Wookie Flute Playin'

From the time I was a youngster, people told me that I had "piano fingers" -- apparently, that's when you are long and lanky and your fingers look that same way. I am guilty of saying that to untold children in my lifetime too. I have a couple of grandchildren that have twiggy appendages, and I'm hoping for plucky songs in the future. 

My own musical history has been fraught with distraction and missed opportunities. My parents ponied up for piano lessons when I was in sixth grade, no small sacrifice. The (wonderful) teacher lived around the corner. The bus let me off on Thursday afternoons for my lessons and then I walked home afterwards. Miss Elsie loved Mozart, Bach and expressive playing. Even though I was lax in my practice, I was not lax in my love for her and for the music she introduced me to. When she played, it opened a sea of enchantment for me. It was a foray into worlds unknown, a crack in the current universe with a peek into what heaven must sound like. I still feel that way about music...whether it's classical, modern, jazz (well, some of it) or bluegrass. Throw down a folk rhythm and my foot's a-jumpin'. I'm so happy God gave us music.  After a few years of piano lessons, I begged my folks for a flute. They rented me one for $5 a month from Ken Stanton Music, and bought a beginning band book. Since I knew how to read music already, I quickly picked up how to play. I was already in high school and had a full schedule of sports, studies and social life. I practiced, but with limits. 

Life moved on, but I never stopped playing it. Church, weddings, jam sessions...the piano went to the side but the flute kept making its appearance. For years, when we were home-schooling our kids, I would use their nap time to teach beginners how to start out on the flute. It gave us money for my own kids' lessons and sports, in their own arenas. None of them really took up an instrument, but they were beasts out on the court and field, and loved music anyway. Now I play with the Carroll Community Wind Ensemble and at church, practicing more than I ever have and finally running up against the truth: that I need to learn how to play this thing. I'm performing next fall with a wonderful, young harpist in a contest in Atlanta, so I decided to take some lessons myself, since I could use some help. Yesterday was our first Zoom session, the dinosaur with some sweet young gal who could almost be my grandchild. In five minutes she was gracing me with great information. This morning, I was thinking about these kinds of blessings and also about the first grave sin: pride. Pride keeps us out of heaven, destroys our neighbor and puts a wall up in our brains that keeps us from learning and growing. I'm gonna lay down my pride and soak up everything I can from this young gal. I'll be her Padawan learner. Hurrah for new bends in the road.  

Happy, Slow Days

I see my childhood through sunny, sepia-tinted eyes. When I'm tempted to think my rose-colored glasses are delusional, I only have to remember how, at my thirteenth birthday, I cried because I didn't want to grow up. With a Daddy who was a fun, giant kid and a Mama who kept the home fires burning, my siblings and I had a secure and sweet place to rest and work in. And we did work, always, but also were allowed much freedom to play and simply be. My sister reminded me of our blissful summers recently. When school let out, there was no feeling like the sun-filled happiness that filled our days. Daddy was our softball coach. He worked our team hard, like we weren't little kids...but everyone loved him to pieces, because he loved all of us. He expected Melanie and I to work harder than our peers, never allowing us special favor because we were the coach's kids. I learned to love the joy of plowing through, gaining skills and overcoming my weaknesses. Then the thrill of winning... they don't let kids win or lose these days. "Everybody's a winner" -- so winning means nothing. Losing, disappointment and the word "No" have been verboten in the raising of too many modern children's lives. The thrill of victory is sweet, when you've known the trials of defeat. Let your kids know the highs and lows of life early. They will learn to appreciate pride of ownership.

We also had to help out around the house...to weed the garden, scrub bathrooms, wash dishes, join in with whatever our folks were doing. Ours was not a Disney childhood. We did get to go to Six Flags once, when our uncle from Illinois came down and paid our way. We savored every second of it, because we were unused to those kinds of things. We weren't destitute...we had enough to eat and clean clothes to wear, but in today's economy we would have been considered poor. When people say, "You just can't afford to raise kids with one income these days." That's not our problem. It's that most of us have gotten accustomed to our toys and our luxuries. Of that, I am guilty too. It is easy to get used to all the goodies and our perspective has changed on what is considered "poor."         Harking back, however, I believe that what made those times sweet, besides the mercies of God, was the way we were unplugged. 

I remember childish afternoons, after lunch, when we laid in the grass and ended up taking a nap with a kitten curled up next to us. Long hours of hiking through woods, picking blackberries, biting into bittersweet wild muscadines. Climbing trees, languishing on branches and staring into azure skies for what seemed days. Watching the slow, dizzy march of a praying mantis as he makes his way across a leaf. Fireflies lighting up the yard, steamy, thick air rising like a cloud. The ice cream truck chiming and Daddy handing out quarters. Neighborhood kids all piling into a ditch full of mud after a summer rain. No one's face was in a phone or device. Children lived outside (it was too hot to stay inside, with no air conditioning), wasting time yet taking time to contemplate all the spaces between the moments. It was slow, simple, timeless. Not everyone gets to experience a happy childhood, and I think these days it takes a lot of intentionality and resolve to raise your children differently than how everybody else is doing it. But oh, how priceless the payoff. 

Blue Is The Color of My Mind

I asked God to send me art jobs. Real estate has taken over my life these last few years and my art studio sits languishing at the back of our house, except on the days when grandchildren visit. We have it set up so that there is a pint-sized French easel for them, little aprons for all, and each child has their own watercolor set. There are paper towels and water containers, brushes in special holders...it's my favorite thing to do with them. Young children don't care if their work is museum-worthy. They just love to create. If we adults could hark back to those pell-mell days where we just dove in without a care...we could also find more joy in our days. We're all so serious about making a mistake or messing something up. How about we just throw back our heads laughing and squiggle all over the pages?

I got a request, weeks ago, to restore the art on an antique light fixture. This particular client has a unique shop in Buckhead, a hole in the wall that has been there for many years. He restores all kinds of metal objects and light fixtures, a craft that few know. He has sent me unusual requests in years past...a teeny, tiny oval cartouche from a cup that had to be repainted (it was a picture of a woman, no bigger than the nail on my pinky)...a silver candleabra that looked like silvered branches, he wanted me to make it look like real wood... things like that! This time, it was a smoked-up light fixture that had been through, guess, a fire. It had Asian-inspired artwork on it that was to be re-done with fresh paint. It had to be just the right color to match the old fixture. I did arduous research on colors and paints. It needed to be able to withstand heat from lightbulbs, once it was put back together. I trekked to Atlanta and back, to Hobby Lobby and Michael's to gather materials. There was a specific blue that had to be found. I am the color queen. There's no point in buying pre-mixed colors in those little bottles. Just give me your basic blue, yellow, red and white and I'll mix up my own colors. So for this project I was confident and sat down to paint, after prepping all my surfaces. Pride goeth before the fall. I started with basic blue, then Pthalo blue, Payne's Grey then ultramarine. No manner of mixing was producing the color I needed. I went back to the craft stores and bought everything approximating blue, yes, in those little bottles. I covertly snuck in the store and left with bags of them, my tail tucked between my legs. The wailing and gnashing of teeth began anew, when nothing worked. No one was home when I said aloud, "God, please help me!" I flopped back in my chair and stared out the window. Then I ogled my dining room walls, the most recently painted room in the house. I love this new color, which so happens to be Sherwin Williams Color of the Year for 2020 (there was something good that came out of that unmentionable year) -- Naval SW6244. Not navel like your belly button. Naval like the Navy.  I even recovered all the chairs and commissioned 10-foot drapes for the windows with that gorgeous blue in them. After all my blue experimentation, I suddenly realized I was staring at possibly The One for my project. I dashed into my studio and yanked out a can of Naval, stirred it up and dipped a little artist brush in there and smeared it on a ceramic dish. Behold! It was right here all the time! It took me a week to finish, in between my day job and meals and my daily episode of HGTV and my evening interludes with Ken. In fits and starts and lots of Booyah moments when I actually hunkered down to paint, the finished product emerged. I did a happy dance and sent pics to the client. When he conferred with his client and told me they were thrilled, I varnished the whole lot and laid down on the floor and cried.

There's no drama here at all...

Plowing Through

Oh the ironies... I was exposed to someone with the 'Rona last week, so now I'm sequestered all up in here. I've made a wing of the house into my 10-day abode. The dog and cat have taken over my bed, since Ken is "next door" and won't kick them out. It's going to be a shock when I move back in with the hubs and they can't nest up with me. Speaking of dogs, my sister has a litter of new puppies....they are my Australian Shepherd Sadie's grandchildren. I think Sadie, in her old age, could use a puppy friend. She could teach the new dog all the rules and it would do her good to have a buddy, besides me. Trouble is, I don't even want to ask Papa Bear about it. He might just murder me. In reality, I am actually constantly amazed, through these 38 years of marriage, how truly wonderful he is  and how he just wants me to be happy. Sometimes I wonder when he's gonna wake up and notice how difficult I am and decide to high-tail it out of here. There is a God.

Like I said last week, I think we should all dwell on the idea of puppies, kittens, baby chicks, new stuff... Muse on those daffodil bulbs that are sitting underneath the ground right now, waiting for March to appear. I'm going to prune my monster fig tree this weekend -- it's taking over the house and yard, so it needs to be humbled a bit. Maybe that's what is happening to us. We've gotten a little too big for our britches and now it's time for some pruning. Some fertilizer. Some root-building. Then when our "spring" arrives, we'll be ready to grow. That fertilizer though, it can get mighty stinky...

 

Oh Baby It's Cold Outside

I was chilly, my toes just wouldn't warm up, and I kept bumping up the heat. I finally reached for the scrumptious pullover that I got at the Sam's Club for $9.41, a shopping miracle. Little 3-year-old Addison reached over last night, felt it and said, "Comfy cozy." Exactly. Before long, I was warm as toast and the world was right. Upon waking too early this morning, I stretched myself into believing I should go ahead and get my lazy self to the gym. By 7:00 I was back home, dressed and eating breakfast, had listened to two great podcasts on the role of God's sovereignty and suffering, and then Mozart's Concerto in C at least three times. I'd go back to bed, but I'm on a roll. Maybe I'll actually get my list done today.

I wrapped my cold fingers around my Miami Starbucks mug that I stole from one of my sons, the spicy, cinnamony smell of Dragon Spice Chai Tea wafting up. I indulge myself in big boxes of this tea because it's something I actually like, even though it doesn't involve sugar or honey. I used to put gobs of sweeteners in my beverages, helping lead to my near insulin-incarceration. I didn't just drink coffee, I wolfed down something more like brownies in my cup. All that yummy, so blissful every morning, but was it really? Delight on the front end, misery on the flip side. If I hadn't helped myself to so much "comfort," I could've found equilibrium or the notion of moderation. As it is, I'm now paying back for all the heaps of indiscretion I coddled. But it's okay. I could still be stuffing down doughnuts and crumpets with my extravagantly-embellished coffee if I wanted to, but I'm not. There are so many other kinds of comfort to be found when you can actually get yourself out of the chair. In the mornings, I get on my poor old knees and say, "God, I can't do this. But You can." Mercifully, He is my help and my stay.

My dear neighbor Jackie, who lives in Alaska most of the year, says that it's colder in Georgia than in Anchorage, because of the blustery, wet humidity. I believe her. We slog through weird winters, where it will act like spring for a day or two and then plunge into wet, ungodly, shrieking wintertide for a week until we can't take it any more. We pray for an early spring. The Winter Solstice, shortest day of the year, sneaks by on December 21st and then we breathe a sigh of relief as Christmas rises and peaks. New Year's Eve and Day rush on through and then we get back to our slogging. But Easter's in sight over the horizon and all hope is not lost. Folks that aren't from here and have endured terrible winters with snow, ice and multiple clothing layers think that we are very silly with our whining about the cold. But have you experienced a front porch in the Deep South, with lemonade and a neighbor dropping by? Or a segue to the Panhandle with a stroll through white sand and then the plunge into seaglass water? I know we're supposed to enjoy all the moments, but I'm laboring for daffodils, bunnies, and a new grandbaby (#9) coming in the Spring. To every thing there is a season, turn, turn, turn...

Let's Live!

Ken and I were getting ready to leave for our church's Christmas Eve service, followed by a little trip to Dallas for the Slate side of things at my Mama's house. Everybody crowds into her garden-sized place, taking no heed to all the warnings...eating, talking, laughing, living. My Mama ain't scared. She said if she goes now, she'll be with Daddy and it's a shortcut to glory. I might not be as free as all that, but we're winging it and doing what we can.

I got dressed then walked the dog. It was North-Pole-cold and sleeting. I checked the weather app and it showed it was only going to get colder, and it was already feeling like somebody switched us for North Dakota. Because of the sleet, we abruptly decided to stay home. That meant no Christmas Eve service, no going to Mama's house, no Slate visit...just a Grinchy, lonely Christmas Eve. I burst into tears. Ken wanted to know why he wasn't enough. That just made it worse. I said "Now it's not Christmas!"

These last few years, we have a tradition of going to Waffle House on Christmas morning, then the grown kids and grands all come over for brunch-at-lunch. Everybody brings breakfast foods and dessert and we have what Samwise Gamgee would call Second Breakfast. So at noon, they started piling in. Each group of grandkids bounced into the house until we had all eight (all nine if you count the one in the oven). There is nothing like the delight of children at Christmastime...and there's nothing better than being with all your cousins at the same event. The decibels got louder and louder, the squeals and physical gyrations got more dramatic. The kids were running all over the house, with the dog herding right behind them. As each family came into the house and I got hugged over and over, the stress and worry of the previous day just fell off.  There were messes, food, spills, lots of wrapping paper, jokes and laughter, warmth and joy. Our annual family portrait was definitely the worst ever, with everyone in their mismatched pajamas and looking less-than coiffed. 

Things eventually began to wind down and old Grandaddy Norton rose to leave. We lost Grandmama this year to cancer and this was his first Christmas without her. With much difficulty, he gave us a sweet charge...to love one another, to keep our eyes on the Lord and to keep keeping on. Then he prayed, blessing us all. He spoke of the Lord's mercy on us and how we must never take that for granted. In just those few moments, those nuggets of love and wisdom summed up what all the hoopla was about.

Once again, the page turns and we face a new year. Uncertainty, weariness, worry, and the unknown stand before us. That's no different than any year. We all have our bends in the road on any given day or decade. There are storms to battle, trees to fell, paths to take...all which could go well or turn into seeming disaster. For me and my house, we're not going to cower in fear, waiting for the unrevealed to happen. There's life to be lived, death is always waiting and we should always be ready. Seize the day. 

Noel in the Flurries

I believe every house on Magnolia Street is decorated this year. It's infectious, the greenery and jolly lights. It has spread good cheer all around and my husband is even turning on our fountains most every day, for good measure. Heaven knows we need a little Christmas now. I pulled our unwrapped gifts out of an old chiffarobe that I store them in...that's always an adventure because there's someone or something I've forgotten and that means a mad dash to the store before it's too late. 

I was ambitious this chilly Monday and headed to town to gather up groceries and those last minute gifts. This last week has been testy...I've been yelled at by a shop manager and a mean guy at the gym. Covid stress is buckling us down. There's been an ensemble concert (Carroll Community Wind Ensemble), caroling, craft day with the grands and all my gals, church twice, an ongoing art project, real estate closings to arrange, weights to lift, bicycles to ride, doctor appointments, lots of folks to chat with, a husband to see to, Mama to check on, food to prepare and then my Bible to read. Guess what got neglected? Yes, the dust was thick on that good book as I did my daily about-town dashes. I glanced at it as I hurried by, laid out on my dining table. My intentions were to serenely read it and seek His heart every morning, but literally every turn of the sun I got distracted or waylaid, usually by things that really weren't that important, if you look at it in the grand scheme of things. By week's end, my brain was swirling. Any time we sat down for a show or book, I was busy picking out pecans. Gobs of them. Then I salted and toasted them gently in the oven. Pecans are truly one of the best things God ever made. But on my diet plan, I am not allowed to have nuts. So I was gifting them to my friends and family, making pecan pies and little bags to bless people with. By Friday evening, I was tired and hungry, and my addiction to all things delicious reared its ugly head. I found myself alone in the kitchen, heady with the delectable smell of roasted pecans. One bite turned into countless bites and I went to bed guilty, like a squirrel with its cheeks bulging. I vowed to tell my sponsor or the Pope or somebody, but then one day turned into two. Tonight I finally came clean with her, after writing down lots of reasons why I let up my guard. This might seem very strange to some (to be obsessing about pecans and a few wayward bites), but I had nearly eaten myself into an early grave until God intervened last year. I view a breach in the dam of my program as life-threatening. I don't want to go back down that road, even if it is Christmas. Naw, I've already had more than my quota. 

But this evening, as my sponsor and I talked and her wisdom of years flowed over me, I thought of the Christ Child. He came for me, to lay down His life for all of my wayward ways, both great and even as small as a pecan obsession. I cannot do the things, cannot be the things that I need to be, in my own power. I don't care what the current sayings are, however well-intentioned...I am not enough. That is exactly why I need God. The principle of redemption sings through the Old and the New Testaments, where a Lamb is slain and takes away the sin of the world. That lowly manger, that King in the straw... Wise Men came from far away to worship Him. Wise men and women seek Him still. Merry Christmas.