I have taken somewhere close to a bazillion pictures over the last month. I am finally getting to them. I am always amazed at how much I like the colors I’ve painted in my house when I look through my pictures. I don’t notice it so much when I’m just sitting here. But looking at my pictures of people I love makes me happy because they feel full and rich like a good meal. For someone who is not happy a whole lot, that’s saying something…
I’ll start with these from Mackenzie’s visit last month. Dear Mackenzie. Mackenzie who enters and listens and bes (pronounced “beez”) and holds babies and hugs her knees so well. Mackenzie who is a photographer and my friend and yet, up to this point I have had no pictures of her. It’s all remedied now.
My brother’s family came and we had coffee
Some cute girls that I know had wet hair and no makeup and didn’t really want their picture taken, but I took it anyway
Grace and Simeon played computer games
Simeon is an expert player
Uncle Chris and Mack talked theology
Uncle Chris is kinda cute sometimes
He gets tuckered out easily
Nathan sang us a song about a man and a knife
And even though I swore that the last time was the last time I would ever sing a certain song, I got talked into doing it one last time
I gave it my all, which was good because I’ll never sing it again as long as I live. Ever.
It made Mackenzie laugh
Mackenzie’s pretty
Callie sang us a song too with her wet hair and no makeup. Everything about it was beautiful.
Goodness abounded
Thanks for sharing your life with us, Kenz.
1985. The beginning of eighth grade. Without a doubt, the most terrifying time of my life. I arrived in Klamath Falls, OR directly from Mexico City. You talk about your culture shock. In some ways though, I suppose twelve year olds are better able to handle that kind of shock than say, thirty-six year olds. Looking back, I’m sure life was pretty terrifying for my parents back then. All I had to do was settle into my new room and go to my new school. I’ll never forget that first day of eighth grade. Kids everywhere who seemed to know exactly how to dress, how to talk, how to fix their hair, how to open their lockers, how to carry their books (boys – under their arm, all cool-like and girls – cradled in front of them and protective, like a baby doll). How did all those kids know those all things? I realized right off the bat that I needed to try to stay as inconspicuous as possible while I observed all these strange new native customs and imitated them. Sigh. What a lot of work that was. As hard as I tried to stay inconspicuous, it seemed that everything about me screamed CONSPICUOUS. From my poofy hair that always seemed to be wider than it was long (yes, I spent countless tears in Mexico battling that as well, surrounded by people with perfectly straight, perfectly sleek, perfectly black, perfect, perfect hair) to my clothes that I was sure announced DORK to everyone who was looking, to each and every new pimple on my chin. You would think that after moving eleven times in my twelve years of life, I would be used to figuring out new customs and figuring out how to fit in.
Ah, but eighth grade is a whole different kind of beast.
There is no fitting in. But we made it, as do most people who go through it. Maybe it’s where we started speaking of ourselves in the third person plural. Maybe too many personalities developed back then to ever be able to reconcile themselves back into one again.
Again, music is the one thing that brings it all back like nothing else. As I listened to this mixed tape the other day, I was transported. Completely. Suddenly I am in love with Michael J. Fox and seeing his cute little face as clear as day during “The Power of Love” and imagining all sorts of different scenarios where he will meet me and realize that I am the one he’s been waiting for all his life. I am laughing hysterically during “One More Minute” and making it my life’s theme song. I am crying during “Against All Odds” and spending countless hours in the dark at my piano, writing down and memorizing every note and singing along with such passion, one would think that I’ve been alive for fifty years and seen most everything, rather than twelve and sheltered by the grace of God. I am in my upstairs bathroom, getting ready for school in the morning, listening to my favorite morning radio program and hearing the voice of a little boy named David call in to dedicate “You’re the Inspiration” to a little girl named Leslie. I am hearing his twelve-year old voice, still in the treble range of a boy, but trying to act cool and confident like a man, but sounding nervous like someone in love and my heart is pounding itself right out of my chest and bouncing all over the bathroom sink as I realize he’s talking about me. I have never known love like this before. I am singing every single word to “Spies Like Us” and “I Miss You” even though I haven’t heard even one note of either of those songs since 1985. And I am pretty sure George Michael still has one of my favorite voices ever as I sing along with “Freedom.” And while I realize that “We Built This City” has been the source of much ridicule over the years as possibly the stupidest pop song ever written, it defines me. It defines me and my entire generation. And I’m not sure why. But I still hold out hope that we’re not the stupidest generation ever.
So here we go again. I do realize that this is more for my benefit than yours. But I hope you receive some measure of enjoyment anyway…
Alarm goes off at 6:15 this morning. My thoughts, in order:
1. Ugh. I can’t do this again.
2. Wait. It’s Friday! I can do it, knowing that today is Friday.
3. Did Chris make it home alive last night? Let’s see, can’t yet open eyes or raise head to see if he’s here in bed with me. Will the muscles in my leg work? (Slowly move leg over until it hits another body. Assume said body is husband.)
4. Phew. He’s here. I wonder when he got home. Thank you, God, for helping him through one more night of running across five-lane freeways in his orange reflector vest. This sure is a strange game of Russian Roulette that we play every day. Thank you, God, for this game that pays our bills.
5. Why did I set my alarm for 6:15 again? Oh right, Grace needs a shower and so do I so that I can take Callie and Grace on their treacherous cross-country journey to school, full of brake lights, honking horns and grouchy drivers and then come home and take Sadie to the doctor.
6. Ugh. I don’t feel like taking a shower. I’ll just throw on clothes and go get some coffee.
7. I wonder how Sadie’s doing? She hasn’t talked to me in a week because of her sore throat, so I wouldn’t really know other than the constant glare that I get looking out from eyes with dark, grey bags under them. I heard her coughing again all night, so yeah, probably still pretty bad.
8. Okay muscles, hate to do this to you, but one more time and here we go, swinging over the side of the bed….
9. (Stopping mid-swing)…Wait. Today’s not Friday! It’s Thursday. It’s only Thursday. It’s Thursday and we must get up anyway. Dear God, How can it only be Thursday???
And then I got up.
The years between 1983 and 1985 saw me move from Greenville, CA to Los Gatos, CA to Nashville, TN to Guadalajara, Mexico to Mexico City, Mexico to Klamath Falls, OR. From the beginning of sixth grade to the beginning of eighth grade, I went to six schools. Six schools in two years. Three of them were public, one of them was Christian in the US, one of them was Christian/Catholic for American kids in Mexico and one of them was British in Mexico. My family drove millions and billions of miles in our station wagon, where I mostly sat by myself in the rear-facing back seat. We lived with other people when we were in between homes. I learned Spanish, I learned to light a gas oven, I learned to feel when I watched movies, I memorized the entire Annie soundtrack, I learned to avoid crowds and find the quietest room in whatever house we were visiting, I learned to sing to my imaginary, adoring fans and I learned that Harrison Ford had to be the cutest person in the entire universe. But more than anything else, I remember discovering music during this period of my life. I remember getting my first personal little battery-operated tape recorder/radio and I took that thing everywhere. I recorded myself, I recorded conversations of others that I was spying on and I recorded songs and commercials off the radio. I recently came across a mixed tape that I made from the radio during those years. In an effort to bring full-circle-ness to my life, I am now posting that here so that I can listen to it any time I want. Of course, there are certain clips I couldn’t include like Coke and Pepsi commercials (in English and Spanish) and my grandpa singing live on the Grand Ole Opry Saturday night radio program. Couldn’t find those on this internet thingy. But everything else is there.
I’m almost getting older again. Tomorrow begins my 38th year of life. Last night our teenage daughter said what every parent knows their teenage daughter will say at some point.
“Don’t judge him! You don’t even KNOW him!”
Maybe this isn’t the best parental reaction to such a statement, but her father and I laughed so hard that we almost fell off of our benches at the dinner table. Literally, we couldn’t get ourselves under control and all three kids looked at us like we were insane. We couldn’t even find the words to tell them why we were laughing. We just laughed and looked at each other and said, “It’s so much more fun being the parents of teenagers than being the teenager.” The more she tried to defend her statement (since she was utterly confused by our laughing reaction), the harder we laughed. That’s what it is to be 37, I guess.
I know, I know. I’m not 37 yet, but I will be tomorrow.
I also heard something on the news yesterday that caused me to dissolve into giggles. Did you know that it’s possible that up to twenty people have touched that apple before you buy it at the grocery store? Gasp! Can you imagine the horror? People live in this world with you! And they touch things that you touch! I can’t believe it’s taken me 37 years to arrive at this astounding discovery. I think maybe we should all cut off our hands and surgically install hooks or something. Maybe that would keep germs from spreading.
Anyway, happy birthday to me. In trying to avoid my usual descent into the netherworlds of introspection on my birthday, I plan on going to the grocery store and touching every single piece of produce in the produce section. Imagine how connected I’ll feel to the rest of humanity.
And I do not plan on lining up around the block for the mass vaccination going on down at the health clinic.
Whee! If a person is going to be 37, they might as well touch and laugh and get sick and stuff. That’s what I say.
People like us have conversations with ourselves in our heads all the time. I think that’s why we refer to ourselves in the third person plural.
People like us wake up with sore ears every morning because our pillows are too hard and don’t allow room for our ears to sink in a little. We lay there with it plastered against the side of our head all night and then wake up sore for a little while, while it adjusts to sticking back out again. We wonder if there’s such a thing as a pillow with ear holes.
Along the same lines, people like us sit at our work desk all day, every day of the year with our space heaters turned up on high because our feet are so cold. But when we’re sleeping at night, we have to stick our bare feet out of the covers because they get so hot. You know how newborn babies sometimes have their days and nights mixed up? Well, people like us have that too. But only as far as our feet are concerned.
People like us are typically pretty responsible but also incredibly forgetful. Like me, for instance. I do the budget for our family and I pay our bills and I do it really well. But the other day someone asked me what our gas budget must be for the month with all of the driving that we do. I responded, “Yeah, it’s pretty high. I don’t know – somewhere around $500 a month?” Ha! I just looked up what we spend on gas a month and it’s between $165 and $195. Not really anywhere near $500. See, people like us love to spend all this time setting things up and planning and organizing for the sole purpose of forgetting about it. Because there’s only just room for so much in there.
People like us hate Halloween and can’t wait for it to be over. Not because we think it’s evil, but because we think it’s too much darn work.
People like us live inside of ourselves and sometimes can’t find the way out. Like just this week I’ve been thinking a lot about the fact that most of my memories of childhood are from times spent alone. I had a loving family and the world’s cutest little brothers and a mom and dad who created wonderful memories for us and yet everything I’ve ever been profoundly affected by has been from a time when I was not with other people, but by myself. This has got me to thinking about my own children and how they might be the same as me, therefore rendering everything I do for them…what? Forgettable? Worthless? Or worse yet, they might be the exact opposite of me and therefore I am failing them by not making enough “together” memories. You just can’t win, as a parent. You just can’t win.
People like us say things in blogs like these that we’ll make a list of our top ten favorite books (or movies, or songs…) but in reality, we’re paralyzed by the thought and it will probably never happen. First of all we can’t order things into favorites when everything in the universe stands alone, as is, on its own merit. We don’t see lines or orders. We see rivers that flow into one another and sometimes run backwards. Second of all, more than anything in the world, we can’t tolerate somebody not loving something that we love. It sends us into a tailspin. So we don’t share and we just have our own little private tornado in our soul.
People like us love rainy, cloudy days and we feel sad for people who don’t. We also feel a little put out, because we don’t sit around talking about how bad the weather is on the sunny days that make those people come alive. But on the days that make us come alive, the world seems determined to bring us down. I don’t think news anchors should complain about rainy weather. It’s not fair and balanced reporting. And it makes me hate them.
And yes, people like us love sad songs. We love emotion and we love to cry. But that doesn’t mean we don’t love happy songs too.
Monday Morning.
The place where all things begin again. The place where hope lives. The place where quiet reigns and Sunday dishes stay unwashed on the kitchen counter. The place where I sit at my computer and dream. The place where the rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling down, down, down.
I’m never sure how to hold on to it though.
Right now all kids everywhere are sweet. They quietly find their corners of the world and they do homework. Some of them spend more time making their corners than actually doing their homework. Because we all know that atmosphere is of utmost importance. Sometimes atmosphere involves four dining room chairs dragged into the living room with one queen-sized comforter draped over the top of them, and one long, white extension cord running across the floor, powering a little purply, fluffy night light inside the homework castle. Yes, I said fluffy and I said purply.
And it stays dark outside, so all lights stay on inside all day.
And sometimes the rain makes rivers on the windows.
I’ve been at my new church for a year now. I’ve come to the end of my standing still and my soaking in. I am done soaking and now I am walking. I am walking forward and I am feeling the wind blow my hair back as I walk. It’s good to walk. It’s good to be here on this Monday morning. It’s good that God sends the rain to wash this earth and make rivers on my heart.
To quote a song I can’t get enough of right now:
It makes a difference
That I’m feeling this way
With plenty to think about
And so little to say
Except for this confession
That is poised on my lips
I’m not letting go of God
I’m just losing my grip
I want to know
I want to know
Will it make a difference
When I go?
I love the rain on the windows and I love the reign of the quiet.
Happy Monday.
Last weekend was pretty full. Callie and I were confirmed at church, along with five other people. Chris and I became godparents for the first time to a beautiful baby girl who was baptized. And we danced our calves off at an English Country Dance. And I do mean my calves hurt something fierce after that dance. It was Saturday night and today is Thursday and I can still feel the strain. If you’re like me and you think “English Country Dance? Hmmmm. Sounds quite slow and proper with long skirts and buttoned-up shirts. Probably not much fun for a high-kicking woman like me”….well, you would be flat wrong. Like I was. I couldn’t catch my breath all night. In fact, I am fairly certain that I have developed a pretty severe case of adult-onset asthma due to last Saturday night. I’ll probably never get full use of my lungs back because I worked them too hard that night. And my calves? Suffice it to say OUCH. It was some serious hard work and a lot of fun. I can’t wait until the next one at Christmas.
I’ll start with some pictures from the dance:
The group of us who received confirmation Sunday morning, along with Bishop Riches in the middle, Father John on the right Deacon Andrew in the back and Father Jim on the left (That’s me and Callie in the front on the right. I’m wearing heels and Callie’s not and she’s still taller than me):
And here we are with our new goddaughter, Priscilla, her parents and Father John, right after baptism:
Here’s a picture I took of Priscilla a little over a year ago:
And here she is with her parents today:
What a beautiful, precious life this is.
These times are mostly filled with homework, driving, school, driving, church, homework, driving, driving, work, driving, homework, school, homework, homework, driving. It’s nice when the times get broken up by storms that bring in cooler weather or other some such exciting events. I don’t think it’s legal to say some such together like that, but I’m pleased by the feel of it, so in honor of these times, I’m leaving it be. Here’s a glimpse into my times:
Most days are spent doing homework (and lots of it):
Sometimes Pilgrim helps out, since she’s our resident Latin expert:
When storm clouds roll in, it can get a little crazy:
And when the storm’s gone, some of us like to dress up in our best clothes with our best friends and go for a “run”:
And when we go outside to take pictures of the “running” girls, sometimes we have to grab the closest available shoes to keep our socks from getting wet. Sometimes those shoes are a men’s size 12:
Good times!
My mom taught me to never start a new book before finishing the last one. For some reason, this was very important to her and for some reason, I listened. For my whole life, I’ve had extreme discipline when it comes to books. They are meant to be finished when started and I usually do it, no matter how much I regret it. I find myself feeling strangely indebted to the characters no matter how much I hate them. I feel like I owe it to them to find out how their story ends. It doesn’t matter that I know they’re not real. I tell myself they’re not real over and over and that just makes me feel more guilty. It’s like they’re the Whos in Whoville and I am their last hope for protection so that they’re not wiped into oblivion forever. I mean, somebody has to believe in them, right?
But there have been a couple books I just couldn’t see to completion. I can count them on one hand. And I don’t feel guilty either. I mean, don’t get me wrong….the weeks leading up to making the decision to quit reading were laden with guilt. But once I finally made the decision, I felt great about it. FREEDOM! Here’s the list of books I have been freed from:
The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky
Cold Mountain, Frazier
Dreams of My Russian Summers, Makine
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Dillard
And now I’m giving up on Flannery O’Connor. I’ve been working my way through her complete stories and I’ve gotten about 2/3 of the way through them. But I’ve had enough. I do not deny that she’s brilliant. And interesting. And that she has an incredible grasp on the depth of human depravity. But I just can’t handle any more depravity. There is no hope in her stories. They are just disturbingly, depressingly dark. And I hate the characters. Every last one of them.
So I’m done.
I may give Annie Dillard another shot. I love her novels but can’t seem to focus on her prose. Prose? Is that what it’s called? Did I just say that? Where did it come from? I don’t know but I like it. At least her prose is beautiful and I don’t mind filling my mind with it. If I could only make my mind stay with it…
