Mutated Cupboards

The tyranny of the urgent drives entirely too much of my life. I hopscotch around to my many looming projects, with the deadlines as my pressure point. How I wish I could be steady and disciplined, as my husband is, but then again, where would be the fun in that? I am very thankful (when I'm not fuming) that he balances my excesses (and I, his). It's the cause of many a fuss but is also the thing that makes us a better team. 

My Daddy had a little sign on his workbench, that my sister owns now...I should engrave it on our walls, because it says: "Do It Now." Daddy had my same butterfly/squirrel/ADD-whatever-thing that keeps us from finishing what we start. He seemed to master this somewhere along the way, possibly due to the fact that Mama managed all the other things around him and they indeed balanced each other too. Ken and I have weekly meetings (even though our four kids are grown), where we eat breakfast and pull out our calendars, discussing what's ahead and what our priorities are. He also has helped me with my timelines and cutting out what's not so important. I honestly say that my real estate business is possible because of him and our team effort. He helps keep me grounded and I help him find the butterflies. This is a good plan. 

In the day-to-day, however, I am starting to wonder why my cupboards and drawers are all sprouting babies. I have a cabinet in the hall bathroom that is getting hard to close. Everything in there looks essential, but I only use a few things out of it. Maybe we're hoarding up for the apocalypse? How do you let yourself throw away perfectly good stuff that looked so important when it was all shiny up on the Amazon app? There's fancy facial creams and cleansers that I have forgotten about...hair products that bear mysterious promises, but I can't remember what those promises actually are. Years ago, I bought pretty baskets to put things in. Now they're overflowing and dropping their excesses every time I dare to crack open a cabinet.  These first-world problems need an intervention. I know a wonderful lady who is a professional organizer, but she's busy packing up her own house to move. Plus, you have to pay those people. Does that mean I get to do it myself and also pay myself? I think so. In fact, I think that deserves overtime pay and night differential, because I'm gonna be digging through here 'til after midnight. Just do it now... 

   

Good Neighbors and Just A Wee Bit of Water

I have dear neighbors on either side of me who live in Villa Rica only part-time. One couple is from Alaska, the other from California, worlds apart. All our lives are busy, and we don't intersect nearly often enough, but when we do, it is sweet and memorable. 

Last night, the Californians and I went out for dinner, since they are leaving for home soon. We live so close to town, we usually walk to local restaurants. I wanted for us to ride "Maggie" for a fun time (our beloved, beat-up golfcart). Ken has decided that everything in our proximity has to have some derivative of "magnolia" in it. I love that. In our estimation, Magnolia was cool way before Chip and Joanna came along. I've had a summer of events to decorate, so our barn looks like a bomb went off. Bucketloads of tulle, satin, fake greenery and lanterns are holding Maggie hostage, so she will have to wait for another day. Ken and I had promised each other we were going to clean out that mess during the week of July 4, but he ended up working extra and I was still in noodle-mode after my two weeks at the beach with grandkids and my daughter-in-love. It takes weeks to recover from a vacation, this I know. Then you awaken and try to get on with the rest of your life. 

So the Californians and I trundled to Los Cowboys in the balmy evening air. My spiffy, new Fresh Foam New Balance shoes starting chafing after only a few hundred yards. This is why I despise shoes. If God had meant for us to wear them, He'd have put them in our DNA code. While we're on the subject, why are people so concerned about whether everyone else has shoes on? What (or who) does it hurt, if I don't have shoes on, unless you're dealing with machinery or escalators? It is true that feet are not necessarily the most beautiful part of the human anatomy, though I deeply appreciate the luck of anyone who has nice, un-Hobbit-like ones. That nicety does not run in our family, with our knobby, strangely-webbed and curled-under toes. We look like we're ready to climb trees or grip utensils with them. And no, I don't believe we evolved from apes. We might try finding more useful purposes for them than just tucking them into ungainly clodhopper shoes. Scientists are even telling us now to shed those things and put our feet in the dirt. It's called "earthing" or "grounding" and it helps detox your body and shed extra electricity out of your limbs. This is another very good reason to up and head for the beach and stick your toes in the sand. Meanwhile, please don't judge me for rarely wearing shoes. I mean, I play my flute much better when there's nothing between me and the ground. It's a fact. 

My California friends are wonderful people, the kind who are all there when you are together. Nobody's checking their phones a hundred times, there's plenty of stimulating conversation, and they are the kind of folk who are transparent and real. They don't mind discussing controversial subjects, from politics to religion, from work to their personal lives. No hypocrisy and lots of honesty, all done with respect. I am always refreshed after I spend time with them. 

I was blessed to be raised by a straight-talking Yankee Mama down here in God's country with my southern Daddy and family. Sometimes our Southern culture presents a sugary face but has a wicked backbite. We need to work on that (well, at least I do). I heard a really good sermon this week about the tongue and how it can be a raging fire, from just a little spark. I hate it when a sermon jumps me like that. I'm chewing on and thinking about what kind of clamp I'm gonna need. 

Only a few weeks and kids will be getting back to school. This is that gloaming part of a Georgia summer, when people float in the molasses of the humidity and ponder whether they're going to have to get their hinder parts moving soon. Fall is a very, very long way off (not that we actually have one) but I'm already hearing people talk about pumpkin spice lattes and such. As for me, I'm still hoping for a cement pond.   

Snatched Up

These last few hot, muggy weeks, I've been a little obsessed with water. We've had the ocean, pools, rain...all those fun things. But these last few days, when a dire emergency came rushing into our lives, I found myself feeling like I was suspended in time, floating somewhere in the murky water between life and death. Not my own, but my baby brother's. To look at him, you'd think he was older than me (he's ten years younger but I keep saying that...). He has a massive, curly, white beard and a cue-ball-shiny head, devoid of hair. He looks like one of those Reformed pastors of old, but nope, he's current, though he preaches in a deep, intellectual manner similar to those sage men.

We got a call, saying that he had been taken by ambulance to the hospital. The symptoms seemed to indicate he had a blood clot in his lung. Then the story changed, saying that he was having back spasms. Then it seemed he might actually go on home, with some pain meds. My 25-year-old nephew (his son) insisted that he stay at the hospital for more tests. Thank God he did, for if he had not, we'd be having a funeral this week. What was wrong, in the end, was that he had a large aneurysm hiding in his heart that had torn. This was bad news to all of us, because our Grandma had died of such a thing, several years ago. We remembered her fateful end, at a fairly young age. Hours later we all gathered in the hospital waiting room, the same room where we waited for our precious Daddy's last breaths a few years ago. The air was charged with uncertainty as the minutes agonizingly ticked by. My dear sister-in-law couldn't keep her seat as two of her sons walked her nervously down the halls. It seemed that it would never end, but over 6 hours later, he emerged triumphant, though with a large scar running down his chest and with no small amount of blood loss. When I was able to finally see him, the next day, I barely recognized him. His normally swarthy skin was white as paste, his voice reduced to a whisper. In that weakened state, however, he told me of his lack of fear in the face of death. He was happy; he had seen the tunnel and knew Who he belonged to. Not even the spectre of the grave could snatch his peace.

I was nearly ten years old when he was born. The doctors had told my Mother that she couldn't have any more children, so when she discovered she was five months pregnant, it was the shock of a lifetime. Daddy knew he was a boy and nothing would dissuade him from knowing or saying it to everyone he met. Mama was worried about that. They'd had two girls that he had predicted and wanted, and this time it was a boy no matter what anyone said. The first time I saw him, this tiny little man in the crib, he had coppery curls and chocolate brown eyes. I fell in love and thought God had given me my own personal baby doll. As soon as he could talk, we started a conversation that hasn't let up since. Now, we might go for weeks and not converse, but then we start right back where we left off. We purposely don't call each other sometimes, because who has two hours to just chew the fat? We both love books. After years of my returning his borrowed books with teeth marks, rumpled pages and water marks all over them, he refused to let me borrow any more. Now he just buys them for me. Every time, it's going to be an awesome read.

I believe there's a day and a time for us all to meet our Maker. Crazy contortions and coincidences seem to run rampant, when someone lives through what my brother just experienced. I don't know what all God's got for him to do, but he's still here and I am so very thankful.   

The Water's Fine...

I was terrified of the water until I was around ten years old. My Daddy's attempts at teaching me to swim (very barbaric methods, for sure) only made things worse. Many years later, he asked my forgiveness when he realized that he had added to my fear when I was a kid. I have spent many words apologizing to my own children in their adult years. We don't always know what we're doing wrong. 

Our aunt and uncle visited from Illinois, early that 10th summer. Uncle Lloyd bought us a little 3-foot deep swimming pool at Sears and Roebuck, then proceeded to install the thing. That shallow water seemed plenty safe to me, and in short order I was pushing off the sides and swimming like a fish. It's easy to do that when all you have to do is put your feet down to catch yourself. Later, I went to 4-H camp, where they had a massive pool, teeming with scads of teenagers. I got comfortable in the shallows and then dared to go further, into the deep end. Clinging to the walls, I pushed off and swam to the other side, arriving alive. At last, I stood before the diving board, which seemed more like a cliff than anything meant for amusement. The line and the peer pressure behind me, pushed me bodily to the ladder. With a deep breath and eyes closed, I jumped, propelled deeply into the water. Frantically kicking and waving my arms, I burst back into the ozone where I could breathe again. I looked around and no one seemed surprised that I had made it. Kids were yelling for me to get out of the way of the next diver. I made it to the edge and realized I was finally, indeed, a swimmer. It became my beloved "profession"  where I taught swimming lessons and lifeguarded for many years. 

So when my daughter-in-love asked me to teach our five-year-old-twin grandchildren to swim, I pulled out that old file in my brain. Our first day of vacation, I was again tentative about the pool, not because of the water but because of my sheer whiteness and lack of exercise over the last year. 10-year-old sister Annabelle immediately began asking me about when the twins' first lesson would begin. I said, "Give me a minute!" I took a few to get acclimated to the cold water, then took off Addison's floaties. Bennett was next, not to be outdone. We started with getting our faces under the water, blowing lots of bubbles. There were the push-offs from the stairs, doggy paddling, floating and face-down forays in the water. We worked on their progress every day, with them keeping track as to whose turn it was. Within just a few days, brave souls that they were, they were swimming across the shallow end of the pool. The afternoon that I installed them at the deep end, their Mama was cringing. This was the real test. They took turns doing "pencil dives" (another word for jumping heartily into the deep), recovering and swimming across to me at the rope. I was so proud of their courage and endurance. Our last day, after two weeks of almost daily work, they both swam all the way across the pool from the deep end and did dives, retrieving objects off the floor of the pool. Their pluck and energy was inspiring. Their Mama and I agreed that they were now dangerous, with all these skills, and would have to be watched even closer now that they were doing this on their own.

Getting philosophical, I'm no longer a kindergartner (we didn't even go to kindergarten back in the day) and it seems that most of my frontiers have been conquered. But they haven't. There are still fears that confront me, old ones I thought I had in hand. Speaking up, when I need to, can be difficult. It's hard to kick against the bricks (the Bible says another word, but we don't use that word in the same way anymore and someone might be offended). It would be nice to go out like a calm lake, with everyone liking me. I think of the old ladies that I used to know, who just said the truth and didn't apologize for it. Not mean, just true. When I knew those ladies loved me, even when they said hard things, it affected me in good ways. It changed my life. It's an ancient scripture: "Speak the truth, in love." May I take a cue from my grandkids, dip my toe in that old lady pool and swim with boldness, without apology.   

Lighthouse

I set sail, tenatively but confident, from the beach. The day was beautiful, my small craft well-supplied with food, water, sunscreen, even extra clothes. The mast was strong, the boat high quality and outfitted for all sorts of weather and situations, an extra battery for emergencies. It was the best of scenarios, the most lovely of settings. I was prepared, life sprawling before me like a song. The weather man said that conditions were perfect for venturing forth.

The sweet swell of the ocean, the crystal water, the play of dolphins close by...I was mesmerized as I drew further and further from the shore. The day raced by as I explored surrounding tiny islands, following the cues of what was before me. The bliss of freedom and the gorgeous scenery was my new world. Before long, I noticed that the sun was dipping low in the horizon and I had lost sight of land. Dolphins had been with me most of the day, but I suspected the dark body slipping below my boat now was no friend. Black, ominous clouds began amassing in the northern sky, growing mushroom-like with the increasing, cold-blowing wind. 

For the first time, I realized I could be in danger. I had been cavalier in my assumption that everything would stay static. At the same time, I don't recommend living life in a bubble. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Storms, sharks, waves...they're part and parcel of life. It's the calm seasons that are the irregular parts. If our goal is to only live in the placid sea, we could die a slow death of complacency. The tides around us will simply wash us where they will. Better to brave the unknown and the difficult, to muster forward (even feebly) than to go along with the whims of the waves around us. 

I'm not talking about the ocean, really. I'm talking about us and our peers, our society. We have one life, one shot, despite what some say. It behooves us to live, to really live, and to seek the truth. Lap up all the beauty of creation and the moments before us, while paying attention to all our surroundings with an eye to question the ever-changing opinions of our culture. With that one life is one eternity. There is a lighthouse and an anchor who holds it all in His hands. See the light -- it's beaming from the shore.