar territory, no one needs to save me.  No one needs to worry about feeding me mashed up food or dropping water in my parched throat. For I’m off to fly – my elegant wings spread before me, soaring through the air and breathing in the fresh smell of freedom.  Like a bird.  Back home.

—

http://www.flickr.com/photos/charlestilford/732688216/

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

Failure is not an option

August 8, 2012 By

I knew a girl that trained for the Olympics.  She got permission to cut out early from school to spend eight hours in the gym.  Her parents were insanely rigid and no one really invited her to play dates or to have ice cream sundaes.  She couldn’t come anyway because she was training.  She was always training.  Her father died young. I always thought he bottled all the angst and misery and fear of watching his twelve-year old girl fail or turn or miss a handoff and one day he just couldn’t take it anymore.  He put a gun to his temples and blew it all away. Just tiny bits of stress scattered into the ether.

In a tiny way, amidst the cheers and clapping and proud faces, I see the pain in the eyes of all those collective Olympians, their young hearts beating rapidly under their overbuilt bodies with sparkles on their eyelids.  After all – the brass ring of winning looms so high.  Some of these tiny girls – leaping and hopping and tumbling on a national stage before their sixteen birthday – don’t even have arms long enough to reach out and grab it. They haven’t built up the maturity to handle the fleeting moment when the edges of their fingers touch it, but it slips past their grasp.  It reminds me of Gollum in Lord of the Rings, wanting something so bad it becomes a longing that’s seared into you.  After a while it’s nothing but an empty, haunting noise in one’s twisted throat.

The announcer introduced a young Romanian.  Her eyes had that steely gaze of one who knows exactly what she wants.  She had won silver four years earlier, but not grabbing that ring had left a hole in her heart.  I wanted to clasp that poor girl into my arms.  I wanted to hand her journals of pink butterflies and banana splits and afternoons lounging around under oak trees reading mystery novels.  I wanted to give her back a childhood and tell her it’s just a silly piece of metal, coated with only shreds of worth.  But her stare was so unyielding.   It was a hopeless cause.

She mounted the balance beam so assuredly.  She had done this so many times, and in so many ways.  Through injuries and bad days and being yelled at.  When she was hungry and longed for a day off and when her legs were pinching and burning and red like fire.

And then she fell.

It was just a simple turn – the announcer said.  But there she went, cascading down in slow motion to the padded mat below, chalk puffing up around her tiny feet as she hit. She rose slowly, as if her life’s work had been for naught.  As if all she ever wanted had come crumbling down around her feet.  The grief was printed on her face.  Her arms rose to the beam again to climb back on, but it was a dead baby now.

Her eyes haunted my dreams that night.  I thought of how one might not ever recover such an epic failure.  These are champions.  They overcame great hurdles in their rise to glory.  And yet there is that looming dread of going home empty handed.  The oiled finger that couldn’t grasp the ring.  The missed opportunity that would never again present itself.

As I was telling my husband about it that night, he stopped reading and thought about it for a moment.  He said he felt failure was an overused word.  We might miss opportunities, or do things we regret, or take paths that might later need redirection.  “But failure is final,” he said.  “And it’s not over until the end of the game.”

I thought about our lives.  The raising of our children.  The tenuous bonds of marriage and friendship and being the one others count on.  Our eyes grow so focused on being good at it, and choosing the right paths, and winning.  Sometimes there is that moment you almost let it overtake you.  Like the father who put the gun to his head and gave in.

But God expects more than this.  We are all built to be champions.  And someday, there will be that second we step onto that balance beam and our feet fall flat underneath us.  It is that moment we must find the inner strength to rise again.  Through the grief.  Through the defeat.  Through the brokenness. We must stand proud and tall on that beam, and with all the energy left in our tired bodies we must clap those hands together, look high to the sky as our backs arch in beauty, and land squarely on two feet.  We will regroup.  We will not let this define us.  We will dismount after the fall.

If you look closely enough, you’ll see a shiny little ring dangling from your fingers.  Funny thing is, by then it doesn’t seem to matter.

—

http://www.flickr.com/photos/96434059@N00/with/1017675131/#photo_1017675131

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

The BFF Rules

August 4, 2012 By

Girlfriends are awesome.  You call them when you’re bored, when you get a new job, or when you want to get a play-by-play rundown of Top Chef because you forgot to Tivo it and you were stuck in a meeting.  And when you just can’t breastfeed one more day or you feel like bludgeoning your own husband with a meat cleaver, you pick up the phone and speed-dial your BFF. It’s not like you can only have one of them.  I have several – each a bestie in their own right.  Here are my top ten rules to abide by when cultivating these important relationships:

(1) Accept them like they are, but also laugh at them. When a friend tells you she has a bad habit of buying fancy water, or expensive chocolates, or pricy shoes, tell her that her vices could be much worse.  Think of something more expensive that she’s not buying by the truckload (champagne/new cars/trips to Vegas) and tell her that she could be buying that.  So in reality she’s very frugal, and you’re proud of her, and agree that overpriced organic baby soap from France does smell quite nice.  But for the kid’s birthday, be sure to buy some generic bath wash from Wal-mart that has some Disney character on it and smells like raspberry that may possibly be radioactive.  Because honestly, it cleans just as well.

(2) Offer small reminders of your love.  Like care packages.  They can be small, and contain thing from your pantry, but how fun is it to get a package in the mail full of power bars, gum, and a message scrawled on the back of an electric bill?  Mail is giddy and silly and fun.  Go on and add that postage expense into your monthly budget.   To my friends who haven’t received a package from me in a while – I’m sorry.  I’ll do better. I may be mailing you fruit snacks and goldfish.  Deal.  I’m also a huge fan of random texts and short phone calls when you only have three minutes.  Please don’t use that lame excuse of “I was waiting for when I had time to talk.” When exactly does one have that kind of uninterrupted time?  I say never.   Unless you’re on the toilet, and that’s just disgusting.

(3) Pray for them.  For when they are going through hard times, or when their life is upside down.  Pray for their very soul.  And mean it.

(4) Support Them at All Costs. Repost and like and comment away on her witty facebook posts because flattery will get you everywhere and us gals have to stick together.  Celebrate your BFF’s adventures and never allow guilt or jealousy enter the relationship.  Just because you work at the DMV and she got a job in New York as a fashion model doesn’t mean you can’t be happy for her good fortune. Hug her neck.  Buy her a drink. Then look for another job.  For goodness sakes –why do you want to work at the DMV?

(5) Listen when they vent about their husbands, but the next day forget the entire conversation.  If a girlfriend unloads on you about how her husband is lazy and never picks up his dirty laundry and doesn’t appreciate all she does around the house, your response should be something like, “What a jerk!”  Fast forward three days, when the same girlfriend received a dozen tulips from her formerly jerky husband.  She tells you he’s the most fabulous man ever.  Your response should be, “What a sweetheart!” See the difference?  It’s subtle, I realize.

(6) Be insanely loyal.  If you hear someone talking bad about a bestie (She’s a bit controlling if you ask me), redirect the conversation (she’s strong willed, but man that girl can run a meeting like you wouldn’t believe.  Makes the men shiver in their boots). Then meander from that to a conversation about boots in general, which leads you to that trendy little boot store on South Congress, which of course makes you focus on funky clothing, which you lack, and then you can begin a tirade on how your mother keeps buying you sweaters from JC Pennys.  See how this redirection thing works?

(7)  Don’t keep score.  If you watch their kids twice and they only watched yours once for half an hour, or if you always bring them Starbucks but they never return the favor, remember that a friendship isn’t always completely equal.  You have them in your life because they bring something wonderful and precious to yours.  It’s not a card game whereby they owe you when you do something for them.  You each have your strengths and weaknesses.  Give effortlessly without keeping a tally.  That’s exhausting.

(8)  Don’t let things fester.  The worst is when you allow some minor annoyance to get out of control and it drives a wedge into your long-standing relationship.  If they always text when you want to talk by phone, or if they smack their gum too loudly, or always wait for you to pick up the check, tell them.  It doesn’t have to be some insanely serious talk, where you hold their hand by the fire and say “it’s not you, it’s me,” but you can respectfully tell them that “hey – what’s up with me always paying for lunch?” or “it bothers me when you always email when I just want to visit.”  You have built up enough rapport to be honest.  If you can’t, or if you are afraid of splintering the friendship, how solid is that foundation?

(9) Keep it real.  The best thing about girlfriends is the ability to find common ground, and laugh about shared experiences.  Whether you are sitting around drinking wine or running together at 6 am or just texting in the carpool line, find a way to add humor to their day and remind them of how blessed they are.  So their kid broke their arm and they had to endure ten days in the Cayman’s with their overbearing mother-in-law and their husband is away on business for two weeks.  Your response shouldn’t be “you poor darling – that just sucks for you and I don’t know how you’ll possibly endure.”  They went to the Cayman’s, for crying out loud.  They drank fruity cocktails and now they get to wallow around in stretchy pants making microwave dinners.  Life really isn’t that rough.

(10)               And finally, be careful who you let in.  Don’t throw your heart into someone who doesn’t hold friendships in high esteem, or who won’t get your back, or acts one way around you and a different way around others.  If you work this hard to cultivate friendships (time and energy spent away from your own family), make sure you give your heart to someone who will cradle it, and respect it, and who deserves who you are.  Because you are fabulous.

Filed Under: Friendships, Humor, Inspirational, Love Tagged With: , ,

my colorful life

July 25, 2012 By

Today, I thought I’d paint a picture of what my life is like.   

The big news of the week was that our six-year-old girl lost her front tooth.  I videoed her trying to say “silly sally went to town, walking backwards, upside down” so I could hear the funny whistling lisp she developed.  It was all so crazy pink with the swollen gums and her tongue sticking out.

That night, my daughter recounted the story of not beating all the other girls in art class because they put their peacock feathers on the canvas already and she was slower to cut them out.  I told her art was not a competition.  She’s so red that girl, flaming with desire to be the best, and fastest, and quickest at everything.   Sometimes you just need to slow down and take your time.  Or try new things even when they don’t come out perfectly the first time around.  She’s not daring for fear she might not come out on top.  We are working on experimentation.

I had a crazy burst of energy the other day, in part due to the explosion of vegetables from our garden.  I peeled and cut up four large butternut squash, their bright, orange flesh so clean and cheerful.  I sautéed asparagus and made a salad with cucumbers and tomatoes with an aged balsamic dressing.  I stole a friend’s recipe for pasta with capers and cream sauce and the plate was bursting with color.  My kids picked out all the bowtie pasta and left all the rest, but I threatened them with something that I now can’t remember and they ended up eating all the spinach.  Funny how all that spinach wilts down to nothing when you cook it.  A tiny little mass of vitamins that can be gulped down in two bites.

Then a few nights later, I was frustrated that a new bottle of organic tearless wash was bobbling around in the bath, filling with water and making it run out when I tried to use it.  That was the millionth time I’d warned my daughter about letting soap ruin in the tub.  I was so upset I yelled for both children to immediately exit the bathroom and transport themselves immediately into pajamas.  I muttered something about how much money was wasted and having to always repeat myself. All that yellow Burt’s Bees soap diluted and ruined. It was all his fault, my daughter said.  She likes to stand around and watch him do things and then blame him for it later.  You’re older and wiser.  I expect you to set an example.  It’s a broken record, that conversation.

Almost every night this week, my son has decided that the only possible way he can sleep, now that he’s graduated from the crib to a normal bed, is to be velcroed to his mother at all times.  The moment I inch away, he is awoken from a deep slumber and begins to cry out my name.  He is buried in a blue patchwork quilt and is wedged between a pillow I got at pottery barn that says “Discover” but all that blue matches his longing mood. It’s been a long week of hauling a two-year-old back to bed, telling him that he is loved but mommy has her own sleeping place, requesting that he instead cuddle with his bear or stuffed horse, and if all else fails to go sleep in his sister’s room.  I try and break up the blackness of night with a nightlight and warm kisses, but all that crying makes me sad. I want to curl up next to him and feel his soft breathing until the end of time.

My husband is out of town for a funeral, which means he left work undone at the office and must catch up upon his return.  I have a girl’s dinner and got a babysitter, which means that I’ll have to fork over so much green for one night just to not hear “mama hold me” or “can I watch just one more show” or “I don’t like spinach” or “I didn’t do it.”  It’s worth it.  It’s always worth it to catch my breath and laugh over swollen glasses of wine and good company.

I am reading Angela’s Ashes, which is so sad and it fills me with an ache that children have to grow up around all that brown drabness, with diapers that are never changed and dirt that is never washed away.  I worry about the negative overtones of Disney movies and the stereotypes of Barbie dolls and stress about not having enough Vitamin D in my kids’ diet and then I read that Frank McCourt stole bananas just to stop his twin brothers’ hunger pains.  I am filled with a sense of loss for his childhood.

I had a crazy work situation happen Monday afternoon.  The entire day was relatively quiet and I could have dealt with that particular crisis better at any other time of day, but of course it happens at 4:30 pm, which is the witching hour at my house when all hell breaks loose and my children act like wild animals.  I was trying to convince an attorney to withdraw a subpoena when my daughter comes running in screaming about her brother drinking something he shouldn’t.  I see him sucking from a juice box that was somewhere in my daughter’s room.  Where did that come from?  How long has it been there?  Is it molded?  Oh for goodness sakes. I rush over in between saying “uh huh” and “why exactly do you need our particular witness for this case” to run over and grab the juice from my son.  At the moment I grabbed it, he threw it on the ground and it just so happened my foot came down on top of it, and in that perfect storm, purple juice went spraying all over the wood floor.  I wanted to scream, but I ran to the front porch and politely asked counsel to repeat that last part.  The one about the Family Code.

All in all, my life is very colorful.  It starts out such a blank white canvas when my two feet get out of bed and I pad over toward the coffee machine, like the computer screen that is blank until my fingers find a way to fill the page.   I love the richness and hues and the depth of all these stories.  The fire and melancholy and stillness all run together like watercolors.  My life is full of light from any angle.  You could let it dry and hang it on a mantle, scratching your head and saying,

My, my. What a beautiful piece. 

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

Why Does God Demand Praise?

July 18, 2012 By

Lately, something has been tugging at my heart.  It’s the simple question of why God seeks out his own praise. The very idea that the ultimate creator, healer, and master of our souls has a need for his own people to fall down on their feet for His glory seems a bit preposterous.  Why the demand for it?  I understand that we should desire to worship God, but shouldn’t it just naturally flow from our hearts, like giving Christmas gifts or thrusting a dollar bill out our window to the homeless guy?

This singular thought, along with the absurdity that donuts come with sprinkles (they add no flavor/they are a distraction/what’s the point) have been taking over my brain.  Actually, the donut deal just entered into my head once, while praising God is a constant, in case you think I give God and donuts the same amount of mental energy.

But I needed to dive deeper into the issue of forced praise.  I wanted to bounce the logic around in my brain and get my fingers around the words.  Words that could be strung together into thoughts I could relate to and believe in. I don’t want to just pick the answer that sounds most logical.  I desire to seek truth.  So I went to Google, which is my go-to when trying to determine if a battery is still good or how to get my son to take a nap.

As it turns out, CS Lewis already addressed this issue.  But of course.  He creates magical worlds in closets where children eat Turkish delight and get conned by ice queens.  It’s only natural that he would have tackled this perplexity as well, and better than I could ever do.  But back to my own mental brainstorming, because we are on the topic of arrogance and all.

I devised the following possible reasons for why God demands praise.  They are:

(1)  He’s God, so let’s just not question things.  Wear your best bonnet to church and eat the fried chicken, for heaven’s sake.  K?  We’re good?

(2)  It’s like gravity – we can’t help but be drawn to worship (But why is God asking for it?)

(3)  Praise is pleasing to a parent’s ear (“I love you mommy!”  “This is the greatest beach vacation ever!”) because it shows that the child is living in joy, so God demands praise because He has a desire for us to live in joy (very close)

(4)  We need to submit our own ego and by praising God it’s the ultimate expression of humility. God knows this and thus demands praise for our own good.  (This just sounds patronizing)

(5)   “Demand” is a bit old fashioned.  It’s more like “God desires it.”  (Now I just feel like I’m making things up)

God doesn’t need to prove to anyone else his own self-worth.  Who would he need to prove it to?  There are no other gods, or deities, or higher powers greater than God himself.   But God is completely God-centered.  First he says you shall have no other gods before Him (Exodus).  Then Jesus walks in and says “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John).  Dude.  Every time you turn around you’re reading about how God wants to be recognized, respected, worshiped, honored, and revered.  Doesn’t he get enough praise?  I would like for my children to tell me I make the best meatloaf, but sometimes you just love them anyway without such high expectations.

We tend to align praise with compliments, such as “you sure are beautiful,” or “I really think you are a wonderful housekeeper,” or “I sure wish I could be more like you.”  These are praising statements, and no one should really ask for them because that’s just plain rude.  But if you tell me these things, I won’t exactly throw you out on the street.  I might just pour you more coffee and invite you over more often.

Think about the things you really love.  Praise comes escaping from your lips before you can even think about it.  As Lewis puts it, “the world rings with praise.”  Think about a book you recently read you just loved.  The words fell off the page like brilliant jewels, and the story captured you from the first page to the last.  You can’t wait to sing its praises.  You can barely stand not to talk about it, and refer your friends to it. “I think we delight to praise what we enjoy,” Lewis continues, “because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come . . .upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent . . . to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with. . .”

God is self-centered.  He has nothing to hide.  He has no errors to overcome or blemishes to patch.  He truly the center of the universe.  And God knows that not only do we come into communion with him through worship, but that the consummation of our relationship with Christ requires such praise.  Not if we want to.  Not if we have time, but all the time, every day, when the sun rises and the oak tree branches sway.  This is something God expects because he loves us so extremely, and so passionately, that he will seek us out through the cold depths of unbelief and sin.

Only by diving in full throttle, with our souls open, can we begin to comprehend such a love.  Such a bitter ache.  Such a bleed that did not come rushing out, but dripped out one drop at a time while salt was thrown on the wound.  Because through the sting, we begin to see what’s coming.  We feel the salve of his glory.  He is inviting us into his kingdom, and that is the very opposite of selfish.

I’m not sure why donuts have sprinkles, or why my children don’t stay in their own beds at night.  I don’t know what God’s ultimate plan is for my life or why I stay up until the wee morning hours pondering such things.  I only know that God is so glorious that it makes my heart want to rip apart in little shreds. I want for people to know of Him, and sing to the rafters, and dance with joy. I feel complete and full and happy. I suppose this is me, praising Him.

That God.  He’s a sneaky one.

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

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