Elvis and Me...

There are many things worse than death. I have not yet suffered until the point of giving up the ghost, but have thought at various times that surely I was. There's the labors for four Viking babies, various and sundry illnesses, extreme gastric problems (teenage Vikings, anyone?), and fired-up joints from, I'm assuming, all that GMO corn I've eaten over the years. 

After Ken left for work last night, with me groaning in the bathroom with burgeoning stomach issues...I finally thought to myself, "Oh well, he's gonna find me dead on the toilet, just like Elvis." That's how Flossie Mae bites the dust, I guess. In all seriousness, there was a giving-up of my life right there. I pondered the will of God, that what if this was my moment to go see Him? I breathed really deep and surrendered. And then I got better, so obviously I was wrong. Coulda had something to do with the deep breathing and all, but in the end it's God's timing (or not). Also thought a lot about the fact that we all have an appointed day and time to die, but I might suffer a lot more in-between if I don't take care of this ole temple. The trial of my life! If it was cocaine or whiskey it'd be easier. Then the question is yes or no, not what, how much, and how many. You gotta eat or you'll blow away. I'm not blowing away any time soon...

In other light...spring is simply amazing this year! I'm enjoying the cool temperatures and all the green stuff just bustin' out all over. It's been hectic, but what a joy to see God's creation and the fresh new life around us. This week was special, my birthday week...with too much food and lots of family and friends blessing me. My friend Vicki says, "When you get old, you get to have a birthday month!" I keep telling everyone I'm only 39, but I'll take it.   

Not A Sparrow Falls...

What happens when birds fly the nest? They spread their wings and land in new places, starting their own nests. My sister and I grew up as thick as thieves, barely stopping our stream-of-consciousness speak, not even while we were showering or trying to sleep. There was so much to discuss and figure out. I am lucky and grateful that I had a sister like that, to share life with and filter the world by. She is the younger, but really the more grown-up, or at least the most driven. I was a second mother to her, feeling responsible to shelter and protect her...but she arrived with plenty of grit of her own. She walked out with an agenda and heaven help anyone who stands in her way. She is a force of nature 

For many years, after we married and started having bucketloads of children, our paths were side-by-side, right along with our parents' paths. I had much guilt if I ever departed from what they thought was the right thing to do, and their wisdom and insight will guide me all my days. But God didn't tell us to be cookie cutters of our folks. He said, "leave and cleave" when you hitch your wagon to a spouse. 

Over time, the agendas of our families began to take slightly different trails. My husband was focused on our children being physically trained in the trades. College was good, but not mandatory. Survival skills and hard work were the bedrock of our family, though my agenda for them also majored on history, biblical thinking and classical music. My sister's family was honed in on speech training, college, music and performing arts. Very different routes. We humans have compulsions that lead us to our choices and directions...and I think there's a grand plan in that. If we have no purpose, what's the point? We are not bags of chemicals randomly slogging through the mist. 

As she and I diverged on our treks, we have always still stayed close, though it gets much more difficult when you add layers of in-laws and grandchildren to the mix. This weekend, her daughter Olivia (my niece) invited me to join her wedding party up in the mountains of North Georgia for a bachelorette weekend. What a special young lady, who would invite her Mom and creaky-jointed aunt to hang out with all those pretty girls. There were also three of her bridesmaids who brought their nursing babies with them. There was laughter, food, sleep, and oh-so-much talk. We cooed over the babies, shopped and pondered the deeper things of life. As usually happens, anytime a party or event breaks up, things get condensed and said right at the last. We gathered on the porch, taking pictures and working on our goodbyes. I hugged my dear, sweet niece, as luminous and beautiful as an angel. Emotions charged over me right in that moment: the first time I saw her, a dewy, pink baby with huge blue eyes and a massive dimple in her cheek. Then there was the rush of her life, ...the babyhood, the cute and silly years of Olivia-isms, the requisite awkward years with her clumpty-walk and long limbs all akimbo. Then the literal flower that bloomed into the most luscious of blossoms, inside and out. I felt the pain and the glory of the future - starting a life in a few weeks in another state with her new husband. All the unknowns, along with the adventures still to come. Right then, I felt her young heart, exhilarated and scared at the same time. Tears came easily as we hugged and then let go. 

The birds, they fly to their nests. We see them from afar, not as closely as we once did. I go home to my quiet study, missing my own children terribly although they are close by. Their nests are abuzz with their fledglings, life bursting out like rays. They are the future, filled with energy and hope and sauce. Happy, fleeting days.      

Hibernation in the Ambrosia

About a third of our lives are spent sleeping. When I was younger, this was lost on me. I climbed in bed and fell asleep like a rock and slumbered until someone (or metallic noises) made me wake up. I discovered coffee in the eleventh grade, which gave me reasons to be nicer to people in the morning. It seems that us creative types tend to bloom in the evening, rather than when the sun is rising. I married a man who looks like a handsome lumberjack, has zero creativity, thrives on schedules and wakes up like he's ready to belt out a song from "Oklahoma!" He can't sing, but he sure looks like he's about to. Can't you just hear Curly belting it out? - "Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain, and the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet when the wind comes right behind the rain!" I am a woman but I can sing baritone better than soprano, so I try this song out often on my grandchildren. But never in the morning. No, the snail comes slowly out of its shell, dampening all surrounding enthusiasm. My dear husband must love me, because he should have hightailed it to other parts of the world by now, given the sad state of affairs he often finds himself in during early morning encounters with his wife. I try, truly. But then again, there's his own inability to stay awake past 7:00 p.m., so it's just a mercy of God we haven't killed one another. He's the sun and I'm the moon. There's a lot of gravity involved and we apparently need each other. 

Since my Daddy died, there have been a few nights that I've spent with Mama. While I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to ever sleep there with her, her little dog jumps into the bed (aliens kidnapped my mother the day they got that dog), she's done strapped on her CPAP machine and is snoring like a boss. She sleeps on her back and doesn't wake up until eight hours later. I haven't done that since my womb yielded up our first child 38 years ago.  She has always told me she wouldn't live past 60, but she's now 81 and I'm thinking she's gonna outlive us all.  Clean living and a clear conscience might just be the ticket.  

A few years back, I saw some Barbra Streisand movie, where she had this massive bed and about 500 pillows in it. It was then that I decided it must be okay to have more than one pillow. Maybe I could find a way to sleep! It started with one of those body pillows when I was first pregnant, the best thing since sliced bread. Ken thought somebody else was sleeping in there with us; searches in the night to hold my hand (or anything else) became more difficult. We've added a nice mattress, cushy cover, squishy comforters and heavenly sheets these last few years, and I've added a big ole pillow to mash against the headboard...it keeps my hand from going asleep. Then there's my wedge pillow, to ward against gastric reflux. Another regular one to prop me up from behind my back makes me feel very secure. Then there's my tiny memory foam pillow that I put under my neck. It takes quite some time to arrange all of this; heaven forbid I forget my book or my glasses and have to start over, but when I'm done, it's quite the nest. I put my CPAP on and I can hear the faint sound of beach waves emanating from my phone in the next room. When we have company, I have to pull all that mess off our bed and put it in the closet or they'll believe someone (or several people) are sleeping in there. It's just ridiculous. My good, steady, loving husband doesn't say one negative word about it. Love is a many splendored thing.   

Just Do It

 I saw the planets lining up a few days ago. It was on one of my grandbaby's birthdays (2-year-old Ethan), March 28. I remembered it when I was walking the dog and looked up and saw a line of 'em, pretty as you please. It boggles the mind, the precision of which is takes to keep the world from wobbling right off its axis and blowing to smithereens. There's a lot of balance, gravity and moon-pull keeping us rotating around the sun, just-so. A few degrees off and we'd be toast. A few degrees the other way and we'd be popsicles. 

Then I look around me, at the wonder of nature. Everything here is in a circle of life, one thing feeding off the other and benefiting from all the green stuff. They say that just one human body is technically more complex than all the planets that we can observe, with miles of arteries and cells and systems to keep it breathing, eating, sleeping. There's grass and bugs and chickens and canteloupes all striving to live, and somehow we keep doing that, a cycle of birth and death grinding out its machinery. Today, as I snuggled my grandson and read to him, I thought of how he came from just two cells, my son's and my daughter-in-love's. All the information needed to make this little man was inside those two pinpricks of DNA. He laughs, cries, tells me all about his day with those twinkly eyes and that sharp brain. He's smart, with a wry sense of humor like his Daddy. He's kind and wiggles like a salmon when he's got a joke to tell. 

All these beautiful things cry out that there's nothing random about them. Little machines inside the cells crank out patterns for the next cell that's forming. The symbiosis of all living things work together to make a miraculous system, keeping the next generation moving forward. Yes there is sin, there is death, there is tragedy. We all wear down and die, if the traffic doesn't get us first. But look at the spring, the leaves unfurling, the pollen flying to find purchase, the daffodils turning their lovely faces to us. Look at the babies, soft and sassy, fresh, with the promise of life before them. 

The news is bent on making all things sensational and dire. Turn it off. It's only going to stagnate the day and make us worry about things we can do little-to-nothing about. What can I do today, to make my world a better place? It definitely doesn't involve giving CNN my brain cells. My Daddy had my same tendencies...God gave us squirrely brains that love to jump from one idea to the next, circling and starting, but struggling to finish. Our butterfly paths have made for happy flights of fancy, but there are things that need tending. He made a sign and kept it on his workbench. It said, "Do it now." This week, while struggling to keep myself on track, I thought about his sign. I made myself jump out of bed every morning, commanded the Alexa-thing to play beautiful music, and got busy doing housework. One big task each morning, no food until I had accomplished something. A mountain of laundry. Another day, I vacuumed the whole house. Still another, I dusted all the bunnies to oblivion. Some people naturally do these things, but I'm likely to flutter the whole morning away with daydreams, reading or hoofing the real estate before other humans start calling me. Then I'm just stuck. But the music, the movement, the tasks, made me happier and more ready to face the day. Do it now. It's yummy.