in search of a moment

I have pent-up frustration.  And there’s not really anything constructive that I can say about it.  So, I keep quiet.   Haven’t you heard the sound of my silence?

I’m worried about a situation that doesn’t even involve me, except that I know about it.   So, I go about my business.  How can I go about the business of anyone else?

I’m saddened by some things that are beyond my control.  So, I do the things that I can do.   Are we ever really in control anyway?

And more than usual, I hold things inside.   I cope less well.  And even I wonder if I’m okay.  Because holding it all inside has never been my way of coping.   I feel a little tick-ish.  Like tick-tick-tick kaboom – tick-ish.  I’d run as fast as I can, but my ankle won’t let me.   I’d box in the ring, but I don’t have any gloves.  Or a ring for that matter.  Or skill .  . . but you see what I mean.  What do the stuff-it-down people do when they realize they are too full of unpleasantness?

There was a time when I thought prayers should be nice and soft and sweet.  And then life got too real for sweetness.  So I cried in prayer.  I sort of shouted in frustration in prayer.  I laid down on my face and sobbed in prayer.  Sometimes you can’t go lower than the floor, but you want to.

I have a feeling it is time to take a sackload of this-ain’t-sweet to God in prayer.   I can barely lug it to his throne.   I wonder if I call him – will he come carry it away for me?  And then maybe I can tell him about all the good stuff, about the friends that I’ve asked for and received, about the kindnesses I’ve been shown, about the many good and tangible gifts in my life.  Because I can’t even breathe under the weight, much less tell a story.

Time to put it down.  If I only had a few solitary moments . . .

 

Matthew said

that Jesus said . . .

Are you tired?  Worn out? Burned out on religion?  Come to me.  Get away with me and you’ll recover your life.  I’ll show you how to take a real rest.  Walk with me and work with me — watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.  I won’t lay anything too heavy or ill-fitting on you.   Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.

 

a gentler day

I confess, it’s been a long week.  Not a bad one, just a very long one, filled with more things than usual.  Even when the day is not a bad day, there is something harsh to me about all the hurry.   Sometimes I feel a little battered by the speed of life – I’m sure you can relate. Can’t you?

Scott was off at a conference for a couple of days so I had more things on my own than usual.  I had meetings every day and nearly every night of the week.  I drank tea and I should not have as the caffeine does a number on my heart rate.  But tea is culture and culture is tea in Ireland.  What doesn’t revolve around tea?

And I had a first.   Some of you would call it a bad thing and frankly, I have to tell myself that it’s not a big deal, because I truly believe it isn’t.   I sang a song and forgot the words.  In front of people!  In fact, when I stood up to sing, I looked at Scott and asked “What is the song?”   So, so very uncharacteristic of me, Mrs. Loads O’ Words on Recall.  But it was late and I was tired and I just did it. Thankfully, I have a husband who was feeding me words.  If you know his tendency to look to me for the words, you will recognize irony in this!  And he held my hand.  I felt somewhat like a child who has organized a play for the adults and lost courage at the last minute, only for her big brother to hold her hand and keep her going.   But he’s my husband, not my brother.  For just a second there, he felt like my big brother, though.  Protecting me with words.

Beyond that, we had a fabulous time at a birthday celebration for a friend.   I probably have not laughed that loud and that long in months.   That’s good.

And I got to spend great time, unfortunately drinking more tea, with a new-ish friend.  Someone who can practically complete my thoughts for me.   This is better than good.   Except for the tea.

I thought last night would be relaxing as I finished up the Slate performance scrapbook (all done but ran out of protective pockets), but found that I was fretting over something going on with a friend.  I knew I was concerned, but didn’t realize how much until she let me know late last night that everything was okay.  Then relief came.  Then sleep came.  Then the morning came.

And today is a kinder, gentler day.   Even with the laundry to do.  But sure, we’re old friends by now.

Sorted.

 

 

Hands to help and to hold (you)

This morning as Scott was gone to a conference and I had the school routine to myself, I was limping around the house at high speeds in various stages of being dressed, once with a toothbrush in my mouth, once while applying deodorant, another time while moisturizing my skin and simultaneously putting on shoes, all the while supervising the progress of the children in getting ready for school.

“Ack!” I gasped, “what about the lunches?”   Scott had laid some things out for the kid’s lunches, but I hadn’t done anything toward packing them.   I delegated a child to the task.

“Ack!” I gasped again.   “Where are your shoes?”  ”Have you brushed your teeth yet?”   “Why are you still only wearing a shirt?”   The various children scrambled to get it done.

“OH!”  I shouted out of the bedroom door, “You’re going to need jackets today for sure.  Wind and rain.”   I called to my daughter and she rounded them up, even as one child was protesting that their jacket was at school.   “Wear the orange one,” I instructed.  I knew he bore ill will toward the orange one, but it couldn’t be helped.

Backpacks in tow, a banana and a glass of water in hand, we scooted out to the car and made a path to school.   As I stood at the pay and display parking machine, one child was suddenly close to my side, orange jacket on, looking forlorn.  ”I don’t have my bag,” he said.   He didn’t.

“Can you do your school work without the things in your bag?”

He looked beyond tormented by the lack of his school bag.  He pleaded, but without much heart, “Will you get it?  Will you help me?”  He knows I am a proponent of natural consequences and little believed I’d drive home for the bag.

For once, I am fully ready to exercise after dropping the kids to school.   I had a planned day, an agenda.   Backpack retrieval wasn’t on it.  I looked at my shoes, ready to take me places and help me keep healthy, and I absentmindedly spoke aloud.  ”I was going to walk,” I said.

“Poor Mommy,”  piped up a sympathetic little voice.   No, I thought, silently this time,  it would be poor Mommy if I didn’t help the child, if I didn’t do what I could to take unnecessary stress out of his day.

“I will get it for you,” I promised him with a kiss on the cheek and smoothed his strong-willed hair.

Hours later, when it was both dark and night time, the children piled up on our bed to watch a never before seen episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.   I sat on the edge and reached for them each.  They wrapped their arms around me.   “Lay in my lap,” instructed my little girl.  ”I’d squash you, honey” I told her.  No, she insisted, lay here.  So, I tried to lay there.  She wrapped her arms and hands around my head and shoulders and held me to her chest.  I could hear her heart beating.  She was very still.

“Am I hurting you?”  I was anxious to know.

“No,” she said, smiling at me peacefully.   “I like this a lot.”

And I thought to myself that it has only been a moment since I had helpless babes –  and now the hands of my children help and hold me as well.

How beautiful.

 

A sure sign

It’s nearly four weeks since I sprained my ankle and it still hurts and I still limp.  It’s been almost four weeks that I’ve tried to curtail physical activity that involves my foot (um, you tell me!) and therefore have sat rather still and tried to do productive things.   What that means practically is that my house is a project disaster.  As in, productive activity = projects.

To my left . . . a salt shaker, jewelry from 3 different days, an empty pack of Big Red, my little Lumix, the USB cable for the Lumix, two pens, a package of Peanut Butter and Milk Chocolate Morsels, a package of Ginger Nut biscuits, a box of photos dated mostly from 1990 to 1993, a box of matches, a list of quotes, a hanging calendar opened to November and laying flat, and a tiny picture of “Tony” from the game Guess Who.  G thinks Tony looks both like a baby and an old man.

I do also have a caffeine free Diet Coke.  I’ve already had two cups of tea at bible study.

To my right . . . a mound of office things that have been displaced by some room changes, a container of Haribo Christmas Sweets, a pink scarf, a measuring tape, a box of photos dated from 1994 to December 1999, my Bible and Community Bible Study guide, and a headless Power Ranger.  Oh, and not to forget the scrapbook.

Before I could get any of this assortment tucked away somewhere, life picked up pace and I had to go limping out of the house and out into the world to do things that must be done.  And then, an assortment of clothing began to accumulate at the end of my bed.  Outfits worn, outfits hoped to be worn, coats, scarves . . . . train tickets, books, notes to self, and a container of first aid items recently displaced by room changes.

On the coffee table in the living room – memorabilia organized, stacked, and some of it pasted nicely into a book.  A butternut squash is in the kitchen waiting to be cooked.  Laundry that is washed and in various stages of being folded is in the dining room.   A huge gentleman’s chest is in the hallway, blocking passage and also blocking heat coming from the radiator.   I think it is traveling from one room to another but has become disoriented.

And life marches on.  Meetings, obligations, shopping, school runs and activities, play dates . . . and all of it, and I do mean all of it, is piling up around my shoulders.  So I sit here in my head to toe fleece, writing, because I do that, but not very often anymore.  There is too much.

Tomorrow I must undrown my plants.  The flowers are swimming in their boggy outdoor pots due to rain and rain and rain.     See what I mean?

 

POSTSCRIPT:

I’ve been told (and suspect it is true) that we (that’s us, the Five) appear to have it “together” at times.   If that were true, would this be an example?

 

Coming up short

It all began when we decided to give each boy his own room.   There is too much chaos with the two in one room, though there are moments when things seem okay.  Mostly, the mixture of oil and water is just not good and in an effort to promote peace in the house, we decided to try a little upheaval.

The contents of the bedroom-to-be included everything that you’d find in a home office, a large selection of Mom’s clothes and shoes, all the family photographs, and everything that is spare, including medicines, toiletries, candles, etc.   I began with clothes.

Once my clothes were out of one location and distributed to other locations, I realized these clothes were causing me more sorrow than joy.  Sizes I can’t wear, items that I suspect are out of style, shoes that have seen their better days.  I had clothes stored in 3 out of 4 bedrooms.  I needed help.

I texted my friend Alison and she came to the rescue.  The culling began and I realized I was very anxious about it.  Poor Alison.  Which reminded me of poor Sheree who helped me ditch parts of my wardrobe one sunny June day not so long ago.  What is is about the clothes that bring out emotion?  I found myself offering explanations, as if I needed to declare the history and relationship with each piece.  Okay, not EACH one.  But plenty of them.   I realize I like to defend the quality of certain garments and inevitably will cite the brand.  ”But it’s Calvin Klein!” I implore, to the bemusement of both Sheree and Alison.  I am such a child with my clothes.  ”But it fits!  I am hard to fit,” I offer.   But do I wear it?  No.  Will I?  Not sure, probably not.  But maybe.

Thankfully, Scott intervened with a plate of cheese and crackers and fruit.  We energized and went on.

I learned some valuable things, and not all of them yesterday.  One, I have tended buy things I don’t JUST LOVE.  That is my new criteria for purchases.  No matter how cheap (I am a bargain shopper in my inner soul), no matter how well-made, I will not purchase that which I do not JUST LOVE.   Two, I learned  some critical differences in Irish fashion and Alabama fashion.  These, I will list:

• There is no mid length trouser i.e. capri or cropped trouser in Ireland.  If I wear these, they will shout “Look at the American!!!”  It’s too cold to wear them anyway.  Ali slipped them on and showed me some things about them.  I might never wear them again, even in Alabama.
• Some fabrics that are currently sold in U.S. stores are pretty much not sold in Ireland, which makes the garment look . . . suspicious, to say the least.
• There is a more modern look to trousers, but I don’t have a clue what it is.   I don’t have any of them.
• In Alabama, I might be “dressed up” if I wore jeans and a sweater.  Here, that would be very casual.  What is “dressed” for me?   I’m not sure .

So now there are bags and bags to go to the charity shop and there’s considerably more space in all of our closets/wardrobes.  And I feel like I’ve never had the first idea about how to dress myself, at least not in Ireland.  While it’s been said women dress more casually here, I find the reverse to be true . . . .it wouldn’t be rare to see a mom pushing a baby buggy, just out for a walk, in her tall boots, skirt, top (not knit, not a sweater), cardigan and coat.  And hat and scarf.  That’s an outfit for going nowhere special.

Now, here I am.  In a different season of life, because I’ve aged.  In a different climate, country, and culture.  Feeling like a fashion dork.  No, worse,  feeling naked.  Metaphorically so, Alison rightly pointed out.  I’m a blank Slate, feeling a little sad, a little lost.

 

 

 

Sitting still

The H1N1 had just begun to fade away from our house and I woke up feeling good . . . em, the other morning.   I’d know when it was, but the days are all blending together again.  But before they blended . . .

We have some friends that are moving from Ireland back to Australia.   Having recently packed a container, or so it seems, we decided we’d love to help.  Not solely because we were “in practice,” but because we think a lot of this family and want to show them that we care about them, even as they are leaving.  So, on my first discernible day of feeling well, we drove down to help and it was exciting.  Exciting to be out of the house, exciting to be serving or helping in some way – just exciting. 

There might have been an hour of excitement before I sprained my ankle like a big bozo.  It smarted.  It throbbed.  But I wasn’t having any of it, no injuries, thanks very much.  So we kept on going and I hobbled and helped.   Yes, I’m that kind of stubborn.   Besides, my joy at being useful after a long bout with illness could not be contained and I had to express it with packing tape and bubblewrap, with disinfectant and hot water, and with organized piles of belongings. 

That night, satisfied at having been out and about and useful, I sat down.  And I didn’t get up.  Much, if at all, for a long while.  Foot iced and elevated.  Sitting, sitting, sitting.  Again.   I read the Argos catalogue and attempted some Sodoku.  I watched some subtitles French films.  I realized that I was getting a massive head cold to go with my sad ankle.  One box of tissue – gone.    And I sit.  Except for the occasional trip to the laundry room to tend to a garment cleaning emergency.   This is the extent of my usefulness.

Although, I did venture out one very rainy, windy morning to work the school shop and to have a conference with the kid’s teacher.  We ventured all the way to the next estate down the road, where we realized we had a flat tire.  Ventured back to our street and begged a lift (limping, in the rain) from a kind neighbor.  Arrived at school and asked for a little something to keep me busy.  And now, I have a stack of books and a roll of heavy duty contact paper and the useful duty of covering books for the classroom.  

Who says sitting still isn’t useful?

 

sharing places

It was disappointing.  Disconcerting.  Heck, if my stress dreams are any indication of how I’m really feeling, I’d say it was even frightening.  If I’m being forced to walk barefooted in hospitals and public toilets in my dreams, how vulnerable must I feel, deep, deep down?

We have a limited support network here in Ireland.  Firstly, there are only so many people that we know.  Secondly, there are only so many people that we know very well and that know us very well. Truthfully, I’m not positive anyone knows us really well.  How could they?  No family, no childhood friends, no one that knows not only who we used to be, but who we have become as well.  It takes time, much time, to build those relationships.

When I’m down, not sad, but truly knocked down and discouraged . . . there are just a few people with whom I feel I could trust with my heart.   I try not to be stupid and unguarded with my heart, but if I am to have relationships of any depth, I have to be willing to share my pain and my joys.  Just bits at a time, not sharing more than is wanted or welcome.

Recently, in a single day, I discovered both where I had been stupid and where I had been wise.

There was no reason to feel unsafe.  This person was always inviting me to share my feelings and opinions and was equally always free in sharing feelings and opinions.  We have similar values, and while we are definitely in different stages of life, mutual respect has always been part of the relationship.  So, I’m trusting.  I’m expressing.  I’m listening . . . but then, suddenly, I’m hearing a snide bullet of a statement whiz past my left ear.  What?  What did you say?  The statement was repeated for me.  I must have dozed off.  What were we talking about?   Frantically, I tried to mentally retrace the words that led up to that moment.  More things were being said, but all I could do was sit and process.  Why?  The words, the timing – didn’t make sense.  Intuition pieced together words that had bothered me, yet hadn’t made sense.  It dawned on me . . . displeasure was being expressed, but in a shootin-round-the-corner fashion, passive-aggressive retaliation-style.   And to my horror, I realized that this person had just crossed over a boundary line that I hadn’t imagined I’d need to guard.  The stupid part is that I hadn’t imagined it.  The unfortunate part is that I do feel more vulnerable than I did even a week ago, when I thought I felt vulnerable enough, thank you very much.

At the end of the day, I was in the company of  a different person when the hurt began to tumble out of me.  Not hurt from one boundary violation, but pain from a million little things.  At least five of which I can name.  And recently stung, I thought, “use caution, use caution.”  But I so needed to connect from the heart with another human.  This is life.  Risk and benefits weighed, I shared and I trusted.

A beautiful thing happened, though.  She heard me.  She saw me, who I am, not just my pain or my circumstance.  Isn’t that all that we want, to be seen, to be known, to be understood?  We want from people what only God can do, but occasionally, I believe God gives insight to people the sake of others.  People who can see who someone was created to be, looking only at the glory within.  And for a while, it was so good to be loved and encouraged and affirming to know that at least in that moment, there was a safe place to share my heart.

 

If you do not breathe

Lately, I’ve had something that I would not call writer’s block.  Maybe it is.  But I’m thinking it’s more that I’d rather not say something than not to say it well.  Most days, all my creative energy is dried up in the scorching heat of tending to all things immediate.  One fire put out, another one starts blazing.   And at the end of the day, which is often when I sit down to write a post, any little buds of inspiration are burnt, brown, and unblooming.

But I wonder if being creative is really the point.  Having recently taken an interest in how and why writers write, I’ve been reading bits and pieces by Anais Nin.  She wrote that a writer’s role is not “to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.”  She also wrote that if in writing, we do not breathe, cry out, or sing, then forget about writing, “because our culture has no use for it.”  It’s embarrassing to say that I am a writer, because I find my words too simple, too lacking in expression, with a variety of  thoughts expressed in similar ways when they deserve unique arrangements of words to capture them perfectly.  That puts me in the category of saying what we all can say, and by Nin’s standards, I’d do well to keep quiet.  So I do, often, say nothing.  And in saying nothing, I feel that I’ve not taken breath, I’ve not cried out, and I’ve not sung.  The unspent expression forms a lump in my throat.

So, for the record, I’m in need of a good cry and a good, long session of expression.  You may have no use for it.  I suppose I could write it in a journal, adding to the number of journals I own with unfaithful, sporadic entries, but wordpress is where consistency happens.  If you need to look the other way, pardon me while I breathe and cry, and on a good day, sing.  I’m unleashed.

 

Tuesday, the birthday

Tomorrow, friend-party number one.