Flower lady

When I was in high school, and elderly lady lived down the road from us. LaRoice Mayland; we called her the flower lady.  She had been a widow for longer than I'd known her, and her yard contained vast beds of flowers. She hired me to come and help her tend these flowers occasionally during the summer, but she must have watered them every day herself, in an era before programmable timed sprinklers.  I would weed among the flowers for a long while, and then we would sit on her stone porch stoop and drink flat Pepsi Cola and eat Cheetos that her husband had probably picked up from the grocery, and we would talk.  I don't even remember about what, only thinking that she must hire me as much to eat stale chips with her and talk as for the weeding, and that I didn't mind either.  I admired her dedication to those flowers, to making her world beautiful, even as her life shrank to a solitary one, and her body succumbed to age.

I think about her when I working in the beds, among the tender shoots. I am the flower lady now. I have planted flowers every single place that I have lived since I left home except those that came with absolutely no ground in which to put a plant: my dorm room and a high rise apartment that I lived in with my first husband in Washington, and even then, I volunteered at the botanical conservatory across the street. I think about her, and I wonder what joys and sorrows my flowers will preside over. Will they be the sole companion of my old age? Will they out live me: a legacy of beauty when I am gone?

The spring bulbs were the very first thing to go in. The shipment was late. It didn't arrive until November, but if I didn't get them in, I would have to wait a full year and a half to see blooms. Morgan and I went out on a brisk day. I gave her the crocuses, because they only have to be half as deep.  I did the tulips. Our hands blistered from the digging. It was chilly; my Morgan wanted to stop, and so I told her about spring, what would come.  I told her about all the years hence that our flowers would bloom, and we would know: we did this, she and I, together. I told her the story of Soggybottom is one of a family, working side by side to build the kind of life we believe in, and that's what our flowers are to me.

No one, wants flowers anymore. One of the 7 consistent criteria for a dream home is low maintenance landscaping. A little bark around some drought resistant shrubs, some river rock, and call it done. Not LaRoice, and not me. No low maintenance life here. I want to teach my kids that a life worth having gives you blisters, and then callouses. It creates beauty and makes you strong. Then, I want to sit on the porch and drink lemonade with them, and look out at the bright blooms, so when they look back, and they come home, they will look at those flowers and remember and think of their mama, the flower lady.

Be Still Part 2

This afternoon I stepped outside during naptime to talk to my mom, and I was joined by a little boy in mud boots and no pants who was supposed to be taking a nap. I let him stay. We blew bubbles, colored with sidewalk chalk, and watched the ducks, and it was like a balm for my soul. I have been so restless and out of sorts.  I am anxious all the time. My peace is missing. I have been craving caffeine and sugar and getting headaches. I need to do some recalibrating, a fasting of sorts, where I nourish my body and soul. I need to get off facebook....not because it sucks up time, because I'm always doing something else, it's just open, but because I am always divided and never focused. I need to plant seeds, read books, listen to my children with attentiveness, and be fully present in my own life. I have been spending time with God, but even that is interrupted. I am listless; I have lost my ability to be still.

I need to stop giving in to immediate relief, instead I need to pray, and exercise, and fuel my body. I need to drink deeply, but my well is dry, and I am disconnected from the spring.

I am learning that daily bread can be so many things. The energy you need to get through the day, the words you need in a tough situation, love when people are unlovable, grace for yourself when you aren't keeping it together, and right now, stillness of the soul, for which I have forgotten to depend on God. I have been busy of late, praying for others, and forgotten to ask for what I most need, and without which I am no use to anyone.

If you need me, I will be burrowed deep in my peaceful Soggybottom, hitting the reset button on my soul. I would love to hear your voice on the phone or see your face over coffee (or green tea, better yet), I would love to go for a walk with you.  I need to step away from the virtual half-life, for I am in need of real things, the feel of dirt on my hands, the sweat of a hard run, the belly laughter of children. I need to create space for these. I'll see you again soon reader, and I will be restored.

Be Still

My heart has been heavy over some situations that are not mine and over which I have no control, but involve people that I love. Intellectually, I have known that God has a plan, that he is capable, that he sees things that I don't, that his way is best,....but I have been worrying. My heart has not had God's peace.... worrying because there is so much pain in the world that I cannot stop, worrying because the path is going to be long and difficult, worrying, because I can not see how the story ends.

During my quiet time, I asked God what to do, and He said the hardest thing he could have, "Nothing. Right now you must do nothing. It is not for you to do right now. When the time comes, you will know it." and so I had to pray for peace in waiting....the hardest thing. And I asked God as I prepared to open my bible, "Please give me something to hold onto while I'm waiting.", and I opened my bible, and it was 2 Kings chapter 4, in which God does a series of seemingly impossible things that people doubt can be done, through a faithful and obedient servant.

So here I wait, tender and raw, but obedient and hopeful, and thankful for a God who is willing to meet me right where I am.

Dear potential mama friends

Dear potential mama friends,

I'm (sort of) sorry my house is messy, but I'm tired.  I thought about rescheduling, but I genuinely like you, and since tired has been more or less my state of being for the last 9ish years, I'm not sure when we'd reschedule. So, in the interest of authenticity, we'll just skip that. Speaking of authenticity....I'm sort of a homebody, and while I like people, I don't have the time to invest in that many. I don't like wasting time, so inautheniticty just isn't something I do. I don't intend to offend you, but really, if I'm too weird for you, it's best to get it out in the open right away. I've already accepted the possibility that I'm so odd that I may have to wait until my daughters are grown to have friends. Don't ask me if I like your dress/opinion/hairdo, if you aren't prepared for the truth. I'm looking for a few Jesus girls to live life with, eat tacos, let each other in to our real moments( the beautiful and the gritty ones) and laugh till we snort, which is strange, because I'm not typically the laughing out loud sort, but I'd like to be...I'm working on it, the whole lightening up thing. I need some one who balances me out on that.

What I lack in levity, I make up for in honesty and loyalty, but if you need someone to grab coffee and get pedis with every week, I'm not your girl. I need someone who understands, that while I'll always have your back if you need me, and I value our time together, I'm an extroverted introvert, so there will be times I may not respond right away, because I just can't people right now.



Finding mom friends is a bit like hunting for sea glass on the beach, so many beautiful things, and most of them aren't what you're looking for. I am not meant to blend in; I'm a bit too artsy/intellectual for my strait laced conservative friends, and far too Christian conservative for my liberal leaning artsy/intellectual friends. It's difficult to find someone who gets the tightrope walk of loving Jesus and being devoted to your family and home, while maintaining your identity and your art, but when the connection is found...that spark of recognition of a kindred spirit, it's worth it. I'd rather have two pieces of sea glass than all the white sand on the beach. The companions that God has given me along the paths of my life have been among His greatest gifts.



I love music of all genres, reading, growing things, beauty of all kinds, dancing in my kitchen, critters, and working out.  I believe that friends should lift each other up and stretch one another, remind one another that behind the tired, there is an inspired strong woman, that friends should laugh and cry together and nourish one another; two souls who see one another's crazy hot mess and don't need perfection.


So, I see you mom on the park bench wondering if she's the only one, if she should start a conversation, or if that other mom will judge all your mom stuff...she looks so put together. We all have our days, mama, where we have our makeup fixed and our sunscreen and our snacks packed, and we look like we're not falling apart, but then, we all have our days when the seams burst, and our undone spills all over the playground, and we don't have any mosquito spray,  and every mama out there needs a me too, and if that isn't your piece of sea glass, it doesn't matter, because you have been kind.  There is never any harm in a hello. One day, if we are brave enough to keep saying hello, we will each find our little tribe of soul mamas, with whom we feel at home, that make us a little better every time we are together, and laugh with us when we fall apart, that see your hot mess and raise you a little crazy, and we will see that a little mess is nothing to be afraid of.

Stuff

I am a stuff person. I don't mean that I'm materialistic; to the contrary. I am drawn to things not because of their cost, but because of their personality, or history, or what they evoke in me. If I purchase something, the likely hood that it will ever be discarded into the garage sale realm is slim. Unlike the decluttering  and organizational books advise, I can not eliminate the things in my home which I don't find useful or beautiful, because I don't have such things. I love things for their, texture, their weight, their smell, for the storied past of those who have held them before.

When I was a child, I used to go with my mother to her grandmother's house. My great-grandparents had a house in town and a house in the country, so that when grandma Bessie passed away, grandpa Jess moved to town, and left the country house virtually untouched: sugar in the canisters, clothes in the closet, talcum powder in the loo. I played with toys there: an old Farris wheel that played music. I always had a vague notion that I could sense history, not in a grand sense, but in the small mundane miracle of someone else's daily life, children, a mother, a home...

The same is true with old books, generations before me, holding these selfsame sheaves of paper, living this tale beyond their own. Their weight and scent draws me in, as does their timelessness.

And new things, I believe I give a piece of my spirit to the things I choose to surround myself with. People have called my taste eclectic, I wondered if that was a platitude for "You have a lot of strange junk.", but it doesn't matter, our home sings a song of who we are as a family. I designed it when I wasn't singing, and every pent up expression of our love story flowed out of me as I chose windows,and faucets, and light fixtures, and it's harmony may be strange to some, but it is comforting and beautiful to us: the song of a homeland, and I hope, generations from now when I am gone, and my children's children's children come here, they hear it in their spirit, and it teaches them about where they came from and those who have lived and loved and gone before. Perhaps to you, they are just things, but to me they are stories of lives well lived.

Elven doors

For years, when I would meet someone new and tell them about my life, I would say, "I was a singer." It felt like a eulogy for myself. I gave up singing because it had always been about me, and I had reached an intersecting path where, if it continued to be about me, then that's what my life would become and remain: selfish and solitary. I made the right choice, a choice that has allowed me to have a great marriage and family. I knew singing was a part of me, but I was not safe with it, yet.

God pursued me down many dark alleys, and eventually, I surrendered to Him. I prayed to love Him, and He answered me. People came along side me who loved me and prayed that some day I could use my gift in a way that would not be about me, that would glorify God (thank you, I love and appreciate you). I could not see the path forward, but a time came when I felt a nudge to begin to study. He provided a way to pay for my lessons. My family encouraged me to find out how to become involved with the local opera company, but I did not do it, and then one day the door, which it seemed could never open for me flew open in my face, with the offer to jump in on the Turandot chorus. I wasn't ready, I told God and myself, and yet, I knew He wanted me to do it, and so I did.

Then, auditions came, and I told my teacher, "It's been too long, I'm not ready, I can't do it, I'm not good enough." She encouraged me. I prayed, and I read, and He reminded me that you can't mess up, circumvent, escape, or elude His plan. If He wanted me to do this, I would get a role, and if He didn't I wouldn't. That made me a little brave. I prayed to want what He wants. I got a part. I got a part; in the very opera that made me want to become a singer when I was a little girl. I felt so blessed to be able to do what I love and was made to do that I cried. I don't have to talk about myself in the past tense anymore. I am so thankful.

You might not sing, but the lesson is this: Like the elven doors that you can not enter with all of the force in the world if you don't know the pass word or have the key, if you are outside of God's will for your life, you can beat with frustration on the doors forever, like I used to do when it was all for me, and they will never open....but when you give it to His will, He will swing wide the doors that are meant for you. That doesn't mean it will always be easy, or that you will always "get the part" you thought you wanted, but that the one that's meant for you, you will. God goes before you. Whatever "it" is for you. Give it up, and be brave, even a little brave. Glory be to God, whose plan for us is better than our imagination.

Bloom

It is 8:30 am, and I am still trying to sweep the fog from my brain. I took Baylie to school in my pajamas (for the billionth time this month), my house is a mess, I am exhausted and hoping I haven't missed anything major, like that near fiasco with the school Valentine's last week. My son does have on pants today, but only because he had to ride in the car. I am frayed and unravelling,....but I am full; so full.

For the first time in years I am singing. Another student of my voice teacher mentioned that the opera chorus was short handed, and so I landed among them, a small insignificant piece in a magnificent drama....a dedicated group of people who volunteer their time because they are passionate about creating art. This art form is so transient; months of work will come to fruition and fade in three hours, but their passion is inspiring and undimmed.

Honestly, when the opportunity arose, the first thing that crossed my mind was, "Nope, certainly not....way past my bed time, " but nipping persistently on the heals of that though was the nagging wonder of what memories I would have at the end of my days if I let anxiety drive me. Who would I become if I am ruled by fear? One day at a time, God sustains me, and one day at a time I am able to participate in something beautiful, and no matter how exhausted I am, I appreciate where I am, because either I am with talented committed artists crafting a work of beauty, or I am at home with my loves. No matter where I am, I would not rather be anywhere else, and that is, for a season, worth the cost of the fatigue, the mess, the hectic chaos.

What is it that kindles a blaze in you? Is it time to set fear aside and press against your perceived limitations? What could you be capable of just outside of your comfort zone? What would it cost you to find out? Like winter, a season of dormancy can be healing and productive, but when spring comes, let us not hesitate to bloom.