Falling Forward

I was holding his giant, gnarled, ancient hand as he writhed in pain, begging me to pull him up out of the hospital bed. It was my Father-in-law, who had broken his hip earlier in the day. The two kegs of morphine that they had pushed into his vein were doing nothing to help him. This, a man whom I've never heard complain about hurting except to say his shoulder was grumpy. Even with that, he won't generally take anything to make it feel better. He's a tough old Navy SeaBee, still strong as an ox at 90 years old. I felt like I was wrestling a bear for a bit there, as the fog of dementia further added to his confusion. Before the doctor found the sweet spot of pain relief for him, I tried my best to comfort and explain to him what was happening. Minute-by-minute, the words rolled back out of his brain and the pain overwhelmed all reason left in there. Alzheimer's has to be one of the cruelest diseases, stripping one of dignity or purpose.  Lucky were my MawMaw and my Daddy, both dying with their boots on in their recliners. We don't like to talk about death, but it's a thing. And it's a-coming. 

Climbing back into the car with my son, Jon, and his family, who had also visited my daughter-in-love's sister who happened to be at the same hospital...I was struck by the blessing of children. There were four shining faces -- happy, laughing, fresh, waiting on us. I wanted to squeeze the stuffing out of them. I was reminded of my Grandma Betty's death, where our 3-month-old firstborn (yes, Jon) and I rode all the way to Illinois with my folks for the funeral. He was fussy and full of sauce on that trip, but the old ladies said hearing those sounds made them feel hopeful. Life goes on. I get that now. Harvest moon looming big overhead. 

This week looks to be another insane one at the Norton house. Besides Ken's Daddy's surgery and a few procedures ourselves, our tile guy decided to jump ahead of schedule and will start tiling our kitchen, laundry and pantry tomorrow. We've been waiting for him for a couple of months, so no one's complaining. Our son Daniel rescued us this morning and arrived to move appliances out of the house and bring his personal comedy show while he was at it. He could make money making people laugh, if he so chose. Daughter Liz sent cute videos of two of the grands, bringing more sunshine to the horizon. We're planning on visiting son Jesse and his family later on the week, if possible. There will be four more jolly little faces there, as well as a whole passel of puppies. Puppies are always good. Things are looking up.   

Ohhhhh Shiny!

You beautiful, shining orb...who are you? I've seen you lately, every night when I walk the dog, hanging like a beautiful, eye-watering jewel on a tree. I want to shout to the neighbors in the waning evening light: "Can you see it?! Is it a planet or a star or a UFO?" Then they'd really know I was crazy. It's not moving, so it must not be aliens, and it's not the North Star, because it's in the east. It must be Venus, that blazing, flashy diva. All of my childhood, I was unaware that you could see planets with the naked eye. I just assumed all the shiny objects in the sky were stars. My Daddy loved to watch the heavens with us kids on summer nights. We'd lie on the warm driveway and look for "shooting stars." I don't know what took me so long, but now I know that many of the big, gleaming things suspended in space are actually planets. This makes my inner child very excited. 

My favorite wedding decor that I have been involved in had to do with night skies. We decorated my nephew and his new bride's reception with a theme from the book "The Little Prince" (her favorite childhood tome). I had never read it, so it was a delight to be introduced to the story. It involved stars, planets, the moon, a little boy and a fox. With a bevy of helpers, we spangled the walls of the church fellowship hall with big golden stars and twinkle lights. The tables had magical jars filled with more stars and firelight, then we stacked old books and trinkets alongside. I bought various sizes of Japanese lanterns and painted them, transforming them into the planets and a (really big) moon. One of our nephews, Benjamin, built a whimsical trellis out of branches; I festooned it with tulle and lace and lights. There was a a fox sitting all sassy on the grand piano and a massive telescope beside it. Said nephew also dragged tall saplings out of the woods and pegged them onto stands, feathering even more lights up into the branches. We hung the planets all around the room in the trees. It was like a fairy garden, but better. The piece-de-resistance was the cake my niece, Hannah, made: a multi-tiered confection, with blue and white icing that she had poured and swirled down the sides. It looked for all the world like the Milky Way. The massive moon was smack-dab in the middle of the trellis, with the cake the crowning gem of the whole affair. It was winsome, fun and beautiful. After all was said and done, the party over and all the decorations taken down, someone happened to notice that no one bothered to take pictures. Eventually one photo surfaced, a blurry one with the bride and groom leaning over the cake. You have to wonder: if there were no pictures, did it really happen? The most banal of happenings get documented these days...people looking insanely excited at the outside of a restaurant in their selfies, when the truth is they seem pretty bored once the picture-taking is over. Maybe this was a good sign, everyone too busy having a great time - talking, laughing, eating, and enjoying each other -- to stop and take pictures. We can all remember it as a wonderfully special night, and our memories can get more embellished and sparkly over time, than what any pictures would have shown.

Busy days ahead, with us (the Carrollton Wind Ensemble) playing the Phantom, Thursday and Friday in Carrollton, then a creepy concert a few days later (I've got my pirate costume ready, aarrrrrrr!). We have a grandson coming over the weekend and then four more grands staying the next week while their parents head to the northeast for some much-deserved time alone and Fall color. I might better gird up my loins...  

Not-So-Silent Movie

In the spring and fall, when we're not sweating bullets, I open up my 121-year-old Victorian house so it can breathe a little bit. Most of our windows have been painted shut, dang-nab-it...but the newer ones still open and I have a big screen door at the front. It can get musty in here and start smelling like an old lady house, so I take every chance I can get to air it out. I light candles and put on music or play it myself. It kind of freaks me out when neighbors from a street over tell me they're hearing me practice my flute. Music is a wonderful thing, but the tedium of scales and arpeggios might bring out the Phantom or something. Speaking of which...our wind ensemble (Carrollton Wind Ensemble, look it up, buy tickets...) is practicing a new Phantom of the Opera arrangement by Elijah Green. It's not the Andrew Lloyd Webber one, please, please put that one in your thinking cap before buying tickets. This one is an accompaniment to the old silent film with Lon Chaney. I had never seen it in all my born days until last week. Why would I ever watch a silent movie when there's plenty of talkies? Besides, I'm still only 39. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. This version is fascinating, you must come out and see it. 

I get to feeling sorry for myself on Friday nights. I have a long history of that. When we were kids, my sister and I would watch The Brady Bunch and The Partridge Family on Friday evening. All I could imagine was that the neighborhood girls were at the skating rink and I was stuck at home, watching other (fake) people have fun in TV land. My Mama said that everybody was smoking and kissing boys at the skating rink, so I wasn't allowed to go. She was probably right and I'd have ruined my life right then and there. I didn't know at the time that there was such a thing as FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), but I was born with this condition. That's why I'm on the fluffy side. If anyone is eating bon-bons, I have to have some too. It's also why I can't get anything done, if there's a social event going on. Or if someone pops in for a visit, I ain't doing any laundry or dishes while they're here. I want to be all-there and hate to miss any of the conversations. It's probably why my bladder is already ruined, being stretched one too many times while conversing with fascinating people.

This particular Friday night, Ken was working until midnight and I was alone with the animals. That can be soothing, but not this time. I opened up the house to the cool night air. There's a chill in the air, so the critters are starting to try to get into the house. I ran out to the mailbox (well, I shouldn't lie...I walked spastically) and did a crazy dance when I found myself face to face with a garden spider hanging right in my path. I shook the water bugs (read: big, ole gigantic roaches with an agenda) off the cat food and brought it inside.  There was a gentle rain and fun sounds from the concert down the street. I desperately needed to practice the Phantom, so I hunkered down, opening up the actual movie while I played along. Things were going swimmingly as I worked on scales and exercises, then moved on over to the main event. The crisp night air was starting to nip at my fingers and toes, but I kept on working. The FOMO was significant and all I could think of was all my grandkids and the fact that I wanted to curl up with a few of them and a warm blanket. Or my hunky husband. But none of those people were there. 

It is about midway through the movie when the Phantom gets unmasked. It's the silliest thing you've ever seen, if you have normal proclivities and have already seen other modern scary movies, but I don't watch horror movies or attend witch covens. When that dumb girl pulls off his mask, you want to laugh but then you might want to scream. I mean, he doesn't have a nose, for heavens' sake. And I'm supposed to keep playing my flute, which requires air and relaxed lips. It was then that I decided to quickly close up the windows and the front door. I tried to get back to some serious playing, but it just wasn't happening. I curled up with my blanket and a flighty movie about some over-empowered Australian woman, a pilot, who falls in love with a wimpy but fantastically cute guy who is scared of everything, including his own Daddy. Why would she do that? The abs will definitely fall later and then what will she do? And why is he such a chicken? He's got everything going for him but he can't step up and be the hero. Well, he kind-of does some of that at the very last minute but if I were her I'd be worried that might not hold up under duress. I am a woman, so I tend to blame women for the state of these things, but I digress...

I got ready for bed, gathered the dog and took her to the side door for her last hurrah. The door was unlocked. It had been unlocked all night! As I rushed poor Sadie to do her business, all I could think of was nose-less crazy people in the corners of the yard. Or probably already inside the house. Now who's the chicken?   

Priorities and the Pull of the Barcalounger

The space between summer and fall is one of those renewal periods in my year. Spring is another one, of course, but Fall is special because, you guessed it -- there's no pollen! Everything is cooling off, but there's still warm days interspersed here and there in the South even up to Christmas, for heavens' sake. Then from Christmas to March we've got little sun siestas all along the way, mixed with the occasional ice and sleet storm. We might get snow one day and the whole place shuts down, even if it's just from the threat of it. I've been mulling priorities in my brain these last few days. We desperately need to clean out our barn, but Ken says that half of that mess belongs to our son who is still working on building their house. I don't believe him. That man is the most organized neatnick known to humanity, but he doesn't have the ability to throw anything away. His clothes are color-coded in the closet, shirts are spaced equidistant from each other, and all his belts and ties are perfectly stored in their racks. But he can't throw away a candy wrapper. Oh yes, he folds it neatly and lays it on the counter (perfectly parallel to the edge). Then I have to be the one to throw it away. When it comes time to clean up or organize his shop, I'm the unlucky one who gets the job. He can't bear to think of disposing of anything, so I have to make those decisions. I'm the mean mug who is filling up the junkyard, ya'll. Don't hate me. I'm the messy one and I've also got all my collections of paraphernalia cluttering up the house. But I love my junk. It's too pretty to throw away. You see the hypocrisy here? Stopping to prioritize our lives takes sincere intention and effort. You have to actually stop, turn off HGTV, make a plan, get off your duff. Read: quit watching other people live and get to it. Please remember that I am preaching to myself. If I write it down, maybe I'll do something about it. Ken hates my sticky notes, but I need them because if I don't put a reminder right in front of my face, I'll go chasing the next butterfly and forget all about it. 

What do I love? What do you love? Put it on a sticky note. If you decide later that you don't love it, throw it away. Sort them in order of priority and then actually do something every day to make that thing show up in your life. We don't need 500 of these, not even 20. Stick to the top 5 or 10 if you can, then daily remind yourself to give them energy. 

I was thinking this morning about paint. Paint is a lovely thing to me. I love the movement of it over a page or wall or piece of furniture. The way it changes the world is magic. It's not terribly expensive. When you add your effort to it, it becomes something new and different. It can be ugly, but I ain't having that. It smells wonderful, covers a multitude of sins and feels like the world just got a do-over. I get down, when I haven't had enough paint in my life. This is just a fact of my existence and I keep forgetting that. I should put a new sticky note on my desk: Paint Something Today. Heading out shortly to get paint samples... 

We can live for years without doing the things we say we love or want to do. I had a friend who kept saying, for years, that they wanted to ride the whitewater down the Colorado River (that seems pretty much like hell to me -- think about it, cold, wet, all that jostling...). With the event never occurring, I recently asked my friend when they were going to do it. There was some pondering and then he said, "You know, truthfully, I really don't care about doing that." So I said, "Quit saying it then!" Time's a wastin' and if we're gonna do something, let's get to it. If not, let's make another plan, a realistic one. To quote an overused but wonderful phrase: Carpe diem!   

Shootin' the Breeze

We've been doing a whole lotta front-porch-sittin' this week. Grandaddy Norton is with us for several days while Ken's sister takes a much-needed vacation. Ken is shuttling him back and forth so that he can sleep in his own bed at night. Funny, how old age really does reverse the process...often, our parents eventually become our children, and then they become the infants. Sometimes we get lucky and die with our boots on, but maybe not as often as the alternative. I'm guessing that all of it is has something to do with sanctification. The temptation is to get crabby, and it takes a lot of resolute courage not to cave to our lowest common denominators. 

Thankfully, there are porches. We've had them on most of our houses. Long ago, all we had was a little stoop facing the street, maybe a 4x4 spit of concrete. We only had one baby at the time, and I'd sit there and watch him happily play in the little front yard. Wherever we've lived, the bit of porch had an important role. There's fresh air and free entertainment, even if there's no traffic. When we eventually built a house, way out in the country, we made sure the porch wrapped around the house. My morning coffee was had in our swing there, contemplating the deeper things of life and watching the wildlife while I read my Bible. The front of the house faced west, so the setting sun cooked everything to a crisp. We'd head for the back deck as the evening waned. Then we moved to our old Victorian gal in downtown Villa Rica. Right off the bat, it was obvious that folks knew how to build a porch back then. The house is oriented East-to-West, so the breeze runs straight across. When the sun sets, it doesn't scald you. We eventually installed ceiling fans, a curtain on the west side for really hot days, and party lights to get everyone in the mood. There are three different fountains bubbling, enticing folks to sit and breathe for a minute. Once you sit down, it might just be difficult to get back up. With our particular spot in town, there's always some sort of drama walking or driving by. This week, Georgia Power is sadly taking down numerous trees across the street, so we've been watching the circus. It has been slow-going and scary, with people taking their lives into their own hands. There was even a fuss yesterday between two of the workers. I guess things get a little tense, when life is on the line. 

Ken's Daddy has been entertained by all this, but we're also making the rounds with our children and grandchildren. Yesterday we had dinner with our "stoop baby" who is now 6'5" and has a wife and four babies of his own. Then there was a soccer game for the 5-year-old twins. Grandaddy laughed as he tipped backwards in his lawn chair and spilled onto the ground when Bennett came in for a big hug. I'm glad he's still got his sense of humor. We will be distracting him all week, with hopefully no broken bones. 

If you are sad or depressed, lonely or tense, find you a porch (or just a stoop) somewhere. Bring a cool drink and a friend. A dog or cat always helps, too.   

Anchors Aweigh

We spent the last week with family at our annual beach vacation, with a house of loud folks, from infants up to old people. When our children were young and behaving like so many dolphins, I spent our beach days in the water with them. As seasons waxed and waned, eventually there came that time when they married and began to have their own young ones. The labor of beach visits became tougher, hauling loads of equipment onto the sandy shore, just to make some semblance of comfort under the hot summer sun. I am eternally grateful for our annual trek -- it's one of the highlights of our year. We lay around, eat, nap, swim, enjoy grandchildren, and have evenings of hilarity after all the kids are in bed. We were missing one of our sons and his family this year, but still had ten of our twelve grandchildren along with their parents. It was loud, grungy, exhausting at times, but always blessed. One of the sweetest things is that now a lot of the grands are big enough to join me in the water; our boisterous flotilla was epic, running off timid folks around us I am sure. Papa was all the rage this year, with his dry, funny wit and physicality with them. He's not a water bug, but he's definitely a landshark. The grandkids think he's the bomb.com. He's a bit like Brutus, or maybe a bull in a china shop. I learned early on that it did no good to try to wrestle with him. You simply can't win. Instantaneous slam dunks are the order of the day; his thickly muscled arms and back are shored up with intense tenaciousness. Our four beautiful and handsome spawn have inherited these bulldog traits, thank God. Somebody's gotta help this next generation and I think they're it. 

As we arrived home, toasted brown and misty-eyed about having to leave the beach and our people, I noticed I was itching. Like, all over. I had felt icky for a couple of days but just figured I was getting tired from being in the water all day with rambunctious small people. Turns out that chicken pox stays with you all of your life, and I now have a bad case of shingles. While I'm here whining and whimpering, I've had time to observe and think about my dearest. Yes, he's a little (well, maybe more than that) OCD, bossy, opinionated and set in his ways. Think of the creature in Beauty & the Beast, with less hair. We're as opposite as two people can get (he is ISTJ and I'm ENFP, for those who follow that sort of thing), so there's always been plenty of conflict. With 41-plus years under our belts, I've had to grow some skin and he's had to shed some of his. But even with his bravado, there's a tender heart beating under all that muscle. The brawny bull snorts, paws the ground and then tenderly rubs ointment on my blisters, brings me food and drink, runs to Dunkin Donuts for my favorite coffee. He holds me in the night, when my emotions run over and I weep in pain. Irritatingly, he tells me what I should and shouldn't do, then we're off to the races again. 

The movies and the books say that love is violins and roses...if at first you don't find your soulmate, keep searching until you find him (or her) even if it means discarding the one who gets ugly, fat or disappointing in front of you. Truth is, life is never perfect - any time you get two warty humans together, you're eventually going to get disillusioned, tired or just bored. Love is a choice, where the ocean of it ebbs and flows. Storms, tsunamis and seaweed come alongside the gorgeous sunsets and beach-glass waters. Sometimes there are long seasons of difficulty interspersed with churned-up grit and slime, with the raft getting pulled into the maelstrom.

I don't believe there are any simple answers to this long game, except that in every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil. And it ain't me that's the anchor.  

The Rewards of Our Labors

Labor Day doesn't get a whole lot of respect. It's thrown in there at the end of summer, sort of a little vacation bump in between July 4 and Thanksgiving. The kids love it because they were thinking that summer was over. When I was a child, we had school vacation the proper way -- we got out right after Memorial Day and whiled away those slow, heat-blanketed days until Labor Day. It was wonderful. Then when September came, we were chomping at the bit to get back to school. New, crisp clothes from the Sears catalog and the promise of Friday night football games hung in the air. I felt it again the other evening, when I heard the drumbeat from the high school marching band float over to our yummy front porch. There is a Fall coming, I just know it. 

Ken and I have had several weeks of extra work -- he at the plant and me with events. We're tired. I hadn't straightened my house or cleaned it good in quite the stretch, but we really wanted to hang out with our kids for Labor Day this year. Miraculously, we got the house presentable enough that, hopefully, no one would get listeria or other bacterial infections. All of the children, grandchildren, Grandma Judy and then a family from our church piled in. Everyone brought meat and side dishes. I forgot the plates, so Ken ran to the store last-minute to pick up paper goods. He walked in with "Chinet" brand. I have been married for 41-1/2 years and have never bought fancy paper plates. We've suffered through those really flimsy ones, where you have to stack 3 or 4 of them or you risk them collapsing. Then there's the foam ones, who appear sturdy until the spaghetti slides right off. Or you pierce your watermelon and stick a fork right through it. And there's no abiding trying to cut a steak on a paper plate. I said, "I can't believe you bought those! They cost a fortune!" Ken said, "I'm over it. I'm tired of terrible paper plates so I bit the bullet and got them. And two sizes, one for the kids and one for the adults." What is happening in my house? 

After we ate, everyone wound up in the backyard around the firepit, then dozens of kids piled on the groaning trampoline. That thing's going to split in half soon. The mosquitos began to invade, insecticide was passed around despite our fears of the dangers of deet. As the sun went down, the earth cooled around us, and we relaxed and laughed about anything and nothing at all. We drifted back into the house, where the pieces of the evening and the evidences of life lived made themselves known. I'm always amazed at the transformation of clean to dirty, then back to clean again, in very short order after a gathering. Babies began to yawn and long for home, Daddies and Mamas anticipated tomorrow's labors. We hugged and said goodbyes as vehicles pulled out. Ken and I dashed the finishing touches on the kitchen and then plopped onto the couch. 

He reached over and took my hand and said, "It has been a good day." And it really was...