Bumpier Bumps

As I get older, life just gets more interesting. The bumps get bumpier. The sad parts are sadder. It makes sense I guess, because the longer we live, the more loss we experience. Someday I'm going to ask God a couple of questions that really have me wondering. Like, how come the years when we have teenagers in the house is when we tend to begin that long and lovely road to living without estrogen??? And just when we good and depleted of that helpful hormone, many of us begin to lose those people who loved us so unconditionally...our parents. I know we must be grateful if we have a mom and dad who always thought we were amazing and wonderful. I know we must grateful that we have them so many years when they live a long life. But those two things that are blessings indeed also make it very difficult to say goodbye.
I used to think that if I was just a good enough mom, our kids would never struggle. They would get all our positive traits and sail through life without a wrinkle. I used to think that if I was just a good enough daughter, my folks' old age would be a breeze. But here is the really funny thing about that. That would mean that I was responsible for someone life besides my own. When I think of it that way, I see what a trap that is. It's ironically a very self centered way to go through life. I may think I'm being a servant, when I'm really busy trying to pull strings to keep everything and everyone happy. Not only self centered, but very impossible as well.
So, I am working hard on going with the flow. Taking things a day at a time. Working to separate my ego from my best self. If the bumps seem bumpier, I'll just have to hope my shock absorbers are working. About the sad parts...well. We just have to be sad sometimes. Today a good friend of mine wrote the following, and I think it about sums it up:
" That's what life is. It's a banquet and a challenge and a wonderment and a puzzlement and a
blessing and a bit of crap samich."
I'll say thanks for the banquet. Thanks for the challenge because surely it'll make me a better person. Thanks for the wonderment and puzzlement and blessing. And I'll surely live through the crap samich.

Let 'er go, Judy

Anyone who has ever taken their child to their first day of kindergarten knows this feeling. You realize as you leave that school room that there is someone else who will be a tremendous influence on this offspring. The way your little one is looking at their teacher...let's just hope that teacher sees the miracle standing before them, and not just another little body to herd around!
That scene from the past is coming to mind because I am considering letting another offspring go out into the wide world. I got an offer from a publisher for a picture book I've been working on. The little girl in the book is part me, part our daughters, part imagination. And I'm feeling just a slight reluctance to let her go. Will that editor see her for the gem that she is, or just another character to manipulate into a formula? What will be left of my heroine after they are done with her?
Still, I know that there is no stopping the growth of a child. No keeping them from the trials and tribulations, successes and celebrations that will shape their lives. We know when we hold that warm, sweet, perfect baby, blinking in the bright lights of the real world right after they are born that this is a person with a destiny. Now they are apart from us, and though we hold them near for those first few years, the launching pad that will propel them onward, outward and away from us is never far from view.
There really isn't a reason for me to write a book unless I'm willing to send it out there. Risking those rejection slips, risking brief comments from editors who can't see the child for the mismatched clothes. So I guess I'll take the next step and see what happens. She may even grow into something fabulous, like our daughters and son have done. I guess I'll do like my friend Nelle Hudson used to advise. I'll hold the right thought.

Crazy Love

I was awake off and on last night, and three songs kept weaving their way through my mind. The gentle, lyrical Aaron Neville song Love, Love, Love, Love, Crazy Love. Then a haunting song I heard recently by Lisa Loeb..."the time between meeting and finally leaving is sometimes called falling in love". The third is a song our daughter wrote, and the line that kept playing was "We can choose to be happy in each others arms", ( J-D's Song, www.reverbnation.com/sallynava).

Anyway, I kept thinking about building a life with a person. About what makes love last. We all know the usual progression: attraction, infatuation, devotion, respect, commitment, love. Sometimes we think the beginning phases are love. And they are. Otherwise the music industry would be out of business. But after spending thirty eight years going through the phases (and some repeat...how awesome is that!) I realize that we often get to the really good part years into it. When we are lucky enough to have found someone who wants the same things we want from life and spend years working together to fulfill our dreams, the trust built over time can be bedrock itself. It sees us through those times when we wonder what on earth we were thinking when we said, "I Do" (admit it now, everyone has those thoughts sometimes!).
But back to the songs. I think the theory about dreams is interesting that says our subconscious spends our dreams trying to figure out the mysteries of life that we give up on in our waking hours. I can see right off why Crazy Love wound its way through. My brain would chose that over "Why Don't We Do It In the Road" for sheer romance. And the Lisa Loeb song addresses all those heartbreaking endings that people live through when they can't make the leap to the next stage of love, for whatever reason. I know many wonderful people who have lived through this sadness, and I'm not saying they just didn't try hard enough. But Sally's song was the one that resonated with me in the end. Sometimes, the glue that keeps us together is choosing to be happy in each others arms. When we do,when we both do, when we look for the good in our partner and choose to give them the same grace we want for ourselves, a little miracle happens. We find, years later, that we love them more than the day when we stood there in our white dress and held flowers. Crazy Love.

Not a Rational Place! No Little Feathers in Sight

Many people in the world rely on reason, on rational thought to process life and all its issues. The thing about reason that doesn't work for me is that you need to know all the variables. You can't have gaps in your information due to unknowns, or your conclusions are no longer rational.
It has always been puzzling to me that people will allow guesses put forth by scientists (Big Bang Theory, Darwin's Theory of Evolution) I suppose because they are posited by educated, rational folks. But if others fill in the unknowns with a different guess, well, it's just plain ignorant. There doesn't seem to be a disconnect for some when questions are asked about the origin of the physical properties that caused the Big Bang. Or the creator of the amoeba that became the fish, etc. It doesn't matter so much to me how it all began. I'm not sure we'll ever know that in this life. What matters most to me is how treat each other now, today.
I think kids have a corner on truth. They know for a fact that they don't know it all. And they are OK with that. But something happens as we grow up. We become convinced that it is NOT OK to say we just don't know. Our society places intellect way up high on an altar. Almost as high as athletic skill (yes, an attempt at humor). We are happy to degrade others for their lack of sophisticated thought. And what does that get us? A judgmental hierarchy of thinkers. Yikes. No wonder we are so out of line priority-wise. It's not how we care for each other that gets the big bucks, or teachers and nurses and social workers would be paid better than lawyers and first basemen.
How do we model responsible adulthood for our kids? I hope it includes what is really important in life. I hope it includes stewardship of our bodies, our minds, our environment, and most of all, our role in building up a society that honors the individual's right to determine their own destiny. That includes religious freedom. Who can tell me who God is? No one. Certainly not my government (shudder).
The messages our kids get about what is important often come blaring from the TV, and we all know how shallow, how self serving and self aggrandizing those sounds bites can be. I am hopeful that kids today are hearing from their parents that the really important things in life come from within. From a desire to be a good person.
I know many young parents who are doing a great job of that. I hope it's a generational trait. The world hangs on that hope.

Hope Floats

Last night we watched a movie in our little community clubhouse; Hope Floats. It had really sad parts, more than I remembered from watching it before. It was a very human story of betrayal, abandonment, fear, death, illness, humiliation. But it didn't end there. As the title suggests, the human story is also about loyalty, forgiveness, redemption, love, friends, family...hope.
In the night I thought a lot about the movie. About how we humans put our trust in things or people that prove not worthy of our trust. Like society's approval, or other shallow and unreliable validation. And some things are hard and sad simply because the people we love grow ill and die. If we stop there, life can be too hard. So we don't. We go on. We wake up the next day, or the next, and find beauty in the world around us, beauty in the people around us, and hope floats up.
It is an old, old story. "Nothing new under the sun" was old when Shakespeare said it. Maybe even when the writer of Ecclesiastes said it. For a long time, I thought that was a fatalistic saying. But now I realize that the fact that all the parts of life that we deal with, all the hurt and longing, all the joy and fulfillment are part of an ongoing human story. We are new each day, we are making our own choices that lead us down paths that no one has walked, exactly. But the old truths are eternal. We struggle. We grieve. We heal. We grow. Hope Floats.

I Can.... Canoe?

Roll your eyes. Analogy time. I'm a young girl, in my canoe on the river of life. I find an excellent partner to paddle along with me, and though we skirmish a bit deciding who will steer, we settle into a rhythm before long. Of course we hit the rapids, and they look very frightening indeed right before we run a narrow, rocky, steep section. Class five sometimes. A couple of capsizing episodes, but we get back in and paddle like mad. We make the calm, glassy, deep part and lie back, resting our arms and catching our breath. The sun beats down and we get a little crispy, so we don't mind the cliffs that block the sun even if they mean more rapids. We have helmets by now, with our acquired respect for rocks that jut up in the most inopportune spots.
One day I look around the canoe for a particular thing, only to find so much stuff. We have filled our little boat with so much stuff. It's a wonder we can float at all. It's a wonder we can find the things we really need, like paddles. But lightening our load can be tricky. Stuff that seems burdensome to me might my partner's important something. And vice versa. But we do shed some stuff, and gain a little room to maneuver.
For a short while (maybe years, yes?) I thought I needed to give steering advice to every canoe within shouting distance. They needed the benefit of my expertise, right? And I clearly had it figured out. Clearly. What to do in a rainstorm, a pirate attack, a dark night in the tricky part. But, blessedly, I learned a couple of things. Late, maybe, but still...
People like to run the river their own way. Not everyone huddles under overlying branches in the lightening storm. Some people get out and swim for fun! And sure enough, they are able to get back in. Oh, there are some constants that apply to everyone. We are all moving, all carried by the years, by the advancing currents that lead us to old age and beyond, if we are so blessed. We can tie our little boat to moments by our sheer will to remember. But we will continue our journey no matter how much we want to look back to the way it used to be. And if we look back too much, we might miss that beautiful sunset over the Oak Tree ahead. Or the first star barely visible in that soft blue velvet sky. It can be tempting to want a map that shows every feature that lies ahead. But I also have learned that looking down at a map, or a cell phone, or a book, or a computer keeps me from soaking in the scenery around me.
Happy paddling everyone. See you at the seashore.

Milestones

Our Kathryn Rose, youngest daughter, graduated from college last weekend. It is one of those occasions, like a wedding, when I know I should only feel happiness for the blessing. But there is something about these milestones that emphasizes and exaggerates the passing of time. And that is always sobering, even in the midst of the gratitude.
We say, "seems like yesterday", "I remember when", "where did the time go" and other cliches that have become overused purely through their truth. A dear friend told me on Saturday that he had a very clear vision of Katie running around the bleachers of Josh's basketball games at about ten years of age. Then here she is, a grown woman...and the intervening years were but a blur.
I can call up memories of Katie from any time in her life. The snapshots in my memory are often the ones from ordinary days, not the big occasions. I hold those pictures in my mind and page through them, lingering on the ones that seem so clear that I remember the smells and sounds of the day as well. Her sweaty little face peering up at me, her eyes dancing in hopes that she can convince me to say yes. I think I did, way too often. The way she waited for her brother and sister to do whatever they were involved in by playing something that involved moving around. The way she bragged about her siblings to her friends. The way she danced. Even from the time she was little, she danced outside herself with freedom and abandon. She spent so much time dancing, it is very appropriate that she should have her degree in dance.
I am so happy that she graduated. I am so proud that she is an accomplished, generous young woman. I don't wish any of the years back, nor would I turn back the clock if I could. But I do look back with nostalgia at the time when three children made joyful noise and general mess in our home. When glitter stuck to the floor and little tiny pieces of paper cut outs went through the laundry in pants pockets. When the sound of a basketball bouncing somewhere nearby was the white noise of our home. When the days were filled with lessons and games and concerts and dances. They were very good days. I guess that is the reason I miss them so much.
But enough looking back. When Katie was little, she was always ready to go anywhere, any time. "Let's go!" was most likely her first sentence. Looking forward, I wish her the very same passion that filled her childhood. Go Katie!