My Favorite Gifts This Year

While Christmas 2013 is now in the rearview mirror, it left me with several gifts - both tangible and otherwise - that will stay with me for a very long time.

• There's my new Sodastream home carbonation kit.  I love fizzy water, and you must read this Amazon review (http://www.amazon.com/review/R3QXLJ8UNCD688) to understand why I had to have one. Consumer awareness tip:  the root beer flavor is nasty, the diet cola smells like battery acid, but the pink grapefruit one and just plain fizzy water are phenomenal  
• There's my gorgeous and uber-comfy new La-Z-Boy leather office chair;  my lumbar and posterior areas are exceptionally appreciative.  Plus it smells good, and I will look all executive-like in my next video conference with the mothership
• Not one, but TWO pairs of new Merrells - snazzy dress clogs, plus some happenin' winter weather booties that will be the envy of everyone else slipping around in the North Georgia rain and ice this winter
• Once I figured out how to get my new FitBit Aria scale synched with the app on my phone and with the computer, I regretted it.  In the very near future, I am sure I will enjoy being able to monitor my weight and body fat fluctuations from anywhere.  But not today, because there is still toffee fudge to be consumed.
• A loving husband who cares enough to figure out that I need a new office chair even before I did
• A son who knows his momma's love for the absurd (hence my own "rich mahogany" edition of Anchorman)
• A daughter whose sweetest gift is always our time together. 

I've gotten something else this season, something I really didn't expect.

Over the last few months, through Thanksgiving and as recently as last night, God has overwhelmed me with the love and companionship of new friends.  While some of us have known each other for a while, we've only lately become close and I am sweetly surprised by the joy these new relationships have brought me.

You see, I thought I'd outgrown (or closed off) the part of me that lets other people all the way in.  Sure, I can talk to a wall, and heaven knows I let it all hang out in my writing.  But the intimacy of friendship - the opening of each others' homes, sharing meals and playing board games and just making each other laugh - these are things for which I didn't think I qualified anymore.  Too old, maybe.  Too private or maybe too uncomfortable and too worried I'd be judged harshly for my girth or my wayward sailor mouth or my schizo home decor.

Yet in His generosity and wisdom, God has seen fit to bless me with sisters and brothers who don't care about my furniture or my weight or the occasional f-bomb (I PROMISE I'm trying).  And I am profoundly grateful.

May I be the blessing to them that they have become to me.

Why I Celebrate Christmas

I do not make any bones about the fact that I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I don't wear a uniform or a badge that says so, and I try my level best not to beat other people over the head with my Bible.

Little offends me more than someone shoving their opinions on me, then trying to make me feel stupid for not believing what they believe - so I am not about to do it to anybody else.  However, I'm also not inviting debate, because neither of us will win.

What I am going to do, however, is explain why I celebrate Christmas.

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There's a lot of racket in the news this week about an old guy on a show called "Duck Dynasty" and how he has infuriated a lot of people by saying some stuff that sounded pretty judgmental.  My diverse array of friends are all divided and crabby and upset, staked out in their positions on this story and accusing "the other side" of being wrong and hateful.

Noting the obvious here, but that word is a condensed version of "hate-filled".

To my friends in both camps - don't be hate-filled, please.  Hate won't help;  it will only make you and other people sick, and while you might be surrounding yourself with people who hate the same things you do, hate is lonely inside.

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(It's also a little lonely out on the thin ice I'm fixing to step on, but I'm going there anyway.)

Some of my brethren espouse a cliche: "love the sinner, hate the sin".  We cling to the blank-check freedom that it gives us when we spot someone else's sin - "I love you, man, on account of me being a Christian and all, but I sure do hate your sin."  There's a subtle self-righteous thread woven in there that gives us a tiny warm meanness, a thrill of superiority.

Your sin, you see, is way worse than my sin.  I may have done "x", but you did "y", and what's worse, you don't appear to be sorry about it.  You've even made it pretty clear that you're going to do "y" again tomorrow, and maybe even "z".  So I love you, man, but I hate your sin.

Hmm?  What's that you ask?  What's this behind my back?  Oh, that... well, that's nothing, really... it's just my tiny little "x" sin.  It's certainly nothing compared to your "y", much less her "z" or his "xxx".  It's so little, it's barely noticeable.  But no, I'm not going to give it up.  It's mine.

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I've been taught - both didactically and experientially - that sin is a condition, not an act. Further, there are no "degrees" of sin - while some sins may be more socially acceptable than others, sin is sin is sin.

We refer to co-habitation outside of wedlock as "living in sin", but we are all living in sin. You, and me, and your parents and your children and all blondes, brunettes, redheads, drunks, baldies, addicts, pastors, students, teachers, doctors, homosexuals, heterosexuals, asexuals, bisexuals, business execs, nurses, volunteers, retail owners, nuns, priests, rabbis, enlightened ones, salesmen, and yes, even the Pope and Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama.  Every single one of us drawing breath lives in a hopeless condition of sin, whether evidenced in tiny white lies or genocide.

I believe that the earth, the universe and all that exists has been created, by a divine Creator - to whom I refer both as Almighty and Father.  He created man, the first man, and for a narrow sliver of time, man was sinless.  You know that saying about how nobody's perfect?  It's absolutely true, now...but once upon a time, before the man and his wife believed the biggest lie EVER, of all eternity, man was the perfect creation of the Creator.  Sinless and completely righteous.

You know the rest of that story.  Adam and Eve were the last two people to ever draw breath without sin.

God expelled Adam and Eve from the garden for spoiling perfection.  Yes, as punishment but mostly out of incompatibility.  Perfection and sin are mutually exclusive.

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Wouldn't it be depressing if that was the end of the story?

But this is why they call it "the good news"!  God loves His most precious creation (you and me) so much that He came here for us, to pick us up out of the scummy muck and mire of sin and restore us to right relationship with Him.  Not just for a relationship with Him while we're still sinners in this world, but one for eternity.

He didn't come in a thunderous chariot drawn by fire-breathing stallions, or on a bright white cloud streaming golden sunshine...he came as a squalling little Jewish baby, born in a crappy dirty barn in backwater Judea. To make things more confusing, the baby's mother was a virgin.  Say WHAT??!?

No wonder people find it a little hard to believe.

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One of God's many gifts is that of free will, and we all have the choice to believe the Nativity story or not. Secular history attests to the occurrence of Jesus' birth, so that part is fairly easy - it's the divine nature of the baby that gives people heartburn.  The perfect Son of God?  Who was, by the way, also God, but just in human form?  I get it - that's a tall order.

I don't judge people who don't believe it - I really don't.  I'm also not going to try and push or persuade or wheedle or shame or demand or cajole you into it.  Not my job.

But I DO believe it, and every year I celebrate the miracle of that baby's birth, as well as the miracle of that man's resurrection.  And I'm joining millions of others around the world, not because of my "religion", but because of my identity.

You see, I am a sinner in need of saving.  Why should I judge you for your sin? In my humble estimation, judging you would be a sin in and of itself.  I've got plenty as it is - why add more to the pile?

And because I am a sinner in need of saving, I joyously accept the gift offered to me through one unique baby's humble birth.

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So.

Tonight I will hold a candle and sing "Silent Night" and ponder all over again this notion of a divine infant, the incarnation of the Creator, and the reason He fooled with us in the first place...

He loves us.  He loves you.  He loves me.

Why wouldn't I celebrate that?!

A Very M.M. Thanksgiving

There is a tried and true recipe for holiday disappointment and drama, and it can be captured in one word - EXPECTATION.  Assuming he will be there too, when I get to heaven, I'm going to pop Norman Rockwell right in the mouth. 

Yet these days, when I reflect on my own catalogue of holiday memories, I'm struck by the joy and humor therein.  I think it's only in retrospect that I'm able to see that, because quite frankly, a lot of it seemed weird and terrible at the time.  Perspective is a fabulous lens.

Babble followers may recall previous installments wherein I provided a sketch of my maternal grandmother Alice Mildred Branson McRae, a.k.a. Miss Mildred, a.k.a. M. M.  (If you are new to Babble, please refer to the post about her from March 2012 for context.  "Unique" just doesn't do her justice.)

Anyhoo, Thanksgiving at Mildred's was unlike any of my friends' celebrations;  for years, I thought it best to keep quiet about our odd little gatherings.  They were just too weird, and I was already weird enough on my own merits.

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GUEST LIST

Mildred's official role on Congressman Duncan's staff included oversight of immigrant affairs, meaning she handled visas and residency applications and asylum-seekers and even sometimes eventual citizenship.  Every year, the guest list included at least one foreign national who probably didn't give a flip about the Mayflower but loved my grandmother.

Mildred never met a stranger, foreign or domestic, and the friendships that she forged with many of her clients spanned decades.  And so it isn't hard to see why we would always have a couple of extra seats at the Thanksgiving table occupied by Filipinos or Russians or Iraqis or Czechs.  (There was also a South African in there for a few years, but he was mostly my doing.  That's another story.)

• There was Nellie, the Russian beauty, about my mother's age, who drank too much Asti Spumante and wept for hours in between cigarettes;

• The handsome Czech youth (Lonnie?  Lenny?  L-something...) whom I heard later became a male stripper - although, knowing M.M., that may have already been on his resume by then...;

• The Haddads.  Here I must pause, for the Haddads loved my grandmother as much or more than I did, and I will be forever grateful to them for all they did for her over the years.  I never knew what Mr. Haddad did for a living either in Iraq or the U.S., but whatever it was, he was enormously successful.  I know he lived in fear of being deported and I suspect he was here under political asylum.  Anyway, the Haddads showered M.M. with gifts and affection and care and compassion even into her days at Shannondale nursing home and sat right behind me at her funeral.  The Haddads introduced us to Thanksgiving tabbouleh and stuffed grape leaves and I loved them for it.  One little funny about the Haddads though... the wife's mother spoke no English, and she was generally referenced to us as "Gladys".  However, whenever one of the Haddads addressed her directly, we distinctly heard them call her "F-you", with the "F"-word sounded out.  Since Gladys isn't a particularly common Iraqi name, we decided that they adopted it for American use, but poor Gladys' real name was probably more akin to something you'd hear in the Bronx.

• The Gomez'.  Maybelle Gomez was a scientist or engineer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and while I never knew exactly what she did out there, I always worried she'd had her hands in radioactive uranium prior to holding my hand each November during the Thanksgiving blessing.  Maybelle and her mother Virginia (another suspiciously convenient American name, if you ask me) were Filipino Christian exiles.  Maybelle was as sweet a human being as I've ever known, but she would go all dark and broody if the Marcos regime became a topic of conversation.  I don't think Maybelle liked me once I hit my rebellious season - I suspect snotty teenagers aren't generally well-tolerated in Manila.

There were others, I'm sure, but these are the guests that sit squarely atop my M.M. Thanksgiving memories.

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HAM-FISTED

One of my responsibilities in prepping for the annual Thanksgiving gala at M.M.'s was to brave the hordes at HoneyBaked Ham and deliver it an hour or so before the opening prayer.

Babble-followers, in addition to those intrepid souls who've been part of my inner circle over the years, are familiar with my historical penchant for a really good time.  I mean, a really good time, the kind that can involve shot glasses and various states of undress.  (Emphasis on HISTORICAL reiterated.)

Hawkeye's Corner was a popular nightspot in the Fort Sanders area and they offered a sadistic event each Wednesday night officially known as "Animal Hour".  Unlike your basic 2-for-1, or even those nutty Ladies' Night 3-for-1s...Animal Hour was, yep, you guessed it...a FOUR-for-one event customized to attract ne'er-do-wells who might or might not buy food but would sure as heck jam the bar upstairs.  I don't know how they ever made any money off of Animal Hour.  Perhaps the fact that I'm referencing Hawkeye's in the past tense is somehow related.  But I digress.

So, what, you must be asking yourself, does this have to do with Thanksgiving and ham?  Well, you'll note that Animal Hour was a Wednesday evening affair, even on Thanksgiving Eve.  Having staggered into my apartment late one particular November Wednesday evening in question, I was delighted to remember that I had a giant ham in my fridge, and since I was a bit peckish, I decided I'd have a little something something.

And then a little more.

And then some more.

Fast-forward to the next morning, when I arrived at M.M.'s house at the appointed hour of 11 a.m., with a much less heavy ham than the one I'd purchased at HBH roughly 24 hours before.  My fingers were swollen like sausages and I dearly wanted to vomit or at least lie down on the couch.  But no, there were guests and a scowling mother and grandmother to contend with, so I peeled back the gold foil wrapping to showcase a significant amount of hambone with just a few meager slices clinging to the end of it.

After a good stern talking-to, they let me go lie down.

But I never, and I do mean NEVER, lived down the year that I ate the flippin ham and showed up swollen and hungover, carting the bone.  When I brought my fiancée-who-eventually-became-the-Mister for his first visit, of course he was regaled with the ham story.  He married me anyway.

He likes ham, too.

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ALL JACKED UP

And speaking of the Mister's first Thanksgiving at M.M.'s, I have to relay a brief story about a table.  Not just any table, but the dining room table from my grandmother's (and previously my great-grandmother's) apartment.

It was a small and beautiful cherry hardwood table, complete with drop-leaves and inserts to make it big enough to seat 10-12 folks.  Of course, M.M.'s apartment was roughly 600 square feet, so it definitely took up a lot of space on Thanksgiving Day.  "Crowded" is an understatement.

Like most folks who are advancing in years and decreasing in body fat, M.M. was perpetually cold.  Her Ceil-Heat gauge was always cranked up past 80 degrees...add in a dozen people, in a tiny apartment, and sometimes a hangover...you get the picture.  Some years were just plain brutal.  People argued about who got the privilege of taking out the trash, just for a few treasured moments outdoors.  (And one of these days, I need somebody to explain to me why putting heating elements in the ceiling is a good idea.)

Anyway, on the occasion of the Mister's first Thanksgiving at M.M.'s, the table was set, the spumante was unscrewed, the ham was present in its entirety...and one side of the table collapsed.  Seriously, it just collapsed.  After much dithering and drama about what to do, my fiancée and brother-in-law cooked up an ingenious solution...

They jacked up the table.  With a tire jack from somebody's trunk.  I couldn't make this up if I tried.

We were hot and miserable but by God the table was level, and we enjoyed one of the last Thanksgivings in M.M.'s little place.

And we had yet another great story.

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I doubt there's any surprise in the fact that I've paid a few therapists in my day, and while there was a quack or two, there was one who was remarkably astute and helpful.  I will never forget telling Tom about my grandmother and our Thanksgivings, and I will never forget his response.

"My goodness, but you certainly have an interesting gene pool".

Dude - you have NO idea.

Thoughts on Turning Fifty

It feels like that subject line must be in reference to someone else, because I'm having trouble reconciling that as MY reality.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not particularly maudlin or gloomy (although I admit to indigo moments in recent days).  Instead I feel a tad confused, as if today marks the day that I turn male, or Indonesian, or perhaps into a pomegranate.  It just doesn't seem possible that I am fifty years old.

Somewhere in my alarmingly swollen collection of mementos, I have a small blue bear from my own infancy.  He is missing an eye and a half, and his neck is scrawny and wrung out from apparent tiny death grips, and if he ever had fur, I don't remember it - he's got more of a worn nubby terry cloth nature to his hide.  There's a smidge of red felt hanging rudely where a nose or mouth would've been.

Plainly speaking - he looks like hell. 

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Day before yesterday, I went to get a hair cut-and-highlights after work.  I'm not gray yet, but my natural color is politely referred to as dirty blond and it makes me look dead in the winter. It had been six months since my last appointment, and the stylist literally went "tsk, tsk" as she examined my roots.  Seriously - "tsk, tsk".  I felt chastised and guilty for my lack of hair discipline.

Because I primarily telecommute these days, I don't often bother with makeup, so I was au naturale.  After the coloring and shampoo, the stylist led me to her chair for my haircut.

As I sat down, hair still damp and towel around my neck, I was startled to see my mother looking back at me from the mirror.  Not the young, Marilyn-esque version, but the old crazy one.  (See Mother's Day post for further detail.)  Most of the time, I more closely resemble my dad, but there she was, disdain and condemnation clearly written all over her face.  I sat back and wanted to cry, but my sparkly 30-something stylist was bubbling about what she plans to do when she turns fifty, which is to get appallingly drunk and screw a movie star in Las Vegas.

You go gurrrl.

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It is an early Saturday morning as I write;  I stayed up far too late, wandering around on Spotify and listening to the music of my youth.  Yet my eyes popped back open at 3:30 a.m., and by 4:15 I was already irritated with the day ahead.  So I decided to get up and write.  And here I am. 

I haven't written in over a month because I am supposed to finish up the posts about Nicaragua, and I haven't wanted to do that because the next installment will have to be about the day when I was awful and I don't want to write about that.  Suffice to say that everything mean and selfish and bad about me was hanging out on display like a hooker in Amsterdam's red light district.  I'm told that nobody else really noticed - which is a polite and probably true thing to say.  I'm the only one obsessed with me and my mercurial moods.

Anyhow, guilt about unwritten posts notwithstanding, it seemed silly to let these quiet early morning hours pass without reminiscing and memorializing some of my thoughts on turning fifty today. 

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I wonder sometimes if we'll get to sit down in heaven with a big screen TV and watch our old earthly lives on DVR.  I hope there is a fast-forward button for the gross parts but also a slow motion button for all the beautiful parts.

I don't suppose I have to wait until then to remember some of them (in no particular order)...:

...our little and 100% perfect wedding in rural Kansas (beautiful)
...my mother's suicide attempts and institutionalizations (gross)
...trips with best friends to Alaska and the Caribbean and Washington D.C. and NYC and Nicaragua and Mexico and a dozen FL beaches (beautiful)
...my parents' divorce (gross)
...family beach trips (beautiful)
...a thousand beach memories (also beautiful)
...tearfully humming "Jesus Loves Me" in the back of a cop car (gross, but also kind of funny in retrospect)
...a dozen hot air balloons launching outside my window one morning (beautiful)
...a harvest moon hanging over the ocean (duh)
...seeing the scales approach 270 (gross)
...seeing the scales approach 170 (beautiful)
...weeping quietly in church pews at weddings and funerals and baptisms and most Sundays in general (I need an "other" category for this one)
...my mother's death (also "other")
...my mother playing with her grandbabies (beautiful on steroids)
...accidentally starting a fire by hanging my pants in front of the bathroom heater (I was 14, but still gross)
...stealing my mom's car to go meet boys and drink beer but instead backing into a gas pump and crying hysterically while the cops called my dad (uber gross)
...my father coming to see me graduate high school (beautiful)
...my father coming to see me graduate college (beautiful)
...my first marriage (other)
...my Walk to Emmaus (beautiful times infinity, really)
...falling asleep in the backseat as a kid (beautiful)
...Friday nights at the Ice Chalet and the first time somebody asked me to skate with them during the "couples" skate session (beautiful)
...my friends Max the dachshund, Montgomery the cat, Gillieflower the dachshund, Grover the black-and-tan coonhound, Grace the bloodhound, Esme the cat, Gladys the cat, Humphrey the maltese, Purrl Perkins the cat, Gwinevere the collie, Daisy Chin the cat, Little the beagle, Precious the scottie, Gorgeous the cat, Elvis the beagle, Ebenezer the schnauzer, Irving the dachshund, Magnolia the cat, Pootie the cat, Sandy the cat (all more beautiful than my heart can stand remembering)
...my husband's face during the births of our children (beautiful times ten million)
...my daughter's piano recital (beautiful)
...my son's mission work (beautiful)
...my son's first time as acolyte (beautiful)
...my daughter's daily side ponytail (beautiful)
...my thirtieth birthday (drunk on a barstool at La Paz - not beautiful)
...my fortieth birthday (got a tattoo out of spite and denial - also not beautiful)

...my baby sister texting me just now, at 6:30 a.m., to ask if we are grown ups yet (completely beautiful)

Wonder how the day ahead of me will be categorized? 

I will keep you posted.

Mission - The Kindness of Strangers

Monday morning, 9/2/13, Chinandega,  Nicaragua.  The day broke open through clouds across the mountain peaks in the distance, like the chorus of a well-loved hymn. 

Each morning that week, I went upstairs to a table on the tidy verandah above the cafeteria, to drink unsurpassed coffee, watch the morning arrive and to journal, study and pray.  My journal entry the day after the volcano is hilarious - I incorporated some of it into yesterday's post, but I will spare you the bellyaching about my glutes and lower back pain.  Oy.

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Another reason I've always been gun-shy about mission work stems back to Market Square Mall in Knoxville.  Market Square is an outdoor venue where businesspeople "do" lunch, farmers sell fresh vegetables during harvest season, and barflies (such as yours truly, once upon a time) frequent the nightclubs on the mall at night.

When I was a paralegal working for a downtown law firm a few blocks from Market Square, I used to take an extra-wide detour around the sandwich-board preacher screaming at passersby on the street corner about their certainty of damnation if they didn't stop and let him berate them one-on-one.  He shoved terrifying tracts about lakes of fire in the hands of those poor souls fool enough to slow down near him, and I decided that if that was how God expected people to "share the good news", then He could count me out.  No thanks.

Thus, my historical perspective on the prospect of mission work was that I would have to beat people over the head with my Bible and scare them into faith in a God they may or may not have heard of before but still convince them that He loved them, and I would be required to do all this effectively in Swahili or Afrikaans.  Again - no thanks.

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That Monday morning, the PB&J team from yesterday got assigned to do PB&Js again.  I didn't want to be Jelly Girl again, so I shamed one of my team members into wielding the jelly knife.  (Turns out peanut butter is just as gross when you have to make 60 sandwiches.  Just sayin.)  We loaded up the bus and rode out of Chinandega to La Chuscada, a community of families living in tiny cinderblock homes just off the main highway but with no running water or bathroom facilities. 

A few words about Amigos for Christ and their mission -- Amigos for Christ focuses on meeting four basic needs:  access to clean water and modern bathrooms, healthcare, economic opportunity and adequate nutrition.  (please visit the Amigos for Christ website for more details.) 

Let me remind you that I am a reformed party girl from east Tennessee.  I've peed and pooped in country outhouses and concert porta-potties and just plain bare-assed out in the woods more times than I can count, but I've always had the luxury of knowing that there was a clean white porcelain toilet somewhere in my immediate future.  It never dawned on me until September of 2013 that having a toilet was a luxury which an overwhelming majority of the world doesn't enjoy.

Pausing here for a minute to pontificate about an important topic which doesn't get enough airtime - it's poop.  I won't do it justice, so I will send you to this fabulous TED talk which we watched while in Chinandega (Rose George Talks Crap).  Please please make time to watch it.  It will make you uncomfortable, I promise.

Anyway - I tell you all that to say that the rest of our week in Nicaragua was primarily spent digging ditches to lay pipe so that the families of La Chuscada would soon have the joy of a real bathroom.  Not really what I would've thought of as mission work.  When would we be spouting Scripture or baptizing people in a river?  I didn't see that anywhere on the itinerary.

How were we supposed to teach people about Christ, digging ditches?

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The first family we served was actually a collection of relatives with homes spread across a common lot.  Our team split up into groups, each assigned to dig a trench from one of the homes to the main line out by the road.

The work is hard, but simple - one person swings a pickaxe to break up the soil, then another comes behind with a shovel to clear out the loosened dirt.  This was the substance of our activity all day, every day for the bulk of the week.


Did I mention it was really hot and humid?  Just as they did on Sunday, the Amigos team reminded us frequently to drink water and take breaks.  Such was our first morning, digging and shoveling and resting and drinking water and then doing it all over again.

A special gift from the Amigos for Christ team was the abundance of awesome music all week.  Whether riding the bus to/from La Chuscada, or working our butts off in the damp hot sunshine, we were immersed all day long in some fabulous music.  (To my friends on Spotify, I made a playlist called Amigos 2013 if you'd like to sample some of our daily fare.)  


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The matriarch of this family compound was a lovely woman named Graziela. 

She brought out plastic chairs for us to sit in while we ate lunch. Towards the end of our lunch break, we started hearing rumbles of thunder growing quickly closer.  The accompanying darkened skies told us to get ready for a doozy.  I nervously envisioned the Boy, sprawled out in the dirt after being struck by violent Central American lightning while the pickaxe was in mid-swing.  Surely they would send us back to the bus.

But no, nobody was moving towards the bus.  The rain began as a sprinkle but quickly became a downpour.  As the storm intensified, Graziela beckoned us inside her home. 

Graziela and Mateo
(and her beautiful handmade curtains)

We brought her chairs back in, into a main room where it was obvious that these chairs were the main furnishings anyway.  There was an old fashioned sewing machine, and an ironing board with an iron, and then an incongruous computer monitor on a table (with no computer or keyboard). 

There was a random hammock strung across a corner of the room, and an intricately handcrafted rocking chair...and then a series of tiny rooms curtained off from the main sitting area which we later learned were their bedrooms.  There were family photos on all of the walls.

She showed us her kitchen, another room adjacent to the main sitting room and primarily comprised of a large woodburning stove with no ventilation other than the doorways with no doors.  She insisted that her grandson share some of his sweets with one of the Amigos girls and me - little single-serve fruit treats that put me in mind of a jello shot from the old days (sans bug juice, of course.)

Again, I find myself struggling to describe the emotions of that afternoon. 

My Spanish is pitiful - me hablo espanol muy poquito - and I barely understood a word that Graziela or her husband Mateo said to us during our time together.

But I understood her smile and her warmth and her kindness in opening her home to a bunch of strangers, to keep us dry and safe in a storm.

Mission - Surprise! (Part One)

Our bus ride from the Managua airport to the Amigos for Christ compound in Chinandega was on a proverbial dark and stormy night.  I couldn't see much of the passing countryside, except during occasional bolts of lightning.

A funny tidbit - in the weeks beforehand, I pestered my friends who'd been on this particular mission for packing tips.  Here are a few of their recommendations:

• Bring clothes you don't care about keeping, because you won't want to, and the people there will wash them and give them to people who need them after we leave.
• No, you don't need a blow dryer.
• Pack your clothes inside large plastic bags inside your suitcase so they won't get wet.  (huh? get wet?)

Well, on the ride to Chinandega that night, I understood the last one, because our luggage was lashed to the top of the bus.  And no, I hadn't heeded that particular pointer, because it didn't make sense to me and I'd failed to ask why it was important.  Luckily the tarps over the load did a good job of keeping most things dry.  Most things, anyway.

Our accommodations were the first of many surprises for me.  I'd envisioned the possibility of squalid huts with cots and mosquito nets - but the Amigos dorms were just that - dorms.  Electricity, curtains, bunk beds with sheets and pillows, large community bathrooms (with doors!), and fans - plenty of fans.  Fans on the ceilings, clip-on fans on the beds...lots of fans.

Hmmm.  This week was already shaping up differently than I'd imagined.

****************************************
Day One of our itinerary was a Sunday and was set aside for recreation and worship;  no work on day one.  No, day one was slated for a leisurely hike on a nearby volcano.

We were broken up into two teams of six;  our team assignments for the week were to make the daily PB&Js and to fill the giant water coolers with water and ice.  My team was on PB&Js for day one;  we created an assembly line, and I was the jelly girl.

Unlike the microbus from the previous evening, we piled into a generic yellow schoolbus which served as our transportation for the rest of the week.  I was glued to the scenery, face pressed against the window like a little girl, as we departed comparatively urban Chinandega and traveled into the rural countryside. 

It was on the bus ride that I got my first glimpse of real poverty, the kind where people barely have shelter from the weather or enough to eat.  And yet...as we forged on, bouncing up muddy wide swaths which served as "roads", people waved and smiled and went about their day.  The children especially made a point of running to the roadside, wildly jumping and laughing and waving at the busload of gringos. 

******************************************
The soil got progressively darker as we drew closer to our destination.  Cerro Negro is among the Pacific chain referred to as the "Ring of Fire" and is an active volcano.  The name represents the black volcanic ash comprising its face and much of the surrounding area.

As we got off the bus, our Amigos for Christ mission team (the REAL mission team, the young people who have signed a 2 year commitment) explained some choices and requirements.  There were two ways to tackle the volcano;  one, straight up the face, and I do mean STRAIGHT UP.  The second was described as a less arduous but still challenging hike up and around the back.  It isn't hard to guess which one I chose.  The Boy chose the hard way.

In addition, the Amigos team (about whom I will have a lot to tell you, in a separate post) was extremely firm about taking plenty of water with us.  Good lord, kids, we're going on a hike and you want me to haul this giant heavy bottle of water too?  How about I just drink a bunch down here and then I'll take a little with me and get a refill when we get back down.

(Ummm, no.  Probably the only thing I ever saw those guys get twisted up about was making sure we drank enough water.  I soon learned why.)

**********************************************

And now I will attempt to describe one of the most literally monumental experiences of my life.

The majority of our group chose to climb the nearly vertical black face of Cerro Negro, while I joined a smaller team of ladies older than me;  both parties were accompanied by seasoned Amigos for Christ missionaries. Now, I've hiked in the Great Smoky Mountains dozens (hundreds?) of times in my life, so I wasn't particularly intimidated by the hike itself;  I had strapped on my trusty old Merrells, and I was ready for anything.

Did I mention that Nicaragua is remarkably hot and humid?  We weren't ten minutes away from the bus before I was pouring sweat.  Not dewy, not glistening - drenched.  I quickly came to the realization that I was going to look like hell for the next week, and I was a tad amused to also realize that I didn't care.

The next 60-90 minutes serve as a wonderful snapshot of who I am at my best - and my worst.

My worst:  I quickly lost patience with myself and my companions.  This was much harder than any stroll in the Tennessee woods - even the Chimneys pale in comparison.  I can't imagine what climbing the front of Cerro Negro must be like, because the "easy" way was brutal.  At one point, we were clambering over rocks and boulders with practically no sure footing or clear path upwards.

Did I mention that I was the youngest woman?  Yet the other ladies kept getting ahead of me!  It would infuriate me to find myself lagging behind, so in a fit of unseemly pique and adrenaline, I would surge forth, pushing towards the front of our party and showing everybody just who was who.

Yep, I showed everybody alright.

I would end up a few short paces ahead of the group, panting and guzzling my precious water and then bending over to ease the stitch in my side.  Once I even led us off the indistinct path and up a series of rocks that simply weren't meant to be climbed.  Yep, I showed everybody.

Our Amigos guides gently reminded me that we were not in a hurry, that this wasn't a competition - this was meant to be a day set aside for enjoying God's creation and each other.

Humph.  Easy for them to say, all athletic and cute and in their 20s and barely perspiring at all.  And yet, I experienced a fleeting understanding of what they were telling me - and how it applied to much more than a sweaty hike in Nicaragua.

My best:  (This is harder to describe, because I have trouble in general acknowledging that I'm not all that horrible or unique after all.)  Initially, I had a very hard time accepting help from the Amigos team.  Clearly, they knew what they were doing, and I didn't want to be perceived as the idiot gringa from the sticks who couldn't haul her wide backside up the mountain.

The encouragement and Christ-like patience and kindness they exuded was unlike anything I've ever experienced, before or since.  A helping hand here, an insistence to rest there, an offer for a pinch of salt (miracle cure for overheated nausea) - the sincere desire to help me conquer my physical and mental resistance was new and awkward and wonderful.

And on we went, up and up, across rocks and intermittent dirt paths, spiraling up through a verdant panorama that was bounded on one side by the Pacific Ocean in the distance and endless rolling hills on the other.

There are few words to adequately explain how I felt when we crested the summit.  Relief certainly, but astonished achievement, profound gratitude and overwhelming faith in a God I'd long believed in but that day drew me in close (warts and all) to His heart.

Cerro Negro is an active volcano, so the rim is warm and there are little pockets of steam here and there.  It was surreal and amazing to sit down on the surface of such a powerful force of nature.






My firstborn and me, 9/1/13
Cerro Negro - Nicaragua

the tiny white speck is our bus
at the bottom of the volcano

***************************************
Coming down was also quite an experience - instead of going back down the way we'd come, we went down the face that everyone else had climbed.  The black ash wasn't firm, so you would sink with each step, and the steep angle was disorienting.  Unlike the Boy, who ran and even body-surfed down the volcano, I awkwardly stumbled and tumbled, ungracefully picking my steps and squeezing the hands of the two young men who ended up as my kind-hearted escorts.

*********************************************
One of those escorts was named Jack, and he presented me with one of the biggest surprises of the entire week.

Jack, you see, is a gorgeous young man.  Beautiful eyes with unfairly long lashes, dark complexion and athletic build - this boy must melt hearts in multiple time zones.  Men who are that attractive have always made me uncomfortable, mostly because of the things I sometimes tell myself about myself, which are unkind and not fit for repeating in polite society and I wouldn't say them to my enemy's dog.  Men who are that attractive have historically been nice to me for only one of two reasons:  one, they felt sorry for me; or two, I had an attractive friend with whom they wanted to hook up.

Yet this young man, this Jack, he didn't seem to feel particularly sorry for me as he encouraged me up and then back down the volcano.  Endless patience (I would've been exasperated after the first 15 minutes) and grace and a gentle barely-recognizable reproof when needed - these are among the gifts I received from this boy.   And since I was pretty sure he wasn't trying to hook up with my other travel companions, I marveled and wondered about his motives the rest of the afternoon.

************************************************

That evening after dinner, we gathered for a concluding time of devotion, discussion and prayer.  The Amigos team took turns leading the evening devotionals (a "devo" as they call it), and Jack led it that night.  He read the passage from 1 Kings 19:11-13, where the Lord commanded to Elijah to go to Mount Horeb where the Lord was going to pass by.  There came a fierce wind, and a terrible earthquake, and a consuming fire...but the Lord was not in any of those.  The Lord instead came to Elijah in a gentle whisper.

Jack closed his Bible, and recounted the sights and events of our day.  The beauty of the countryside, the magnificence and power of the volcano, the promise of a mighty ocean in the distance...God created all of these things.  He created EVERYTHING.

And yet, He is not in those things, said Jack.  He is only in us, His greatest handiwork, for He breathed life into every single one of us with that gentle whisper and calls us His own, His beloved children - more beautiful and precious than any wonder of nature because we are where He lives.  He lives in us and equips us to care for and be kind to each other...whether climbing a volcano or shopping at Kroger or driving on the interstate or meeting a need in a third world country.

Therein was the first of many surprises that week, this wise teaching from a committed young Christ-follower.  I realized that evening that the ugly things I say to myself aren't true - they are lies from the pit, carefully crafted to render me useless and miserable and mean.  And absent frequent prayer, study, meditation and fellowship, I am gullible enough to believe them.

Surprised by truth - I couldn't wait to see what God had in store for Day Two.

Mission - Prelude

In most 12-step organizations, the third step requires that one must turn his/her will and life over to the care of God as you understand Him.  Lots of folks give this one a polite nod and keep going, because a) nobody REALLY understands Him, and b) what if His will requires me to do something I don't want to do?  Umm...no thanks.  It's MY will, it's MY life, and assuming I even believe in Him in the first place, I will let Him know what I feel like fits with my agenda.

I imagine there are correlation statistics of third step adherence to relapse potential.  But I digress.

Besides, what if He wants me to go be a missionary in Africa or something?  You just can't trust somebody who had His only child punished and killed in exchange for the crimes of a bunch of people who probably won't believe it happened anyway.

****************************************

A few years ago, I got my hypersensitive feelings all in a knot during a discussion about mission work.  "We're all on a mission", said I, to the group of Christian women with whom I'd retreated for the weekend.  The issue in question was:  what constitutes "mission" work?

A couple of my fellow retreatees, who have devoted large chunks of their lives to domestic and overseas missions through both short-term physical service and ongoing financial support, were all noisy and passionate about Jesus' specificity in Matthew 28:  "Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Well...ok then.  That's what he said;  and since I do believe that business about this guy being God's Son and that he died for me and was subsequently resurrected, I take him at his word.  Go.  Make disciples.  Teach them to obey what he said - and since everything he said was out of love and concern for mankind, it makes sense that he wants people to hear about it.

Go.

All nations.

Go.

**************************************

But I didn't want to go, so I didn't.  I am adept at the art of rationalization, and I've made all kinds of things fit the challenge of the Great Commission. 

We sponsor a couple of World Vision kids in Africa, and we are faithful to our pledge to our church (and some of that money is used for mission work, so that counts, right?)  The Mister used to go on Saturday mornings in Knoxville to make pancakes for the homeless ministry downtown, so I think we get to count that on our list of things we've done as mission work.

(What's that you ask?  Well, no, I didn't go make pancakes myself, but I watched the kids while he went, so I should get half-credit for the sacrifice.)

I have led a women's Sunday School class for four years, and I make sure that the Boy and the Girl are plugged in with the church youth group, and we even ponied up for the Boy to do an inner-city home repair mission trip to Pittsburgh this past summer.  Since he is the fruit of my womb, I took partial credit for that, too.

See, God?  I'm doing my part here, to make disciples and to teach people your word.  Just please don't make me go anywhere, especially somewhere hot.  I'm not good at being hot.

This is what I've told myself and my Creator for years and years and years.

He thinks I'm a riot.

He had a different plan.

*****************************************

And so it was that I found myself standing amid piles of duffel bags, supplies and luggage on the sidewalk outside of the Managua airport a few Saturday nights ago.  The Boy and I had accompanied ten of our friends from our church for a week-long mission trip to rural Nicaragua.  We were waiting for the microbus that had been arranged to drive us the additional two hours northwest to Chinandega.

Yes - I was tired and it was hot and humid and potentially stormy, and the "crummy me" inside of me downshifted into crabby mode.  What had I been thinking?  What was I doing here with these good people, going to do good things?  I am not a good person by nature, you see.  I play one at work and church and sometimes in public but there is something dark and angry in me...and sometimes it tells me I don't belong with good people.

But there was no turning back, so I chided Crummy Me for being a pill and worked up some artificial enthusiasm for the bus ride ahead, into the unknown.

More mission memories forthcoming.

Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, International Terminal - 8/31/13

 

On Being of Good Use

My favorite author is John Irving, and one of my favorite Irving works is The Cider House Rules.   Moral complexities aside (of which there are plenty), the abundance of love, warmth, agony and humor make the story achingly dear to me. 

The central character is an orphan named Homer Wells.  If you saw the movie without reading the book, I hope you'll find the opportunity to get to know Homer in the pages of the novel. (Michael Caine was excellent as the ether-addicted abortionist Dr. Larch, however - his "goodnight, you princes of Maine, you kings of New England!" brings a lump to my throat every time.)

But Homer...Homer doesn't lend himself to adequate screen adaptation.  Much of what we learn about Homer is more easily imagined than depicted.  Homer's various deployments to hilarious and sometimes awful foster families create emotional twists, scars and character traits in Homer that could never be captured on film.

I love Homer Wells, but this post isn't about Homer.  It's about something I learned from him.  The aforementioned failures in foster care result in Homer's permanent residence at the St. Cloud's orphanage where he was born.  Homer belongs at St. Cloud's - thus, Dr. Larch affectionately advises Homer that he is expected to be "of use".

Being of use.  That's what I want to talk about.

USE:  /v. yuz or for pt for mof 9, yust; n. yus/ Show Spelled [v. yooz n. yoos] verb, used, us·ing, noun (used with object)

1. to employ for some purpose; put into service; make use of: to use a knife. 

2. to avail oneself of; apply to one's own purposes: to use the facilities. 

3. to expend or consume in use: We have used the money provided. 

4. to treat or behave toward: He did not use his employees with much consideration. 

5. to take unfair advantage of; exploit: to use people to gain one's own ends.

 

When I apply the word to much of my experience on this side of heaven, my first sensation is shame.  I have used and ab-used family, friends, employers, food, whiskey, money, pastors, churches, clubs,  resources, yada, yada, and all with a singular purpose in mind....ME.  It has always been about ME.  My needs, my wants, my hopes, my desires, my expectations, my emptiness, my loneliness, me, me, me, me, me, me....me.  

 

I am sick to death of me.  And I think that's a good thing.

 

That famous prayer says:  "God, GRANT me the serenity..."  It doesn't say "teach me how to manufacture my own serenity" but I swear that's how I've been living it out for going on a half-century.  That's a long flippin stretch of exhausting self-centered living right there.

 

It occurs to me as I write this, that even this durn post is about me.  AAAAARRRGH!!  I can't get away from her!  Yet I'm learning - s..l..o..w..l..y - that she is actually not such a bad egg.  That everyone is human and on a journey from the cradle to the grave and sometimes it takes a while to realize why we are here.

 

I know why I am here now - to be of use.  (Don't get me wrong, lord knows I've been used in the past, and often with my full cooperation.)

 

I mean to be of GOOD use - my Creator designed me for this purpose.  How many barstools did I sit on wondering why He even bothered with me? - and now I get it, I completely get it. 

 

He loves every single person, believer or otherwise, and He fashioned us to care for each other - to meet each other's needs, whatever and wherever.  Absent that awareness, we (I) will always chase after a peace which eludes those whose perceived purpose is themselves.

Use me, Lord.  Please - make good USE of me.

Birthday Present

"What do you want for your birthday?"  I ask the Mister.  I've been asking for a couple of weeks, and other than a Harley Davidson or a 1967 Malibu, I haven't gotten much in the way of leads.

"I don't know, sweetie.  I'm not very high maintenance - I don't really need anything", says he. 

Immediately I cringe - I usually give him a prioritized roster of a dozen things I want for my birthday in November, and I ensure that he has this list before Labor Day so he has plenty of time to meet my expectations.  High maintenance...well, the shoe DOES fit...but I don't think he was taking a swing at me. 

Because he really ISN'T high maintenance, not at all.  I've never known anyone whose wants are as simple as his.  Over the years, the fifteen Christmases and birthdays that we've shared thus far, I've racked my brain to come up with something, ANYTHING, that would give him great surprise and delight upon peeling back the wrapping and discovering the contents therein.  I think I got close with his iPad, and the Star Trek pizza cutter and Captain Kirk Pez dispenser made him laugh, but other than that, years' worth of new shirts and socks and slippers and DVDs have been all I could think of.

So today is his birthday, and again I find myself verklempt, giftless and confused.  It isn't that I forgot - I've been puzzling for weeks - but I'm a tad self-centered (ok, more than a tad), and then it sneaked up on me and hammered home last night that I still don't have anything to give him. I'm tempted to run out right now and buy him something, anything, just so he will get to rip open a present and we can both pretend that it's exactly what he wanted.

Why is this so hard?  What is UP with someone who really doesn't need or want anything?

In the wee hours of this morning, I was lying there, maximizing my shame for not having an awesome gift for him.  I pondered our history together and everything I know about him.  It was sixteen years ago in May that I first met him on AOL (we were pioneers in the e-hookup department) - he in rural Kansas, me in east Tennessee - both waiting and looking and hoping for the partner that God had chosen for us. 

You'd think, after sixteen years, I would know what he wants.  If I could just figure it out, I would get it for him right this red-hot minute.

Something has dawned on me though, and I have an inkling of why I have trouble understanding.  You see, my favorite gift is MORE, and it is to my chagrin that I am rarely entirely satisfied with what I have.  I want stuff - more, better, newer, different - but still STUFF that just ends up empty or eventually at Goodwill.

The Mister's wants are:

• a family
• a home
• a church where he can study and serve God 
• a small group of dear and unconditional friends
• a wife who loves him completely, through good times and bad, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, as long as we live
• and lunch at Red Robin.  

Maybe I've got him covered, after all. 

(But I'm still going to start saving for the Harley.)

Hits The Spot - Part II

Babble-followers may recall the May 2012 post titled, "Hits the Spot", wherein I attempted to convey my enthusiasm for an app called Spotify.  I intimated that I might well return one day to the blog theme of music-associated memories and feelings - and here I am, following through.

********************************

The Weight (The Band) 

Although I was but a wee five-year-old when this song first came out, it was remastered in 2000 and is now found in the "Melancholia" section of my heart's record store.  (It's a fairly big section). 

Those opening guitar notes, followed by a ribcage-shaking kick drum, take me immediately to the serpentine turns of Highway 68 in southeastern Tennessee, driving through towns named for ducks and turtles.  I'd been up and down this road on other trips between my hometown (Knoxville, TN) and my new home (Cumming, GA)...but this particular memory is gray and sad, for I am traveling to sit with my mother in the residential hospice from whence she would soon depart. 

"Pulled into Nazareth, was feelin bout half-past dead;  just need some place where I can lay my head". 

What a weary road that was, and how that song still lays across my heart like a fog.

********************************

Suite:  Judy Blue Eyes (Crosby, Stills and Nash)

and American Pie (Don McLean) 

Some other pearls on my playlist... 

Though "marketing manager" was my preferred title, "barfly/groupie" was a more fitting description of my years traipsing after the various ensembles that featured some extraordinarily talented friends - Brent Cundall, Terry Phillips, Mike Rhode, Randy Rhode, Mike Provencher and Doug McCombs. Apart from being some of the best musicians I've ever been blessed to hear play live, these are also some incredibly good guys. 

One of their frequent covers was Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.  In the last section of the four-part suite, Terry would masterfully mimic Stephen Stills' garbled Spanish (which to this day remains questionably translatable.) 

Anyhow, the first few lines of that fourth section are happy melodic paeans to hopefulness, and if one listens intently, and if one has had a couple of shots of tequila, one might suppose that Stephen Stills is singing about "Lauralie", instead of "la caribe". 

I said as much to Terry in between sets one night, who from then on made a point to clearly enunciate my name in subsequent performances of the song, causing me to scream and carry on as if they were The Beatles and I was on the front row with a VIP backstage pass.

And every November 9th, from 1985 to 1993, the guys would accede to my beery birthday requests for Suite: Judy Blue Eyes and American Pie. 

"A long, long time ago...I can still remember how that music used to make me smile.."

Some of the best birthday presents I ever received.

****************************************

How Great Thou Art

(The Statler Brothers; Elvis; Alan Jackson; Randy Travis; Vince Gill, etc.)

So my eyes are already all watery just typing the name of this one. 

It was a favorite staple of my maternal family tree, and it has been sung at pretty much every family funeral I've ever attended. My baby sister did a beautiful rendition at her father-in-law's funeral (accompanied by the aforementioned Randy Rhode) which brought tears to every set of eyes in the house. 

Even today, I cannot sing the first line at my own Sunday church services without catching my breath and my kids proactively digging through my purse to find the kleenex.

Yet - there is one very special memory associated with a performance of "How Great Thou Art".

Because it had been a family favorite for three generations, my sister and I wanted it incorporated into our mother's funeral service.  Although she'd grown up amidst primitive Baptists, our mother became an Episcopalian as an adult and had a special affinity for Anglican liturgy and the beauty of St. John's Cathedral.  Because it was my sister's church at the time, and because Mom had loved it so, we chose St. John's as the location for her service.

We were dismayed to learn that "How Great Thou Art" was not to be found in the Episcopal hymnal.  Undeterred, we elected to include it in the service anyway, with the lyrics to be provided as part of the printed program.

We held the service on Tuesday, February 6, 2007, at 6 p.m. in the evening.  If you've lost a parent or very close family member, then you may be familiar with the weird shroud of feelings that confuses your heart in the opening moments of their funeral service.  It's so - so - final.

My sister and I sat together, without our spouses or children, in the front of the sanctuary.  We wept discreetly, with ladylike tears and trembling shoulders.  And then it came time for "How Great Thou Art". 

I braced myself, knitting together the few remaining threads of composure available to me.

We unfolded the printed lyrics and we began to sing.  Tears poured down our faces like undammed rivers.  Some words went missing among the sobs.

And then we came to the third verse.

The third verse is:

And when I think that God, His Son not sparing,
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin

Unfortunately, whoever typed our printed version was either careless or in a big hurry, because our lyrics read thus:

"And when I think that God, His Son snot sparing..."  Snot sparing?  SNOT SPARING?!?!

In much the same manner as two naughty little girls misbehaving in church, my sister and I completely lost it.  We were laughing our heads off.  To the mourners behind us, it appeared as though we were utterly distraught, violently shaking with heads down and making lots of wet noises. 

But to the Very Right Reverend Thom Rasnick and the choir members in front of us, it was obvious that we'd been blessed with some righteous comic relief.

I guarantee you our mom was laughing too.

My Daddy

Fathers' Day.

Another Hallmark-generated phony "holiday", set aside for driving sales of greeting cards, ugly ties, and for those kids with extra pocket change, a new grill or Big Green Egg. 

See, here's the thing - I love my dad and I want to honor him and make his life easier every single day for the rest of his life, 24/7, 365.  I don't need a special day on the calendar to remind me of how much he has done for me and to remind him of how much I love him.

But since I do have this sanctioned opportunity to gush about him, don't mind if I do.  I have a thousand reasons, but here are just a few:

My daddy:

• Taught me to swim
• Taught me to ride a bike in the parking lot at Reed's Fine Foods
• Taught me to drive a car on Cherokee Boulevard (and didn't flinch - much - when I crashed it)
• Taught me to say "sir" and "ma'am" (and that it's still appropriate to use with my elders today, even if I'm practically one of them)
• Taught me that standing just inside the open garage door when the sky turns purple-black and starts rumbling is the very best seat in the house. 
• Taught me to treat everyone with gentle kindness and good humor, regardless of their tax bracket or skin color
• Taught me a whole lot of awesome dirty jokes and a couple of clean ones
• Taught me that all the best music is either blues, bluegrass or gospel
• Taught me that hound dogs and hunting dogs are the only dogs worth knowing

My daddy:

• Watched me (as far as I know) every single time I stood on the diving board at MaMa's pool, badgering him to "watchmewatchmewatchmedaddywatchme WATCHME!!!"
• Watched from the back rows of school plays, choral events and high school graduation so the divorced parents thing wouldn't make me uncomfortable (but came anyway, just to make sure I knew he was there)
• Watched me make hundreds of mistakes, knowing that his DNA had rendered me incapable of listening to reason

My daddy:

• Bailed me out of my own drama and messes too many times to count
• Didn't bail me out when it was time to make me grow up

 

My daddy:

• Took me to the beach nearly every single summer of my childhood
• Took me deep sea fishing and taught me how to gut my fish myself
• Took me waterskiing (and let me keep trying over and over and over again to get up until my arms turned to spaghetti)
• Took me scuba diving
• Took my calls for help in the middle of the night
• Took me to camp (and came to get me early when I called him crying)
• Took me ice skating on Friday nights at the Ice Chalet
• Took me to the mountains more times that I can count, teaching me to love quiet woods and critters therein
• Took me back home every other Sunday afternoon, tears in his eyes sometimes as he pulled back out of the driveway.

Today, I live a few hours away from my daddy, but it doesn't matter because he is always right here in my head and my heart.  I still pursue his approval, despite having had it for quite some time now.  I love to make him laugh, and I generally have plenty of good material when we talk, just stories from a day in the life of his daughter.

And oh, how I love that he calls me his baby girl, despite my impending arrival at the big five-oh.

I could bewail the lost time and angry words and all the embarrassment I caused him.

Instead, I think I'll take the opportunity this Fathers' Day (and every day) to instead tell him again how very, very much I love him.

Sugar and the County School System

Tonight's post is brought to you courtesy of sugar and the county school system.

Um..what's that you say?  Come again?

Yes, sugar and the county school system.

I've sat here at the keys for fifteen minutes, willing myself into writing something pithy and useful and instead I just feel like crying and writing about why.

If you know me at all, then the thought of me crying is not alarming, because I do it with unusual frequency.  The novelty wore off of my tears in, oh, 1973 or so.  Even I am bored with it.

With the exception of a few teenage crocodile tears, though, every single one is an escapee from the aquifer in my heart.  I feel hurt way too easily, worry way too much...I'm just generally an over-the-top kind of gal.

Lately, I've been shedding a river of tears over the deterioration of my husband's health.  A type II diabetic, the Mister lived in denial for decades, consuming all forms of sugar in breads, pastas, sodas, fruit, desserts, cookies...and, well, as just plain white sugar.

Beginning May of 2012, we both took control of our health by losing weight, increasing exercise, eliminating all processed foods and gluten from our pantry.  We looked and felt amazing!!

But diabetes is a sneaky son of a bitch, because it doesn't have gears for "reverse" or even "park".  It can only drive forward, and your span of control is limited to the accelerator.

So I blame some of these damn tears on sugar and the self-perceived indestructability that gives teenagers and addicts and alcoholics and diabetics and fatties and dopers and QVC shoppers and me the permission to cling to "well, that (insert negative consequence here) will never happen to me" as though it is a fact.

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And speaking of consequences...

The Boy is my firstborn, my only son, my raison d'etre (at least until his little sister came along.)  I love him more than I can possibly describe, and I am pretty descriptive when I want to be.

He is smart and funny and handsome and getting taller by the minute - and he has been a handful since his first day of pre-K.  I lost count of teacher's conferences back in fourth grade.  Sometimes a class clown, sometimes an angry and defiant miscreant, sometimes violent...but always ALWAYS my kid.  My baby boy.

Middle school has been a roller coaster at best, and as we crept steadily towards the end of this school year, his referrals to the principal's office noticeably decreased, and the offenses were less and less significant.  My kid CRAVES attention (don't know where he gets that), and he is slowly learning that there are good ways and bad ways of getting it.

Friday, May 25th was the last day of eighth grade for my young man.  On Thursday, May 24th, the entire 8th grade had a picnic at a local community park.  Gorgeous sunny blue-sky day, happy kids, all was going well ...and then he tried to address the knot in his shoelaces.  With the little scissors in his Swiss army knife.  You know, the little red Victorinox pocket knife that every boy in the western hemisphere possesses (as well as some girls), yet the overwhelming majority of them have the good sense not to bring it to a class picnic.

Alas, my young man was not so wise or crafty, and he suffered the great misfortune of being caught with what most of us would consider a multi-purpose utility tool but most school systems consider a dangerous weapon.

(In case you are curious, the "acceptable" length limit for a pocket knifeblade from the school perspective is 2 and 1/2 inches.  Victorinox blades are 2 and 3/4 inches.)

Fast-forward to this afternoon, where the Boy and I sat for 90 minutes in the school system's disciplinary hearing regarding his weapons possession charges.  Yes, really.  Weapons possession.  We were presented with two options:  one, accept the school system's offer of a judicial "tribunal" where we could bring legal representation and dispute the facts of the matter, or two, waive all rights to said tribunal, just suck it up and accept the consequences as predetermined by the school system.

We went with option two, and the Boy is now slated to begin 9th grade this fall at our county's alternative school for chronic offenders with behavior/drug/weapons violations.  I haven't stopped crying since I sat down in that godforsaken meeting.  It sucks, it just sucks.  I'm not articulate enough to find a better word than that.

The good news is that, assuming there are no other infractions between now and then, he will be welcome to enter the traditional high school setting with his friends beginning in January 2014.  We are only talking about a semester here.

Also, we do have another choice that we will pray about and talk through - which is to withdraw him from the school system altogether and homeschool him.  Again, we might just do that for a semester and then re-enroll him in January. 

Too many pros and cons to all of this and not enough neurons to process it right now.

Plus I'm dehydrated.

My Mom

Linda Anne McRae Morton had many defining identities - loving mom, avid reader, faithful Christian, diligent employee, good friend...and paranoid schizophrenic. 

I've wanted to write about her for many years, but anger, shame, fear and sadness have always frozen my fingers.  Not sure why this Mother's Day is any different than the last 49 of them, but somehow it is.

My memories are just that - MY memories - and I don't pretend that they are 100% reflective of objective truths.  They are my images and perceptions from life as her elder daughter, and they comprise a wealth of excuses for living a broken and angry life.  It is only as I get older that I have begun to tease out the facts from the fiction, and I still don't think I've got it completely right.  But here is what it is today.

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In her youth, Linda was absolutely gorgeous.  A petite blonde with a huge bust and a tiny waist, Linda hailed from rural east Tennessee and moved to Knoxville with her divorced mother during junior high.  She attended Tyson Junior, West High School and then the University of Tennessee, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree.  Smart, beautiful and funny as hell - basically the total package, despite being from the "other side of the tracks".

Along with her looks, I suspect it was the absence of pedigree which drew my blue-blood father to her.  Always the rebel, he dashed off to Blount County with her on a cold night in January 1963, where they were secretly married by the local justice of the peace.  I imagine my paternal grandparents must have been distraught over their son's willful pursuit of his own desires - he has never been one to follow someone else's script.

I also imagine a lot of suspicion around the elopement;  why the hush and rush?  Was there a bun in the oven?  Well, eventually, yes...but since I didn't arrive until November of '63, I wasn't the reason for hurry.  I think they were both just sneaky and horny and not particularly susceptible to good sense.  (eww, it is weird to write about them being, you know, ...eww, I can't write it again.)

My sister arrived in 1966, and our perfect family settled into a perfectly beautiful white house with perfect iron trellises on a large and perfect corner lot in the bluest-blood neighborhood in Knoxville.

I'm told by relatives and friends that my mom did some pretty bizarre things as a young mother.  I don't know anything about any of that - all I know is that my mom and dad were beautiful together.  They went to parties and Nine o' Clock Cotillion and to the Old Time Fiddler's Convention in Union Grove, NC and to church every single Sunday morning, where she taught children's Sunday School.

I know that she smelled like Jungle Gardenia perfume and he smelled like leather, and they both smelled like Marlboro Reds.

I know that she had a piano and a mink stole, and he had a Harley and a banjo.

And I know that sometimes they were very happy.

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Then in the late 60s, things changed - a lot.  Here is where it gets very fuzzy for me, so apologies to those who possess more facts than I...but my mother's first suicide attempt was in 1968 or '69.  A true beehive aficionado, my mother frequented a popular chi-chi hair salon where various illicit pills were available if you knew the right person to ask.  I think she was miserable and growing sicker by the day...having had my own forays in to self-medication, I understand why she did what she did in pursuit of relief.  But I can't say I understand why ending her life seemed like a reasonable solution to the shrieking in her head.

I pause here.  Did she have auditory or visual hallucinations, the hallmark symptoms of schizophrenia?  I don't think so, at least not then, but I know for certain they came later.  But back then, her illness was manifested in a thousand unreasonable fictions turned into fact by her disease.

This attempted overdose prompted the first of her institutionalizations.  Again I am fuzzy on dates and durations - I know that she spent time at two of the South's finest psychiatric institutions - Duke Psychiatric Hospital and Vanderbilt's Parthenon Pavilion.  I remember flying to Raleigh/Durham with Daddy and my little sister in a very small plane, when my ears felt like they would explode and I cried from the pressure.  We had Easter baskets with Mommy in a hotel next to the hospital - they let her out to come visit us for an afternoon.

I know she had electric shock therapy on multiple occasions.  It wasn't until 2001, when I saw Russell Crowe's "A Beautiful Mind" that I understood the violence of EST.  There is some bitter irony in the term "shock" therapy, for I remain shocked that this was a widely-accepted therapeutic intervention for an array of psychiatric diagnoses.  After EST, she was prone to seizures - therefore, the epilepsy medication Dilantin was added to her psychopharmacologic cocktail of Thorazine and Elavil.

All of my life, she had migraines, though they seemed to worsen in her mid-30s.  As my parents' marriage failed, she took to her bed more and more often, full of pain and pills and fury. 

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By 1974, she was a divorced mother of two girls, ages 11 and 8. Oh, how she loved us!  She forced herself into functionality, obtaining a clerical certificate from Draughon's Business College and accepting a job her mother arranged for her in the county clerk's office.  She went to work nearly every day, except when depression and migraines forced her under the covers and under her little bag of anesthetics.

She let us have Captain Crunch for dinner and bought us all manner of books and music - a voracious reader herself, she easily put the bookstore tab before the phone bill.  Yet the lights stayed on, and the fridge stayed full, and our threesome moved through time.

There are dozens of sad vignettes I could share at this juncture in the story, but to what end?  All of us who've been through or near divorce can tell stories of agony and destruction - ours were just seasoned with the special extremes reserved for the mentally ill.  I will leave it at that.


Lest you think it was all tragic and dark, let me assure you that we had all kinds of fun.  Her acerbic wit, sharpened by heartbreak, created an atmosphere of intellectual hilarity.  We wrote stories for each other, brutal and funny stories about a hapless unloved orphan named Mok who was raised by nuns and suffered from bad luck and insults.  Lord, how I wish I'd kept a Mok story.  You really can't make this stuff up.

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As my sister and I grew into teenagers, Mom's illness became more evident in her lack of hygiene and in our living conditions.  Always suckers for a stray, our house became home to several cats and dogs - I can't remember maximum count at the moment but suffice to say that what we didn't spend on Cokes, cigarettes, prescriptions and books, we spent on pet food and vet bills.

Teenagers are, by definition, lazy as all get-out, and since nobody else seemed particularly interested in housecleaning, neither was I.  The cats peed down the air vents and the dogs ate the furniture and things generally went to hell in a handbasket.

But still we had fun - we watched movies and worked jigsaws and ate Funyuns; we read books, lots of books, and I listened to records in my room with headphones for hours on end.

And she loved us fiercely - always fearful that we would leave her.  So we swore we never would.

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I was terrible to her on many occasions, too many to count or recount here.  I was mad at her for being sick, for not being like other mothers...sometimes I doubted whether she was really sick at all, maybe just mean and lazy.  But I knew in my heart that she didn't want to be the way she was - she just didn't know how to be any other way.

And so I found my own relief in drugs and drinking and boys.  And books - always books.

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Fast forward to 1981 - I graduated high school and entered UT.  Despite a hundred assurances to the
contrary, I left my mother and sister out of cowardice and self-preservation and moved into an apartment a few miles away with my stepsister.  I have this particular memory cross-filed under "shame" as well as "accomplishment".  It took the next twelve years of self-degradation before I could begin healing the wounds I'd wrought in her life and mine.

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Fast forwarding again, as this post is meant to be about her, not me.  She became beautiful to me again, the day I gave her the first of her four grandchildren.  She arm-wrestled our pastor, barely giving him enough time for the "amen" after blessing my newborn son a few hours after his birth.  It was then I realized that all she really wanted was to love and be loved - ceaselessly and intensely and without rules or conditions.  What better recipient for such affection than a grandbaby?

Now in her early 60s, her physical and mental health deteriorating, she looked forward to Saturday visits with her grandchildren with the anticipation of a small child in the weeks before Christmas.  Saturdays at Grammy's were awesome - my son and his cousin would make piles out of the couch cushions, then add every pillow in the house until there was a big cushy mountain in the middle of the living room, perfect for jumping into and yelling at the top of their lungs.  She would clap her hands and laugh and yell right along with them.

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In the fall of 2006, Mom developed a fever and horrible cough which turned into pneumonia.  X-rays found lung cancer, and radiation therapy was initiated.  But by the turn of the New Year, there wasn't any point in that, and in mid-January we moved her to St. Mary's Residential Hospice, which is staffed by angels.

She could no longer take her psych meds, and so in her final weeks, her illness was in full flora.  There were episodes of screaming and tears, visions of long-dead relatives in the corners of the room, and a torturously long moment of lucidity where she repeatedly begged me to help her.  I can't write this without decades of shame cramping my hands.

And on February 2, 2007,  with my sister holding her left hand and me holding her right, she exhaled for the last time and left all that sickness behind her.

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Mother's Day.  There aren't any cards that can capture how I feel about Mother's Day - how I loved and loathed and miss my mother.

Today I'm a mother.  But that's another story.