Lord Help Us, It's Only May

It's sweltering out there. We got back from two weeks at the beach to find summer already cooking my ferns. I have a lovely fountain in the side yard -- it sounds delicious, refreshing. The sun's already evaporating it so bad, I have to lug five gallons of water a day out to it, to keep the pump from seizing up. Might be the only exercise I get all day. I find myself having little accidents, just so the water'll slurp onto my clothes and keep me cool all morning. And doggone it, it's only May. 

We are plumb spoiled. I grew up without air conditioning in Powder Springs, in one of those brick ranch easy-bake-ovens. Little tiny windows, low ceilings, four-sided brick that held all that heat all day so it could release it all night... That just ain't right. Our old house here in Villa Rica is built for the South -- if you could actually open the windows, you would get an east/west breeze blowing right through. I've always painted my own houses, but I succumbed a couple of years ago and hired a crew to do the rest of the outside. I was busy and didn't remind them not to paint the windows shut. But it's already too hot now for breezes or fans or open windows, even if the paint wasn't sticking. I'm sneaking in the middle of the night to bump the air conditioning down. We're peeling off clothes and embarrassing the neighbors. I'm banking on the Farmer's Almanac. It said that we're going to have a hot May, followed by a cooler summer. Please be right. I don't have a pond, concrete or otherwise, that's big enough to hold us all. 

Sigourney Weaver's Got Nothin' On Us

I remember spending the night at my grandparents' house, where I woke up, with a start, in the night to what sounded like a freight train running through the center of the house. They lived out in the plains of Illinois in the middle of a cornfield,  no train tracks for miles. My folks were in one bedroom, my grandparents in another. My sister and I were wedged like sardines in the middle room, our little brother camped out on the floor. The grand wall-shaking noise that was going on was from four humans snoring all at the same time. It was surreal. Ungodly. Like to have scared me to death. 

Fast forward fifty years and I find myself in an old Victorian house with this handsome beastie who snores with sounds reminiscent of an old pipe organ: whistles and toots and the occasional bass thrum.  Come to find out I have a symphony of my own going on across the sheets. When Papa took to falling asleep every time he sat down, whether it be at church or on a park bench, I conspired to get him to a sleep study. He denied it to the doctor, but Doc believed me and now we're both signed up. We had to go to a silly class, drive an hour there and back, and sit while they played a Youtube video about how to hook up a contraption while Ken sleeps, to figure out if he's worthy of a CPAP machine. That's a thing that blows cold air down your throat while you're snoozing. It looks like the creature in those movies that attached to people's faces and implanted aliens in their bellies. You're supposed to feel good about something that covers your nose and mouth and forces oxygen into your body, while you think about nightmares you had from that movie. They said I'm special and have to do my sleep study in a lab. Cover me with monitors and wires, climb into a strange bed and have people watch me sleep all night. I'm relaxed now, for sure.

I had to text my good friend Grace. She's been my friend for about fourty years, met and bonded in college. I trust her when she says that her CPAP machine saved her life. She's the one who persuaded me to do this thing. After I messaged her yesterday, she said she'd send pictures of herself when she got strapped in. I heard my phone ping late in the day and opened up a scary image of her with that torture chamber hitched on to her beautiful European face. I don't know if Ken is gonna be ready for all this, but I imagine he'll get used to it. My only concern is that once we get our machines and start using them every night, we might not hear an intruder with all that noise rushing around our heads. On the other hand, maybe they'd run away, terror-stricken, after seeing a couple of middle-aged aliens sit up in bed. Wish us luck.

Sproutin' in the Drought

How easy it is to be anxious. Easier than relaxing, trusting, charging ahead. Anxiety stops us in our tracks, hijacking our thoughts, plans, progress. Sometimes I have gone from one anxious mountaintop to the next, barely pausing between them. No sooner than one crisis is resolved and the next one rears its ugly head. But does it? One woman's crisis is the next woman's joy. 

I want to be free. There are lots of opinions about what that is. The conflicted teenager might think it means having no rules to follow. The struggling family might think it's having lots of money. A weary mother might believe it's having her young 'uns grown and out of the nest. I believe that true freedom is a place of rest, contentment and purpose, within all the hurry. 

There's always something over the crest of the hill that might solve our problems. But I'm not living on that other side. I'm here on this side, where each day is either an opportunity or a liability to be dealt with. I think we tell ourselves all kinds of lies. It's our nature to make a mountain out of a molehill. I've heard that expression all of my life, but have only recently seen what moles make out of dirt. My yard is teeming with molehills and the little holes that can trip you up in between. 
I find I'm not interested in spending my life imaginating up a mountain out of one of those. Life is too short to spend it worrying, fussing, fighting, waking up in the middle of the night coming up with scenarios that may or may not come true. It's also too short to let my mouth run like a sieve. Gossip and critical talk shortchange my religion, making it in vain. Lord I am guilty. Lord, please forgive me, and let Your Spirit lead, not my easy-tell-all nature. 

As I turn to His Word, praying, asking for wisdom, He's got it all there. It has the answers and the peace that passes all understanding... "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit." Jeremiah 17:7-8.  So cast off those worries and get sproutin'.

Sandy Dreams

We slept soundly over the miles, the car swaying gently with the smooth asphalt rolling beneath it. How many times have I done this? I recall warm, liquid nights with the windows rolled down, stars winking in the sky. Balmy smells of hay, cut grass, musky horse and the occasional chicken house wafting in like a wave. We passengers are cocooned snugly with our pillows and blankets, Cornnut and Cheez-Its crumbs everywhere. If it's a day trip, there will be pecan rolls. It's the South and it's mandatory.

This time, however, it's a different season. There are no stops to nurse a baby or change a diaper. It's our annual beach trip and Papa decided that instead of waiting for morning, we'd leave at nightfall and drive through the night. He's rarely spontaneous, normally requiring an act of Congress to change any plans. He should have been in the military, but God had other ideas. He'd be a five-star general by now. Either way, we gleefully pile into my SUV, Papa and I, our daughter and her boyfriend. My sensible side wonders at how this is going to go, but as we pull into the beach house at 4:00 in the morning, I can't help but feel like a kid again. Only this time we're the old folks and there's a boatload of munchkins waiting for us. 

When my life was thick with the joyful raising of our four children, the earth spinning like a top, I forgot to notice that they were growing up. It was hard to believe that life would ever change from the tyranny of the urgent. My sweet babies' faces, their sincere love, their happy welcoming arms whenever I returned home from somewhere...all those thousands of things that get taken for granted. Now I see them parenting our grandchildren, and I am amazed at their energy, their tenacity, their dedication. Was I ever that strong? Was I ever that young? We see our children and grandchildren often, but this one week a year we live like sardines and remember. 

There's food and coffee and late-night games and movies. It takes half a morning to get down to the beach then half an afternoon to get back. We're burnt, sore and hungry. The kids are giddy, heady with cousin-play.  We take turns cooking, and this year's cuisine is scrumptious. Our jobs and home responsibilities are afar off. Naps are luxurious indulgences. We have church, sing, pray. There's books, snacks, drinks. But especially, there's my people. Soft baby arms reach for hugs,  Papa plays and jokes, the Mamas and Daddys help each other make it work. There's nothing and then there's everything. Peace, tension, resolution, popcorn. We are blessed.