Biting the Big Apple

July 5, 2014 By

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I have a wonderful life.  My two children are smart and loving, beautiful and inquisitive.  My home is a rock fortress atop acres of cedar and oak and native grasses, with a garden and pathways and a porch with large rocking chairs. I sit alone so many nights and marvel at the screeching of cicadas and how they interplay from tree to tree, rubbing their wings together.  I drink strong coffee with cream on Saturday mornings while watching the cardinals hop and flit and turn their little red pointed heads towards the west.  And when the sun peaks I set out the tea pitcher steeped with handfuls of mint to warm.

And yet in the midst of this very good life I grow weary.  There is so much to shoulder.  So many burdens.  I desire the freedom of my youth, when I grabbed the last cherry popsicle from the box and jumped through sprinklers.  I laughed at jokes and washed my hair for dates and celebrated a new year with cheese dip and sparkling apple juice with my parents.  Life is more complicated now.  More heartbreaks and bills.   More decisions that matter. More life behind you than ahead. And the stifling Texas heat? It can flat-out drain you.

When you live in a place that fuels your soul but your heart is empty, where do you turn? Only one place works to recalibrate my nerves and it beats like a drum like a chorus like a lover like a friend like a sweet bite of cake and a jeweled ring. Don’t look back.  Don’t stop to think about it.  Fly to the place where you can breathe.

New York City.

So I planted myself on an airplane seat and lifted through the air to a different kind of freedom.  Through tunnels and between steel that rises and when I cobbled along the streets I inhaled urine mixed with exhaust and rotten garbage and the whiff of 5th avenue perfume and Wall Street hair grease and overdrunk hydrangeas in Battery Park.   And when I unpacked and unloaded, I laced up my practical shoes and I walked.  I walked and walked and walked until my calves ached.  And slowly the burdens lightened, and the emptiness filled in, and a smile of a different sort flowed inside the empty spaces.

There is a magnificent heart to this city.  It’s full of promise and buzzing with life where you eat at 10 pm and meet beautiful strangers and walk alone in bars and wander into antique bookstores and land in French bistros at 9 am on Fridays.  People are struggling to find their voice, and yet there is so much talent pouring over the various facets of this town that it mixes like chocolate into milk, swirling.

I went a few days early for a legal conference with no plans except to eat puff pastry at Balthazar and sip on espresso.  I sat on the second row at the Ambassador theatre, watching beautiful people sing and kick their legs and do remarkable things with their bodies.  I clapped loud and got all teary at the energy they spent on practice and everyone was probably laughing at this poor sap from out of town wearing heels.  In intermission I stood at the back alone and smiled a crooked smile, for this is a place I have lived and loved before in another life.

I returned home strangely full.  Full of life and tall handsome dinner dates.  Of strangers and dancing.  Of crispy pork and snap peas and current scones with raspberry jam. And back in the land of reality I faced four-year-old tantrums and a daughter who rolled her eyes and loads of laundry and dishes with cemented oatmeal residing in bowls.  And yet it wasn’t burdensome. I took in waves of breaths and dug in.  I sat on my front porch sipping my coffee with cream, thinking about sun tea steeped with mint.  I think I’ll have a cherry popsicle and dance in sprinklers and toast a new year with my parents eating cheese dip. Maybe I’ll wash my hair for dates and start again.

Oh the city, how I love you. And my home, how I treasure you.  The juice runs down my cheeks, cool and sweet.  I pluck you fresh from the tree, your red skin shining, and put you in a basket.  And in my sundress I carry you back lovingly toward home.

 

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photo:

Brooklyn Bridge - Hopes

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

A Guide to Storm Preparedness

June 17, 2014 By

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When it rains, it pours. Literally. Into my freaking living room.

I had fallen asleep in my daughter’s bed the other night, and when I awoke, it took me a moment to get my bearings.  People had been calling to check in.  Texts were flying. There was strong language like Doppler and Warnings and Get Off The Roadways blaring through my television. Wind was screeching through the small crevices of our home and rain had begun to pellet the metal roof like it had some sort of vendetta. So I gave in to the hysteria of “tornado warnings” and statements to “take cover” by emptying out everything in the closet underneath the stairs and replacing it with pillows, bottled water, and rice krispie treats.  In case of a real (and not just perceived) emergency.

Normally, weathermen just drag themselves across the news station set at the 6 pm hour to point at maps we all know are backward with little annoying arrows as they pretend to care about another hot summer day in Texas.  Hundred Degrees.  Molds are high. But this – THIS!? Winds are parallel to the earth.  Trucks are overturning and trees are cast aside like after-dinner toothpicks at Golden Corral and THERE ARE REPORTS OF HAIL. It’s ninety miles per hour and funnels a-touchin and well, ya’ll better be hunkerin down and stocking them flashlights with batteries. They get so excited I wonder if the crash after this storm mania blows over might set them into suicide watch.

So out goes the vacuum cleaner.  The crock pot’s history.  Armloads of Costco toilet paper gets tossed aside like trash.  In go the blankets. Also the water bottles. And lastly, candles.  I’m not sure what I thought would happen in case of an actual tornado – would me and the kids be noshing on organic brown-rice treats and slurping bottled water while holding hands around candles as our house is crumbling down and landing upon our very heads?  I’m a firm believer in healthy treats and reverse osmosis, so we’d totally be set.

The electricity finally goes out and I’m all “oh crap I can’t see the Doppler” when my dog begins his Total Freakout Mode as the rain and wind bore down upon our metal roof like perhaps the earth was opening and we were the first travelers to the depths of hell.  That’s probably due to the trees slapping against the house and the screaming in my own mind but the dog was slobbering and panting and trying to haul his 14-year-old self into my lap.

I’m sitting there telling the dog it’s all gonna be okay, man, quit it with the slobbering when I feel real water dripping on my head. I look up and rain is coming out of the sheetrock above the coffee table in neat little rows, which means I sat for quite a long time staring because I can’t believe we are suddenly the Clampetts and I rush to get a pan and towels. And of course with my remaining 17% battery life I proceed to call my insurance company in the middle of a life-threatening storm at 11:30 pm with thrashing winds to report a claim.

Look at me.  Water is dripping.  I’ve got a puny little flashlight and an armload of matches. The closet is stocked with treats and pillows.  I’m all “can an appraiser come out this evening, maybe?” The lady responded with “Are you dying? Are you stranded with a child who is in need of medical attention or needs milk and has a diaper full of poo and there’s a log sticking into the front of your minivan so that you can’t operate the vehicle? No? You’re inside your comfortable home in your fuzzy slippers whereby water is slowly dripping into a pan? CHILL THE FREAK OUT, lady.” That might not have been her actual words but whatever.

Later that night both children crawled in bed with me, naturally, and at 4 am I woke with full-blown lights ablazing in my house because the electricity is – Ahem – back on.  So for three days I’ve have industrial fans and dehumidiers and workers traipsing about my attic tearing out wet insulation and my insurance rep finally appears to say it’s not covered and nothing’s reimbursable and I get a quote to remove downed trees in my yard which translates to “you’ll never ever buy another pair of boots in your ever-lovin days, woman.”

So that’s how awesome weekends are made, folks.  But on the bright side, I now realize I have enough toilet paper hidden away under the stairs to wipe the bottoms of all the children in Travis county, and in case of an emergency I can find the number to my insurance company in the pitch black dripping mess of my living room while whispering comforting and reassuring words to an aging retriever.

The kids woke up the next morning totally oblivious with fresh smiling faces.  “A new summer day! What’s for breakfast? Why is all this stuff in the kitchen? What’s with the toilet paper?”

Rice Krispies, kids. Look under the stairs.  And don’t ask so many questions. Momma’s tired.

 

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photo:

Incoming Storms No. 2

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

Flying High

May 27, 2014 By

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

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

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

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

The world, my friends, is yours.

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

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

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

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

March forward boldly in the direction of your dreams.  

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Photo:

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

 

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

Sun Kiss Shining

May 21, 2014 By

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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Photo:

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

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

How I Write

May 19, 2014 By

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

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

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

1. What are you working on?

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

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

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

3. Why do you write what you do?

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

4. How does your writing process work?

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

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

 

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Photo:

Mystery Writers

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

Odd and Curious Thoughts (about a weekend alone)

May 4, 2014 By

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our Wrinkled Lives

April 29, 2014 By

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I’ve been busy. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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photo:

1914 Nell Brinkley Worship and Treachery

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

The grey coat

March 17, 2014 By

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

photo:

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

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

Saddle Bags

February 21, 2014 By

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I would imagine if I were starving and placed at the forefront of a great feast, I’d be filled with angst.  How would I carry it all away and save it for when there was none? I couldn’t possibly enjoy a corn soufflé knowing it wouldn’t last and the pheasant would turn to bile and the next day it would all be empty and dry again.  Just bones in the dust.  Hungry.  So I’d sit at the head of the table smiling whilst stuffing dinner rolls in my saddle bags.  We just can’t help but to carry around the angst of our past, wondering if the good times might fade away.

I think of the last few years as a trench that I’ve been living in, just hunkered down with my provisions, escaping for food and coming back to the hole with a heavy sigh.  It’s natural when you’ve been beat down to want to protect yourself from attack and make sure you stride more watchfully into the dark night.

When my foot touched down upon a different future, naturally I was still burdened with the memories.  Nights in the hole.  Bombs dropping and shells exploding and haunting faces in my dreams, hollowed out and empty.  But when you leave a warzone, there is no identifying tattoo speed across your chest.  Separated by enough continents and time zones you just seem to have appeared from somewhere, like you went on vacation with a svelte new frame and more coy responses.

So here I am.  I look down to see jewels on my fingers.  I sit at the fancy table with shimmering lights and roses, where men ask to call and tell me I’m pretty.  And in the middle of the room as I cross it in heels toward the door my insides just rage with fire and bristle.  I remember the hole.  The ache of starvation.  The pit of my stomach is just as far to the ground as it was in the worst nights, and I find my hands clasping around a hard dinner roll. I slip it in my pocket.  Just in case.  The funny thing is that the fear of death and the fear of living have the same effect on me.  Both are filled with the unknown, and that causes my stomach pit to flare.

At 3 am this morning I woke, filled with that familiar dread.  The pain that all this bounty will come crashing down.  The high will subside.  The peace broken. Pheasant always turns to bile in the end.  And yet as I lay there with my two children, huddled to my left and to my right, I heard the strangest thing.  My daughter, who appeared to be giggling.  In her sleep she was laughing, and I heard the manifestation of dreams. I held my children tight and let tears well and realized that God is to my left and to my right.  He stretches beyond me and is far behind.  What, and whom, shall I fear?

I dress for dinner in a house bathed in peace. I have a night ahead filled with laughter, with new heels just for the occasion.  In my slumber I see new life sprouting.  I take the saddle bags, the ones filled with old crusty rolls, and I leave them sitting by the garage door, leaning over just so.  A smile spreads from the ether of my former self, the one who remembered.  The one filled with fear.

I have no need for these any more, it seems.

photo:

The Problem with Vintage Equipment

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

heartbroken mondays

December 2, 2013 By

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I should be in bed by ten.  I should be at the gym.  I should be more optimistic and use more restraint and quit drinking full-calorie beer.  I have got to cut out the word “I” and perhaps not sit on the floor crying when my three-year-old tells me I’m the worst person ever while sitting in time-out attempting to slam the door closed with his feet. And when I walk out of church because my two kids can’t keep their seats and I glance over to see my daughter humming whilst making a stack of hymnals and my pants don’t fit and I can’t seem to find the energy to even grin and I read about how all these other people are cheerful and in love and snuggling up with hot chocolate and even the television dramas seem saccharine and I’m telling you I want to throw something hard out the window in order to see it shatter.

And then anger bubbles up and the devil whispers in my heart that self-pity’s a salve that will heal, but he’s a damn fool because all he causes is regret in the morning.  So I fire up the stove and stir beef stew because at least meat falls apart with enough pressure. The other day I even burned the cornbread, which is the south’s equivalent to cussing out your mother, because no Texan over the age of twelve burns cornbread, but I just muttered to myself, like well that’s just about right.

But friends, a lot can be done with time and distance.  I know this because a friend once told me that when we have set-backs, we don’t fall as hard and we don’t fall as deep and the coming back is faster.  It’s like our bodies somehow remember before the fall, and are ever striving to return to a peaceful state.

On Thanksgiving, my kids weren’t home.  I lay flat in bed for two hours staring at trees out my bedroom window, letting tears fall.  I begged God to forgive my lack of faith, and my inability to trust in bigger plans.  I regretted my undisciplined, self-centered life.  And yet I rose just the same, and with Nordstrom’s holiday bronzer I made my depression look all sparkly, and I shoved myself into skinny jeans and looped my blond hair around a curling iron and lip glossed my way to brunch with friends.  And it got better.  Mostly because of mimosas and pumpkin pancakes, but let’s not focus on details.

Time and distance.  Self-forgiveness and thankfulness, even when your feelings haven’t caught up.  These things work. So if you find yourself dragging toward Christmas, unsure why you can’t get motivated, feel something lacking in your life, or better yet you’re just flat-out angry, I feel you. Just forgive yourself for today and free up some space to breathe.

This morning, as I was driving my kids to school, I saw the most amazing sunrise.  Clouds swept across the sky like popcorn kernels and the sun spread over them like melted butter.  I pulled over on the side of the road and took my children’s hands.  Poor things – they’re used to this by now.  My daughter just tilts her head to the side, like “Oh how sweet.  Mom’s having a moment.” I told them how much I loved them, and how blessed I was to have them for a short while, and I thanked God for the new dawn.  And then this Presbyterian put her hand up high in the Chevy Tahoe and veered back on the road repeating the name El Shaddai out loud until we reached the carpool line.  My daughter asked if I had some sort of arm-itch issue or whether something was wrong with the rear-view mirror and am I speaking German?  I didn’t even know what the words meant except that I sang it in a childhood song, but the name just exploded from my mouth and was just as obvious as incense in a tomb.  And then my son asked me if God actually speaks, and I told him not in the same language as we do, but he sure can paint, and he nodded.  I watched my kid’s tussled-hair going up and down, up and down, nodding in the car seat and admiring the sky.

So you might need to run.  You might need to sleep more, and eat less.  But I’ll tell you one thing – you really need to quit listening to the lies that your life is stagnant and all hope is gone.  Keep on thanking God, even when you don’t always feel it, because out of nowhere on a Monday on the way to your kid’s school you’ll feel time and distance start to set in, and you’ll crawl slowly back out of the setback hole, stronger than before, and you’ll grin.  Because of the absurdity of non-stop Christmas music (we barely escaped November and I’m only halfway through coffee and nobody cares what Mariah Carey wants for Christmas because she has seventeen pairs of red bedazzled stilettos FOR THE LOVE WHAT ELSE DO YOU NEED, WOMAN) and the fact that your daughter thought you were speaking German, and the fact that you bought bronzer with the word “holiday” in the title.  And because we love an amazing, glorious God who never leaves us abandoned.  He throws his might across the sky like a billboard as if to remind us that hope is alive.  Our lives are so worthy.  No worries, girl, if you burn that cornbread again you can always move to Wisconsin, and surely folks there could stand a bit of pep in the winter.

El Shaddai, the sustainer and the destroyer, the One Almighty. Raise your hands and embrace it. Even if it might embarrass your children.  Even if tears run down your face at a sunrise.   Because life’s glorious, my dear friends, even on heartbroken Mondays.

 

Photo:

Sunrise, Kyoto (Explored #109)

 

 

 

 

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

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