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.