Goin' Down to Mama's

Sunday Morning Serenity

Some of my friends are surprised when I tell them I consider myself an extreme introvert who has worked her whole life at faking extraversion. Especially now that I'm self-employed and have a pretty idyllic work environment up here on my little hill, I have to make myself leave sometimes. This has always been a huge point of difference between my mother and me. When she is working through something and needs to heal, either physically or emotionally, she wants her whole family around her, just as close as she can get them. I, on the other hand, want to go sit on a rock in the desert for a while, and THEN I want the comfort of my family and friends. But all my life, whenever Mama would sense that I was heading for my "rock in the desert," she would send over a bunch of people to meet me there:)

Yesterday, I stopped by Children's of Alabama to drop off some treats for the child of a new work friend. This precious six-year-old is fighting leukemia. She is surrounded by loving family and friends, so she knows she's most definitely not alone. But as I made my way back to my car, down the corridors of this amazing new hospital, I thought about all the support that the young patients here can't see. They have no idea how many doctors, nurses, researchers, lab technicians, administrators, volunteers, donors—the list goes on and on—are working together behind the scenes to get them well. 

We grown-ups are no different. We have our own unseen help. Recently, I ran across a song which speaks to that. It made the news when it got caught up in some controversy surrounding Oscar nominations, so I looked it up on YouTube. It's sung, amazingly, by Joni Eareckson Tada, whose autobiography I read when I was in high school or early college. She's a quadriplegic evangelist, author, artist, and singer who lifts up a prayer for strength before recording the song. It's called "Alone Yet Not Alone," from a movie by the same title. You can click below to hear it. I hope it reminds you that we are not islands in this world. We are connected to each other and to God. And as my Aunt Grace says, I hope you receive a blessing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWVyVMbSzM4

A Note from Aunt Vivian

This morning, I decided to treat myself to a bouquet and picked these happy yellow flowers from the front yard.The bulbs were originally planted at Grandme's house by Aunt Vivian, with a little help from Uncle Bud I think. Daddy helped me transplant some when I bought my house because I wanted something from home in my garden. They're always the first flowers to bloom for me. And they have a way of popping up right after the coldest days of winter. All they need is a hint of warmth to get going. I think of these buttery blooms as my annual note from Aunt Vivian, who was one of the most hopeful and encouraging people I've ever known. This year, she wrote: "Don't you let a little winter weather get you down—springtime is coming, and there's sunshine ahead!"

 

Daddy Says: "It's A Good Day"

Daddy, on the joys of growing older: 

"If I'm breathin', it's a good day."

Sunday Morning Serenity

I could drink a super-fizzy McDonald's Diet Coke the size of a washing machine. That's what I feel like it will take to wake me up this morning after the Saturday I had. Up at 4 a.m. and in the Story Shack editing copy before 5. Brief break for lunch with Dave. Then painted the wall unit he built me for the Shack so I can restore order to the chaos that my filing system has become. Did several loads of laundry and cleaned our scary-nasty house from top to bottom while the paint dried. Helped Dave install said wall unit. Fed the cats and crashed on the couch watching . . . CURLING. What else?

Life is just a wee bit out of control right now. That line from "Peace in the Valley" keeps running through my head: Oh well, I'm tired and so weary, but I must go along . . . Still I'm not doing half of what I need to. There are friends I need to check in on and family I need to visit and creative projects I really want to finish. Hank the Cat and Cheeto His Sometime Sidekick and Sometime Arch Nemesis probably could use a dose of flea medication. I haven't had a play date with Mama in ages. Dave, bless him, has cooked supper every night for at least a week, maybe two . . . could be going on three.

There's this wonderful line in Eudora Welty's Losing Battles that I can't remember completely (or accurately) and of course can't find again. But it starts off something like "There's room enough for everything and time for everybody." Then there's something about doing the best you can, and it ends with "try not to be much later than you can help." That's going to be my approach for now—just try not to be much later than I can help:)

When my material world is in a jumble, it has a way of dragging my spiritual life into the quagmire with it. I don't have time for quiet time! I only have time for busy time! I can't read my Bible this morning—I'll try to read it twice tomrrow! I could really get caught up on work if I didn't have to play for church this morning. And on and on and on.

Years ago, my friend Joellyn recommended this great book on creativity called Orbiting the Giant Hairball. And really, that's what I know I need to do—ORBIT the giant hairball of life but not let myself get so tangled up in it that I can't see what's important and what's not. I'm going to TRY and change the soundtrack in my mind from "tired and so weary" to this:

I've got peace like a river,
I've got peace like a river, 
I've got peace like a river in my soul.

Olympic-Induced Marriage Counseling Fantasy

COUNSELOR: So you're contemplating divorce. Tell me about that. Does your husband mistreat you?

ME: Oh, no. He's very good to me. 

COUNSELOR: He's perhaps selfish in the relationship? Focused only on his own needs?

ME: No, he pretty much wants to do whatever makes me happy.

COUNSELOR: Is he financially irresponsible?

ME: Actually, now that you mention it, my credit score took a giant leap forward when he took over the checkbook.

COUNSELOR: He's demanding?

ME: Nope.

COUNSELOR: Uncaring?

ME: No way.

COUNSELOR: You've grown apart? You're bored with each other?

ME: No, we can have a good time together just about anywhere.

COUNSELOR: Then I'm afraid I don't understand why you're here.

ME: He watches curling. He turned off FIGURE SKATING to get an update on CURLING.

COUNSELOR: Oh. In that case, here's the number of a good attorney . . .

Sunday Morning Serenity

One should never miss an opportunity to quote Dolly Parton, don't you agree? Dolly had one of my favorite lines in Steel Magnolias. (I know it was written for her character, but I still give Dolly credit.) What she said was, "Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion." 

Recently, I was on the phone with a very special friend who had just come from making funeral arrangements for her father. It was a heartbreaking conversation, but because both of us have always used humor to cope, we somehow found a way to laugh during that phone call. And it made me remember other times when what might've looked like inappropriate laughter from the outside was actually just coping—people who loved each other trying to get through an impossibly sad situation. I remembered watching a football game—Auburn-LSU I think—with my precious sister-friend Missey when she was in the hospital. She LOVED Auburn football, and I knew how much she'd rather have been at the stadium than in a hospital bed. I don't know why I did it, but I said, "I can't get comfortable in this stiff old recliner—move over!" I climbed up in the hospital bed with her and proceeded to complain about how she was hogging the pillows and the cover, which made her laugh. You can imagine the nurse's face when she walked in and saw us giggling like teenagers at a slumber party. She just laughed with us and went about her business.

There was another time when I was traveling with a group of family out of town for a funeral. It was one of those hard times made harder because not only are you mourning a loss, but you're doing it in a Days Inn someplace unfamiliar, removed from home and the comfort of covered dishes your church family would be bringing if you were closer. The night before the funeral, we all ended up in one room, sitting around, drinking Cokes and motel coffee and talking about ordinary things to try and take our minds off what was coming. I happened to remember a letter in my purse, sent to me by an old college friend. It was her aunt's annual Christmas letter, which was always a catalog of everything bad that had happened throughout the year—surgical procedures, dental appointments, dog has fleas, rose bush has thrips—you name it.There was never one cheerful bit of news.  Auntie's Christmas letter was so mournful that it was, well . . . hilarious. (Remember that old Hee-Haw song, "gloom, despair, and agony on me"?)  I did a reading for the family (which probably makes me an absolutely horrible person). And we laughed. We knew it wouldn't last, but for just a few minutes, we could push from our minds the reason for our journey.

What we really lose when someone dies is not their love—we carry that with us, always. And it's certainly not our memories of them. Those are here forever. What we lose is fellowship. We lose the ability to pick up the phone and call them or run by and see them, to laugh and cry with them—for now. We can sense that reunion is coming. But it's only human to be impatient for it.

Let not your heart be troubled;
you believe in God, believe also in me.
In my Father’s house are many mansions; 
if it were not so, I would have told you.
I go to prepare a place for you. 
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come again and receive you to myself;
that where I am, there you may be also. 
And where I go you know,
and the way you know.
John 14:1-4

Cheeto the Cat Says . . .

This is what we call . . . a situation.

Sunday Morning Serenity

Earlier this week, just before Dave and I had to leave town for a few days, I looked inside my computer bag where I thought I had stored a notebook with all the information from a client meeting that day, but the notebook wasn't there. It was nowhere to be found in our house or the Story Shack. The last time I remembered using it was on a bench in the client's lobby. This unfortunate discovery came at an equally unfortunate time: 6 p.m. I jumped in the car and sprinted over there, praying that somebody would be working late and could let me in. Sure enough, the building was locked. And sure enough, prayers were answered when a good friend who works there happened by. Because of the snowstorm in Birmingham, she had actually spent a night or two in that building. When I came along, she had just finished up a long day and was, I'm sure, so ready to go home, but she still took the time to let me in and help me find the missing notebook. Grateful, grateful, grateful.

When I told my mother about it, she told me how blessed I was to have a friend like that. And then she said, "You've got too much on your mind." She's right. I do. Most people I know—women especially—have too much on their minds. Work, kids, parents, home, church, school, pets, grocery lists, to-do lists, wish lists, work-outs, time-outs, doctors' appointments, hair appointments, weight loss, meal plans, lesson plans, hoped-for vacation plans—and that's not even counting keeping up with Downton Abbey and making sure we remembered to buy chicken wings for the Super Bowl.

Probably what I long for most on any given day is quiet. And stillness. A total cessation of the treadmill. Time to plant a flower. Or read a book. Or sit in a swing and do nothing. I wish we had a fireplace and time to nap in front of it. I wish we had a tiny house with a huge porch on the Gulf so I could sit and stare at that beautiful water all day long. I wish I had a whole month to write my own stories. I wish Dave and I had a  whole month to go wherever we wanted to, without worrying about paying the mortgage or the power bill. We aren't likely to have all those things anytime soon. But I'm hoping we can have little slices of them. Maybe not months of stillness, but a few hours here and there. 

I'm rereading the Gospels, and I guess my own overloaded brain has made me more aware of these passages, but there are so many instances where Jesus withdraws to a quiet place to pray and to be alone. And He knew the disciples needed to do that, as well. There's a verse in Mark where Jesus is talking with the disciples after He had commissioned them and sent them out to minister. It happens right before the feeding of the five thousand. I'm carrying it with me this week:

The apostles gathered around Jesus
and reported to him all they had done and taught. 
Then, because so many people were coming and going
that they did not even have a chance to eat, He said to them, 
“Come with me by yourselves
to a quiet place
and get some rest.”
Mark 6:30-31