The Hustle

There's this cool app on my phone that helps me sleep at night. You can choose all manner of sounds that will make you slumber. Cool, running water. Crickets and frogs in the forest. A creaky gate in a cemetery (no thank you). My favorite: gentle beach waves, oh yes I wish I were there. It's supposed to help with tinnitus, that lovely ringing in the ears that plagues some of us. I've never understood why that happens, but there's all kinds of articles on the internet about how it can be a precursor of some pretty horrid future maladies. My brain is already overactive, so it's probably just a sign of things burning up. I can smell the tar now... We had a friend who died at 37, but everyone said that he'd already lived 74 years since he was one of those people who sucked the marrow out of life. Double prizes. 

This last couple of weeks has my shoulders and joints aching like they're at least 85 years old. It's not the years, it's the mileage. I've been planning, decorating for our church's 20th anniversary celebration (it was like decorating a wedding), selling real estate (well, trying to), stopping epic disasters, talking to all my people, and staying up way too late at night. The last week, in particular, has been a real estate roller coaster ride, with four contracts zooming back and forth like those giant saws you see in old timey horror movies. The market is wonky and trying to figure out what it's going to do. Those crickets are singing. I'm plumb tuckered out. Papa and I put off our annual anniversary trip until April, two months after the big day. I didn't figure we'd get a trip this year and was perfectly happy with our giant breakfast at Cracker Barrel, complete with him buying me clothes from their shop. Yes, I get my clothes at Cracker Barrel. 

I too often stand on the precipices of life, complaining and whining about what I'm doing, what I'm not doing. I'm pressed into the corners, having to learn patience (I have none) and constantly trying to figure out what it means to trust God. You'd think I'd already know how to do that, but no. My dream life would be to be free to make the rounds with our grandkids ALL the time, do artwork, play my flute, talk to everybody and their brother, and not have to worry about making money. Problem is, when that check clears the bank you tend to forget all about the hardships. You feel like you just won the lottery or something. For what, maybe five minutes? Then it's tax time, time to pay the piper, time to get back to the grind. No matter what God has us doing, however, we need to step back and see the bigger picture. What are the larger, nobler purposes, or what could be? I think it's human nature to always be peeking over the edges, the fences, to be discontent and ungrateful for what we have or for what is right in front of us. 

Yes, my shoulder is aching like it's gonna fall off. My brain is full and the B-B's are falling out. I rushed and rushed yet I didn't even crack open my Bible today, the thing that would have given me guidance and serenity. Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. And that He does, despite my oft-faithless heart. If we could do it all ourselves, what would we need Jesus for?     

Queen Bee

Today was my oldest daughter-in-love's birthday. She's been in our lives for half of her life, so we can hardly remember when she wasn't there. She was this adorable, bunny-eyed girl that we noticed at church eighteen years ago, kind-of the darling of everyone. She exuded calm and at the same time, energy. Little did we know what her story entailed...

She was the oldest of four daughters of her parents, who never married. Her folks were hippies of a sort, freewheeling, living on love and substances. She doesn't remember many times when they were completely sober. Eventually, her folks broke up and partnered with other people. And at 13 years of age, her father was murdered by a drug dealer, on the front lawn of the dealer's house, with a large knife. Though the stab wounds were in her father's back, the dealer got away with it... it was ruled as "self-defense." After this, her mother derailed further. In a couple of years, she decided to move her four daughters into a tent on Lake Allatoona, along with another friend and her children.  This left her frightened and feeling alone, with the responsibility of taking care of the people that she loved. Who was the adult, but a child? 

She called her uncle, who told her to contact DFACS. He and his wife took the yoke of finishing the raising of those four children; started taking them to church, where he had just recently found Christ. Some years later, the day that he walked her down the aisle to marry our son, the tears were streaming down his, hers, our son's and everybody else's faces. I remember feeling that this was a perfect picture of redemption.  We already loved her, but we didn't have any idea how much more we would grow to love her. She was a gorgeous, glowing bride, the epitome of everything good in this world. I've asked her, years ago, if she minded me telling her story. She said, "As long as nobody feels sorry for me, it's okay." If you know her, there's never any hint of "sorry" going on. We all admire and respect her opinions, her life, her passionate heart for Christ and her family. They are mindfully raising four young, vivacious children with pluck and pioneer-worthy work ethics. But they also are allowed to play with all the gusto that only kids can muster. 

She is a walking miracle of God's grace. Don't talk to me about privilege or being "given" things, when I see a soul like that who, despite going through some of the worst that this life could offer, rises above it with purpose and grit. She is a testament to what God does with a yielded heart and a will to make her world better. Our entire family loves her. In my mind, she is the Matriarch, queen of all she surveys.   

Ferrets, Squirrels and Leprechauns

A lot of my real estate business involves estates, where I sell the homes of expired (that means dead) people. It is the best of times and the worst of times, but often it's just plain difficult. Sometimes it is an ancestral home, with multiple family members, who attach great meaning to all the decor and tchotchkes. Or sometimes it is a home that involves an administrator who is coldly unattached and just has to get the thing sold. And there's everything in between. Most of them involve getting rid of a little, or usually a lot, of stuff, and then there's the cleanup and/or repairs. Occasionally, everything gets left as-is, for the new owner to deal with. No matter what, it's complicated.

Why do we wait until we're dead to deal with our junk? Read: why do we leave it all to our kids to deal with? I think we generally don't believe we are ever going to die. Marie Kondo, that paragon of order, says that every object in our home should be utilitarian or it should "spark joy." Doesn't she know that all this pretty stuff in here sparks joy? Well, maybe not the papers stacked a foot high on my desk, or the strange things lurking in the backs of my closets. But who has time to yank all that out? They tell you to pull every single thing out of your closets and basically start over. Put three boxes in front of you: labeled Keep, Trash and Donate. I'm gonna do that, I really am, someday when I have a week to turn off my phone, not work, play no flute, keep no grandbabies, or feed my husband. I have this sincere problem, I think it's genetic, where when I do something like empty out a closet, the rubbish starts breeding fireflies and leprechauns. I see all these wonderful possibilities, rabbit trails and memories. Next thing you know, I'm painting the hall and changing the light fixtures because I'm so inspired by some weird flicker that ignited in my brain; meanwhile the closet is spilled all out on the study floor. It might take weeks to get back to that project. 

I have a tiny, lovely, light-filled art studio off my laundry room. It is precious. Ken fitted it out after we bought our Victorian in 2012. He found old unused trim in the barn, added some beadboard, and finished out the room for me. I painted it Sherwin Williams "Rachel Pink," a historical color that spoke to my heart. I loved it so much, I painted the laundry room and pantry the same color. The studio has been my grandchildren's happy place, as we set up a tiny easel in there, with every child having their own set of watercolors and a little table for them. But it turns into a big wreck, with all those Lilliputians messing about. It had no rhyme or reason, no order, and it was hard to find anything. So I did the unthinkable...I hired an organizer to fix it. She didn't insult me, graciously looked at the mess and hired a second set of hands to help. They put cute containers with labels on them, made trash piles and put everything back nice and tidy. The problem is, the owner of the studio doesn't have a brain that works that way. It gradually began to devolve. Then we had a big family baby shower for one of my daughter-in-loves, and ten or so extra Lilliputians showed up with their Mamas. After snacks and cake, the Moms all settled in the living room, chatting it up and having a great time. The short people disappeared and we didn't care. Because, you know, they are darling, sweet little girls who tend to dislike mud and we generally don't have to monitor traffic when they're around. Not this day. The containers, the shelves, the tools...they were like candy to them. After the crowd went home, it appeared that we had let the squirrels in and they'd had a party with all those containers, ferreting out the curiosities and then mixing it all together. Crying emojis all around. But what could I say? I'd been doing the same thing to the space, just at a snail's pace.

I thought about it for months, occasionally glancing in on the room, even daring to step in there a time or two. I haven't wanted to draw or paint, haven't gleefully had my grandkids paint with me. After many months of despairing of ever cleaning it up, I tucked my tail, gave in and invited my organizer friend back over. It's downright shameful that I ain't got it in me to do it myself, but as Ken says, "It is what it is." Problem is, I'm still me, Mrs. Squirrel. Maybe we can throw away half of what's in there and the future will be composed of "less" slob parties. We can always hope...  

Endurance

I talk about the weather far too much, but apparently it's all around me. Since I'm one of those "out of sight, out of mind" people and it's rarely out of sight, obsession is the order of the day. Plus, if you're an extrovert, you can start any conversation, be it friend, stranger, even enemy, with whatever's going on outside. I can just imagine two warriors stopping mid-fight, to save their coiffures from the rain. Not really, but it's a fun image.

This part of winter, to me, is the pit of despair. In Georgia, this is our winter cycle: two weeks of cold and rain (lots and lots of rain), then two to three days of spring. Repeat. If you have arthritis, you agonize and know what's coming. Usually around mid-January or thereabouts, we'll have a "winter storm" which especially involves emptying out all stores of bread and milk. If the storm actually happens, it can be very bothersome. Because it's so wet, ice covers everything in sight, trees (especially pines) fall and people start losing their minds. Yankees that are new to the South (or particularly the ones that don't live here) will sit in judgement because of our mass neurotic panic attack. The electricity goes out, the roads empty (hopefully) and we sit around shivering while we drink our milk and eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We have "ice storm babies" nine months later. I have a few grandchildren with that moniker attached. That's the good part. The other good part is that winter is short here. I cannot imagine living where the summers are just a blip on the radar, even though ours can be hellish. I finally figured out that all those Southern Living party ideas, though adorable, are only worked out in the spring and fall (when pollen and ragweed choke us to death anyhow, but it's better than the fires of Mordor in July). 

I know it sounds sad and hopeless, our weather, but it's really not. The earth and all in it are sort-of cracked, and us humans like to complain and find the bottom side of the barrel. The turning of the seasons is God's way of teaching us patience as well as helping us to know that we're not really in charge. As I feel the winter weighing on me as heavy as lead right now, I also know it's good to be quiet and hunker down with this season of contemplation. Calm down, store up, slow the wheel, plan, read a book, pet my dog.